Para os países que falam inglês
Typical
house of a wealthy farmer in northeastern Brazil eighteenth century –
http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com
Prophets and Outlaws of the Sertão
Clique no link abaixo para ler a parte I
Today in
the sertão[4],
there are still a few ephemeral groups gathered around beatos, rapidly
being dispersed by the police. There are also a few isolated bandits, mere
brigands dedicated above all to theft. On the other hand, the orders of hired
killers called capangas continue to proliferate. They are in the service
of the fazendeiro,[5] who
has taken great care to prevent any vague desire to rebel among his day
laborers, mainly through pure and simple murder. This private militia gets
support for its task from a police force and an army whose current means —
helicopters, napalm, machine guns, radios, special troops — make any sort of
social movement impossible. The security of the state is now assured in this
vast arid region of northeast Brazil, which was once the place where messianic
movements of great breadth developed together with the epic deeds of the cangaceiros[6].
And yet, there
in the northeast, there are still people who remember the cangaceiros,
Antonio Silvino, Sinhô Pereira, Lampiao, Corisco, who they imagine as champions
of a lost world; people who preserve a sort of nostalgia for the time of
the Conselheiro — an era of happiness, abundance and freedom
comparable to the legendary times of Charlemagne’s empire and other enchanted
realms. There are still those who pass down the legend of Father Cicero who is
supposed to return to guide people to perfect happiness. Further south, in
the serrana region, they pass down the legend of the “sleeping” friar
João Maria, departing to find refuge on the enchanted mountaintop of Tayó.
“From time to time, new emissaries of Brother João Maria come to announce his
return; the last attempt happened in 1954. But the authorities keep watch and
always manage to disperse the small gatherings of the faithful. But the memory
of Brother João Maria does not seem to be close to burning out, and the places
where he sojourned are venerated by his followers.”[7]
Now law reigns
in the sertão, but this wasn’t always the case.
“Let the
faithful, then, abandon all their worldly possessions, anything that might
defile them with the faintest trace of vanity. All fortunes stood on the brink
of imminent catastrophe, and it was useless and foolhardy to endeavor to
preserve them.”[8]
Around 1870,
the popularity of Antonio Conselheiro, otherwise called “the Counselor” would
grow little by little in the villages of the interior, in the province of
Bahia.
Antônio
Conselheiro was born in this house in the town of Quixeramobim in the state of
Ceará – http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com
His true name
was Antonio Vicente Mendes Maciel. He was originally from the state of Ceará,
where a dark and bloody rivalry opposed his family to the Araújo family, the
most powerful property owners of the region.
He appeared
there announcing the end of the world, a cosmic catastrophe followed by the
last judgment. He was sent by God and promised the faithful salvation and the
delights of a Holy City in which peace and brotherhood would reign. It was
Christ who prophesied his coming when “at the ninth hour, as he was resting on
the Mount of Olives, one of his apostles saith unto him: Lord! what signs wilt
thou give us for the end of this time? And he replied: many signs, in the Moon,
in the Sun, and in the Stars. There shall appear an angel sent by my loving
Father, preaching sermons at the gates, making towns in the desert, building
churches and chapels, and giving his counsel.”[9]
On mountains
made of schist flakes sparkling with mica, on immense expanses covered
with caatinga[10] —
“it stretches out in front of him, for mile on mile, unchanging in its desolate
aspect of leafless trees, of dried and twisted boughs, a turbulent maze of
vegetation standing rigidly in space or spreading out sinuously along the
ground, representing, as it would seem, the agonized struggles of a tortured
writing flora.”[11] —, on the plain on which nature has fun playing with the most abrupt contrasts,
frighteningly sterile, marvelously blooming, the sertão had found its
prophet.
Thin, austere,
ascetic, dressed in a monk’s robe and sandals, he went from village to village,
distributing everything that was given to him to the poor. He was a beato[12].
Very soon he was called “Saint Anthony” or “Good Jesus” A rumor attributed
miracles to him; he had saved a young girl bitten by a radical snake; mule
drivers had spread the news. Little by little his prestige grew. When he came,
everyone rushed to him to seek his counsel. He was accompanied in his
peregrinations by a few faithful. Over the months, the group became more
consistent.
With his
followers, he repaired churches and built chapels. Wherever he passed, he
preached forcefully against the outrages, extortions and injustices that
infested the region, which was racked by political struggles transformed into
vendettas, into insensitive and bloody quarrels.
Modern design
that portrays Antônio Conselheiro along with his followers – Author Pedro
Marques – http://blogdopedromarques.blogspot.com.br
The
Counselor’s influence had become impressive. In his harangues he spoke an
apocalyptic language full of Latin quotations, a cryptic and inspired language
that gave the impression that his message was from the beyond: “The end was
surely coming and the great judge of all.”[13]
The prophet
predicted strange things for the years to come, all announcing an imminent
cosmic upheaval:
“In 1896, a
thousand flocks shall run from the seacoast to the backlands; and then the
backlands will turn into seacoast and the seacoast into backlands.
“In 1987,
there will be much pasturage and few trails, one shepherd and one flock only.
“In 1898,
there will be many hats and few heads.
“In 1899, the
water shall turn to blood, and the planet will appear in the east, with the
sun’s ray, the bough shall find itself on the earth, and the earth some place
shall find itself in heaven.
“There shall
be a great rain of stars, and that will be the end of the world. In 1900, the
lights shall be put out. God says in the Gospel: I have a flock which is out of
this sheepfold, and the flock must be united that there may be one shepherd and
one flock only!”[14]
Only those who
aided him and who followed him would be saved. He responded in this way to the
deep aspirations of the poor to escape an underhanded fatality, a precarious
and servile existence, oppression and desperation. His determination, his
fieriness, his rage, his dynamic exhortations, had seduced them just as it had
fascinated rebels, quilombolas (insurgent and escaped slaves living
in hidden settlements called quilombos), unsubdued indians, all fugitives,
mestizo or white, sought by village police.
Saint
Sebastian had drawn his sword and when Conselheiro founded his first messianic
community in 1873, in the area around Itapicurù in the province of Bahia, in
many ways this recalled the cangaço[15] bands.
“There having
arisen a misunderstanding between Antonio Conselheiro and his group, and the
curate of Inhambupe, the former proceeded to draw up his forces as if for a
pitched battle, and it is known that they were lying in wait for the curate,
when he should go to a place known as Junco, in order that they might
assassinate him. Those who pass that way are filled with fear at the sight of
these miscreants equipped with clubs, daggers, hunting knives and
blunderbusses; and woe to the one who is suspected of being hostile to Antonio
Conselheiro”[16] —
from a police report of the time.
The archbishop
himself turned to the president of the province of Bahia, asking for
reinforcements to contain “the individual Antonio Vicente Maciel, by preaching
subversive doctrines who causes much harm to religion and to the state
distracting people from carrying their obligations that they may follow him…”.[17].
Continuaremos sábado - 29-09-2012
Source
of information
Extraído do blog "Tok de História" do historiógrafo e pesquisador do cangaço:
Rostand Medeiros
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