Brazil
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Bruno and Tajira broke the 1,000-mile trip from Brasília at Montes Claros in the mist-shrouded Serra do Espinhaço, the highlands of Minas Gerais, where seventeenth century bandeirantes like Amador Flôres da Silva clawed their way along the jagged slopes in search of emeralds and gold. Bruno and Tajira spent the night in a small hotel three blocks from the bus station. They were up at 4.30 in the morning to catch the bus to Porto Seguro.
The passengers included a class from a high school at Montes Claros, going to the 500-year celebrations with their history teacher, who sat across the aisle from Bruno. The teacher, Carlos Alberto Texeira, was a Portuguese who immigrated to Brazil from Mozambique in 1974, after the African colony became independent.
Teixeira was a strong defender of Portugal’s role in the conquest of the Tupiniquin, Tupinambá and other Indians. He quoted from the letter of Pero Vaz da Caminha, who sailed with Cabral’s fleet: “This people is good and of pure simplicity, and there can easily be stamped upon them whatever belief we wish to give them.” The Portuguese greeted the natives as innocents, who would soon be model Christians. “They were dealing with cannibals, who butchered each other,” said Teixeira. “They had to pacify and civilize the savages and win this land inch by inch.”
“Few Indians were cannibals,” Bruno said. There were as many as five million Indians when Cabral landed. “The colonists made war on the Indians, and killed or enslaved them. Diseases from Europe decimated those who were left.”
Teixeira argued that many Portuguese perished in the conquest, including Brazil’s first bishop, Pedro Sardinha, shipwrecked and eaten with one hundred other survivors who landed in the jaws of the Caeté. Thousands of marinheiros were lost at sea before reaching Brazil’s shores. Thousands of colonists sacrificed their lives in Indian attacks on settlements and against bandeiras that marched into the jungle.
“The Portuguese were not brutes without reason. They were brave men and women, who came to build a country in this wilderness. Without them, Brazil would not exist.”
It was a long way to Porto Seguro and the argument went back and forth. Bruno remained imbued with the spirit of Rondon and the belief that Brazil owed a debt to the Indians. This meant not only redressing past wrongs but respecting the forest peoples’ traditions.
Teixeira said he believed in teaching respect for the Indians. “But I can’t agree with people who say that the Stone Age life of a Yanomami is superior to anything that modern civilization can offer.” It would be as unjust to deny the Indians a place in twenty-first century Brazil, as any wrongs of the past half millennium or to pretend that it was possible to halt civilization and progress. Was it preservation or exploitation to keep Indians isolated in a human zoo, where anthropologists and journalists from New York and Berlin came to study them?
Bruno had agonized over similar questions. In the past, Brazilian government policy had been toward assimilation of the Indians, a process Indianists believed could take forty to sixty years. Since 1988, the idea of integrating the indigenous people was dropped in favor of recognition of the rights of the Indian nations and their traditional territories. It was one thing to decree that 10 percent of Brazil’s national soil belonged to the Indians, but something else to guarantee peaceful occupation and enjoyment of those lands.
Bruno’s last FUNAI post had been with the Nambikwara in Mato Grosso. He was there when the government began forcibly to remove groups of Nambikwara to make way for BR364, the Cuiabá-Porto Velho highway. Driven from their ancient wandering grounds and dumped in strange places, the little nomads died in great numbers from epidemics — and from the sickness of despair. Bruno was no longer in FUNAI, when the Nambikwara received a grant of the 67,000-hectare Sarare reserve in the 1980s.
When the area was finally registered in 1990, 6,000 illegal placer miners were active in Sarare. The government expelled the miners in 1992, by which time they had ravaged thousands of hectares of land and polluted Sarare’s river and streams. Four years later, miners and loggers continued to trespass in the reserve. Nambikwara resistance was met by violent attacks against their villages and property.
“It is impossible to bring back the past or isolate the Indians from the future,” Bruno said, responding to Teixeira. He looked at the boy next to him. “Change is inevitable. Who will be there for them: The destroyers or the builders of civilization?”
Bruno and Tajira arrived at Porto Seguro on April 25, three days after the official start of festivities. Sixty thousand people jammed the seaside resort and neighboring town of Santa Cruz de Cabrália. There was a massive show of force by 5,000 military police deployed to maintain order. On the opening day, police used clubs and tear gas to stop a march of 2,000 Indians and Afro-Brazilians on the road from Cabrália to Porto Seguro. They took 140 protestors to jail, including thirty Catholic priests and lay workers. Peace was preserved. Then the sky opened up and a torrential rain drowned out the celebrations.
At Porto Seguro, Bruno and the boy caught a mini-bus to Cabrália. Ten miles down the highway, the bus stopped at a roadblock. They were with eight other passengers, all ordered off by the police.
“What are you doing here, old man?” a sergeant asked Bruno.
“That’s my business,” he said.
“You’ve come to make trouble?”
“No, sergeant . . . Brazil is still a free country, isn’t it?”
The policeman glared at Bruno, but didn’t press him further.
When the mini-bus started off, a man next to Bruno laughed. “You’re lucky the sergeant didn’t break your balls, old fellow.”
“What are they frightened of? A few hundred Indians aren’t going to drive them back into the sea.”
“They want us to put on paint and feathers and dance, as our forefathers did when Cabral landed. They will listen to our songs and chants. They don’t want to hear the noise of democracy!”
Vitorino Francisco Fonseca was a Patoxó from Monte Pascoal, which lay 120 miles to the south. Pitiacú, his people called him. In August 1999, Pitiacú and other Pataxó occupied the 58,750-acre Monte Pascoal National Park and declared it theirs. Monte Pascoal was the first landmark sighted by Cabral and his men, as their ships approached Terra de Santa Cruz. The park was one of several disputed areas claimed by the Pataxó in Bahia.
Vitorino listened to Bruno’s story about the journey to find Tajira’s relatives.
“Ticua Mattos knows all the Pataxó families around here,” said Vitorino. He offered to take Bruno and Tajira to the woman’s house.
It was the eve of the commemorative mass at Coroa Vermelha, where Cabral and his men knelt on April 26, 1500 to give thanks to God. The tiny seaside town swarmed with outsiders, the most colorful of whom strode the streets in their traditional dress. Delegates from 186 indigenous groups had been at Cabrália the past week taking part in a national conference dedicated to ‘500 Years of Resistance.’
“We are not like our ancestors, who picked up war clubs and fought with each other,” said Vitorino. “Today, we see how few we are in Brazil. We have to stand together to survive.”
Ticua Mattos’ lived on the Patoxó reservation at Coroa Vermelha, a community that had been ignored for decades, eking out a living by selling trinkets to tourists who made the pilgrimage to the Cross on the beach. The anniversary celebrations brought a swarm of government officials to negotiate with the Pataxó for the building of a Discovery Park on their land housing a museum and handicrafts mall.
Ticua was in her eighties, a grand old dame of the Pataxó, who looked suspiciously at the vagabundo brought to her door by Vitorino Fonseca.
“Who is this old beggar, Pitiacú?” she asked.
“Not a beggar, senhora Ticua, but a friend.” Vitorino introduced Bruno Salgado. “He has come all the way from Rondonia to look for the boy’s family.” Tajira was standing behind them. “The boy’s parents were Pataxós from Bahia. They both died and left the boy behind. Senhor Bruno found him in the forest and cared for him.”
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p; Ticua stood in her doorway. She shuffled forward into the light. “Come here, boy, let me look at you.”
Tajira smiled as the old woman studied his face.
“He is the son of Apurinã,” she said without hesitation. “He went to cut wood in Mato Grosso ten years ago and never came back.”
The Old Devil stood at the edge of the huge crowd at Coroa Vermelha. The April morning was overcast, a blustery wind bending the palms at the altar in front of the towering Cross. The papal legate, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, presided over the mass attended by 300 bishops and fellow clerics, celebrating the hour in which Friar Henrique of Coimbra prayed with Cabral’s men and the Tupiniquin who rejoiced with the Long Hairs.
After identifying Tajira, Ticua Mattos had sent for Apurinã’s brother, Obajara, a Pataxó elder, who came immediately to her house, astounded by the news about his nephew. There was sadness at the realization that the boy’s parents were dead, but joy nonetheless that he was back with his people. And gratitude to Bruno Salgado, who had brought Tajira to them, many coming to thank him as word spread about the boy.
Tajira had stayed close to his old protector, not a little shy and overwhelmed by all the attention. He had almost no memory of his mother and father, but senhor Bruno always reminded him he was a Pataxó, a people who lived close to the sea. — He saw the ocean for the first time at Porto Seguro. “O, senhor Bruno, the sea is so big!” he cried, and then added. “A good place to fish!” He was going to take a canoe out onto the blue water and catch the biggest fish in the world for senhor Bruno.
It was close to midnight before people stopped coming to the house. Ticua Mattos made a place for the pair to sleep on makeshift beds.
“Thank you, senhor Bruno, for bringing me here,” Tajira said. “I am happy to see my family.”
“I’m glad, Tajira.”
“I will be very sad, when you go.” Over the past week, Bruno took time to explain why it was better for the boy to live with the Pataxó, and not at Kaimari where he’d have no family when Bruno was gone.
“It is best for you,” he said in a gruff voice.
Now, as Bruno stood in the crowd gathered for the commemoration mass, his gaze moved across to the group of Pataxós near the altar. The elder Obajara was with his three sons. Uxarra, the oldest, was the same age as Tajira.
The two boys met the day before, quickly finding that they had one thing especially in common: Uxarra was also an avid fisherman, riding the waves out to the bar in the bay of Cabrália, for the big ones.
Early that morning, Uxarra came to fetch Tajira and take him to his house, where Arací, Obajara’s wife, gave the boy a Pataxó skirt to wear. Arací painted Tajira’s face with lines of red urucu dye. Then she helped him put on a headdress crowned with the brilliant red and blue feathers of Macaw.
Bruno Salgado caught sight of the boy, standing next to Uxarra. “Tajira Pataxó!” he whispered and smiled to himself. “Go safely, my little Indio!”
Then the smile vanished from the Old Devil’s face, as he heard the voice of the Most Reverend Jayme Chemello, president of the Brazilian National Bishop’s Conference, rise with a solemn declaration:
“We ask God to forgive the sins committed against the human rights and dignity of the Indians, the first inhabitants of this land, and the blacks who were brought to this country as slaves.”
Pataxo, Shavante, Nambikwara, Yanonami and Indians from all over Brazil listened solemnly by the sands of Coroa Vermelha, as descendants of the discoverers asked forgiveness for the sins and errors of five centuries.
There was no Tupiniquin to hear the apologia.
Aruanã watched as they came closer. The sun was gone behind the trees, and he found it difficult to discern the craft, but he stood rooted a while longer before he realized that he must hasten to the village and tell what he had seen. This made him gaze at the horizon again, to be absolutely certain, for it was a fantastic discovery for a man who had gone to seek no more than shells. They were there, darkening images now, these canoes that had come from the end of the earth.
THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BRAZIL - AFTERWORD
GLOSSARY
agregado ‘associate’ agricultural laborer on large estate; in colonial times, retainer
aldeia a village, particularly mission village
alfere second lieutenant
armador ‘supplier’; person who finances and outfits expeditions
arroba measure of weight, about 15 kilograms
azulejos glazed tiles
babá priestess of Afro-Brazilian religion; nursemaid
bagaço baggase; refuse material of crushed sugarcane; ‘cane trash’
bandeira armed adventurers, particularly from São Paulo
bandeirante a member of a bandeira
batuque Afro-Brazilian dance
beata devout woman
berimbau stringed musical instrument
bogavante paddler
boucan grill for meat
branco white
caatinga ‘white forest’; stunted forest and scrub in northeastern Brazil
caboclo ‘copper-colored’; mixed Indian and white ancestry; a rural person or hillbilly
cachaça a rum made from the juice of sugar cane
caipora traditional Indian mythological being; goblin or malevolent spirit
câmara chamber; town council
cambão ‘yoke’; labor owed to a landowner for use of land
cana (sugar)cane
capanga personal bodyguard; henchman
capitão captain
Carioca resident of Rio de Janeiro
carpideira hired mourner
casa grande big house or mansion of sugar plantation
cerrado savannah
chefe boss, leader
colégio in colonial times, school kept by Jesuits; present, a private school
colono colonist; a small farmer
compadre godfather; sponsor; friend
conde count
conquista conquest
conselheiro counselor, adviser, wise person
coronel colonel; a political boss in a município
Cristão-Novo a converted Jew or new Christian in the colonial era
curandeiro(a) medicine man or woman, who practices the healing arts
degregado ‘degraded one’; criminal exiled to colonial Brazil
devassa official inspection or inquiry
dona de casa female head of household
donatário recipient of hereditary land grant in sixteenth century
doutor doctor; person with university degree; honorary form of address
emboaba ‘feather legs’; outsider, Portuguese newcomers to Brazil in eighteenth century
engenho sugar plantation; sugar-mill
entrada expedition into interior of Brazil by band of explorers
escravo slave
estância ranch or country estate
estero marsh
Exú divine messenger and tutelary spirit of Afro-Brazilian religion
favela shantytown
fazenda estate; ranch or plantation
fazendeiro owner of a large landed estate
fidalgo Portuguese nobleman, gentleman
fogo fire
futebol football
gaucho cattleman from southern Brazil or Argentina
genipapo black dye or body paint, from the genip tree
governador governor
homem bom ‘a good man’; upper class of Brazilian colonial society; homen bons (pl.)
iaiá in colonial times, familiar term in addressing girls and young women
Inconfidência conspiracy; particularly 1789 Inconfidência Mineira, Minas Gerais
Indio Indian
Infante crown prince
jangada raft
lavrador small landholder
liberto freed slave
lingua geral ‘general language’; language derived by Jesuits from various Indian dialects
macaco monkey
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sp; maconha marijuana
maloca large Indian dwelling occupied by several families
marinheiro seaman
mãe mother
mãe de santo female sacerdote of Afro-Brazilian religion
mameluco offspring of Indian and white
mazombo derogatory epithet for one born in America of Portuguese parents
menino young child
mestizo a person of mixed blood
município administrative division, roughly a county
orixás generic name for Yoruba deities
oitava ‘an eighth’; an ancient weight for gold and precious gems
padre priest
pagé shaman; medicine man; witch doctor
pai father
Paulista inhabitant of or referring to the state of São Paulo
pé foot
peça ‘piece’; a slave
pelourinho pillory
posseiros peasant squatters
praça town square or plaza
prêto black;
pulperia Afro-Brazilian bar
puta whore
quilombo fugitive slave colony
ratazana rat
reduction Spanish Jesuit mission village
reis royal; old Brazilian currency
roça forest clearing
riacho creek or stream
rua street
samba Brazilian dance of African origin
sangue blood
seca drought
senhor de engenho owner of a sugar estate
senzala slave quarters on a plantation
serra mountains
sertanejo frontiersman; inhabitant of the sertão
sertão the interior, backlands, wilderness, especially northeastern Brazil
sinhá a young lady of the Casa Grande
sinhazinha term of endearment used by slaves addressing mistress’s daughter
tenente lieutenant
terreiro area for drying coffee beans; also Afro-Brazilian religious center
terremoto earthquake
tropeiro a driver of pack animals
urubu common black vulture
urucu dye-yielding shrub, used by Indians for orange-red body-paint