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sábado, 20 de outubro de 2012

CANGAÇO – MILLENARIAN REBELS: PROPHETS AND OUTLAWS Parte VIII

Para os países que falam Inglês
http://www.1000dias.com

The cangaceiros recognized themselves in a simple idea, revenge, the realization of which touched them directly. They formed a warrior community whose social project (revenge is, indeed, a social project) was absolutely negative and for the most part completely personal. Each one had his revenge to carry out. It belonged to her and related to a given person or, more generally, a given family. And he intended to bring it to a good end, if he had not already done so. The entire constituted order was opposed to her revenge. By carrying it out, the cangaceiro challenged the entire society.

The cangaceiro did not criticize the society in which she lived, but the goal she pursued made him a rebel. The millenarians didn’t seek to avenge themselves or, more precisely, the hour of vengeance did not belong to them, since it was up to God or a supernatural being like king Dom Sebastião, but they criticized society. Thus, it was almost inevitable that they would meet, as they did, in fact, in Canudos. The state arranged to transform a spiritual community into a warrior community and an individual in search of revenge into a social bandit.

Members of the elite of a city in northeastern Brazil, during the visit of a high dignitary of the Catholic church. The most prominent members of this select group were known as “colonels” – http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com

The insult that the cangaceiro had to erase came both from an individual and from the society that supported that individual, that was his accomplice. The offense didn’t come from an isolated individual, from one’s likes — in those days, settling such an insult would not have been a problem — but from a social authority. It could be an insult from a “colonel” or someone in his circle, which amounts to the same thing. The offense came from a fazendeiro who was invested with both a social authority as a large property holder and a political authority as a representative of the state in the region. The vengeance of the cangaceiro, in fact, was a social vengeance. Carrying it out didn’t just mean confronting an individual, but also the state that stood behind him.

The cangaceiro made his own justice toward and against the state, which always stood on the side of the one who offended him. His inalienable and universal right as a free individual came into conflict with the objective Right of the state, the substance of which is revealed precisely in forcing the individual to alienate her universal and immediate right to freedom.

“It is enough that the I as free being am alive in the flesh, because it is prohibited to degrade this living existence to the rank of pack animal. While I live, my mind (which is concept and also freedom) and body are not separate; this constitutes the existence of freedom, and it is in this that I experience it. It is a sophistic concept without idea that makes the distinction according to which the thing in itself, the mind — and even the idea of it — , is not struck when the body is abused and when the existence of the person is subjugated to another’s power.”[40]

Groups of officers who hunted the bandits were known as “Volantes”. These men used uniforms very similar clothes worn by bandits. The reason was the need to protect the vegetation typical of dry region of Northeast Brazil, very thorny and known as “Caatinga” – http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com

By avenging himself, the sertanejo realized his idea that all human beings were equal in their humanity; he became effectively free, for himself and for others. For him, this passage of the idea into concreteness corresponded to the passage into clandestinity. He abandoned an abstract civil existence that suddenly appeared for what it was, a servile existence. Thus, he became a cangaceiro.

Freedom is a risk to take. Suffering an insult without reacting means submitting to the power of another, falling into slavery. This corresponds to a person’s social death, to which she can respond only with the master’s death.

Faced with an essentially human reaction, the academics of our times, like Josué de Castro[41], go so far as to even speak of a nutritional deficiency to explain the rebellion of the cangaceiros or the millenarians, and talk of flight when they should confront the state and the world. Who knows, maybe in referring to these academics, one could have spoken of a chronic deficiency of the most elementary intelligence of human practices.

The sertanejos possessed this intelligence, recognizing themselves in the cangaceiros and appreciating them as courageous human beings who preferred to put their lives at stake than to die as slaves. The fact is that from one moment to the next any sertanejo might have been forced to go into hiding for similar reasons. These people were on the verge of slavery. Their existence as free human beings ceaselessly threatened to collapse into submission, to fall or return into slavery. They were always ones who lived and reacted in haste.

In June 1927, Lampião attacks the town of Mossoró, in state of Rio Grande do Norte. After this attack took place this photo in the city of Limoeiro, in the state of Ceará. You can see some hostages – http://blogdomendesemendes.blogspot.com.br

The cangaceiro showed through his actions that even the poor could become terrifying. Feared and admired, a cruel hero and a bandit with a big heart, he quickly became a mythical figure of the sertão.
In the cangaceiros’ heroic deeds, it is difficult to distinguish legend from reality. The testimonies, the depositions, the poetry, the stories and the news articles accumulated and contradicted each other. Reality itself, in which shameful self-interest, betrayal and complicity, boldness and deceit were mixed, was not only complex and contradictory, but already legendary. With the cangaceiros, reality had been pierced by an idea. It belonged to an epic poem.

In the 19th century, starting from Brazil’s independence, social banditry spread within the country, reaching its peak at the proclamation of the Republic. Then it took on the traits of modern cangaceirismo, which would reach its culmination in Lampião in the 1930s.

 Antônio Silvino – http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com

At the beginning of the 20th century, two figures stood out: Antonio Silvino and Sebastião (Sinhô) Pereira, with whom Virgulino Ferreira, the future Lampião, took his first steps. Legend has presented them to us as especially good and generous, in the style of social bandits like Robin Hood. Antonio Silvino was captured in 1914 and sentenced to thirty years in prison. He was released after twenty years. Sinhô Pereira withdrew into “public life”.

Virgulino (Lampião) was born in 1897 in a small village in the province of Pernambuco, where his father was a sharecropper on a small plot of land and also a mule driver. One day, a detachment of the police, whose commander was linked to a hostile family, slaughtered the old man and the mother.

Virgulino and his brothers burned the mourning clothes in the barnyard and swore that from that moment on they would no longer carry on mourning, but would rather carry the gun. The sisters were entrusted to the youngest of them while the others went into hiding. But finding themselves in an extremely precarious and uncertain situation, after a few victorious conflicts with the military police, they united with Sinhô Pereira’s cangaço.

In this photo we see sitting Sinhô Pereira, the first head of the Lampião. Beside him is his cousin Luiz Padre. These two famous outlaws fought many battles in the state of Pernambuco – http://cariricangaco.blogspot.com.br

One of Lampião’s first endeavors was the murder of “colonel” Gonzaga, director of the Belmonte police in the state of Pernambuco. The man was killed with his entire family, and even the goats and chickens in the barnyard were slaughtered. In the end, Lampião removed the wedding ring from the corpse, put it on his finger and didn’t take it off again until his final day.

When Sinhô Pereira retired in 1922 (this could happen when one could count on the implicit blessing of Father Cicero), Virgulino became the indisputable leader of the band. Though he went on to become the most celebrated of the cangaceiros, he would also be the last. Lampião wrote the final chapter of a history.

His nickname, Lampião (lamp, lantern), came to him from one of his early battles. In the course of a nocturnal ambush, he had taken to firing so quickly that it lit up the night.

For nearly twenty years, throughout the sertão, Lampião would wander from one province to another over an immense landscape, appearing in an unpredictable manner, scrambling his trails, always turning conflicts with the police to his own advantage.

In this photo we see the left Lampião and beside his brother Antônio – http://cariricangaco.blogspot.com.br

“Let’s leave civilians in peace. Against police and traitors: FIRE!”

The blows were frequently struck by small groups commanded by the best men, while the leader controlled everything. Sometimes the entire band took part in genuine war expeditions. Lampião studied routes, sought to discover where there were concentrations of money, followed the movements of the “flying squads”. He was considered a “modern” bandit and used strategy and tactics most skillfully.

The band stayed hidden for long periods in a safe place, a forest, an inaccessible mountain chain, a desert oasis or the fazenda of a friend. The people only moved in small groups to resupply ammunition, a very difficult enterprise, to deliver messages demanding money and to buy food and other things. They moved in a limited radius, just a dozen people with a guide, if need be; the round lasted a week at the longest. At times, if the situation became too hot, the band literally disappeared without leaving a trace, deliberately spreading news and signals that confused the trails and making the police and beaters go crazy. Then the cangaceiros rested and recovered from the fatigue of their latest endeavors, preparing the next ones with high spirits.[42]

Lampião and his band on horses. Note that one of the bandits uses a military bugle – http://blogdomendesemendes.blogspot.com.br

Expeditions lasted several months and could cover several northeastern provinces. Lampião extorted money from the rich property owners, villages and sometimes cities of a certain significance. He presented himself with his band, receiving the money collected from the rich, merchants and property owners directly from the local authorities. In some cases, he visited the school while the men sat in the plaza of the church, then usually everything ended with a banquet followed by dancing. The feast started with great binges of overflowing glasses of a brandy called “a testarda” (“the stubborn woman”). Poetic challenges were launched where the best bards confronted each other, while encounters came together and dissolved… In the night, the troop took off singing their story to the tune of “Mulher Rendeira”.

Olé, mulher rendeira
Olé, mulher renda
Tu me ensina a fazer renda,
Eu te ensino a namorar!

Sometimes things went badly. For example, during the attack on Inharéma (sic) in Paraíba. The cangaceiros did not succeed in taking the center of the town. That time, mad with rage, they retreated, destroying, looting and burning everything that they found in their path.

“Upon returning to the state of Pernambuco at the end of 1925, Lampião occupied the city of Custódia, but in the most peaceful manner in the world. The bandits spent the day passing through the streets. Everyone paid for his purchases. All around the area sentries kept watch. Lampião extorted a few rich bastards, bought provisions, medicine and ammunition. The tailor made clothing for him, finishing it the same day, as promised, and was paid handsomely for it. Lampião sent a telegram to the state’s governor, telling of all the colors, but he didn’t pay for this on the pretext that the telegraph was a ‘public’ service. The police detachment, having disappeared at the first alarm, gave no signs of life.”

Continuaremos na próxima semana.

Extraído do blog: "Tok de História" do historiógrafo e pesquisador do cangaço Rostand Medeiros

http://tokdehistoria.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/cangaco-millenarian-rebels-prophets-and-outlaws/

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