Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  Inácio was aware that Governor Tomé had been perfectly correct in demanding a just punishment for the heinous crime of the Tupinambá. The two uncles had admitted to feasting upon the degredados, and they’d earned the condemnation of decent men. But it had been a horrible way for them to die.

  The roar of the guns, the torn flesh flying before them, an awful silence that had followed — all seemed to show the distance separating the natives and the Portuguese, and Inácio felt anew the urgency of the Jesuit mission to this land: Only in Christ could the savage and the Christian be brothers.

  Whenever Inácio contemplated the promise of this unity, his thoughts went to the wonderful example of the girl Unauá, who, along with Salpina and Guaraci, were part of the small group of natives the Jesuits at the bay had thus far assembled for conversion.

  Unauá had proved to be a dear, worshipful convert. Padre Nóbrega had baptized her six months ago, along with thirty-two others, including Guaraci, who had been given the name Cristovão, honoring that patron of wanderers. Inácio had chosen “Catarina” for Unauá, remembering the sainted virgin of Siena, woman of conciliation and peace.

  Salpina, he learned from Unauá, had laughed when she was told of this new name: “My father, Aruanã, great elder of the Tupiniquin, was given three names for the Cariri he slew. What did you do, girl, to earn this honor?”

  “I took the Lord,” Unauá had replied.

  “You slew him?”

  “Oh, no!” Unauá had replied, aghast.

  Three months ago the joy Inácio had experienced at the conversion of Unauá and her brother was marred when Guaraci disappeared — an occurrence Inácio strongly suspected Salpina to have abetted.

  “He has gone, Padre,” Unauá reported to him one morning the previous November. “He went with the sunrise.”

  “I promised that I would take you back to Porto Seguro, and I will. Guaraci knew this.”

  Unauá nodded. But at that time more than a year had passed since their arrival at the Bahia; her brother, grown weary of waiting, had set out to walk to Porto Seguro, six hundred miles south.

  “But it is an impossible journey for a boy” — he saw her shake her head — “a man alone,” he said. “Did Salpina not tell him this?”

  “She warned him of the danger. But he said that he would ask the Lord’s protection . . . and that if he waited, he’d grow old in this place, the servant of the Portuguese. In his heart, Padre, he is Tupiniquin,” she added softly.

  “And you, my child? What are you in your heart?”

  “It is not the same as with my brother.”

  “No, it is not. Your heart is filled with knowledge of our Father and His love.”

  With Unauá’s help, Inácio had made himself fluent in the Tupi language. There were significant regional variations in the Tupi language, but the fathers were also finding it possible to master a lingua geral as clear to a Tupinambá as it would be to a Tupiniquin or a Tobajara of Olinda.

  On his return from Pernambuco, Inácio had reported in detail the conditions in that captaincy to Padre Nóbrega, who had been so alarmed at the extent of the iniquities revealed that he had gone to Pernambuco to see for himself. That brief trip the previous year, coupled with what both Nóbrega and Inácio witnessed at the Bahia, especially with regard to relations between the degredados and the native women, had convinced the two Jesuits that the natives of Santa Cruz must be kept apart from the colonists to prevent them from being enslaved and from succumbing to evil influences.

  But they differed on how this could be achieved. Padre Nóbrega was convinced that the Jesuits should establish great aldeias — villages — beyond São Salvador, but not so far as to isolate the natives from the proper benefits of civilization, and that the scattered clans should be moved to these aldeias. “How else will so few fathers tend the huge flock waiting to be brought in?” he had pointed out.

  But Inácio remembered the malocas at Engenho Santo Tomás, and he’d argued that the natives should be left in their villages, far beyond reach of the Portuguese, who wished only to enslave their men and degrade their women. The Jesuits should go to them.

  The day after the execution of the two uncles, Padre Nóbrega agreed to give Inácio the opportunity to go as missioner to the natives. “Perhaps your way is right, f-f-friend. Perhaps we must t-t-take the Lord’s solace to these children at their m-m-malocas.”

  Inácio was overjoyed. He reminded Nóbrega of the Tupiniquin he had brought from Pernambuco: “Salpina is the daughter of a chief. Let me return with her to her father’s village at Porto Seguro. Catarina, too — our cherished convert . . . surely her example will soften their hearts.”

  On a February morning, four weeks later, Governor Tomé de Sousa, who endorsed Inácio’s plan for a mission to the Tupiniquin, climbed down the steep hill to bid farewell to Inácio and Padre Nóbrega. They were sailing together, Inácio to Porto Seguro, Nóbrega farther south to make his first tour of the southern captaincy of São Vicente. The father general in Rome, Ignatius Loyola, had recently sent word that Nóbrega was elevated to vice-provincial of Santa Cruz, indicating that the Company of Jesus might soon recognize the captaincies as a full province. In anticipation of this, Nóbrega wanted to acquaint himself with the farthest outposts of this battlefield for Christ.

  Governor Tomé was accompanied by a slightly stooped, elderly colonist known to the Tupinambá as Caramuru, “Fish Man,” who had been waiting on this shore when the governor’s fleet first sailed into the Bahia in March 1549.

  Caramuru’s real name was Diogo Alvares. The sole survivor of the wreck of an Indies ship off the shoals north of the Bahia in 1510, he had been found between the rocks by the Tupinambá. Caramuru had lived among the savages for more than two decades before the arrival of Dom Francisco Coutinho, one of Dom João’s donatários. Dom Francisco had failed in his attempt to settle these lands granted him by the king, and had lost his life under a slaughter club. The Tupinambá had spared Caramuru because, not only was he their friend, but also because his wife, Paraguaçu, “Big River,” was the daughter of their most powerful chief.

  As Governor Tomé stood with the Jesuits waiting to sail, he looked at them fondly. “My dear Nóbrega,” he said, “my dear soldiers of Christ, though your company is small, your faith is great! With a hundred such spirits in the ranks of my men, how we could tame this land!”

  “In His time, G-Governor Tomé, the work you’ve b-b-begun will be completed.”

  “The work I’ve begun,” the governor repeated. “Two years, Padre, almost three, and we’re less than ten leagues from the beach where we landed.”

  Caramuru responded to this: “A league in Brazil, Governor, is ten leagues in Portugal. This, Governor Tomé, is no small advance!”

  “Yes, Caramuru, but the forests behind the bay and the savages living there keep us clinging to these shores as if we were crabs scuttling from one beachhead to the next.”

  “But, Governor, since you’ve come, what claws we’ve grown!” said Caramuru. “Never again will we lose our hold on this captaincy!”

  The governor accepted Caramuru’s praise without comment. He looked at the two Jesuits: “I shall pray for your mission, Vice-Provincial. Your labors for the souls of these heathen will surely earn heaven’s reward. ‘But what products do you bring, Dom Tomé’ he will ask. ‘What products do you send to fill my warehouses?’” the governor said despondently. “The brazilwood is exhausted in these parts. What value are the cane and cotton that we struggle to plant? Why, Padre, are all the riches of this New World heaped upon the Spaniard? Jewels, gold, mountains of silver are his, wherever he treads.”

  “Surely there are other tr-treasures for us yet to b-be discovered,” Nóbrega said. “This land, G-Governor Tomé, s-so vast and fertile, can be a paradise f-flowing with milk and h-honey.”

  “That’s what Dom Duarte believes at Olinda.”

  “It is true, Governor Tomé,” Inácio commented. “I have seen the great cane fields in h
is captaincy.”

  “But cane isn’t all that flourishes in the fields of Dom Duarte.”

  The governor’s meaning was clear: Nóbrega and Inácio had both given him their accounts of the iniquities of Nova Lusitania, with their recommendation that the king be petitioned to loosen Dom Duarte’s hold on Pernambuco. And even more pressing was the need to separate Olinda’s clergy from their savage harlots and sinful ways. What was required was a bishop, Nóbrega had said, who would shepherd these priests and any others — soldiers or colonists — guilty of equal weakness. Governor Tomé had responded by petitioning the king not only for a bishop but also for orphan girls, whose Christian innocence might be just the antidote for the spells cast upon the unsuspecting settlers by the native women.

  The two Jesuits did not respond to Governor Tomé’s comment about Dom Duarte. Suddenly, he sighed: “I am so weary — so very weary.”

  “Oh, Tomé, He s-sees all you do in th-this land. He will b-bring you the rest you deserve.”

  Governor Tomé stepped up to Padre Nóbrega and embraced him. “Go with God, my good friend.” Then he moved to Inácio: “You know my great hopes for the Tupiniquin. They’ve always been friendly toward the Portuguese. If they could be made to understand how much is our capacity to love them, they’ll march with us against the Tupinambá, and help us bring them to their knees.” He placed a hand on Inácio’s shoulder. “Show them the love they can expect from us.”

  They heard the noise when they were still half a mile from the malocas — the voices of men and women, accompanied by the rattle of a hundred gourds and the piping of bone flutes.

  Salpina had a jubilant expression on her face. Unauá moved lightly in front of Salpina, glancing uncertainly from side to side into the forest, a slight frown on her brow. In the lead was João Cardim, a settler from Porto Seguro, weighted down with a double-layered cuirass, festooned with so many weapons that he had to struggle through the brush. He had been appealing to Inácio to turn back: It was dangerous, he said, to disturb the Tupiniquin at their pleasures.

  It had been two weeks since Inácio landed at Porto Seguro, after a pleasant, uneventful voyage from the Bahia. Padre Nóbrega had spent the first seven days with him in the tiny village on the heights above the white sands that fronted the bay, then left for São Vicente with the brigantine. It was with great excitement that Inácio had prepared for this last leg of his journey to Aruanã’s malocas, which lay a day’s march from the Portuguese settlement at Porto Seguro.

  As the malocas came into sight, Cardim began to walk slowly, and Inácio snapped at him to hurry.

  “They’ll not go away, Padre,” Cardim said. The singing of women, the harsh, excited cries of men, all could be plainly heard. “It’s best that we approach with the greatest caution.”

  “But, why? We have the daughter of an elder with us!”

  “You can be sure of nothing with these savages, Padre,” he said. “As treacherous as serpents.”

  “They have harmed you, Cardim?”

  “No, Padre.”

  “Move on,” Inácio said sternly.

  Suddenly, Salpina gave a cry of joy and broke away from them, her heavy buttocks swaying from side to side as she ran toward the malocas. Unauá stayed close to Inácio, who glanced at her quickly, failing to notice her apprehension. “Come!” he cried excitedly, and hastened after Salpina, his hand flying to his wide four-cornered hat.

  Salpina had disappeared around the edge of the maloca. Inácio followed, taking great strides with his long legs, one hand clutching his hat, the other his cassock. At first, he saw only a vast gathering of men, women, and children, their naked bodies streaming with crimson and black paint, and adorned with feather diadems. Clouds of red dust hung above circles of men dancing to the sound of rattles in their hands and strings of dry pods attached to their ankles.

  As he walked deeper into the crowd, he realized that many were horribly drunk; they reeked from beer and palm wine and from the fumes of tabak. A group of ululating women, old and ugly matrons, their arms wet with red dye, came out to meet him, slapping their bare feet in the dirt, cackling as they danced around.

  And then the throng of Tupiniquin before him suddenly broke, revealing the Place of Slaughter.

  “O merciful God!” he cried, his eyes widening with horror.

  The bloodstained matrons who’d leapt before and behind him, those who had the honor of preparing the grill, had finished with the first of two Cariri felled this day by the slaughter club, Yware-pemme. They had dismembered the prisoner’s body and the meat was on the boucan, its flames licking up from where the fat dripped. There were platters of intestines, the victim’s head, and other rejected portions piled in readiness near a great earthenware pot, a dark liquid steaming within this cauldron.

  Inácio could not immediately distinguish which was worse, the sight of the dead or the living. Small children, their hands and faces stained with blood, played near the fires; warriors, bodies glistening with sweat, waited with wild, famished expressions; young maidens sat naked, totally exposed without thought of shame; seven elders perched on the ground in a neat row, motionless as carrion birds.

  The second victim lay face down. A deep wound on his head bore testimony to the manner in which he’d been slain, and a thick stake had been pounded up his anus.

  Inácio suddenly was filled with a violent rage. He paced back and forth before the elders, pointing his finger at them accusingly: “The devil has come to this place!” he cried. “The devil is here!”

  Two of the seven peered up uncomprehendingly; the others glanced at one another with equal puzzlement. The crowd around the boucan began to stir uneasily at the sight of this attack on the elders.

  Seeing their discomfort, Inácio flew toward them, waving his arms wildly. “Go! Go!” he shouted. “Away from this accursed place!” A small boy got in his way, and with one movement Inácio swept him up and carried him to the nearest group of women. “Take this child away!” he demanded. “Take them all beyond this horror!” An alarmed girl grabbed the infant and fled. Other women now began to disperse, but not the grandmothers, who stood glaring at Inácio.

  Inácio returned to the elders, and as he did, he noticed how still it had become. Two men were standing near the patriarchs. Both were old, one more advanced in years than the other. At that moment, Salpina dashed past the grill toward the pair of old men.

  “O Aruanã, father of mine! Here is Salpina, the daughter of Juriti,” she said, running up to the elder of the two.

  He was seventy-one years old, his frame shrunken with age, his flesh loose. Still, he radiated the power of the great warrior he had been, with a determined lift of his jaw and an unwavering gaze for this intrusive black robe. The many slashes on his chest and thighs were heavily accented with dark paint; a great cloak of ibis feathers flowed to his ankles.

  This daughter, wife of Ticuanga, Cabral’s Long Hair, had been gone from the malocas for seventeen years. “It is Salpina,” he said simply, looking at her briefly, and then returned his icy glare to the black robe.

  “There, Padre, is Aruanã, greatest of all Tupiniquin!”

  Inácio did not respond to Salpina. Aruanã and all the elders were looking at him.

  He stepped to where the second Cariri lay; he bent down and picked up the body.

  A low, angry murmur came from the onlookers, who were spread out in a great circle. Cardim stood nearby, his arquebus held ready to fire.

  Two of the elders had risen to speak with the old man standing next to Aruanã. The man had a feminine appearance — a small, flat nose, a face remarkably unlined for his years. He was Pium, “The Gnat,” surviving partner of the two homosexual pagés Affonso Ribeiro had known. Through the years of loneliness since his mate’s death, he’d grown to be no insignificant annoyance to those who stood in his way.

  “Poor, grieving soul,” Inácio now said, carrying the corpse of the Cariri warrior. “He must be buried in God’s good earth, not left as carr
ion for the devil!”

  “Mother of Mercy!” It was Cardim who cried out. “Padre Inácio, leave the body! You’ll have us all killed!”

  But Inácio started to walk away, slowly at first.

  Aruanã, Pium, and the elders jabbered among themselves in alarm, but no one made a move to stop Inácio. Pium, his thoughts confused by tabak and liquor, did no more than utter the names of a string of forest demons waiting to receive the black-robed thief.

  Inácio walked past Cardim without a word. Cardim hesitated momentarily, then backed off slowly, his arquebus directed toward the middle of the group of elders. Inácio was far down the clearing before Cardim swung round and hurried after him.

  They buried the Cariri in the forest beyond the malocas, hacking a shallow grave with Cardim’s knives. Inácio fell to his knees and began to pray.

  Cardim was convinced that they were not alone. He peered into the shadowed breaks between the trees, perceiving nothing but still apprehensive. “We must leave. Now, Padre, while there is still time. They are here. Everywhere.”

  “Go? Oh, no, this is my mission. It is where I remain.” Inácio had risen from the graveside as they spoke, and faced Cardim with a glowing, almost ecstatic expression on his face. “I thank you for guiding me here. Go now, back to your family. I will not leave my Tupiniquin.”

  “Oh, damn yourself, then! Throw your Christian life to these savages!” Cardim marched away swiftly, not once looking behind him.

  He remained with the Cariri for an hour, praying softly, and then he began his return to the malocas. But he stopped in the forest just before he reached the longhouses. The sounds of the awful celebrations were rising again, and he sat down, resting his back against a tree trunk, the dampness of the forest floor slowly penetrating his limbs. It grew dark, and he remained there, until his chin dropped on his chest and he slept.

  He awoke before dawn, the forest gray and quiet around him. When he looked up, he saw the girl Unauá sitting close to him. “My child, what are you doing here?”