Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

Translator’s Preface

PART I - THE LAND

CHAPTER I - THE LAND

CHAPTER II - MAN

PART II - THE BATTLE

CHAPTER III - THE BATTLE BEGINS

CHAPTER IV - TRAPPED AT MOUNT CAMBAIO

CHAPTER V - THE MOREIRA CÉSAR EXPEDITION

CHAPTER VI - THE FOURTH EXPEDITION

CHAPTER VII - A NEW PHASE OF THE BATTLE

Photographs - CHAPTER VIII - LAST DAYS

Notes

Index

BACKLANDS

EUCLIDES RODRIGUES PIMENTA DACUNHA was born in Santa Rita do Rio Negro, then in the province of Rio de Janeiro, on January 20, 1866, into a family of Portuguese and Bahian extraction. He attended the Colégio Aquino in Rio, where one of his teachers was the republican ideologist Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, a follower of Auguste Comte and one of the leaders of the movement to depose the emperor and install the First Republic in 1889. It was at the school that da Cunha started his political writing, in a youth publication titled the Democrat. His virulent republicanism provoked him to insult the imperial minister of war by throwing down his sword in front of him during a formal ceremony at the military school in Praia Vermelha, where he had been enrolled since 1886. He was expelled from the school and after a stint in São Paolo as a journalist, he returned to Rio in 1889 to resume studies at the Escola Politécnico. He finished his education at the War College in 1892, with a university degree in mathematics, physical and natural sciences, and engineering and the rank of first lieutenant. In 1890 he married Ana Sólon Ribeiro (later Ana de Assis), the daughter of General Frederico Sólon Ribeiro, one of the founders of the Brazilian Republic, who in 1889 was assigned the task of issuing Pedro II his exile orders. He left the military in 1896 and worked as a civil engineer for the state of São Paulo. When the death of Antônio Moreira César became national news in 1897, da Cunha accepted the invitation of O Estado de São Paulo to accompany the fourth expedition of the Canudos campaign as a war journalist embedded with the São Paulo Battalion. He left for Bahia on August 4, 1897, and his field notes, published posthumously as Diary of an Expedition, became the basis for his great work, Os sertões (Backlands). His other works include The Amazon: Land without History (1906), Contrastes e confrontos (1907), and Peru versus Bolivia. Da Cunha died in 1909 from a gunshot wound delivered by his wife’s lover.

ELIZABETH LOWE is director of the Center for Translation Studies in the School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her doctorate in comparative literature with a concentration in translation from the City University of New York under Gregory Rabassa. Lowe is the author of the groundbreaking The City in Brazilian Literature (1982) and coauthor, with Earl E. Fitz, of Translation and the Rise of Inter-American Literature (2007). Among the authors she has translated into English are Clarice Lispector, Rubem Fonseca, Nélida Piñon, Darcy Ribeiro, Victor Giudice, and Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.

ILAN STAVANS is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition (1995), On Borrowed Words (2001), Spanglish (2003), Love and Language (2007), A Critic’s Journey (2009), and Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years (2010). Stavans edited The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays (1997), The Poetry of Pablo Neruda (2003), Cesar Chavez’s An Organizer’s Tale (2008), and Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing (2009). He is also general editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010). From 2001 to 2006 he was the host of the PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans. He has received numerous awards, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Jewish Book Award, an Emmy nomination, the Latino Book Award, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the Rubén Darío Distinction, and the Cátedra Roberto Bolaño. His work has been translated into a dozen languages and adapted to the stage and screen. Stavans writes a syndicated Spanish-language newspaper column called “Lengua Fresca.”

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Cunha, Euclides da, 1866-1909.

[Sertões. English]

Backlands : the Canudos Campaign / Euclides da Cunha ; translated by Elizabeth Lowe ; introduction by

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Introduction

War is a continuation of politics by other means.

—CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ

Euclides da Cunha’s Os sertões, described by some as a national epic that is also “the bible of the Brazilian nation,” concludes with a minuscule—at least in contrast with most other sections in the book—chapter called “Two Lines,” although it really contains only one, a compound clause: “It is truly regrettable that in these times we do not have a Maudsley, who knew the difference between good sense and insanity, to prevent nations from committing acts of madness and crimes against humanity.”

Much has been read—and unread—into this enigmatic sentence and into the entire narrative. What was da Cunha’s ultimate message in his reportorial description of a popular upheaval at the end of the nineteenth century in the distant, unsophisticated northeastern region of Canudos, far away from the nation’s urbane metropolitan centers at the time? Do these lines blame Brazil, a country with a difficult path to independence, for its destructive response to a social upheaval that was portrayed as an internal threat to national stability? Are the indigents known as cangaceiros who engaged in the revolt, following their charismatic leader, Antônio Conselheiro (Portuguese for “the counselor”), solely to be blamed for the tragic outcome?

Before the last chapter, the focus was the analysis of Conselheiro’s cranium as a source of crime and lunacy. With his final observation, the author shifts from the individual as the cause of national unrest to a larger scope: the collective responsibility for the safe-keeping of the nation as a whole. Clearly, da Cunha meant these last words to push his message to new heights.

Henry Maudsley was a celebrated psychiatrist in Victorian England who, unlike Sigmund Freud and others, believed that mental illness was the result of cerebral deficiencies. The Brazilian physician and author Moacyr Scliar, himself a member of a minority (he is Jewish), once explained the relevance of Maudsley’s name at the end of Os sertões. He was not a believer in psychological development. Instead, he considered internment in a psychiatric ward the optimal solution. In other words, da Cunha might be suggesting that Conselheiro was a menace to society in his incapacity to differentiate “between good sense and insanity.” Thus the responsibility, according to da Cunha, isn’t in the individual but in society. The only way to prevent nations from committing “acts of madness and crimes against humanity” like the one executed by the government during the Canudos campaign is to have a psychiatric system able to identify dangerous lunatics who, through personal charisma, might organize a sinister revolt and, in doing so, threaten an emerging republic.

Os sertões speaks forcefully to a number of issues of our time. It is, as the last chapter shows, a hidden treatise on psychiatry. But it is much more: a study of the environmental, social, and political conditions that allow for a leader like Conselheiro in a raw, rough habitat. And, last but not least, it is an extraordinary document about a reporter at war, and, as such, a meditation on journalism as eyewitness to history, in particular in an incipient democracy as Brazil was at the dusk of the nineteenth century.

It was da Cunha’s self-imposed responsibility to describe the principal events of the so-called Canudos War, which had enormous reverberations on the national stage. The foundation of Canudos as a town in the backlands of the state of Bahia is marred by myth. Race and religion were essential ingredients. After an itinerant life that started in the 1870s in scarcely populated areas of the region, Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel, a.k.a. Antônio Conselheiro (described later on by the press as “a false messiah” and the building of his community as “a messianic act”), amassed a growing number of disenfranchised supporters. Soon Canudos was known in the vicinities as a bastion of discontent, which, in the eyes of urbanites in Bahia, translated into an endorsement of the monarchic system that Brazil had recently broken from.

It is important to remember that, unlike other Latin American nations that had become independent from their European matrix at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Brazil, in 1822, simply shifted from the configuration of colonial dependency when the Portuguese king, João VI, running away from Napoléon’s troops, transplanted himself to the colony across the Atlantic. It was the king’s son who proclaimed Brazil’s independence, which de facto retained a monarchic structure. It would take decades for things to change: In 1888 slavery was abolished, and a year later the nation finally adopted a republican form of government. Still, political fragility remained. The emerging country looked for threats to its new life in all quarters. Indeed, the Canudos upheaval wasn’t the first to be seen as a menace to the establishment. Shortly after independence, there was a revolt of the marine and army forces (Revolta da Armada, 1893-94) that led to new presidential elections.

The trouble in Canudos entered public discourse in October 1896 with a telegram sent to the governor by Dr. Arlindo Leoni, magistrate of the Juazeiro district, asking for help as a horde of lawless jagunços, dwellers of the backlands, led by Conselheiro, was about to invade the town. In contrast to the type of life led in a metropolis like Bahia, and farther away São Paulo, hunger, illness, and dispossession were the sine qua non in Canudos. And unlike the city, the countryside was defined by more flexible codes of racial interaction. Clearly, the incipient agitation was caused by a ferment of popular unhappiness. Letting it continue, it was believed, undermined the future of the republic. Thus the army was sent in. But the response by the jagunços was forceful. Reinforcement was needed. It was only after three failed military expeditions that the rebel stronghold in Canudos was destroyed and, in October 1897, the followers of the religious leader were slaughtered. The number of deaths was enormous: Five thousand soldiers lost their lives, and the entire population of Canudos, estimated between ten thousand and twenty-five thousand people, was killed. Not surprisingly, the war became a media sensation in Brazil and all over the Americas.

As Walnice Nogueira Galvão has shown, da Cunha’s first writings on the Canudos situation were published long before he arrived in the region. In March 1897 he published the first of two articles in O Estado de São Paulo called “A nossa Vendéia.” The second would appear in July of the same year. Vendéia is the Portuguese name for Vendée, the region in west central France, on the Atlantic Ocean, where, in 1793, a peasant revolt against the newly formed revolutionary government took place, hoping to reestablish the monarchy that was brought down a few years before. Da Cunha, like most enlightened intellectuals of his time, was enamored with the ideals of the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789. In his view, the Canudos incidents were a Brazilian version of the Vendée episode: an attempt to undo the process of republicanism and, with it, democratization of the country. In those articles, da Cunha already uses the landscape and climate to explain the behavior of the jagunço, a term that in Portuguese is taken to mean “bodyguard” and is used as a synonym of cangaceiro. His approach at the time was that Conselheiro and his band were, in today’s terminology, terrorists. As his understanding of the circumstances evolved, he would transform that opinion, looking at the jagunços and the army as simultaneously victims and victimizers.

Fortunately, da Cunha didn’t see himself as a passive observer. He believed in the impartiality of reporters but not in sheepishly championing the government’s approach without a dose of analysis. It was that analysis that ultimately defined his style. Da Cunha trusted that what readers wanted was not only a firsthand account but an attempt to contextualize, from myriad perspectives, what he witnessed. To this day, the reasons that the Brazilian government took on the ragged band of have-nots moved by religious fervor are widely debated. The response might be reduced to four interrelated conclusions. The first two need to be seen against the backdrop of nineteenth-century ideas concerning the development of recently independent nations in Latin America. The first is strictly religious: The clash of the jagunços in Canudos was against a Catholic establishment that perceived them as pagan idol worshippers and thus barbaric. The battle, in this sense, had biblical undertones: It was the civilized urban dwellers, self-portrayed as favored by the Christian God, fighting the forces of primitivism. The second conclusion is about class and geographical location: In the nineteenth century the countryside was perceived as backward and the city as the source of progress.

In this sense, Os sertões might be seen as a companion to Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism (1845). The Argentine thinker, journalist, political commentator, and, ultimately, his country’s president, argued in his magnum opus—another canonical text in the region’s search for a collective identity—that since the gauchos, who as discomfited people are a product of their environment, were an obstacle to the consolidation of the nation as a modern state, there needed to be a strategic way to either eliminate them altogether or else integrate them in a way that didn’t interrupt the Europeanization of Argentina. And he perceived cities like Buenos Aires as agents of change and the pampas as bastions of primordial weakness. Da Cunha’s reportage is equally shaped by the Darwinist argument of his day: He portrays a struggle between Brazil’s past and future, between Catholicism, a Portuguese import, and an unruly indigenous society.

The third conclusion that might explain the government response to the Canudos revolt is strictly economic: The migration of followers to the village aggravated a shortage of manpower in the local farms and was seen as a threat to the region. And the fourth conclusion is ideological. Conselheiro was accused of taking sides in a political battle between the ex-governor and the incumbent governor in the state of Bahia, the heart of the backlands of northeastern Brazil. This is relevant because in 1898 there was a political battle going on in the country’s capital, Rio de Janeiro, between the civilista and Jacobino factions. The groups were split on the matter of presidential succession between the incumbent president, Prudente de Morais, and a military candidate.

A good journalist is always in the right place at the right time, but an influential journalist has the vision to see the long-lasting impact of those coordinates. In a stroke of luck, da Cunha became a reporter of the debacle and, in the process, wrote the ultimate chronicle of the Brazilian psyche. His engaging reportorial talents along with his erudition as a polymath have left us with a precious document that juxtaposes anthropology, sociology, religious and political analysis, and ecological disquisitions. Da Cunha himself claimed that this multiplicity was the major achievement of his book: “a full synthesis [consórcio] of science and art, more than any single aspect, is the highest expression of human thought.” After a stint in the army, he decided to pursue a career in journalism as a cultural commentator, publishing newspaper columns on current topics of the day. He had worked as a military engineer until returning to civilian life in 1896. After the government launched the Canudos campaign, da Cunha was assigned by O Estado de São Paulo to cover the campaign. It surely would not be the only newspaper covering the story (there was coverage in periodicals like Gazeta de Notícias, O Paíz, and República in Rio de Janeiro and Diario de Notícias and Jornal de Notícias in Bahia, the consensus being that the best reportage was produced by Manoel Benício of the Jornal do Comércio), but, in the long run, it would be the most influential.

Astonishingly, da Cunha did not leave Bahia to be embedded with the São Paulo Battalion until August 4, 1897. He stayed until the end of the campaign, witnessing the death of the last four defenders of Canudos on October 5, a day before the corpse of Conselheiro, who apparently had died of dysentery, was exhumed. In other words, while da Cunha, in Os sertões, pretended to cover the entire Canudos campaign, in truth he witnessed less than a month of the military operation. Later on, as his narrative took shape, he would attempt to cover up this deficiency in a number of ways. Among them was the research he did back in São Paulo for five years after the incidents, reading other reporters’ accounts, analyzing the connection between the Canudos dwellers and their psychological traits, and so on. His overcompensation is evident in the unbalanced structure of the book: Almost two-thirds is about everything but the campaign.

All modern nations are born from sacrificial blood. The atrocities da Cunha witnessed as reporter were beyond belief. Like the use of napalm in Vietnam by the U.S. Army, the Brazilian military spread kerosene on villages, then threw dynamite bombs on them, creating hellish scenes in which the Canudos population was burnt alive. The destruction of the villages and slaughter of the jagunços was proof that those in government, while supposedly in charge of safeguarding the population, will stop at nothing in order to perpetuate their power. He was among the first modern journalists to be a spectator to the excesses of the political machinery and to use eloquent words to describe what he saw. He was savvy enough to recognize that the citizenry isn’t easily gullible when it comes to state propaganda and that, as the radical American reporter I. F. Stone once said, “Every government is run by liars.” The journalist is an autonomous entity who, ideally, allows the citizenry to think critically. In that sense, da Cunha was a champion of an independent voice for the media in democracy. In Latin America the independent journalistic voice is an endangered species. The state pretends to tolerate it but will secretly seek to silence it at all costs, including death.

To build the narrative of Os sertões, he used book field notes he had kept as a journalist, which were eventually published as Diario de uma expedição. He worked while building a bridge in São José do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, where nowadays the wood hut in which he wrote is considered a national shrine. Although it was difficult to find a publisher for the finished manuscript, when the book was finally released, in 1902, it became an instant best seller. Educated Brazilians were eager to use the Canudos campaign to reflect on the limits of power. Conselheiro had become a satanic figure in the popular imagination. Was he a lunatic? Where did his motivations to create an autonomous state come from? What kinds of political partnerships had he established? Or was he just a hoodlum, and not the visionary some portrayed him as? Such was the success that da Cunha was asked to join the Brazilian Academy of Letters as well as the national Historical and Geographical Institute. A second edition was published in 1903. Since then there have been over fifty Brazilian editions, along with thousands of publications, in scores of disciplines, expanding on the work’s relevance.

The antecedents of Os sertões might reach as far as Flavius Josephus’s Jewish War, his chronicle of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, in particular the massacre in Masada. In our time, those who have felt its influence range from Stephen Crane to Winston Churchill, from Edward R. Murrow to Ryszard Kapuściński. In Brazil, da Cunha’s reportage has had lasting power. In 1994 Veja, Brazil’s leading weekly magazine, conducted a poll that indicated that a majority of intellectuals in the country continued to view it as Brazil’s single most important book. Anthropologist Gilberto Freyre once suggested that da Cunha was “a social engineer animated by a political ideal.”

Euclides da Cunha was a man of contradictions, one whose public persona was the subject of adulation but whose personal life was marred by tragedy. He was born in Santa Rita do Rio Negro, then in the province of Rio de Janeiro, on January 20, 1866, into a family of Portuguese and Bahian extraction. The family had moved to Rio de Janeiro in the mid-nineteenth century, attracted by the economic opportunities of the coffee boom in the Paraíba Valley, but never attained the riches of the coffee barons, earning its livelihood as hardworking small farmers. His father, Manuel Rodrigues Pimenta da Cunha, a Bahian from the area near Canudos, was a cultured man and fostered a love of reading in his son. Eudóxia Moreira da Cunha, his mother, died when he was three. Da Cunha was raised by relatives and in boarding schools in Rio and Bahia. He attended the Colégio Aquino in Rio, where one of his teachers was the republican ideologist Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, a follower of Auguste Comte and one of the leaders of the movement to depose the emperor and install the First Republic in 1889. It was at the school that da Cunha started his political writing in a youth publication titled the Democrat. He is portrayed by his biographers as a solitary man, somewhat morose and irascible, who spent most of his time alone, reading and studying.

Da Cunha chose to pursue a career as a military engineer while exercising other professional occupations, including, aside from journalism, that of surveyor and, for a brief time, teacher in the prestigious Pedro II Institute in Rio. He finished his education at the military school in Praia Vermelha, Rio de Janeiro, in 1892, with a university degree in mathematics, physical and natural sciences, and engineering and the rank of first lieutenant. In the early 1890s, he allied himself with the supporters of Floriano Peixoto. His first army assignment, from 1894 to 1895, was in Campanha, Minas Gerais, where he was engaged in public works, renovating a Catholic church facility for use by the army cavalry. At this time, he pursued his interest in natural sciences by reading and geological explorations that he conducted on his own. In 1895 he moved to São Paulo to work as a civil engineer in the Department of Public Works. He struggled with doubts about his military career and aspired to a position as chair of mineralogy and geology at the Escola Politécnica in São Paulo, but wasn’t successful. He left the military in 1896 and worked as a civil engineer for the state of São Paulo.

He was careless about his physical appearance. Some thought he looked like a Carirí Indian because of his long hair and pronounced cheekbones. Trained in the military school of Praia Vermelha, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, he was schooled in the precepts of republicanism, positivism, and social Darwinism. His idea of synthesizing “science and art” came from his readings of several European writers. Herbert Spencer’s influence on his scientific education is acknowledged by da Cunha, his work First Principles of a New System of Philosophy cited as a key reference for Brazilian intellectuals involved in the nineteenth-century debate on culture, race, and nature. Hippolyte Taine’s concept of “the honest narrators of history” was referenced in the preliminary note of Os sertões. Henry Thomas Buckle’s History of Civilization in England strongly shaped the environmental determinism that imbues Os sertões and that is translated in the division of the book into two parts: “The Land” and “The Battle.” Da Cunha was influenced by a host of other European and American thinkers, including Bryce, Renan, Ratzel, Gumplowicz, Gobineau, and the American geologist Orville A. Derby.

These readings reinforced da Cunha’s fatalistic sense regarding biological determinism, which in turn was counterbalanced by a romantic belief in the purity and strength of indigenous peoples. He was, at the same time, “poetic and scientific.” Still, although da Cunha was a product of the military, for all practical purposes he remained a pacifist, as the last third of his narrative attests. His virulent republicanism provoked him to insult the imperial minister of war while still a student, by throwing down his sword in front of him during a formal ceremony. The last third of Os sertões is in fact an impassioned panegyric against war. While he ranted against the new republican government, he was a nationalist with a belief in humankind and its interdependence on our planet. He claimed that a Brazilian race didn’t exist and that mixed races are inferior. Yet da Cunha celebrated the strength of the sertanejo, calling him the “core of our nationality, the bedrock of our race.”

In other words, da Cunha is living proof of Walt Whitman’s legendary statement in Leaves of Grass: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.” As such, he exemplifies the modern thinker who wanders and wonders at the same time. Os sertões, because of how the publishing industry in Brazil worked at the beginning of the twentieth century, didn’t have an in-house editor. What the reader sees on the page—chaotic, rowdy, moving in different directions, at times giving the impression of erupting like a stream of consciousness—is unadulterated, as the author placed it, and, in subsequent editions, somewhat reshaped it. Indeed, this is a book about Brazil’s emergence as a contemporary country. It expresses the author’s postcolonialist angst about the relationship of the former colony, Brazil, with the “civilized” world and, in turn, that of the new republic with the “barbaric” peoples that populate the remote backlands. Da Cunha pointedly denounces the Canudos campaign as a crime. He breaks the sharers of responsibility into four: the Catholic Church, the Brazilian republican government, the government of the state of Bahia, and the Brazilian Army.

Da Cunha tried to combine foreign and autochthonous elements in his work. He celebrated European culture. He was equally fascinated with the flora and fauna of Brazil, its folklore, its religious practices, etc. On one occasion he referred to himself as a Tapuia—a member of the Tapuia Indian nation—with Greek and Celtic elements. Yet Os sertões is undoubtedly a racist, xenophobic book, in which da Cunha describes the sertanejos , the dwellers of the backlands, in derogatory terms. In the second chapter of the book, “Man,” he depicts them thus: “The backlander is above all a strong person. He does not have the rickets-riddled feebleness of the chronically fatigued mestizos of the coast. At first glance he appears to be just the contrary. He does not have the good looks, the bearing, and the perfect build of an athlete. Instead he is unsightly, awkward, and hunched.” Da Cunha continues:

A Hercules-Quasimodo, he expresses in his posture the typical ugliness of the weak. His shaky, indecisive, swaying and slightly weaving gait makes him look loose jointed. His poor posture is aggravated by a dogged look that gives the impression of a depressing humility. When standing, he is usually found leaning against the first doorframe or wall that he finds; when on horseback, if he meets up with an acquaintance and wants to stop to chat, he will brace himself on one stirrup and lean against the saddle. When he is walking, even if at a brisk pace, he does not move forward in a straight line. He advances in a characteristic reeling, meandering way, as if following the twisted trails of the backlands. And if along the way he stops for the most trivial reason, to roll a cigarette or to strike a light, or to exchange a few words with a friend, he immediately drops—drops is the word—into a squat. He will stay for a long time in this unstable position, in which the entire weight of his body is suspended on his toes, while he sits there on his heels with a lack of self-consciousness that is both ridiculous and charming.

Such rhetorical tools, to contemporary readers, are decidedly passé. They belong to a period in history in which, regardless of how sympathetic an author was to the underclass, the language he used was nothing short of dehumanizing. However, they not only need to be seen in the context of the time but their approach must be understood in relation to the way da Cunha’s understanding of the jagunços changes. They might be unwieldy, graceless, and outright delinquent, but they are an essential component of the Brazilian nation.

Human affairs, in da Cunha’s view, are all “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Reframing the debates on the intimate relationship between Brazil’s physical landscape, its people, and culture, Os sertões is a handsome example of da Cunha’s encyclopedic knowledge. He makes numerous references to travel literature and the work of geologists, botanists, ethnologists, and social scientists in Brazil at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. His training as a military engineer and his personal ties with the scientific establishment provide him with the intellectual framework he needs. Still, he argues that a social melting pot is the foundation of a nation’s strength and creativity. And he reasons that good stewardship of the land is essential to human survival.

The title Os sertões, plural of the term o sertão, refers to the drought-plagued scrublands of the Northeast, particularly the interior of the state of Bahia. The backlands are much more than the stage on which the epic drama of Canudos plays itself out. The land is a character in the book, and it is passionately portrayed as savage and abundant, treacherous and protective, deadly and life giving. In Brazil, da Cunha’s book is the precursor to a whole genre of writing on the sertão with a broad influence, from the regionalist literature by the modernists to the work of Gilberto Freyre and the intellectual Darcy Ribeiro to the masterful post-modernist novel Grande sertão: Veredas (1956), by João Guimarães Rosa, known in English (in J. L. Taylor and Harriet de Onís’s translation) as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, through which da Cunha’s ghost invisibly roams.

Da Cunha’s baroque style, as contradictory as the author himself, mimics the rough topography of the backlands, as well as its palette. His imagery is colored with the earth tones of the desert, the blood reds of its sunsets, the blacks of the mudholes, and the grays of its rock formations. His terminology comes from a wide spectrum of fields, including geology, geography, botany, biology, ethnology, anthropology, meteorology, and climatology. He might be said to have been an ecologist and environmentalist before his time, and one who gave a symphonic voice to the land. In fact, the figure of Conselheiro is described in a geological metaphor: He is an “anticline” that has been “cast up” by “deep-lying layers of ethnic stratification.”

All of which makes da Cunha’s writing sensuous. Alfredo Bosi, in his introduction to a didactic edition of the book that appeared in 1973, remarks how the narrative diction is structured according to the classical precepts of rhetoric: intensification and antinomy. Da Cunha abuses superlatives and antitheses. Alongside passages of intense poetic quality sit rugged, unsentimental segments by a war correspondent whose mission is to impress his reader with the immediacy of the conflict, which he perceives to be an unprecedented travesty. Like the works of Machado de Assis, with whom da Cunha has been compared, Os sertões often addresses the reader in the first person, offering asides, personal opinion, and sarcastic commentary on the events and personalities.

Not surprisingly, the book has, at times, been described as a novel. This is an offense to a war correspondent whose passion for truth was undeterred. But it might also be understood as a celebration of fiction—especially in Latin America—in its capacity to change reality. Os sertões has itself inspired a number of novels, among them, my favorite, La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World, 1981), by Mario Vargas Llosa, thanks to which a new generation of readers rediscovered da Cunha’s masterwork at the end of the twentieth century; A casca da serpente (The Serpent’s Skin, 1989), by José J. Veiga; As meninas do Belo Monte (The Meninas of Belo Monte, 1992), by Júlio José Chiavenato; and Canudos (1997), by Ayrton Marcondes.

Plus, there is a cinematic quality to the entire thing. Like a moving camera’s eye, the narrative point of view shifts from wide-angle panoramic shots of the landscape to intense, almost unbearable close-ups of the human suffering wrought by the war. The structure of the book exhibits features of good screen writing, from the setup to the breakpoint and then the slow, agonizing denouement. In fact, the pace and length of the book, with its retelling of the same story from different perspectives and time frames, with its replay of key events and the agonizingly lengthy description of the last days of the campaign, forces the reader to suffer through the battle along with the protagonists. A rather mediocre 1997 movie version, produced by Mariza Leão, was one of the biggest productions in the history of Brazilian film.

But while Os sertões can be read as a novel, and many readers describe its gripping effect on them, it is surely not a novel. The portrait da Cunha offers us of Conselheiro is, arguably, the most daring aspect of Os sertões. The leader’s brilliance and criminality are juxtaposed. He and his habitat are seen as one. Da Cunha portrayed him as a bandit as well as a martyr, a giant and a dwarf. In psychiatric terms, Conselheiro is seen as having “tara hereditária” (hereditary retardation) and “degenerescência” (degenerative disorder). Obviously, da Cunha can’t make up his mind whether to love the jagunço leader or to hate him—and neither can the reader. We view Conselheiro as a retrograde monarchic conspirator attempting to reinstate a feudal system of government that stopped, once and for all, the progress achieved after independence. But we also feel attracted to him as a multifaceted character, one no novelist would have been able to create of his own accord.

Samuel Putnam’s translation of Os sertões, Rebellion in the Backlands, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1944. Putnam was a left-leaning intellectual (he wrote a column for the Daily Worker) who died in 1950, at the age of fifty-eight. He also rendered into English Cervantes’s Exemplary Novels and Don Quixote de La Mancha, and he injected a love for the Cervantean paradox in da Cunha’s narrative. But Putnam’s version, in spite of its colloquialisms, feels somewhat archaic. The task of re-translating the Portuguese original is burdensome. The translator needs to make it relevant to a contemporary audience while preserving its barbarous artistry and tropical exuberance. Joaquim Nabuco, the Brazilian abolitionist thinker, offered what is considered to be one of the greatest tributes to da Cunha, in saying that he wrote “com cipó,” or with a liana stalk. Da Cunha himself described his writing as the issue of the “crude pen of the caboclo,” the Brazilian Indian.

The strategic approaches of Putnam and Elizabeth Lowe, responsible for this rendition, are philosophically different. Herein a sample from the chapter called “Last Days,” in which da Cunha comes to a dead stop in his quest to describe the atrocities. Putnam:

We shall spare ourselves the task of describing the last moments. We could not describe them. This tale we are telling remained a deeply stirring and a tragic one to the very end, but we must close it falteringly and with no display of brilliancy. We are like one who has ascended a very high mountain. On the summit, new and wide perspectives unfold before him, but along with them comes dizziness.

Shall we defy the incredulity of future generations by telling in detail how women hurl themselves on their burning homes, their young ones in their arms?

And, words being what they are, what comment should we make on the fact that, from the morning of the third on, nothing more was to be seen of the able-bodied prisoners who had been rounded up the day before, among them the same “Pious Anthony” who had surrendered to us so trustingly—and to whom we owe so much valuable information concerning this obscure phase of our history?

Lowe:

We will forgo describing the last moments. They are impossible to describe. The story we are telling was a deeply moving and tragic one to the very end. We must finish it hesitantly and with humility. We feel like someone who has climbed a very high mountain. On the summit, new vistas unfold before us, and with that greater perspective comes vertigo.

Should we test the incredulity of future generations by going into detail about the women who flung themselves on their burning homes, with their children in their arms?

What words are there to express that from the morning of the third nothing more was seen of the able-bodied prisoners who had been taken the day before? Among them was Pious Anthony who had surrendered to us in trust and who had given us so much valuable information on this obscure event in our history.

Putnam is more formal in his delivery. He has a tendency to slightly alter, maybe even embellish, da Cunha’s style, as he didn’t quite trust the Brazilian author’s command of the action. Lowe is more direct, less artificial. Her lexicon is decidedly modern. She doesn’t want to use language to alienate the reader from the narrative. On the contrary, her objective is to make us feel, as if the Canudos campaign was unfolding before our eyes. She seeks to capture the multifaceted contradictions in da Cunha’s style, while Putnam tries to turn him into a polished man of letters.

At the end of his life, da Cunha had misgivings about Os sertões, referring to it as “this barbarous book of my youth, this monstrous poem of brutality and force.” Yet the narrative had consolidated his reputation as a public figure. His opinions were sought on a number of different matters. Still in his early forties, he was looked to as a model intellectual. Da Cunha accepted an invitation to travel to the Amazon, to the region of Alto Purus, to prepare a report for the Ministry of the Exterior. It came out in 1906 under the title of The Amazon: Land without History. It was followed by two more books. The first was Contrastes e confrontos, a collection of essays on an assortment of topics, such as Germany under the kaiser, the devastation of the Amazon forest by rubber planters, the ideas of the American Revolution, and the future of civilization. The second book was Peru versus Bolivia, about the territorial limits between these two nations, done at the request of the Bolivian plenipotentiary Eliodoro Villazón.

In contrast with his success at the literary level, da Cunha’s personal life was a mess. And it was that mess that colored his end, tainting it with melodrama of the type that Brazilian telenovelas traffic in and which, unfortunately, has followed his reputation to this day. He himself referred to his life as a “romance mal arranjado,” a badly structured novel. The tragic incidents are an outgrowth of his marriage. In 1890 da Cunha wedded Ana Sólon Ribeiro, the daughter of General Frederico Sólon Ribeiro, one of the founders of the Brazilian Republic, who in 1889 was assigned the task of issuing the monarch Pedro II his exile orders. The fact that he was an army man and his wife came from a distinguished army family is essential, because it was the concept of military honor that drove the different players into action.

The couple had two children, one called Solon, the other being the author’s namesake, Euclides da Cunha. While da Cunha was away in the Amazon, between December 1904 and January 1906, his wife was with her lover, Dilermando de Assis. Some months later, she gave birth to a son, Mauro, who died seven days later. Da Cunha recognized the child as part of the family. Ana gave birth to another child, who again was accepted by da Cunha. But the marriage quickly deteriorated, and by mid-1909 Ana had taken the kids to Dilermando’s house.

Sometime later, on the morning of August 15, an armed da Cunha entered Dilermando’s house and started shooting. His wife and the children took refuge in one of the rooms. Dilermando and his brother Dinorah confronted the angry husband. Da Cunha injured Dinorah in the spine, leaving him incapacitated forever. An injured Dilermando, who would become a champion gun shooter, killed da Cunha in self-defense. Dilermando would eventually commit suicide.

While da Cunha was being honored with a public funeral at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, a legal trial, surrounded by media frenzy, took place against Dilermando. In the end, the accused was exonerated. Seven years later, in 1916, another tragic incident would occur when da Cunha’s son and namesake, by then training for a military career, shot Dilermando in public. And Dilermando, in self-defense, killed the second da Cunha. The survivor would tell the press that he carried in his body throughout life four bullets: two from the father and two more from the son.

At the time of his death, Euclides da Cunha, author of Os sertões, apparently was writing another book on the sertões called Paraíso perdido. The title translates into English as Paradise Lost. It is a fitting image to memorialize an author who sought to understand the rivers of blood on which modern Brazil was built.

ILAN STAVANS

Translator’s Preface

A project of this magnitude forges its own travessia, a word commonly used in novels about the backlands to indicate a crossing that has a spiritual as well as a physical dimension. I worked in a variety of settings, from Gainesville, Florida, to Salvador, Bahia, at the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna, and then at the University of Illinois Center for Translation Studies in Urbana-Champaign. Each stage of the journey contributed to the translation in some way.

I wish to thank my husband, Terry McCoy, for his support and patience, freeing me to work on this project during every available hour. His recollection that his first reading of Os sertões as an undergraduate at DePauw University in Indiana was a gripping experience and made him want to learn more about Brazil convinced me that a retranslation of this book was a worthy project, especially if it could change lives and perspectives the way the book had for my husband. I thank my sister, Margaret E. Jaret, for accompanying me on the journey to Bahia and for finding the perfect place to work on the translation, at the Convento do Carmo across the street from the Euclides da Cunha Foundation, with its sweeping view of the great port of São Salvador. And thanks to my son, Alan Lowe, for patiently explaining the difference between strategy and tactics, for sharing with me his interest in military science and history, and for his help with the translation of military terminology.

Gregory Rabassa, mestre and mentor, taught me to read carefully and translate as if the author were writing the book in English. My appreciation goes to Ralph Della Cava for igniting my interest in the history of the Brazilian Northeast and its messianic movements. And Rainer Schulte convinced me of the importance of retranslation and how each new translation enriches the source text, the receiving language, and a new audience.

Throughout the process I’ve kept our late colleague Robert M. Levine in my heart and mind. It was his book Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893- 1897 that led me to a fuller understanding of both the historical events around the Canudos campaign and the Alfredo Bosi edition of Os sertões, which was the source text for this project.

I cannot think of a more gifted translator-scholar to pilot an undertaking like this than Ilan Stavans. I’ve appreciated the opportunity to work with him.

Paul Losch, librarian of the Latin American Collection at the University of Florida Libraries, offered enthusiastic help in locating source materials and patiently renewed, multiple times, the copy of the Alfredo Bosi edition I used as my source.

Finally, I’m gratified that my students at the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Illinois have shown me that while it’s impossible to teach translation, it’s indeed possible to transmit a passion for the art and craft of literary translation.

ELIZABETH LOWE

Chronology

1866 Euclides Rodrigues Pimenta da Cunha is born in Santa Rita do Rio Negro, then in the province of Rio de Janeiro, on January 20, into a family of Portuguese and Bahian extraction. The family moved to Rio de Janeiro in the mid-nineteenth century, attracted by the economic opportunities of the coffee boom in the Paraíba Valley. They never attained the riches of the coffee barons but earned a livelihood as hardworking small farmers. His father, Manuel Rodrigues Pimenta da Cunha, a Bahian from the area near Canudos, is a cultured man who fostered a love of reading in his son.

1869 His mother, Eudóxia Moreira da Cunha, dies when he is three. Da Cunha is raised by relatives and in boarding schools in Rio and Bahia.

1878 Lives in Rio with his uncle, Antônio Pimenta da Cunha.

1879 Attends the Colégio Anglo-Americano. Da Cunha will switch schools a number of times, attending Vitório da Costa and Meneses Vieira among others.

1883 Enrolls at the Colégio Aquino in Rio, where one of his teachers is the republican ideologist Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, a follower of Auguste Comte and one of the leaders of the movement to depose the emperor and install the First Republic in 1889. Writes political commentary for the youth publication the Democrat.

1885 Enters the Escola Politécnica.

1886 Enters the military school of Praia Vermelha.

1888 Expelled from the school because of the famous incident on November 4, when during a military parade, he threw down his sword in front of the imperial minister of war. He goes to São Paulo and participates in the highly politicized café society of the day.

1889 Resumes studies at the Escola Politécnica in Rio, deciding on a career as a military engineer. When the republic is declared on November 15, he is reinstated in the army.

1890 Enrolls in the War College and completes a graduate course in Artillery and Engineering. Marries Ana Sólon Ribeiro, the daughter of General Frederico Sólon Ribeiro, one of the founders of the Brazilian Republic, who in 1889 was assigned the task of issuing Pedro II his exile orders. The marriage is unhappy.

1892 Finishes his education at the War College in Rio, with university degrees in mathematics, physical and natural sciences, and engineering, and the rank of first lieutenant. He starts his engineering career with an assignment on the Brazilian Central Railway, working on a stretch between São Paulo and Caçapava.

1894-95 First army assignment in Campanha, Minas Gerais, where he is engaged in public works, renovating a Catholic church facility for use by the army cavalry. Pursues interest in natural sciences. Moves to São Paulo to work as a civil engineer in the Department of Public Works, struggles with doubts about his military career, and aspires to a position as chair of mineralogy and geology at the Escola Politécnica in São Paulo but doesn’t succeed.

1896 Leaves the military to work as a civil engineer for the state of São Paulo. October: First news of an assault led by Antônio Conselheiro in the town of Canudos, in the state of Bahia, is made public.

1897 March: Publishes the first of two newspaper articles on the Canudos uprising called “A nossa Vendéia.” The second article appears in July. Accepts the invitation of O Estado de São Paulo to accompany the fourth expedition of the Canudos campaign as a war journalist embedded with the São Paulo Battalion. Leaves for Bahia on August 4. His field notes, published posthumously as Diary of an Expedition, become the basis for his book Os sertões. Stays in Canudos until theend of the Campaign. Da Cunha witnesses less than a month of the war.

1898 Begins writing Os sertões. Becomes an engineer of public works in São Paulo.

1899 Moves to São José do Rio Pardo in the state of São Paulo.

1900 Finishes Os sertões while supervising the reconstruction of a bridge in São José do Rio Pardo.

1902 Os sertões is published, becoming an instant success. The volume joins a series of books already released about the Canudos campaign that constitute “a national atonement of sorts” for the atrocities by the army in subduing the uprising.

1903 Elected to Brazil’s Historical and Geographical Institute as well as the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

1904 Works for the Health Department of the city of Santos. He publishes a pamphlet denouncing the exploitation of the working class. Leaves for the Amazon at the invitation of the Ministry of the Exterior.

1905 Spends a year in the Amazon. The third edition of Os sertões is published.

1906 Returns to Rio. Writes a report for the Ministry of the Exterior titled The Amazon: Land without History. Works for the Brazilian government. Out-of-wedlock child called Mauro is born to Ana. The baby lives only seven days.

1907 Publishes two books: Contrastes e confrontos and Peru versus Bolivia. Second out-of-wedlock child is born.

1909 Successfully competes for the chair of logic at the Pedro II Institute and begins to teach at the prestigious school. À margem da história, an important book on Brazilian studies, is published posthumously in Portugal. Later that year, Euclides da Cunha dies from a gunshot wound inflicted by his wife’s lover, who later on claims to have shot him in self-defense. Da Cunha is said to have been writing another book on the backlands called Paraíso perdido.

Timetable: The Canudos Campaign

1896

October: Arlindo Leoni, judge of the Juazeiro district, requests guarantees from the governor of Bahia for the safety of his city, which he claims is about to be attacked by Antônio Conselheiro and his jagunços.

November 4: General Sólon Ribeiro, commander of the Third Military District, responds to the request of the governor of Bahia for military assistance. He deploys a force of one hundred men and a surgeon under the command of Lieutenant Manoel da Silva Pires Ferreira.

November 7: Troops leave for Juazeiro, arrive on the morning of the same day, and are stationed there until November 12.

November 12: Troops leave for Uauá and arrive on November 19.

November 21: Troops are attacked by jagunços at dawn. The insurgents lose 150 men and the army losses total 10 killed and 16 wounded. The surgeon goes insane. Troops retreat to Juazeiro.

November 25: A contingent of eleven officers and two hundred men leave Bahia for Queimadas, under the command of Major Febrônio de Brito.

December: With one hundred reinforcements from Bahia, troops leave for Monte Santo.

December 29: Troops arrive in Monte Santo with 547 men, 14 officers, and 3 surgeons.

1897

January 12: Army troops leave for Canudos.

January 14: Troops arrive at Lagem de Dentro. They resume the march and set up camp at a farm called Ipueiras.

January 15: Troops move on to Penedo and camp at Mulungú.

January 17: Troops set up camp at Vicar’s Farm. They run out of supplies.

January 18: Crossing of Mount Cambaio. First battle: 4 dead, 20 wounded on the military side; 115 jagunços killed. Camp on the Little Tablelands.

January 19: Troops push into Canudos. Second battle: four killed, thirty wounded on military side; more than three hundred jagunços killed. Troops retreat and the jagunços jeer at them. Third battle at Bendegó de Baixo: twenty jagunços killed.

January 20: Retreat to Monte Santo.

February 3: Antônio Moreira César leaves Rio for Bahia to command the first regular expedition.

February 8: First expedition arrives at Queimadas with thirteen hundred men.

February 20: Troops arrive at Monte Santo.

February 21: Expedition moves on to Canudos with 1,281 men.

March 2: Arrival at Angico at 11:00 A.M. and Mount Favela at 1:00 P.M. Troops attack the settlement. Moreira César receives a fatal wound.

March 3: Moreira César dies. Retreat. More jeers and catcalls. Captain Salomão da Rocha and Colonel Tamarindo are killed in action.

April 5: General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães writes the plan of the day and organizes the fourth expedition: six brigades in two columns under Generals João da Silva Barbosa and Cláudio do Amaral Savaget.

June 16: The Savaget column (2,350 men) leaves Jeremoabo.

June 19: General Oscar Guimarães leaves Monte Santo with the First and Third brigades (1,933 men).

June 22: The brigades of the first column assemble in Juá at night.

June 23: First column proceeds to Aracati.

June 24: First column moves on to Juetê.

June 25: The Savaget column arrives at Cocorobó. First battle: 178 casualties, 27 killed. General Savaget is wounded.

June 26: Troops move from Cocorobó to Macambira. Second battle: 148 casualties, 40 dead.

June 27: First column arrives at Mount Favela with General Oscar Guimarães: seventy-five casualties. The Savaget column arrives in Canudos.

June 28: Battle and cannon fire: 524 casualties.

July 1: Jagunços attack the camp.

July 13: Provisions arrive.

July 18: Troops assault the settlement: 947 casualties.

July 31: Girard Brigade assembles in Queimadas with 1,042 men and 68 officers.

August 3: Girard Brigade leaves Queimadas, under the command of a colonel.

August 10: Troops leave Monte Santo for Canudos, led by Major Henrique José de Magalhães.

August 14: Arrival at Juetê.

August 15: Attack on Vicar’s Farm: ninety-one cattle killed. Two more brigades arrive in Bahia in a division under the command of Brigadier General Carlos Eugenio de Andrade Guimarães.

August 24: Bombardment of the churches of Canudos by the Whitworth 32. Church bell falls.

September 6: Towers of the new church fall.

September 7: Old Ranch House is captured. Trench marking gain named for this date. Calumbi road is taken.

September 15: Battle of Coxomongó. Two trenches and thirteen pack animals are captured from the jagunços.

September 22: Antônio Conselheiro dies.

September 24: The siege line around Canudos is completed to Mount Cambaio. First prisoners.

September 26: Four violent night attacks by the jagunços.

September 27: Eighteen night attacks by the jagunços.

September 28: No response from the jagunços to morning and afternoon cannon fire. Insurgent fire from 6:00 P.M. until 5:00 A.M. of September 29.

October 1: Final assault. Ninety dynamite bombs are set off in Canudos. Lieutenant Colonel Antônio Tupy Ferreira Caldas is killed. Military casualties number 567.

October 2: Three hundred prisoners surrender: women, children, and elders.

October 5: Last four defenders of Canudos die.

October 6: Exhumation of Antônio Conselheiro.

A Note on the Text

This English translation of Euclides da Cunha’s Os sertões is based on the Brazilian didactic edition by Alfredo Bosi (São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1973).

Aside from modernizing spelling and punctuation, Bosi makes few changes. He incorporates edits made by the author to the 1905 edition of the book and offers a detailed list of features of his edition in the categories of phonetics, morphology, and syntax. Many of these have to do with the historical evolution of Brazilian Portuguese (such as the conjugation of verbs ending in -ear or -iar, variations in word forms, and spelling) and are of no relevance to the English translation.

In contrast, the preservation of the author’s propensity for heavily latinized vocabulary is crucial, as is the conscious preservation of certain features of syntax and punctuation. Bosi comments on how da Cunha’s work relies heavily on the comma, which he employs somewhat idiosyncratically. For example, he sometimes separates the verb from its subject by a comma: “But this train, did not exist.” Indeed, Bosi believes that da Cunha’s oratorical style demands this kind of pause between subject and predicate, as they are “two sentence fragments, two force fields.” This translation seeks to preserve the unique and sometimes abrupt syntactical cadence of the original while striving for readability and relevance. In fact, the syntax marks the wide emotional range of the text, which encompasses honesty, anguish, sarcasm, anger, compassion, and love. The flow and rhythm of the text capture the lifeblood of the backlands and its people.

Prior to this, the only English version available of Os sertões was by Samuel Putnam. In his translator’s introduction, Putnam observes that “in making the acquaintance of Euclides da Cunha, the North American has an experience awaiting him which is comparable in quality to that of the European of the last century listening for the first time to Walt Whitman’s ‘barbaric yawp.’” He hoped that his translation would contribute to the cause of hemispheric understanding and bring readers an essential Brazilian work. Afrânio Peixoto, in his own introduction to the Putnam translation, opined that the narrative was deserving of “appearing in a language that is broader, more universal in its appeal (than Portuguese).”

Anthony Burgess once claimed that “translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.” While it is daunting to follow in Putnam’s footsteps, the hope is that this rendition injects new life into Os sertões, bringing it to a new generation of English readers interested in how Brazil became a modern nation and curious about the role of journalism during times of war.

The timetable for the Canudos campaign comes from the contemporary edition that is the most complete in terms of critical apparatus, Os sertões: Campanha de Canudos (São Paulo: Editora Martin Claret, 2007), pages 607-609, and is based on the sixteenth corrected edition (Rio de Janerio: Editora Francisco Alves, 1942). Putnam based his translation on the same Brazilian edition and used the same list of principal military events.

Suggested Further Reading

The following list includes primary sources, among them the various Brazilian editions of Euclides da Cunha’s Os sertões. It also contains secondary sources about Brazil’s flora and fauna, the historical context, academic studies related to the book, and literary works that use it as inspiration.

Anonymous. Canudos [photographic essay]. São Paulo: Instituto Moreira Salles, 2002.

Brandão, Adelino. A sociologia d’Os sertões. Rio de Janeiro: Artium Editora, 1996.

Burns, E. Bradford. A History of Brazil. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Calasans, José. Canudos na literatura de cordel. São Paulo: Editora Atica, 1984.

Chapman, Grover. O episódio de Canudos. Edited by Luís Viana Filho. Rio de Janeiro: Salamandra, 1978.

Chiavenato, Júlio José. As meninas do Belo Monte. São Paulo: Scritta Editorial, 1993.

Cunha, Euclides da. Os sertões. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eds. Rio de Janeiro: Editores Laemmert & Cía., 1902, 1903, 1905. 4th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Francisco Alves, 1911. Sixteenth corrected ed. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Francisco Alves, 1942. Os sertões, edição didática. Edited by Alfredo Bosi. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1973. Contemporary edition with critical apparatus: Os sertões: Campanha de Canudos. São Paulo: Editora Martin Claret, 2007. In Spanish: Los sertones. Translated by Estela dos Santos. Prologue, notes, and chronology by Walnice Nogueira Galvão. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1980. In English: Rebellion in the Backlands. Translated by Samuel Putnam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.

———. À margem da história. Lisbon: Aillaud & Lellos, 1946. Subsequent critical edition by Rolando Morel Pinto. São Paulo: Editora Cultrix, 1975.

———. Correspondência de Euclides da Cunha. Edited by Walnice Nogueira Galvão and Oswaldo Galotti. São Paulo: Edusp, 1997.

———. Canudos: Diário de uma expedição. Edited by Walnice Nogueira Galvão. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000.

———. Obra completa. Edited by Afrânio Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro: José Aguilar Editora, 1966.

———. Perú versus Bolívia. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Alvez, 1907.

———. The Amazon: Land without History. Translated by Ronald Sousa. Edited with introduction and notes by Lúcia Sá. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Della Cava, Ralph. “Brazilian Messianism and National Institutions: A Reappraisal of Canudos and Joaseiro.” Hispanic American Historical Review 48, no. 3 (1970): 402-420.

Frank, Waldo. South American Journey. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1943.

Freyre, Gilberto. A atualidade de Euclides da Cunha. Rio de Janeiro: Edição da Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1941.

———. Brazil: An Interpretation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945.

———. The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. Translated by Samuel Putnam. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.

———. New World in the Tropics: The Culture of Modern Brazil. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.

———. The Mansions and the Shanties: The Making of Modern Brazil. Translated by Harriet de Onís. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.

_____. “Euclides da Cunha: Revelador da Realidade Brasileira.” In Euclides da Cunha, Obra completa, edited by Afrânio Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro: José Aguilar Editora, 1966.

———. The Gilberto Freyre Reader. Translated by Barbara Shelby. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

Galvão, Walnice Nogueira. O império do Belo Monte: Vida e morte de Canudos. São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2001.

Gárate, Miriam V. Civilização e barbárie n’os sertões: Entre Domingo Faustino Sarmiento e Euclides da Cunha. São Paulo: Fapesp; Campinas: Mercado de Letras, 2001.

Hobsbawm, Eric J. Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: W. W. Norton, 1959.

Levine, Robert M. Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1897. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Marcondes, Ayrton. Canudos: As memórias de Frei João Evangelista de Monte Marciano. São Paulo: Editora Best Seller, Círculo do Livro, 1997.

Marotti, Giorgio. Canudos: Storia di una guerra. Roma: Bulzoni, 1978.

Mee, Margaret. Flowers of the Brazilian Forests. London: Tryon Gallery, 1968.

Moniz, Edmundo. Canudos: A guerra social. 1978. 2nd expanded ed. Rio de Janeiro: Elo Editora e Distribuidora, 1987.

Moura, Clóvis. Introdução ao pensamento de Euclides da Cunha. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1964.

Nogueira, Ataliba J. C. Antônio Conselheiro e Canudos. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1974.

Sampaio, Consuelo Novais, ed. Canudos: Cartas para o barão. São Paulo: EDUSP-Imprensa Oficial, 1999.

Sampaio Neto, José Augusto Vaz, et al. Canudos: Subsídios para a sua reavaliação histórica. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa-Monteiro Aranha, 1986.

Sánchez-Sáez, Braulio. “Euclides da Cunha: Constructor de nacionalidad.” Agonía (Buenos Aires), no. 4 (October-December, 1939): 5-56.

Santana, José Carlos Barreto de. “Natural Science and Brazilian Nationality: Os sertões by Euclides da Cunha.” Science in Context 18, no. 2 (2005): 225-47.

Souza Andrade, Olímpio de. História e interpretação de Os sertões. São Paulo: Ed. EDART, 1966.

Stavans, Ilan, ed. The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. La guerra del fin del mundo. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1981. In English: The War of the End of the World. Translated by Helen R. Lane. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984.

Veiga, José J. A casca da serpente. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 1989.

Villa, Marco Antônio. Canudos: O povo da terra. São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1995.

Villela Júnior, Marcos Evangelista da Costa. Canudos: Memórias de um combatente. São Paulo: Marco Zero, 1988.

Zweig, Stefan. Brazil: Land of the Future. New York: Viking Press, 1942.

A Preliminary Note

First written during those rare moments of leisure that an active and fatiguing life has to offer, this book was meant to be the story of the Canudos campaign. It has lost some of its timeliness because, for reasons I shall not go into here, its publication was delayed. We have put it together, therefore, in a different form. The theme that had been the main one at the start and was to give the work its inspiration is now but one of the many dealt with here.

Our intent was to sketch out even in some pale sort of way and for the eyes of future historians the most expressive characteristics of the subraces that inhabit Brazil’s backlands today. This we do because of the unstable combination of factors that have come together with the vicissitudes of history and the deplorable mental state in which these people are found. This situation could well lead to their disappearance in the face of the growing demands of civilization as well as the strong material influence of the waves of immigration that have begun to invade our land.

The jagunço, bold gunman, the tabareo, ingenuous greenhorn, and the caipira, simple rustic, will soon be vanished types from extinct traditions.[1]

The first effects of various ethnic crossings were perhaps needed for the formation of the seeds of a great race. Absent this, there was a stagnant period, a balance impossible later on because of the swift advance of people entering in this century. The laggards of today will be completely gone tomorrow.

Civilization will advance across the backlands, driven by that implacable “motive force of history” that Gumplowicz, much wiser than Hobbes, foretold in a flash of genius: the inevitable crushing of the weak races by the strong.

With the Canudos campaign, therefore, we catch the undeniable feeling of the first attack in what could be a long engagement. Nor is this assertion diminished in any way by the fact that it has been put forth by those of us who inhabit this same soil, because undefined as to ethnicity, with no uniform national traditions, we live as parasites on this Atlantic shore of the civilizing principles drawn up in Europe and armed by German industry. Our part in this action is the singular role of unconscious mercenaries, connected also in a vague sort of way to those outstanding founders, in a land that is only partially known.[2] Time, a coordinate of history, has separated us from them completely.

The campaign looked at here was a regression to the past.

And, in the most basic meaning of the word, it was a crime.

Let us therefore call it to account.

And as far as our strength of spirit will permit us, let us do justice to Taine’s admirable concept of the sincere narrator, who must face up to the story in the manner it deserves:

. . . il s’irrite contre les demi-vérités qui sont des demi-faussetés, contre les auteurs qui n’altèrent ni une date, ni une généaologie, mais dénaturent les sentiments et les moeurs, qui gardent le dessin des événements et en changent la couleur, qui copient les faits et défigurent l’âme: il veut sentir en barbare, parmi les barbares, et, parmi les anciens, en ancien.

. . . he is irritated by half-truths that are half-falsehoods, by authors who alter neither date nor genealogy, but who denature feelings and customs, which maintain the design of events and change their color, who copy facts and disfigure their soul; he must feel barbarian among barbarians and among the ancients ancient.

São Paulo, 1901

Euclides da Cunha

PART I

THE LAND

CHAPTER I

THE LAND

I

Preliminary Notes

Along the southern coast of Brazil the central plateau descends in high, steep escarpments. It towers over the waves and moves back in ridges, leveling off from the peaks of the coastal ranges, extending from Rio Grande do Sul to Minas Gerais. As it continues along to northern regions, however, it gradually decreases in altitude. Descending eastward to the coast in a series of flatlands, it is stripped of its primitive grandeur, which is left considerably farther back in the interior.

So that if one follows it along toward the north, one will observe notable changes in the relief of the land: at first a continuous and dominant line of mountains, whose ridge stands out above the beaches protruding into the water. Farther on along the segment of seashore between Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo a disjointed arrangement of shoreline is formed by an irregular stretch of mountains, bristling with ridges and broken by inlets, opening up into bays, dividing into islands, and breaking off into naked reefs. It is something like the rubble left over from the eternal conflict between land and sea. Immediately following, as we cross the fifteenth parallel, there is a decrease in the ruggedness as the lines of the slopes become softened and rounded off, breaking into hills with less of an incline, in a panorama that grows wider and wider until we come to the full coastal band of Bahia, where one’s gaze, free of the mountain ramparts that cut it off up till then, limiting it, can take in a full view westward into the heart of the broad terrain that slowly emerges in distant waves of rolling uplands.

This geographical facies sums up the morphogeny of the continental massif.

A closer analysis can be made along a southern line by following the basin of the river São Francisco.

What can be seen actually is that we have here three quite dissimilar geological formations of indeterminate age. They supplant each other or intermingle in a discordant stratification, which makes for the exclusive predominance of some or a combination of all. This has imposed a variety of characteristics on the makeup of the land. What first appear are the mighty granite masses that begin in the south and curve into a huge amphitheater. This gives height to the wonderful panoramas that so enchant and deceive the inexpert eye of outsiders. From there the seashore proceeds in successive chains without spurs up to the edge of the shoreline of São Paulo. These form a broad supporting wall that contains the sedimentary formations of the interior. The land rises up lordly over the sea, dominating it from the summit of the cliffs. And whoever reaches the top, like someone coming out onto a majestic stage, will have to agree with any exaggeration in the description, from Sebastião da Rocha Pita’s Gongorisms to Henry Thomas Buckle’s wild extravagances, which make of this region a privileged place where nature has installed her finest atelier.[1]

The fact is that nowhere else has anything been assembled in such a threefold astronomical, topographical, and geological combination.

After crossing the mountains, under the blazing tropical meridian, one can see, stretching out to the west and the north, broad expanses of level land with a network of horizontal layers of clay-like sandstone interspersed with limestone outcroppings or rock wall fissured with lava. This also goes to explain the unequaled superabundance of the vast level areas. The land has an irresistible attraction for man, drawing him along by the very current of the rivers themselves, as from the Iguaçú to the Tietê, they trace out a quite original hydrographic network that reaches from the coast into the backlands. It is as though they had been born in the sea and had cannibalized its eternal energies for the benefit of the hidden opulent forests. They move along easily over those layers, in uniform lines, with no enfeebling meandering, and they give the main body of the terrain the form of broad, endless, undulating flatlands all the way to beyond the Paraná.

Nature is quite different to the east, however.

It is harshly sketched out like a map over rigid plates of gneissic outcroppings, and the slopes of the plateau drop down along the Mantiqueira ledge where the Paraíba flows, or it breaks up into spurs that ring the summits, with Mount Itataia in the center, and which bring the Alpine landscapes of the coast all the way to the heart of Minas Gerais. Upon entering there, however, one will notice that in spite of a jumble of ridges there is a gradual descent to the north. In like manner on the high plains of the states of São Paulo and Paraná all the main tributaries show a slightly perceptible inclination to flow in twisted beds as they get around the resistance of the mountains. The Rio Grande breaks out and tears the Canastra Range with the full strength of its current. If we follow along the meridian, opening up ahead will be the broad eroded valleys of the Rio das Velhas and the São Francisco. Leaving the uplands that extend from Barbacena to Ouro Prêto, behind, we will see primitive formations disappear, even in the larger spurs, as they come to lie beneath a complex series of metamorphic schists that have been infiltrated by rich veins in this legendary region of gold.

The structural change brings on more imposing natural scenes than those along the coast. The region is still Alpine. The character of the exposed rocks on the rims of the quartzite hills or the ridges where itacolumite plates cover the summits brings out the uneven lines of the massifs that extend from Ouro Branco to Sabará, the diamond region, continuing on northeastwardly in rolling tablelands that level off at the heights of the Espinhaço Range. The latter, despite Eschwege’s suggestive term, barely stand out among the ridges that dominate and define the landscape. [2] Descending from there in an easterly surge, dropping in cataracts or leaping over barrier after barrier, are all the rivers that seek the lower levels of the plateau, from the Jequitinhonha to the Doce. They hug the Aimorés Mountains and become calmer waters to the west as they head into the catch basin of the São Francisco. In this valley, after passing the interesting calcareous formation of the Rio das Velhas to the south, there is a sprinkling of lakes, undermined by subterranean sinks and streams, where the caverns of the prehistoric man of Lund can be found. Here one comes across other transitions that stand out in the texture of the surface soil.

In fact, the layers we saw previously superimposed on granitic rocks have decayed in turn and are buried under more recent ones, composed of thick layers of sandstone.

A new geological horizon reappears with an original and interesting picture. As soon as one studies it, however, it takes on a notable orographic significance because the dominating mountain ranges to the south die there, entombed in a magnificent burial by powerful and more recent layers that encase them. The land, however, retains its elevation, extending out in broad plains or clumping up into denuded mountains that descend along steep slopes. These then flatten out into plains that level off to the horizon on the east, where distant mountain chains appear all the way to the coast.

What is evident here, then, is a tendency toward a general leveling.

As the interior highlands and the depression of Archean formations meet, the mountainous region of Minas Gerais, with no salient features, begins to take on the look of the northern tableland.

The Grão Mogol Range, which marks the borders of the state of Bahia, is the first specimen of those splendid uplands that take on the look of mountain ranges, a great bother for careless cartographers. Other neighboring ones, from the Cabral Range, closer by, to the Mata da Corda, which reaches all the way to Goiás, have these same contours. The furrows from erosion that cut through them are distinct geological marks. One after the other, on a vertical plane from their base, they reveal the same rocks that we have seen, in a lengthy route along their surface. Down below are the granitic products that have fallen to the bottom of the valleys, forming scattered hillocks. Halfway up the slopes, at a tilt, are the more recent schistose layers, and on top, over them, or reaching around their flanks in monoclinic valleys, are sheets of sandstone that stand out and offer climatic agents a wonderful plasticity as they take on the most capricious forms. Without any lines of mountain ridges, the main ranges are really nothing but high plains, extensive tablelands that suddenly end in an abrupt drop under the torrential pounding on the permeable and mobile terrain. Centuries ago strong, heavy showers fell there, at first causing uncertain lines of drainage, slowly deepening them and carving them into gullies that became canyons and valleys. They grew ever deeper until those elevated plains were bordered by cliffs and escarpments. Consequently, the resistance of the affected materials varied according to their makeup. In one place they stand stiffly over the level areas and are the last fragments of the buried boulders unveiled in pieces. A feeble attempt to recall their height has named them the Brazilian Himalayas, even though they have collapsed through continuous disintegration all through the ages. More capricious farther on, they rise up along the broken lines of colossal menhirs or in enormous circles to mimic in their disposition of great superimposed fissured blocks the collapsed walls of some coliseum in ruins or, perhaps, from the look of the escarpments hanging obliquely over the plains surrounding them, huge staves, the remains of the monstrous vault of the ancient range that has been pulled down. . . .

At several points they disappear, however.

Vast plains then stretch out. Going past these along the slopes that lift them and give them the look of hanging flatlands, after a few hundred yards one will encounter broad areas that widen out in a rounded way in all directions, like some sort of prolongation of the sea. This is the most beautiful landscape of the campos gerais, going off far and wide in a wave of hills—great platforms where the rugged cow herders roam. . . . [3]

Let us cross through it.

In front of us, as we leave Monte Alto, the natural conformations divide. Straight to the north, a sandstone grouping can be seen all the way up to the sandy plateau of the Açuaruá, where it joins with the limestone formations that give life to the view along the bank of the great São Francisco River. . . . It follows the lines of the hills carved out by fissures, with the fantastic profile of Bom Jesus da Lapa standing out so clearly. To the northeast, because of intense decay (the Geral Range continues along like a rampart against the trade winds, condensing them into cloudbursts and deluges), a rise of ancient formations is revealed.

The mountains have been disinterred.

The diamond region of Bahia stands there as a complete replica of the one in Minas Gerais, like a revelation or, perhaps, a prolongation, with the same formation as in Minas splitting up finally into sheets of sandstone and rising up with the same rough Alpine configurations. Precipices fan out from Tromba or to the north surge up in the Huronian schists of the parallel Sincorá chain.

From here on, however, the axis of the Serra Geral is broken in a vague way. It becomes undone. The mountain range rises up with its foothills and outcroppings where, toward the east, waterfalls flow off the cliffs, the headwaters of the Paraguaçú. There is a labyrinth of a great many low and tortuous hills that randomly extends over the whole spread of the gerais. The topographical character is transformed, with a weakened onslaught of the elements. This goes back over thousands of years as mountains were worn away and collapsed, ending with the gradual leveling off into plateaus. The São Francisco comes into view with its twists and turns as it heads eastward, revealing at the same time the general transformation of the region.

Here it is at its most placid and its most turbulent.

It drops down across the terraces amidst a tumult of randomly scattered hills. The last spur of the main mountain range, the Itiúba, includes a few vague branches, combining the southern expansion of the Furna, the Cocais, and the Sincorá ranges. It rises up for a moment but right away drops off in all directions: to the north the start of 240 miles of rapids downstream in the Sobradinho, to the south in scattered segments that reach beyond Monte Santo, and to the east passing along the Jeremoabo flatlands until it comes out in the magnificent falls of Paulo Afonso.

An observer who has been following this route is now leaving a landscape where there is an alteration, a most beautiful contrast, between the breadth of the gerais and the height of the mountains. When he comes to that point he will stop short in surprise. . . .

The Gateway to the Backlands

He is standing on a ridge of the northern part of the continental massif.

Marking it off on one side, taking in two quadrants in a semicircle, is the São Francisco River. And on the other side, also curving to the southeast in a line perpendicular to its original direction, is the winding course of the Itapicurúaçú. Along a median line, running almost parallel to these, with the same inclination toward the coast, is the Vaza-Barris, called Irapiranga by the Tapuia Indians, whose course from Jeremoabo is a cartographic fantasy. As a matter of fact, on the stupendous ledge over which they descend to the sea, or downstream to Paulo Afonso along the sloping stages of the plateau, there is no place for any normal, balanced hydrographic network. What dominates is a chaotic drainage of torrents that imprint an exceptional and savage face on that corner of Bahia.

Terra Incognita

As we approach we must understand that even today there is no exact or detailed information about such a large piece of territory, which could almost take in all of Holland (9° II’ to 10º 20’ in latitude and 4º to 3º in longitude). Our best maps, based on scanty reports, have a blank there, a hiatus. Terra incognita, where there is an imaginative sketch of a dubious river or the idealization of a string of mountains.

What we know is that, having crossed the Itapicurú from the south, most settlers gathered in tiny villages—Maçacará, Cumbe, Bom Conselho—among which the ramshackle Monte Santo takes on the look of a real town. As one crosses the Itiúba Range from the south, he will come up scattered settlements on its flanks, along minor streams, or will catch sight of an occasional cattle ranch. All the settlements have the look of dismal, run-down hamlets. To the north and west there is an end to these along the banks of the São Francisco, between Capim Grosso and Santo Antônio da Glória.

Only in that last direction does a long-standing village appear: Jeremoabo, evidence of the maximum effort at the penetration of such places, always shunned by the human waves that come from the coast of Bahia in search of the interior.

One after the other they would come to a halt and flee, leaving no trace.

Not a single person remained there. It was impossible to stay. This strange territory, at least 160 miles from the old colonial capital, was destined to be completely forgotten during the passage of four hundred years of our history. While the bandeiras, the pioneering bands from the South, stopped at the edge, they would take a look and then head off along the flanks of Itiúba toward Pernambuco and Piauí, going as far as Maranhão. Those coming from the east, held back by the insurmountable barrier of Paulo Afonso, went looking for more practicable paths of entry along the Paraguaçú and the rivers that join it to the south. They left the region in between impassable and unknown.

The fact is, even if they followed the above-mentioned directions, choosing a shorter route, they would be struck by the strange aspect of the land and its unexpected transitions.

As they left the seacoast and continued on directly toward the west, after covering a few miles the adventurous expeditions called entradas lost their initial attraction as the mirages they envisioned back on the opulent coast dissolved. Immediately after Camaçarí the ancient formations are covered with scattered Tertiary flaws, alternating with small chalk gullies covered with the sandy terrain of Alagoinhas, slowly petering out to the east with the limestone outcroppings of Inhambupe. The vegetation all about is transformed as it follows these alterations with the precision of a tracing. Plant growth becomes rare or poor. It finally disappears after putting out a few sprouts along the crests of the ridges. Here and there, getting rarer and rarer, these form isolated clumps or extend out like promontories onto the naked flats of the landscape. Here a characteristic flora—twisted, interlaced bushes of red bromeliads—takes over exclusively, covering wide areas, only slightly dominated by the vigorous vegetation that irradiates out from Pojuca over the wild massapé topsoil from decomposed layers of chalk.[4]

From here forward sterile Tertiary terrains reappear on top of older ones, which, nevertheless, will be dominant later on in the entire zone centering around Serrinha. The heights of Lopes and Lajedo stand erect like misshapen pyramids of smooth blocks, and after them, along one side or the other of the flanks of the Saúde and the Itiúba ranges, all the way to Vila Nova da Rainha and Juazeiro, there are copies of these same outlines of broken hillsides, revealing the split skeleton of the mountains.

An observer will have the impression that he is now passing by the crumbling edge of a plateau.

As a matter of fact he is treading upon the ancient trail over which the rude backlands pioneers went off on their expeditions into the interior.

In no way did they change it.

Nor did civilization, later on, as it put down railway tracks over the path of the bandeirantes.[5]

The road in the stretch of a hundred leagues from Bahia to Juazeiro is joined by ever so many byroads going west and south; starting at its midpoint, and with little difference, they head north and east.

Going along it on the way to Piauí, Pernambuco, Maranhão, and Pará, the settlers, depending on their various destinations, would split up at Serrinha, and they would proceed to Juazeiro or, turning right, to the main road from Bom Conselho, which ever since the seventeenth century has taken them to Santo Antônio da Glória and Pernambuco. They would always turn away here and there to avoid the sinister and desolate landscape and escape the torture of its crossing.

So these two lines of penetration, touching the São Francisco at distant points—Juazeiro and Santo Antônio da Glória—have been the boundaries of a desert ever since.

The Road to Monte Santo

Nevertheless, one who is in a hurry to cross it, going from Queimadas to the northeast, will find no surprises at first. The Itapicurú, moving along in meandering bends, supports some brilliant vegetation, and the rocky ravines of the Jacurici are trimmed with small forests. The sandy and level terrain allows a quick and unobstructed passage. Undulating flatlands lie alongside the road. The stone base, as it levels off into horizontal slabs, only scarcely pierces the soil and the thin cap of sand that covers it.

Coming into view after this, however, are places that become increasingly arid.

After crossing the narrow band of ridges that follow along the river mentioned above, one is faced by a full-fledged wilderness, as the rustics say: Low and practically rootless bushes in this poor terrain, netted together by their branches, burst forth solitary, stiff, silent, and waxy, giving the whole area the look of the edge of a desert. And the face of that inhospitable backlands emerges, slow and impressive.

Ignoring any waviness, one will see it revealed or imagined, off in the distance, as a poor landscape going on to a monotonous horizon where the burned brown of the caatinga brushwoods stand: thorny, stunted vegetation in uniform relief with no trace of any differing coloration.[6]

There are still some less sterile vistas here, and there and along stretches where the decomposition of granite has taken place in situ there are some patches of clay encircled by the flourishing crowns of uricuri palms—a brief open parenthesis in the general aridity—on the edges of ipueiras, or flood ponds.[7] According to the beautiful indigenous etymology, these dead lakes designate an obligatory stopping point for travelers. Along with the waterholes and pools, the only recourse on such a difficult journey is where there is an opening in the rocks. Real boons and yet they often have a dismal look, located in depressions between naked hills, enwrapped by naked, sad mandacarús with the look of ghost trees, or on a stretch of land where they stand out strongly against the dusty gray ground because of the dark green unicellular algae that coat them.[8]

Some places have evidence of the efforts of sons of the backlands. Crude walls of dry stone can be found skirting them and standing there like dikes among the hillsides. They bring to mind the monuments of lost peoples. They are the common heritage of those who opened up that fierce region. Their origins have generally been left in the remote past. For those of us who have ventured into these parts they are a mark of those who made an entry with all the difficulties it entailed. There they stand, indestructible, because the sertanejo, the backlander, no matter how unburdened he might be traveling, always carries a stone to help shore up that precarious structure.

But once these points are passed—an imperfect copy of those stockades the Romans left behind in Tunisia—one enters the dry sands once more. Moving along quickly, especially on stretches where small rolling formations come one after the other, all of a similar shape and appearance, the speediest of travelers will get the feeling that he is not moving. These shapes, so uniform, present him with the same picture of an unchanging horizon that keeps on getting farther away as he advances. On some rare occasions, as at the tiny settlement of Cansanção, there is a broad spread of fertile ground crowned with bright green vegetation.

Poor dwellings stand, some deserted by the withdrawal of cattle herders, frightened off by drought. Others are in ruins, and all of them add to the look of extreme poverty and the melancholy aspect of the whole countryside. . . .

In the area of Quirinquinquá, however, the soil begins to change. The small settlement built there rises up over a high granitic expanse, and to the north a different region can be seen, one sprinkled with hills and valleys, disappearing in the distance into hazy summits. The Monte Santo ridge, with an outline completely the opposite of the rounded contours sketched by the illustrious Martius, rises vertically in a mighty wall of white quartzite with a bluish tone. It stands out over the gneissic mass that has all soil at its base.[9] Dominating the flatlands that extend southeastward in an almost rectilinear line of crests, its enormous wall, furrowed by lines of strata and exposed by the erosion of the wind, has the look of a monumental battlement. It ends in a very high peak, and as it spreads out in the direction of thirteen degrees northeast it serves as a bastion for the village that stands at its feet. It is the center point of a broad horizon. One can see then, as it stretches out south and east, the predominant unevenness of the terrain across the northern quadrants.

The site of Caldeirão appears twelve miles ahead on the edge of that metamorphic elevation, and when one reaches it and passes through, he has entered, at long last, the scorched backlands.

First Impressions

It is an impressive landscape.

The structural makeup of the land has been coupled with a great upheaval of external agents in the design of stupendous reliefs. A torrential period of excessive weather will suddenly appear after long infusions of sun, and as it hits the slopes it leaves exposed parts that decay over a long time. This is the most ancient series of that last burgeoning of mountains: all varieties of crystal, with rough quartzites, and phyllades and calcites alternating or interconnecting, reappearing at every step and covered by a dwarfed flora—standing out and dominating the tortured-looking landscape.

What is revealed—the bumpy ground, the crumbling almost naked hills, the twists in the dry beds of occasional streams, the narrowed-down defiles, and the spasmodic deciduous flora in a jumble of thickets—shows, in a manner of speaking, the martyrdom of the land, brutally lashed by all the different elements in all kinds of climatic modes. On the one hand there is the extreme dryness of the air in summer, which facilitates an easy loss of the heat absorbed by the rocks that have been exposed to the sun’s rays through nocturnal irradiation. This imposes an alternation of sudden highs and lows in heat, causing a play of contraction and expansion that disjoins the rocks, cracking them open along their levels of least resistance. On the other hand there are the rains that suddenly put an end to the scorching cycles of drought, hastening these delayed reactions.

The forces that work on the land attack it, in its deepest parts and on its surface, with no letup in their destructive action, each taking over in an invariable intercadence during the only two seasons the region has.

They break it down during the scorching summers and they break it down during the torrential winters. They go from a silently working molecular imbalance to the wonderful dynamic of storms. They are in league and they complement each other. With the preponderance of one or the other or the combined action of both, they change the natural aspect. The gneissic summits, casually split into almost geometrical planes, like pediments, rising up at several points give the illusion sometimes that one has suddenly come upon the majestic ruins of a castle in those empty barrens. In the front they are surrounded by rows of boulders, in disorder and poorly secured on narrow bases, tilting and unstable, teetering loggans or a great tumble of dolmens. Farther on they disappear under piles of blocks, the perfect image of those “seas of stone” so characteristic of places where the climate is excessive. Spreading out along the sides of the hills in disorder all around—the remains of ancient, eroded mountains— are lines that recall the paths of glaciers. Scattered at random, thick beds of pebbles and broken flat stones are evidence of the same violent forces. The edges of fragments with feldspar crystals still persist, cemented to the quartz. These give new evidence of the physical and mechanical effects that broke the rocks into pieces with no decomposition of their formative elements. These physical forces go beyond the functions of normal meteorological activities and their slow chemical agents.

In this way at every step and at all points one gets a sharp picture of extreme roughness. It is lessened partially where depressed flatlands appear, the beds of ancient lakes. They are extinct now and under marshy swamps that are resting places for cattle herders. The land is cut through, however, by twice-dead streambeds that fill up during the brief rainy season. Clogged in most cases by thick layers of rocks through which, except during sudden floods, the thin threads of water pour. They are a perfect replica of the wadis found on the rim of the Sahara. Standing out against their banks, most often perpendicularly, are strata of dark blue talc schist in polished plates that reflect the light with a metallic glow. Above them, covering extensive areas, are less-resistant layers of red clay, cut through irregularly by veins of quartz. These last formations, Silurian perhaps, cover all the rest as one heads northeast and they take on more-correct contours. They clearly show the origins of the flat tablelands that appear there, covered with a resistant vegetation of mangabeira trees, all the way to Jeremoabo.[10]

To the north, however, the layers show more declivities. Bare hillocks succeed one another, with steep slopes broken by ravines that are flooded by periodic torrents that hollow them out. From the summits one can see in rows of sheets the same quartz infiltrations, exposed by the decomposition of the schists that had wrapped them.

In the raw light of the backlands these harsh hills glow dizzily with a blinding, burning radiation. . . .

The constant periods of erosion, however, have broken the continuity of these layers and at other points they disappear under limestone formations. The complex is little changed. This ruinous-looking makeup fits in well with other features, and in stretches where they stand out flat along the ground, completely unprotected from the corrosive acidity of the cyclonic downpours, they are pierced with round holes and deep grooves, small but innumerable, lying at a tangent and with sharp edges. In some places their sharp splinters make passage impossible.[11]

In this way, by whatever path one follows, not very high but rough spots follow one after the other, so that one must alter his path or even detour many leagues along empty, dry streambeds. And no matter how inexpert the observer might be, as he leaves the majestic perspectives that unfold to the south and exchanges them for the impressive scenery of this tormented nature, he gets the persistent impression that he is setting foot on the recently arisen bottom of an extinct sea, the agitation of waves and whirlpools still copied in those stark hillocks. . . .

A Geologist’s Dream

It is an enticing suggestion.

One goes along as did the somewhat romantic naturalist Em Liais, imagining that long, long ago swirling about there were the waves and currents of the Tertiary age.

In spite of a lack of data to permit that kind of retrospective prophecy, to use Huxley’s elegant words, by which we can sketch out the look of that region in remote ages, we can combine all its characteristics to support such a venturesome concept.

This is carried further by the strange denudation of the land; by the noteworthy alignment in which the fragments lie, bordering the flanks of the mountains in true level curves; by the cliffs off the tablelands as their perpendicular drops recall falaises; and, up to a certain point, by the remains of Pliocene fauna, making enormous mastodon boneyards of the enormous potholes, full of disjointed and broken vertebrae, as though they had been unexpectedly attacked and their lives ended by the swirling energies of a cataclysm.

Showing up in positive data is also the presumption derived from the previous situation. As a matter of fact, Frederick Hartt’s investigations have established the existence of undeniable Cretaceous basins in the lands around Paulo Afonso, and the fossils that define them are identical to those found in Mexico and Peru and contemporaneous with those discovered by Agassiz in Panama.[12] All these elements come together in the deduction that the waves of a vast Cretaceous ocean rolled over the early lands of both Americas, linking the Atlantic and the Pacific. In that way it covered a large part of Brazil’s northern states as its waves beat against the higher terraces of plateaus, where extensive sedimentary deposits reveal a more ancient age, the Middle Paleozoic.

Emerging from the great islands as they rose from the waters were the summits of our highest mountains, leaning slightly to the north in that great liquid solitude. . . .

The Andes did not exist; the Amazon was a broad channel between the high plains of the Guianas and those of the continent, as it separated them into islands. To the south: the massif of Goiás (the most ancient in the world according to Gerber’s beautiful deduction), the Minas massif, and a part of the São Paulo plateau where the Mount Caldas volcano glowed in full activity. This was the nucleus of the future continent. . . .

A general uprising was slowly at work: The granite masses rose up in the north, pulling along the general complex of the land in a slow rotation about an axis, as Liais imagined, between the ridges of Barbacena and Bolivia. Simultaneously, at the start of the Tertiary period, the prodigious rise of the Andes took place. New lands blossom out of the waters. The Amazon channel closes at one end, transforming itself into the largest of rivers. The scattered archipelagos grow broader and connect themselves with isthmuses. The contours of the coasts take on more shape and we have the slow formation of America.

After this the terrain in the extreme north of the state of Bahia, as represented by the quartzite cliffs of Monte Santo and the hillocks of Itiúba, scattered in the waters, begins to take on volume with a continuous rise. In that slow rising, however, while the recently uncovered higher regions were sprinkled with lakes, the whole middle section of that escarpment remained underwater. The strong current of this water, of which the current along our coast is a degenerate form, held it in its grip. It kept pounding on it for a long time while the rest of the country to the south was emerging already formed. It gnawed and shredded it as it swirled to the west, carrying material to shape that corner of Bahia as it came into full emergence, following the general movement of the land and forming it into a shapeless pile of eroded mountains.

A desert region had taken shape there in flagrant opposition to the geographic dispositions, on an escarpment where there is nothing to recall the lack of drainage found in depressions in classic deserts.

It could be surmised that this incipient region is still making itself ready for life. Lichens still attack stones, fertilizing the ground. And struggling tenaciously against the climate’s lash is a flora of rare resistance as it spreads the web of its roots out, resisting as best it can the torrents that dragged off all the earlier ones. The plants cling together in a gradual conquest of the desolate landscape, softening its contours. There is no surcease, however, of the long summers, the inclement sunshine, or the savage waters as they degrade the soil.

In light of all this, we are held in sway by a mournful impression as we cross this unknown stretch of the backlands, almost a desert as it either opens up between naked hills or stretches out into monotonous, great barrens. . . .

II

A View from Monte Santo

From the top of Monte Santo, looking out over the region in a radius of about thirty miles, one can see, as on a relief map, the orographic conformation, and one can see that the string of mountains, instead of extending out eastward on the lines of Vaza-Barris and Itapicurú, the watersheds, they follow northward.

The Grande and Atanásio ranges can be seen, and distinct at first, one in the northwest and the other in the north, they come together in the Acarú Range where the intermittent springs of the Bendegó River and its intermittent tributaries rise. Together they join with the Caraíbas and Lopes ranges and are absorbed in these to form the mass of the Cambaio range, and there the small Coxomongó and Calumbi chains irradiate, and to the northwest the towering pinnacles of the Caipã range. Continuing in the same direction, that of the Aracati range, toward the northwest at the edge of the Jeremoabo tablelands, it progresses along discontinuously in that direction and after being cut by the Vaza-Barris River at Cocorobó, it curves toward the west, splitting into the Canabrava and Poço de Cima ranges, which prolong it. What they have all traced out in the end is an elliptical curve, closed to the south by a hill, Favela, over a broad, undulating plain, where the hamlet of Canudos rises up. From there to the north they are dispersed once again and they decay until they end up as tall hillocks along the São Francisco.

Heading north, then, to the uplands where the bed of the Paraíba has been carved out, the incline of the plateau seems to curve back upon itself. In this way it upsets the whole drainage area of the São Francisco at a point below where it is joined by the Patamoté. Here there are traces of small and nameless streams that do not appear on even the most accurate scale maps. They cause the Vaza-Barris to follow a course from which it breaks loose at Jeremoabo and pursues a curving path down to the coast.

The river Vaza-Barris is connected to no other large stream and it does not follow the slope of the land. Its small tributaries, the Bendegó and the Caraíbas, flowing intermittently over roughly hewn beds, do not match the low points of the land. Theirs is a fugitive existence, one dependent on rainy seasons. What they really are is a kind of drainage canal, as they are haphazardly formed by the swift torrential currents that follow the topographical relief of the region and are most often in harmony with the general lay of the land as set out by the mountains. These are rivers with no purpose. They suddenly fill up and overflow, dredging their beds again and overcoming the obstacle of the general declivity. They flow along toward the main stream for a short time and then go dry, back to their original look of winding trenches strewn with stones and rubble.

The Vaza-Barris, a river without sources, in whose bed grasses flourish and herds graze, would not have had the course it has today had there been a perennial flow to assure it a balanced delineation from a sustained force. Its function as a geological agent is revolutionary; most of the time it is cut into segments, broken into stagnant clusters of water, or dry, like some long, twisting, dusty road. When it does grow, bellying out into floods, as it were, it picks up the wild waters that come crashing down from the cliffs. For a few weeks it becomes a surge of muddy, swirling waters, soon to disappear with a complete drainage, emptying out as its name in Portuguese implies, replacing the indigenous one of Irapiranga, meaning “red honey.” It is a wave dropping down across the slopes of Itiúba as the force of its current is increased by the narrow space between its banks, running swiftly along its course to Jeremoabo.

We have seen how all around nature mimics the brutal environment. It grinds down onto a grim terrain without any opulent scenery of mountains and plateaus or endless rolling plains. It is made up, rather, of a hodgepodge where natural features are shuffled about in a frightful confusion: Flatlands when seen close by are but a series of hillocks marked by pits and caves. Other hills, in contrast to the fields around, look to be rather high but are really but some few dozen yards above the flats. When one crosses them, the tablelands have an ugly and chaotic aspect of filled-in pits. Because of the denuding and gradual reshaping of the hillsides, there is an end to the lovely effect one gets from the ranges of the Gerais. Gone is the enticing grandeur of panoramas where earth and sky seem to blend in an amazing, distant mix of colors.

There is an unexpected vista awaiting the traveler crossing this region. He will get the feeling that he is treading the ruins from an earthquake as he climbs now up the hills closest to Canudos.

On the Heights of Favela

He reaches the summit of Favela and he gazes out across the whole area spread out before him. There is nothing to remind him of the view he had seen before. Lying beneath him is the antithesis of what he had seen. The same features and the same ground have been turned upside down under a harsh covering of rocky terrain and scabrous caatinga brush. And yet the combination of so many harsh and strange features, as the scattered breaks in the ground show the location of pits and caves, the ditches leading to precipices, lays a completely new perspective before him, and he comes to understand how credulous rustics in their innocent imaginations can come to believe that “heaven is out there.”

Up ahead and down below, the hamlet rises up out of the same fractured terrain. When this is seen from that point, however, as distance softens slopes and levels them, all the many low hillocks that stand out at lower levels, extending uniformly in all directions, give the illusion of a great rolling plain.

A majestic ring of mountains all around . . .

Canabrava to the northeast, with its convex, simple profile; Poço de Cima closer by, steeper and higher; Cocorobó to the east, up and down with its narrow passes and scattered spurs; the straight steep slopes of Calumbi to the south; the ridges of Cambaio extending westward; and to the north the agitated contours of Caipã. These are all linked and joined in the gradual configuration of a huge closed curve.

As he observes these proud peaks from level ground where they shut off the horizon, the traveler gets the heartening impression that he is standing on a very high plateau, a remarkable plain resting on the summits of the mountain ranges.

Along the rutted flats below, small watercourses worm along slowly, scarcely visible, serpentine. . . .

Only one of them can be made out, the Vaza-Barris. It runs across the land, twisting and meandering. A larger hollow can be seen caught up in one of these curves, surrounded by hill. . . . Filling it completely is a crowd of shacks looking like a heap of roofs. . . .

III

The Climate

From the brief indications laid out before, one can gather that the geological and topographical characteristics, as well as other physical agents, are so intermingled in these places that it is impossible to ascertain which of their characteristic influences predominates.

On the one hand, however, there has been a strong influence of earlier conditions on later ones, which has led in turn to an increase in the influence of the original conditions, all of which persist in a sort of mutual set of influences. From this perennial conflict, as it has become, and endless vicious circle the mesological traits of the region become quite evident. There is no way to describe it in all of its modalities. We are lacking in the most ordinary observations thanks to the proverbial indifference we have shown concerning matters of this region as we rest in the comfortable ease of well-fed beggars.

No scientific pioneer has yet undergone the harshness of this corner of the backlands for sufficient time to come up with any definitions.

Martius passed through these parts with the main aim of taking a look at the meteorite that had fallen on the banks of the Bendegó, and the area has been familiar to European academics since 1810 thanks to A. F. Mornay and Wollaston. Forging through the savage region, desertus australis as Martius christened it, he paid scant attention to that land covered by a luxuriant flora, silva horrida in his alarmed Latin. Those who came before and after him on foot, pricked by the stubble on the same trails, gave the impression of someone running away. Those backlands, then, always avoided, are unknown even today and will remain so for a long time to come.

What follow are some vague conjectures. We passed through the region at the beginning of a broiling summer, and so we saw it only within that frame of reference and in its worst aspect. What we write here carries some defective traces of that single, isolated impression, an unfavorable one as well, held in balance as it is between the calmness of thought and the crippling emotions of war. In addition to this we have only the data provided by a single thermometer and a dubious barometer, a pitiful scientific arsenal with which to go into battle there. These tools will not give us even the vaguest features of a climate that varies with the slightest change in the disposition of its topography. This makes for quite different weather in villages along the edge of the region. Monte Santo, for example, on a first comparison is much better off than Queimadas, which differs from that of villages to the north, with no continuity of aspect, as one might expect to see given its intermediate location. The proximity of mountainous massifs keeps the climate stable, and it makes one think of some maritime locale that has suddenly appeared in the middle of the continent: an insignificant variation in heat; a sky where the air is totally transparent and unchangingly clear; and the prevailing winds, from the southeast in winter and from the northeast in summer, alternate with rare regularity. It is like an island. No matter what location a traveler leaves from, if he heads north he will be struck by the strong transitions: It will get hotter, the blue of the sky will be clouded over, the air will hang heavy, and the winds will blow in no set direction. This is what he will face as he is drawn with an intense attraction into the unsheltered expanse before him.

At the same time this excessive climate will be reflected in the thermometer as it varies wildly in degrees. In October the temperature swings from 120ºF in the shade to frigid temperatures in the predawn hours.

With the arrival of summer the imbalance is even stronger. It reaches maximums and minimums until at the height of the dry season time goes along with an unnatural variation of broiling days and freezing nights.

The contrasts of this naked land are in permanent conflict, as the absorbent and emissive capacities of its makeup will store up the heat of the hottest times of day and then suddenly release it. The temperature can turn from baking to ice cold in a matter of twenty-four hours. The sun will beat down on it and it will absorb the rays, multiplying and reflecting them as it radiates them out in dazzling reverberations, from hilltops, from fissured slopes, and broken chips of silica gleam in a shimmering pattern of sparks. The atmosphere vibrates along with the ground below in the vivid undulation of a furnace mouth where, in the array of heated rocks, an effervescence is visible in the air; and the day, incomparable in its splendor, strikes the silent nature where it settles down, motionless in its bosom, with the quiet of a long spasm, under the leafless branches of the defeated shrubbery.

Night falls without a sunset, suddenly, in a leap of shadow over a red strip to the west, and all this heat is lost in the space of a very intense irradiation as the temperature suddenly falls with one single, frightening drop. . . .

There are still harsh variations, however. Driven by the northeasterly winds, thick vapors puff up into cumulus clouds and scud along over the heated sands at dusk. The sun disappears and the column of mercury remains motionless or, most often, it will rise. Night comes on with fire. The earth irradiates like some dark sun as the stinging impression of invisible sparks can be felt, and yet all the heat flows back into it, returned by the clouds. The barometer falls the way it does when a storm is near, and it is almost impossible to breathe in that unnatural sultriness where all the scorching heat from the day’s hot hours has been thrown back up during one single hour of night.

In a contrast that can be explained, all this takes place during the summer paroxysms of drought, when there is an interchange of scorching days and frigid nights that adds to the many worries the backlanders have in their martyrdom.

With the same imbalance of the forces that work on the land, the winds arrive and usually stir up a broad swath of whirlwinds. During the month when it is strongest, the northeast wind lets it be known everywhere from what direction it is coming.

These windstorms will disappear for long months, however, and periods of heavy calm will predominate. The air lies motionless under the placid gleam of fiery days. Imperceptible then is the motion of the rising currents of heated vapor that suck the scant humidity out of the earth. And when this becomes prolonged it is an indication of the sad prelude to drought, as the dryness of the atmosphere reaches quite abnormal levels.

Some Unique Hygrometers

We are viewing it not through the rigor of any classic processes, however, but thanks to some unexpected and bizarre hygrometers.

As we pass through the area around Canudos at a certain time toward the end of September, getting away from the dull and monotonous sound of shooting, we descend a hillside and come upon a kind of irregular amphitheater in a place where the hills have been laid out in a circle around a single valley. Low, flourishing caper bushes give way to scattered clumps of prickly pear cacti and their bright flowers, giving the place the look of an old, abandoned garden. On the edge a tall quixabeira tree towers over the frail vegetation.[13]

The setting sun has cast the broad shadow of the foliage across the ground, and under its protection, arms akimbo, his face turned to the sky, a soldier is resting.

He has been resting for . . . three months.

He died during the attack of July 18. The butt of his Mannlicher rifle had been cracked, his cartridge belt and cap tossed to one side, and his uniform was in tatters. All this pointed to the fact that he had died in hand-to-hand combat against a powerful adversary. He had fallen, most certainly, from a blow to his forehead, which had left a black scar. And when the other dead had been buried, days later, he had not been noticed. He did not share, therefore, the common grave, less than three feet deep, into which, together in one last formation, his comrades fallen in battle had been buried. The fate that had taken him away from his abandoned home had given him one last concession: It had spared him the gloomy closeness of the repugnant ditch. It had left him lying there for three months, arms outspread and face to the sky with its burning suns and its pale moons, its gleaming stars. . . .

And he was intact. He had only withered. He was mummified, his facial features preserved in such a way as to suggest a weary warrior getting his strength back with a bit of sleep in the shade of that beneficent tree. No worm, that most common of tragic analysts, had damaged his tissues. He was being returned to life’s whirl without any repugnant decomposition, imperceptibly flushed out. He was a sort of apparatus that was showing in an absolute but suggestive way the extreme dryness of the air.

The horses that had been killed on that day had the appearance of stuffed museum specimens: their necks a bit longer and thinner, their legs desiccated, and their skeletons showing, shriveled and hard.

At the entrance to the Canudos encampment one of them stood out impressively from the rest. It had been the mount of a brave man, Second Lieutenant Wanderley, and it had fallen along with its rider. As it slid down the steep incline, badly wounded and struggling, it came to a stop and remained there, facing frontward halfway down the slope, caught between two boulders. It was almost upright, its feet firm on a stone outcropping. . . . And there it stood, transformed into some fantastic animal, upright on the hillside, almost in a halted leap in the last attack of a paralyzed charge, with every appearance of life, especially when the harsh blasts of the northeasterly wind caused its long and wavy mane to flutter. . . .

When those gusts, coming on suddenly, are joined by the columns of updraft in wild whirlwinds that are like miniature cyclones, the dehydration of that stark environment can be felt to an even greater degree. Every particle of sand hanging over the hard, furrowed soil irradiated out in every direction, transformed into a hot glow of light. This was the quiet combustion of the earth.

Along with that, during the long periods of calm some bizarre optical phenomena occur.

From the top of Mount Favela the sun pierces straight down, and nature is still in the heavy atmosphere. As we look out over the open, distant plains the ground is invisible.

Our fascinated look is disturbed by an imbalance in the unequally worn layers as we seem to be peering into the distance through a huge, intangible prism, and we are unable to catch sight of the base of the mountains, as though they were suspended there. Then, to the north of Canabrava, in an enormous expansion of quivering plains, we see sparkling undulations, a strange throbbing of distant waves, the magical illusion of a gulf of the sea, broad and upon which, with the colors of the rainbow, the scattered light falls, refracts, and leaps back in blinding sparkles. . . .

IV

Droughts

The backland of Canudos stands as an index to all the backlands of the North. All of these are contained there. It brings together all of their main aspects on a reduced scale. In many ways it is the center of a zone common to all of them.

As a matter of fact, its peninsular shape, with one end at the Cape of São Roque, lets the inner borders of six states, Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Ceará, and Piauí, touch it or stand only a few leagues away.

In this way it is quite natural that the climatic vicissitudes visited on these places bear down upon it with the same intensity. The most incisive manifestation of this is defined in a word that holds the greatest terror for the rustic early settlers who have labored there—drought.

We shall avoid any extensive study of the causes of the drought, which more rigorous minds have attempted and failed to explain, and delve more deeply into a description of the phenomenon. We shall touch upon it by means of various complex and fugitive agents. We must point out, however, that this inexorable stroke of fate can be seen as an inflexible string of numbers. Its cycles, in fact, for that is what they are in the technical rigor of the term, come and go in such notable rhythm that they remind one of the unfolding of some yet unknown natural law.

This was revealed for the first time by Senator Tomás Pompeu as he put together, by himself, a quite eloquent chart wherein the appearances of droughts during the past and present centuries stand out in a singular parallelism, as we presume that its slight discrepancies can only indicate defects in observation or deviations in the oral tradition through which they were observed.

In any case, what does stand out from any simple observation is a coincidence that is repeated enough times to remove any intrusion of chance.

Citing only the greatest events, therefore, the droughts of 1710-11, 1723-27, 1736-37, 1744-45, 1777-78 in the eighteenth century are matched against those of 1808-09, 1824-25, 1835-37, 1844-45, 1877-79 in this century.

This coincidence is almost invariably mirrored, as if it were a print of the other. It stands out even more in the identical periods of surcease where, in both cases, there is no continuation in the progress of the damage.

During the eighteenth century, in fact, there was a long interregnum of thirty-two years (1745-77), which corresponds with absolute equivalency to the exact matching dates of 1845-77.

If we continue with a closer examination of the picture, new firm-and-positive dates stand out strongly and with the rigor of unknown facts being revealed. We can observe in this a strange and undisturbed progress in the flagellation, interrupted at not too varying intervals of between nine and twelve years and continuing on in such a way as to allow certain predictions of its outbreak.

Still and all, in spite of the extreme simplicity of immediate results here, the problem, which can be translated into the simplest of mathematical formulas, remains insoluble.

Hypotheses on Their Origins

Impressed by the reasons behind this rarely altered progression and reducing it, albeit it a bit forcibly, into a period of eleven years, a naturalist, the Baron of Capanema, thought to trace by extraterrestrial facts, so characteristic of the inviolable period in which they occurred, its remote origin. What he found in the regularity in which they appear and disappear intermittently, was a complete match with that of sunspots.

These obscure nuclei, in fact, some broader than others, where the surface was darkened within the blazing enclosure of the faculae, would slowly come into being with the rotation of the sun and have periods of maximum and minimum intensity that vary between nine and ten years. Also, for a long time now, ever since Herschel’s intuitive spark of genius discovered their appreciable influence on the dosage of heat emitted by the earth, the correlation has been steadfastly recorded, supported by geometric and physical data that come together for a single effect.

What is left to do is to equate the smallest of the spots, a screen on the irradiation of the great star, to the high point of the droughts on the tortured planet so as to give evidence that the periods are at par with one another.

It is at this point that, in spite of its most attractive look, the carefully planned theory has failed. Rarely do the data of the summer paroxysms in the North coincide with those just mentioned.

The failure of this attempt, however, does not reveal any lessening in value of an approach so strongly dictated by such notable circumstances so much as it does of this exclusive approach, which seeks a single cause. It is because the matter at hand and the underlying complexity of the concrete facts rely on secondary reasons, closer at hand and stronger, with their continuously progressing modalities based on the nature of the soil and the geographic disposition. The backlands can only be definitively systematized when there has been an extensive set of observations that allows for a definition of the dominant climatic agents.

Be that as it may, the severe climate in the northern states works as a disordered and fugitive agent, with no as yet defined laws, subject to local disturbances that come from the nature of the land itself and from more widespread reactions to its geographical makeup. From this come the currents of air that put it out of balance and give it a variety of effects.

To a large degree and perhaps in some dominant way, the northeast monsoon, with its origins in strong gusts in the uplands of the interior over a broad surface stretching all the way to Mato Grosso, is, as is known, the source of great barometric depressions in summer. Drawn by these, the strong northeasterly winds that come ashore along the northern coast from December to March are singularly favored by the conformation of the land itself in their swift passage over the naked plains, whose intense radiation raises the saturation point, lessening the possibility of rain and repelling it, allowing the wind to carry off intact to the inner recesses of the continent, to the headwaters of the great rivers, all the humidity it had absorbed as it crossed the seas.

The orographic disposition of the backlands, in fact, except for slight variations—strings of mountains aligned parallel in a northeasterly way to the dominant monsoon—facilitates the monsoon’s passage. It channels it. It puts up no opposing slopes against it, nor any barrier to bring about cooling and a condensation in rain.

One of the reasons for the droughts, therefore, is based on the topographical disposition.

The flagellated lands of the North lack any tall mountain range running in a direction perpendicular to the wind and that might bring on a “dynamic colding,” to use an expressive English phrase.

A fact of nature of a higher order can explain this hypothesis.

So it is that the droughts have, over a long time, always appeared between two fixed dates, according to the lore of the backlanders: from December 12 to March 19. There is no single example of a drought’s having ended outside these limits. If it extends beyond, it is inevitably prolonged over the whole course of the year until the frame is reopened once again. With matters being this way, and keeping in mind that it is precisely within this interval that the long stretch of equatorial calm periods, in their slow turn along the equator, reaches its height over those states all the way to the borders of Bahia, could we not consider it in this case as serving as an imaginary mountain running from east to west and giving a momentary correction to the unfortunate orographic disposition? Might it not interpose itself to the monsoon and cause it to halt with a rise in the currents and the subsequent cooling and immediate condensation in the diluvial cloudbursts that then fall suddenly over the backlands?

This string of conjectures serves only to point out the many remote factors that can occur in a matter that is of double interest to us, both in its higher scientific aspect and in its more intimate significance, which involves the destiny of a broad tract of our country. It displaces, therefore, to a lower level the influence that up till now has uselessly emphasized the trade winds, and it is strengthened in some way by the intuition of the backlander himself, for whom the persistence of the northeaster—the “drought wind,” as he has expressively baptized it—means the same as the permanence of an unrelieved and terribly cruel situation.

The beneficent stages come on suddenly.

After two or three years, as occurred between 1877 and 1879 when the sun was scorching the naked plains, its very intensity had its origins in an inevitable reagent. The atmospheric pressure finally falls everywhere in considerable measure. The barrier of heated air takes shape in a greater and more defined way, standing against the winds coming from the coast. In the collision they unleash violent storms, which rise up with flashes of lightning, clouding over the whole sky in minutes, giving off immediately heavy downpours over the scorched desert earth.

Then one seems to make out a rampart of ascending columns that brings about the phenomenon as it collides with the northeaster.

According to many witnesses, the first showers that fall from on high never reach the ground. Halfway down they evaporate into the boiling ascending columns and then go back, repulsed, into the clouds, condensing once more and falling again, pouring forth until they finally touch the soil, which they do not dampen at first as they still evaporate at rapid intervals as though they had fallen onto incandescent plates, to fall again in this quick and continuous exchange until they finally form the first threads of water that flow among the stones as the first torrents plunge down the slopes and pour out into heavy flowing creeks among the gullies, now joining together in fast-flowing rivulets. These thicken into muddy rivers that are sketched out at random according to the makeup of the slopes. Swiftly passing along in their currents are torn-off branches of trees as all goes swirling and clashing in one single wave, in the same chaos of dark and raging waters. . . .

If this sudden attack is followed by normal rains, the backlands are transformed and return to life. Many times, however, with a swift passage of the storm they go back to what they were. The rapid drainage of the terrain and evaporation, which then grows much stronger, turn the land desolate and arid once more. As the burning atmosphere penetrates, the winds double the hygroscopic capacity, and it goes along, day by day, absorbing whatever humidity is left in the ground, beginning once again the inflexible cycle of droughts. . . .

The Caatinga

Crossing the backland trails is more exhausting than crossing a naked steppe, however.

In the latter case the traveler has at least the relief of a broad horizon and the perspective of open plains.

Here the caatinga brushland engulfs him. It cuts off his field of vision. It attacks and stupefies him. It tangles him up in its thorny scheme of things and has no attraction for him. Rather, it repels him with its stinging leaves, its thorns, its dry wood standing up like lances. And it unfolds before him for mile upon mile, unchanging in its desolate look of leafless trees and twisted, dry branches, all curled around each other and pointing stiffly into space or bending over toward the ground as they recall some immense waving of arms, torture, or the death throes of vegetation. . . .

This is not made up, however, of the reduced species found in deserts—crippled mimosas or rough euphorbias over a carpet of withered grass—and although it seems to contain all manner of different plants, its trees, when seen as a whole, have the look of a single family made up of only a few genera, reduced almost to one invariable species, diverging only in size, with all the same conformation, the same appearance of dying plants, almost without trunks, branching out as soon as they emerge from the ground. This is the result of an explicable effect of their adaptation to the constricting conditions of the harsh environment where they struggle to evolve. The ones that grow with such diversity in the brushwoods are here formed by a single mold. They change back and forth and with slow metamorphosis go along in a tendency toward a quite limited number of types, which are characterized by the attributes of those possessing the greatest capacity for resistance.

This is imposed on them in a tenacious and inflexible way.

The struggle for life in wooded areas means an irrepressible seeking of light as bushes turn into vines, elastic and distended as they flee the smothering shade and lift themselves up, drawn more to the sun’s rays than to their ancient trunks. Here we have the complete opposite. The sun here, more menacing and unlike anywhere else, makes for more misery. The sun is the enemy who must be avoided, deceived, or fought against. The manner in which it is avoided is, in some ways, predictable, as we shall point out in the inhumation of dying plant life as it buries its stalks in the soil. But as the soil, too, is harsh and hard, dried out by drainage on the slopes or sterilized by a succession of strata, the sun’s baking of it is complete. Plants are caught between two quite unfavorable aspects of the soil—red-hot surface and rough terrain. The most robust of plants carry imprinted in their abnormal appearance all the stigmata of this silent battle.

Vegetation, tall and proud in other places, becomes dwarfed, stunted here. At the same time the spread of its leaves becomes broader and stretches out over the surface of the land to make contact with the air so as to absorb any scant moisture diffused in it. Roots atrophy as they struggle against the impenetrable subsoil and are replaced by a radius of secondary shoots that are twisted into ganglia of sap-swollen tubercles. There is an increase in foliage. This stands out stiff, sharp as shears, at the tips of the branches, cutting off the sunlight from the ground, affording a protective cover for the fruit, which is rigid and sometimes shaped like pinecones. In this way the pods have a perfect means of splitting open, bursting as if driven by steel springs, an admirable apparatus for spreading the seeds as they are scattered profusely about the ground. And they all have, without a single exception, the soft scent of flowers, an untouchable barrier that rises up on cold nights and spreads out over the plants, protecting them from any sudden drop in temperature, as though some invisible enchanted tents were covering them. . . .

Arranged in that way, the tree is prepared to make a stand against the brutal environment.

The cauterizing drought settles over the backlands. The white-hot air becomes sterilized. The ground becomes stony, cracked, ridged. The northeaster roars across the barren land, and like a lacerating hair shirt, the caatingas spread their thorny branches over the land. . . . With all its functions reduced, however, the plant, as it goes through summer with latent life, feeds on the reserves it has stored up during the slack seasons in order to break the grip of summer, ready to transform itself with the first signs of spring.

Some plants in more favorable terrain will deceive the harsh climate in a better way with a most unusual arrangement.

They can be seen in large numbers, gathered together in clusters or scattered about and isolated. These so-called weeds, bushes a bit over a foot tall, with broad, thick, shiny leaves, make up an exuberant flora that is laughing in the midst of the general desolation. They are the dwarf cashew plants, the typical Anacardium humile of the arid plains, the cajuí of the natives.[14] These strange plants expose their roots in a circle and these roots extend down to a surprising depth. There is no way of uprooting them. The descending axis grows in size the deeper one digs. It can finally be seen that it goes about dividing up into forking branches. It makes its way through the earth and comes together in one single vigorous tail at the bottom.

These are not roots; they are branches. And the tiny bushes, sparse or sticking out in tufts that cover wide areas at times, are from a single enormous tree, entirely underground.

Beaten down by the dog days, lashed by the rays of the sun, gnawed by torrents of rain, tortured by winds, the plant seems to be bowing down before the attacks of these antagonistic elements and shielding itself in this way, invisible in the earth, over which only the tallest sprouts of this majestic frond emerge.

Others, lacking that conformation, make their adjustment in other ways.

The water that runs off in a savage torrential swirl or down into the sloping layers of schists is held for a long time in the husk of the bromeliads, giving them life. At the height of summer a macambira stalk means for the thirsty rustic a drink of crystal-clear pure water.[15] The greenish caroas,[16] with their tall triumphal flowers, the long moss, and the wild pineapples plaited in impenetrable shoots, do the same, purposely designed for those sterile climes. Their leaves, sword shaped, smooth, and shiny like those of most backland plants, help the condensation of the scant moisture carried by the winds. In this way they protect themselves from the greatest danger to vegetable life as the widespread condensation on their leaves drips down and is absorbed by their rootlets.

Others follow this pattern in diverse ways and with other means but in an equally resistant way.

The nopals and cacti, native everywhere, fall into the category of Saint-Hilaire’s vegetable fountains. They are classic types of desert flora, more resistant than the rest, and when trees all around fall down, struck by lightning they remain unchanged or perhaps even more alive. They were made for barbarous climes. They reject benign environments in which they blanch and waste away, while the fiery desert environment seems to stimulate the circulation of their sap through their swollen cladophylls in an even stronger way.

The favelas, still without a scientific name and unknown to scholars, but only too well known to greenhorns, are possibly members of a future genus Cauterium of leguminous plants. They possess in their leaves cells elongated into fuzz, which are a notable tool for condensation, absorption, and defense.[17] On the one hand, their skin, as it grows cold at night with a great drop in temperature, will in spite of the dryness of the air collect tiny drops of dew. And on the other hand, whoever touches it has touched a fiery sheet of constant flame.

When, unlike those just mentioned, some species do not appear to be as well fitted for a victorious outcome, what might be more interesting solutions are to be seen. These plants join in an intimate embrace and become social species. Unable to see things through in isolation, they discipline themselves and organize themselves jointly. In this group all the Cesalpinia and caatinga plants are to be found, making up, where they appear, 60 percent of the caatinga areas.[18] Flatland rosemary and tube reeds, bushlike heliotropes with hollow stalks and a speckling of white spiked flowers, which were destined to give their name, canudos , to the most legendary of towns . . .[19] They do not appear on Humboldt’s list of Brazilian social plants, and it is possible that they flourished in isolation in other areas.[20] Here they associate, with roots firm and solid in the subsoil forming a tight netting to hold water and keep the earth from breaking up. In this way, and after a long effort, they end up creating the arable soil out of which they are born. They take it over with an inextricably woven net of capillaries made of tangled rootlets in an extensive web, dominating the insatiable suction of the layers of sand. So they live. Live is the right term because in this a high trace of passive vegetable evolution can be seen. . . .

The jujubes or juazeiros have like characteristics and they rarely lose their intensely green leaves, purposely designed for strong reactions to light.[21] Scorching months and years follow one upon the other. The extremely dry soil becomes completely impoverished, and yet during those cruel periods when the hot rays of the sun become more severe, as spontaneous fires lighted by the winds wear away the dry, peeled branches sometimes, the plants still wave their verdant branches, alien to the seasons, always in bloom, sprinkling the desert with their golden flowers merrily as the colors stand out against the brown, stubbled ground like green and festive oases.

The harshness of the elements increases during certain seasons, however, and it reaches the point of denuding them. The bottoms of waterholes have been buried for a long time and the hardened beds of puddles are revealed, becoming huge imprints, molds, along with the old tracks of cattle drives. The backlands have become completely unsuitable for life.

All that rises up then over the dead nature are the stands of cacti, slim and silent, proud, with their circular stalks arranged in polyhedral and uniform columns with the impeccable symmetry of enormous candelabra. Looming large at the end of the brief afternoons in those barren lands, with their red fruit standing out on them like neatly placed buttons in the half-light of dusk, they give the moving illusion of enormous candles stuck in the ground at random all across the plains and lighted. . . .

They characterize the capricious flora of summer’s bounty.

The mandacarús (Cereus jamacaru), attaining a notable height, are rarely seen in groups, appearing in isolation over the chaotic vegetation. They are an attractive novelty at first glance. They provide a contrast, standing up stiffly in triumph while the surrounding flora is pushed down. One has trouble adjusting his looks to a difficult contemplation of that mass of twisted boughs, but then his sight eases and straightens out as it runs over straight, firm stalks. After a time, however, it can become a distressing obsession. An intolerable monotony is stamped on everything as they come, one after the other, constant, uniform, all of them exactly alike, all with the same bearing, equidistant and distributed with singular order across the desert.

The xique-xique cacti (Cereus peruvianus) are a variant with smaller proportions, divided into close-knit and thorny stems, curved and creeping, which are embroidered with very white flowers.[22] They seek out harsh, hot places. These are the classic vegetation of the burning sands, content on the scorching bed of granitic plates where the sun beats down.

As inseparable partners in this habitat, avoided even by orchids, they have the monk’s head, inelegant and monstrous Melocacti of elliptical shape, grooved and with thorny shoots that come together on their upper part, which is formed by a single immensely bloodred flower. These appear in some inexplicable way over the naked stone, giving the appearance, from their size, shape, and distribution, of decapitated and bleeding heads scattered about at random in tragic disorder. The fact is that very narrow fissures let their long capillary roots slip in through the hard stone mass to lower levels where some remnants of humidity might have been spared evaporation.

And this vast family, with all these aspects, gradually descends to the creeping quipás, spiny, humble, and curling across the ground like esparto grass, forming a lacerating mat, and the Rhipsalides, serpentine succulents, twisting their branches like green vipers as they tangle in partnership with the fragile epiphyte cacti, of a pale blue-green color, supported by appendages that hold on to the stalks of the uricuri palms as they flee the savage soil for peace at the top of the palm trees.[23]

Here and there we have other shapes: the “devil’s slaps,” prickly pear cacti with small growths and prickles scattered across their surface and the vivid scarlet of the cochineal bugs that feed upon them. They are garlanded with fiery flowers and gaily break the solemn sadness of the landscape.

A person crossing these barrens during a clear day, through leafless trees where there are no flowers, will notice little else. All plant life is entangled in an indescribable disorder, just as after land has been cleared. It is a caatanduva, a “sick forest” in the indigenous language, which has sadly collapsed over its terrible bed of thorns![24]

Climbing to the top of any hill, as our eyes take in the sight around, we are upset by the same desolate scene: dying vegetation, sick, shapeless, and exhausted in a single painful spasm. . . .

It is the silva aesta aphyla, Martius’s silva horrida, opening up a desert vacuum in the bright bosom of tropical nature.

One can understand, then, Augustin de Saint-Hilaire’s paradoxical statement: “What exists there is the whole melancholy of winter along with a burning sun and the heat of summer!”[25]

The raw light of the long days burns down over the motionless land but does not stir it. Quartz outcroppings glimmer on the limestone hills that are scattered in disorder across the barrens with the whiteness of ice floes. And quivering from the tips of dry branches on the stiffened trees is Spanish moss, and its whitish gleam brings dripping snow to mind, giving the whole scene the look of a glacial landscape as vegetation hibernates in the frozen wastes. . . .

But in the darkening of any March afternoon, sunsets are quickly smothered by night and stars twinkle brightly at first.

Thick clouds then sweep across distant horizons and are cut up into the imposing outlines of dark mountains.

The clouds rise slowly, swelling and bubbling into slow, huge eddies as the winds blow in a tumult across the plains, shaking and twisting branches.

It grows darker by the minute. The sky is cut with sharp, successive flashes of lightning as they stitch across the bottom of the storm. Strong thunderclaps ring out and sudden cloudbursts fall, thick and sluggish, across the ground, then gathering together in a diluvian downpour. . . .

On the way back from his crossing, the traveler, to his amazement, no longer sees a desert.

Over the ground carpeted by amaryllis, the tropical flora has surged up again in triumph.

The change is like an apotheosis.

The round coral trees on the banks of the now full waterholes flaunt the royal robes of their broad red flowers, not waiting for their leaves to appear. The tall caraíba and hardwood baraúna trees come into leaf again along the banks of streams that are gurgling once again.[26] The pruned mariseiros are branching out vigorously to the passage of soft breezes.[27] Cloaking the mutilation of the slopes, quixabeiras appear with life and their tiny leaves and fruits, which remind one of onyx beads. Of more greenish hue are the caper plants as they grow thick across the floodplains under the festive waving of the crests of the annatto trees. There is a moving surge that has given life to the landscape, bedding down on the plains and rounding off the hillsides. It is the flowering thickets of hog myrtle with its thin and flexible stalks. The umburana trees perfume the air and filter it through their leafy fronds.[28] Dominating the general revival, not yet by their height but by their graceful bearing, the umbra, or umbú, trees stand six feet above the ground, irradiating out in circles with their many branches.

This is the sacred tree of the backlands. This is the faithful partner to the cowmen’s fleeting happy hours and long bitter days. It represents a significant example of the adaptation of backland flora. It could be that it was of an even and more vigorous height but that it developed gradually during the interchange of fiery summers and torrential winters and modified itself to fit the makeup of its surroundings, growing smaller until it was prepared for resistance and reaction, finally challenging the long-lasting droughts and sustaining itself during the seasons of misery with the vital energy it had stored up during beneficent times by keeping large amounts of water in reserve in its roots. And it shares these with humans. If the umbra tree did not exist in that stretch of backland so sterile that the carnauba wax palm, so providently dispersed in neighboring tracts that extend up to Ceará, is scarce there, there would be no population. For the unfortunate rustic who lives there the umbra tree is what the Mauritia is for people living on the plains.

It feeds him and slakes his thirst. It opens up its soothing and friendly breast for him, where the curving and entwined branches seem to have been especially made for the frame of a swaying hammock. And with the arrival of the good season, it gives him its strange-tasting fruits so he can prepare his traditional umbuzada drink.

Even on days of plenty, cattle covet the acidy juice of its leaves. It stands out there with its upright bearing firmly outlined, its rounded crown on a perfect level plane over the ground at a height that can be reached by the tallest cattle, looking like ornamental plants under the care of professional gardeners. Trimmed in that way they resemble great spherical calottes. They dominate the flora of the backlands during good times the way the melancholy cacti do in the paroxysms of summer.

The juremas, favorites of half-breed Indians for the heady hashish they furnish in the form of a free, inestimable drink to reinvigorate them after long treks, dispelling their fatigue in a moment like a magic potion, are spread all about in hedges, impenetrable barriers disguised by their tiny leaves.[29] The leaves of the rare mariseiros reappear. These are mysterious trees that presage the return of the rains and the annular periods of green and lean, when under the lash of the drought they provide a few drops of water in the dried bark of their trunks. The juazeiro trees are green again, the nightshades turn yellow in thickets, and the baraúnas have clusters of flowers. The araticum custard apples appear on the edge of bogs while standing out and scattered across the plains or on the rolling hillsides are the umbra trees, sparkling with bright white flowers, their leaves appearing as they go through fleeting changes from pale green to the gleaming pink of new shoots that better attract the eye. This is the happiest note in all the dazzling scene.

And the backlands are a paradise. . . .

Appearing again at the same time are the resistant fauna of the caatingas. Spreading in great numbers in damp, low-lying spots are the skittish peccaries. They pass over the stubble fields in herds with a strident noise of cutting jaws, wild boars of reddish cinnamon color. Swift rheas run across the high tablelands in bands as they spur themselves on with the energy hidden under their wings. There are crested seriemas, with their mournful voices, and the vibrant wood rails singing in the brush beside the marshes where the tapirs come to drink, standing stock-still for a moment from their lumbering gait.[30] They go along in an inflexible straight line through the caatinga, knocking down trees. The panthers terrify the alert mocos, giant guinea pigs nestling in pairs in their burrows in the rocky ground. The cats spring out of the tall weeds where they have been lying in wait for a nervous deer or a stray calf. . . .

Mornings without equal follow one upon the other. The rays of the rising sun tint the purple of the coral trees and make the multicolored tassels of the bignonias stand out more clearly as they garland the purpled bark of the umburanas. The backlands become alive with a flapping of swift, rustling wings. The notes of a strange bugle cut the air. In a tumult of random flight the wild doves pass by in their migration back and there is the gurgling chorus of the strident maritacacas.[31] All the while, happy at having forgotten his woes, the rustic goes along his crude paths, driving his fattened cattle and singing his favorite song. . . .

This is how the days go by.

One, two, six months in succession pass with the land’s exuberance until, quietly and imperceptibly, in some kind of evil rhythm, the days break off little by little and the leaves and flowers fall as the drought can be glimpsed once more by the dead branches of the deciduous trees. . . .

V

A Geographical Category Not Mentioned by Hegel

Let us sum up and spruce up these scattered items.

Hegel laid out three geographic categories that worked with other forces in the creation of the ethnic differentiation of mankind.

Steppes with stunted vegetation, along with vast arid plains; profusely irrigated valleys; and coastal lands and islands.

The Venezuelan llanos, the savannas that give the Mississippi Valley its breadth, the endless pampas, and the Atacama Desert spread out along the Andes, a vast terrace of undulating dunes, can be said, strictly speaking, to be among the first.

In these, in spite of their long summers, their formidable hillocks of sand, and the onslaught of sudden downpours upon them, there is nothing incompatible with life.

And yet they do not have a hold on people to stay there.

Their rudimentary flora of grasses and sedges flourishing again after the rainy season attracts pastoral life, the nomadic society of shepherds moving about, pitching their tents, and taking them down in a constant roaming across those plains as they quickly scatter with the onset of summer’s heat.

These lands do not attract people. They always display the same distressing and monotonous setting, the only variant being one of color. They lie as stationary oceans without shores or waves.

They have the centrifugal force of the desert: They repel, scatter, and disperse. There is no link to humanity through the nuptial bond of the furrows of the plow. They isolate ethnic groups the same as mountain ranges and the sea, just as in the steppes of Mongolia, trodden down by turbulent bands of wandering Tartars.

The backlands of our North, however, which at first glance might seem the equal of these places, have no place in the German thinker’s scheme.

A person going into them in summer thinks he is entering that first subdivision, while on crossing them in winter he thinks they are part and parcel of the second.

Savagely sterile or wonderfully flourishing . . .

At the height of the droughts they are most certainly a desert, but when these do not reach the point of bringing on a painful exodus, men, like the trees, struggle along with the reserves stored up during the times of plenty and in that fierce, nameless, terrible dark battle, engulfed in the solitude of the flats, are not completely abandoned by nature. She takes care of them for quite a time beyond the desperate hours when the last waterholes have dried up.

With the coming of the rains, the land, as we have seen, is transformed in a great variety of changes in contrast to its previous desolation. Dry gullies become rivers. The once bald hillocks stand out in a sudden green color. Vegetation carpets them with flowers over wide gorges as it covers up the harshness of their banks and rounds piles of disjointed rocks into hillocks. In this way the broad flatlands, crisscrossed by connecting gulches, are held together in softened curves that extend up to the higher plains. The temperature drops. Without the intense heat of the sun, the abnormal dryness of the air is no more. There are new tones to the landscape. The transparent air makes for more delicate lines in all the variants of form and color.

The horizons become broader. The sky loses the heavy blue of deserts and becomes higher, farther away, over the expanding revival of the land.

The backlands have become a fertile valley. They are a vast orchard that has no owner.

And then all this comes to an end. The time of torture returns. The atmosphere becomes stifling, the soil stony, the vegetation naked. And in days when summers come one after the other there is the frightful spasm of the drought.

Nature is playing a game of antitheses.

These, then, make for a special category in such a period. It is one of the most interesting and expressive of all, coming at a point between minimally fertile valleys and extremely arid steppes.

Leaving its meaning as a factor of ethnic differentiation for other pages, let us have a look at its role in the economy of the land.

Nature does not normally create deserts. She fights against them, repels them. They are sometime and inexplicable gaps in the defining astronomical lines of life’s great exuberance. The classic type can be seen in the Sahara, which stands as a generic term for the wasteland that is spread out from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, passing through Egypt and Syria, bringing along with it all aspects of the great African depression to the burning Arabian plateau of Nejd and proceeding on to the sands of the bejabans of Persia. All this is so illogical that the greatest of naturalists thought he saw in its genesis the tumultuous action of some cataclysm, an irruption of the Atlantic Ocean as it poured out its swirling waters in an unrestrained whirlpool of currents across North Africa and they denuded it in their fury.

This explanation of Humboldt’s, even if presented only as a brilliant hypothesis, does hold a broader significance.

Without any center of heat and with a normalization of climates, from the extreme north to the extreme south, starting at the uninhabitable poles, the existence of vegetation progresses to the line of the equator. In this zone we find the greatest growth, where the bushes of other regions become trees and the climate varies between two seasons only and lays out a uniformity that is favorable to the evolution of simple organisms under the direct control of variations in the environment. The astronomical circumstance of the inclination of the ecliptic, which places the earth under biological conditions inferior to those of other planets, is scarcely noted in regions where a single mountain can take on all the climates of the world from base to summit. Nevertheless, passing through and interfering with the ideal frontier of the hemisphere, the hot equator, is a most disturbing path of the inflections of life, dividing up into singular points where life is impossible, passing from desert to forest, from the Sahara pushing north to opulent India, after touching the tip of poverty-stricken Arabia, leaping across the Pacific in a long stride through a rarefied string of naked desert islands and coming ashore with a slow drift to the south and the awesome rain forest of the Amazon.

From extreme aridity to extreme exuberance . . .

The morphology of the land is, in fact, in violation of general climatological laws.[32] But every time the geographical facies does not fight them off completely, nature reacts. It is a mute battle, the effects of which are far removed from the normal course of historical cycles, although in a rather moving way for someone who manages to catch sight of it over the countless centuries, dulled as it always is by adverse agents and yet, tenacious, unconquerable, in sure evolution the land, like an organism, is transformed by intussusception, indifferent to the elements in the tumult facing it.

So, eternally condemned, broad depressions like Australia remain sterile while at other points deserts are extinguished.

The red-hot temperature itself ends up giving them a minimum of pressure that attracts rain, and the moving sands, streaked by the winds, for a long time fight off the grip of the most humble plant as they become gradually immobilized and held by the roots of grasses. The unreceptive ground and the sterile rocks decay under the imperceptible action of lichens, which are a preparation for the arrival of fragile leafy plants and finally naked plateaus, llanos, and pampas with scant vegetation, and savannas and the life-giving steppes of Central Asia arise in a crescendo of successive phases of wondrous transformation.

The Making of a Desert

So it is that the backlands of our North, in spite of lesser sterility and contrary to the natural criterion, might be said to make up a singular point in a regressive evolution.

Let us imagine them as they were a short time back, in a retrospective view in which, of course, fantasy must rear its head in opposition to serious science, as they emerge geologically modern from a vast Tertiary sea.

Along with this absolutely untenable hypothesis, however, what is certain is that a complex of circumstances has made a continuous regime more difficult for them, favoring a more flourishing flora.

Let us first sketch out a few of these.

We must not lose sight of one notable geological agent, however—man.

In fact, he most usually has had a brutal effect upon the land and, if we might say so, has famously assumed along the whole path of history the role of a terrible maker of deserts.

He began all this through a disastrous indigenous legacy.

In the primitive agriculture of forest dwellers fire has been a fundamental instrument.

Having cut down trees with their sharp diorite dgis, they gathered up the wood to dry out and then made bonfires where flames were picked up by the winds. They would then dig trenches around the tree trunks and fill them with hot coals from the fires. An area of ash was left where once there had been flourishing woodlands. They would cultivate the land and follow the same procedure the next season until that spread of land was completely exhausted, useless, abandoned, left as caapuera, a “dead forest,” as the Tupi language calls it, lying there irremediably sterile forever after.[33] It is worth noting that the plant families that subsequently rose up in the calcified terrain were always some type of stunted bush, completely different from the plants of the primitive forest. The aborigines would keep on opening up new plots, new clearings, new cultivations, expanding the circle of damage with new caapueras left behind as they went on to create others farther off. What was left was a kind of barren with stunted growth that was inadequate to react against outside elements. As they spread out they aggravated the rigors of the very climate that was beating down upon them, with a tangle of thickets and a smothering of weeds, with the occasional sickly look of the sinister caatanduva along with the convulsive wildness of the whitish caatinga.

Settlers came later and copied the same procedure. They made conditions even more deadly as land in the central areas of the country, away from the narrow band of coastal cane fields, was given over almost exclusively to grazing.

Beginning with the start of the seventeenth century, in the abusively apportioned backlands they opened up huge fields and pasturelands with no dividing boundaries all across the plains.

These were cleared in the same way, with fires lighted everywhere and no firebreaks. The fires engulfed wide areas as they were turned loose into the violent gusts of the northeast winds. Along with the settlers came the greedy, bold pioneers in search of native slaves and gold. Engulfed in the depths of a stupendous growth that limited their vision and hid the dangers of unseen Tapuia Indian ambushes or spots where dread jaguars might be hiding, they cut it down and destroyed it with flames in order to uncover the horizon, bringing into view the mountains as they loomed over the cleared plains and served them as beacons to guide the expeditions called bandeiras.

They attacked the land with their digs as they searched for riches under the open sky. They sterilized it with their dredges, wounding it with their picks, degrading it with the wild waters of their sluices, and what they left, all around, forever lifeless, were the wastelands that had turned red with the bright color of the overturned clay. It was a place where no plant could possibly thrive. These great diggings, sad and empty, have a look that suggests huge, ruined, and dead cities. . . .

These barbarous activities can be found all along the course of our history, right up to the middle of this century, as the inhabitants of villages along the banks of the São Francisco attest. The explorers who had arrived in 1830 left the bank of the river behind and went forward, lighting up their way and opening a path as they devastated the land in the same sinister way of clearing it with fire. For months on end the red glow of the burnings could be seen to the west as they lingered on into the night.

The results of such a process, as it was applied with no variants over the course of the centuries, can be imagined.

The colonial government did foresee such things. From 1713 on, successive decrees were issued with an aim to halt such activities, and after the legendary drought of 1791-92, the Great Drought as old backlanders still call it, which brought ruination to all the North, from Bahia to Ceará, the central government attributed it to the devastations described above and immediately established a severe prohibition of the cutting of forestlands as the only corrective measure.

This preoccupation had been on its mind for a long time. This fact can be seen in the royal edict of March 17, 1796, which appointed a judge for the preservation of forestland, and the edict of June 11, 1799, which called for “the restriction of the indiscreet and disorderly activities of the inhabitants [of Bahia and Pernambuco] who have desolated precious woodlands with fire and ax, those which were once so abundant and today have been considerably reduced, etc.”

This is what had been said previously about the region we have been attempting to describe.

There are other equally eloquent facts.

The ancient routes of the pioneers in the North, the bold men of the caatingas, call for comparison with those of the bandeirantes of the South. At every step we can note vivid allusions to the harshness of the terrains they crossed as they explored the plains in search of the silver mines of Belchior Dias Moréia. Almost all of them passed along the edge of the backland of Canudos, with a stop at Monte Santo, called Pico-arassa by the Tapuias at that time. Pedro Barbosa Leal in a letter to the Conde de Sabugosa spoke of “cold fields” (at night, most certainly, because of the intense irradiation of the unsheltered soil) where they cut through miles on end of caatinga, without water and without any hope that there might be some, as umbra and mandacarú roots took care of them as they worked hard at opening a path.

Already at that time, as can be seen, the plants that our backlanders of today call upon had a proverbial function.

And this is an ancient ill. Working side by side with the elements, the northeasterly winds, the suction of levels of air, the dog days, wind erosion, sudden storms, man has been a nefarious component of the forces that have been demolishing the climate. If he did not create all this, he did transform it. The ax of the man in the caatingas served as a supplement to the scorching sun with his burnings.

He may have created the desert, but he can still undo it by correcting the past. The task is not impossible. What is called for is a historical comparison.

How a Desert Dies

A person crossing the high Tunisian flatlands between Béja and Bizerte, at the edge of the Sahara, and coming out of the gullies following the whimsical and twisting course of the wadis will still come across the remains of ancient Roman constructions. There are old and worn-down rows of brick walls and tumbledown structures partly covered by the passage of twenty centuries. These legacies of the great colonizers are also evidence of their intelligent activities and the barbarous neglect on the part of the Arabs who took their place.

After the task of destroying Carthage, the Romans set themselves to the incomparably more serious work of conquering an antagonistic nature and behind them they left a beautiful trace of their historic expansion.

They must certainly have perceived the underlying trouble of the region, sterile less from the scarcity of rains than from a poor distribution of natural contours. They corrected this. The torrential period as it occurs there is quite intense in some quarters, with a higher measurement of rainfall than in other fertile and flourishing countries. As in the backlands of our own country, worse than useless, it was harmful. It fell onto unprotected land, uprooting vegetation that was poorly anchored to a hard soil. It swirled along for many weeks in overflowing streams, flooding the flatlands. And there it would immediately disappear, pouring off to the north and the east and into the Mediterranean, leaving the soil, after a transitory rebirth, all the more naked and sterile. The desert seemed to be advancing from the south, taking over the whole area and removing the last barriers against the drive of the simoom.

The Romans made it retreat. They controlled the torrents and dammed up the strong flow as that brutal regime fought back tenaciously, but having been blocked off it gave way completely under the control of a network of dams. Avoiding the most difficult solution of systematic irrigation, they did succeed in making the water remain on the land for a longer time. The gullies were divided off into a network of holding pools, and these waterholes were enclosed by the walls that cut through valleys and wadis so the waters came to a halt and filled up the spaces between hills. This conserved great bodies of water for a long time until they were lost through evaporation, with the overflow carried off in lateral canals to lower areas where it flowed into drainage ditches and sluices and spread out soaking the soil. In this way the system of dams, along with other advantages, made up an attempt at general irrigation. In addition to this, all that surface of liquid that was scattered about abundantly was gathered together in one single Quixadá, monumental and useless, exposed to evaporation, which ended acting on the climate and improving it. Finally Tunisia, where the favored sons of the Phoenicians had landed, and which up till then had been limited to a seacoast inhabited by merchants and wandering nomads whose rounded tents gleamed like beached vessels, had been transfigured into a classic area of ancient agriculture. It was the granary of Italy and the Romans’ almost only supplier of wheat.

The French of today have copied them to a large degree with these same processes but without the need to erect any costly monumental walls. They have made barrier dams with walls of dry stones and turf, blocking off the most likely disposed wadis, and they have dug out along the edges of the heights surrounding them conduits to drain the water off onto the surrounding terrain through a network of irrigation ditches.

In this way the wild waters have been calmed as they have lost the accumulated force of violent floods, spreading out in thousands of outlets with crisscrossed branches. The historic region, free of inert Muslim apathy, has been transformed and has returned again to its ancient aspect. France has preserved the remains of the rich heritage of Roman civilization after a decline of centuries.

So if we trace, even imprecisely, the hypsometric chart of the northern backlands, we can see how close we are to an identical attempt with equally certain results.

The idea is not new. It was suggested a long time ago in the memorable sessions of the Instituto Politécnico of Rio in 1877. Counselor Beaurepaire Rohan’s driving spirit may have been suggested by the same comparison we have drawn above.

From the discussions of that time, in which the best scientists of their day were involved, and from the solid experience of Capanema to the fine mind of André Rebouças, it was the only possible, practical, and truly useful way remaining.[34]

The idea was advanced then to make use of solid masonry cisterns, a great number of artesian wells perforating the plains, and huge deposits or great storage areas for the reserves thus accumulated, vast waterholes made from artificial dams, and, finally, as though to characterize the thorough use of a knowledge of engineering, great stills for the distillation of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. . . .

A more modest judgment of the immediate effect of such a historic lesson, however, is suggested by the most elementary of examples, and it has taken the place of these. In addition to being practical, it is the most logical.

The Age-Old Martyrdom of the Land

In reality, among the determining agents of the drought, interposed in an appreciable way is the makeup of the soil. No matter what the intensity of the complex and more remote causes that we have sketched out previously, their influence is manifest only when one considers the absorbent and emissive capacity of the exposed terrain, the slant of the strata that shape it, and the harshness of the topographical relief, all of which, along with the height of summer and the intense wear of the torrents, make it worse. As it comes out of the lingering hot suns into sudden inundations, land that is poorly protected by its deciduous vegetation gives way gradually to an invasion by a regime that can frankly be called a desert.

The strong storms that quench the dull fire of the droughts, in spite of the rebirth they bring along with them, set up the region for greater troubles. They harshly denude it, leaving it more and more unprotected from summers to come. They furrow it into harsh contours. They lash it and sterilize it. And when they disappear, they have left it all the more naked to the violence of the sun’s rays. The region goes through a deplorable interlude that resembles a vicious circle of catastrophes. As J. Yoffily has pointed out in his Notes on Paraíba: “Worthy of attention is the steep declivity toward the sea existing in the backlands terrain where its rivers run . . . as rain falls on those rocky flatlands with scant vegetation, the water runs freely through furrows or channels, it bringing on true avalanches that destroy everything in their path . . .”

Therefore, the only means of adapting to this must be a correction of these natural dispositions. Laying aside the determining factors of this onslaught, which lie in the laws of astronomy and geography, beyond human intervention, the means mentioned are the only ones possible for any appreciable modifications.

The process is one that we have outlined in a brief historical review and by its very simplicity it dispenses with any useless technical details.

France is following it today without any variations as it revives the scheme of some very ancient constructions.

Damming up the gullies after choosing them intelligently at closely spaced points across the extensive backland territory would bring about three inevitable results: It would narrow the violent damage to the soil and considerably reduce its woeful consequences; rich areas of cultivation would be formed in the web of its flow; and a state of balance would be maintained against the instability of the climate because the numerous small pools, in their uniform distribution, would constitute a wide surface of evaporation and over the passage of the seasons would be a natural and moderating influence like that of an inland sea, and this would be of extreme importance.

There is little hope of any other way out. The cisterns, artesian wells, and scattered and distantly spaced lakes like the one at Quixadá have a local but unappreciable value. Their aim is most often a lessening of the final consequences of the drought—thirst. What really must be fought and overcome in the backlands of the North is the desert.

The martyrdom of man in those parts is but a reflection of a greater torture, one more widespread and one that takes in the whole economy of life.

It is the age-old martyrdom of the land. . . .

CHAPTER II

MAN

V. Antecedents to Canudos. Rapid Growth. Governance of the Settlement. A Diverse Population. A Police Force of Bandits. The Temple. Waiting Room to Heaven. The Prayers. Strange Groupings. Why Not Preach Against the Republic? An Aborted Mission. A Curse on the Jerusalem of Mud Huts.

I

The Complexity of Brazil’s Ethnological Problem

The origins of the mixed races of Brazil is a problem that will challenge the efforts of the best scholarly minds for a long time to come. The influences that have effected varying degrees of change on three ethnic groups have been little studied. This is an entirely new field in Brazil. The domain of Brazilian anthropological research has attracted some of our finest minds. Our studies of indigenous prehistory are models of serious research and they definitively establish, contrary to the fanciful builders of the Aleutian bridge, that the peoples of the Americas comprise aboriginal races.

Many illustrious scholars support this noble effort to prove that the Homo sapiens americanus is autonomous among races. There are the in-depth paleontological studies of Wilhelm Lund; Morton’s name distinguishes itself, as does the brilliant intuition of Frederick Hartt, Meyer’s thorough scientific reasoning and organization, and the rare lucidity of Trajano de Moura; and the work of many others supports Nott and Gordon in substantiating, in a more complete manner, that America is a breeding ground apart from the great nursery of central Asia.

The underlying question has thus been defined. Either the American man of Brazil rises from the “man of the Lagoa Santa” crossed with the pre-Columbian sambaquís, or he is the descendent of an invading race from the north, highly modified by later crossbreeding and by the environment, as may be the case of the Tupis, who were so numerous at the time of the discovery.[1] No matter what their provenance, our backlanders, with their distinctive anthropological features, can be considered to be the fast-disappearing descendents of older races native to our land.

Having clarified the fundamental question regarding the origins of the indigenous elements of our population, the research turned toward a definition of their special psychological characteristics. It is not necessary for us to review these findings, some of which were sound, since the subject is out of our area of competence and we should not stray from our original objective.

The two other formative elements of our people have not been given the same level of scholarly attention. The Bantu, or Kaffir, Negro in his various forms has until this time been neglected. Only recently has a persistent researcher, Nina Rodrigues, done a careful analysis of their original and interesting religious beliefs. Whatever African branch the transplanted Negro might represent, he certainly carried the preponderant attributes of the Homo afarensis son of barbaric and desolate lands where natural selection, more than any other process, is the result of ferocity and brute strength.

The Portuguese, on the other hand, give us our characteristic aristocratic features and link us to the vibrant intellectual heritage of the Celts. These traits are quite distinct, despite the complicated melting pot from which we emerge.

Thus we arrive, albeit imperfectly, at the three essential components of our human history. We are well acquainted with the differing environmental and historical conditions, whether adverse or favorable, that have influenced our development. In considering the complex process of this interweaving of anthropological types marked by variations in physical and psychological attributes and influenced by extreme variations in climate and sometimes opposite living conditions, we must admit that we have not furthered our knowledge. We have written about all the possible solutions of a complex formula, but we have not identified all the unknowns.

It is not enough, in this case, to apply Broca’s abstract and rigid anthropological law to a comparison of the Bantu Negro, the Guarani Indian, and the white man. It does not account for the factors that may lessen the influence of the more numerous or stronger race, or the causes that may undo or reinforce that influence. Unlike those countries whose racial mix is white and black, we must consider three diverse populations that are intimately influenced by the vicissitudes of their histories and the climates in which they live. It is a rule that simply helps us decide which questions to ask. It changes, as all rules do, under the pressure of objective facts. But even if someone tried to apply it without regard to the data, it would not simplify the problem; it would only betray a lack of intellectual rigor on the part of the researcher.

This is easy to demonstrate. If we consider the three core elements of our race and their innate capacities, we can disregard any extraneous information. We soon observe that the result of the union of two races does not produce a third race in which the characteristics of each in this binary union are evenly distributed. On the contrary, the inevitable ternary combination results in at least three other binary ones. The original racial elements are not aggregated nor are they blended. Rather, they reproduce themselves, dividing into an equal number of subforms that then take their place and produce a confused mix of races, the most characteristic results of which are the mulatto, the mameluco or curiboca, and the cafuzo.[2] The initial focus of the investigations is diverted by the discovery that reproduction, not reduction, occurs in this racial mixture. As study of these racial subcategories displaces research on the originating race, the task is made more complex and more difficult because one is confronted with the innumerable racial manifestations that result, depending on the variations in admixture of blood.

The Brazilian, as an abstract type that we seek to define, can only be viewed as a human type in progress, the result of an extraordinarily complex mixing of races. In theory he would be the light-brown-skinned type, the product of successive crossings of the mulatto, the curiboca, and the cafuzo. However, it is unrealistic, if not absurd, to insist on the reality of such a type. The history of each region in Brazil varies greatly, as does the climate. The different racial types react differently to each of these factors. The rates of miscegenation also vary greatly by region. In colonial times racial mixing occurred because of armed invasions. From that time to the present day it has also been the result of the arrival of new populations. It is a process that has never been consistent.

This aside, these rapid observations will serve to explain the divergence of opinions that prevail among our anthropologists. Because of the complexity of ethnographic research in Brazil, our anthropologists have rejected the painstaking task of sorting out complex conditions and have given more attention to the description of the preponderant characteristics of different ethnic groups. While these factors are undeniably important, the emphasis placed upon them has been taken to extreme lengths, provoking a proliferation of semi-science veiled in wild and futile fantasies. There has been a recent excess of subjectivity by writers who have handled serious matters with scandalous irresponsibility. They began by ignoring a large part of the empirical data offered by environmental and historical circumstances. Then they proceeded to write fiction on the theme of the three races, inventing crossings and intermarriage according to their personal whims. Out of all of this fanciful meta-chemistry came mythology.

Some of these would-be anthropologists began by claiming, with dubious authority, that the physical environment has played a secondary role. Moreover, they claimed the almost complete extinction of the aborigine, as well as a diminishing influence of the African since the abolition of slavery. These same investigators predicted the ultimate supremacy of the white race on the grounds that it is stronger and more numerous in population. They depicted the mulatto as a diluted form of the Negro race, and in turn alleged that the aborigine features of the caboclo were being progressively erased.[3]

Others are even more expansive in their fantastic speculation. They inflate the influence of the aborigine and construct theories that fall apart at the slightest nudge of criticism—fantasies that are expressed in both rhyme and meter, and intrude on the scientific domain with the rhythmic cadence of the verses of our romantic poet Gonçalves Dias.

Others remain more grounded. They exaggerate the influence of the African, who is capable, they assert, of resisting absorption by the dominant race. They hail the mulatto as the most characteristic type of our ethnic subcategories.

In summary, the many opinions expressed on this subject have been diverse and of dubious validity.

We believe that the confusion is due to the focus of these studies on a single ethnic type, when in fact there are many. We do not have a unified race. We may never have one.[4] We are predestined to create a historic race, providing that our nation remains autonomous long enough to produce it. In this regard we are inverting the natural order: Our biological evolution depends on social progress.

We are condemned to civilization. Either we progress or we will become extinct. That much is certain.

It is not just the heterogeneity of our ancestral heritage that suggests this. Other equally important conditions reinforce it—the vast and diverse physical environment of our country combined with a continuous flux of historical situations, which are in large part shaped by the environment. This is a subject that we must briefly consider.

Diversity of the Physical Environment

Refuting the opinion of those who would place the hot countries at thirty degrees latitude, Brazil cannot by a long stretch be included in that category. Such a limitation is misleading from both an astronomical and a geographical perspective. Not only does it deviate from commonly accepted demarcations, this definition overlooks the natural topography that attenuates or reinforces meteorological conditions, allowing equatorial conditions to exist at high altitudes or temperate climates in the tropics. All climatology, within the broad parameters of general cosmological laws, tends to be influenced by the most proximate natural phenomena. A climate is like a physiological translation of a geographic condition. And defining it in this way we conclude that our country, by its very physical structure, is unlikely to have a uniform climate.

This is illustrated by the most recent results of meteorological research, which are the only reliable studies. These divide the country into three clearly distinct zones: the definitely tropical zone, which extends from the states of the North to southern Bahia, with average temperatures of twenty-six degrees centigrade; the temperate zone, extending from São Paulo to Rio Grande do Sul, through Paraná and Santa Catarina, between the fifteenth and twentieth isotherms; and, in between, the subtropical zone, stretching through the central and northern zones of some states, from Minas Gerais to Paraná.

Here the boundaries of three distinct habitats are clearly marked. However, even though they are clearly differentiated, there are additional characteristics that create diverse conditions within each zone. We will describe these in broad strokes.

The placement of Brazil’s mountain ranges, huge masses of upturned rock following the coast in a line perpendicular to the southeast, determines the primary traits of large expanses of territory that stretch to the east and express significant climatological differences. In fact, the climate of this region is entirely subordinate to geography and defies the laws that normally govern it. From the tropical zone on the Ecuadorian side, its astronomical charting by latitude cedes to perplexing secondary causes defined, in a rare anomaly, by longitude.

It is a well-known fact that the extensive strip of coastline that runs from Bahia to Paraíba presents more marked changes along the parallel to the east than along the meridian northward. The differences in climate and natural features that are imperceptible along the northern meridian are clearly marked along the parallel. All the way to the northernmost regions of the country, nature displays itself exuberantly in the lush forests that line the coast, so that at first glance a foreigner would believe this to be a huge region of fertile and pristine lands. Nonetheless, starting at the thirteenth parallel the forests shield vast strips of sterile land, with barren tracts that reveal the rigors of a climate in which the exaggeratedly extreme thermometric and hygrometric readings vary in inverse ratio.

A short journey west from any point on the coast leads to the barrens. The charm of a beautiful illusion is broken. Nature becomes impoverished; the great forests are stripped of their foliage; the mountains abdicate their dominion over the landscape; gullies and deserts transform the backlands into a parched and barbaric land, with its intermittent streams and bare promontories projecting out in infinite succession, creating a huge stage for the tragic drama of the droughts.

The contrast is shocking. A scant one hundred miles away are regions with completely opposite characteristics supporting entirely different conditions for life. The desert takes one by surprise. Certainly, those waves of settlers who in the first two centuries of colonization ventured west over those northern territories on their way to the interior must have encountered more serious obstacles than rough seas and craggy mountains as they crossed the bone-dry scrublands. The failure of the Bahians, and before them the Paulistas,[5] to penetrate the interior, is a striking case in point.

The same, however, does not apply to the tropics to the South. There, the geological warp of the earth, the matrix of its interesting morphogenesis, is uniform over vast expanses of the interior. It creates the same favorable conditions, the same flora, and similarly abundant natural features in a climate much improved by the altitude.

The imposing bulwark of the granite cordillera rises perpendicular from the sea, and its inner slopes fall gently away in vast, undulating plains. It forms the steep, sharply etched escarpment of the plateaus.

The plateaus unveil even more opulent and expansive landscapes that are free of the imposing bulk of the mountains. The land complies with that “manageability of nature” of which Buckle speaks, and the warm, temperate climate matches the admirable benignity of the climes of southern Europe. Here, the southeast wind does not predominate as it does farther north. The northwest wind rolls in from the highlands of the interior and sweeps over the vast area spanning from the plateaus of Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro, through São Paulo, all the way to Paraná.

While we have done little more than briefly sketch these broad distinctions, we have already begun to illustrate the essential differences between South and North, which are completely distinct regions due to their meteorological conditions, their topography, and the variable transitions between the backlands and the coast. We will go into more detailed analysis that will reveal certain aspects to underscore our point. We will, however, focus only on the most salient examples to avoid redundant explanations.

We have seen in the preceding pages that the southeast wind is the prevailing wind on the eastern seaboard but is substituted in the southern states by a northwest wind and in the North by the northeaster. These wind currents in turn disappear in the heart of the highland plateaus and are taken over by a strong cold front similar to the pampero of the Argentine pampa that sweeps into Mato Grosso and triggers wild thermometric variations.[6] This weather phenomenon contributes to the instability of the climate on the mainland and causes harsh conditions in the central plateaus that differ from what we have sketched above.

Indeed, natural conditions in Mato Grosso substantiate Buckle’s extreme claims. The region is unlike any other and has distinct features. All its savage beauty, its unimaginable exuberance, when married to the extreme harshness of the elements—qualities the eminent thinker hastily generalized and used to characterize Brazil as a whole—manifest themselves in astonishing displays of natural beauty. Even if contemplated with the practiced eye of the naturalist who is not inclined to hyperbole, this landscape illustrates the rich diversity of Brazil’s natural environment.

There is no comparison to the play of opposites in this region. At first glance it seems completely benign: the land in love with life, fecund nature reigning triumphant in a succession of bright, calm days, the soil in bloom with vegetation so fantastic and fertile it appears to come from the imagination, irrigated by rivers flowing to all points of the compass. But this lush peacefulness paradoxically hides the seeds of summer storms, which erupt in an unchanging rhythm and are preceded by the same warning signs. They fall on the region with the finality of natural law. It is hard to describe them, but we will try to give an idea of what they are like.

After a northeaster blows hot, moist squalls for a few days, the air becomes still and stagnant for a while. Then, in the words of João Severino da Fonseca, in his travelogue Journey around Brazil, “Nature becomes still, frozen in fear; not even the tree-tops sway; the woodlands become quiet and appear like a solid object; the birds suspend their flight and hide, quivering in their nests.”

There is not a cloud in the sky. The pure blue firmament arches overhead illuminated still by an eclipsing sun. The barometric pressure falls slowly but continuously, snuffing out life. For a few moments, a compact cumulous cloud lined in dark copper appears darkly on the southern horizon. Then a breeze begins to blow with rapidly increasing velocity until it becomes a high wind. The temperature plunges, and minutes later the earth is rattled by a violent storm. Lightning flashes, thunder booms in the low-ceilinged skies, and torrential rain crashes over those vast plains, erasing in a unique torrent the indecisive divides of the waters that crisscross them, fusing the riverheads and roiling their beds in a chaotic overflow. It is a sudden assault. The cataclysm is unleashed in the vicious spiral of a tornado. Houses are unroofed; the centenary carandá palms bend over, moaning, and burst apart; hills become islands; and the plains are submerged in deep floodwaters.

Just an hour later, the sun radiates triumphant in a pure sky! The birds, revived, sing in the dripping foliage; the air moves with gentle breezes; and man, emerging from the dwellings to which he had fearfully repaired, contemplates the storm damage as nature is revived. Twisted trees and limbs rent by lightning are strewn on the ground; homes are destroyed, the ruins scattered; muddy floodwaters rush over engorged riverbanks; the field grasses are flattened as if trampled by herds of buffalo—fearful reminders of the storm and its horrible assault.

A few days later the winds start to build up slowly from the east once again, and the temperature starts to rise once more; the barometric pressure steadily drops and unease mounts until the still air is once again trapped in the iron grip of the pampero wind, and the killer storm comes back, raging in vicious spirals, stirring up the same cycle of destruction.

Continuing north, the climate of the state of Pará offers distinct contrasts to what we have just seen. Brazilians from other latitudes know little about this state, despite what they might have read in Bates’s Naturalist on the River Amazonas. Warm mornings, with mild temperatures around seventy-three degrees, surprisingly follow the rainy nights. Days that burst forth like bright revelations bring unexpected changes: Trees that were bare the night before are now in full bloom; marshlands are now meadows. And then, in an abbreviated cycle of twenty-four hours, there are complete transformations: Forests grow silent, stalks are stripped or their leaves are burned or wilted; the air becomes empty and mute; branches become widowed of their recent buds, which fall dead on the still earth under the torturous heat of thirty-five degrees centigrade in the shade. “The next morning,” says Draenert in his Climates of Brazil, “the sun rises in a cloudless sky and the cycle is completed: spring, summer, and fall in a single tropical day.”

The climate is so constant that it camouflages the passing of the seasons in a single day, each following the other as if on the dial of a clock, even though the annual variations in daily temperature are of only one or one and a half degrees. Thus life achieves balance with an imperturbable consistency.

Nevertheless, to the west, in the Upper Amazon, diverse conditions create a completely different environment. It cannot be denied that the inhabitants of neighboring territories find it very difficult to acclimate here. In this place, at the most intense point of the summer heat, when the remnants of easterly winds are faltering in the heavy air, the thermometer takes the place of the hygrometer in measuring climate. Human existence comes to depend on the painful cycle of drought and flooding of the great rivers of the region. These alternations escalate in a frightening manner. The swollen Amazon leaps from its bed and in a few days raises the water level to something like seventeen yards. It spreads out in vast overflows, in an intricate web of pools and channels called furos and paranamirins, or as Richard Spruce names them, paraná-mirí, forming a huge land-bound sea ripped by strong currents, in which emerge the igapós, islands of jungle vegetation.

The flood stops life in its tracks. Caught in the channels between the islands in the river, the igarapés, man waits with unusual stoicism in a situation he is powerless to change, waiting for the end of this paradoxical winter with its searing temperatures.[7] The rivers drain in the summer. This is the season when the inhabitants of the region resume their limited activities, in the only ways possible in an environment that displays such extremes and makes sustained effort impossible. In fact, the place encourages a parasitic lifestyle. It is possible to drink the milk of life by sipping from the chalice of the siphonia.[8]

But in this singular climate, there are additional anomalies that are typical for the region but make living conditions even more difficult. It is not just the alternating floods and droughts that rhythmically regulate the systole and diastole of one of the biggest arteries of the planet. Other conditions render any attempt to adapt to the climate a futile exercise. Often in the height of the flood season, in April or May, on a calm, clear day in the incandescent Amazonian atmosphere, frigid currents from the south will chill the air. It is like an arctic blast. The thermometer drops suddenly by many degrees, and for several days a weather anomaly sets in.

The fortune seekers who have come to this region in search of a livelihood, and the native peoples themselves, who are adapted to the climate, seek shelter in flimsy huts, called tejupás, and crouch shivering around wood fires. All work and other normal activity ceases. The vast floodplains, now underwater, are deserted. The fish die in the cold waters, and the birds in the silenced forests either die or migrate, leaving empty nests. Even the wildlife vanishes, burrowing into the deepest holes it can find. Lush equatorial nature, shaped by the splendid tropical sun, takes on the desolate and funereal appearance of a polar region. The cold season, or time of friagem, has taken the region in its grip.

We must, however, end this brief digression.

As we have seen, the backlands of the North of Brazil have a variety of climates with their corresponding biological characteristics. There the same pendulum of the seasons, mild weather alternating with harsh conditions, has other severe repercussions. If we consider that these diverse climatic features are not the exception but the rule, from the storms of Mato Grosso to the drought cycles of the North, and that they come with the regularity of natural laws, we must agree that our physical environment displays complete variability.

It is easy to see why many who study our physiology come to mistaken conclusions because they generalize about the effects of the tropical climate. This climate does, in fact, create a unique pathology that affects the populations of the entire northern coast and a large area of the states as far north as Mato Grosso. The wet heat of the Amazon region provokes depression and exhaustion. It stunts growth and causes imbalances between the peripheral and central nervous systems. Passion overtakes reason, mental acuity succumbs to anxiety, and the body cannot repair due to blood weakened by poor nutrition and climate.

These conditions trigger physiological anomalies: Unusually small lungs place stress on the liver and cause it to become enlarged as it takes over the elimination of carbon dioxide from the system; bodies are weakened by mood swings between elation and apathy; muscle tone is reduced in comparison to that of more robust and energetic peoples. In such an environment, natural selection occurs in a reverse process of intellectual and physical development. Due to seriously compromised brain function, adaptation to the environment produces strong organisms with weakened moral fiber. Acclimatization signifies regressive evolution. This human type wastes away and passes along its decline by heredity to the point of extinction of its kind. Like the Englishman in Barbados, Tasmania, or Australia, the Portuguese immigrant in the Amazon region may evade miscegenation but even so, after a few generations, his physical and moral characteristics will be significantly changed. His complexion will have bronzed from the tropical sun and the incomplete elimination of toxins, and his temperament will be weakened by deprivation. He will be taken over by the inferior race, the savage native who in collaboration with the physical environment will conquer, crush, and eliminate him. He will die from malaria, hepatitis, and swamp fever bred by the terrible summer heat.

This does not happen in the rest of Brazil or in the South. Even in some parts of the northern backlands, the dry heat countered by strong air currents from the northeast and southeast creates a more healthy and beneficial environment.

Returning to the South, to the territory that extends from north of Minas Gerais southwest to Rio Grande, conditions are incomparably better. The annual average temperature ranges from sixty-two to sixty-eight degrees. The seasons alternate in a harmonious manner, and a more predictable rainy season in the fall and spring favors agriculture. Winter gives the impression of a European climate. A frigid wind brings light rain and mist; snow forms lacework on the windowpanes, brooks are frozen over, and frost is white on the fields.

The Impact of the Environment on the History of the Region

Our history translates these environmental conditions in a remarkable manner. If we take a broad view and leave aside certain unimportant details, we can see interesting events taking shape early in our colonial period. The land was divided up under the feudal rule of fortunate proprietors who, still mesmerized by visions of the “Greater Indies,” maintained an aloof attachment to the colonial metropolis, which resulted ultimately in the radical divide between the South and the North.

There is no need to review the decisive factors that shaped the two regions. They have two different histories with opposite tendencies and movements. They were two societies in the process of being formed that became distanced from each other by rival destinies, each totally indifferent to the ways of the other, both, however, evolving under the rule of one administration. In the South new trends emerged: There was greater diversity of activities; more vigor in a heterogeneous population that was livelier, more practical, and more adventurous; and, in sum, forward progress. All of this contrasted with the often brilliant but always less productive life of the North. These sparse and incoherent captaincies remained yoked to the same routines, without character and frozen in time, fulfilling the duties required of the subjects of a distant court.

History there is more dramatic but less eloquent. Heroes appear; however their stature seems greater only in contrast with the mediocrity of their peers. Brilliant, vibrant pages of history are left incomplete because the three formative races do not share common objectives and keep separate from one another. Even in the decisive struggle between the Portuguese and the Dutch in Pernambuco, Henrique Dias’s blacks, Camarão’s Indians, and João Fernandez Viera’s Lusitanians kept to themselves in their camp tents. If they were hardly united in war, they were further distanced in peace. The drama of the Palmares colony of runaway slaves, the Indian attacks, and border conflicts of the backlands—all broke the truce that had been made with the Dutch.

Imprisoned on the coastal fringe between the impenetrable backlands and the sea, the old colonial regime has survived to this day. This is due to a stubborn and stupid insistence on centralizing government power, resulting in the ironic imposition of old social mores on a new country. It was fortunate that the South hammered against these traditions with its impetuous influence.

In the South, adaptation occurred more rapidly, in a less adverse environment, and soon the settlers gained in vigor. The backlands conquests produced mixed descendents of crossings of colonists with aboriginal tribes, and the result was the daring mamelucos. The Paulista, New World man (the historical significance of this name includes the sons of Rio de Janeiro, Minas, São Paulo, and regions to the south), was an independent type: an adventurer, rebel, free spirit, a man who conquered the land, freeing himself from the long reach of the old country and distancing himself from the sea and the battleships of the metropolis. He chose to make his future in the backlands, foreshadowing the yet to be written epic of the bandeiras.

These migratory and demographic patterns are the product of environmental conditions. There were no racial differences between the colonists from the South and those from the North. In both cases, there was the presence of elements that caused Diogo Coelho to despair and say, “Worse than pestilence on the land . . .” But in the South, the vital energies of those who had ploughed the unforgiving ocean were not depleted by an enervating climate. Rather, the newcomers were strengthened by the earth and were changed for the better. In the new land, man began to feel empowered. In this new place, where his great crimes were given a new stage, he might apply the same bravado to the formidable backlands that had launched him into African circumnavigations.

There is another point we must mention at the risk of offending our myopic historians—the mountains freed the colonizer from having to defend the coast and from the rapaciousness of the invading foreigner. The Serra do Mar, rising perpendicular from the Atlantic like a huge fortress, has played an important role in our history. The Cavendishes and Fentons vented their war lust with their fists against its cliffs. On its heights, the adventurer felt secure as he surveyed the plains. He rested safely on the immovable bulwark, which gave him protection both from the external enemy as well as from the metropolitan bureaucrat. The mountains circled the continent like arches of stone and formed an isolating barrier for both ethnic and historical purposes. They blocked the northern seaboard, a narrow swath of swamp and reefs, which held an irresistible attraction for the man of the North but offered him little. Meanwhile, challenging the incoming fleets, the mines called seductively from the interior forests.

Moreover, the mountain range is a highly efficient agent of condensation. Its special topographical profile triggers the evaporation of ocean moisture. The rivers that flow down from its heights then rise again from the sea, moving their waters away from the coast and back up to the interior, rushing into the backlands. The waters entice the stranger into missions of exploration. The earth seduces man: It calls him to her fertile breast; it enchants him with her beautiful form and finally traps him irresistibly in her river currents.

The majestic course of the Tietê offers an eloquent example of how a river led the way to the exploration of the land. Other rivers, such as the São Francisco, the Parnaíba, the Amazon, and other waterways of the eastern seaboard, present currents and rapids that fall from the terraces of the plateaus and make progress to the interior difficult. The Tietê effortlessly carries travelers to the Rio Grande and then to the Paraíba and the Parnaíba. This river was the highway into Minas Gerais, Goiás, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, and, in fact, all of Brazil. In taking this easier course, one that charts our colonial expansion, the explorers did not encounter either sterile lands or ugly deserts, as in the North, to impede their journey.

It is easier to show how this physical distinction helps to clarify the differences and contrasts between the events that took place at the opposite poles of our country, particularly during the period of acute colonial crisis in the seventeenth century. Dutch rule during this period was established in Pernambuco and extended along the entire east coast from Bahia to Maranhão. In the memorable confrontations that took place, our three founding races joined ranks to face a common enemy. The man of the South, on the other hand, remained completely distanced from these events and, in acts of rebellion against the decrees from the Portuguese crown, demonstrated his disengagement from his struggling countrymen. He was almost as dangerous an enemy as the Dutch. It was a strange population of rebellious men of mixed race, expressing other tendencies, following their own guiding stars, and setting out in new directions. These determined southerners trampled all manner of bulls and edicts. They rebelled outright against the Portuguese court in tenacious resistance to the Jesuits. In turn the Jesuits ignored the Dutch and appealed to Madrid through Ruy de Montoya and to Rome through Dias Taño. This made it clear that they regarded the rebels from the South as the more serious enemy.

Indeed, while von Schoppe’s army was propping up the Nassau government in Pernambuco, in São Paulo events were leading to the dark tragedy of Guaíra. And when the Portuguese restoration made it possible to repel the Dutch invader, and to round up the exhausted resistance fighters once again, the southerners used these events as the opportunity to make it clear that they were forging a separate destiny. They declared their complete autonomy in the one-minute reign of Amador Bueno.

There is no greater division in our history, one which reveals the true face of the nation. One can barely distinguish it in the lavish courts of the governors in Bahia, where the Society of Jesus ruled with the privilege of conquering souls, a self-serving euphemism used to cloak its monopoly on indigenous labor.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, the differences became even more apparent. The men from the South were spreading out through the entire country. They traveled as far as the distant borders of Ecuador. Well into the middle of the eighteenth century, pioneers followed the twisted trails of the bandeiras. They followed each other untiringly in successive waves, with the inevitability of a natural law. In fact, these intrepid caravans of warrior-pioneers did represent unlimited potential. As the waves of humanity descended on the four corners of the earth, invading their own country and breaking trails in all directions, they made discoveries after the discovery, baring the gleaming breasts of the mines.

The backlands’ pioneers headed west from the coast, leaving behind the decadence of its metropolitan lifestyle riddled with the vices of a degenerate monarchy. They migrated to the distant territories of Pernambuco and the Amazon and appeared to come from another race, with their courage and resiliency in the face of adversity. When Indian raids threatened Bahia, Pernambuco, or Paraíba, and settlements of runaway slaves, known as quilombos, multiplied in the forests, the southerner rose as a classical hero to vanquish all dangers in his path. The crude epic of Palmares tells this tale.

The son of the North did not have the benefit of an environment to endow him with equal physical stamina. If that had occurred, the expeditions would have also come from the east and the North and would have crushed and eliminated the indigenous population in a pincerlike operation. But as the northern settler tried to move west and south, he encountered a hostile natural environment and he speedily retraced his steps to the coast. He did not have the bravery of a conqueror who at once feels at home in a new land. The northern man lacked the confidence that the lush and easily penetrable virgin territory inspired in the southerner. The explorations begun then, in the second half of the sixteenth century, by Sebastião Tourinho along the Rio Doce, Bastião Álvares along the São Francisco, and Gabriel Soares in northern Bahia to the headwaters of the Paraguaçú, may have had the energetic stimulus of the Belchior Días silver mines. They are, however, a pale imitation of the huge Anhangüera or Pascoal de Araújo bandeiras expeditions.

Trapped between the cane fields of the coast and the backlands, between the sea and the desert, in a blockade aggravated by climatic conditions, the northerner lost his nerve and did not acquire the rebellious spirit that rings eloquently in the pages of the history of the South. Such contrasts are certainly not based on racial factors. With this outline of the role of the environment on our history, let us proceed to discuss its influence on our ethnic development.

Role of the Environment on the Formation of Race in Brazil

Let us refer back to our opening argument. If we agree that the environment does not form race, in the Brazilian case there is great variation in the mixture of the three principal races in diverse regions of our country. The very diversity of conditions to which inhabitants must adapt has prepared the way for different racial variations to emerge. Furthermore, and in our times this is an indisputable fact, external factors have a strong impact even on well-established populations, which continue to be displaced by secular migrations even if these societies have the resources of an advanced culture. If this applies to highly evolved races in other climates, which are sheltered by a civilization that is like the blood plasma of a great collective organism, how can we describe our own situation, which is very different? In our case, the close contact between races means that racial characteristics will become intimately fused, and the long period of evolution that follows creates inherent weaknesses in the mixed races. This, in turn, increases the influence of the environment on racial formation. The environment imprints its own characteristics on the human organism, which is undergoing a process of fusion of different types. Without taking this daring analogy too far, we can assert that these complex biological reactions have more energetic agents than the chemical reactions of matter. In addition to heat and light, which exercise their influence in both cases, we must consider topography, climate, and the mysterious presence and catalytic force of nature in all its forms. In our country, as we have seen, the intensity of these elements is far less uniform than has been claimed. History shows that the environment has led to a high diversification of our ethnic characteristics, producing a unique miscegenation.

There is no such thing as a Brazilian anthropological type.

Racial Development in Northern Brazil

Let us continue to seek the elusive and perhaps ephemeral mirage of a subrace in this intricate human stew. Since we are unable to describe our own nascent races, let us stick to our subject. We will quickly review the historical antecedents of the jagunço, the gunman of the backlands. As we have seen, racial formation in the North of Brazil is very different than in the South. Historical circumstances, which are in large part the result of physical conditions, marked the nature of racial mixing with distinct differences that are still prevalent today. The settlement march from Maranhão to Bahia is a case that illustrates this point.

It was a slow march. The Portuguese settlers did not approach the northern coast with the vital strength that comes from concentrated migrations, large invading masses that are able to preserve by sheer numbers all the qualities acquired on a long historical trajectory even when displaced from their native soil. They came in ragged groups, divided into small bands of condemned exiles or counterfeit colonists, without the virile energy of conquerors. They were still spellbound by illusions of the East.

Brazil was a land of exiles, a vast prison that was used to intimidate the heretics and renegades, all the victims of the dark “let him die for it” justice of the times. From those early times, the reduced number of settlers contrasts with the hugeness of the land and the great size of the indigenous population. The instructions given in 1615 to Captain Fragoso de Albuquerque concerning the implementation of the truce treaty with La Ravadière are very clear. This document states that “the lands of Brazil are not unpopulated because there are more than three thousand Portuguese inhabiting them.”

This applied to the entire country, even one hundred years after the discovery. According to Aires de Casal, in his monograph Corografia Brazilica, “The population grew so slowly that at the time of Dom Sebastião’s death in 1580 the only settlement was on the island of Itamaracá, which had about two hundred inhabitants and three sugar plantations.”

When a few years later Bahia’s population increased, the disproportion between the Europeans and the two other ethnic groups continued in perfect arithmetic progression. According to Fernão Cardim, there were two thousand whites, four thousand blacks, and six thousand Indians.[9] For a long time the native peoples held the greatest numbers. Their influence must have been significant in the first intermarriages.

The adventurers who plowed their way into the region were, moreover, of a kind inclined to mass miscegenation. Warriors who had not known a home—used to loose living in the camps—corrupt exiles, and adventurers all lived by Barlaeus’s aphorism ultra aequinoctialem non peccavi, “there are no sins south of the equator.” Consorting with the Indian women soon turned into open debauchery, from which not even the clergy were exempt. The Jesuit father Manuel da Nóbrega addressed this situation clearly, in his famous 1549 letter to the king. Here he portrays the lax customs of the colonists with guileless realism and states that the country is becoming populated with the progeny of Christians who are multiplying as a result of their heathen behavior. He suggests that the orphans be sent to him and even the women “who stray from the teachings of the church, and who could all find husbands, since the land is vast and rich.” Thus the first crossing of races occurred intensively in this early period between the European and the native peoples. Casal reports that “from early on the Tupinquims, who are good-natured pagans, were baptized and married to Europeans, thus producing innumerable whites in the country with Tupinquim blood in their veins.”

In contrast, the Africans played a lesser role in the first century of the reign even though they existed in large numbers. In many areas their numbers were scarce, such as in Rio Grande do Norte, where, according to the trustworthy narrator Casal, “The Indians had been long gone, in spite of their savagery, and their descendants through their contact with Europeans and Africans have increased the classes of the whites and the brown skinned.”

These passages are important. They suggest without bias that the extinction of the Indian of the North was due, as our eminent historian Adolfo Varnhagen maintained, to repeated crossings rather than to true extermination.[10] We also know that the landowners were anxious to profit from these alliances by securing the loyalty of the native. This disposition is also reflected in various royal charters issued by the court from 1750 to 1758, which in spite of what João Francisco Lisboa called “an interminable chain of hesitations and contradictions,” shows there was royal intent to curb the greed of the colonists who were determined to enslave the savage. In fact, some of these charters, such as that of 1680, decree that lands shall belong to the native, “even those lands already given to others since those who should have right of ownership are the same Indians who are natural lords of the land.”

The Society of Jesus was persistent in its effort to assimilate the Indian. The Jesuits were forced to submit to many restrictions on their activities in the South, but in the North they had free reign. In this region they played a positive role, if one overlooks a few moral lapses. They were at least an opposing force to the colonists, who were focused on personal gain. In the stupid struggle between perversity and barbarism, these eternal exiles accomplished a lot. They were the only men of their times with discipline. However quixotic the attempt to raise the mental state of the aborigine to the abstractions of monotheistic religion, it brought the benefit of bringing the native peoples into the mainstream of our history, until the timely reforms of Minister Pombal.[11]

The history of the missions in the North, in the entire territory from Maranhão to Bahia, completes in a certain way the feverish push of the bandeiras. It was a slow effort to penetrate into the heart of the backlands, from the flanks of the Ibiapaba to those of the Itiúba. If the bandeiras spread the blood of the three races throughout the newly discovered territories, triggering a general intermingling of peoples in spite of the conflicts that this brought with it, the Jesuit missions, on the other hand, created organized settlements that became magnets for the work of the apostolate and served to unify and integrate the native peoples, coalescing their small communities into villages. For over a century the Jesuits penetrated deep into the backlands and were responsible for the preservation of this part of our racial heritage. Some historians, impressed by the arrival of the African on a massive scale, an event that occurred without interruption from the end of the sixteenth century to our own times, in the late 1850s, have maintained that the black man was the strongest ally of the Portuguese in the colonial enterprise and ascribe an exaggerated influence of the black in the formation of the backlander of the North. However, as far as the invasion of these miserable enslaved people is concerned, it is questionable that they had a strong influence on the backland territories. Their prolific fecundity as well as their ability to adapt, honed by the searing suns of Africa, are traits that argue against this theory.

It is true that the Afro-Lusitanian alliance was an old one, predating even the discovery. It goes back to the fifteenth century, to the azenegues and jalofos of Gil Eannes and Antão Gonçalves.[12] In 1530 more than ten thousand blacks walked the streets of Lisbon and the same was true of other places. In Évora blacks outnumbered the whites. The verses of a contemporary, Garcia de Resende, document this fact:

Vemos no reyno metter,

Tantos captives crescer,

Irem-se os naturaes,

Que, se assim fôr, serão mais

Elles que nós, a meu ver.

We see in the kingdom now,

The numbers of captives grow,

The natives will go,

And if that is so,

There will certainly be more of them than of us, I avow.

Thus, the mulatto originated outside our own country. The first intermarriage with the African occurred in Lisbon. Here in Brazil the number of these marriages naturally grew. However, the dominated race had no opportunities for development due to the social situation. With his powerful physique and humble nature, and without the rebellious tendencies of the Indian, the Negro carried on his shoulders the entire pressure of colonial life. He was a beast of burden tethered to unceasing labor. The old ordinances denounce the brutality of the age; they state that “one may cast off men and beasts if they become sick or maimed.” Furthermore, the undeniable fact is that the many imported slaves were concentrated on the coast. The great black border lined the coast from Bahia to Maranhão but barely penetrated the interior. Even when they were in open rebellion, the humble blacks who gathered in their small huts in the runaway slave colonies, or quilombos , seemed to avoid the heartland of the country. Palmares, with some thirty thousand runaway slaves, was only a few kilometers distant from the coast.

The fertility of the land along the coast tended to retain two of the three racial groups, and only the Indian was free. The extensive sugarcane culture, imported from Madeira, was responsible for the neglect of the backlands. Even before the Dutch invasion there were 160 sugarcane plantations from Rio Grande do Norte to Bahia. The cultivation of this crop progressed rapidly on an increasing scale.

The African population remained chained to the vast cane fields of the coast and initiated a process of racial crossings that were very different from what was happening in the hinterland of the captaincies. Out in those territories the Indian roamed free, inept for work and always in rebellion. If he was held in settlements, it was due to the perseverance of the missionaries. The institution of slavery, product of the colonists’ self-interest, left the priests more time for religious conversion than in the South. Even the pioneers, when they finally came to this last stop on their daring journey, had no fight left in them. Some, like Domingos Sertão, declared an end to their adventurous life and went after the profits to be made on the stock-breeding farms that had opened on those vast estates.

This is how the clear distinction arose between intermarriages in the backlands and on the coast. Since in both areas the white element was the common denominator, the mulatto arose on the coast and the curiboca, those of mixed Indian blood, in the backlands.

II

Origin of the Jagunço Gunmen and Probable Parallels in the State of São Paulo

There is a positive trace of originality in the origins of the backlands population, if not of the North, then of subtropical Brazil. We shall try to summarize this, and in order not to digress too much we will stay close to the scene of the historical drama of Canudos. We will quickly follow the course of the São Francisco River, “the great highway of Brazilian civilization,” in the words of historian João Ribeiro.

We have seen in the quick overview given in previous pages that the river flows through the most diverse regions. At its wide headwaters, its swollen basin sweeps into its net of numerous tributaries half of Minas Gerais, in its zone of mountains and forests. The river narrows later, in its midsection, in the very beautiful landscape of the gerais.

Downstream from Juazeiro, in its lower course, the river becomes constricted between cliffs that litter its bed with boulders and twist its course seaward. There it loses its tributaries and flows in a narrow corridor of several hundred kilometers to Paulo Afonso, cutting through the desert tract of caatinga brushwood.

The three sections of this river give us a diagram of our own historical trajectory. It balances the influence of the Tietê River. This river had a course much more suited to colonial expansion, and it became the favored route for backlands pioneers seeking to enslave and subdue the savage Indian. The São Francisco became, at its headwaters, the center of mining activity; in its lower trajectory, the site of missionary work; and midcourse it harbored the classic cattle lands, the only way of life fully compatible with the social and economic conditions of the colony. The banks of the São Francisco were traveled alike by the bandeirante , the Jesuit, and the cattleman.

In the future, when we have a more complete set of documents that will permit us to reconstruct colonial life from the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century, it is possible that the cowboy of the North, who is completely forgotten today, will be given the recognition he deserves. He had a decisive influence on the life of our country. As brave and fearless as the bandeirante, and as practical and persistent as the Jesuit, he had the advantage of an additional strength that was lacking in the other two—he was rooted in the land.

As far as the bandeiras were concerned, there were two aspects to the expeditions’ activities, which have often been confused with each other. Sometimes they went in search of land and other times their prey was man. They looked for gold and slaves, and on their way they discovered large tracts of land, which they did not cultivate and then abandoned, leaving them more deserted than they found them, as they moved quickly through villages and abandoned mines. Their history, sometimes as confusing as the purposely indecipherable notes in their logs, followed the alternating paths of these two quests, gold and slaves. Their success depended on the personal character of the adventurers and on how well the expedition was planned. Their most useful contribution was in discovering new lands, which they regarded as an incidental consequence of their efforts and to which they gave little thought.

With Glimmer’s 1601 expedition the illusion of the “Emerald Mountains” was gone. From the middle of the sixteenth century this vision had lured one failed expedition after the other to the flanks of the Espinhaço Range—men of the likes of Bruzzo Spinosa, Sebastião Tourinho, Dias Adorno, and Martins Carvalho. Once the magical land of the North that had been conceived by the romantic imagination of Gabriel Soares had disappeared, most of the seventeenth century was overshadowed by the dark legends of slave hunters, personified by the brutal hero Antônio Raposo. Around this same time the always elusive sightings of the mysterious “Sabará-buçú” and the silver mines also vanished. These dreams were revived by the unsuccessful expeditions of País Leme, who retraced the footsteps of Glimmer after almost a century. Arzão kept the dreams alive with his gold nuggets, and in 1693 he followed the path of Tourinho and Adorno. Finally, the quest was taken up by Bartolomeu Bueno in Itaberaba and Miguel Garcia in Ribeirão do Carmo. The backlands explorations regained their original mystique and once more spread through the country from the heart of the mining region, aptly named Ouro Prêto, or “black gold.”

During this period the only events of note were the conflicts with the Dutch on the coast and the astounding incursion of the bandeiras into the central northeastern plateau. Meanwhile, along the middle section of the São Francisco a process of settlement began causing results that would only later become apparent.

Historical Role of the São Francisco River

The early history of the river goes back a long way. The expeditions to the Moréia mines were an influential factor in the beginning. While relatively unknown, these forays reached all the way to the vice-regency of Lancastro, clearing the way for successive bands of settlers to the highlands of Macaúbas, beyond the Paramirim. There were no direct routes along the coast. These would have been shorter but were barricaded by thick mountain walls and dense forests. The explorers gained access to the backlands on the São Francisco, which offered just two entries, one at the source and another at its mouth. The great river brought men from the South together with those from the North and from the outset it took on the aspect of an ethnic unifier. It was a very long band of water that joined two societies living without knowledge of each other. They came from all points of origin: the Paulistas of Domingos Sertão or the Bahians of Garcia d’Ávila; the Pernambucans of Francisco Caldas, with their small allied armies of Tabajara Indians, or even the Portuguese followers of Manuel Nunes Viana who set out from his ranch, the Fazenda do Escuro, the Dark Ranch, in Carinhanha, to put down the emboabas, the Portuguese who were also hunting for gold on the Rio das Mortes. Whoever these new settlers were or wherever they came from, when they reached the heart of those backlands they rarely turned back.

The settlers were richly compensated by the fertile and readily accessible land for the fading mirage of the coveted mines. The geology of the region created topographical formations in which the highlands, the last spurs and ridges of the maritime cordillera, were flanked by vast plateaus. The flora was complex and diverse, interlaced with forests that were not as big or impenetrable as those on the coast. The charm of the fields and the rustic beauty of the plains would suddenly disappear into the enormous wastes of the caatinga. The unique hydrography of the region, with symmetrical tributaries running east and west, linked it to the coast on the one side and to the central plateau on the other. All of these conditions served to attract and connect the sparse population. Cattle ranching flourished as one of the livelihoods best suited to the region. The unusually rich soil did not lack the essential element of salt, which was found in the brackish wetlands of the salt licks.

These conditions favored the rise of an extensive region of cattle ranching that already at the dawn of the eighteenth century ranged from northern Minas Gerais to Goiás to Piauí to the borders of Maranhão and Ceará on the northwest and the rich highlands of Bahia on the east. The zone was populated and it became autonomous and strong, but it remained isolated because the chroniclers of the time paid no attention to it and thus it was forgotten not only by the distant metropolis in Lisbon but by local governors and viceroys as well. It did not produce taxes or revenues to feed the avarice of the monarch. The region became a contrast, however, to the turmoil on the coast and the wild ways of the mines, in João Ribeiro’s words, “almost the only tranquil oasis of our culture.” With the exception of rare contingents of settlers from Pernambuco and Bahia, most of the wealthy cattlemen who prospered here came from the South and were descendents of the same enthusiastic and energetic people who conducted the bandeiras.

According to the valuable information found in Pedro Taques’s genealogy of São Paulo families, there were many who set out for those distant lands in continuous migrations. If we accept João Mendes de Almeida’s historical opinion, it is plausible that “the São Francisco valley, populated since the eighteenth century by Paulistas and their families, had become their almost exclusive colony.” It was only natural that Bartolomeu Bueno, when he discovered Goiás, would find surprising evidence of predecessors, anonymous pioneers who had certainly arrived from the east, after crossing the Paranan Range. When the famous gold rush of 1697 began and rowdy bands of immigrants stampeded up the eastern slopes of the Espinhaço Range, along the thalweg of the Rio das Velhas, the strongest of them overtook the others and advanced in an opposite direction like a reflux from the north. These were the bands of Bahians, a term which like that of Paulista would become a generic one and would apply to all northern settlers. The Bahians were possibly those who first discovered the Caeté mines.

The Cowboy: Intermediary Between the Pioneer and the Priest

There was already a race of mestizos arising in the middle valley of the great river that was identical to the daring mamelucos who had been born in São Paulo. It is not too risky to hypothesize that this extraordinary type of Paulista was born and then declined in the South, his demise complete since it occurred in the same region that gave him its name. In this place he was reborn. Free of the dangers of migrations and mixed marriages, he was able to preserve the virile and adventurous nature of his forebears. Here he remained, totally divorced from the rest of Brazil and the world, walled in from the east by the Serra Geral, and cut off from the west by the wide sweep of the campos gerais, which extend to Piauí. To this day the backlander believes that he resides in an infinite land.

The environment attracted him and kept him there. The waterways on either side of the meridian discouraged dispersion of the population and, in fact, aided the unification of the extremes of the country, bringing them together in space and in time. This rough population assured a consistency in the interior that was lacking on the coast. It was a mix of northeasterners fighting for autonomy and southerners looking for new lands that they stocked with fat herds of cattle that moved up the valley of the Rio das Velhas or found their way down to the headwaters of the Parnaíba. It was this little-understood and forgotten society that became the vigorous seed of our nationhood.

The founding pioneers overcame and replaced the savage and now began to capture and enslave him, using his abilities in the new industries that they were establishing. Then the inevitable intermarriage occurred. Soon a race of pure curibocas appeared that had almost no discernable African blood, which is easily visible today in the average type of the population of the region. They were born of the fierce embrace of victor and vanquished. They were raised in a rebellious and adventurous society, on richland. They developed their ancestral traits of strength and courage in the tough school of those vast plains, where still today the puma roars unleashed and the swift-footed rhea roams. And later they had to learn to survive on the ragged mountainsides, crumbling from mining operations, when the Bahians drafted the cowboys from their roundups to labor in the mines.

It would take us too long to chart the development of their character. They inherited the adventurous spirit of the settler and the impulsivity of the Indian. They were set apart by their environment, which isolated them and helped them to preserve the traits and habits of their ancestors, changed in but a slight degree by the demands of their new life. And there they are, with their traditional dress, their ancient customs, and their strange loyalty to the most ancient traditions. Their religious beliefs are taken to the point of fanaticism, and their sense of honor is extreme. Their folklore resounds with the beautiful poetry of three centuries.

The cowboy comes from a strong and ancient race that arose from elements converging from distant points, and yet he is different from all the others in this country. The characteristics of this race are well defined, and he stands strong even in the greatest crises, when the leather clothing of the cowboy becomes the jagunço’s flexible armor. It is a stock that demonstrates the significance of the interaction of humans with their environment. They spread out through the backlands of near and bordering states, such as Goiás, Piauí, Maranhão, Ceará, and Pernambuco, and they developed a completely original character expressed even in their dwellings. All the settlements, villages, and towns that today are the life of the territory come from the same distinctive source and are quite different from those farther to the north and to the south. The southern cowboy settlements were erected near the mines or on the fringe of the brushlands. In the extreme north, following a long line between Itiúba and Ibiapaba, they were built on the site of old missions. In the area of the backlands that we are considering, they grew up from the cattle ranches.

There are too many examples to cite here. If one looks at the settlements along the São Francisco River from its source to its mouth, the differences between the three types of environments we have described are clearly visible. The Alpine regions with villages clinging precariously on the mountainsides are a monument to the bravery of the bandeiras. One then crosses the great plains, lands dominated by the cowboys, a rough, strong, and freedom-seeking people. Finally, the visitor will arrive at the bleak area wasted by drought and given to the slow, circuitous labors of the missionaries. To finish these quick comparisons it only remains for us to describe the Jesuit missions in this territory.

Jesuit Missions in Bahia

It is a fact that the backlands settlements as we know them today have completely unique origins from those of other regions. They arose from the old Indian villages that were torn from the power of the Jesuits in 1758 by the harsh policies of Minister Pombal. If we focus only on those towns that still remain today, close to the mud walls of the jagunço Troy, the site of Canudos, we can find, even in this small area, the best examples of this type of settlement.

In fact, this entire region, which abusive land concessions had placed in the hands of a single family, the Garcia d’Ávilas (Casa da Torre), has very old settlements. From Itapicurú de Cima to Jeremoabo, and from there along the course of the São Francisco to the backlands of Rodelas and Carobô, the missions advanced in a slow march from the seventeenth century to our own time.

No one documented their history. The extraordinary Jesuit undertaking is only recounted in a few rare documents, which are too small in number to allow us to form a complete picture of those times. The narratives that do exist, however, are eloquent testimonies of a unique past. They tell us in an unequivocal manner that while the Negro spent his days in the bustle of the coastal towns, the native Indian was settling in villages that would become cities. The Jesuits’ calculating nature and the rare self-sacrificial discipline of the Capuchins and Franciscans were responsible for the incorporation of the tribes into our national life. When at the dawn of the eighteenth century the Paulistas burst onto the scene at Pambú and Jacobina, they were surprised to see the parishes that were already being built up from Indian villages. Pambú, a little more than seventy kilometers up from Paulo Afonso, had been under colonial rule by Lisbon since 1682. It was run by a Capuchin monk who settled all tribal disputes and ruled with humility over the peaceful Morubichabas. Jacobina was an exclusively indigenous settlement and dated back to Sahy’s very old mission.

Jeremoabo was already a township in 1698, which indicates that it had a much more distant beginning. The indigenous element mixed lightly with the African, the runaway Indian with the runaway slave. Much livelier than it is today, the humble village attracted the attention of João de Lancastro, the governor general of Brazil, especially when Indian chiefs entered into heated disputes over the perfectly legal patents from the captaincies they held. In 1702 the first Franciscan missions took it upon themselves to discipline these settlements, and the monks’ ways were much more effective than the governor’s threats. When the conflicts between the tribes were settled, the number of captured Indians brought in by the church was so great that 3,700 new converts were baptized by the vicar of Itapicurú in just one day.

Nearby, the very old mission of Maçacará was founded, where in 1867 the opulent Garcia d’Ávila kept a company of his regiment. Others sprang up farther to the south: Natuba, also a very old Jesuit settlement; Inhambupe, which became the cause of a prolonged controversy between the priests and the rich distributor of lands mentioned previously when it achieved the status of parish. Itapicurú was founded by the Franciscans in 1639.

The most intense efforts to populate the country occurred, however, in the North, from the beginning of the eighteenth century. This work was carried on by the same racial elements, with the support of the crown. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the Rodelas backlands saw the arrival of the first waves of the bandeirantes from the South. Domingos Sertão created a dynamic center of backlands life at his Sobrado ranch. The deeds of this tough pioneer and their impact on the region have not been given the recognition they deserve. His fiefdom of fifty cattle ranches was well situated at the crossroads of the northern captaincies, almost equidistant from Piauí, Ceará, Pernambuco, and Bahia. This backlands landlord corralled the feisty and adventurous curibocas into working his ranches. He, like other pioneers who had mastered the land, exercised a crude kind of feudalism that led him to force his tenants into the role of vassals and the meek Tapuia Indians into serfs. Once Domingos Sertão had achieved his goal of wealth and power in the region, he became the ally of his persistent and humble adversary, the priest, in continuing the effort to integrate the population. In fact, the northern metropolis gave unflinching support to the clergy. For a long time the operating principle was to fight the Indian with the Indian, and each mission village was a bastion against the marauding and unvanquished savage.

At the close of the seventeenth century Lancastro, with his converted natives, founded the settlement of Barra to ease the ravages of the Acaroazes and Mocoazes. From that point forward, one after another missionary village was erected, following the current of the São Francisco River: Our Lady of Pilar, Sorobabé, Pambú, Aracapá, Pontal, Pajehú, etc. It is evident, then, that in this section of the Bahian backlands along the border of the Canudos region, the area most closely tied to the other northern states, the native peoples played a strong role in our early colonization history. The native intermingled with the white man and the Negro, who never became numerous enough to erase the dominant traits of the Indian.

The settlements established after the expulsion of the Jesuits were patterned after their predecessors. From the end of the eighteenth century to our day, persevering missionaries followed the illustrious example of Apolônio de Todi and continued his difficult apostolic work in Pombal, Cumbe, Bom Conselho, Monte Santo, and other such places. Isolated in the deep recesses of the backlands, this population has remained there until the present day and has continued to reproduce without the influence of outside elements. These people have been insulated and for this reason they have continued to assimilate in a uniform and intense manner that accounts for the appearance of a well-defined and complete mestizo type. On the seaboard, a thousand interfering factors such as new immigration and wars complicated miscegenation. At other central points in the wide trail of the bandeiras different impediments arose. In the deep backlands, however, the indigenous people, in partnership with a few white fugitives from the law or simple adventurers, were able to remain dominant.

The Rise of the Mestizo Race in the Backlands, as Distinguished from Racial Mixing on the Coast

We should not argue with history. Very powerful factors, which we shall identify, determined the isolation and preservation of the native peoples. First there were the great land grants, which placed the most enduring brand on our greedy feudalism. The owners of the soil, a classic example being the heirs of Antônio Guedes de Brito, were covetous of their wide-flung latifundia. With no boundaries to limit them, the landowners created fiefdoms of their territories, and they barely tolerated the intervention of the metropolis itself. Building chapels or establishing parishes on their lands was always marked by conflict with the priests. Even though the clergy won out in the end, they were still dominated by these backland bosses, who made the entry of new settlers or competitors difficult by establishing their far-flung ranches as powerful centers of attraction for the mestizo race that lived in the newly formed parishes.

As a consequence, that race developed outside the sphere of influence of other elements. Given to the herdsman’s life, to which they were well suited by nature, the wheat-skinned curibocas or cafuzos, direct ancestors of the present-day cowboys, followed their own evolutionary path. Entirely isolated from the population of the South and from the intensive colonial activity on the coast, they became like citizens of another country, with their own unique physical features. The royal charter of February 7, 1701, was, then, a measure designed to enforce that isolation. It forbade any communications between that part of the backlands with the South and the mines of São Paulo, with severe penalties for infractions. Not even commercial relations were tolerated. Even the simplest exchange of goods was prohibited.

There is another factor to be considered in understanding the origin of the backlander of the extreme north. That is the physical environment of the backlands, which comprises all of the vast territory that stretches from the riverbed of the Vaza-Barris to the Parnaíba in the west. We have seen some of the unusual characteristics of this region: the aggressive flora, the merciless climate, the periodic droughts, the barren soil of the bare mountain ranges that stand isolated amidst the beauty of the high plains of the interior, the majestic araxá of the central plateau, which we know by its name is a place where one can catch a glimpse of the rising sun from a distance.[13] Great forests fringe the undulating outline of the slopes. This unforgiving region was given a suggestive name by the Tupi, pora-pora-eyma, a name that is still attached to one of the mountain ridges in the east, the Borborema.[14] This was the refuge of the Tapuia. Beaten back by the superior numbers of the Portuguese, the Negro, and the Tupi, the brave Carirís found refuge in that hard neck of land. It was a landscape torn by storms, hardened into a rigid skeleton of rocks, dried out by the sun, and crumbled into a rash of thorny brush. It was in the vacuum of this wasteland, where there was no sign of the coveted mines, that the bandeiras finally exhausted themselves.

However, the mysterious region of the Tapuia, the tapuíretama , appealed to missionary stoicism. Its long, twisting trails traced the torturously slow and painful march of these church apostles. The bandeiras who did reach this area quickly retreated and fled to other places. The tapuí-retama was appropriate for the great silent battle of the faith, but it depressed and overwhelmed the adventurers. They abandoned it and nothing could convince them to return. They left this heathen land in peace.

A fortunate result of the isolation of the place was the preservation of Tapuia geographical terms for the region. The language was resistant to absorption by Portuguese and Tupi, which were dominant in other places. Without digressing too long, we shall illustrate this linguistic anomaly, which translates a unique history, by describing the lands around Canudos. I quote from Teodoro Sampaio’s work on the Tupi language:

Heading south on the São Francisco, we once more enter a hostile region under a searing sky, and we continue on to cross the high basin of the Vaza-Barris. It is from here that we reach the sparse and low-lying sections of the Bahian plains. After reaching the Paulo Afonso Falls, and continuing on to Canudos and Monte Santo, we arrive at Itiúba, Tomador, and Assuruá. Here, on this piece of national land, which is one of the most unforgiving of our native territory, what was left of the hunted tribes of the Orizes, the Procás and the Carirís took refuge. Still today we find place names in this region that come from the barbarous Tapuia tongue and which neither Portuguese nor Tupi have been able to replace. The map of the area is crowded with topographical landmarks with outlandish names such as Pambú, Patamoté, Uauá, Bendegó, Cumbe, Massacará, Cocorobó, Jeremoabo, Tragagó, Canché, Xorroxó, Quincuncá, Conchó, Centocé, Açuaruá, Xique-Xique, Jequié, Sincorá, Caculé or Catolé, Orobó, Mocujé, and others that are equally barbarous and strange.

The great backlands populations as well as those that developed in the middle basin of the São Francisco River naturally evolved with a dominant portion of Tapuia blood. They remained exiled in that place, evolving in a closed circle for three centuries, till our present day, completely abandoned and alien to our national destiny. They kept the traditions of the past intact. Whoever should visit the region today will observe a notable uniformity among the populace. Their appearance and stature vary only slightly, giving the impression of an invariable anthropological type, which is immediately distinguishable from the mestizo of the coast. The coastal mestizo has all varieties of skin colors and has an ill-defined type, depending on the variables of his ancestry. The man of the backlands, however, seems to come from a common mold and has almost identical physical traits. His complexion ranges from the bronzed mameluco to the wheat tones of the cafuzo. The hair can be straight and sleek or slightly waved. He has the same athletic build, the same moral fiber, the same superstitions, vices, and virtues. The uniformity of the backlander of the North is impressive. He undoubtedly represents a fully developed ethnic subcategory.

An Irritating Parenthesis

Here we must make some parenthetical remarks. The mixing of highly diverse races is in most cases harmful. Evolutionary theory concludes that even when a superior race has influenced the issue of the union, the offspring carry a sharp racial stigma. Miscegenation taken to the extreme signifies regression. The Indo-European, the Negro, the Brazilian-Guarani, and the Tapuia are racial groups in different stages of evolution that have come into contact with one another. Intermarriage not only erases the better qualities of the superior race but also is the catalyst to the reappearance of the primitive characteristics of the inferior one. Thus the mestizo, a hyphenated product of two races whose brief individual existence encapsulates centennial forces, is almost always unbalanced. Fovel likens their condition in a general way to hysteria, but the nervous imbalance in this case has no cure. There is no therapy for the rage brought about by the clash of races suddenly fused into a single organism. After an evolutionary process of many thousands of years, in which our recent history is but a moment in time, diverse peoples have come together and obliterated in a very short time the differences that had emerged from a long and laborious process of selection. It is difficult to understand how these people can suddenly combine their very different mental constitutions. As in algebraic calculations, the qualities of juxtaposed elements are not increased, subtracted, or canceled out by the positive and negative signs in the formula. The mestizo—whether a mulatto, a mameluco, or a cafuzo—is not an intermediate type but a lesser being who lacks the physical energy of his savage forebears and the higher intellect of his superior ancestors. On the one hand he is highly fertile, but there are times when he shows extraordinary moral weakness. He can be at times brilliant, but he is also fragile, restless, and inconsistent. He shines one moment and at the next he is invisible, a victim of biological laws that drag him down to the lower plane of the less-favored race. Incapable of uniting the opposing races from which he sprang forth, he can only mirror their predominant traits in a permanent game of opposites. And when he does show himself capable of higher thinking, as often happens, this intellectual energy rests but on a weak moral fiber that underlies the obsessivecompulsiveness of the inferior races. There are a few exceptions to this, which merely prove the rule.

The mestizo is an intruder in the marvelous process of evolution, that endless competition between peoples, a struggle without truce in which selection refines attributes that are preserved by heredity. The mestizo has not struggled; he does not represent the integration of efforts; he is a disruptive and destructive element who appears without any characteristics of his own, caught between the opposing influences of his conflictive ancestry. The mestizo’s instability is marked by his tendency to regress to his primitive origins. This is the instinct to preserve equilibrium. The action of natural laws gradually extinguishes anomalies, sending them back to their source. The mulatto thus has an irresistible contempt for the Negro and tenaciously seeks intermarriages that will erase the stigma of a dark brow on his children. The mameluco becomes the incorrigible adventurer who fiercely attacks terrified native villages.

This is a significant pattern. In a sense it reverses the direction of evolution that the mestizo interrupted. The superior race becomes a distant objective for the depressed mestizos, and they seek it out of self-preservation and self-defense. The laws of evolution of the species are ones that cannot be broken. All the subtle efforts of the missionaries to train the mind of the savage to grasp the simplest concepts of higher thought have failed. The African cannot come close to the intellectual average of the Indo-European, even with the best tutors. Every man is above all the sum of his racial heritage, and his brain is a trust. How, then, can a new anthropological type who combines opposed tendencies, be called normal?

A Strong Race

Meanwhile, careful observation of the backlander of the North reveals that this emergent type has more stable physiological characteristics and is less prone to the tension of opposite traits. This fact, which may appear to contradict what has just been said in the previous passage, is, in fact, the most convincing counterproof of those assertions.

It is undeniable that mestizos who are born from the union of very diverse races are abnormal because their attempts to live up to the superior civilized standards of their dominant ancestor create a difficult and painful moral and intellectual tension that throws them off balance. The incoherent, uneven, and rebellious character of the mestizo may be interpreted as his intensive effort to rid himself of the impediments to adapting to a more complex and advanced environment. He reflects in microcosm the silent, terrible struggle that is the will to survive. It is moving and eternal and has been described brilliantly by Gumplowicz as the motive force of history. The great professor from Graz does not apply his axiom to our current context. It is true, however, that if the stronger ethnic element “tends to gradually subordinate and eliminate the weaker element with which it comes in contact,” then it must find miscegenation to be disturbing. The inevitable expansion of the synergetic circle between strong and weak, while evaded in this fashion, is merely postponed. It is not stopped. The struggle shifts, and becomes more serious. It ranges from the crude extermination of the inferior race through war to its slow elimination, gradual absorption, and dilution through intermarriage. During the course of this reductive process, the mestizos who emerge are all shades of color and have every nuance of form and character. They lack a well-defined appearance; they have no vigor and are in most cases not viable human beings. In sum, they have been mutilated by the invisible conflict that continues on through the ages. In this instance, the stronger race does not destroy the weak one with arms; it crushes it with civilization.

This very process formed our rough compatriots from the North. The isolation in which they lived had a beneficial effect. It freed them from a very painful adaptation to a higher social status and simultaneously prevented them from falling into the aberrations and vices of a more developed culture. The racial fusion that created them occurred in circumstances that were more compatible with their nature. While their mixed origin bestowed civilizing tendencies on them, it did not make them civilized.

This is the defining difference between miscegenation in the backlands and on the coast. The mix of races is the same but the environmental conditions are different. The contrasts between the two can be reduced to simple parallels. The backlander took from the savage his intimacy with his environment, which instead of weakening him has fortified his powerful physique. He has borrowed only those attributes from his ancestors that are most appropriate to his early social development.

He is backward, not degenerate. For this very reason, historical circumstances freed him, in this very fragile phase of his formation, from the unreasonable demands of a borrowed culture and prepared him to conquer that culture one day. His intellectual growth, even if delayed, is supported by his strong, well-formed physique. This crossed race will become autonomous and original, transcending all its inherited traits, so that, when finally unchained from a primitive existence, he may aspire to civilized life because of the very factors that prevent him from having it immediately. This is a logical conclusion.

The situation in the backlands is the reverse of that in the coastal cities, where a dramatic inversion occurs. A highly complex society imposes itself on weakened beings, oppressing them and atrophying them before they have a chance to fully develop. In the backlands, however, the mestizo is immune to foreign influences because of his robust constitution. He is able to evolve, differentiate, and adapt himself to a higher destiny because of his solid physical foundation, which is the basis for his future moral development.

Let us leave this unpleasant digression. We will proceed to describe in a straightforward fashion the original features of our backward countryman. We shall do so without pretension or method, being careful to avoid the elegant terminology that ethnologists hold so dear. We lack the time and competence to engage in psycho-geometric fantasies, which these days have become inflated into an almost philosophical materialism. We will not bother with measuring the facial angle or outlining the norma verticalis of the jagunço. If we were to become entangled in the imaginary lines of this type of psychic topography, which has been so overrated, we should not make ourselves any clearer; in fact we would just be copyists.

Rather, we will reproduce, intact, all the impressions, whether real or illusory, which we have formed while accompanying a fast-moving military expedition. While on this tour of the backlands, we have found ourselves suddenly face-to-face with these unique beings that are so little known. They have been abandoned—for three centuries.

III

The Sertanejo

The backlander is above all a strong person. He does not have the rickets-riddled feebleness of the chronically fatigued mestizos of the coast. At first glance he appears to be just the contrary. He does not have the good looks, the bearing, and the perfect build of an athlete. Instead he is unsightly, awkward, and hunched. A Hercules-Quasimodo, he expresses in his posture the typical ugliness of the weak. His shaky, indecisive, swaying, and slightly weaving gait makes him look loose jointed. His poor posture is aggravated by a dogged look that gives the impression of a depressing humility. When standing, he is usually found leaning against the first doorframe or wall that he finds; when on horseback, if he meets up with an acquaintance and wants to stop to chat, he will brace himself on one stirrup and lean against the saddle. When he is walking, even if at a brisk pace, he does not move forward in a straight line. He advances in a characteristic reeling, meandering way, as if following the twisted trails of the backlands. And if along the way he stops for the most trivial reason, to roll a cigarette or to strike a light, or to exchange a few words with a friend, he immediately drops—drops is the word—into a squat. He will stay for a long time in this unstable position, in which the entire weight of his body is suspended on his toes, while he sits there on his heels with a lack of self-consciousness that is both ridiculous and charming.

This is a man who is always fatigued. This is manifested by his relentless laziness, his muscular degeneration, and in all else: his slow speech, feeble gestures, his unsteady pace, and the languid cadence of his songs. He has a constant tendency to want to remain still and to rest.

In fact, all this appearance of tiredness is but a camouflage. There is nothing more surprising than to see it disappear without warning. That ravaged body takes just a few seconds to transform entirely. All it takes is an incident that demands he release his dormant energies. The man is transfigured. He stands erect; he realigns his posture and his stance. His head is held high now; he squares his powerful shoulders and looks ahead with a clear gaze. With a flash of nervous energy he immediately corrects the habitual relaxation of his body. The awkward bumpkin suddenly takes on the dominating stance of a bronzed and potent Titan, in an astonishing show of strength and agility.

This contrast stands up to even the most casual observation. It is revealed at every moment, in all the details of backlands life, always characterized by impressive swings between extreme impulsivity and long periods of apathy. It’s impossible to imagine a more inelegant and awkward horseman. He slouches in the saddle, legs hugging his steed, his trunk leaning forward and bobbing to the gait of the small horses of the backlands, unshod and badly cared for, but tough and quick as few others. With this casual attitude, the lazy cowboy morosely follows his herd as it moves slowly through the plains. He almost succeeds in transferring the swinging motion of his stunted steed to the cradle of the hammock in which he spends two-thirds of his life. But the moment a startled steer bolts or becomes entangled in the thorny brush, he is instantly transformed. Digging the big wheels of his spurs into the belly of his mount and shooting off like a dart, he crashes at full speed into the labyrinthine snare of the jurema thickets.

Observe him in this wild steeplechase. There is no way to hold him back as he catapults forward. Ravines, riverbeds, brambles, rock piles—nothing can get in the way of his pursuit of the stray steer, because wherever the bull goes the cowboy on his horse follows close behind. Hugging the horse and pressing his knees tightly against its flanks, he becomes one with the animal, looking like a bizarre centaur. He emerges abruptly into clearings, disappears again into the tall weeds; he leaps over streams and gullies, rushes up hillsides and crashes through brambles, clearing vast expanses of the table lands at full tilt.

His robust constitution comes through in all its vitality at this moment. It is as if the robust horseman gives life to his small, fragile steed, holding it upright with the thin reins made of caroa fiber and propelling the beast forward with his spurs. He suspends himself in the stirrups, legs drawn up and forward, hugging the horse tightly, dashing hot on the trail of the wayward steer. In an agile motion, he ducks to avoid a low hanging branch that can throw him off his saddle. Like an acrobat, he leaps off his mount, holding on to the horse’s mane, to avoid imminent collision with a stump. Then he jumps back onto the saddle, all the while galloping, galloping across this obstacle course, never losing his grip on the long iron-tipped, leather-bound prod in his right hand. Not once does he drop it into the brush, this object that in any other hands would constitute a serious deterrent to this mission.

But once the crisis is over, and the errant steer is returned to the herd, the cowboy settles back into his saddle and reverts to his lazy slouch and to the slow pace of his horse. Again he looks despondent and diminished, much like an invalid.

Different Types: The Jagunço and the Gaucho, Cowboy of the South

If the southern cowboy, or gaucho, encountered the jagunço at this instant, he would regard him with understanding. The cowboy of the North is his complete opposite.

There is no comparison between the two in their bearing, mannerisms, speech, character, and habits. The gaucho is the more attractive and cavalier of the two. Son of the open plains, he spends his days in easy canters across the pampas, and he is more at ease with his natural surroundings, which nurture him. Daily life does not take on the savage character of the backlands of the North. He does not know the horrors of drought and cruel combat with the arid, parched earth. His spirit is not saddened by recurring scenes of devastation and misery, the sobering sight of the absolute poverty of the bleached soil, drained of life by the searing equatorial suns. His moments of peace and happiness are not disturbed or cut short by the threat of an unstable and fearsome future. He awakens each day to greet lovingly a splendid world that infuses him with life and energy. He goes through life with an adventurous spirit—he is jolly, talkative, brave, and brazen. Work is a diversion that offers him the sport of stampedes. As he traverses the flat pasturelands, he possesses the distances, his signature bandana, or pala, fluttering at his neck like a knightly pennant.

His clothing is like a holiday costume in comparison to the jagunço ’s rough garb. The wide pants flare at the ankles to allow him free movement astride his hard-galloping or wildly bucking steed, often an unbroken horse. His breeches are not torn by the steely thorns of the brushwood, nor is his elegant poncho ever stolen by the gnarly boughs of low-hanging trees. Sweeping through the plains like a tornado, he strikes a heroic figure, clad in his large russet boots with their gleaming silver spurs, a scarlet silk bandana at his neck, a wide soft-brimmed hat on his head, a shiny pistol and dagger stuck in his belt. His horse, an inseparable companion in this romantic existence, is almost a luxury object. Its trappings are complex and ornate. A nomadic gaucho on a well-outfitted horse is a fine sight, riding through town in good form with confidence and a merry heart.

The cowboy of the North, however, is raised in very different conditions. His life is marked by continuous swings between happiness and cruel suffering, plenty and lack. The ever-present threat of the sun hangs over his head and through the seasons ushers in cycles of devastation and misfortune. He spends his youth experiencing a chain of catastrophic events. He becomes a man without ever having had a childhood. The specter of drought intrudes on the happy hours of childhood like an unwelcome ghost. He has to face a harsh existence too soon. His life is cursed. He learns that he is caught in a relentless conflict, imperiously demanding every ounce of his energy. He grows strong, clever, resigned, and practical. He is in a state of constant alert.

His appearance recalls, in a dim way, some ancient warrior exhausted from battle. His clothing is his armor. He wears a tanned leather jacket made of goatskin or cowhide, a snug leather vest, and tight leggings with kneepads that go to his crotch. His hands and feet are protected by calfskin gloves and skin guards. He looks like a medieval knight who has wandered into the present day. This armor of his, however, is of a bronze hue and does not sparkle or shine when the sun strikes it. It is dull and dusty. It clothes a defeated soldier.

The saddle, which he has made himself, is a replica of that used in the Rio Grande region but is shorter and more concave, and lacking the luxurious trappings of the other. Its accessories include a weatherproof goatskin blanket that covers the haunches of his animal, a breast covering, and kneepads. This equipment for horse and rider is adapted to the environment. Without it, they could not ride safely through the brush and over the jagged beds of sharp rock.

There is nothing more ugly or monotonous than this drab apparel—the reddish gray of tanned leather, without any decoration, not even a colored band. Once in a rare while, when there is a social gathering and the melodies from a guitar allow the backlander to rest from his labors, will he add a touch of novelty to his dress. He may then don a handsome vest made of wildcat or puma, with the spots turned out, or he may stick a bright red flower in his leather hat. This is a fleeting and rare occasion.

When the festivities are over, the backlands cowboy sheds the spirit, which he has unleashed in the wild dance of the sapateado .[15] His sandals clack sharply on the ground to the beat of clanking spurs and the slap of tambourines, while guitars provide a rhythmic background of twanging, snorting chords. At the end of the dance he reverts to his habitual slouch, awkward and gangly, in a strange manifestation of lethargy and fatigue. It is easy to explain this permanent contrast between extreme strength and agility and long periods of apathy. He is a perfect translation of the environment at work around him. The man of the northern backlands has served a hard apprenticeship in the school of adversity. He has learned to confront his troubles and to react to them quickly. He journeys through life with the constant threat of ambush by incomprehensible surprises dealt out by Mother Nature, and he does not know a moment of peace. He is the long-suffering soldier who is weak and exhausted but ever brave and daring, constantly preparing himself for a facedown in which he will not be the victor but not allow himself to be vanquished. He shifts between complete repose and extreme agitation, from the lazy, comfortable hammock to the hard saddle, which thrusts him, like a bolt of lightning, along the narrow trails in search of his herds. He mirrors nature in these inconsistencies. He is passive in the face of the play of the elements, and he moves imperceptibly from one season to the next, from the greatest natural bounty to the penury of parched deserts that lie fallow in the refracted glow of blazing summers. He is as inconstant as nature, and it is natural that it be so. To live is to adapt. She has shaped him in her image: barbaric, impetuous, and rough.

The gaucho, valiant cowpuncher that he is, has no equal in the arts of war. To the shrill and vibrant call of trumpets he will hurl himself across the pampas, the butt of his lance set firmly in his stirrup. Like a maniac he will dive into the melee and with a gleeful yell will disappear into the vortex of the fight, where nothing can be seen but the flash of sword against sword. His horse becomes his projectile, and he will rout squadrons and crush his adversaries under the hooves of his horse. Either that or he will die in the struggle into which he threw himself with such little regard for his life.

The jagunço gunman is less theatrically heroic. He is more tenacious and resistant. He is more dangerous, stronger, and tougher. He rarely assumes this romantic and glorious pose. He tracks down his opponent with the firm purpose to destroy him by whatever means at his disposal. He is conditioned to long and ambiguous conflicts, for which he displays little enthusiasm. His life is one long, arduous conquest, performed as a daily task. He does not waste even the slightest muscular contraction, the smallest expenditure of nervous energy, without being certain of the result. He coldly sizes up his enemy. He does not waste a single swipe of the blade. In pointing the long rifle or the heavy catapult gun, he keeps his eye on the target.

If the gaucho misses his mark and his enemy does not fall, he collapses. He is very weak when he is placed at a disadvantage or when the outcome is uncertain. Not so with the jagunço. He retreats. But in retreating he is more tenacious than ever. He is demonic in baiting his enemy, who from that moment on is being hunted by a stealthy tracker—a man who hates him with an inextinguishable passion, one who sights him down the barrel of his musket and who lies hidden in ambush.

The Cattle Ranchers

These contrasting traits are even more prominent when times are good. We can say that every sertanejo is a cowboy. Aside from crude efforts to raise crops along riverbeds, out of the necessity to cultivate grains, cattle ranching is the most appropriate activity for the people and the land. However, one does not find here the cheerful mood and the activity of the southern estancias. The roundup is a daily festive activity for the southern gaucho, and on special occasions becomes a showy display of horsemanship. Whether in the close confines of the corrals or out on the open plains, the cowpunchers, foremen, and hired hands chase the herd across streams and canyons, prodding stubborn steers or lassoing wild ponies, sometimes felling a rearing bull with the rapidly twirling silver-tipped boleador, as if it were a game of rings. Their movements are swift and sure, and they gallop at full tilt after each other, shouting lustily at the top of their lungs as if enjoying themselves at a wild celebration. When they turn to quieter work, they brand the cattle, treat their wounds, and separate the herd, taking some to slaughter, isolating the tame steers, and marking others to be broken in with sharp chilena spurs, distinguished by their long, pointed rowels. The same fire that heats the branding irons provides fuel for their barbecues, hardy feasts of meat cooked with the skin still on. Here they also boil water for their strong and bitter maté. So their full and varied life goes on, day by day.

A Modern Servitude; A Primitive Life

Life in the North is very different. Unlike the southern cattle rancher, the backlands landowner lives on the coast, far away from his vast estates, which in some cases he has never seen. He is heir to a historic vice. Like the colonial land baron, he lives like a parasite from the revenues of his large land holdings with no fixed boundaries. The cowboys are his submissive serfs. Their contract is for a percentage of what they produce, and so there they stay on the same plot of land—being born, living, and dying anonymously in their hovels and wandering the trails of the backlands. They spend their entire lives faithfully tending herds that do not belong to them. The absent owner understands their unequaled loyalty and does not oversee them. He barely knows their names, if he knows them at all.

The backland cowboys, dressed in their characteristic leather clothing, throw together their wood and thatch dwellings near waterholes as hastily as if they were pitching tents. They are resigned to a servitude that gives them little reward. The first thing they do is learn their ABC’s, the only requirement of an art of which they, like their forebears, become masters. They must learn to recognize the brands of their own and neighboring ranches. The term irons is applied to all the various signs, markings, letters, and artful designs and initials that are branded with fire on the animals’ flanks. These markings are complemented with small angular notches cut in their ears. Once branded, the steer’s ownership is secured. He can break through fences and wander freely. However, he carries the indelible mark that will return him to his rightful pasture. The cattleman is not content just to memorize his own brands; he learns those of all the other ranches as well. Sometimes, if he has a great gift for memorization, he gets to know not only all the animals in his care but his neighbor’s as well, including their genealogy, their habits, names, and ages. Thus if a steer shows up in his pasture whose brand he recognizes, he will immediately return it. If not, he will keep the animal but will not take it to market or use it for any labor, since it does not belong to him. He will allow it to graze and let it die of old age. If the runaway is a cow that gives birth to a calf, he will brand it with an artful replica of the brand of the mother, and he will repeat this process with all of the animal’s descendents. One of every four calves, however, he will set aside for himself. That is his pay. He establishes the same arrangement with his unknown neighbor that he has with his absent landowner, and he adheres to this strange unwritten contract, which no one has documented or enforced, without judges or witnesses.

It sometimes happens that after many years he will decipher the unknown brand, and then the happy owner will suddenly receive not only the lost and since forgotten animal but all its progeny. This seems fantastic, but it is a well-known custom in the backlands. We mention it as a fascinating example of the backlands’ ethical code. The great landowners, who own the herds, know it well. They all have the same labor agreement with the cowman, expressed in a single clause that gives him one-fourth of the products of the ranch in exchange for his husbandry of the herd. The landowner is confident that the cowboy will never cheat on the percentage.

Accounts are reconciled at the end of the winter, and this often takes place without the owner’s presence, which is a formality that may be dispensed with. The cowboy scrupulously separates the great majority of the new head of cattle that belong to the owner and brands them with the sign of the ranch. On his portion he places his own particular brand, and he will either keep or sell the animals. He writes to the boss, giving him a minutely detailed account of what has happened on the land—signing his name as “your friend and cowboy,” eschewing the more servile “your friend and servant”—and then he gets on with his labors.

The work is sometimes very tiring but it is the most rudimentary possible. There is no cattle-raising industry in the North. The herds live and multiply in a random fashion. They are branded in June and the new steers proceed to wander in the brush and get lost along with the rest. Their numbers are reduced by severe epizootic infections, among them the rengue, a type of lameness, and a disease called the mal triste, a form of leprosy or hydrophobia. The cowboys are not prepared to deal with these epidemics. They limit their activities to riding the endless trails. If the herd comes down with an epidemic of worms, they resort to a remedy that is better than mercury: prayer. They do not need to see the afflicted animal. The cowboy just turns toward the beast and intones a prayer while tracing indecipherable kabbalistic lines in the dirt. What is even more amazing is that sometimes the animal is cured.

Their days are thus spent in constant motion, but with little result. But rarely does an event—always a welcome change—come along to break the monotony of their life. Cowboys are connected by a common bond of solidarity and they help each other unconditionally whenever a need arises. If an unruly steer bolts from the herd, the cowboy will snatch up his cattle prod, dig his spurs into his horse, and tear after it along the trails in hot pursuit. If he is not able to recover the animal, he asks his brothers to “take to the field,” a catchphrase that is a call to action for this rustic cavalry. Tens of his companions will thunder after him, yelling and crashing through the brush, beating the thickets, until the beast is “deauthorized” and corralled in or taken down by force when the cowboys grab his horns with their strong hands.

The Roundup

This solidarity of effort is best seen in the cow chase, which is work that consists essentially in first rounding up and then separating by owner the cattle of various neighboring ranches. They graze together on huge tracts of pasture that have no walls or trenches as boundary markers. This event takes place from June to July.

The man in charge of the roundup, called the rodeador, picks a relatively central location, which most of the time is a flat tract of cleared land. He then assembles all the cowhands from the nearby ranches. They all have a role in the undertaking, and each is given a special task. Then they scatter far and wide across the sandy arena and the leather-bound figures engage in athletic combat with the enveloping brushwood. The scene has all the savage motion and terrifying aspect of a Tartar skirmish. Within minutes, the backlanders have disappeared into the surrounding brush. For a while the scene of the roundup is deserted.

Suddenly the sharp clattering of hooves over rocks, the sound of snapping branches and clashing horns, brings a burst of noise onto the scene. Whirlwinds of dust rise into the air. A knot of cattle, horns trussed with leather straps, thunders into the clearing, followed by the cowboy, standing rigid in his stirrups, pulling short on the reins.

He is delivering only a small part of the lot. He turns the steer over to his companions, who are charged to hold their posts. He wheels around and is off at a wild gallop to continue his search. Meanwhile one can see others following at a distance, in successive waves, along the entire stretch of scrubland. The entire roundup gains in intensity and tumult. Steers lock horns or paw the ground, while horses rear and dance in a wild maelstrom, creating the vibration and prolonged rumble of an earthquake. Back in the brush the less fortunate hands struggle with the recalcitrant members of the herd. The running bull or stray steer usually resists recapture. It disappears deep into the brush. The cowboy follows him. He stays close on his tail. He tracks him to the most remote hideout. He does not lose him and he waits for the moment to act. Then, when the time is right, he catches the runaway with a sudden motion. He slips off his saddle with one foot on a stirrup, holding on to his horse’s mane with one hand and with the other grasping the bull’s tail. With a sudden jerk he throws the animal hard to the ground. He then slips fetters and a leather blindfold on him and leads him, bound and blindfolded, back to the foreman.

He receives a noisy welcome from his companions. He tells them the tale of his deed. They tell him identical tales and exchange heroic feats with a liberal display of adjectives. The tremulous, husky voices rise in a crescendo of raspy exclamations of admiration: Destalado! Temero!

Later, at the end of the day, there is a final task. They have to count and sort the heads of cattle that have been rounded up. Each man heads off for his own ranch, driving the cattle that belong to him. And the sound of mournful songs, intended to soothe the herd, floats over the deserted plains.

But even as this strenuous task is completed, other more important ones have presented themselves.

The herd slowly winds its way home to the cadence of that sad and lazy song. Slouched awkwardly in the saddle, the cowboy ruminates about his possible profit, dreaming of the calves yet to be born. He calculates what his boss’s share will be, and what will be his own, according to the terms of their contract. He then goes over in his mind the number that he will drive to the fair. He thinks of the old steer that he has had for ten years and never taken to the fair, for the sake of old friendship. There is the lame yearling with a sharp thorn embedded in its side that has to be taken out. In the lead is the rebellious steer that he had to subdue with the “skirt” of fetters—with blinders on and barely held in line by the press of the herd. Over there is the mighty bull, envy of the herd, swaying along with a slow, self-assured gait. He swings his broad neck—thick as a buffalo’s—from side to side, keeping the rest at a respectful distance. His short, tough horns, with dirt clinging to them, are cracked and blunted by his formidable encounters with powerful rivals in the pasturelands. There are many others, all of them known to him. He can tell a story about each one, recalling incidents, small details that make up his primitive, simple existence.

They continue their slow march, to the beat of a melancholy ballad that seems to calm them with the simple refrain that echoes longingly over the empty plains:

E cou mansão . . .

E cou . . . cão . . .

Come on, sweet dogie

Come along . . .

The Stampede

Suddenly a shudder convulses the herd, rippling across hundreds of glossy backs. The animals halt abruptly. Thousands of horns suddenly clash and lock, heads rear up, butt, twist, writhe, and intertwine, slicing at the air around them. The ground shakes and the herd bursts forth into a stampede.

The herd takes off. Sometimes nothing can explain this occurrence, which is in fact common and the despair of the cattlemen. The slightest event can trigger it—the sudden oblique flight of a guan or a guinea pig skittering across their path. One steer startles, and the contagion grips the entire herd in a rapid burst of nervous energy. There is a single terrifying spasm that suddenly propels these massive beasts forward in dizzying bursts and a great confusion of banging horns. Usually so slow and phlegmatic, the stampeding cattle are caught in the vise of a maelstrom.

And there they go. It is now impossible to contain them or to reach them. The brush is trampled; trees are snapped in half, their trunks split into shavings and kindling wood. Creeks overflow in a great whirlpool of horns, and there is a rumble of hoofbeats as they crush and scatter rocks in their path. Over the plains echoes the muffled and drawn-out roll of distant thunder.

In minutes plantations that have been carefully tended for ages are demolished. Waterholes, once smooth bowls, are transformed into piles of mud; dwellings are toppled and destroyed. The terrified inhabitants flee, running in a zigzag to avoid the straight line of the oncoming mass—thousands of bodies constituting one monstrous body—a shapeless, indescribably fantastic animal bolting forward on an insane trajectory. And remaining above the chaos, either circling it or driving headlong into the destruction of this living avalanche, the impetuous cowboy confronts all the dangers of this tremendous trail: troughs, walls, hills, the very horns of the crazed herd. Wielding his prod, crouched low in the saddle, reins loose over his horse’s neck, feet free of the stirrups, the cowboy clings to his mount’s mane and gallops, gallops!

His companions, who have heard the thunder of the stampede from a distance, have come to join him by now. The efforts of the roundup are again renewed: redoubled exertions, new tactics, more feats, new risks, and more dangers to be faced and overcome until finally the wild herd is brought in. This is due less to the work of the cowboys in pursuit than because the animals have finally tired and are now ready to stop, from complete exhaustion. The cattle drivers direct them back to the homeward trail, headed for the ranch once again. Once more the sad notes of the cowboy’s song drift over the empty plains.

Traditions

The cowboys return to their dwellings and, swaying in their hammocks, they relate the escapades of the cow hunt or their notorious adventures at the fair. They kill time in the complete sense of the phrase, while they refresh themselves with sweet nectar of the umbú tree or enjoy their incomparable fare of jerimum squash with milk.[16]

If the season is good, the crops are doing well, and grazing grasses, the panasco and the mimoso, are growing well in the far-flung pastures, with no sign of drought ahead, then the cowhands surrender to the sweet arms of leisure.[17] They go to town for the fairs, horse shows, and pantomimes from the Moorish tradition, ancient forms of entertainment that the backland settlements reproduce, in every detail, as they have been performed for over three centuries. Among them is the exotic reenactment of the “shirts,” one of the most curious examples of preservation of the most archaic traditions. It is a revival of the ancient night raids on Moorish castles on the Iberian Peninsula, and a tradition long forgotten in the old country, where its very name is an archaism. This is an expensive but interesting entertainment, performed by the light of lanterns and torches. There are long processions of men on foot, wearing white or in Arab dress; some are on horseback in strange animal costumes. They move rapidly, engaging in skirmishes and mock battles. This pageant gives the backlander his greatest delight.

Not everyone can enjoy this type of entertainment. Some without the resources to leave the ranch stay at home and pursue more traditional forms of merrymaking. Dressed in their customary leather, they step into the rhythms of the noisy sambas and cateretês.[18] The single men perform improvisations of poetic jousts, singing the choradinho or the baiano and clutching their shiny instruments in a tight embrace.[19] The married couples dance in sedate pairs. Their modest dwellings are decorated for the season and there they receive guests with loud greetings and raucous shouts. Since the small rooms cannot accommodate many guests, they set up a dance floor outside under the stars—a well-swept terrace decorated with greens and furnished with tree stumps and a few wooden stools. They make the first toasts with a few long swigs of aguardente, the cane liquor they call “the stubborn woman,” accompanied by lusty stomping of feet. One of the good-looking young mulatto men thrums forcefully on his guitar and launches a vibrant tune. The lovely young cabocla women begin to sway slowly, and the virile young cowboys join in by circling them in a dance.

In the intervals between the dancing, the revelers engage in poetic competitions or challenges. Two adversaries, simple folk singers, start it off, and the rhymes spring forth and intertwine in often very beautiful quatrains.

Nas horas de Deus, amen,

Não é zombaria, não!

Desafio o mundo inteiro

P’ra cantar nesta função!

In God’s own time, amen,

I scarcely dare to jest!

I challenge any man

To perform at this fest!

The adversary promptly retorts, taking up from the last line of the previously sung verse:

P’ra cantar nesta função,

Amigo, meu camarada,

Aceita teu desafio

O fama deste sertão!

To perform at this fest,

My fine comrade and friend,

Accept this manly test

For fame in these backlands!

The competition begins in this way and ends only when one of the bards stumbles on a difficult rhyme pattern and starts strumming his mandolin nervously, followed by a roar of laughter at his defeat. And so the night slips away in the general festivities until the sericoias start to sing in the marshlands, giving the signal for the happy group to disband.[20]

When the party is over the cowboys return to their humble tasks or to the lazy hammock. Some of them, every year, will leave their peaceful homes for more remote destinations. They cross the São Francisco River to disappear into the vast eastern plains where the basins of the São Francisco and the Tocantins merge in watersheds where the rivers separate indifferently to the east and to the west. From here, they will travel to Goiás or venture north to the mountains of Piauí.

They go to buy cattle. Those distant places, poor and obscure villages stretching as far as Porto Nacional, suddenly come alive with the annual visit of the Bahians. The visitors are the lords of the markets. Dressed in their leather armor they cut a striking appearance as they ride in on their sprightly horses and brandish their cattle prods. They arrive in the villages with the confidence of conquering heroes. And when they return home, if they do not become hopelessly lost, with no compass to guide them in the dangerous crossing of the endless plains, they again take up their dull and primitive existence.

The Drought

Then suddenly there is a tragic change—the drought arrives.

The backlander is able to predict its arrival due to the singular cycle of this terrible scourge. He does not, however, immediately flee the land, which is slowly being invaded by the glowing inferno radiating southwestward from Ceará. In a famous passage, Buckle notes the anomaly that man does not learn to adapt to the natural disasters which threaten him. None is more afraid of earthquakes than the Peruvian, and in Peru newborns are rocked in the cradle by tremors. But the sertanejo is the exception to this rule. The drought does not terrify him; it merely marks his tormented existence in dramatic episodes. He faces it stoically. In spite of the painful traditions that he knows because of countless terrible episodes, throughout the ordeal he sustains the hope of an impossible resistance.

With the meager help of his own observations and those of his ancestors, whose practical teachings are mixed with extravagant superstitions, he has sought to study this curse as best as he can, in order to understand it, get through it, and overcome it. He prepares for the battle with singular serenity. Two or three months before the summer solstice, he reinforces the walls of his wells and cleans out the cisterns. He tends to his fields and plows narrow strips of land on the riverbank to prepare small plots for the arrival of the first rains. Then he tries to discern what the future holds in store. He turns his gaze upward and looks in all directions—he examines the minutest traces of information that land and sky may have to offer.

The signs of the drought soon arrive in a series of implacable waves, like the symptoms of a disease—a terrifying fever of the earth. The scant October rains, the chuvas do cajú, come and go in quick showers that immediately evaporate in the dry air, leaving not a trace. The brushland becomes spotted with brown and gray clumps of dried trees, which after a while look like the ash of a large conflagration. In time the ground cracks open, and the water table drops. The days are searingly hot, even at dawn; however the nights become constantly colder. The dry atmosphere sucks the sweat off the sertanejo’s brow with the efficiency of a sponge, while his leather armor loses the flexibility it had and becomes stiff and hot on his torso, like a bronze shield. As the afternoons grow shorter every day and fade into evenings with no twilight, the backlander sadly observes the migration of birds to other climates.

This is just a prelude to the situation that is about to occur. And it will continue to build until December.

He takes precautions: He apprehensively takes stock of his herds, touring the far pastures. Then he seeks the more fertile lowlands, where he leaves his cattle to feed. And he waits with resignation for the thirteenth of the month. On that day ancestral tradition will allow him to divine the future and question the designs of Providence.

At dusk on the feast day of Saint Lucy, December 12, the cowboy places six lumps of salt in a row where they will be exposed to the elements. These represent, from left to right, the six coming months, from January to June. At dawn on the thirteenth he examines them: If they are intact, they foretell a drought. If only the first has dissolved into a sodden mass, then rain is certain to come in January. If this has happened to the second lump, then rain will come in February. If most or all of the lumps are dissolved, then the winter will be mild.

This is a very interesting experiment, in spite of the stigma of superstition associated with it. It tests the amount of vaporized moisture in the air and, by deduction, the probability of barometric depressions that will cause rain. Meanwhile, despite the time-honored value of the test, it still leaves the sertanejo in a state of uncertainty. Yet he does not become discouraged, even when faced with the worst predictions. He waits patiently till the spring equinox for a definitive consultation with the elements. He spends three long, anxious months, and on the feast day of Saint Joseph, March 19, he seeks one last reading of the future. This day will be the index of the following months. In the span of twelve hours it will show him all the variations in climate that are to come. If it rains, the winter will bring rain. If, on the contrary, the sun blazes across a clear sky, his hopes are dashed. The drought is a certainty.

Isolated in the Sertão

Then the sertanejo is transformed. No longer the incorrigible slacker or the violent thug who spends his days impulsively riding the cattle trails, he now rises above his primitive condition. He is now resigned and tenacious and assumes a calm fortitude, squarely facing the fate he knows he cannot change and preparing to meet it. There are untold tales of heroism and horrible tragedies in the backlands that will be forever lost to us. We cannot relive or recount them. They come out of an epic struggle that no one has yet described—the revolt of the earth against man. At first the cowboy prays, eyes lifted to the horizon. His first refuge is his faith. Holding their miracle-working saints in their arms, crosses raised, bearing litters carrying icons and fluttering pennants, entire families may be seen carrying their saints from one place to another. Not just the strong and healthy but also the aged and infirm, the sick and the lame, walk along with stones from the road on their heads and shoulders. The sertão wasteland echoes their mournful litanies for long days as the supplicants wind their way through the wilderness. During the long nights, the plains glow with the lit tapers of the wandering pilgrims. But the skies retain a sinister clarity—the sun scorches the earth and the frightening spasm of the drought grips the land. The backlander contemplates his terrified family and sadly surveys his subdued herd, which huddles in the marshes or strays slowly, with lowered heads, bellowing pitifully as they attempt to find the scent of water. Without faltering in his faith or doubting the Providence that is about to crush him, continuing to murmur the customary prayers at the appointed hours, he presents himself to be sacrificed. He attacks the earth with hoe and spade, looking for groundwater. Sometimes he finds it and other times he strikes rock, in a useless expenditure of effort. More commonly, he will uncover a subterranean stream of water, only to see it evaporate in a day or two or be sucked back into the ground. He pursues it stubbornly, digging deeper in search of the fugitive treasure, which may reappear briefly in the pit he has dug, like someone rising from the dead. His unusual hardiness keeps him going for days on a few handfuls of paçoca—a mash of nuts, manioc, and sugar—and he is not easily discouraged.

The surrounding brushland is his granary. He chops up the boughs of the juazeiros and mandacarús to slake his thirst and nourish the starving herd. He digs up uricuri palm roots, scrapes and pounds them, and then cooks them, shaping the mass into coarse bread that he calls bró and which bloats the bellies of the starving to give them a sensation of fullness. He stores up coconuts and digs up the swollen roots of the umbú for the children to drink. For himself he saves the astringent juice of the branches of the xique-xique, which makes him hoarse or causes him to lose his voice entirely. He works excessively, exhausting every resource. He is a strong and caring human being, with superhuman effort taking care of his suffering family and the animals entrusted to him.

He labors in vain. Nature fights him on all fronts. After the flight of the crested seriemas to the tablelands and the parakeets to the distant seashore, the desert is invaded by a cruel bestiary. Legions of bats swoop down on the cattle and destroy them. In the dried patches of scorched weeds, the sound of thousands of rattlesnakes can be heard, and the more intense the heat, the greater their number. At night the sly puma steals his calves and steer at his very doorstep. This is one more enemy he must fight off. He attempts to frighten it with firebrands, and if it does not retreat, he attacks it. He does not attempt to shoot it, knowing that if his bullet should miss its mark the puma would certainly be the victor. The intense combat is one of a weakened warrior, brandishing a pitchfork in his left hand and a knife in his right, jabbing at the intruder and goading it to pounce. He then strikes it in midleap and kills it with a single blow.

He cannot always take such risks. A strange malady adds to his misfortunes. It is nyctalopia, a type of blindness that is a paradoxical reaction to light.[21] It comes from the clear, hot days, the shimmering skies, and the currents of hot air wafting over the naked earth. It is a false blindness that is due to surfeit of light. No sooner does the sun set than the victim is struck by blindness. Night blindfolds him suddenly, even before enveloping the earth. The next morning, his extinguished sight returns, rekindling with first light to be snuffed out again at sunset, with painful regularity.

With his sight, his energy is restored. He does not consider himself done in. He still has recourse to the tender branches of wild bromeliads to quench the thirst and sate the hunger of his children. With these barbaric concoctions he cheats starvation.

He continues on foot now to the pastures, because it breaks his heart to look at his horse. He surveys the ruins of his ranch. His ghostlike cattle are mere skeletons, still alive but barely so, one knows not how, prone under the dead trees. They can barely stand on their thin legs and they slowly stagger about. Steer that have been dead for days are still intact and even the vultures spurn them since their beaks fail to penetrate the desiccated hides. Cattle about to expire huddle around a bowl of cracked earth where their favorite waterhole used to be. What saddens him most are the beasts that surround him trustingly, bellowing softly as if weeping. Not even a cactus is left; the last green leaves of the juazeiro trees have long since been devoured.

However, there is still the last reserve of the macambira thickets. He sets fire to their dead foliage to strip them of their thorns as efficiently as possible. As the smoke rises into the clear air a sorry troop of starving cattle comes hobbling from all sides in search of a last meal.

Finally, all his resources are exhausted and the situation has not changed. There is not the slightest possibility of rain. The bark of the mariseiro trees, harbingers of rain, fail to ooze moisture. The northeast wind continues to blow strongly over the sertão, humming and howling through the brushlands. The sun sears through the cloudless sky, casting its unforgiving heat onto the dog days of the land. Overwhelmed by these adversities, the sertanejo finally gives up.

One day the first band of migrants passes by his doorstep. He watches in alarm as the miserable band crosses the village and disappears in a cloud of dust at the bend of the road. The next day there are more of them, and then more. The sertão is being emptied out.

He can hold out no longer. He attaches himself to one of the groups, which strike out on the road, leaving their bones along the wayside. He joins the painful exodus to the coast, to the distant mountains—anyplace where man is not denied the basic elements of life.

He reaches this place, and is saved.

Months pass. The scourge is over. Longing for the backlands overcomes him and he embarks on a reverse migration. He returns happy, reinvigorated, singing. He forgets his travails, going back to those same fleeting hours of unstable fortune, the same long days of drawn-out suffering and tests of strength.

Mestizo Religion

The sertanejo lives in isolation in a country that hardly knows who he is. His existence is defined by constant warfare with the environment, which imprints an extraordinary ruggedness on his physique and his psychology. He is a nomad, with shallow roots in the soil and he does not, in truth, have the organic capacity to attain a higher position in life.

His limited existence delays his psychological development. He does not understand his monotheistic religion, which is tainted by an extravagant mysticism and an incongruous mixture of Indian and African fetishism. He is a bold, strong primitive but he is also ingenuous and readily led astray by absurd superstitions. An analysis of these beliefs will reveal that he is subject to a combination of different emotional states.

His religion is, like him—mestizo.

The physical and physiological characteristics of the races from which he comes parallel his moral qualities. They are a map of the life of three races. His singular beliefs translate the violent juxtaposition of distinct attitudes that need not be described. These include the chilling legends of the wily and mischievous caapora dashing across the plains on the back of a fiendish caitetú on mysterious moonlit nights; the devilish sací, a scarlet cap on its head, attacking the straggling traveler on an ill-omened Friday night; werewolves and headless she-donkeys wandering in the night; the snares of the evil one, the devil, tragic emissary of celestial displeasure; the prayers to Saint Campeiro, saint of the plains, canonized in partibus, for whom candles are lit in the fields to ask for his help in retrieving lost objects; the kabbalistic rites for curing animals and their fevers; the visions, fantastical apparitions, and bizarre prophecies of deranged messiahs; and the pious pilgrimages, missions, and penances—all easily explained manifestations of a complex religious mix.[22]

Historical Influences on the Development of the Mestizo Religion

It is not a stretch to describe mestizo religion as miscegenation of beliefs. These include the anthropomorphism of the savage, the animism of the African, and the emotional makeup of the superior race during the period of discovery and colonization. The latter is a notable case of historical regression.

The religious agitations of the backlands recall a critical phase in Portugal’s spiritual history at the end of the sixteenth century. After having been at the center of history’s stage, this interesting population suddenly entered into a period of steep decline, which was poorly disguised by the oriental opulence of Dom Manoel’s court. In the Brazilian backlands, as in the mother country, religious fanatics and hair-shirt ascetics are followed by a mob of sorrowing, obsessed disciples. The intensive period of colonization in Brazil occurred under King John III, at the apex of a time of complete moral disintegration when “all the terrors of the Middle Ages had been crystallized into peninsular Catholicism.”

A great legacy of extravagant superstitions remained intact in the sertão even though they had been extinct on the coast due to the modernizing influence of other creeds and races. These beliefs were brought to our land by the impressionable people who flowed in after the miraculous mirage of the Indies had dissipated in the East. The newcomers arrived full of an intense mysticism, a religious fervor that flared up from the Inquisitional fires that had burned so intensely in the peninsula. They were from the same people who in a state of hallucination had witnessed above the royal palace in Lisbon processions of white-hooded Moors carrying prophetic caskets and engaging in paladin combat through mysterious tongues of flame. They were the same ones who after Alcácer-Quibir, which marked a “national decline” according to the emphatic pronouncements of Oliveira Martins, sought as their only salvation from imminent ruin the higher plane of messianic hopes.

Indeed, as we contemplate the insane messiahs of the backlands and the rebellions that they provoked, we are strongly reminded of the prophetic figures of the peninsula—the king of Penamacor and the king of Ericeira, who wandered over the mountains and infected credulous multitudes with mad dreams of martyrdom.

This historical comparison is an exact one that can be traced back for three centuries. Time has stood still in the rustic backlands, and the people who live there have not been touched by the progress made by the rest of humanity. The backlanders still breathe the same moral air of the madmen who pursued Miguelinho and Bandarra. To round out the comparison, the political mysticism of the Sebastianist movement still persists unchanged in our northern backlands, even though it has become extinct in Portugal. But we will not get ahead of our story.

The Variable Nature of Backlands Religious Beliefs

These regressive traits gave rise to a unique psychology that is reinforced by the physical environment. The man of the backlands, as we have seen, has a deep relationship with the land. He is at the mercy of the elements and his awareness of his vulnerability intensifies his constant reliance on the marvelous. He is reduced to being the stupid dunce of fate. In more favorable climates the need for supernatural patronage would not be as great. In this place, however, individual tendencies are exacerbated by environmental conditions and result in extremes of apathy and impulsive mysticism, fatalism, and religious fervor. The teachings of the missionaries could not overcome these tendencies. So for this reason, as in a palimpsest, the imperfect consciousness of the backlander shatters the beautiful ideals of Catholicism, and as in a broken mirror, reveals all the stains of an inferior intelligence.

Even in times of normalcy, backlands religion is ill-defined and variable. Just as the Hausa blacks adapt the liturgy of the Yoruba rituals to the Catholic mass, a common sight in Bahia, the sertanejos also leave holy services to join the pagan orgies of the African candomblé or the Tupi paracés.[23] It is not surprising that surprising anomalies can be found within this strange religious mix.

It is a touching sight to see the sertanejo family kneeling before its roughly hewn oratory or humble icon, praying by the faint light of oil lamps for the souls of loved ones who have died or asking for protection against the storms of life.

Their cult of the dead is remarkable. In remote regions, far from any human settlement, they bury them on the roadsides so they might not be forgotten and will always have the benefit of the prayers of travelers. Those who pass by can leave a flower, a bough, on the arms of the small cross, a fleeting but ever-renewed remembrance. The cowboy, riding at breakneck speed, will abruptly halt his horse at the sight of this humble memorial, a cross on a mound of stones, and, head bared, he will continue slowly on his way, praying for the salvation of a stranger he may have never seen and who might even have been his enemy.

Life on earth is a torturous exile, and death is always greeted as a blessing.

The death of a child is treated like a holiday. In the hovel of the bereaved parents guitars thrum joyfully to the sound of tears. A loud samba churns in the background, and the verses of the poet-troubadours are loudly declaimed. At the side of the room the dead child is laid out, a candle at each end of the coffin. Bedecked with flowers, the dead child smiles in death with the contentment of one headed for heaven and eternal bliss—the predominant concern of these simple souls.

In contrast to these interesting traits, their religion has an ugly, repulsive side, brutal aberrations that corrupt and defile it.

Pedra Bonita: The Rock of Miracles

The backland rebellions, from Maranhão to Bahia, have not yet found their historian. We shall not take on that task. Instead we will focus on one incident, among many, which we have selected at random.

In the state of Pernambuco, in the district of Pajehú, the Carved Mountains, or Serra Talhada, rise majestically above the region and form a huge amphitheater that can be accessed through a narrow gorge between perpendicular walls of granite. In this place a lone block of stone rises like a gigantic pulpit—it has been named Pedra Bonita, or the Rock of Miracles.

In 1837 this place was the stage for the sinister religious practices that recall the rites of the Ashanti Negroes of Africa’s Gold Coast. A clairvoyant cafuzo or mameluco gathered all the population of the neighboring territories and from the rock pulpit assured the coming of the enchanted reign of King Sebastian. The rock would be shattered not by mallets but by the blood of infants shed in a great holocaust. The great king would then thunder forth surrounded by his gleaming entourage and would mete unflinching punishment on an ungrateful humanity while showering riches on those who had contributed to releasing him from his spell, or “disenchantment.”

A nervous shudder rippled through the sertão.

This deranged preacher found fertile ground for the propagation of his insane teachings. With babes in arms, mothers rushed forward to the monstrous altar and fought among themselves to be the first to offer their infants as a sacrifice. Blood gushed and splattered on the rock and pooled around it in great quantities. According to newspaper reports of the times, when the macabre farce was finally ended, it was impossible for anyone to remain in that infected place.

Yet there are other equally impressive facts to counterbalance those aberrations. The soul of the backlander is a blank slate, and thus, depending on the forces working upon it, his behavior can range from extreme brutality to utmost devotion.

In one instance, we see him distorted by fanaticism. Now let us observe him when he becomes transfigured by faith.

Monte Santo

Monte Santo is a legendary place. At the end of the seventeenth century the discovery of the mines shifted attention from the coast to the interior of the country. Led by the mirage of silver, adventurers descended on the northern backlands, and they followed the elusive trail of Belchior Días to the Jacobina Mountains. Here they stayed for a long time. The solitary Mount Piquaraçá, with its unique shape, dominated the horizon in all directions and guided them in their meandering course.

The mountain itself was a singular attraction. On its flanks were gigantic piles of rocks, forming the mysterious letters A, L, and S—marked by a cross, which originated the belief that here was the long-sought El Dorado. The area was searched in vain by many seeking to emulate the crafty Muribeca, and finally the adventurers abandoned the place to go on to other parts with a contingent of peaceful Potiguara Indians and other newcomers armed with muskets. The mountain once again receded into the landscape.

At the end of the eighteenth century, however, it was rediscovered by the missionary Apolônio de Todi. When he arrived there from the mission at Maçacará, the great apostle of the North was so impressed with the look of the mountain, finding it similar to Calvary in Jerusalem, that he promptly erected a chapel there. It was to be the crudest and yet the most influential temple of religious faith in the region.

The priest described in detail the process of the construction and the unstinting help given to him by settlers in the region. He described the solemn ceremony to celebrate the completion of the temple. A majestic procession wound its way slowly up the mountain, buffeted by hurricane-force winds that swept up from the plains and put out the torches. He gave a penitential sermon, exhorting the faithful to visit holy places on holy days, since they lived in such neglect of spiritual things. Then, he concluded, from this day forward they should no longer call the mountain Piquaraçá but Monte Santo. And thus was built this impressive temple, erected by nature and by faith, rising higher than the grandest cathedrals on earth. The people of the backlands completed this missionary’s undertaking.

Whoever should attempt to climb the five-mile-long via sacra, along which are to be found twenty-five stone chapels housing the stations of the cross, will be able to form an idea of the brutal labor that went into the construction of this site. Supported by concealed walls, paved in some places and elsewhere revealing bedrock carved into stone steps or upward-sloping ramps, this white quartzite road is a wonder of bold engineering skill. For over a century, legions of Lenten pilgrims have processed here and sung their litanies, which echo through the rock. At the beginning of the ascent the road follows a slope of almost twenty degrees. After the fourth or fifth chapel it bends to the left and becomes less steep. Farther on, beyond the biggest chapel, an interesting church perched on a ledge overhanging the abyss below, it swerves again to the right with the incline decreasing in a straight line until the summit is near. Then follows a small depression and a sudden rise to the sharp summit where the calvary is located.

As the visitor climbs, gasping for breath and pausing at each station, he is offered a succession of overwhelming views: first the plains, spreading far below in vast, level tablelands; then the distant mountains, clustered at all four points of the compass; finally, at the summit, a view of the mountaintops—a strange sensation of infinite space and enormous heights, intensified by a glimpse of the tiny town at the foot of the mountain, which is little more than a chaotic jumble of rooftops.

When local families come here during Holy Week and the faithful cross these same mountain roads where long ago the ambitious adventurers traversed, restless with dreams of glory, one realizes that Apolônio de Todi was more capable than Muribeca in uncovering the secret of the letters of stone. He discovered the real El Dorado, a rich spiritual treasure hidden in the desert.

Contemporary Missions

Unfortunately, the missionary had no successors. With rare exceptions, the modern missionary is a very destructive agent who only aggravates the state of emotional imbalance of the tabaréus, or backland dwellers. Because he lacks the spiritual stature of those who preceded him, his actions have negative results. He destroys, erases, and perverts the good that the earlier evangelists had achieved with these simple people. He lacks the talent and the art to transform souls. His vulgar methods are the opposite of his predecessors’. Instead of advising and consoling, he threatens and punishes. Instead of praying, he rants. He is brutal and treacherous. He emerges from the folds of his dark vestments as if out of the shade of an armed ambush, to prey on the unquestioning innocence of his listeners. When he climbs into the pulpits of the backland churches, he does not offer a vision of heaven and its rewards but instead he brandishes images of a vicious, flaming hell. His sermons are a babel of barbaric phrases uttered with demented gestures and grimaces. It is ridiculous and horrifying to watch this impostor abuse his privilege by engaging in melodramatic buffoonery. Only tragic words come out of his mouth. He does not portray a better or nobler life for these simple backlanders—of which he knows not—but brays about sin, depicting gross scenes of infernal torment. He vomits avalanches of penances on the heads of his defenseless flock and rants interminably about imminent catastrophes while repeatedly raiding his snuffbox as he opens Pandora’s box.

He casts a spell on the vulnerable sertanejo—he deludes him, depresses him, and perverts him.

Let us find a single, last example. In 1850 the backlands of Carirí were thrown into a state of alarm by the raids of the Serene Ones, who committed large-scale robberies. This was the name given to bands of fanatics who practiced macabre rites of self-flagellation and self-torture at night on desert crossroads. They would torture themselves with hair shirts, thorns, nettles, and other forms of penance. One day these mad zealots burst out of a church in Crato and dispersed over the countryside—the women wailing, the men apprehensive, and the children in tears—as they sought the horrible punishments that the missionaries had threatened. Meanwhile, inside the church, these new missionaries continued to prophesy the end of the world. God was proclaiming it in bad Portuguese, bad Latin, and bad Italian: He had seen enough of the sins of the world.

And so these demented creatures went around begging, weeping, praying, and living in the most abject idleness. Since there was not enough public charity to support them, they turned to theft. This is when the populace drew the line. The instigators of the crimes were asked to leave and take their unfortunate teachings elsewhere, while the law repressed the banditry at great cost.

IV

Antônio Conselheiro: A Misfit Turns Back the Historical Clock

It was not surprising that our deep ethnic strata pushed up the extraordinary figure of Antônio Conselheiro, “the Counselor.” He is like a fossil. Just as the geologist can reconstruct the inclination and orientation of very old formations from truncated strata and build models of ancient mountains, so can the historian deduce something about the society that produced this man, who himself is of little worth. Under normal circumstances this man would have been diagnosed as a neurotic with progressive psychosis. However, in his social context he becomes an alarming anomaly. The stages of his career do not parallel a serious illness; however they do give us the profile of a grave social disorder. This man was driven by forces larger than he was, to lead a conflict with an entire civilization and to go down in history when he should have gone to a mental hospital. For the historian, however, he is not someone with mental illness; he represents the integration of various social traits, which would not be perceived had he remained anonymous, but were forceful and well defined when this man came to represent a social movement.

His ferocious mysticism contains all the popular beliefs of the lawless backlands: from barbarous fetishisms to a warped Catholicism. He was, at the same time, a passive and an active agent of the rebellion that surged up around him. His highly impressionable temperament led him to absorb the state of mind of his environment. At first his tormented mind was little more than a morbidly passive vessel. With time his delirious consciousness unleashed these forces on the surroundings that had produced them. It is difficult in this case to draw the dividing line between personal and collective tendencies. The life of this man is a summary of the life of his society. If we trace his individual path and place it in the context of his times, we can see the most complete mutuality of influences.

In assessing the situation around him, this false apostle was in a sense observing the process of his own mental decline. He was by nature disposed to revolt against the natural order. He was not a misfit. The people chose him as the natural representative of their highest aspirations. They had no concerns about his mental state. What saved him from the complete obfuscation of his reason was the action of the environment upon him. It offered him protection and contained his aberrant behavior to some degree, forcing him into a type of logic, a certain show of order and consistency in everything he did. He exhibited a rare discipline in controlling his passions, and thus the impressionable backlanders saw in his every word and deed the serenity, moral authority, and humility of the ancient apostles of the faith.

He was, in fact, a very sick man, who would fit the profile of Tanzi and Riva’s concept of paranoia. His ideational hallucinations always focused on ethic concerns. He was a rare case of atavism. His morbid personality led him to whimsical interpretations of objective reality, thereby altering his relationship to the external world. This appeared as a regression to the mental state of ancestral forms of the human species.

A Primitive Gnostic

Without a medical diagnosis, the anthropologist would find him to be a normal example of a remote phase of human evolution. What the psychiatrist would describe as a case of persistent delirium with episodes of persecution mania or delusions of grandeur would be for the anthropologist a case of incompatibility with modern civilization—a clear case of regressive human behavior with manifestations of long-extinct human behaviors. His strange mysticism seemed natural to us because it was practiced on a daily basis by the people. Even if we disregard the influence of inferior races, we find a fairly recent example of it in a critical period of Portuguese life.

We can also find examples on a larger scale, but all we have to do is look back to the early days of the church when a universal gnosticism was arising as a necessary transition from paganism to Christianity. This was in the last phase of the Roman world when, before the invasion of the barbarians, Latin letters had entered into sudden decline and was being substituted by the sophists and petty men of letters of Byzantium. In fact, many of the numerous sects that arose from the nascent religion, with their hysterical scholars and hyperbolical excesses, could be seen as disgusting cases of insanity. These include the Phrygian Montanists, the infamous Adamites, the ophiolaters, the duplicitous Manichaeans (who held a middle ground between an emergent Christianity and an ancient Buddhist tradition) along with the disciples of Marcus, the celibate Encratites, and the flagellants. Yet in fact they were normal. They assimilated well into an age in which the followers of Alexander of Abnoticus were shaking the foundations of Marcus Aurelius’s Rome with their excesses, their bizarre processions, their mysteries, and their terrible sacrifices of living lions that were hurled into the Danube with elaborate ceremonies led by the emperor-philosopher.

History repeats itself.

Antônio Conselheiro was a primitive gnostic.

We shall soon see how appropriate this simile is.

A Great Man Is Torn Apart

The label “indifferent paranoiac” probably does not apply to him. He was most certainly intellectually degenerate, with his insane temperament and obvious ideational retrogression. But the environment in which he lived did not isolate or reject him; on the contrary it reinforced and strengthened him. He viewed himself as a prophet and an emissary from heaven, sent to lead sinners to salvation. He was a servant tethered to his arduous task, and so we watch him year after year dragging his weakened carcass through the savage backlands, driven by his obsession. Yet he appears lucid and firm in his resolve as he pursues his objective with irresistible finality.

His fragile consciousness wavered about that middle line that Maudsley laments he is unable to draw between good sense and insanity. He stayed there on the frontier of madness, the mental state where criminals and heroes, brilliant reformers and moral cripples meet, and where genius rubs elbows with degenerates. If he had been restrained by the discipline of cultivated society, he would have burst the bonds of reason. But here he was in tune with the environment, and the effect was to give him the appearance of normalcy as his mystical teachings touched the souls around him.

A Natural Product of His Environment

The sociological environment that encouraged mystical psychosis also set boundaries for it without repressing it completely and thus created a balance that saved the victim. The mind that was predisposed to open rebellion was redirected by the circumstances of the place to an alternative state of superstition and mistaken ways.

Background: The Maciel Family

The Counselor’s biography is a compendium and summary of sertanejo society. His life illustrates the etiology of the disease that consumed him. Let us take a look at the words of biographer Colonel João Brígido dos Santos from his brief notes about the genealogy of Antônio Conselheiro:

The Maciel family lived in the backlands between Quixeramobim and Tamboril. It was a numerous tribe of strong, agile, brave, and intelligent men who lived by cattle ranching and small-scale cattle breeding. Following the outlaw code of the times, they became engaged in a family feud and became principal actors in the great crimes of the state of Ceará. Their rivals were the wealthy Araújo family, who were related to some of the oldest families in the northern part of the state. They all lived in the same region, the seat of which was the city of Boa Viagem, about fifteen kilometers from Quixeramobim.

It was one of the bloodiest feuds of the Ceará backlands, waged by these unevenly matched opponents, unequal in fortune as well as official position, yet both sides emboldened and hardened in the practice of unrestrained violence.

The criminal acts referenced are but an episode in the raids that almost continuously defined the turbulent life of the sertão. They are but copies of thousands of others that might serve as a reminder of the unbridled power of the village leaders and their sinful exploitation of the naturally fierce instincts of the backlander. The family feud is merely a variation of so many other conflicts that arise interminably, compromising the descendents who take up the grievances of their grandfathers, creating an almost physiological predisposition to anger and vengeance, making them hereditary states of mind.

The feud between the two families arose from a minor incident: an alleged robbery committed by the Maciéis on the large Araújo estate. Everything indicated that the accusations against the Maciéis were false. They were “strong, likeable, good humored, authentic, and helpful men,” who had an enviable reputation in the region.

Araújo da Costa and one of his relatives, Silvestre Rodrigues Veras, did not take kindly to the poor family competing with theirs for influence, particularly since they were not large landowners or cattle ranchers. They were used to taking the law into their own hands, and they were determined to use their wealth and influence to teach a lesson to the upstarts. The Araújos knew their opponents were brave to the point of recklessness, and they called upon a band of hired assassins to embark on the criminal expedition to Quixeramobim.

Before long, and contrary to general expectations, they came back in defeat. The Maciel clan confronted the mercenary band and repelled them forcefully, dealing them a frightening defeat. This occurred in 1833.

Humiliated and hardly able to bear their frustration and anger, these strongmen, whose arrogant stupidity had been given a blunt rebuff, resorted to more aggressive measures. In those days, as in the present, there was no lack of mercenaries for hire. The Araújos managed to find a couple of the more notorious of them: José Joaquim de Menezes, a closed-mouthed Pernambucan, well known for his bloody rivalry with the famous Mourão family; and a terrible outlaw by the name of Vicente Lopes, from Aracatiaçú. Once their motley band was assembled, with reinforcements from Silvestre’s sons and sons-in-law, they immediately set forth on their criminal mission.

As they neared the Maciéis’ homestead, the murderous gang had second thoughts in spite of the fact that they outnumbered their opponents, and they proposed a deal—sworn on their honor—to spare their victims’ lives in exchange for their surrender. The Maciéis agreed, sure that they could not hold out for long. The Araújos’ word was worth what one would expect. Handcuffed and under guard, the captive Maciéis were taken to a jail at Sobral and then slaughtered on the first day of their journey. Among the dead was Antônio Maciel, the grandfather of Antônio Conselheiro.

One of his uncles, Miguel Carlos, was able to escape. How he managed to do this is inexplicable since he was manacled and his legs were bound under his horse’s belly. But we have this information from the faithful historian Manuel Ximenes.

The Araújos had let their worst enemy get away and they began to pursue him at once. Heavily armed and on strong mounts, they set off on a barbarous chase, as if they were hunting a mountain lion. The fugitive was, however, a master tracker, and followed in flight by a sister, he managed to evade the posse headed by Pedro Martins Veras. He found a hiding place on the ranch known as Passage, in the Quixeramobim district. There he hid, exhausted, in an abandoned shack grown over by oiticica branches.[24]

The pursuers followed his trail to this place and they found him at nine o’clock in the morning. A terrible, unequal battle ensued. The tenacious backlander, crippled by a dislocated ankle, bravely faced the horde and knocked one down, a brute named Theotonio who had gone in ahead of his companions. He fell across the threshold, making it impossible to shut the door. When Miguel Carlos’s sister intervened to drag the body away, she was struck by a bullet. Pedro Veras himself had fired the shot and he was rewarded by a point-blank charge. With their leader dead, the rest fell back, giving the fugitive time to barricade the door.

The shack had now become a fort, and gunfire showered through the cracks in the walls. Made bold by their fear, the assailants set fire to the place with instantaneous results. Unable to breathe in the flames, Miguel Carlos decided to abandon the shelter. He threw a jug of water on one side of the hut and succeeded in briefly quelling the flames. Jumping over his dead sister’s body, a rifle under one arm and his parnaíba knife in the other hand, he threw himself into the circle of his aggressors and managed to break through their ranks, disappearing into the caatinga.[25]

A while later, one of the Araújo clan was to be married to the daughter of a wealthy cattle rancher in Tapaiara. As they were approaching the chapel on their wedding day, he was felled by a bullet, to the horror and alarm of the guests and the unfortunate bride. The avenging spirit of the sertanejo never rests.

Miguel Carlos had a partner in his deep and justified rancor against the Araújos, his sister Helena Maciel, known as the family “nemesis” according to the chronicler we have just quoted. His own life was beset by many dangers, some certainly the product of the backlander’s active imagination. He managed to escape all the traps that were laid for him and more than one of his unwary trackers fell under his knife.

Our chronicler’s narrative continues:

It appeared that Miguel Carlos had protectors who guaranteed his safety and it was not unusual to see him in the town.

One night, as he stood in the doorway of Manoel Procopio de Freitas’s shop, a man came in to buy brandy. Miguel Carlos was convinced he was a spy and would have killed him instantly had he not been dissuaded by the shop owner. However, he did follow the man and knifed him to death as the fellow left town via Palha Creek.

One morning he left the house of a man married to a relative, Antônio Caetano de Oliveira, to bathe in a stream behind the house. The house was on the far side of the main square of the town, near a gully leading to Cotovello Square. Behind the house, Palha Creek flowed around the square in an almost perfect circle, forming a lovely pool of standing water. Miguel and a few of his companions were there and had stripped down when they were ambushed by men hiding in the brush around them. Miguel and his companions grabbed their clothes and ran. Miguel Carlos, wearing only his shorts, brandishing a knife, headed for the rear of the house, which faced the creek and which had been occupied since 1845 by Manoel Francisco da Costa. He had opened the wooden gate leading to the garden, and was about to close it, when he was hit in the back by a bullet. Others say it happened when he was running through a patch of woods near the creek. He had fallen, knife in hand, when Manoel de Araújo, leader of the attacking band, and brother of the dead bridegroom, pinned him down and finished him off with a knife thrust. Even as he lay dying, he responded with a jab of his dagger to the jugular vein of his opponent and the two expired, one on top of the other. Helena Maciel came running onto the scene and kicked her brother’s assailant in the face. She was content to lose her brother, she stated, since he had avenged the family by killing their arch enemy.

The story continues that the murderers had spent the night at the home of the town postmaster, Ignacio Mendes Guerreiro, a member of the Araújo family. They had come on the pretext of arresting the Maciéis but their real intent was to murder them.

Helena was not discouraged by these events. She went about eliminating her enemies in memory of her brother. She confessed years later to the brutal beating of André Jacinto de Sousa Pimentel, a boy from a prominent family related to the Araújos. She associated him with the betrayal of Miguel Carlos. The beating resulted in a cardiac lesion and an agonizing death for the young man, who was justly blamed for this last act of aggression by the Araújos. The crime was committed on Helena’s orders by foot soldiers in a detachment under the command of Sublieutenant Francisco Gregorio Pinto, a man of low birth and little education, who Pimentel had managed to offend. This led to the belief that the army officer was responsible for the crime. Helena, meanwhile, kept silent.

The feud claimed countless victims and decimated two entire families, the last of the Maciel line being Antônio Maciel, Miguel Carlos’s brother, who died in Boa Viagem. Miguel Carlos became a legend and he and his family gained the respect of their contemporaries for having sustained a feud with the powerful people of Boa Viagem and Tamboril.

Let us continue our story.

A Promising Life

There is no reliable information on the role of Antônio Conselheiro’s father, Vicente Mendes Maciel, in this deplorable feud. His contemporaries describe him as an “irritable man, inclined to be distrustful and somewhat delusionary, but of excellent character. He was very capable and in spite of being illiterate he managed the business of his estates, keeping all the accounts and measures in his head without having to keep any written records of debts owed him.”

The son, subjected to the discipline of a strict father known for his integrity, was given an education that kept him isolated from his family’s violent life. Living witnesses who knew him then remember him as a quiet, shy young man who lacked the happy enthusiasm of early youth. He kept to himself and avoided youthful diversions, rarely leaving his father’s place of business in Quixeramobim. There he devoted himself to the duties of the conscientious cashier, letting his first twenty years go by empty and wasted. He could not help but hear, however, the legends and stories that were told about his own flesh and blood, often with many embellishments as is the custom of backland story-tellers. In these stories, his relatives were often the protagonists who displayed the traditional rare courage. Any influence the stories may have had on the young man was energetically discouraged by the stern elder Mendes Maciel, and they did not unsettle the spirit of the boy. Perhaps this remained latent, ready to surface under more favorable conditions, but it is certain that until his father’s death in 1855, twenty years after the tragic events we have recounted, Antônio Maciel continued to lead the same quiet and respectable life.

Faced with the responsibility for his three unmarried sisters, he showed rare self-sacrifice. It was only after he married them off that he sought a match for himself, and this union would destroy him.

First Setbacks

His life took a dramatic turn from this point forward. His wife was yet another burden added to his hereditary baggage, and marriage would unbalance a life that had begun under better circumstances.

From 1858 on everything he did indicated that he was a changed man. He lost his sedentary habits. Incompatibility with his wife, or what is more likely, his wife’s bad disposition, would destabilize his situation. He started to move frequently between cities and towns, picking up various kinds of work.

Although he was restless, it was clear that he was engaged in a struggle of character that he was determined to win. Left without any fortune in this preparatory phase of his life, and despite the difficulties of his marital life, whenever he reached a new destination he tried to find honest work. In 1859 he moved to Sobral and found a position as a cashier. However, he did not stay there for long. Going on to Campo Grande, he was hired as a clerk to a judge, but his stay there was brief and he was off to Ipú, where he became a court clerk.

It is noticeable that he showed a growing interest in jobs requiring less effort. He was distancing himself from the discipline of his youth and displaying a tendency for more exciting and less productive forms of activity. He was heading for a life of vagrancy. At the same time, his domestic troubles were robbing him of his former serenity.

This period of his life still reveals him to be guided by worthy sentiments. Around him, political battles were raging that offered him many career opportunities. He would have been welcomed because of his family connections. He consistently avoided this, however, and in his constant decline it is possible to see him losing ground slowly, struggling to stay in control but painfully exhausted.

Suddenly he experienced a violent reversal. The downward slide of his life came to an end with a terrifying fall. His wife left him in Ipú for a police officer. This was his undoing. Overcome with shame, the unhappy man sought the refuge of the backlands, remote places where nobody would know who he was and where he could find shelter in absolute obscurity.

He traveled to the south of Ceará. He spent a night in Pão Branco, on the Crato highway, where a relative put him up. There he attacked his host. A brief police investigation was suspended, when the victim dropped charges, saving him from prison. He then headed south again and disappeared from sight. . . .

Ten years went by. The unhappy boy from Quixeramobim was completely forgotten. Only occasionally would someone recall his name and the scandal that had ended his life in that place, one in which a certain well-placed police sergeant was a romantic protagonist. The name Antônio Maciel was barely spoken in his homeland. For all intents and purposes, he was dead.

How a Monster Is Made

In Bahia a dour hermit appeared with hair to his shoulders, a long matted beard hiding an emaciated face—a monstrous figure with piercing eyes, wearing a blue homespun robe and leaning on the classic staff that supports the pilgrim’s halting steps.

It is unknown what his life had been during this long time. An old backlander who was captured in the last days of the campaign had something to say about this but he was very vague and could give no dates or details. He had met him in the sertão of Pernambuco, one or two years after he had left Crato. From the words of this witness, I concluded that Antônio Maciel had made a vivid impression on the minds of the people of the backlands. He had appeared in those places with no fixed destination. He made no mention of his past. He spoke in brief phrases and monosyllables. He wandered from one place to the next, seemingly mindless of which direction he took, indifferent to danger, eating little or nothing and occasionally sleeping in the open along the roadside as if fulfilling some kind of prolonged, crude penance.

It was not long before those simple people thought him to be an apparition or a ghost. When this unusual man of about thirty years appeared at the ranches of the pack drivers, all festivities ceased. This was only natural. His squalid and emaciated figure, in a tattered robe, would emerge silently from the barren, haunted landscape, making the people think he was a ghost. Then he would move on, leaving the superstitious backlanders stunned. And so he came to dominate them without meaning to do so.

This primitive society, because of its ethnic characteristics and the influence of the unholy missions, found it easier to understand life in terms of incomprehensible miracles. This man’s mysterious way of life was bound to give him prestige, which only encouraged his delirium. The legends and assumptions that grew up around him were fertile ground for his hallucinations. His insanity thereby manifested itself. The intense admiration and respect that he commanded in time made him the arbiter of disputes and the favored counselor in all decisions. The crowd thus spared him the need to confront his own emotional state, a process of introspection that usually accompanies the progression of insanity in diseased brains. He was a creation of the multitude, who refashioned him in their own image. It broadened the horizons of his life and propelled him backward to the errors of prophets two thousand years past. The people needed someone to translate their own vague ideations and to guide them on the mysterious pathways to heaven.

Pilgrimages and Martyrdom

And so a monstrous evangelist was made. He was but an automaton, a puppet of the masses. In the end, all he did was to summarize the backward thinking of three races. And he continued to grow in stature until he was projected onto the stage of history.

From the Pernambuco backlands he went on to Sergipe, arriving in the city of Itabaiana in 1874. He arrived there as he did everywhere, unknown and suspect, creating a strange impression with his unusual clothes—a blue robe without a belt, a broad-brimmed hat, and sandals. On his back he carried a leather bag containing paper, pen and ink, an Abbreviated Mission, and the Hours of Mary.

He lived on what people gave him and refused to take anything he did not need for his daily consumption. He sought out solitary resting places. He would not accept a bed, at most a bare plank, and if that were not available, he would sleep on the bare ground.

He wandered around like this for a very long time until he finally arrived in the backlands of Bahia. Meanwhile his fame had been spreading. He was no longer alone but being followed on his aimless route by the first of the faithful. He did not call them. They came to him spontaneously, happy to share his trials and deprivations. In general, these were idlers from the lowest social classes and were regarded with suspicion. They were a ragged crowd of human failures who were used to living by begging and stealing.

One of his followers carried a unique kind of temple common to that nascent religion: a crude oratory made of cedarwood, enclosing an image of Christ. On the stops along the way, they would hang this from a tree branch and kneel to pray. Then, holding it up high, they would process into the towns and villages, wailing their hymns.

In 1876 the Counselor made his appearance in Itapicurú de Cima. By this time he was very famous, as documented in this account published that year in the capital of the empire.

An individual has appeared in the northern sertão who is called Antônio Conselheiro, and who exercises great influence on the lower classes, using his mysterious appearance and ascetic costumes to impress these ignorant and simple people. His hair and beard are long. He wears a cotton tunic and eats sparingly. He looks almost like a mummy. Accompanied by two religious women, he intones prayers and hymns and preaches to the masses, meeting with them wherever the religious authorities allow. He plays to their religious beliefs and draws them in at will. He seems to be an intelligent man, but uneducated. (Lammert folio, 1877)

These absolutely true statements, from a document published hundreds of miles away,[26] are a good indication of his growing fame.

Legends

The town of Itapicurú was about to be the place where his extraordinary career ended. In the same year, to the astonishment of the faithful, he was suddenly arrested. He was imprisoned on the false charge of murdering his wife and mother. His exceptional way of life and old domestic troubles in some way made this credible. The story was a chilling one.

The legend goes that the mother had a terrible dislike for her daughter-in-law and was determined to do away with her. For this reason, she informed her son that he was being betrayed. Astonished, he asked for proof. She promised to provide it without delay. She advised him to pretend to go away on a journey but to stay in the area because that night he would see his wife’s lover enter their home. He accepted this plan and after the poor man had ridden out of town, he reined in his horse, turned around, and proceeded quietly back to a hiding place where he could observe the house and act quickly as needed. He remained there for many hours until finally, in the depths of the night, he indeed saw a figure approaching his house. The stranger approached cautiously and was about to climb into one of the windows. He did not give the intruder time to enter the house. He took him down with one shot. With a single leap, he entered his home and shot his sleeping, unfaithful wife. Then he went back to take a look at the man he had killed. He saw in horror that it was his own mother, who had disguised herself to carry out her hellish plan. Appalled by what he had just done, he took off like a madman, leaving everything behind, and he fled to the backlands.

Popular imagination, as can be seen, was beginning to romanticize his life with tragic originality.

The hand of the law finally found him just as his mental disorder reached its definitive state and he was becoming entirely immersed in the dream from which he would never awaken. His ascetic tendencies arose in full force out of the crude discipline he had practiced for fifteen years, when he apprenticed himself to the martyrs of the ancient church. He had suffered the brutal tyrannies of hunger, thirst, exhaustion, anxiety, and deep distress. There was no torture he had not experienced. His dried-out skin was a broken and withered shell over his lifeless flesh. Pain itself had become his drug. He bruised and injured his flesh with hair shirts more abrasive than any nettle. He dragged himself over stones, scorched himself in the embers of the drought, exposed himself to the rigors of the night air, and in his transitory moments of rest he slept on a punishing bed of brushwood.

He had verged on death many times during his prolonged fasts, in an ascetic state that would have surprised Tertullian, that foreboding proponent of the slow elimination of matter “shedding his blood, that heavy and unwelcome burden to the soul impatient to leave the body.”[27]

For someone trained in this tyranny of suffering, the order to go to prison was a small incident. He acted with indifference and forbade his followers to act in his defense. He surrendered and they took him to the capital of Bahia. There his strange appearance aroused great curiosity. His face was like a death mask, unseeing and unsmiling; he had the repugnant appearance of a disinterred corpse, his long robe resembling a black shroud; his matted, dirty hair fell to his shoulders and entangled with the stiff hair of his unkempt beard, which hung to his waist.

As he walked through the streets he was greeted with applause as well as gestures of exorcism by frightened believers. The devout women, including many who were reformed prostitutes, were terrified by the sight of him.

The dumbstruck judges interrogated him.

They accused him of old crimes, committed many years ago in his home state. He listened to the interrogation and the accusations in stony silence. The guards, who had escorted him, it was learned later, had mistreated him in a cowardly fashion along the way. He did not voice a single complaint and maintained his stoic indifference. There was just one curious detail revealed by a person whose word is above reproach—on the day they embarked for Ceará, he asked the authorities to shield him from public view, the one thing that most irritated him.

When he arrived at the place he had spent the first part of his life, the charges were dismissed and he was set free. And the same year he returned to Bahia, where his followers were waiting for him. His return coincided to the day with the date he said he would come back when he was arrested, and this took on the aspect of a miracle, increasing his influence threefold.

He wandered for a while through the backlands of Curacá, showing a preference for staying in Xorroxó, a small settlement of a few hundred people, whose lively fair attracted the majority of the settlers along that section of the São Francisco River. An elegant chapel still marks the place where he stayed. An even more revered landmark was the little tree at the entrance to the town, which for a long time was the object of extraordinary devotion. The pilgrim rested under its shade. It was a sacred bush. In its shade the sick were cured and its leaves were an infallible remedy. The people were initiating a great series of miracles that the poor man probably never contemplated.

For a decade, beginning in 1877, he made his way through the sertão in all directions, even reaching the coast at Vila do Conde in 1887. In this entire region there is probably no city or settlement where he did not appear. Alagoinhas, Inhambupe, Bom Conselho, Jeremoabo, Cumbe, Mocambo, Maçacará, Pombal, Monte Santo, Tucano, and other places saw him arrive, followed by his ragged band. In almost all of these places he left some reminder of his stay: In one place the ruined walls of a cemetery were rebuilt, in another a church had been repaired, and farther on a chapel had been constructed with a display of fine craftsmanship.

His entrance to a town was always a solemn and impressive sight. He was followed by a silent multitude bearing holy images, crucifixes, and banners. All normal activity came to a halt as the population of the surrounding area converged on the town, which took on the commotion of a fair. For a number of days the local authorities were ignored as the wandering missionary would give orders and would take over the command of the place.

In the public park they erected gazebos decorated with leaves, where in the evening the faithful would recite their rosaries and sing hymns. When there were large crowds, they would set up a platform next to the fair booths in the center of the square so the words of the prophet could reach all corners of the public space and enlighten the believers.

The Sermons

He would mount the platform and preach. Those still alive today who heard him preach then report that his sermons were terrifying, intended to frighten his listeners to the core. His oratory was barbaric and was made up of botched excerpts from the Hours of Mary. His syntax was disconnected and abstruse and made even more bizarre by an abuse of Latin quotations. His broken sentences were a confused mix of dogma, vulgarized precepts of Christian morality, and outlandish prophecies.

It was clownish and grotesque.

Imagine a buffoon in the grip of a vision of the apocalypse, looking at his audience. The subdued crowd would stand there, overwhelmed by the endless torrent of nonsense.

Occasionally he would appear to be concerned about the effect of one or another key statement. He would pronounce it and then pause, raise his head, and open his eyes wide, revealing the flash of his black eyes. No one dared to return his gaze. The congregation would look away, rendered immobile by his extreme insanity. At such a moment this pathetic figure performed his only miracle, which was not to appear ridiculous.

His sermons competed successfully with those of the wandering Capuchin monks of the missions. They promulgated a vague and inconsistent religion. Anyone listening to him might make historical comparisons. One might recall the pages of Marc-Aurèle , in which Renan revives the mad cult leaders of early centuries with his electrifying prose. One could not ask for a better reproduction of the same concepts, images, hyperbolic formulas, and even the same words. It is a beautiful example of parallels between stages of human evolution. The backlands mystic reproduces the style of early mystics. In contemplating this, one gains a perspective that spans centuries.

He is a being out of time, one of those anachronistic beings who Fouillée, in a felicitous image, compares to “runners on the field of civilization, lagging more and more behind.” (Coureurs sur le champ de la civilization, de plus en plus en retard.)

Precepts of a Montanist

He is a Themison-style dissident, hurling rebukes at the Roman Catholic Church and using Themison’s arguments against it. The Church has lost her past glory and is doing Satan’s bidding. He outlines a moral position that is a literal translation of Montanus—an exaggerated chastity that regards women with horror, while at the same time condoning free love, which threatens marriage as an institution.

The Phrygian, perhaps, had experienced the same bitter aftertaste of conjugal misfortune. Both had stern prohibitions against decorative attire for young women, especially against hair ornaments and headdresses, which would be punished with a comb made of thorns. Beauty was the temptation of Satan and the Counselor displayed a singular aversion to it, never again looking at a woman. He even turned his back when speaking to the elderly pious women, who were so ugly they could tame a satyr.

Prophecies

As we continue to compare the beliefs of this backlands apostle to those of earlier times, the similarity becomes more and more apparent. Like the Montanists, Antônio Conselheiro appeared at a time when the earth was undergoing a period of climatic stress. He expressed the same extravagant fear of the apocalypse and the dread of the Antichrist appearing in the last days.

The faithful should let go of all their worldly goods, anything that might mark them with the slightest trace of vanity. All material fortunes were at the brink of imminent collapse and it was foolhardy to attempt to save them.

All his followers should abandon fleeting endeavors and adopt a rigorous penitential life. Not so much as a smile should stain this discipline. Final Judgment was coming with implacable certainty.

He predicted several years of misfortune, which he recorded in small notebooks full of misspellings, bad grammar, and displays of bombastic rhetoric:

In 1896 a thousand herds will run from the coast to the backlands; then the backlands will become the coast and the coast will become the backlands.

In 1897 there will be much pasture and few pathways and just one pastor and only one parishioner.

In 1898 there will be many hats and few heads.

In 1899 the waters will turn to blood and the planet will appear in the east at sunrise and the bough will find itself on the earth and the earth will find itself in the heavens.

In 1900 the light will go out of the sky. There shall be a great rain of stars and that will mark the end of the world. God said in the Gospels: I have a flock which has strayed from the sheep hold and I must gather them because there is just one pastor and only one parishioner.

As with the ancients the prophecy would follow divine will.

Christ himself foretold his second coming:

At the ninth hour, as he was resting on the Mount of Olives, one of his disciples said to him: Lord! What signs will you give us for the end of time? And he replied: many signs, in the moon and 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 counsel. . . .

And interspersed with these mad teachings were the messianic ravings urging racial rebellion against the republican government:

In truth I tell you, when nations wage war with themselves—Brazil against Brazil, England against England, Prussia against Prussia—Dom Sebastião will arise from the waves of the sea with all his army.

At the beginning of time a spell was cast upon him and his army, which will be lifted in wartime.

And when the spell was cast on him, he thrust his sword into the rock and bade farewell to the world.

For a thousand and for many, two thousand years, you will not return!

On the day he returns with his army he shall free this republic with the blade of his sword. The end of this war will take place in the Holy See and blood will flow to the great assembly.

A Second-Century Heretic in the Modern Age

Prophecies as uttered from his mouth had the same tone as from Phrygia as they made their way to the west. The same pronouncements were made about the final Judgment, the defeat of the powerful, the demise of the profane world, and the reign of the millennium and its delights.

Is there not a trace of Orthodox Judaism in all of this? There is no denying it. This return to a golden age, and the revival of ancient dreams, is a favorite apostolic theme—nothing new—and marks the return of Christianity to its Jewish roots. Montanus reappears throughout history, altered to a greater or lesser degree depending on the character of the people who revive him, but with the same thunderous rejection of church hierarchies, the same appeal to the supernatural, the same longings for heaven on earth, and the same primitive dream that was at the heart of the old religion before it was deformed by the sophist councils. Like his predecessors, Antônio Conselheiro was a fundamentalist who longed for the kingdom of God, a dream constantly delayed and in the end completely forgotten by the second-century Orthodox church. His teachings were nothing more than a precursor to a Catholicism that he poorly understood.

Attempts to Take Legal Action

Consistently, with his missions, Conselheiro would order penances to be performed, which ordinarily benefited the local communities. Run-down churches would be renovated; abandoned cemeteries would be rebuilt; new and elegant constructions would go up. The stonemasons and carpenters worked for free, suppliers would provide materials at no cost, and the people would carry the stones. For days at a time these workers would labor with pious zeal for the wages laid up for them in heaven.

And once the job was done, the Predestined One would move on to parts unknown. He would take the first path out to the backlands, over the rolling plains with their crisscrossed trails, without a backward glance to those who were following him. He did not have to worry about opposition from a potentially dangerous adversary—the local priest. A reliable witness has reported that the clergy permitted and encouraged these practices that promoted activities at no benefit to him and produced income for the clergy, such as baptisms, confessions, feast days, and novenas. The vicars tolerated the antics of the possessed saint, who at least filled their empty coffers. In 1882 the archbishop of Bahia took notice and tried to put a stop to this ill-disguised form of protectionism by way of a circular addressed to all the clergy.

Having arrived at our attention that in the diocese an individual named Antônio Conselheiro has been preaching superstitious doctrines to the people with an excessively rigid morality that is disturbing the minds of the people and undermining the authority of the clergy of these places, we ordain that Your Reverence should not consent to any such usurpation of authority in your parish, but shall let it be known to your parishioners that we forbid them to gather for such preaching. The holy mission of indoctrinating the people belongs exclusively to the ministers of the Catholic Church and it follows that a layman, whoever he is, and however well instructed or virtuous, does not have the authority to exercise this right.

In the meantime let this serve to excite Your Reverence’s zeal in the exercise of your ministry, so that your parishioners have sufficient instruction not to let themselves be swept away by every wind of doctrine. . . .

The intervention of the church was useless. Throughout his wanderings of the backlands, Antônio Conselheiro continued his aimless career as an apostle without any obstacles. And, as if he wished to keep alive the memory of his former persecution, he would return regularly to Itapicurú. The deputy of this town was finally forced to appeal to the authorities in the form of an official letter to the police that reviewed the agitator’s history and set forth the following complaint:

He now makes his headquarters here and is directing the construction of a chapel at the expense of the people. It is true that this work is a public improvement but it is not a necessary one and by no means does it make up for the excesses and sacrifices that the project entails. The state of mind of the people is such that the fear of serious trouble is well justified.

So that Your Excellency knows who Antônio Conselheiro is, suffice it to say that he is followed by thousands of people who listen to his teachings and carry out his orders, ignoring the authority of the parish priest. His fanaticism knows no limits and I can tell you with absolute confidence that they worship him as if he were God in the flesh.

On the days he preaches the crowd swells to over a thousand. In the building of this chapel, the weekly cost of which exceeds one hundred milreis, ten times what it should be, Conselheiro hires laborers from Ceará, to whom he accords blind protection, ignoring the crimes they commit. All the money comes from the credulous, ignorant believers, who aside from not working themselves, sell what little they have and even steal to make sure the Counselor has everything he needs. This does not even take into account the large sums spent on public works in Chorrochó, in the Capim Grosso district.

And then the writer goes on to point out the latest travesties committed by the fanatics.

After a disagreement between Antônio Conselheiro’s group and the vicar of Inhambupe, the missionary gathered his forces as if for a full battle. It is common knowledge that they were waiting for the curate to show up at Junco so they could kill him. Travelers in the area are intimidated by the sight of those misfits armed with clubs, knives, and rifles. Woe to anyone suspected of crossing Antônio Conselheiro!

Not surprisingly, this alarming appeal went unheeded. Nothing was done until mid-1887, when the diocese of Bahia again intervened, with a request to the provincial authorities to “restrain the individual Antônio Vicente Maciel, who with his subversive activities does harm to church and state and takes people away from their daily lives to follow him, trying to convince them that he is the Holy Ghost.”

With this information in hand, the provincial judge resorted to a minister of the empire, asking that a place be found for the madman in the insane asylum in Rio. The minister replied with a denial of the request and the notable justification that there were no vacancies in that institution. The magistrate then informed the local prelate of the admirable way in which the government had disposed of the matter. Thus began and ended the legal measures that were taken under the empire.

The Counselor continued unchallenged on his perverted mission to fire up the populace. The first legends began to circulate. We will not try to record all of them.

At the time he was establishing the settlement of Bom Jesus, astounded eyewitnesses report that when the beautiful church was being built, ten workers were straining to lift a heavy beam. The Predestined One stepped on the beam and ordered two of them to lift it along with him on it. They succeeded in doing what all the others had not been able to do, without the least exertion.

I heard another strange story from people who had not allowed themselves to be converted to his fanaticism. He arrived at Monte Santo and decided there should be a procession up the mountain to the very last chapel at the summit. The ceremony began in the afternoon. The crowd made its way slowly up the steep slope, intoning prayers and pausing humbly at each station. He led the way, a stern and sinister figure, his head uncovered, his long hair blowing in the wind, and leaning on his signature staff. Night fell. The penitents lit their torches and the procession along the silhouette of the mountain was like a luminous highway weaving its way up to the top.

When he reached the holy cross at the summit, Antônio Conselheiro was out of breath and he sat on the first step of the rough stone stairway, eyes raised ecstatically to the heavens, his gaze lost in the stars. The first wave of faithful began to overflow into the small chapel, while others remained outside, kneeling on the sharp rocks. The pensive mystic arose, for he was intolerant of weariness. As his followers opened a path for him he made his way into the chapel, his eyes lowered and head bowed, still panting for breath. As he approached the main altar, he raised his pale face, which was framed by his wild hair. A tremor went through the terrified crowd. Two bloody tears were rolling slowly down the smooth face of the Holy Virgin.

These and other legends still circulate through the backlands. It is only natural. Antônio Conselheiro was a type of antihero, whose sick mysticism was a compendium of all the superstitions and errors that have debased our nationality. He attracted the people of the backlands, not because he dominated them, but because their aberrations dominated him. The environment worked in his favor, and he had a grasp of the practicality of the absurd. He obeyed the irresistible finality of old ancestral impulses and while gripped by these impulses he had the outward appearance of a confident evangelist. It was this confidence that disguised his insanity.

One day the vicar of a backlands parish saw a man approach who was extremely thin and exhausted. He had long, unkempt hair; a beard that trailed to his chest; and the traditional figure of a pilgrim, who lacked not even the crucifix hanging from his girdle. His robe was dirty and tattered and he carried a leather water pouch and a long staff. The priest offered him food, but he would not take more than a crust of bread. He was offered a bed but he preferred a wood plank on which he lay down with no cover, fully clothed, still wearing his sandals.

The next morning this strange guest, who had said little until then, asked the priest if he would give him permission to preach at the feast day that was going to be celebrated in the church.

“But, Brother, you are not ordained, and the church does not allow it.”

“Let me make the via sacra.”

“I cannot allow that, either—I must do it myself,” the curate replied again.

The wanderer simply stared at him for a while and then wordlessly removed a cloth from his tunic and wiped the dust from his sandals, a classic and peaceful protest of the apostles.

A Backlands Hegira

As the reactions against him grew more negative, however, he became bitter, and the unconditional master would show irritation whenever his will was thwarted. Once, at Natuba, when the curate with whom he had a disagreement was absent, he ordered that stones be carried to him for the repair of the church. When the priest returned and confronted this invasion of his sacred domain, he was very angry and decided to put an end to this disorder. He was a practical man; he appealed to human greed. At the city council meeting a few days before, an order had gone out to property owners to pave the sidewalks in front of their homes. So the priest offered to the people the stones that had been collected for the chapel. This time the Counselor did not limit himself to wiping the dust off his sandals. As he left town, he uttered his first curse.

Sometime later, at the request of this same priest, a local politician asked him to return. The church had fallen into ruins, the cemetery was grown over, and the parish had sunk into poverty. If the place was to be restored it would require someone who could handle the credulous local population. The missionary deigned to accept the invitation but he did so with conditions and an arrogance that was new to his formerly peaceful character. He remembered the insult that he had received. His personality was changing for the worse.

He was against the republic and he preached rebellion against the new laws. From 1893 onward, he assumed a combative stance that was entirely new.

This came out of a trivial incident.

When the autonomy of the municipalities was decreed, local chambers in the interior of Bahia posted on the traditional bulletin boards, which were a substitute for the press, regulations regarding the collection of taxes and other public information. Antônio Conselheiro was in Bom Conselho when these new procedures were instituted. He was irritated by these new intrusions of the government and he planned a quick retaliation. He gathered the people on a market day and, amidst seditious shouts and the popping of firecrackers, he ordered the bulletin boards to be burned in a bonfire in the square. Raising his voice over this “auto-da-fé” that the authorities had neglected to prevent, he began to preach open insurrection against national laws.

He soon realized the gravity of his behavior and he left town, going north on the Monte Santo road.

The event had repercussions in the capital, and numerous detachments of police were sent out to apprehend the dissident and to dissolve the groups of troublemakers, who were no more than about two hundred men. The troops reached them in Massete, a remote and sterile piece of land between Tucano and Cumbe, near the Ovó Mountains. The thirty well-armed police immediately began to attack the ragged pilgrims, confident they would wipe them out in the first round. But they found that they were facing a band of fearless jagunços. The result was that they were thoroughly beaten and they fled, following their commanding officer who was the first to turn heel.

This minor skirmish was unfortunately to be repeated many times on a broader scale.

Having accomplished this feat, the pilgrims resumed their march, following the prophet on his hegira. They no longer sought out the towns, as before, but made the desert their destination. Their confrontation with the police meant that more aggressive persecution was in store for them and they felt that they could deal better with their new enemies in the wild terrain of the sertão. In fact, a fresh contingent of eighty regular army troops again set out from Bahia. They did not go any farther than Serrinha, where they turned back without entering the backlands.

Antônio Conselheiro, however, had no illusions about the sudden retreat that saved him. He gathered his ragged band of faithful, which grew larger every day, along the far trails of the sertão, this time with a specific direction in mind.

He knew the sertão. He had traveled it on an uninterrupted pilgrimage for twenty years. He knew the isolated places where the police could never find them and he was marking these hiding places in preparation for the evils that lay ahead. He unwaveringly steered his course due north.

The believers followed him. They did not ask where they were going. They marched for long days on end over steep slopes, sterile tablelands, and empty plains. They walked to the slow cadence of their hymns and the measured pace of the prophet.

V

Antecedents to Canudos

Canudos in the 1890s was a cattle ranch on the banks of the Vaza-Barris and consisted of around five hundred mud-and-thatch shacks. As early as 1876 a priest who went there, as the vicar of Cumbe and others had gone, to tend to the spiritual needs of this totally isolated population, reported that the idle and suspect residents of the still productive ranch were, “armed to the teeth and engaged almost exclusively in drinking sugarcane liquor and smoking strange clay pipes with long stems more than a meter long” made of a reed called canudo-de-pito from the riverbank.

Thus, even before the arrival of the Counselor, this remote settlement whose name is easily explained harbored the germs of disorder and crime like the majority of the hamlets in our backlands. When he arrived there in 1893, the place was in complete decline, its outbuildings abandoned, its dwellings vacant, and the ancient main house, located on a spur of Mount Favela, was roofless and in ruins, with only the outer walls standing.

The revival and rapid growth of the town began in that year. This unstable settlement of wandering backwoodsmen, clustered around the old existing church, was in a short time to become transformed into the mud-walled jagunço Troy. It would become a holy site, flanked by mountains, where the long arm of the detested government could never reach them. Its curious topography became in the imagination of those simple people the first wide, steep step of the stairway to heaven.

It is not surprising that successive bands of settlers coming from all directions from the most remote towns and settlements would converge on this place. The baron of Jeremoabo records: “Some places in this and neighboring districts, and even from the state of Sergipe, were depopulated due to the great flow of families into Canudos, the site chosen by Antônio Conselheiro as his center of operations. It was painful to see them put up everything they owned for sale at the fairs for next to nothing: horses, cattle, goats, as well as their homes, their land, and their possessions. Their overwhelming desire was to sell everything and take their earnings to the saintly Counselor.”

And thus it was that many homes were dissolved. A constant flow of migrants came from Inhambupe, Tucano, Cumbe, Itapicurú, Bom Conselho, Natuba, Maçacará, Monte Santo, Jeremoabo, Uauá and environs, as well as Entre Rios, Mundo Novo, Jacobina, Itabaiana, and other remote locations. The rare travelers who risked crossing the sertão would run into successive groups of the faithful, burdened with their few possessions, carrying sticks of furniture, baskets, and home altars to this chosen place. Traveling alone at first, these bands would meet at crossroads and then continue on together until they finally reached their common destination at Canudos.

Rapid Growth

The settlement grew at a dizzying pace, spreading over the hills. The improvised dwellings were so crude that the homeless crowd was able to put up as many as a dozen a day. And as this huge shantytown grew, its physical characteristics seemed to reflect the moral character of the social elements that took refuge there. It was the materialization of a collective insanity. It was a living document with implications that could not be ignored, a piece of corpus delicti evidence of the derangement of a population. It was done at random, in a state of obsession.

This monstrous aggregation of mud huts clearly defined the sinister civitas of wrongdoing. The new town arose in a few weeks, a city of ruins. It was born old. Seen from a distance, spread out over the hills over an enormous area, split by ravines and rugged slopes, it had the appearance of a city that has been shaken and thrown about by an earthquake. Streets could not be distinguished. Instead there was a desperate maze of alleys, barely separating the chaotic jumble of hastily built hovels facing every point of the compass, their roofs pointing in all directions, as if they had been feverishly constructed in a night by a crowd of lunatics.

The hovels were a grotesque parody of ancient Roman dwellings. Made of sticks and divided into three tiny compartments, they had a narrow hallway; an atrium that served as a kitchen, dining room, and living room; and an alcove or bedroom on one side, a dark hole barely visible through a low, narrow door. Covered with layers of clay about eight inches thick, spread over layers of icó branches, they looked like the shacks of the ancient Gauls from the time of Caesar. They were something between a cave and a house. If our dwellings are a sign of our evolutionary status, then the clay huts of the jagunços were deplorably similar to the wigwam of the redskins. They are equally uncomfortable and repugnantly destitute, reflecting not so much poverty as racial decrepitude.

When the eye became accustomed to the semidarkness of those cramped quarters, one could make out a few odd pieces of roughly hewn furniture: a low bench, two or three footstools, an equal number of cedarwood boxes or baskets, a food container suspended from the ceiling, and the hammocks. That was the extent of the furniture. There were no beds or tables. Hanging in the corners were a few minimal accessories: the bogó, or leather pouch for carrying water; wicker baskets made of liana fiber; the aiós, hunting bags made of caroa fiber. At the far end of the single room, the visitor would see a crude altar, with the same unfinished appearance as other objects in the room—poorly carved saints and images that symbolized the mestizo religion with its tendencies toward idol worship: Africanized Saint Anthonies looking like gross fetishes, and Blessed Virgins as ugly as Megaeras.

Then there were their archaic weapons, which also looked like relics from another era. They included the alligator knife, named after the big reptile and called the jacaré, with its broad, sharp blade; the long knife used by the backland bandits, called the parnaíba; the nine-foot-long prong, an ungraceful lance that was like an ancient pike; the hollow, heavy cudgels, half-filled with lead; the crossbows and muskets. The firearms were of all types, ranging from the slim barrel for fine shot to the “legitimate Braga,” with the big bore; the brutal trabuco modeled after a lightweight culverin and designed to shoot flint stones and horn tips; the light rifle; and the blunderbuss with the bell-shaped mouth.

That was all they had. These people did not need anything else. Canudos began to take on the appearance of something between a battle camp and an African kraal. The settlement had no streets; its squares, aside from where the churches stood, were nothing more than a common backyard for the crowded hovels. It looked like one huge dwelling extending along the hills that for a brief time sheltered Antônio Conselheiro’s rough clan.

Without the brilliance of whitewashed walls or calcite roofs, the city was invisible from a distance and could not be distinguished from the earth. It was impossible to see until rounding the bend of the Vaza-Barris, which flowed around it on the southeast. It was framed by a dead landscape: sad vistas of uniform, barren hills rolling into distant mountain ranges without a patch of forest; ragged strips of talc schist formations, which supported a few bromeliad clusters or a slender, lonely cactus. Mount Favela’s hulking form stood at the south, and at its base, across from the square, a few quixabeira trees grew wild in an unkempt garden, while halfway up the side of the mountain were the ruins of the lonely Old Ranch House.

Dominating another side was Bald Hill, ending abruptly in a steep cliff over the river, which from this point made a sharp bend around the hillside and circled the town like a moat with its deep bed. Here are ravines with perpendicular sides and openings formed by intense erosion of foaming waters that rise in the winter and are incorrectly called rivers, with names such as the Mucuim, the Umburanas, and another that later would be called Providencia as a result of events to come.

So it was along these paths connecting to a network of trails and linking the early settlement with the depths of the backlands of the neighboring states of Piauí, Ceará, Pernambuco, and Sergipe that one caravan after another of the faithful traveled. They came from all directions, carrying all their earthly possessions. As they reached the last leg of their journey and rounded the bend that afforded a view of the humble bell tower of the ancient chapel, they dropped to their knees in prayer on the hard ground. They had reached their final destination and were now safe from the terrible holocaust that the evangelist had predicted. They were standing at last on the soil of the promised land, a sacred Canaan, which the Good Lord Jesus had isolated from the rest of the world with a protective belt of mountains.

They arrived exhausted but exhilarated by their long journey. They set up camp at random on the hilltops. At night the camp-fires lit up the campsites of the mist-soaked pilgrims and a glowing band of light circled the town. The voices of the multitude rose in unison, resonating in choruses and responses between the camps and the hovels, the thousand voices of the penitent intoning their plaintive hymns.

At daybreak they would throw themselves into the construction of the huts. At first these were concentrated in the valley where the original church stood; then they began to build them diagonally along the short slopes bordering the river. After that they spread out randomly over the rough terrain beyond the town. These flimsy structures, located at a distance from the dense nucleus of huts, appeared to have been built according to some plan of defense for the city. They rose in successive tiers along the roads, along the Jeremoabo road on either side of the Vaza-Barris, upstream, all the way to Trabubú and the Macambira River. They edged the Rosário highway, crossed the river, and skirted Favela. And they spread out over the many hills in the direction of Uauá. Hidden by dense silk-grass thickets and bordered by moats, each one was both a home and a fort. They were placed in such a way that they formed uneven rows of bunkers.

The savage city was surrounded from the beginning by a formidable circle of trenches carved into all the slopes, offering a line of fire level with the ground and a commanding view of approaches from all directions. Hidden by a growth of macambira trees or by stone mounds, these were not visible from a distance. Anyone approaching from the east would think that the tiny huts scattered like sentry boxes were the approach to a ranch house and its outbuildings, the home of peaceful cowboys. He would be taken aback when he suddenly came on the compactly built village, as if walking into an ambush. Someone approaching from the south, on the Rosário or Calumbi roads, would have a clear view of the settlement from the top of Favela or the steep slopes descending to the Sargento River. At a distance of about three-quarters of a mile to the north, he would be able to instantly appraise the city’s defenses.

At first sight these were deplorable. The settlement seemed to be vulnerable to the full impact of an attack from above. Cannonballs could roll with the full force of gravity down the steep slopes. The enemy, spared a difficult assault, had only to bombard the place with artillery. He could lay siege to it with a single battery, sealing off all approaches. The tactical conditions were, however, excellent; even a primitive Vauban was able to understand them.

Closed off from the south by a hill that, scarred by ravines, ran down to the river’s edge, it was shielded to the west by a wall and a trench. Indeed, the Vaza-Barris, which makes a dog-leg to the north here, forms a deep canyon bordered by the outlying village huts on the one side and towering perpendicular cliffs on the other. Its sharp bend circles the depression in which the settlement lies, shut off by hills to the east and highland slopes on the northwest. These roll down to the far-lying forts of Cambaio and Caipã and the mountains on the south.

Canudos was a lair built into a hole in the ground. The church square, on the same level as the river, marked the lowest point. From here, following a northern axis, the village gradually crept upward along a slight incline that formed the slope of a long trench. Behind this were the huts, jamming the depression and scattering out over the eastern hills. A few, as we have seen, were scattered over the hilltops, which were mined with trenches. The outlaw town, it is clear, was not taking cover in the line of fire of an aggressive enemy. Instead, it was digging itself in. In this beautiful region where the mountain peaks merge with the highlands, they had picked the one place that is like an enormous moat.

Governance of the Settlement

The form of government set up here was modeled after the extreme religious teachings of the apostle. Under his yoke, all the conditions that accompany an inferior social status were aggravated. Lacking blood kinship, the inhabitants formed a moral bond that gave them the appearance of a clan in which their leader’s will was law, and he was the arbiter of an irrevocable justice. Canudos became the stereotype of the earliest barbaric settlements. The simple sertanejo, when he set foot in the place, was transformed into a fearless fanatic. He was taken over by the collective psychosis. He adopted the name, which until then had been reserved for thugs at village fairs, bullies on election day, and the plunderers of cities—the title of jagunço.

A Diverse Population

After a time the population was made up of the most diverse elements, from the fundamentalist believer who abdicated all the comforts of life in other places to the loose bandit who arrived with his rifle on his shoulder, looking for a new field of action. The place became a homogenous community, an unconscious, brute mass growing without evolving, without organs and specialized functions, a mechanical conjunction of successive layers, like a human polyp. The community naturally absorbed all the tendencies of its extraordinary leader whose protean appearance of a saint exiled to earth, a fetish of flesh and bone, was calculated to revive the regressive traits of the three races. They accepted all that he taught them in blind faith and became immersed in their dreams. Living with a sick preoccupation with the life to come, their world was reduced to that protective circle of mountains, and they gave no thought to a better type of life here on earth, which was meaningless to them. Canudos was their world.

And this indeed was a transitory and brief passage, a stop on the way, which they would leave behind quickly. It was the last sojourn on their desert crossing through life on earth. The wandering jagunços were setting up camp for the last time on their miraculous pilgrimage to heaven. . . .

They wanted nothing from this life, which is why private property was a type of exaggerated tribal collectivism common to bedouins. Personal property was limited to moveable objects and their individual dwellings. There was absolute common ownership of land, pastures, and herds. The scarce cultivated products, after the quota owed to the landowners, went to the “society.” New arrivals gave the Counselor 90 percent of what they brought with them, including the household saints, which were destined for the Counselor’s lair. They felt blessed with the scraps of what was left to them. It was more than enough. The prophet had taught them to fear the mortal sin of even the most fleeting well-being. Volunteers in poverty and pain, their fortune was in proportion to their suffering. They were proud of their rags. This self-imposed destitution led to the degradation of the high moral standards that had been instilled in them by the patriarchal way of life of the backlands. For Antônio Conselheiro, who again was emulating the models of a former historical period, strength of character was a superior form of vanity. It was a form of sacrilege. The attempt to improve conditions of life on earth implied an indifference to the imminent happiness of the much-longed-for afterlife. His suppressed moral sense could only understand the beyond in contrast to present suffering. Of all the pages of the catechism, what he repeated was the refrain: “Blessed are they that suffer.” Extreme pain was extreme unction. Harsh suffering meant full absolution; it was the unfailing antidote to the poison of vice.

It was unimportant whether men acted virtuously. He overlooked the errors of their ways on the condition that they cleanse, drop by drop, the dirt of their impure life with their tears. When he heard of a scandalous case of rape of an unsuspecting virgin, he uttered a horribly cynical remark that was often repeated by his followers, who did not understand its depravity: “She is only fulfilling the destiny of all women: He lay under the tree of good and evil!” It is no surprise that promiscuity went unchecked in Canudos. The bastard children were legion, and they did not carry the brand of their origin, even though their situation was not comparable to the unhappy German bantlings.

Their leader did not promote free love but he did tolerate it. In his daily “counsels” he did not discuss married life or offer guidance for these naive couples. And that made sense. Since their days on earth were numbered, it was useless to preach about trivial matters. The end was going to come at any moment and would destroy intimate relationships, break up households, and comingle virtues and vices into the same vortex. He did urge his followers to prepare for this cataclysm by self-deprivation and acts of martyrdom. He advocated prolonged fasts and the agonies of hunger, which would slowly deplete life. He set an example for his closest followers by letting them know that he limited his ration to a saucer of cornmeal. It was said that one day he was visited by a prosperous believer from the area, with whom he shared his meager meal. The guest left the tiny repast feeling well fed and gorged, as if coming from a fabulous feast. This was greeted as a miracle by the astounded settlement.

This stern regimen had a dual effect: It stirred the vulnerable believers to feverish excitement and it also prepared them for the privations of a siege, which he may have foreseen. That was possibly his secret intention because it was difficult to understand why he would permit the presence of individuals in the settlement whose character contrasted with his own humble and peaceful nature.

A Police Force of Bandits

Canudos was a destination for hardened criminals. These sinister heroes of the knife and gun came here to live with the credulous cowboys and brainwashed backlanders. However, they were the ones most loyal to this singular man, his chosen guard, who guaranteed his absolute authority. They were also his best disciples. This perverse sect was a case of moral symbiosis in which Christian ideals became grotesquely deformed by pagan aberrations. These bandit John the Baptists were capable of loading their deadly weapons with their rosary beads.

Thanks to his guards, Antônio Conselheiro ruled the settlement with a firm hand, disciplining those who strayed. In the jail that was paradoxically set up there—the settlers called it the dustbin—hardened murderers were in daily contact with those who had committed the unforgiveable crime of missing prayer services. Justice was backward in this clan run by bandits—the law came down hard on small offenses and overlooked the big ones. This society had a unique view of delinquency, a complete inversion of the concept of crime. Harsh punishments were given for the slightest infractions.

The use of cane liquor, for example, was a serious offense. Woe to the alcoholic who broke the ban. The story goes that a band of uninformed pack drivers from Juazeiro arrived in Canudos with a few barrels of the forbidden beverage. They were attracted by the promise of profit, for weren’t they carrying the eternal companion of the backwoodsman’s leisure moments? When they arrived and deposited their valuable cargo in the town square, they had an unpleasant surprise. Their barrels were hacked open with machetes and the sacrilegious contents flowed away unconsumed. They made off in haste, with empty hands and bruised from dozens of blows administered by the ungrateful crowd.

This case is a telling one. Experience had taught the Counselor about all the dangers that arose from the national drug and so he forbade it, not as much to prevent his people from indulging in a vice as to head off disorderly conduct. Outside the village, people could do as they liked. Bands of outlaws would roam the countryside. Anything was permitted, as long as it contributed to the revenues of the community. In 1894 these expeditions, led by well-known bandits, became a cause for great alarm. There was such an increase in crime that it attracted the attention of the authorities and provoked heated and futile debate in the Bahia state legislature.

In a large area around Canudos, ranches were destroyed, villages sacked, and cities attacked by storm. In Bom Conselho a bold troop of invaders laid siege to the place after seizing the town hall. The authorities fled, the district judge in the lead, and, in a hilarious sideshow, the thugs tortured the marriage license clerk by shaving his head in the form of a crown for having intruded on the vicar’s sacred domain. The criminals then returned with their spoils to the village where nobody paid the least attention to their destructive behavior.

Often, according to the testimony of the backlands population, these expeditions had other motives as well. Some of the wealthier faithful had political leanings. An election was soon to be held. The bullies of the ballot box, who numbered in the thousands throughout our country, would transform the ideal of the universal vote into a mockery. Canudos became the temporary headquarters of the band of gangsters who would set out for various parts and disrupt the elections with clubs and shotguns. The term election was just another name for a legal brawl. Our secondhand civilization was, as usual, validating backlands banditry.

These forays were good for training. They were useful and practical exercises to prepare for bigger battles. It is possible that the Counselor was aware of this. In any case, he tolerated them. Inside the settlement, however, absolute discipline was maintained, if that is what we can call an organized chaos. In this place, too, were the weak ones who could do no harm, those who were his most faithful believers: women, children, the elderly and infirm, and the sick who were useless to society. They lived liked parasites off the largesse of their leader, who was their patron saint and to whom they sang songs that had been sung for at least twenty years in the backlands:

Do ceu veio uma luz

Que Jesus Cristo mandou.

Santo Antônio aparecido

Dos castigos nos livrou!

From heaven came a light

Sent by Jesus Christ.

Saint Anthony has come

To deliver us from sin!

Quem ouvir e não aprender,

Quem souber e não ensinar

No dia do Juízo,

A sua alma penará!

If you hear and do not learn,

If you know and do not teach

On Judgment Day you will find

Your soul beyond heaven’s reach.

These traditional quatrains reminded the wretched man of his tortured early life and restored what was left of his esteem as he heard himself compared to the miracle worker Saint Anthony. It is a fact that he opened his well-stocked storerooms, filled with donations and the fruits of the community’s labor, to the poor. He realized that these seemingly useless beings were the core of the community. They were the chosen, content with the filthy rags on their backs, walking like martyrs to the Inquisitional stake in an act of penance that had become their daily existence. Dragging themselves along on crutches or limping on stiff limbs, they felt blessed on their path to eternal salvation.

The Temple

A last penitential labor awaited them at the end of their journey: the building of the temple. The old chapel was not good enough. A small, flimsy structure, it barely cleared the thatched roofs around it. Its modest appearance reflected the purity of the old religion. What they wanted was a monstrous monument to this new warrior sect.

They began to build the new church. Before dawn some would head out to tend the fields, others to herd the goats or to set forth on pillaging expeditions to nearby towns. Still others would assume sentry positions, to keep a close watch on new arrivals. The rest of the people would give themselves to the holy task of building the church.

Facing the old structure, the new temple arose at the opposite side of the square. It was a huge rectangular structure. Its walls were as thick as a fortress’s. For a long time it was nondescript until its two tall towers finally transformed it into a crude backlands-Gothic cathedral. This amazing structure had the silent architectural eloquence described by Bossuet.

It was meant to be this way. This formidably crude edifice was the product of extreme human weakness, the wasted muscles of the aged, the weak arms of women and children. It was something between a sanctuary and a lair, a fortress and a temple, a place that would embrace extreme piety and the worst hatreds, and where the sound of hymns would form a chorus with the whine of bullets.

The Counselor himself, a practiced church architect, had designed the building. This was the greatest achievement of his career. The enormous disproportionate facade stood facing the east, with its mask of grotesque friezes, impossible volutes, its delirium of curves, horrible ogives, and embrasures. It was an indecipherable, shapeless mass, something like an exhumed crypt, as if the builder had tried to capture in stone and limestone the disorder of his own diseased mind. This was his masterpiece, and he spent days at a time on the high scaffolding. The people below, busy bringing materials to the site, watched in terror as they saw him walk casually along the bending, swaying planks, without the faintest sign of concern on his weathered face. He looked like a wandering caryatid perched on this monstrous creation.

There was no lack of labor for the task. The desert colony was constantly receiving reinforcements. Half the population of Tucano and Itapicurú came in droves to assist. They came from Alagoinhas, Feira de Sant’Anna, and Santa Luzia. Supplies of livestock arrived from Jeremoabo, Bom Conselho, and Simão Dias. All of these new arrivals were not in the least surprised by what they found there, for they saw it as the necessary test of their faith.

Waiting Room to Heaven

Simple backlands stories had long taught them about the fascinating and treacherous paths that would take them to hell. Canudos, the filthy waiting room to heaven, shabby turnstile to paradise, was exactly what it should be—repugnant, terrifying, and horrible.

In the meantime, many had gone there harboring singular expectations. According to an account by Brother João Evangelista de Monte Marciano, “The corrupt leaders of the sect persuaded the people that anyone who wanted to save themselves had to come to Canudos, because other places were contaminated and condemned by the republic. Here, however, it was not necessary to work because this was the promised land where a river of milk flows and the banks are made of cornmeal.”

They kept coming.

They crossed the dry bed of the Vaza-Barris or, when it was swollen with the muddy waters of the rainy season, they would come in from the canyons between the steep flanks of the hillsides. Their happy mirage had vanished but they could not escape the grip of that unfortunate mysticism.

The Prayers

As evening fell, a bell would call the faithful to prayer. The people would stop their work. They gathered under the leafy arbor. They congregated in the square. They would drop to their knees.

The chorus of voices rose into the air as they sang the opening prayer.

Night fell quickly, with no warning—backlands twilight as stealthy and brief as that of the desert. The bonfires twinkled; it was customary to light them around the perimeter of the square. Their flickering glow framed a scene that was submerged in the shadows. It was the custom, or caprice, of Antônio Conselheiro to separate the crowd, men on one side and women on the other. Each of these groups was an enormous mix of contrasts.

Strange Groupings

There were the religious women, the beatas, tainted with ancient sins for which a terrible penance must be done. They rivaled the witches of the church, dressed in coarse black robes similar to Inquisitional garments. There were the spinsters, the solteiras, a term that in the backlands has the worst connotation, of loose and wanton women. There were the moças donzelas or moças damas, shy and reserved young girls. And there were the respectable mothers of families; all were equals in prayer.

The withered cheeks of old women, skinny hags on whose lips prayer should have been a mortal sin; the austere faces of simple matrons; the ingenuous expressions of naive young girls were all mixed together in a strange tableau. All ages, all types, all colors . . .

There were dried-out mops of tinted hair; there were the straight, smooth tresses of the Indian women, the caboclas; the outrageous topknots of the African women; chestnut and blond tresses of the pure-blooded white women. They did their hair in the crudest way imaginable, without a ribbon, a hairpin, a flower. Their ragged dresses of cotton or calico were loose and shapeless and they offered not the slightest hint of seductiveness. A woolen shawl, a scarf, or a colored kerchief relieved the dullness of their badly laundered clothing, which was reduced to tattered petticoats and chemises, which left their breasts exposed. Their breasts were draped in rosaries, holy medals, crucifixes, charms, amulets, animal teeth, and holy relics. This was the only dress that was allowed them by the exacting asceticism of the evangelist. Here and there in this rag heap one might catch sight of a very beautiful face, which stood out from the gloom and misery of the other barbaric visages. These beauties displayed the ageless elegance of the Jewish race. Their faces were like those of Madonnas with traces of the Furies. They had deep, dark eyes, sparkling with mystical fires. Their seductive brows peered out from under disheveled curls. All of this was a cruel trick, as they were lost in this beggar assembly, which exuded the rank smell of filthy bodies and the slow drone of the funereal faithful and their respondents.

Occasionally the bonfires would die down, smolder in a cloud of smoke, and then flare up again at a puff of the night breeze, illuminating the faces in the crowd. The closely huddled male group would stand out at such times, offering the same striking contrasts. There were rough, strong cowboys, fallen heroes who had exchanged their handsome leather armor for an ugly canvas uniform. There were wealthy cattle ranchers who were happy to have abandoned their herds and lands. And less numerous, but more visible, were the hardened criminals who were guilty of every offense.

In the light of the dying embers their interesting and varied profiles are visible. Some are famous. They are well known for their romantic and daring feats, which popular imagination has embellished. The armed lieutenants of this humble dictator, they have a place of honor in the front of the crowd. But at this moment there is not even a hint in their manner and gestures of their incorrigible bravado. As they kneel with their hands crossed over their chests, their usual evil gaze is now one of rapt contemplation.

There is José Venâncio, the terror of Volta Grande who at this moment forgets the eighteen murders he has committed and the specter of the judgments against him. Now he contritely touches his forehead to the ground. Next to him is the daredevil Pajehú, with his bronzed face sharply etched by high cheekbones and an athletic, if slightly stooped, frame. Hands folded and gazing ecstatically upward, he looks like a puma on a moonlit night. Behind him is his inseparable companion and adjutant, Lalau, whose posture is equally humble as he kneels, bent over his loaded catapult gun. Chiquinho and João da Mota are brothers who later will be put in charge of the checkpoints at the entrance to the village from the Cocorobó and Uauá roads. They look as if they have been merged into one body as they say the beads of the same rosary with the conviction of believers. There is Pedrão, “Big Peter,” the ugly, barrel-chested cafuzo of Indian and black descent, who with thirty handpicked men will guard the Canabrava slopes. He is barely noticeable near another worthy partner in crime, Estêvão, a big deformed Negro whose body is tattooed with bullet and dagger wounds and whose miraculous invulnerability has made him the victor in hundreds of conflicts. He will be the guard of the Cambaio road.

There is “Ball and Chain” Joaquim, another specimen of grim warrior, the one who will stand guard at Angico. He now rubs elbows with “Major” Sariema, a more refined-looking man and a veteran without a standing assignment. He is fearless but restless and suited for sudden bold attacks. Diametrically opposite in appearance is tragicomic Raimundo “Crooked Mouth” of Itapicurú. He is a sort of jailbird mountebank whose face is twisted in a cruel grimace as if caused by some hideous trauma. The agile Chico Ema, “Ostrich Kid,” will be given the command of the scout squadron. He kneels next to a first-line chieftain, Norberto, who will hold the supreme command in the last days of Canudos. Finally, there is Quimquim de Coiqui, a self-abnegating believer who will achieve the first victory over the military troops. Antônio Fogueteiro, “Iron Anthony,” is a tireless evangelist. José Gamo, “Joe Buck,” and Fabrício de Cocobocó are among the others.

The rest of the faithful, in the intervals of the badly pronounced kyrie eleisons, would occasionally direct hopeful and affectionate glances at this group.

There are still others. Old Macambira, who does not like to fight because, as he puts it, he is too “softhearted,” is the devil incarnate when it comes to laying an ambush. He is a type of decrepit imam, but still dangerous, lying flat on the ground next to his son Joaquim, a fearless and impassive kid, who later will perform acts of heroism. Above the general credulity is the smart scout Villa Nova, who pretends to do figures in his head. And at the head of them all is the commandant of the square, the “peoples’ leader,” clever João Abade, who stands gazing regally over the genuflecting crowd.

In the midst of these tragic profiles is a ridiculous figure, Pious Anthony, a skinny, raggedy mulatto emaciated from fasting. He is one of the Counselor’s closest confidants. He is half sacristan, half soldier, enamored of his rifle, who spies, watches, searches, wheedling his way into homes and poking into every corner of the village. He immediately reports every incident to the supreme leader, who rarely leaves the “Sanctuary.” His partner is José Felix, “the Talker,” guardian of the churches, the Counselor’s janitor and majordomo. He is in charge of the pious women, with their blue robes and hemp girdles, and he is also wardrobe master and the purveyor of the scant meals of the leader. He lights the fires for daily prayers. Finally, there is Manoel the Crate who looks over the throng with aristocratic indifference. He is the town healer, the quack doctor. Among the entire nefarious multitude here is one devotee of nature who dislikes the prevailing disorder and spends his days in the forest trying to discover its primitive healing agents.

The prayers would drag out. After they went through all the litanies, said all the rosaries, and chanted all the rhyming beatitudes, there was still a ceremony they were required to perform. This was the “kissing” of the images. The fetishistic ritual had been established by the Counselor himself in order to complete the transformation of a Christianity he poorly understood.

Pious Anthony, the altar boy, would pick up a crucifix, contemplate it with the glazed look of a fakir in a trance, press it to his chest, and fall into a deep prostrate position. He would then imprint upon it a prolonged kiss and in a slow and reverent gesture pass it to the person next to him, who would perform an exact imitation of this reverent mimicry. Anthony would then raise an image of the Blessed Virgin high over his head, and after that one of the Good Jesus, repeating the same motions. Then in succession followed all the saints. Images, veronicas, and crucifixes—they were slowly passed to the eager multitude, one by one, from hand to hand, mouth to mouth, breast to breast. The dull smack of innumerable kisses could be heard in a growing crescendo, mingled with the drone of stammered pleas, tortured mea culpas wrenched from heaving bosoms, and muffled cries from the crowd, still repressed so as not to disturb the solemn ceremony.

The mystic beliefs of each individual gradually merged with the collective hysteria. Occasionally the agitation would increase, as if the crowd were invading the assembly according to the order of a preestablished ritual, as they passed around the sacred relics. Finally, the last of the relics was passed out by Pious Anthony as the first reached the back rows of the believers. At this point the intoxication and vertigo of these simple souls would reach a peak. Individual emotions overflowed into the raging atmosphere with feverish contagion. The images had unleashed supernatural powers that penetrated the consciousness of the crowd and reduced them to the writhing throes of a seductive hallucination. Shouts rang out from all corners, both pious and angry, as the worshipers convulsed in states of possession and some cried out as they fell into unconsciousness. Clutching the saliva-drenched images, the deranged women would collapse in violent contortions while the children wailed in terror. Taken over by the same wave of madness, the fighting men clashed and shook their weapons to a horrible rhythmic beat, vibrations of an explosive barbaric rite.

Then suddenly the din would stop and the breathless crowd watched transfixed as the strange figure of Antônio Conselheiro stood framed in the open door of the Sanctuary at the far side of the arbor.

He approached a small table and began to preach.

Why Not Preach Against the Republic?

He preached against the republic, that much is certain.

The antagonism was inevitable. It was a derivative of his mystic excess, a variant of his religious delirium that was forced upon him.

Yet he did not display the least bit of political knowledge. This jagunço was as incapable of understanding the republican form of government as he was the constitutional monarchy. For him both were abstractions beyond his reach. He was instinctively averse to both. He was in the evolutionary stage in which the only form of government he could understand would be an empire headed by a priest or a warrior chief.

We must insist on this truth: The war of Canudos was a regression in our history. What we had before us was the unsolicited armed insurgence of an old, dead society, brought back to life by a madman.[28] We did not recognize this society; it was impossible for us to have known it. The adventurers of the seventeenth century would encounter it in conditions familiar to them, just as medieval visionaries would feel at home among the demoniacs of the Verzegnis or among the startsy of Russia. These epidemic psychoses appear in all ages and all places as obvious anachronisms, inevitable contrasts in the unequal evolution of peoples, contrasts that become especially pronounced when a broad social movement pushes the people to a more advanced way of life. We then see the illogical perfectionists break through the triumphant industrialism of North America and the dour stürmisch sect, inspired inexplicably by the genius Klopstock, with whom they share the cradle of the German Renaissance.

The phenomenon is perhaps even more readily explained in our case.

After living for four hundred years on a vast stretch of seaboard where we enjoyed the benefits of a civilized life, we were suddenly given the unexpected inheritance of a republic. Swept up in the current of modern ideas, we left behind a third of our people, in the heart of our country, who lived in a centuries-old state of darkness. Dazzled by a civilization that came to us secondhand, blind copyists that we are, we rejected what was best in the organic codes of other nations. With revolutionary zeal we dismissed the smallest compromise with the realities of our own national situation. We succeeded only in deepening the divide between our way of life and that of our crude native sons, who were more strangers to us than the immigrants who came from Europe. It was not an ocean that separated us but three entire centuries.

And when, through our lack of foresight, we allowed a band of maniacs to form among them, we failed to understand the significance of the event. We looked at it from the narrow perspective of partisan politics. In the presence of these monstrous misfits we had a telling fit of consternation. With a determination that should have been applied to a more appropriate cause, we put them down with bayonets. We rewrote history in a shameful incursion back into these unfortunate regions, opening up once again the overgrown trails of the bandeiras.

The backlands agitator, whose revolt was a kind of rebellion against the natural order, became a serious adversary. He was a mighty foe of an extinct regime, capable of destroying our nascent institutions.

Canudos was our Vendée.[29]

In the last days of the campaign, when they could enter what was left of the huts, the victors were terribly disappointed. The hard-won victory gave them the right to sack the ruined homes, and nothing was exempt from their insatiable curiosity. But it was one of the most unrewarding spoils of war in history. In place of riches they found broken images and coconut-shell rosaries. What most taunted their greed were the letters, miscellaneous writings, and especially the terrible verses that they found on poor scraps of paper. These limp sheets, with their irregular handwriting and barbarous spelling, seemed to be a photographic image of the twisted thoughts of these people. They summarized the psychology behind the conflict. These scraps were worth everything because they were worth nothing. They recorded the preaching of Antônio Conselheiro, and as one read them over, it was evident just how harmless his sermons really were: They simply reflected the poor man’s confusion. Every line was imbued with the same vague and incongruous religious doctrine. There was very little of political significance to be found in any of them and nothing that would have supported his messianic cause. If the rebel attacked the government, it was because he believed that the promised kingdom was near at hand. He denounced the republic as the mortal sin of an entire people, an extreme heresy inviting the rule of the Antichrist. The rude poets put these rants into the form of simple rhymes. They lacked the spontaneity of backland troubadours. Yet in these foolish verses they left us living documents. We must agree with Renan, as we read them, that these halting lines produced a crude people’s Bible.

We will transcribe a few lines:

Saiu D. Pedro Segundo

Para o reino de Lisboa

Acabasse a monarquia

O Brasil ficou atoa!

Dom Pedro Segundo sailed

For the kingdom of the Portuguese

The monarchy came to an end

And Brazil was brought to its knees!

The republic was the symbol of impiety.

Garantidos pela lei

Aqueles malvados estão

Nos temos a lei de Deus

Eles tem a lei do cão

Protected by the law

Are those we know are evil.

We have the law of God

They have the law of the devil!

Bem desgraçados são eles

Pra fazerem a eleição

Abatendo a lei de Deus

Suspendendo a lei do cão

How wretched are they

When elections come around.

It’s down with the law of God

And up with the law of the hound!

Casamento vão fazendo

Só para o povo iludir

Vão casar o povo todo

No casamento civil!

Mock marriages they make

Just to fool folks like us.

They would have us our vows take

In the presence of a judge!

But this demonic government is about to disappear:

D. Sebastião já chegou

E traz muito regimento

Acabando com o civil

E fazendo casamento!

Dom Sebastião has arrived

With a mighty regiment.

He put an end to civil unions

Making us content!

O Anti-Cristo nasceu

Para Brasil governor

Mas aí está o Conselheiro

Para dele nos livrar.

The Antichrist was born

So he might govern Brazil.

But the Counselor is here

To save us from this ill.

Visita nos vem fazer

Nosso rei D. Sebastião

Coitado daquele pobre

Que estiver na lei do cão!

Sebastian our king

To visit us is bound.

Woe to sinners then

Living under the law of the hound!

The law of the hound . . . This was the most elevated slogan of the sect. It summarized their agenda and requires no commentary.

Those poor rebels were really very weak creatures.

They demanded another kind of response. They challenged us to a struggle of a different kind.

Meanwhile we sent them guns and the final, incisive argument of the moralist—bullets.

But in the beginning a more noble and practical effort was undertaken.

An Aborted Mission

In 1895, on a certain morning in May, a figure appeared at the top of a counterfort on Mount Favela, flanked by two others. He was a stranger to those parts, a Capuchin missionary.

He contemplated the immense settlement below for some time and then slowly began to descend the slope. It was Daniel walking into the lion’s den.

Let us follow him.

He was accompanied by Brother Caetano de São Leão and by the vicar of Cumbe. Brother João Evangelista de Monte Marciano crossed the river and approached the first of the outlying huts. He continued to the square, which was overflowing with people: “almost a thousand men armed with rifles, guns, and knives.” As he made his way through the crowd, he must have felt as if he had been dropped into a camp of bedouins. Without revealing any emotion, his spirits lifted by the serene strength of the apostles, he calmly walked to the front of the chapel, where a crowd was huddled in the doorway. Flanked by his apostolic companions, he approached by way of a winding alley. When those at the door saw the newcomers, they were surprised and they emerged to look at them “with a restless manner and a look that was at the same time inquisitive and sinister, revealing their bad consciences and hostile intentions.”

The priests continued on until they reached the house of the old vicar of Cumbe (which had been closed for over a year due to his extended absence out of resentment at the disrespect shown to him by the people here), and there they rested as best they could from the rigorous journey. They were deeply moved by the sight of the unfortunate beings in the square who were armed to the teeth and by the disturbing impression of that turbulent Thebaid.

But there were more unpleasant experiences in store for them.

It wasn’t long before eight corpses were being carried past the door, in hammocks of caroa fiber, by panting pallbearers who hurried along with their load, anxious to get rid of it in the cemetery at the back of the old church. This was being done with no religious ceremony at all, as if in this sinister place the dead were deserters from the cause and unworthy of the least attention.

In the meantime the news of their arrival had run through the town. The Counselor made no move to meet the emissaries of the church. He remained indifferent and continued to go about his work of repairing the chapel. It was the priests who had to go to him.

They left the house and again took the sinuous route to the square. The crossed it without meeting a single remark and they arrived at the work site, where a “crowd of men closed ranks along the door of the chapel,” making a path for them. The startled bystanders gave a lively greeting of peace: “Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ!” for which the common response was “Forever praise his name!”

Then they entered the small temple and found themselves in front of Antônio Conselheiro, who received them cordially enough. And with his habitual placidity he offered them the same peaceful greeting.

The account of Brother Monte Marciano relates that “he wore a tunic of indigo blue, his head was bare, and he held a staff. His wild hair fell to his shoulders. His beard was long and tangled with streaks of white. His deep-set eyes rarely looked at anyone directly. His complexion was so pale it was almost corpselike. His manner was grave and humble.” This report indicates that the new arrivals were very impressed.

The almost cordial reception encouraged them. Contrary to what they had expected, the Counselor seemed to be pleased with their visit. He broke his habitual reserve and stubborn silence. He informed them about the progress of the work, invited them to come and see it for themselves. He courteously offered to guide them to the building. And so they all followed the old hermit, who by then must have been in his seventies, and who leaned on his staff, walking with a dragging gait, his thin body convulsed by sudden fits of coughing.

They could have not asked for a better start to their mission.

This reception was a semivictory. But the missionary would undo it all with his lack of tact. When they reached the choir loft and were at some distance from the crowd of faithful following them, he thought this would be an ideal moment to state the purpose of his visit.

It was a premature and counterproductive move, destined to fail.

I took advantage of being practically alone with him and told him that I was there in peace and that I was greatly surprised to find armed men here and that I could not but condemn the fact that so many poor families lived here in idleness in a state of such abandonment and misery that it led to eight or nine deaths in a day. Thus by order of the archbishop I was going to open up a holy mission and advise the people to disperse and return to their homes and work in the interests of each one and for the general good.

This intransigent and barely veiled threat, and the departure from diplomatic protocol in the interests of dogma, would not have pleased Saint George the Great, who was not perturbed by the barbaric rites of the Saxons. It was an impulsive act of defiance.

“Even as I was speaking these words and before I had finished, the chapel and the choir loft was filled with people chanting: ‘we want to stay with our Counselor!’”

Disorder was imminent. What contained it was the admirable calm, we must call it the Christian meekness, of Antônio Conselheiro. But the missionary himself will tell the story:

He silenced them and said to me, “I keep these armed men in self-defense. Your Reverence must know that the police attacked me and tried to kill me at Massete, where the dead were piled up on every side. In the time of the monarchy, I surrendered to arrest because I recognized the government. I will not today because I do not recognize the republic.”

This clear and respectful explanation did not satisfy the Capuchin, who had the courage of a believer but not the fine tact of an apostle. He countered with a paraphrase of the “Prima Petri”: “Sir, if you are a Catholic, you must accept that the church condemns all rebellions and, recognizing all forms of government, teaches that constituted authorities rule in the name of God.”

It was almost the exact phrase that Paul had used in the time of Nero.

And he continued:

It is thus everywhere. In France, one of the strongest nations of Europe, there was a monarchy for many centuries, but for over twenty years now there has been a republic, and all the people there obey the authorities and the laws of the government.

In bringing up these meaningless political arguments and ignorant of the real meaning of the backland disturbances, Brother Monte Marciano makes it clear why his mission failed. He unmasked himself as a mere propagandist and he was missing only the shotgun of the curate of Santa Cruz under his vestments.

Here in Brazil, from the bishop to the last Catholic, we recognize the government. Only you refuse to pledge allegiance to it? This is evil thinking, and you are following a false doctrine.

This last statement rang out like a shot. And from the crowd came the immediate and arrogant response: “It is Your Reverence who holds the false doctrine, not our Counselor!”

This time the situation was getting out of hand, but the Counselor restrained his followers with a calm gesture. He turned to the missionary and said: “I will not disarm my people but neither will I interfere with your holy mission.”

The mission began badly. In spite of this, things went along smoothly and peacefully enough to the fourth day. There were about five thousand in the congregation. The able-bodied men were especially visible. “They carried rifles, guns, muskets, and large knives. From the ammunition belts around their waists to the round caps on their heads, they looked like men about to go to war.”

The Counselor also participated in the services, standing by the altar at attention, his face expressionless like a strict inspector’s. “Now and then he made a gesture of disapproval, which the congregation validated with sharp protests.”

The worshippers observed no decorum at all. Once in a while some distraught individual would violate the ancient privilege given to sacred oratory and proceed to criticize the sermon. Thus, when the preacher came to the subject of fasting as a means of disciplining the flesh and the passions, without calling for prolonged fasting but saying that “one may fast by eating meat for dinner and taking just a cup of coffee in the morning,” the sermon was boisterously interrupted with comments such as “That’s not fasting; that’s stuffing yourself!”

On the fourth day of the mission, when the Capuchin returned to the dangerous subject of politics, things began to degenerate. There was angry talk about the “preaching of this Masonic, Protestant, and republican padre” who was “an envoy of the government, which will come with troops to take our Counselor and kill us all.” The monk, however, was not frightened off by the incipient rebellion but faced it squarely. He took up the subject of murder in his next sermon, not attempting to avoid the dangers of his controversial theme, speaking of the gallows in the house of those condemned to death and making other imprudent allusions that we need not repeat here.

The reaction came immediately. João Abade took the lead, sounding his whistle loudly in the square and calling the faithful together. This was on the twentieth of May, on the seventh day of the mission. The crowd burst out in a cacophony of vivas to the Good Jesus and the Divine Holy Spirit before the house where the visitors were staying, to let them know that, when it came to eternal salvation, the people of Canudos did not need their intervention.

That was the end of the mission. With the exception of “55 marriages of couples living in common law, 102 baptisms and more than 400 confessions,” the results were nil or, rather, negative.

A Curse on the Jerusalem of Mud Huts

The missionary, “like the early apostles at the doors of the cities that expelled them, shook the dust from his sandals,” emulating the example of the disciples.

Accompanied by his companions, he left furtively by the alleyways.

He climbed the roadway along the slopes of the Favela. As he reached the top of the mountain, he paused. . . . He looked for the last time at the settlement below. Overcome by a wave of sadness, he was inspired to compare himself with “the Divine Master before Jerusalem.”

But the monk left cursing the city. . . .

PART II

THE BATTLE

CHAPTER III

THE BATTLE BEGINS

I

Preliminary Remarks

When the matter of quelling the violence in the Canudos backlands became urgent, the governor of Bahia was distracted by other rebellions. The city of Lençois had been invaded by a bold band of gangsters and their attacks were spreading to the diamond mines. The town of Brito Mendes had fallen to other bandits, and in Jequié every manner of crime was being attempted.

Antecedents

It was an old problem.

The tract of land that is silhouetted by the Sincorá Mountains and stretches as far as the banks of the São Francisco River had been for a long time the large stage on which the undisciplined people of the sertão committed their atrocities.

Opulently endowed with splendid mines, that landscape was cursed by its own wealth. Over two hundred years ago restless adventurers had sought out the place, driven by the dream of fabulous riches. As they scoured the mountainsides and riverbeds, they did little more than strip the land and lay it to waste with their mining operations. Leaving behind their picks and dredges, they left a legacy to their children, and by extension to the rough cowboys who followed them, of the same unstable and unproductive way of life that had been given free play in this fertile place, and where for years gold dust and diamonds in the rough were the common currency.

The result was that they made no effort to cultivate the soil, where they had no permanent home and which they roamed in search of digs. They lived in restless idleness and carried on the adventurous spirit of their forebears, who long ago had also turned the land into a desert. And when, little by little, they had sifted through the last of their pebbles and exhausted their stock of furs, they had no other recourse but to turn to banditry in order to continue their undisciplined way of life.

The jagunço, who pillaged cities, succeeded the miner, who pillaged the earth. The political boss took over from the old capangueiro , or gang leader. These transitions are a good example of environmental processes. Let us briefly summarize them.

We saw previously how the brave and hardworking mamelucos arose from the wild movement of the bandeiras and the measured pace of the missions. This race appeared at an opportune time in our colonial history and proved to be a conservative force that made up the core of our newly formed national identity. They helped to create a state of equilibrium between the frenzy of the gold rushes and the romantic utopias of the missionaries. This race proved to be the only positive element in our society from the beginning of the eighteenth century when the mines from Jacobina to Rio de Contas were discovered. Soon, however, these men were faced with dangerous forces that would either corrupt their strong nature or lead them to a sorry fate. In fact, the mamelucos were transformed by their contact with the greedy backlands pioneer. These settlers came from the east, terrorizing the Indians with fire and blade and establishing settlements that, unlike those that were already there, did not grow up around a cattle ranch but from the ruins of native villages, called malocas. They trampled the region, setting up camp for a long time in front of the Barrier Mountains that run from Caetité northward. When the depleted mines required heavy equipment for more intensive exploitation, they set their sights on the fertile untouched lands that lay beyond, in the very core of the country, between the forests extending from Macaúbas to Açuaruá.

They moved forward, leaving destruction in their wake until they reached a new barrier, the São Francisco River. They crossed it. Ahead of them as far as they could see, carved into the plains, was the wonderful valley of the Rio das Éguas. This golden land was so rich that the auditor of Jacobina wrote in a letter to Queen Maria II dated 1794 that “its mines are the richest ever discovered in Your Majesty’s dominions.”

By this time they had reached the frontier of Goiás.

They did not take another step. The result was terrible. Marking the pastures of the cattle breeders were red heaps of upturned clay. From the athletic build of the cowboy burst forth the fearless jagunço. He is one of the most serious protagonists in our cursed history of undisciplined heroes. An entire society was changing. The old solid and peace-loving peasant culture was ceding to one that was characterized by dissolute homelessness, restless aggression, and lazy lawlessness.

Let’s imagine that from the titanic frame of the cowboy suddenly burst forth the incomparable virility of the bandeirante. This issue would be the jagunço.

He is a telling product of the history of the region. Born of the late crossing of racial stocks, which the environment further diversified, he carries the essential attributes of both. He divides his time between the laborious cow hunt and the bandit’s bold expeditions. And the land, that incomparable land, still sustains him and his herds even in the dry grip of the drought. His herds drink from the brackish pits. The land assists him always in his warrior’s existence. It gives him free saltpeter to make gunpowder and lead and silver for bullets from the mines of Açuaruá.

It is natural that since the beginning of the nineteenth century the dramatic history of the São Francisco settlements would reflect unique circumstances. All the stirring episodes of this story are made of partisan rivalries and the unpunished atrocities of a weak political system in which local powerbrokers rule. These disturbances usually occur in the location of the mines where gold fever was most intense, yet they point to the distant origins that we have described.

As an example, the entire valley of the Rio das Éguas and, to the north, the Rio Prêto form the homeland of the bravest and most useless men in our country. From these parts they habitually embark on expeditions to challenge the bravery of the political henchmen. Such forays usually end with arson and sacking of towns and cities throughout the valley of the big river. Heading upstream, by 1879 they had already arrived at the mining town of Januária, which they proceeded to occupy. Then they returned to Carinhanha, where they had started, loaded with booty. From this northern city, the story of their evil exploits grows until we arrived at Xique-Xique, which was legendary in the electoral campaigns in the time of the empire.

But this story cannot be told in a half-dozen pages. The most obscure of these settlements has its particularly sinister past. One of them stands out for another reason, and that is Bom Jesus da Lapa. It is the backlands Mecca. It has a unique topography. It is surrounded by a range of high mountains where sound echoes like bells. The peaks enclose an unusually shaped grotto that looks like the nave of a dimly lighted church, where stalactites hang from the ceiling like chandeliers. The aisles leading to the sides are filled with ancient diluvian ossuaries. Finally, there is the spine-chilling legend of the monk who lived there in the company of a puma. All of this has turned it into the favored destination of pious pilgrims who converge here from the most distant places in Sergipe, Piauí, and Goiás.

The visitor cannot fail to notice among the offerings that lie in copious heaps on the floor and hang from the walls of this strange temple, next to the images and relics, the disturbing signs of a singular religious sentiment: knives and rifles.

The gunman enters here with contrition, his head bared. He carries his leather hat in his hand, and his weapon in its holster. He falls to his knees in a deep genuflection, placing his forehead on the damp floor of sweating lime. And he prays. He remains here for a long time, reliving his old sins and beating his breast. Then he devoutly fulfills the “promise” that he made when he engaged in his last fight, should it come out in his favor. He would deliver to the Good Lord Jesus his famous trabuco, or catapult gun, with the notches he carved in it with his knife for each man he had killed. Then he leaves full of remorse, but happy with the tribute he has paid. He returns to the fray and resumes his lawless existence.

Pilão Arcado, a once flourishing town that today is deserted, is in the last stage of a decline that started in 1856. Xique-Xique is the site of decades of battles between liberals and conservatives. Macaúbas, Monte Alegre, along with other towns and the surrounding ranches, with houses in ruins or riddled with bullets, are the evidence of this old rule of lawlessness. They are places where organized banditry has become a form of normalcy. It is paradoxical, but true.

There is, in fact, a noteworthy discipline among the jagunços. They are very proud of their role as bandits and they fight loyally for their chieftain. They restrict their disorderly conduct to the small battles in which they engage in true military fashion. The pillaging of the towns that they take is considered to be the spoils of war, and history will absolve them. Outside of this, the cases of robbery are rare, and it is something they consider beneath them, a stain on their honor. The most defenseless fellow backlander can travel en route to the coast through these fields and woods alone and unarmed, with his saddlebags bulging with diamonds and gold nuggets. Not one will be missing at the end of his journey. The stranger to the region, unaware of partisan fighting, may pass through with similar immunity.

It is not unusual for a peddler to come along, with his beasts staggering under the weight of his precious cargo, and stop short in fear as he suddenly faces a band of jagunços camped at the side of the road. But he quickly loses his fear. The chief gunman approaches, gives him a friendly greeting, and starts a conversation with him. He will laugh and joke and allay the man’s terror with this show of good humor. Then the jagunço will ask for his toll—a cigarette. He lights it with a single strike of the match, and lets the man pass, his life and fortune intact.

There are many cases like this that reveal the remarkable nobility among these valiant outlaws.

About fifteen kilometers from Xique-Xique is the bandit capital, the settlement of Santo Ignácio, located in the mountains and to this day inaccessible to the law.

Normally, the police intervene to pacify regions where disorder takes over, and they play the role of neutral mediators between opposing factions. It is a diplomatic mission. The armed lawmen dialogue with the criminals, consider the conditions presented by one side and the other, discuss the matter, and avoid any ultimatums. They negotiate real peace treaties, thus ceding legal sanction to the rule of gangster impunity.

Thus the hereditary stigma of the mestizo population is reinforced by the very leniency of the law.

It is not surprising that crime has escalated, taking over the entire São Francisco valley and extending to the north.

The cangaceiro of Paraíba and Pernambuco is an identical type of criminal with a different name.[1] He is differentiated from the jagunço by a slight variation in weaponry: The parnaíba with its long, rigid blade substitutes for the bell-mouthed blunderbuss. These twin social groups lived for a long time isolated from each other. The cangaceiros would attack to the south and the jagunços would strike to the north. They would cross paths without joining forces, separated by the steep wall of the Paulo Afonso. It was the insurrection in Monte Santo that joined them.

The Canudos campaign spontaneously brought together all the criminal elements lost in the backlands.

II

Direct Causes of the Conflict

It was caused by a trivial incident.

Antônio Conselheiro had purchased a certain quantity of wood in Juazeiro that the impoverished Canudos backlands could not supply. The materials were to be used for the completion of the new church. He had made the deal with one of the city authorities. But when the date they had agreed upon came due, the order was not delivered. It was clear that the breach of contract was an act of aggression intended to break trust.

The chief justice of Juazeiro had an old score to settle with the backlands activist, which dated back to the time when he was a judge in Bom Conselho and was forced into a hasty retreat from the town under attack by the Counselor’s followers.

He was using this occasion to settle the score. He knew that his adversary would react to the slightest provocation. In fact, even before the contract was broken, the Counselor had threatened a raid on the lovely little town of São Francisco and to take the timber that he needed by force.

This incident occurred in October 1896.

We quote from the historical record of 1897, which documents a message from the governor of Bahia, Dr. Luis Vianna, to the president of the republic:

This was the situation when I received an urgent telegram from Dr. Arlindo Leoni, justice of Juazeiro, informing me of reliable sources that indicated the prospering city was about to be attacked within days by Antônio Conselheiro’s men. He asked for help to assure the safety of the residents and to avoid an exodus of the population that, in fact, had already begun. I answered that the government could not use force on the basis of rumors. I advised him to station guards along the road to observe the movement of the bandits and to send word of any action by telegram. The government would send troops immediately, on an express train, to push back the invaders and protect the city.

Since the police force based in the capital was greatly reduced due to the situation I have just described, I made a request to the commanding general of the district for one hundred regular troops, which were to be deployed to Juazeiro as soon as I received word from the justice. His telegram came a few days later with the news that Antônio Conselheiro and his men were about two days away from Juazeiro. I alerted the general, who sent the waiting soldiers by train under the command of Lieutenant Pires Ferreira. From that point on they would act on orders from the district judge. When this official arrived at Juazeiro, he went with the local authorities to meet the bandits and prevent them from invading the city.

One cannot imagine a more insignificant sequence of events for such a serious situation. The account we have just quoted tells us very clearly that the Bahian state government ignored the antecedents to the event and did not take the situation seriously. Antônio Conselheiro had in the twenty-two years since 1874 gained legendary status in the northern backlands and the cities of the coast, where the more interesting episodes of his romantic life were embellished and embroidered. Every day his hold over the people grew stronger. This was a result of his incomparable pilgrimage, for over a quarter of a century, to every remote corner of the backlands, where he would leave enormous monuments—the towers of dozens of churches that he would build—to mark his passage. He founded the settlement of Bom Jesus, now almost a city. From Chorrochó to Vila do Conde, from Itapicurú to Jeremoabo, there was not a single town or obscure place where he did not have fervent followers who thanks to his works had a new cemetery, a place of worship, or a reservoir. For a long time he had been boldly speaking out against the new political order and with impunity burning the public edicts issued by the councils of the cities he visited. In 1893 he completely wiped out a strong police detachment in Massete and forced back another troop of eighty regular army soldiers who had followed him as far as Serrinha. In 1894 he was the subject of heated debate in the Bahia state assembly. One deputy pointed out to the authorities that “a part of the backlands was being disturbed by the individual named Antônio Conselheiro.” However, other representatives of the people, including a priest, held him up as a paragon of Christian orthodoxy. In 1895 he was responsible for the failure of a mission planned by the archbishop of Bahia. In the alarming account of this incident submitted by Brother João Evangelista, the monk claimed that in Canudos there were, in addition to the women, children, elderly, and infirm, a thousand brutal and able-bodied men who were “armed to the teeth.” In sum, it was common knowledge that he held absolute authority over a huge area, making access difficult to the fortress he had dug into. His followers were known to be completely loyal to him and in addition to the band of faithful who encircled him he had accomplices everywhere in those who feared him.

To deal with this situation, a troop of one hundred soldiers was considered to be sufficient!

General Frederico Sólon Ribeiro, commander of the Third Military District, filed this report:

On the fourth of November of the current year [1896], in compliance with the referenced order, I promptly acted on the personal request of the state governor to deploy a force of one hundred soldiers from the garrison to confront the fanatics of the Canudos settlement. I was satisfied that this number was more than sufficient.

Confident in his thorough knowledge of everything that was going on in the interior of his state, I did not hesitate. Without further delay, I dispatched to him the brave Lieutenant Manuel da Silva Pires Ferreira, of the Ninth Infantry Battalion, with orders to follow the governor’s instructions. On the seventh of the month the officer duly set out for Juazeiro, the terminal point of the railway on the right bank of the São Francisco. He commanded three officers and 104 enlisted men. They had just one small ambulance with them, and later I sent a doctor with a few more medical supplies provided by the state.

That handful of soldiers created a stir when they arrived in Juazeiro on the morning of November 7.

Their arrival did not discourage the flight of a great part of the population but rather provoked it. Being familiar with the situation, the town citizens realized immediately that such a small contingent would have the negative effect of attracting the invading horde. They anticipated an inevitable defeat. While the Counselor’s spies, who were placed throughout the area, gloated, a few honorable men begged the commander of the expedition to proceed no farther.

The obstacles in procuring supplies for the expedition delayed the troops until the twelfth of the month, when they left at nightfall. Canudos had certainly already heard the news of their incursion. They left without the minimal supplies necessary for a march of two hundred kilometers across arid and unpopulated territory, led by two guides they had hired in Juazeiro. A curious detail is that the troops decided to leave on the twelfth to avoid a departure on the thirteenth, an unlucky day. And their mission was to fight fanaticism!

The commander knew from the outset that it was not possible to pace the march in a way that would protect the strength of his troops. In the backlands, even before midsummer, it is impossible for fully equipped men, loaded down with backpacks and canteens, to be hiking after ten in the morning. The day radiates a blazing heat on the flatlands and there is no shade. The naked earth refracts and multiplies the sun’s rays. Under the exhausting intensity of an extremely high temperature all vital functions are alarmingly accelerated, resulting in sudden collapse. On the other hand it is rarely possible to plan the itinerary to take advantage of the hours in early morning or night. They are forced to continue in spite of the strong sun until they reach the water pits of the cowboy settlements.

This region is, as we have already seen, among the least known in our country. Very few have dared to enter the barrens of the Vaza-Barris valley, which begin at the eastern slopes stretching from Itiúba to Jeremoabo and span kilometers of hostile deserted lands occupied by just a few small, scattered dwellings. It is the region of Bahia that is most devastated by the droughts.

By way of a contrast that is explained by the location of the mountains, this area of the wilderness is, nevertheless, surrounded by vibrant landscapes. To the north is the beautiful sertão of Curaçá and the very fertile fields that extend east as far as Santo Antônio da Glória and stretch along the right bank of the São Francisco River. To the west are the productive farmlands centered in Vila Nova da Rainha. These, however, merely frame the desert. The almost always dry Vaza-Barris snakes its way through the region like a long and tortuous wadi.

This region is worse than the great plains of Bahia, where even the most astute prospectors will lose their way, confused by the sameness of the infinite plains where the melancholy landscape unfolds itself into identical vistas and where nature shows her most savage face, draped in a lugubrious flora.

Even the brushwoods take on a different appearance.[2] It takes a new terminology to describe the backlands flora accurately, with its various changing aspects. One would perhaps best refer to this region as the classic example of the caatanduvas, the indigenous term for sick forests, which extend to the south and east all the way to Monte Santo.

The small contingent made its way into this region on the second day of the expedition, after bivouacking a few kilometers out of Juazeiro. They had to proceed along forty kilometers of desert road until they came to a tiny waterhole known as Ox Lake, where they found a few traces of water. From this point they continued on into the desert, stopping at Caraibinhas, Mari Mucambo, Rancharia, and other isolated settlements. Some of these were deserted because the summer heat was a sign of the approaching drought. The few inhabitants who had stayed, either to avoid traveling in the drought or because they were afraid of the unrest, now made their way north driving their goats, the only animals that can adapt to this soil and climate.

Uauá

The exhausted troops arrived in Uauá on the nineteenth, after a terrible crossing.

This settlement, consisting only of two streets converging into an irregularly shaped town square, is the liveliest place in that part of the sertão. Like most of the villages whose names are pompously inscribed on our maps, it is a mix of hamlet and Indian camp. It is an ugly cluster of about a hundred badly constructed houses and run-down shacks with a sad and depressing appearance.

This place is at the crossroads of four highways—to Jeremoabo, running by Canudos, and to Monte Santo, Juazeiro, and Patamoté. On Saturdays these roads bring to its fair a large number of country people who cannot afford a longer trip to more prosperous places. They crowd here on festival days as if they were going to the capital in the faraway “big lands,” their term for the coastland, which they fear and can only vaguely imagine. They are decked out in their Sunday best or clad in brand-new leather clothing. They gawk at the wares of two or three poor shops and browse through the pitiful display of industrial products at the fair booths, such as the tanned leathers and caroa fiber hammocks, that to them look like valuable items. During the week Uauá is deserted, with just one or two open shops. It was a day like this, when the inhabitants were inside to avoid the noon heat, that they were surprised by the sounding of military trumpets. The troops had arrived.

They entered by way of the street that led from the highway and positioned themselves at the square. They were an attraction. Both curious and timid, the citizens stared at the soldiers as if they were in the presence of a potent army. In fact, the bedraggled soldiers were covered with dust and out of formation. Their rifles with gleaming bayonets were propped on their shoulders.

After they stacked their weapons, the soldiers billeted for the night. A watch was set on all sides and guards were posted at each of the four roads leading into the village.

While it looked like a battle-staging area, this obscure settlement was nevertheless just a stop along the way. After a brief rest the expedition would immediately set out for Canudos, at dawn the next day, the twentieth. This did not happen. There, as everywhere else, they were confronted with contradictory information, which hindered their ability to take decisive action. As a result, the entire day was wasted in inquiries; an immediate attack was finally ordered after a dangerous delay. When night fell an incident occurred that would only be revealed the next day. Almost the entire population fled the town. They left their dwellings without being noticed, in small groups, slipping furtively between the ranks of the sentry outposts. In the sudden fearful exodus entire families, even the infirm, slipped out into the open fields under the cover of night.

This event should have been understood as a warning. Uauá, like other neighboring places, was under the rule of Canudos. The people who lived there were faithful followers of Antônio Conselheiro. Hardly had the troops stationed themselves in the square when these supporters headed for the threatened city, arriving at dawn on the twentieth, to give the alarm.

The mass departure of the town indicated that the emissaries had time to return to warn the townspeople of a counterattack by the men of Canudos. They were simply evacuating the battlefield. The military expedition, however, did not pay much attention to the incident and prepared to resume its march the next day. Unaware of the seriousness of the situation, they slept peacefully in their quarters that night.

They were awakened by the opponent that they thought they would surprise.

At dawn on the twenty-first a band of jagunços was sighted on the horizon. A distant sound of song could be heard over the silence of the still-sleeping earth, echoing sonorously over the desolate waste. The warrior band was advancing to Uauá, marching to the droning cadence of kyrie eliesons and praying. It was a penitential procession like those that had been practiced by superstitious backlanders who would petition to heaven when the long summers would usher in the punishing drought.

Their approach was true to form. Rather than stage an attack at night, the backlanders approached in daylight to announce their arrival from a distance. They were awakening their enemy for the fight.

At first glance, they did not look like fighters. They held up symbols of peace: a religious banner, the “flag of the divine,” and, in the strong arms of a Titan believer, a great wooden cross, tall as a stone statue in a public park. The combatants were armed with old muskets, the cowboy’s poke, scythes, and poles. They were submerged in a crowd of believers who, unarmed, carried icons of their favorite saints and dried palms taken from church altars. Some processed as if they were on a religious pilgrimage, with stones from the road on their heads. They recited their coconut rosaries as they walked. They likened the arrival of the soldiers to one of the periodic natural disasters that descended upon the land. They marched to battle praying and singing, as if they were seeking a decisive test of faith.

There were many of them. Some informants exaggerated the number threefold, saying there were three thousand. But they advanced in a disorderly fashion. A small platoon positioned in the surrounding caatinga could have dispersed them in a few minutes. The settlement in front of them had no sentries. They were fast asleep.

Everything indicates that the crowds approached until they reached the line of advance guards. They woke them up. The startled sentries fired their weapons at random and then retreated hastily to the square where the rear guard was posted, leaving to the enemy a comrade who had been knifed. The alarm was sounded. Soldiers zigzagged through the square and down the streets. They bolted still half-asleep and half-naked from doorways; they jumped out of windows, adjusting their weapons and trying to pull on their uniforms as they ran. They did not enter into any kind of formation but, under orders from a sergeant, they scattered like untrained sharpshooters. The jagunços were already at the square, right behind the retreating sentries. The encounter began brutally, a fierce hand-to-hand combat with crushing clubs and rifle butts, clashing knives and sabers, zinging revolver and musket shots, while the aggressors crushed the fragile line of defense and drove the soldiers back. And the crazed crowd, between vivas to the Good Jesus and to the Counselor, and strident whistles from their taquara reeds, oozed forward into the square raising the flag of the divine, brandishing their saints and their weapons, and following the bold curiboca who used his huge wooden cross as a battering ram as he cleared a path for them.[3]

This event happened in an instant and was the only military maneuver witnessed by those who saw the action. From that time forward they could not distinguish who was who. It was chaotic, like a riot at a fair. For the most part the soldiers sought cover in the houses and drilled holes in the walls through which to fire, in a full defense. That saved them. The backlanders, crowded around their religious images in the square, were now being mowed down. They fell in large numbers. The fight became one-sided, despite their superior numbers. They were hit with repeated fire and they could only retaliate with one round of musket shot for every hundred from the Comblains. While the soldiers bombarded them, the jagunços had to laboriously reload their primitive weapons with gunpowder, wadding, and bullets. They had to stick the ramrod down the long barrel of their trabucos, slowly loading them with those ingredients as if they were filling up a mine. Then they had to prime and cock the weapon and finally fire it, completing a heroic process that took a full two minutes of immobility in the dizzying din of the battle.

After a while they gave up the hopeless struggle and went after their enemy swinging bare knives, cattle pokes, and gleaming scythes. But this crazed attack was even more deadly to them. Their numbers were depleted without gaining any advantage over their bunkered adversaries, who would fire on them from windows that burst open with explosions of gunshot. At one of these, a half-naked lieutenant, who awoke late to the scene, fought for a long time. He rested his rifle on the window ledge and aimed at the chests of his attackers, never missing a shot, until he fell back dead on the bed that he had slept on and never had time to leave.

The fierce battle continued for about four hours, without any incidents worthy of being recorded and without any visible sign of tactical maneuvers. Everyone fought for themselves, in response to the circumstances. In the yard of the house in which he was billeted, the commander did the only thing that could be done in the disorder. He distributed cartridges by tossing them over the garden wall after grabbing them by the handful from cases hacked open with a machete.

Still clustered around the flag of the divine, which was now shredded by bullet holes like a war pennant, the jagunços wound their way through the streets, going around the village, and then they straggled back to the square, shouting vivas and curses. Eventually, as they went around in these crazy circles, they abandoned the action and dispersed through the neighboring area. It could be that they understood the futility of their efforts, or perhaps they thought they could lure their enemy to the open plain.

The battlefield was gradually abandoned. At last they receded into the distance and all that could be seen of them was the dot of the holy banner that was leading them back to Canudos. The soldiers did not pursue them. They were exhausted.

Uauá was in shambles. Fires smoldered in several places. The dead lay flat and the wounded writhed on bloody floors, balconies, and doorways, in the streets and the square under the blazing sun.

Among them were dozens of backlanders, 150 according to the official report of the battle, a disproportionate number to the 10 dead—a lieutenant, a sergeant, 6 privates, and 2 guides—and 16 wounded of the federal troops. Even though he still had 70 able-bodied men, the commander decided not to continue the mission. The attack had shaken him. He had seen the resolve of the backwoodsmen close up. His own victory terrified him, if it could be called that, because of its terrible results. The army doctor with the troops went insane under the pressure of the battle. He was no use in treating the wounded, some of them in serious condition.

It was urgent that they retreat before nightfall or before another attack, which terrified the troops. They decided to leave immediately. As soon as their dead were given crude burials in the chapel at Uauá they headed out again under the terrible sun.

It was like a retreat.

The crossing to Juazeiro was made under forced march, in four days. When the expeditionary band arrived, their uniforms in shreds, wounded, lame, and exhausted, they looked like a defeated army. The population became alarmed and prepared to flee. Trains with their engine fires going waited in readiness at the stations. All able-bodied citizens fit for combat were called into service. The telegraph lines wired the news of an incipient backlands war to the entire country.

III

Preparations for the Counterattack

The reversal at Uauá demanded swift retaliation.

This, however, was planned amidst disagreement between the commander of the federal troops in Bahia and the governor of the state. The governor was an optimist who dismissed the backlands disturbances as a mere pubic disorder that could be easily handled by the police. The commander considered them to be far more serious and potentially escalating to military operations.

The second expedition was thus organized without a firm plan or clearly defined rules of engagement, in response to conflicting orders by two independent officials of equal rank. At the outset it comprised a hundred enlisted men and eight military officers, along with a hundred men and three officers from the state troops. This force set out for Queimadas on November 25, under the command of Major Febrônio de Brito of the Ninth Infantry Battalion. At the same time the district commander requested more equipment from the federal government, including four Nordenfelt machine guns, two Krupp field guns, and 250 additional troops—100 from the Twenty-sixth Battalion of Aracajú and 150 from the Thirty-third of Alagoas.

The request was justified. Alarming reports were coming in daily about the gravity of the situation. Even discounting inevitable exaggerations, two things were clear: The rebel forces were large in number, and the savage region where the rebels were dug in held serious threats for the outsiders. This news, however, was tangled in a great number of contradictory versions aggravated by corrupt and covert political interests that I will not discuss here. A lot of time was wasted in this churning of useless information. Meanwhile the telegraph lines hummed with news from the backlands frontier, and at Queimadas the commander of the new expedition waited anxiously with 243 enlisted men.

Short on supplies and faced with all manner of difficulties, caught between conflicting reports, the commander wavered between despair and hope at being able to complete his mission. It was not until December that this officer set out for Monte Santo with his troops, with a reinforcement of one hundred men from Bahia.

The assault now had a definite campaign plan. The district commander grasped the situation. He planned to attack the rebels from two points, with two columns bearing down on a single target, under the command of Colonel Pedro Nunes Tamarindo of the Ninth Infantry. The plan was adapted to the conditions of the conflict: first to draw a wide circle around the rebels from a distance, fighting them a few at a time, and then to close in on them with small highly trained detachments. Made more agile by separating from the larger unit, these detachments could better adjust to the rugged terrain and maximize their chances of survival. However effective the guerrilla-style warfare of the insurgents might be, they would be trapped in the circle and the battle would not be spread over a territory that would allow the dispersed groups to reconvene at any given point. To attack them in this manner, by leading them to different locations, was certainly to defeat them.

This was what our countrymen recognized over a hundred years ago. They had been trained in the unique character of backlands rebellions and had adapted their military strategies to the situation. Their vision was one of systematic deployment of “irregular troops,” which, unencumbered by conventional tactics and battle formations, would be able to function effectively as auxiliary scouts in support of the regular troops, maneuvering in the depths of the woodlands and over the rugged terrain.

This tactic of “divide and strengthen,” an adaptation of African and Indian warfare, has been practiced throughout our history, since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indian rebellions and runaway slave settlements were put down by small armies led by “woodlands captains.” Many of these fierce battles were never recorded. It was certainly a throwback to primitive warfare. But if the brave and astute jagunço did not inspire us to adopt it, then the particular nature of the land that protected him certainly should have encouraged us to do so. Let us see why this was so.

The War of the Caatingas

The European doctors of the art of killing are scandalously invading the calm domain of science and disturbing it with insolent warmongering. They have been well aware of the tactical role of forests in offensive and defensive action while they have formulated the laws of war and the equations of battles. The seasoned old field marshals, whose ancient Frank battle-ax was replaced by an engineer’s pencil, would laugh to hear that our poor brushlands have a more critical function in a military campaign than the great virgin forests.

These great European woods are in a sense neutralized in the course of a campaign, even though they play an important role in defending a territory. They mark borders and buffer the impact of an invasion while at the same time hindering rapid mobilization and making it difficult to transport heavy artillery. The woods can favor either side of the combat, offering both the same cover for ambush and making strategic deployments and other maneuvers equally difficult for both sides. They are but one variable in the dark formulas of war, capable of completely opposite values.

The brushwood, on the other hand, is a constant ally of the backlands insurgent. The vegetation participates in the battle. It arms itself for combat and becomes an aggressor. It closes ranks, forming an impenetrable barrier for the stranger but it opens multiple trails for the native born and bred there. And this is how the jagunço becomes an elusive guerrilla.

The brushland not only hides him, it protects him.

In the summer a column of soldiers will not be alarmed by the vista of the caatinga. The men will trudge painfully along the twisting paths. Since they can see over the tops of the leafless undergrowth, they do not even think about the enemy. The heat and the long march relaxes them and they carry on a babble of conversation all down the line, punctuated by bursts of barely repressed laughter and the clanking of weapons. They see nothing to alarm them here. If the enemy should be so foolish as to attack them, they would wipe him out in minutes. The shoots of foliage would be shredded apart by a few sword strokes, and the fine underbrush could not possibly delay the progress of quick maneuvers. They continue their march with heroic calm.

Suddenly a shot rings out from their flanks, at close range.

The bullet zings past them, or perhaps one of their men lies dead on the ground. This is followed in succession by others, in long whistles, over the heads of the troops. A hundred, two hundred, a thousand frightened eyes scan the foliage but see nothing.

This is the first surprise. A tremor of fear runs through the ranks. The shots continue, not many of them, but insistently and at measured intervals, from the left, the right, and now from ahead. The entire column is under steady, deadly fire.

Then a strange anxiety grips even the most tested of them, as they face an antagonist who can see them but whom they cannot see. They quickly form a company of sharpshooters and with difficulty they break off from the main body of troops caught on the narrow path. These men spread out around the edge of the caatinga. A voice can be heard giving a command, followed by a volley of bullets roaring through the mass of underbrush.

But the invisible missiles keep coming, always at long intervals, humming up and down the line. The situation rapidly gets worse, requiring decisive action. Other combat units are identified and deployed along the entire stretch of road, poised to act on command. The commander decides to launch an offensive against the hidden enemy but he soon discovers he is attacking a phantom. The men beat down the brush with their bayonets, under assault from a widening swath of bullets. They move ahead quickly, and the enemy seems to fall back. Just at this moment, the caatinga shows its formidable strength.

The details rush to the points from where the gunfire has been heard and are stopped short by the flexible but impenetrable barrier of the jurema thicket. They become tangled in a liana bed, which trips them, snatches their weapons from their hands, and will not let them pass. They are forced to turn back and go around it. They see what seems to be a long flame, a row of bayonets along dried brushwood. It glows for a few minutes in the sun, filtered through the leafless brush, and then disappears, only to be viewed here and there along the path, beating against the dense layers of xique-xiques, clustered in squares of an immovable phalanx, covered with thorns.

The confused soldiers make a wide circle. They spread out, running aimlessly through the labyrinth of branches. They fall, trapped by the slipknot lassos of the creeping quipá vines. Or they become trapped, their legs immobilized by the powerful tentacles of the foliage. They writhe desperately, shredding their uniforms in the arced feline claws of the macambira thorns.

Rendered impotent, they rail and curse their disappointment and rage as they continue their useless, furious struggle. Finally, the noise recedes as the troops scatter. They fire aimlessly and at random, often felling their own comrades. Reinforcements arrive. The same battle with the underbrush flares up again, on a larger scale, as the confusion and chaos escalate. Meanwhile the rhythmic, accurate, and deadly fire of the enemy falls implacably around them.

All of a sudden it stops. The enemy that no one has seen is gone.

The depleted troops return to the column after their futile incursion into the underbrush. It is as if they had engaged in hand-to-hand combat with savages. Their uniforms are in tatters, their weapons are destroyed or lost; they have deep gashes on their bodies; they are limping, maimed; and they can barely repress cries of pain from the hellish wounds inflicted by the prickly caatinga leaves.

The troops are reorganized and the march continues. They walk two abreast down the trail. The blue uniforms with their scarlet stripes and the shining, swaying bayonets lend a streak of color to the gray landscape. They march on; they recede into the distance; they are lost in the horizon.

Minutes go by. At the site of the battle, out of the scattered brush, five, ten, twenty men at the most emerge and quickly, quietly slip away through the parched thickets.

They gather on the highway. They stand there for a while, peering at the now barely visible column of troops. Handling their weapons, still hot from battle, they quickly head down the trails to their hidden dwellings.

The government forces will proceed more carefully from now on.

The demoralized troops walk in silence, worried about the untouchable enemy and the prospect of sudden ambush. The commanding officer surrounds them with every possible protective measure. Detachments guard their flanks. Two hundred yards ahead of the column is a squadron of handpicked men to guide them on their way.

As they descend a rugged slope, however, they come upon a ravine that has to be crossed. Fortunately, its sides have been scoured clean by the floods, leaving only a few clumps of grass, sparse cacti jutting out between stone rubble, and the dead branches of umbú trees gleaming like bones in the graveyard of the drought.

The advance guard makes its way down the wall of the ravine. The first battalions follow. The troops slowly make their way down the rough slope. The entire column can be seen descending the narrow valley, through its twists and turns, as their weapons shine in the sun, like a dark stream shooting out rays of light.

They stop dead in their tracks, seized by a common tremor they cannot control.

A bullet whistles by.

This time the shots come slowly from a single position above them, apparently from a lone marksman.

Discipline holds the ranks; it prevents the imminent panic from breaking out. As before, a detachment breaks off and ascends the slope toward the shots. The cacophony of echoes makes it impossible for the men to keep their bearings. In the extremely hot atmosphere and low humidity the sniper’s position is not betrayed by smoke from his weapon. So he continues to fire, slowly but with terrifying accuracy.

The shots finally stop. The soldiers roam the slopes in a useless search.

They return exhausted. The bugles sound. The troops continue their march, their numbers diminished. And when the last are out of sight, beyond the next hill, a figure rises up from the stone mounds—a sinister caryatid from cyclopean ruins—a hard, sunburned face, then the body of an athlete, covered in rude leather. He swiftly traverses the steep sides of the ravine and then disappears. This terrible tracker of soldiers is gone in seconds.

The troops are now completely demoralized. Seasoned warriors have been reduced to frightened children. At each turn of the road, at every cracking twig, they tremble with fear. The army has come to the realization that its strength is its weakness.

Without the capacity to maneuver easily, the column continues in a state of total exhaustion through the desert, under constant threat of ambush. It will slowly be bled by an enemy that launches surprise attacks and flees.

The fight is unequal. When a military force must lower itself to an inferior type of combat, it has to deal not only with man but also with the earth. And when the backlands broil in the dry heat of summer, it is not hard to predict who will be the victor. When the mighty Minotaur is brought to its knees by thirst and hunger, it beats a hasty retreat from the threatening desert. Meanwhile the sertão, a warrior maiden, takes the backlander to her nurturing breast.

In these transitions between drought and green abundance, when the last trickles of water are to be found in the mud of the marshes and the last yellowing leaves on the branches of the baraúna trees, as the stranger to the region flees the coming drought, the backlander is favored by his detailed knowledge of the long, winding trails. He knows every corner of his immense, roofless home. He cares little that the journey grows longer, that shelter is scarce, that the wells are dry and the oases where he takes his noonday rest are drying up. He is strengthened by his sense of the familiar. The trees are old companions. He knows them all. They were born together, they grew up like brothers, and they lived through the same hardships and the same moments of happiness.

The umbú will quench his thirst and offer him shade from its thinning leaves. The araticú, the green uricuri, the elegant marí, the quixaba with its tiny fruits will give him plenty to eat.[4] The palmatórias, stripped of their thorns through a process of rapid combustion, the mandacarús carved up with a knife, or the leaves of the juás will keep his horse alive.[5] The juás give him a roof for his campsite; the caroa fibers make flexible and resistant ropes. If he must travel at night, and in the darkness he can barely see the phosphorescent glow of the cumanans hanging like fantastic garlands from the trees, then all he has to do is light a green candombá branch and brandish it as he proceeds down the trail.[6] This bright torch will blind and frighten the pumas.

Nature protects the backlander. It makes him as invincible as Antaeus. He is a bronzed Titan who brings armies to their knees.

IV

Doubtful Independence

The next campaign would face similar difficulties. It was the biggest military force ever seen in all of Brazil’s northern territories and it should have been prepared for the local situation. General Frederico Sólon’s plans revealed that he had made contingency plans for this very exceptional battle, for which no Jomini had written a rule book, because conditions here inverted even the most basic precepts of the art of war.

The comparison may not be entirely accurate, but Canudos was our Vendée. The Chouan and his heaths are a good analogy to the jagunço and the caatinga. They share the same politically inspired mysticism, daring, and shrewdness, and they live in similarly adverse terrain. They recall the legendary corner of Brittany where rebels drove out an army that would march over Europe, and only surrendered in the end to the flying squadrons of an unknown commander, General Turreau. His “columns from hell” were fewer in number but faster, like the Vendeans themselves, who were finally corralled into a circle of sixteen entrenched camps.

CHAPTER IV

TRAPPED AT MOUNT CAMBAIO

I

Monte Santo

On December 29 the expedition arrived at Monte Santo.

The troops entered Monte Santo on December 29. From that day on, the town of Brother Apolônio de Todi would become the base of operations for the battle of Canudos. It was the best strategic location for the campaign. It also allowed for speedy communications with the coast through the Queimadas station.

There were also other considerations. We have already described the impressive way in which this place was founded. We do not imply that its founder, the stoic Friar Todi, who reminds us of the sixteenth-century missionary José de Anchieta, was really aware of the many advantages of the town’s location. Tucked at the base of the only mountain in the region, the town provides a contrast to the otherwise sterile landscape. Walls of bare rock rise to the north and east and form a barrier to the sea breezes. The sudden ascent of the wind up the mountain wall provides a cooling effect and condenses the scant moisture it holds, regularly depositing it as rain. This creates a better climate than that of the neighboring backlands where the wind blows dry after its descent from the highlands.

The result is that while all around are vast stretches of barren plains, the landscape stretching several kilometers from Monte Santo is incomparably more vivid. Small drought-resistant streams flow through it. In the foothills is a rough forest growth where the caatingas have become large patches of green thickets. The Cariacá River, with its little tributaries, never completely dries up even in the worst drought. During the driest season it divides into a number of small pools and its tiny streams trickle into the rocks, providing just enough water for the inhabitants to survive the scourge.

It is only natural that Monte Santo has for a long time been a favorite spot for those who venture into that terrible part of the backlands. It is not the first time that it has played a role in history. Long before those who now seek it out, other possibly braver and more interesting adventurers passed through, driven by other motives. Whether for the expeditionary bands of the seventeenth century or the present-day military, this fateful site was a wayside stop for a brief time and had just a small part in more momentous events. The historic function of the place is very similar for the pillagers of the backlands, who through the centuries are very much the same in their hatreds and violent impulses.

It was at this place that Belchior Moréia, father of Robério Dias, made a stop on his intrepid journey from the Rio Real to the Jacobina Mountains in the Maçacará backlands. There were others after him, guided by the confusing logs of previous adventurers, in which the mountain’s ancient name, Piquaraçá, is always found as a landmark of the welcoming region in the middle of these barren wastes. It was the mustering point for the famous silver mines movement. This went from Muribeca’s futile expedition to the determined search of Pedro Barbosa Leal. He followed Moréia’s trails and camped on the mountain for many days, finding signs of his equally daring predecessors. As time went on, the magical mountain was forgotten in the backlands. Many imagined it might be the longed-for El Dorado. Apolônio de Todi transformed it into a rustic but majestic shrine.

Today, those who travel the road to Queimadas, through a landscape bristling with cactus and stones, will, a few miles this side of Quirinquinquá, stop short at the sight of the place. To the east, the vision of this monument through the shimmering hot air, set between a cloudless sky and the vast stretch of plains below, will seem like an astounding mirage. The mountain made of this mass of quartzite, a material so well suited to earth’s monumental structures, rises in the distance, its height accentuated by the surrounding lowlands. It projects a line of jagged peaks. The eastern flank stands perpendicularly, like a rampart, above the town, which huddles humbly against it, dwarfed by the majesty of the mountain. Stretching from the public square to the summit is the most beautiful of Monte Santo’s streets, the via sacra of the sertão, paved in brilliant white quartz, made smooth by the countless multitudes who have walked there in a century of pilgrimages. The backlanders were inspired by their naive religion to carve thousands of steps, winding like a snail shell around the peak, as if they were building a road to heaven.

The vision is amazing from a distance.

Little white chapels are dots along the road, which starts at a steep incline, turning and twisting around the mountain, but always ascending. These tiny shrines, perched on precipices, gradually diminish in size as they fade into the serene blue of the sky, one by one, to the very top.

Whoever follows the Queimadas road must cross a stretch of desert covered by dying scrub foliage. Tree branches are twisted as if writhing in a spasm; thistles dig into the rocks like tentacles; bromeliads bloom a blood red. The traveler will hasten his pace to flee this disturbing landscape. When he arrives at the town, he is not disappointed. The highway leads him to the rectangular square on a slope eroded by torrential rains. In the middle of the square is the obligatory fair booth. At one side is the small church and on the other a centuries-old tamarind tree, the town’s only ornament. Ancient small houses are situated around the town. Standing out among them is a two-story structure, which later will become the military headquarters.

The square is the heart of Monte Santo. All the small roads radiate outward from this place, some to the marshes, others to the plain, and still others dead-ending at the mountain. The mountain loses some of its charm from this perspective. It appears diminished in height and it no longer has sharp outlines as from a distance. Its slopes are covered with an inexplicably vivid flora, clinging to the rocks, bursting through the cracks of the strata, and clinging to life just from the effects of the marvelous sunlight. The little chapels, so white from a distance, now seem shabby and abandoned. The masonry walls along the winding road are crumbling, the steps are cracked, and the tortuous scene looks like a giant staircase in ruins. The depressing, dilapidated town reflects the same neglect by an unknown race, slowly dying inside the walls of its mud huts. There is nothing here of the traditional charm of country villages. The clusters of small houses are built for the harsh environment. They are brutally ugly and squat—low roofs over four mud walls. Some must be a hundred years old. The newer ones, built in the same ungainly style, are born old.

It is thus ironic that Monte Santo should be such an ugly stain on the beautiful landscape that provides a parenthetical relief to the harshness of the sertão. The campaign that was about to begin would aggravate the town’s unpleasant appearance and transform it into a hulking military barracks.

Victory Is Taken for Granted

The first regular expeditionary force against Canudos was billeted here: 543 regular army, 14 field officers, and 3 surgeons. It was an eclectic mix of three battalions, the Ninth, the Twenty-sixth, and the Thirty-third. In addition, there were several dozen police troops and a small artillery division with two 7.5 Krupp cannons and two Nordenfelt machine guns.

It was less than a brigade and a little more than a complete battalion.

The authorities gave the troops a triumphal welcome, buoyed by the spirit of official optimism. The drab town was transformed with flags and decorative foliage, and set off by the bright uniforms and gleaming weapons of the soldiers. A holiday was declared. It was livelier than the most popular pilgrimage or fair. As the cowboys returned to the town from their tiring trip in the backlands, they were surprised to find the streets crowded with troops. After hitching their skinny horses under the shady tamarind tree in the square, they stood staring at the artillery they had so often heard about but never seen. It was rumored that these weapons could blow up mountains and shake the earth with a single shot, more powerful than a thousand catapults. These hardened Titans, used to braving the worst climates, shook inside their leather armor as they examined these fearsome weapons of the civilized world. Many saddled up and left town for the backlands. Some headed north for Canudos at top speed. No one paid the least attention to them as the citizens made merry. Antônio Conselheiro’s crafty spies went unnoticed. They watched, asked questions, counted the soldiers, and closely observed the entire expedition. When their work was done, they slipped away and returned to the sacred village.

Others remained under cover, observing the scene with cruel irony, certain that this was just a bizarre prologue to a painful drama. The prophet could not be wrong: His victory was preordained. He had predicted it—the invaders would not even catch a glimpse of the sacrosanct church towers. In the meantime, hidden altars were lit. The laughter, the thud of boots on the pavement, the shrill bugle calls, and loud vivas in the street outside filtered through the walls and chinks of the houses, disturbing the muffled prayers of the kneeling faithful.

A banquet was laid out in the best house in the town. There was a round of speechifying, delivered with a simple, moving eloquence particular to the fighting man, whose expressiveness is in proportion to his crudeness—an oratory made of short, stiff phrases like sharp commands and punctuated with the magic words “fatherland,” “glory,” and “liberty,” uttered in every imaginable tone of voice. The rebels would be destroyed by iron and fire. Like the wheels of Shiva’s chariot, the treads of the Krupp cannons would roll over the vast plains, over the high ridges and down into the broad valleys, leaving behind furrows filled with blood. It was important to teach these barbaric criminals a lesson. These backward heathens had committed the grave sin of stupidly clinging to ancient traditions. Energetic corrective measures were needed to drag them out of the barbaric behavior that was a stain on our country. They should be prodded into civilization at sword point.

Everyone was convinced that an example would be made of these people. It was evident in the mindless celebration of an entire village, the noisy bluster of the officers and the troops, and in the party atmosphere on the eve of battle, two steps away from the minefield of the sertão.

Late in the afternoon noisy groups moved into the square. They walked down roads, spreading out over the town. Some, thinking they would get a rare view, climbed the mountain on the sinuous path edged by the small white chapels.

On the exhausting ascent they stopped at the stations to catch their breath. They curiously examined the holy images and the crude altars, and then went on.

At the “summit of the holy cross,” buffeted by the strong gusts from the northeast, they stopped and looked around.

There, below them, was the sertão.

A brief sensation of dread overtook the more timid ones, but it soon evaporated. They returned quietly to the town, where the first lamps were being lit as night fell.

The campaign was certainly off to an auspicious beginning.

Monte Santo had already handed victory to the expedition.

II

The Conflict Is Misunderstood

All of this was a big mistake. In the prebattle posturing and the pomp and show of the parade ground, the people of Monte Santo got the impression that victory was guaranteed. The troops were likewise infected with this idea and it inflated their hopes.

The defeat of the fanatics was a foregone conclusion.

In war, the preoccupation with defeat is paradoxical. It is the best motivation for victory. Military history is full of strange contradictions. This aside, war itself is monstrous and illogical. Today much has to do with superior technical skill, but war is still marked by its corrupt origins in banditry. Underlying all the strategy and tactics and the illusion of safety given by the death arsenal, a dark art that produces a burst of shrapnel from a mathematical formula and the violent trajectory of bullets and cannonballs out of its parabolas—underlying all of this is a primitive brutality. This is still the vis a tergo of battle.

The certainty of danger quickens these instincts, and the certainty of victory represses them.

Everyone was positive that the expedition would be successful. The awareness of danger would have resulted in rapid mobilization and a surprise attack on the enemy. Overconfidence immobilized the troops for two weeks of idleness in Monte Santo.

Let’s look at what happened. The commander of the expedition had left most of his munitions in Queimadas so as not to delay the march and allow the enemy to strengthen its position. It was his intention to make a lightning attack. Frustrated by the difficulties he encountered, including an almost complete lack of means of transportation, he was inclined to move immediately to the insurgent camp, even though all he had was the ammunition the men carried in their cartridge pouches. This did not happen, however, and his quick departure from one place was offset by pointless delay in the other. The layover would have been productive only if he had made use of the time to assemble his equipment, especially by ordering his supply trains to be dispatched from Queimadas. The setbacks of the long halt would have been outweighed by the gains. He would have traded speed for strength, and he would have substituted a more secure plan of attack for a direct assault. But he did not do this. In fact, he did exactly the opposite. After the long period of inactivity in Monte Santo, the expedition set off even less equipped than it had been when it arrived two weeks earlier, leaving behind, once again, part of its already reduced supply of provisions.

In the meantime, information was coming in that contradicted the forecasts of an early victory. There were disputes about the number of fanatics and the resources they had available. Some claimed that there were no more than five hundred at most; others insisted there were ten times as many, or around five thousand all together. It might have been possible to estimate a figure but this was not done. Moreover, all the whispers and rumors were leading to suspicions of treason. Certain local authorities with connections to the Counselor were strongly suspected of giving him aid with supplies and information on the slightest movements of the troops. Moreover, it was known that the enemy’s clever spies would precede and accompany the troops regardless of army security. In fact, as it was learned later, many of them were in the town itself, mingling with the troops. In Canudos they would certainly have found out well ahead of time which road had been selected for the line of operations so they could fortify its most difficult stretches, and the battle of Uauá would be reenacted with a preliminary engagement on the highway before the attack on the settlement. It was a mistake for the troops to leave their base of operations the way they did. In fact, the expedition started out on its mission as if it were returning from a campaign. Once again abandoning part of its munitions, it moved on even more undersupplied to Monte Santo than it had been at Queimadas, with the illusion of resupplying itself in Canudos. This amounts to saying that the troops disarmed themselves as they approached the enemy. They were going to face the unknown with the fragile armor of their impulsive bravery, so typical of our people.

Defeat was certain.

These lapses of judgment were compounded by others, revealing their total ignorance of the basics of warfare. The plan of the day with regard to the organization of the attacking forces is an example.

Cryptic as are most orders for distribution of detachments, there was not the slightest information as to the deployment, formation, or maneuvers of the combat units. There was not one word about the certainty of ambush. There was nothing, either, about the distribution of units to respond to the special characteristics of the enemy and the terrain. The commanding officer of the expedition borrowed a few principles of Prussian tactics as if he were leading a small army corps through some meadow in Belgium. He went about dividing his troops into three columns, preparing to go into battle with a traditional formation of infantry and supporting detachments. That was it, orders coming out of a mindless adherence to obsolete formulas of warfare. They were completely inappropriate for the current situation.

According to von der Goltz, any military organization should reflect national character. On the one extreme are rigid Prussian tactics that stress the mechanical precision of fire. On the other side of the spectrum is the nervous swordplay and chivalry of the Latin. We, on the other hand, have been accustomed to dangerous sparring with stealthy fighters whose strength is in their weakness, in their pattern of strike and flight, and where the enemy escapes by disappearing into a landscape that hides him. In such conditions charging troops and discharging weapons were equally useless. Against such enemies and on such ground any kind of battle line was impossible to consider. It was not even possible to wage a battle in the technical sense of the term. This conflict, or to put it bluntly, this brutal manhunt beating through the brush for the target at Canudos, was going to be reduced to a series of fierce attacks, agonizing delays, and sudden skirmishes. It was ludicrous to think that a classical battle would take place with an opening volley of violent gunfire and a wild epilogue of bayonet charges. Given the nature of the land and the people, this war should have been in the more capable hands of a guerrilla warfare strategist—someone who could innovate on the spot. This war would present situations that most military operations experience as distinct moments—at rest, on the march, and in battle. Here the marching troops had to be ready for the enemy at every turn of the road; they might find him lunging at them from within their own ranks, and they had to be ready for action even when at ease.

The command gave no thought to these conditions. The commander simply formed his three columns and put himself in front of them. He was placing the brute force of three clumsy columns of men against the finely honed skill of the jagunços. Now, it stands to reason that a military leader should know something about psychology. However disciplined a solider might be—a bundle of muscle, bone, and nerves trained to react without will or thought to the bugle call—he will become another creature entirely when subjected to the stresses of war. This march through the backlands would put the emotions of these soldiers to the most arduous test. Marching along unfamiliar ground, surrounded by a parched and savage landscape, our soldier is normally brave when facing an enemy, but he becomes a fearful coward when his invisible adversary reveals his palpable presence by lying in wait in ambush. While in normal warfare an advance-guard skirmish warns the following troops, it is dangerous in these conditions. The terrified detachments break ranks in confusion and instinctively head back for the rear.

These contingencies should have been taken into account. The units should have been widely spread out even though it would have left them completely isolated. It would have helped morale to know that their comrades would promptly reinforce them by attacking the enemy from the other side. This would have averted panic and made it easier to manage the men. A decentralized command would have allowed the leaders of smaller units to act on their own initiative in response to the circumstances of the moment. The way to fight this war was to mimic the enemy’s free style of fighting, by running a formation parallel to his but with better discipline. This was the only way to minimize the chances of defeat and to counteract the effects of sudden ambush. The only way to win this war was through a series of successive attacks.

To summarize, the expeditionary force should have fanned out from the start of its march and gradually closed in on the fanatics as it regrouped in Canudos. It did just the opposite. It mindlessly set out in unified columns, in mass formation, by brigades. It would be broken up soon enough in Canudos.

The March to Canudos

It was under these poor conditions that they set out for Canudos on January 12, 1897. They took the Cambaio road.

This is the shortest and the roughest route. At first it is deceptive, as it follows the Cariacá valley, a band of fertile land shaded by thickets that are a sign of the dense forests ahead. After a few miles, the harsh terrain becomes evident. The rocky trail narrows and becomes more and more impassable as it approaches the Acarú Range. From here it curves eastward, climbing three successive slopes to the site of the Lagem de Dentro farm, at an altitude of a thousand feet.

It took them two days to reach this point. The artillery held up the march. They painfully dragged the Krupps up the incline while the sappers went ahead to clear the road of stumps and debris and to open up winding paths in an attempt to avoid the steeper trails. Although their success depended on their mobility, the troops were paralyzed by having to move those huge masses of metal.

After passing Lagem de Dentro and after crossing the divide between the banks of the Itapicurú and Vaza-Barris rivers, the road begins a descent. The march becomes more difficult because of the complicated terrain where the seasonal tributaries of the Bendegó start. The Bendegó catch basin is soon in sight. It links the arms of the Acarú, Grande, and Atanásio ranges, which join here in a huge curve. The expedition entered the trough of this deep valley, until they reached another farm, Ipueiras, where they set up camp. This was a mistake. The site was surrounded by rocky cliffs, which made them a target on all sides if the enemy should appear on the hilltops. Fortunately, the jagunços had not made it there yet. The next morning, the troops headed north for Penedo, having by dumb luck escaped grave danger.

They had now come halfway. The roads were getting worse. The hills were striated with trails that wound around them in serpentine coils, rising steeply and then plunging down into great open canyons, where there was no shade.

The sappers continued to clear the way for the cannons as far as Mulungú, five miles beyond Penedo. Their progress was hampered by the lumbering pace of the artillery division.

Speed was imperative. The landscape started to show signs of the enemy: The embers of fires along the road and dwellings burned to the ground revealed his presence. That night, in Mulungú, the camp became alarmed. The faces of sentries had been seen hidden in the dark shadows of the night. They had caught no more than a glimpse but the soldiers slept with their weapons. And the next morning, the seventeenth, the expedition was stuck in the mountains, still far away from their destination, which should have been reached in just three days’ march. They were now about to experience a terrible torture.

Their provisions had run out. The two remaining oxen had to be slaughtered to feed about five hundred men. This alone was the equivalent of a defeat, before even a single shot was fired. To reach Canudos had now become a fight for their lives.

To make matters worse, the pack drivers they had hired in Monte Santo disappeared during the night. Under the pretext of going back in search of munitions, the commissary of that town took off for an unknown destination and never returned.

One man, however, upheld backlands honor, the guide Domingos Jesuíno. He led the troops forward to the Rancho das Pedras, where they set up camp.

Now they were about five miles from Canudos.

Looking north from the camp at night, an observer might have seen a few flickering lights in the distance, now gleaming and then extinguishing intermittently. They were very high up, like bright stars in the clouds. They marked the enemy positions.

The next morning they would be not only visible but ominous.

III

Mount Cambaio

The rock formations of Mount Cambaio loomed in front of them. They were random formations cut in deep trenches or rising up in a series of terraces that looked like huge beams in a fortress built by giants.

The image is perfect. In this part of the backlands the landscape takes on extreme appearances. It is what inspired those tales of “enchanted cities” in Bahia. The backlands imagination has led to serious scholarly research. We should not accuse these simple backlanders of exaggeration. The natural formations have excited the interest of learned societies. Objective observers have traveled across the strange valley of the Vaza-Barris only to stop in awe to gaze, in Lieutenant Colonel Durval de Aguiar’s words, at the “mountains of stone in natural formations that look like fortresses and are of such perfection that they are like works of art.”

Sometimes this illusion is amplified.

Vast cities of the dead arise. These hills, with their sharply pointed edges and heaps of stone, their capriciously hewed ridges, indeed appear to be giant necropolises. The backlander gallops fearfully past them, digging his spurs into his horse’s flanks, imagining a silent city of the dead.

The “little houses” that one sees in the area of the Aracati range are like this—near the Jeremoabo highway that leads to Bom Conselho. There are others throughout the region and they give these sad landscapes a mysterious aura.

Bastions Without Limestone

The Cambaio range is one of those hulking monuments. Certainly no one will find geometric architectural features, such as parapets or redans surrounded by fosses. These crude outcrops reflected the character of those who stood watch here. From a distance, the rock ledges and gullies formed from the ravines would not be visible. The general impression would be of successive terraces stacked up the slope, looking like the crumbling walls of old castles that had suffered waves of assaults and were now just piles of stone in huge semicircles or rows of truncated plinths, towers, and pilasters looking like great toppled columns.

Cambaio is a mountain in ruins. It towers as a misshapen mass, splitting apart under the periodic punishment of sudden storms and searing suns, hacked apart and disjointed. It is undergoing a centuries-old disintegration.

The road to Canudos does not go around the mountain. It goes straight up its side, along a steep trail flanked by cliffs, submerging finally into a tunnel-shaped pass. It was through here that the troops had to make their way.

At this morning hour the mountain was a scintillating sight. The sun beat down on the splintered slabs of rock, throwing off blazing rays over the heights and giving the illusion of intense activity as the refracted light glanced off the gleaming weapons. It looked as if a great army was performing rapid maneuvers. Binoculars scanned the empty mountainside. The only sign of the enemy was the threatening appearance of the earth. He was busy digging himself in. He was lying flat on the ground, burrowed into his dugout—rigid, waiting, finger on the trigger. The sertanejos waited in silence, peering through their rifle sights, their vision fixed on the still-distant columns below as they followed the cautious scouts.

They made slow progress until they reached the first steep slopes about halfway up the side. Held back by the heavy cannons, the soldiers panted and strained as they took turns with the struggling mules that dragged them up the incline. It was here the enemy surprised them. A burst of gunfire sprayed out from scattered dugouts and clumps of bushes. Lying flat on the mountainside, the gunmen made their presence known.

The entire expedition was trapped in the trenches of Mount Cambaio.

First Engagement

The opening fire was accented with loud shouts and vivas to Good Jesus and our Counselor. These were mixed with curses and obscenities. A defiant taunt would be repeated throughout the campaign and would become an ironic chorus: “Step it up, you government sumbitches!”

The entire line wavered. The vanguard stalled and was about to retreat. An imperious voice stopped them. Major Febrônio de Brito broke through the frightened ranks and mobilized the resistance with a resounding response, which was impressive given their disadvantage. They quickly loaded the cannons and bombarded the gunmen. This was the first time they had ever seen anything like these powerful weapons that could shatter rocks. They turned and ran.

The hundred or so men of the Thirty-third Infantry immediately went on the offensive. Tripping, sliding on the rock slabs, leaping and running, tearing through the gullies from every direction, the soldiers clambered up the slopes. A battle line for an attack was formed, an irregular undulating one, stretching from the Ninth Battalion on the right to the Sixteenth Battalion and the Bahian police detachment on the left.

The battle broke out in minutes. Predictably, the lines broke as they encountered the obstacles of the terrain. It was a chaotic advance. The soldiers charged noisily, without any semblance of formation, battalions and companies mixing in confusion. They clawed up the cliffs with their hands, their weapons jangling, their rifles slung in their bandoliers, knocking them in the teeth. Waves of men, a crush of bodies, rammed against the hills. Bursts of rifle fire and ear-splitting explosions mixed with the high notes of the bugle.

On the slope below where the artillery was, the frightened mules and their drivers broke through the firing line. Throwing off their cargo, they galloped away or went tumbling down the steep slope. They were followed by the rest of the drivers who, ignoring orders given at gunpoint, took flight, adding to the confusion.

The sertanejo gunmen reappeared on the crest of the hill. They had two kinds of fighters. Some ran quickly along the roads, ducking in and out of sight. Others stood at their positions high on the mountain. Making the most of their location, they had an ingenious way of compensating for their shortage of weapons and the slow process of loading the ones they did have. They sat in groups of three or four in the bottom of a trench around a single sharpshooter. Hidden from sight, they would hand him the loaded weapons. If a marksman fell, another was ready to replace him. The soldiers below would see the same figure rise up immediately and again point a rifle at them. They would fire another round and once again see him drop and rise up again, the terrifying phantom shooter.

This ploy was soon discovered by the small attack parties that were able to make it to the highest positions one or two at a time. The unique character of the enemy and of the terrain imposed a tactic that was more suited to the conditions and this, along with the limited range of the enemy’s fire, gave them some protection. The difficult terrain was the biggest obstacle to the assault. Their fire was stopped by the cliffs. The jagunços did not wait around for them. Aware that their crude weapons were inferior, they seemed to want to get the enemy to use up the bullets meant for Canudos. They pretended to engage in open warfare. Moving among them was a strongly built but agile black man holding a rifle in his hands. He was their leader, Big John. He called out their maneuvers, using all his skills as a backlands bandit. His men imitated his savage movements, his running charges, jumps, and leaps. Dispersed or in groups, or in successive lines, they advanced, fell back, scattered and regrouped, crawled, rolled, ran up and down, and some fell dead in their tracks. The badly wounded rolled all the way down into the thick of the soldiers, who hit them with their rifle butts. Sometimes they disappeared completely.

The projectiles of the Mannlichers continued to ping uselessly against the bony wall of the mountainside. The advance detachments rapidly gained ground in their ascent up the mountain until they were met with another frontal or side attack from the enemy. Some stopped and others fled in panic. Their demoralized officers made no attempt to stop them. Their names did not appear in the official reports but they were not spared the disdain of their comrades. Most of the troops made it through the fire and attacked the fanatics at close range, cleaning out their ranks and terrorizing them, sending them flying over the hills in all directions.

Finally, the primitive rebel leader began to assemble his men for what he seemed to think would be a decisive hand-to-hand combat. His apelike profile could be seen at the head of his suddenly reassembled band. They moved heroically against the artillery. They were pushed back by an explosion of case shot, which blew up the first of their ranks and sent the rest flying back to their earlier positions. These were now controlled by an advance guard of the army troops. Mixed contingents from all the corps jumped into the last of the trenches to the right. They lost their commanding officer, Wenceslau Leal.

The mountain was taken in three hours. The victory was due to blind courage and total lack of discipline in the way the troops fired. The plan of the day that was issued later gave the credit to the men in the ranks. Small groups of soldiers without any officers in command rained aimless fire against the retreating jagunços with the ferocity and determination of hunters on the last leg of a wild boar hunt.

The jagunços ran away. They were pursued.

The artillery down below was being dragged up the slope.

The mountain crossing had been accomplished. Aside from the dispersion of ammunition, there were few losses: 4 dead and some 20 wounded. In exchange, the backlanders left behind 115 dead.

A Dramatic Episode

It was a slaughter. A tragic event followed it in a theatrical ending.

It happened as they approached the last spurs at the base of the mountain.

The soldiers came upon a huge stone slab on the rough slope, which was held up by two other rocks and slanted at a sharp angle, one end almost touching the ground. It had the appearance of a fallen boulder. This rude shelter was propped up against a wall of sheer rock and inside was huddled a large number of backlanders, about forty according to Dr. Everard Albertazzi, the surgeon accompanying the expedition. They were probably the ones with the last of the ammunition for the blunderbusses. The land gave the vanquished this last bunker.

They took advantage of it. They opened a spray of fire at their pursuers, which briefly stopped them, as well as at the artillery in the rear, which now prepared to bombard the renegade group. All that was needed was one grenade. It missed its mark slightly and hit one of the rocks supporting the slab, splitting it open from top to bottom. The stone fell heavily, with a dull thud, on the unfortunate men under it, crushing them.

The march was resumed. Fire from the retreating defenders of Mount Cambaio grew less frequent, probably a sign of their exhaustion. They finally disappeared.

IV

On the Tablelands

The columns arrived in the afternoon at the tablelands that were at the edge of the settlement and pitched camp. They failed to press the advantage of pursuing the enemy. They were exhausted and starving, having gone without food since the night before. They were barely able to slake their thirst in tiny Lake Cipó. Perhaps encouraged by their illusion of victory, they started to relax. They did not notice that the jagunços had surrounded them. The news of the battle had reached the settlement with the survivors. In order to preempt an imminent attack, a large number of fighters had left the village. They quietly positioned themselves in the caatinga, closing in on the camp.

Night enfolded them. The troops slept under the terrible watch of the enemy.

Second Engagement

Dawn did not betray their presence. The quickly formed columns set off for the final assault on the settlement after a quarter-hour march over level ground.

They had a small problem before they got under way. A piece of shrapnel had become stuck in the bore of one of the cannons, and they were unable to dislodge it. Their solution was to fire the Krupp in the direction of Canudos.

It would be their knock on the doors of the village, loudly announcing the unwelcome and dangerous visitor.

In fact, they fired the cannon. And the troops were attacked from all sides! The episode of Uauá was being reenacted. Tossing aside their archaic firearms, the sertanejos grabbed poles, wagon grates, machetes, pitchforks, prods, and long-bladed knives. They charged screaming as if the cannon had been their signal to attack.

Fortunately, the troops, in column formation, had their weapons ready, and they returned rounds of steady fire on the enemy.

But the jagunços did not retreat. The confusion of the fray thrust them into the gaps between the platoons. For the first time the soldiers were able to see close-up the dark faces of their prey, which until now had been hidden from them, faces that showed their fugitive mountain existence.

The first victim was a corporal of the Ninth Regiment. He was impaled by a cattle prong, and his assailant was pinned by his bayonet as the attackers trampled the two bodies.

Leading the charge was a burly mameluco with a bronzed, freckled face and the body of a gladiator. He towered above the rest. This fierce fighter would remain unknown to history. His name was forgotten. But not the curse that he shouted and that was heard over the roar of battle as he jumped onto the cannon to the right and wrapped his strong arms around it as if he were about to strangle a monster.

“You scum, watch courage!”

The gunner shrank back terrified, while the man dragged away the hostage weapon.

It was a near disaster.

The commanding officer, who was probably the best soldier in the unit, assessed the situation. He shouted encouragement to his astonished men and ran after the cannon kidnappers. A brute hand-to-hand combat ensued. It was a whirlwind of entwined bodies, struggling with no weapons, just fists and strangleholds and the sound of groans, death rattles, and crashing bodies.

The recaptured cannon took its original position. Things did not improve, however. The jagunços had not been repelled. They had chosen to fall back and now circulated in the thin underbrush. Their faces could be seen briefly, appearing and then disappearing in the clearings. Once again scattered and impossible to reach, they threw crude projectiles at the enemy: horn tips, stones, nailheads, objects no longer in use, taken from their death arsenal. They continued the battle from distant positions, using their muskets and long-barreled rifles against the modern arsenal. They were falling back on their custom of prolonging the battle indefinitely. This was a more deadly way of fighting than the violent charge they had just led. The struggle would now become a cruel waiting game, a monotonous repetition of small events that would gradually weaken the enemy. Like a hangman with blood on his hands, he would lose his will to kill. Men’s lives were being thrown away in meaningless scuffles.

The situation was becoming untenable.

The invaders had a desperate recourse available to them. It would be to quickly change the field of combat and take the town. They were likely to have the fierce gunmen on their flanks and possible reinforcements lying in wait for them at the entrance to the settlement. But the short trajectory of about a mile and a quarter between them and the settlement might exhaust their munitions, so thoughtlessly wasted on Mount Cambaio. They would not be able to reach their goal without weapons. The starving soldiers were burdened with approximately seventy wounded. Their presence would only add to the confusion.

A preliminary bombardment was out of the question. They had not more than twenty rounds of ammunition left.

The only option was to retreat quickly. The commanding officer called a quick meeting of his staff and outlined the situation. He informed them that they had to choose the lesser of two evils: Either continue the fight and die or walk away. The choice was to retreat, under the express condition that they leave not one weapon behind, not one wounded soldier or unburied body.

This retreat, however, was in complete contradiction to the results of the battle. As on the day before, the losses of the enemy were far greater than those of the troops. Only four government soldiers had been killed and about thirty were wounded. While the number of casualties was not known, the jagunço ranks had been decimated. Dr. Everard Albertazzi, one of the surgeons, quickly counted more than three hundred bodies. The fouled waters of Lake Cipó were now red. The sun beating down on the lake made it look like a giant bloodstain against the gray-brown of the parched earth.

João Abade’s Lightning Brigade

A retreat saved them. If they had risked everything and attacked, they might have won.

Let us look at the archives. Witnesses related one of the more unusual incidents of the campaign. A while after the engagement at Tabuleirinhos, the Little Tablelands, the citizens of Canudos became alarmed at the intensity of the battle. Anticipating what would happen to the town if the soldiers attacked, João Abade gathered the six hundred able-bodied men left and set out to provide reinforcements for their comrades. About halfway there, his men suddenly found themselves under fire. What had happened was that the government soldiers at the original battleground were not very good marksmen. Most of them shot too high and the bullets went over the heads of their targets and as far as their range permitted. All of these spent bullets fell on João Abade’s men. The jagunços were confused at seeing their comrades fall from bullet wounds. They heard the whistle of bullets but could not see the enemy. The thin vegetation around them was not suitable for ambushes. The nearest hills, as far as they could see, were barren, without a man in sight. The bullets kept coming from all sides, pouring down on the astonished men like a silent shower of lightning. A superstitious fear gripped these hardy men as they saw their companions falling dead around them. They turned their gaze skyward, where the bullets were descending in invisible parabolas. At this point, they could not be contained. They turned heel back to Canudos, where they struck terror with the terrible news.

There was no doubt: The enemy would soon be there on the heels of its last defenders, carrying weapons of terrible destruction. The Counselor’s spell was broken. Dizzy with fear, the ingenuous population suddenly lost all the beliefs that had taken hold of them. Bands of refugees carrying hastily gathered possessions now fled as quickly as they could, across the square and down the streets, heading for the caatingas. Not even their most respected leaders could stop their flight. Meanwhile disheveled women were screaming, sobbing and shouting, making an incredible noise, waving their holy relics, and praying. Still under the Counselor’s influence, they crowded around the door of the Sanctuary, begging the evangelist to come out and speak to them.

The Counselor Performs Another Miracle

But Antônio Conselheiro, who even in normal times refused to look a woman in the face, even now kept his distance. He climbed to the heights of the new church, followed by about six of his inner circle, and then had the ladder pulled up.

The distressed crowd stayed below, cursing, weeping, and praying. The aloof apostle did not even glance at them as he strode impassively over the wobbling, creaking boards. Looking out over the rebel stronghold, where deserters of his community of faithful were making haste to escape, he prepared himself for martyrdom.

At this moment news arrived that the government force was retreating. It was a miracle. Chaos turned into a homecoming celebration.

V

Retreat

It was true—the retreat had begun.

Their hopes of success dashed, the only choice for the unhappy troops was to hold their position and to continue to fight a battle that held no victory. They would have hovered between losing and winning as, ironically, the vanquished won with every step forward. The backlanders turned every skirmish into a victory simply by standing on their own ground.

Major Febrônio de Brito’s retreat, because of the circumstances in which it occurred, is one of the most dramatic episodes in our military history. The men had fought for two entire days with no rations at all. The two days were separated by the deceptive truce of a night filled with alarms. Their ranks were weakened with about seventy wounded. A great number of others were hardly able to bear arms. The strongest had to leave the firing line to drag the cannons or to carry the staggering weight of stacks of rifles and the wounded and dying on their stretchers. Behind them was a rebel mob and in front of them sixty miles through the backlands desert, mined with ambushes.

When they saw the troops moving, the jagunços gave chase.

Their leader was now a mestizo of unmatched bravery and ferocity. He was known as Pajehú. He was a full-blooded cafuzo and his impulsive temper revealed the traits of the lesser races from which he came. He was the consummate primitive fighter—simpleminded, fierce, and fearless. He was evil and childlike, instinctively chivalrous, a hero without knowing it. He was an excellent example of recessive atavism, stalking his prey upright on two feet with the same drive with which he defended his cave with a stone hatchet.

This sly barbarian assigned his comrades to positions on either side of the road where the army column would have to pass.

The troops were forced to fight on the march.

They fired a last round and started to climb single file up the terraces along the side of the mountain. As they ascended, in one of the most vulnerable maneuvers known in warfare, they abandoned the last pretense of military tactics, which prescribe a staircase formation so the fighting corps can take turns in repelling the enemy.

The expedition had lost its military discipline completely. Officers and men were on equal footing and facing the same dangers. The commanding officer, whose courage never flagged, took the greatest risks. Captains and subalterns joined the privates in firing their rifles, with no one giving commands. A sergeant led the column, against all common practice.

This is how they once again walked into the jaws of Mount Cambaio. There was the same fearsome landscape, with its narrow gorges and harrowing precipices hanging over deep abysses. The path would narrow between the cliffs and then open up again along the slopes. The enemy bunkers, high up on the mountain, hovered over them the whole way. The scene was marked by one difference: The bodies of the jagunços they had slaughtered the day before lay facedown or on their backs among the rocks, at the openings of their bunkers or flung about the slopes. Their surviving companions swarmed over them like an avenging horde of demons over a multitude of ghosts.

The rebel gunmen did not respond to the last round of fire with lead. They flanked the column from the heights, letting their most powerful weapon, the earth, do their work. And the earth responded. The man who had lost his rifle or his cattle prong in the earlier fray had only to look around—the mountain was an armory. All about were huge boulders, either single blocks or in piles, ready to be released in deadly rockfalls. He took advantage of them. His trusty rifle became a lever. The boulders swayed, and then fell, rolling at first in an uncertain direction along the folds of the earth and then faster down the steepest slopes, free-falling at last in great bounds, crashing against the others and splitting into splinters, to fall like monstrous cannonballs on the heads of the horrified troops.

Under the avalanche of stone, the men sought shelter by pressing themselves under the overhangs covering the road halfway up the mountain. The fatigue of the march was more effective than the enemy in undoing them. The searing sun shed a crude tropical light on this region of bare rock and it was as if the mountain range had caught fire. Nature stood still in the blaze of summer heat. The few shots that were fired barely disturbed the silence because sound did not echo in this still, unbreathable air. The dry thump of the cannon had no resonance. Human brutality moved unhearing through the universal stillness.

They made slow progress through the trenches.

The truth was that the sertanejos did not exactly attack them.

Like a band of mutinous monkeys, the backlanders had turned the battle into the sorry sport of pelting the soldiers with stones. Shouting riotously, they tore back and forth over the highlands. The troops below continued on their way, sad actors at the end of a badly staged play. The excitement of the last two days of battles and deprivation had suddenly ended in a sinister brawl. Worse than the gunfire were the loud catcalls and taunts, punctuated by long whistles and strident laughter, as if they were being pursued by a gang of thugs.

At long last, after a three-hour march, they reached Bendegó de Baixo. The excellent location of this place, a small plateau where the highway flattened out, gave them a better means of defense. Here is where the last engagement occurred, at nightfall, in the half-light of the backlands sunset.

It was brief but terrible. The jagunços attacked the artillery with the intention of taking it away from the troops. The machine guns pumped fire on them and drove them off. Leaving twenty dead behind them, they moved off for the lowlands, disappearing in the night.

The hours of trial were over.

A providential incident closed the event. Frightened by the bullets, a herd of wild goats ran into the camp at the same time that the sertanejos fell back. This was a happy diversion. The completely exhausted men chased crazily after the swift animals, overjoyed at the promise of a feast after two days of enforced fast. An hour later these pathetic heroes, ragged, filthy, and stinking, were squatting around the campfire, tearing at half-cooked meat as the embers lit up their faces. They were like a band of starving cannibals at a primitive banquet.

The expedition left for Monte Santo early the next day. There was not one able-bodied man left. Even those who carried their wounded comrades limped at every step with bleeding feet that had been slashed by thorns and gashed by the rocks. Some looked sadly ridiculous. They wore crude straw hats, their uniforms were in tatters, and their naked bodies were barely covered by their ragged capes. Trying to line up in a semblance of military formation, they entered the village like a band of refugees, beaten down by the terrible sun and fleeing desolation and misery.

The people greeted them in silence.

VI

The Procession of Litters

On the afternoon of that same day the slopes of Mount Cambaio were full of movement once again. This time the sound of mournful chants, not the roar of battle, filled the air. Slowly a long procession headed for Canudos came down the mountain.

These were not fighters, but the faithful, carrying their dead in crude litters made of wooden poles tied with liana stalks. They were honoring the martyrs of the faith. They had spent the day searching for the bodies, a sad task that occupied the entire settlement. They had searched every crevice, the tangled underbrush, the caverns and crevasses.

Many of the fighters, in falling down the mountainside, had landed in caves and canyons. Others were hanging by their clothing over deep chasms. By searching the heights and the depths, the jagunços had begun to round up the bodies of their lost companions. Night had fallen before they completed their task of devotion. Only a few bodies were missing, those that had been burned by the troops. The funeral procession made its way to Canudos.

The sun was setting low on the horizon, casting a reddish gold glow on the vast plains. Its dying rays, hovering above the dark that had already fallen on the lowlands, now passed over the mountain, illuminating it for a few moments. The fleeting light also lit up the procession as it marched to the cadence of the prayers. They moved quietly upward as the shadows followed them, until they reached the top, where the last light gleamed on the high summit, flickering like huge tapers, soon to be extinguished by the dusk.

The first stars were twinkling, and visible now in the heavens was Orion’s gleaming sword as it rose over the backlands.

CHAPTER V

THE MOREIRA CÉSAR EXPEDITION

I

Moreira César and the Reason for His Fame

The totally unexpected recent failure of legitimate arms coincided with a critical phase in our history.

In the aftermath of the bloody civil war, which had spawned a steady stream of seditions and revolts since the first days of the new regime, Brazilian society in 1897 was highly vulnerable to disruption by diverse agents. And when history would later shed light on the interesting psychology of that time, it would show how poorly adaptable the people were to the recently inaugurated political system. It was as if the regime, by speeding up a process of change in an environment that was still languishing from the wasting disease of the monarchy, had triggered intense disorder. The republic was spiraling downward, with disaster occurring at regular intervals, like the stages of a recurring disease.

The civil government formed in 1894 did not have the essential base of organized public opinion. The country was divided between the winners and the losers. It was unable to correct a situation that was neither a state of revolution nor of normalcy and that did not respond either to extreme force or to normal legal means. The government was faced with a society that was changing rapidly from a state of extreme lassitude to one of high discipline. From incessant conspiracies to repeated states of siege, the situation mirrored the dilemma of a weak intellectual framework within a misunderstood political structure. Since it was not possible to accelerate the political education of the populace, the result was a debasement of democratic principles, which in that environment were diluted to mere rhetoric.

There was no way to halt the decline in national affairs. The previous government of Marshal Floriano Peixoto was, because of very special circumstances, a combative and destructive regime. But in putting down successive seditions, it had aggravated social instability and was counterproductive. Having come into power out of a conflict with a regime that had suspended constitutional guarantees, it now proceeded to restrict them. Tenaciously clinging to the constitution, it disregarded it. In the name of legality, it sanctioned criminality and turned the country into a lawless society. The inflexible and inscrutable Iron Marshal perhaps involuntarily undid the mission to which he devoted his career. In the crises that assailed him, he unscrupulously used any means and any people he could muster, no matter what their origin, even if his actions flaunted public opinion. The passions and interests of his party were mediocre and self-interested. When, in the last days of his administration, he put down the September revolt, which gathered all the discontented forces of previous years, he unleashed the explosive germs of future unrest.

He destroyed as well as created revolutionaries. He fought unrest with unrest. When he left power, he did not take along all those who had supported him in the difficult transactions of his government. He left behind many who had been trained to incite insurgency and who were angry at having been left behind. They had until now had easy careers and they were dizzy with success. It was hard to stop now. They plotted to work from the inside to pursue their ambitions.

What happened then was a common case of collective psychology. The citizenry was taken by surprise at the turn of events in public life; its abject passivity and neutrality actually fostered the proliferation of the very subversive forces that it feared. Demonstrating the “psychic mimicry” theorized by Scipio Sighele, the moral minority adopted the mediocre characteristics of those in power. In all sectors public figures arose that normally would have become laughingstocks. Lacking ideals or objectives, and limited to archaic political programs derived from a crude mix of Latin American nativism and thirdhand Jacobinism, these cynical agitators began to live off a corpse.[1] The grave of Marshal Floriano Peixoto became a rallying point for the impertinent rebels and the great man’s name was the password for civil disorder.

The complicity and indifference of the thinking majority of the country made all manner of excess possible. Mediocrity set the tone for the times, which fortunately were transitory. The unrest and economic instability that they inherited from the former regime did not bring them to their senses. In fact, they did everything possible to perpetuate the situation. Moreover, they imprudently supported the army that had, in defiance of logic, come to hold the balance of power in the country from the days of abolition to the declaration of the republic.

Of all the men in the entire army it was a colonel of the infantry who seemed to have inherited the rare tenacity necessary to put down rebellions. This was Antônio Moreira César.

The fetishistic tendencies of the times called for idols in uniform. He was chosen as the latest one.

When news of the disaster escalated the gravity of the battle going on in the backlands, the government could think of no one better to bring the situation under control. He was given the command of the next expedition.

A legend of bravery was spun around the newly appointed commander.

He had recently arrived from Santa Catarina, where he had played a principal role in the conclusion of the federalist campaign of Rio Grande. He was exceptionally popular and was greeted with acclamations and affectionate nicknames that were typical of the unrestrained fashion of the day. One must recall that the details of the civil war that, by revolt of the fleet, stretched from Rio de Janeiro to the South were still vivid in the public mind. National opinion wavered between Gumercindo Saraiva’s daring and Gomes Carneiro’s caution. There were wildly differing views on who had won or lost. Out of all this emotional confusion emerged a caricature of heroism. Heroes of the hour, who had been honored by a statue in the square, were suddenly toppled. It was never clear if they were saints or bandits. Alternatively bombarded by panegyrics and then insults, accompanied by sarcasm and slander, they went down in history at the bloodletting at Inhanduhy, the slaughterhouse of Campo Osório, the siege of Lapa, the barricades of Pico do Diabo, and the martial law of Itararé. There were legions of them—all celebrated, all of them cursed.

Moreira César stood apart from the rest.

Admirers and adversaries alike were surprised when they saw him for the first time.

He did not look anything like a famous hero. He was short—he had a scrawny chest and bowlegs. He was organically unsuited for the career he had chosen.

He lacked the straight posture and strong constitution that for a soldier are the physical foundation of courage. Clad in his tight uniform, which he rarely took off, his cape thrown over his adolescent shoulders, he had an awkward and frail appearance. His unattractiveness was made worse by a morbid expression. Nothing at all revealed the astonishing and rare courage he had proven. His pale, sickly face had not a single impressive feature. His bulging forehead, elongated by his baldness, shielded a pair of lifeless, sad eyes. His face was as inexpressive as a wax cast, a lack of expression that comes from muscular weakness. Bursts of anger or energy would go unobserved in this countenance due to the lack of firmness of the tissues, which kept his face rigid and impassive.

Those who saw him for the first time had a difficult time comprehending that this man with the slow, cold gestures, and courteous if timid manners, was the brilliant warrior or heartless devil that they imagined. He did not have the demeanor of one or the other—perhaps because he was something of both.

His supporters as well as his detractors found something to justify their views. This singular man had special qualities as well as monstrous tendencies, both with the same degree of intensity. He was persistent, patient, dedicated, loyal, bold, cruel, vindictive, and ambitious. He was a complex man confined in a very weak body.

These attributes were protected by a cautious and deliberate reserve. Only one man had recognized them or was able to see through him, and that was Marshal Floriano Peixoto. The two men had an affinity because they were so alike. The marshal thus used him the same way that Louis XI had taken advantage of Bayard, if the romantic bravery of “the white knight” can be compared to the cunning of a Fra Diavolo. Moreira César was neither noble nor depraved, but he could be said to have something of the character of both men, although in reduced measure. He was a man who had fallen short of his potential, as if nature had been about to create a man destined for greatness but stopped before endowing him with the special qualities he needed, just at the stage when he would become either a great man or a criminal. The result was that he was imbalanced. He could swing from devotion to hate, serenity to fury, and bravery to revolting barbarity.

He had the uneven and bizarre temperament of a proven epileptic, hiding the nervous instability of a seriously ill person with deceptive calm.

However, occasionally his self-control would be broken by the impulsive movements characteristic of the disease. It was not until later that the disease would manifest itself fully with violent seizures. If we could follow his life, we would see the steady progression of his illness. It would give him, as it does to those who suffer from it, an interesting profile. It would be defined by ever-shorter periods of calm.

In fact, his comrades in arms were very aware of the alarming episodes that again and again, with great regularity, would put his brilliant military career on hold. We cannot recount them here and we risk repeating exaggerated or false stories.

All of these rumored incidents contain the element of violence—the beating of a military surgeon, a barely averted knife attack on an Argentine official over a communication he had not understood. We will not go into them and will just briefly summarize what is more commonly known.

One incident in particular revealed his savage energy.

It happened in Rio de Janeiro in 1884.

A journalist by the name of Apulchro de Castro, who could better be described as a madman, had for a long time slandered the court of the former empire and had gotten away with it due to lax laws regulating offenses of this nature. He directed some of his insults toward the army, affecting all classes from the common citizen to the royal family. Unfortunately, a few officers took matters into their own hands and lynched him.

Among the perpetrators was the young captain Moreira César, who at that time was just over thirty years old. Until then he had a perfect record and had been commended on occasion for his exemplary performance. In the present situation, in broad daylight and in front of the entire police force, he was the most aggressive and cold-blooded of all. Castro had sought asylum under the law and was riding in a carriage next to a high-ranking army officer. Moreira César stepped out from the crowd and thrust a knife into his ribs.

For this crime he was sent to Mato Grosso, and he did not return from the Brazilian Army’s hot Siberia until after the proclamation of the republic.

Let’s take a look at him at that time. He was still a captain in the army, and although he had never drawn a sword in combat, he acted as if he had won many victories. In the first uncertain days of the republic, the government needed a strong figure, someone who could be relied upon for handling crises and acting boldly. His boyish figure passed through the barracks and the streets to the sympathetic murmurs of approval and praise of the people. He was the man of the hour. The fact was, however, that he was an undistinguished bureaucrat who had been assigned to mundane tasks. All the military records had to show was an uneven and disturbed record. He had used the dagger more frequently than his virgin sword.

It was only later in his life that his sword would be drawn from its scabbard. In 1893 he was a colonel, after three rapid promotions in two years. When the revolt of the fleet broke out, he was given orders by Marshal Floriano Peixoto to go to Santa Catarina to stop the spread of the rebellion in the South, which was threatening bordering states. He went with discretionary powers. Never was a state of siege imposed as firmly or as ruthlessly in our country as it was with Moreira César’s iron fist.

The unconscionable shootings that took place speak for themselves. The nation was so outraged that when the revolt had been subdued, the new civil government demanded an investigation. The reply, by telegram, came immediately. It was an abrupt and defiant no. It was a sharp rebuke to the authorities, and he did not bother to give any explanations.

Months later they called him to Rio de Janeiro. He embarked with the Seventh Battalion on a merchant vessel. On the open sea, to the surprise of his companions, he arrested the captain. He assaulted him, without the slightest provocation, on suspicion of treason, because of a slight deviation in the ship’s course. The act would be totally inexplicable other than as a manifestation of his psychic disorder.

His prestige, however, did not diminish. He made himself the supreme commander of his battalion. He increased his personnel to numbers far in excess of the regulations. Moreover, he broke the law in admitting into the ranks dozens of minor children who were unfit to bear arms. His word was law, however, and he put together the best corps in the army. In his long periods of lucidity he displayed the rare qualities of an exceptional military leader and disciplinarian. This contrasted with the intermittent fits of rage that attacked him and which he could not control. These became more pronounced and more frequent.

When he was given command of the Canudos expedition, he committed a series of rash acts that finally resulted in a catastrophe. Two of these are examples of impulsive behavior. One was his sudden departure from Monte Santo a day ahead of the official schedule, causing consternation among his staff. The second happened three days later when, again a day ahead of schedule, he attacked the settlement with a thousand exhausted men who had not recovered from their long march. These two incidents, an expression of his neurosis, were revealing. All the erratic things he had done during his disturbed life were now clearly seen as warning symptoms of a clear diagnosis.

Epilepsy feeds off the passions and grows with strong outbursts of emotion. When it is still dormant, it is manifested in barely noticeable mental disturbances, but it undermines human consciousness. A crime or burst of heroism is often associated with an attack. If the murderer’s arm be restrained or the hero stopped from making his charge, the sick man will reveal his condition by falling into a rage. The victim often turns to crime as an alternative to madness.

For a long time he is only semiaware of his condition. He suffers a continuous series of brief seizures, which no one notices, and which he himself often does not notice. He increasingly senses that his life is going out of control and he fights it tenaciously. His lucid moments sustain him and he seeks a way to control himself so that he can function normally. His inhibitions gradually weaken and his sick mind finds it increasingly more difficult to adapt to reality and to make sense of events around him. He starts to confuse, invert, and deform external facts. The invalid then falls into a twilight state. His weakened brain synthesizes all his previous delirious moments. He is capable at any moment of committing a crime or, just as accidentally, an act of heroism.

There is nothing that society can do at this point other than to put him in a straitjacket or give him honors. Collective passions are also ruled by the general law of relativity. If a man of genius can manipulate a great people, dangerous fanatics can also fascinate backward masses. Our country was under the influence of the doomed-leader syndrome. Unique individuals crossed the scene, and Colonel Moreira César stands out among them. His ordinary past only highlighted the fierce energy he expended in his last days.

It is still too early to try to analyze the social environment that produced him. In cases such as these, time rather than space is needed to bring the historical facts into focus. Therefore let us close this perilous digression.

First Regular Expedition

Following orders, Colonel Moreira César departed for Bahia with his own Seventh Infantry Battalion under the command of Major Raphael Augusto da Cunha Mattos, a battery of the Second Regiment of the Artillery led by Captain José Agostinho Salomão da Rocha, and a squadron of the Ninth Cavalry under Captain Pedreira Franco. This was the core of the hastily assembled brigade composed of three branches of service. It was reinforced by three other corps, all of them incomplete. The Sixteenth, stationed in São João d’el Rei, moved out under Colonel Souza Menezes with 28 officers and 290 men. The Thirty-third had about 140 men, and the Ninth Infantry of Colonel Pedro Nunes Tamarindo was accompanied by a few contingents of Bahian state troops.

The commander of the expedition did not stay long in Bahia. He gathered the forces he had available and left immediately for Queimadas on February 8, just five days after he had left the capital of the republic. Here all the troops were assembled— about thirteen hundred well-equipped men, with fifteen million cartridges and seventy rounds of cannon shot. The expedition had been organized with amazing speed. Leaving Queimadas, the “first base of operations,” under the command of a lieutenant, along with eighty sick soldiers and seventy minors who could not carry a heavy knapsack, most of the troops left for the “second base of operations,” Monte Santo, where they arrived on the twentieth ready to attack.

They arrived under a cloud. The day before, the commanding officer had suffered a violent epileptic seizure. This happened along the way at a farm known as Quirinquinquá. It was so strong that the five army surgeons were concerned about a recurrence and possible dire consequences. The other officers, fully aware of the serious implications of the diagnosis, nevertheless cautiously avoided discussing the situation. Colonel Moreira César was thus moving ahead with the campaign as a condemned man, in the words of his own staff surgeons.

It follows that this campaign was not carried out with the careful forethought and planning that are so essential. The errors of the previous expeditions had plainly resulted in disaster, yet nothing was done to prepare for the very unique circumstances of the mission. Instead the entire plan consisted of launching a thousand-odd bayonets against Canudos as quickly as possible.

The military engineers assigned to the brigade from the headquarters general staff, Domingos Alves Leite and Alfredo do Nascimento, had just one week to reconnoiter the very difficult and unfamiliar terrain. In such a short time it was impossible for them to identify the strategic points to secure the line of operations. The urgency with which most military surveys are conducted was nothing in comparison to what was required of these engineers. They were limited to guesswork, rough estimates based on what was visible with the naked eye, lines measured between distant mountaintops that they could hardly see, and distances estimated by pedometers attached to the boots of hastily dispatched operatives. They tried to get their bearings by asking questions of the few inhabitants of the places they passed through. This was difficult because in the backlands distance was measured in the treacherous unit known as leagues, which local tradition typically exaggerated since the sertanejo would brag about the long distances he traveled, and all directions were a confusing matter of local knowledge. If the engineers’ lines were no more than five degrees off, it was considered an accomplishment. The information on the features of the terrain, composition of the soil, availability of fresh water, and the like was completely unreliable. They turned in the results of the survey to the commanding officer, who approved them with no comment.

A new route was selected based on the survey. Running to the east of the Cambaio road, and longer by twenty or twenty-five miles, it had the advantage of circumventing the mountainous region. Beginning at Monte Santo the expedition headed for the settlement of Cumbe, due east by southeast. When it reached this point, it turned and marched north, circling the fringes of the Aracati mountains, along a path that wound gradually north by northwest and came out on the old Maçacará road at the place known by the name of Rosário. As the troops took this road, the officers did not think to turn it into a line of operations by picking out two or three points that could be easily defended. This could have helped them resist if they were attacked and had to fall back or retreat.

Defeat was not even considered to be a remote possibility. The perfunctory advance scouting was a dispensable concession to classical military strategy. The sharp eye of the guide, Captain Jesuíno, was enough to assure them that the road was clear.

They were aware that the road took them through long stretches of caatinga, requiring that they clear it with picks. Furthermore, it was common knowledge, or should have been, that a march of twenty-five miles in the height of summer required each soldier to carry his water supply on his back, the way the Roman legions did in Tunisia. To spare themselves this inconvenience, they carried an artesian well with them, as if they had detailed knowledge of the substrata of the ground, when they were hardly familiar with its surface features. Perhaps they had in their ranks visionary rhabdomancers able to point with a wand to the precise place where water might be found. We shall see how this played out later on.

Meanwhile they marched ahead, toward the unknown, along rarely traveled paths. They were in the stretch of territory where all the cross-country trails converge into a centuries-old roadway that connects Bom Conselho to Jeremoabo. It is a winding road that runs east, to avoid the rugged highlands to the north, then slopes gently down to the Vaza-Barris and finally arrives at the divide between that river and the Itapicurú. It is a huge area where there is no water of any kind and the earth sucks up even the most torrential rains like a sponge.

They should have known that their route was long and treacherous. Sixty miles in that place was equivalent to a distance ten times as long. The logical thing would have been to carry the minimum supplies that they would need so they would not be stranded in the desert. At Monte Santo they had left a very weak defense: a few dozen men under the command of Colonel Menezes. The towering mountain above them offered the enemy a position from which a half dozen of them could demolish the camp with a few rounds of fire. This did not happen, but it should have been assumed that it would. All the intelligence being gathered indicated that the sertanejos were energetically preparing for the coming battle.

The news was certain. Canudos had grown in three weeks to an extraordinary size. News of the latest victory over the Febrônio de Brito expedition, was embellished by those who recounted it, and expanded into numerous romantic episodes. This overcame the last vacillation of the believers who until then were afraid to join Antônio Conselheiro’s army. As in the early days of the foundation of the settlement, groups of pilgrims streamed in from the hillsides, carrying everything they owned. Many carried in hammocks their sick, dying, or aged relatives who wished to find their last resting place on that holy ground. The blind, paralyzed, and leprous sought a miracle, an instant cure, from a simple gesture of the venerable miracle man. There were, as always, all sorts of people—small cattle breeders and credulous, athletically built cowboys along with all manner of sertanejo lowlife, and simple mothers of families in sisterhood with the wildest whores. Invariably at the rear of the procession, walking in aloof solitude, as if they were above it all, were the loose desperadoes and available mercenaries, who were looking for a bigger stage on which to show their impulsive bravery and to slake their thirst for adventure. In the course of the day, pack bearers loaded with provisions converged from all directions down the Calumbi, Jeremoabo, and Uauá roads. The supplies were being sent to Canudos by the faithful who lived at a distance, in Vila Nova da Rainha, Alagoinhas, and all the surrounding towns and villages. There was a great supply of goods and enthusiasm.

What the Jagunços Thought About the New Expedition

At first light work was assigned. There was no lack of hands; in fact, there were too many volunteers. Sentry details of twenty men each were placed along the roads under the command of experienced leaders. They were stationed at the crossroads of the Cocorobó and Macambira highways, in the Umburanas lowlands, and on top of Mount Favela, changing guard with those who had kept watch overnight. The new arrivals, who had just the day before joined the settlement and paid their tribute, went out to perform community labor on the small plantations along either side of the river. Others volunteered for construction jobs at the church. The more experienced, active ones spread out in the direction of Monte Santo, Cumbe, and Queimadas on intelligence missions. Their job was to gather as much information as they could about the new expedition. They conspired with the faithful, who in these parts were easily able to acquire contraband weapons from under the watchful eyes of the authorities. The task of the scouts was to observe what was going on and to find out as much as they could through cautious inquiries.

They were happy as they set off on their tasks. Along the roads, small noisy groups passed by, singing as they went, carrying weapons or work tools. They had forgotten the earlier massacre. Many hoped deep down that they would finally be left alone to lead their simple, quiet lives in the backlands.

Their leaders however, held no illusions. They were not going to take any chances and focused on the urgent task of preparing the defense. Throughout the hot days, the sertanejos could be seen on the hilltops and along the roads, rolling, carrying, and piling up stones, hacking at the earth with pick and spade in constant labor. They were building trenches.

This was an ideal way to construct makeshift fortifications. They dug elliptical or circular cavities in the earth, where a shooter could hide and move around at will. Along the edge of the cavity were rows of stones with openings for the rifle barrels. The talc schist rock slabs allowed easy extraction of stones of all sizes and types. It explains the extraordinary number of holes in the ground that fanned out around Canudos at regular intervals and took on the shape of a monstrous fortress without walls. They were situated in the crossline of fire, commanding the approaches to the town and along dry creek beds. This would make it very difficult for even the best and most agile troops to get through. And as if they predicted that the enemy would seek to avoid a direct passage and assault border trenches, they constructed secondary trenches on the hilltops, as well as more distant ones arranged in the same pattern, so that gunmen driven back from the front lines could retreat there and continue the battle. Thus, no matter whether the enemy kept to the highway or abandoned it, he would be trapped in a web of rifle fire.

The insurgents needed no training to make these preparations. The earth provided the model for their task. Jagged ridges of rock rose up like fortresses around them. Rivers carved out their beds in the form of tunnels and trenches. As far as they could see, the caatinga unfolded into natural tree fortifications. The jagunços picked the tallest shrubs with the thickest foliage and would skillfully weave the inner boughs into a hammock or platform that would comfortably hide one or two sharpshooters just six feet above the ground. This was an ancient strategy, used for ages in ambush warfare against the wild panther. The native mutans, platforms where the hunter waits for his prey, were scattered about and completed the line of trenches. Occasionally they would build heavier fortifications. They would find hills with huge piles of stone on the summit. They cleared out the openings between the rocks, which were filled with tangles of thorny thickets and bromeliads, forming narrow windows shielded by a dense curtain of grass. Then they would clear the space inside the rock enclosure until they could freely move within a huge parapet with a commanding view of the trails and highways.

Their preparations did not stop here. They repaired and cleaned their weapons. The village clanged with the beat of a strident orchestra of hammers and anvils. They straightened scythes, sharpened their cattle prongs, tempered the long, broad blades of their scraping knives, and braced their bows, which were a hybrid of the savage hunting bow and the medieval crossbow. They oiled the locks of their old muskets and double-barreled shotguns. From the forge fires burst a giant metallic roar of an active arsenal.

The supply of gunpowder from neighboring towns was not sufficient. They made their own. They had charcoal. They harvested saltpeter from the surface of the earth. To the north, near the São Francisco, they had laid up a supply of brimstone. The explosive was perfectly made, rivaling commercially made products used by hunters.

They did not want for bullets. The big mouths of the blunderbusses took any kind of projectile: pebbles, nailheads, horn tips, broken glass, and rock splinters.

Men

Finally, there was no shortage of legendary fighters whose adventures were told around the entire backlands. The universality of religious sentiment, on a par with the instinct for violence, had gathered individuals not just from Bahia but from the border states as well. In addition to the jagunço from the São Francisco region, and the cangaceiro of the Carirí, every type of outlaw showed up there. The call to arms attracted strongmen from former backlands conflicts and petty feuds, with comically common names such as “the lizards,” “the hampers,” and “the baskets.”

Every day odd-looking strangers arrived. They came ready to fight, their cartridge belts supplied with bullets and their powder cases full. Double-barreled shotguns were stuck into their belts, from which dangled the inseparable parnaíba. Their bell-mouthed blunderbuss hung from a bandolier. They just showed up, and they made for the town square without being stopped, as if they were old friends. The cunning João Abade greeted them there. His violent history matched theirs but he was smarter and had a little education. He had gone to public school in one of the provincial capitals of the North but had been forced to run after he killed his fiancée, which was his first crime. He was the man to keep these desperadoes under control and to enforce discipline. His title was “commander of the street,” an odd one in that maze of alleys. But without ever leaving the compound he kept total control over the entire countryside, which was patrolled by his fast-moving scouts.

They obeyed him unconditionally. Tasks of all sorts were assigned and performed by religious country boys working next to hardened criminals. There was a rare coordination of effort and just one purpose: to react to imminent invasion.

There was, however, a moment when those preparations for war nearly came to an abrupt halt because of news that reached them from the scouts. This was revealed by prisoners of war after the campaign was ended. The scouts reported on the progress of the enemy and not only the number and equipment of the army troops but information on the reputation of the new commander. The frenzied activity stopped short, and the terrified rebel community nearly disbanded. They listened in horror to extravagant exaggerations about the commanding officer’s brutality. He was the Antichrist, coming to put them to the last test. They imagined him to be the hero of many battles, fourteen according to one backlands poet, who composed a ballad to celebrate the campaign. They imagined the destruction of their homes, days of unspeakable torture and terrible disaster. Canudos would be razed by fire, sword, and bullet. They gave him a gruesome name: Head Slicer.

As was known afterward, none of the expeditions was anticipated with such anxiety. There were some desertions, reducing the numbers of the men who should have been the strongest, the dangerous adventurers who had gone there not for religious reasons, but for the thrill of the fight. As the scouts came back from their far-flung missions they reported that some of their criminal companions were missing.

But this wave of fear served to remove the unbelievers and the timid from their ranks. Most of the faithful stayed, resigned to whatever lay ahead.

The people now turned to their faith. Frequently they would put aside their weapons and set out in long penitential processions across the plains. The stream of new pilgrims had stopped suddenly. The feverish preparations for battle also came to a halt. The scouts who left to take their posts at dawn no longer sang loudly and joyously as they went down the trails, but crept cautiously through the underbrush, hiding there for long hours at a time.

At this time of distress, the frail but numerous band of pious women went out into the fields to lend courage to the strong but apprehensive fighting men. At night, when the fires were lit, the kneeling multitude continued their prayers well beyond the appointed time. In an arbor covered with aromatic boughs was a small pine table covered with a white cloth. When the rosaries had been said, a strange figure appeared. Dressed in a long blue robe that fell over his emaciated body, his back bent, and head down, Antônio Conselheiro would make an appearance. He would remain there motionless and silent for a long time before the quiet, waiting crowd. Then he would slowly lift his thin face, lit up by his flashing eyes, and he would pray.

Night fell into deep darkness and the settlement rested under the rule of this humble, formidable evangelist.

II

Departure from Monte Santo

The troops were going to leave on February 22. Following military custom, on the afternoon of the day before, they were drawn up in review formation for an inspection of arms and equipment. Their orders had them leaving the following day. The battalions lined up in squadron formation, stretching out from the square in Monte Santo.

They were all there: the Seventh, with a surplus of equipment, under the interim command of Major Raphael Augusto da Cunha Mattos; the Ninth, which was going into battle for the third time in this conflict, its numbers slightly reduced, under Colonel Pedro Nunes Tamarindo; detachments of the Thirty-third and Sixteenth, led by Captain Joaquim Quirino Villarim; a battery of four Krupp field guns of the Second Regiment, commanded by Captain José Agostinho Salomão da Rocha; a squadron of fifty men of the Ninth Cavalry under Captain Pedreira Franco; a few contingents of the Bahian state police; the medical corps under Dr. Ferreira Nina; and an engineering commission. Not included were seventy men of the Sixteenth, who would stay with Colonel Souza Menezes as a garrison for the town.

There were a total of 1,281 men, each holding 221 cartridges in his belt, and a reserve of 60,000 rounds in the convoy.

The review was conducted. But contrary to expectations, instead of the command to stack arms and disband, the bugle sounded next to the commander in chief, with the order “Column, March!”

Colonel Moreira César, leaving his station, galloped to the head of the column.

It was almost dark when they started the march to Canudos.

This was completely unexpected. Not a murmur came from the ranks. The surprise registered on all their faces did not disturb the discipline of the maneuvers. Drums beat at the front of the column and the detachments fell in, moving two abreast as they filed into the narrow roadway. The artillery got under way and the supply trains rolled.

A quarter of an hour later, the citizens of Monte Santo had their last glimpse of the third expedition to Canudos.

First Mistakes

The front guard arrived at Cumbe in three days. The rest of the troops were delayed for a few hours because their commander was at a nearby farmhouse recovering from another attack of epilepsy.

Before dawn on the twenty-sixth they headed north from their position six miles from Cumbe at the farm called Cajazeiras, known for its cajá trees, for Serra Branca, more than eight miles distant.[2]

This part of the sertão, bordering on the tablelands that reach as far as Jeremoabo, is quite distinct from the regions we have hastily sketched in previous pages. It is a gentler landscape and even more arid. There are fewer steep slopes. Instead we find a vast stretch of highland plains. While the terrain here is less rugged, other more daunting obstacles present themselves. The level sandy soil, with no depressions to catch lifesaving rainfall in the summer, is absolutely dry. The infrequent rains are quickly absorbed by the sand. The ground cover is thin, transforming the caatinga into sickly scrub forests.

In the height of summer, from November to March, the place is completely desolate. The region gives the impression of a vast plantation of petrified forest. It could ignite at the spark of a match or by spontaneous combustion when the strong northeast winds of the dry season rub tree branches together in the searing midday sun. It is in this way that the climate sterilizes the environment. This section of the backlands has hardly any settlements. It lies in an enormous irregular circle connected by the border towns of Cumbe on the south, Santo Antônio da Glória on the north, Jeremoabo to the east, and Monte Santo on the west. Only rare visitors quickly pass through on the highway from Jeremoabo to Bom Conselho. The entire region is a desert in the process of being formed.

Trees grow scarcer. The vegetation is composed primarily of the dried-out, interwoven branches of the mangaba tree. Its milky juice is what allows it to survive the blazing heat of summer and then to adorn its charred branches with leaves and flowers when the seasons become more propitious.[3]

A New Route

The expedition pushed into this region at the worst time of year. The soldiers were on a forced march. The extreme temperature and the dry air made them vulnerable to heat exhaustion. They had to keep going until they could find water.

It was a painful crossing. The terrain made walking difficult, as the shifting sand made the men slip, and the wagon trains sank to their axels. Sudden barriers of thornbushes would rise up before them, which they had to hack down with their machetes. All day the sand doubled the intensity of the heat. By the time they arrived at Serra Branca in the afternoon, the men were exhausted and very thirsty. They had marched for eight hours, without a break, under the brutal summer sun.

Here, they found a few quarts of water in the depths of a cave. It was hardly enough to slake the unnatural thirst that came from total dehydration.

This situation had been anticipated, as we remarked before. They tried to sink the artesian well. As everyone impatiently looked on, they were unable to make it work. Instead of bringing a pile driver, which would have helped to sink the plummet, they brought along the opposite kind of tool, a windlass.

Faced with this setback they had no choice but to leave at once for Rosário, a farm fifteen miles away.

The drained troops resumed their march late in the afternoon.

Nightfall had them still on the move, moving painfully along the thorny paths under the sparkling stars.

It can only be imagined what this march was like—about twenty-five miles without a halt. Over a thousand men, tortured with thirst, stumbling under the weight of their equipment, in full enemy territory. The desert stillness was broken by the dull pounding of marching feet, the squeal of wagons and gun carriages, and the clanking of weapons. In the tall weeds there was an imperceptible snapping of branches.

The jagunço spies were following the troops. They snaked alongside the trails. No one paid any attention to them. The soldiers had forgotten all about why they were there. All they could think about was to make it to the nearest well, trusting their guides to lead them there.

They finally came to a halt in the middle of the trail. At the rear of the column were a few limping outliers. Even the strongest were having difficulty walking. It was a brief stop, and the little rest they got was superficial. The officers slept, if they did manage to sleep, with their horses’ reins tied to their hands. When they continued their march before daybreak, they realized they were in danger. They passed remains of bonfires and hearty meals of roast turtle and goat. Fresh tracks in the sand wound away into the brush. These were signs that the jagunços had spent the night there, keeping an invisible watch on the enemy. When the soldiers reached Porteira Velha, the rebel advance guard seemed to have surprised them, causing their precipitous departure. A double-barreled shotgun and a cattle prod lay abandoned beside a bonfire.

They reached Rosário before noon, just as a torrential rain fell, a common occurrence in the backlands during this season. This farm would achieve notoriety in the campaign. It was much like the others in the area. There were one or two structures built of clay tile and with dirt floors. The property was surrounded by log fences. It had a clean-swept terrace and a few stunted trees in the front, and nearby was a well or pond, which determined the choice of the site.

The troops set up camp here. They were in the heart of enemy territory. It appears that in this place the men started to feel the apprehension of going to war for the first time.

A telling incident occurred.

On March 1, just as another rainstorm beat down on the roofless troops, an alarm was sounded. The enemy was surely taking advantage of the weather to attack the invaders, opening fire just as the thunder boomed overhead.

Running, sliding and falling on the wet slick ground, knocking into each other in the driving rain, the officers and men attempted the impossible, to gear up and fall into line as they ran. They paid no attention to the orders and counterorders shouted at them. They lined up randomly, as best they could, in squads and companies. To the amazement of the soldiers, a lone horseman burst out of the chaos and galloped wildly down the road in the likely direction of the enemy while the military engineer, Domingos Leite, tried to keep up with him.

It was Colonel Moreira César.

As luck would have it, the imaginary enemy to whom he was about to deliver himself in a useless attack, was just a group of escorts sent by the owner of a nearby estate. This was colonel of the national guard José Américo C. de Souza Velho, owner of the Cahimbé and Olhos d’Agua properties, who had advised the expedition to take this route.

With the exception of this incident, the day was spent quietly. In the afternoon a convoy arrived from Monte Santo, bringing horses to replace the mules that had been impractically used by the squadron to this point.

At sunrise on the second, the battalions continued their march to Angico. They reached the abandoned farm at eleven in the morning and pitched camp there.

This was a deviation from the original plan, which had been devised to minimize troop fatigue. Originally, they were to depart for Angico on the third after a full day of rest at the Rancho do Vicário, or Vicar’s Farm. Then the troops were to go to Angico on the third, marching just five miles, where they would again stop for the night. This would have them going the remaining short distance, of a little more than three and a half miles, to Canudos on the fourth. Since they were in enemy land, they were to take care to guard the camp with outposts and moving sentries.

Colonel César ordered his tent set up in a nearby caatinga thicket. He called a meeting of his officers and announced that he was absolutely certain of victory. His staff presented various suggestions for maximizing the safety of the troops. One of these scenarios, offered by the commanding officer of the Seventh, was to change the order of march. He proposed that the column be split into two. One would comprise a vanguard for reconnoitering and to stage the first attack. The second would serve as a reserve force. If the enemy overpowered them, they could stage a safe retreat to Monte Santo. There the troops could be reorganized and reinforced.

To everyone’s surprise, the chief of the expedition did not countermand this plan. The troops marched at dawn on the third, with a clear plan.

In the meanwhile their marching orders for Angico were the same as when they had left Cumbe. Leading the column were scouts on horseback, with an experienced guide, the brave Manoel Rosendo, along with the engineering corps and a company of Seventh Infantry riflemen led by Lieutenant Figueira. Then followed the right wing of the Seventh, commanded by Major Cunha Mattos, who accompanied the munitions convoy in the center. The remaining troops followed: the First Division of the Second Regiment under Salomão da Rocha; the left wing of the Seventh, with Captain Alberto Gavião Pereira Pinto; the Second Artillery Division with First Lieutenant Pradel de Azambuja; the right wing of the Ninth, with Colonel Tamarindo, separated from the left, commanded by Captain Felipe Simões. The supply train brought up the rear, followed by the cavalry and the Bahian police. Colonel César rode at the head, with his escort of riflemen and the right wing of the Seventh.

They had left at five o’clock in the morning. They soon entered the terrain characteristic of the Canudos area. It was hilly country, with a sparse vegetation of thistles and bromeliads. There were many serpentine streams winding through it. The land became ever more rugged and forbidding, except for a few patches where recent rains had left a thin veil of green over piles of stones and grottoes. The late afternoon showers had come and gone with no trace, and as usual in the summer season, the dry earth had absorbed the moisture and remained cracked and parched. A monochrome but impressive landscape stretched as far as they could see, over the rolling hills and the highlands, along the trails and the deeply eroded slopes. Nature was completely still, as in the grip of a terrible spasm. There was not a blossom on the naked branches, nor a rush of wings in the serene air.

The moving column, stretched in a line two miles long, cut a long black swath across the landscape.

Ahead, to the north, the final circle of hills around Canudos was in close range. The men were not uneasy as they approached their target.

Psychology of the Brazilian Soldier

They marched along at their normal steady pace.

Up and down the line could be heard the soft murmur of thousands of voices, occasionally marked by shouts of laughter. In their energetic way of bearing down on the enemy, our soldiers demonstrated their predominant characteristics. Men of all colors and a mix of many races, they seemed to be bound by a collective psychology in dangerous situations. The instincts of the primitive warrior overtook them. They had a savage rashness, an apparent lack of awareness of peril. They seemed indifferent to life and rash in the face of death.

They went into battle as if they were on their way to a rowdy party. In times of peace they were ragtag creatures—soft, flabby, and lazy. They were nondescript; they lacked any kind of presence or grace and slouched under their sloppily handled weapons. In wartime they turned into different beings. War, in fact, was their best trainer, and the enemy a respected drillmaster. In a few days they became disciplined, tough soldiers. They gained in battle what they never had in the flag-festooned capitals: straight posture, a firm step, precision of aim, rapid reflexes. They don’t give up, and march for days over impossible roads. There is no grumbling. No one can match them in times of lack of food and living “on wind” as they describe it in their picturesque speech. After the worst of experiences, these pale heroes will make fun of suffering and shrug off martyrdom.

In battle he is not able to do as the Prussian soldier, coming in and out with a pedometer on his foot. He is disorderly, rebellious, and loud, a heroic and terrible delinquent, going after the enemy with his gun or sword and a smart remark. This is why he does not do well with the mass maneuvers of classic campaigns. He is hamstrung by correct formations. He is confused by the mechanics of complex maneuvers. It is torture for him to have to fight to the sound of bugles. He will promptly obey orders if it is part of a broad strategic plan, and endure the worst conditions without complaint. But if the enemy charges at him at sword point, he wants to fight in his own way. He fights back, without rancor, loudly, with bravado, reveling in the spray of bullets and the swordplay, taking foolish risks and selling his courage cheap. He keeps his eye on the commanding officer, as if his life depends on it. If the commander wavers, all his bluster is gone. He becomes quickly discouraged and depressed.

On this occasion everything indicated that the expedition would be successful. With their commander, it was impossible to lose. So they made their way confidently to the front, eager to come face-to-face with the stubborn enemy. They would skin the hide off these backwoodsmen. They anticipated the stories of their exploits they would tell back home. They would scare the daylights out of the credulous, timid listeners back there. They would recount the half-tragic, half-funny scenes of what went on in that big rathole after they charged it with their rifles. They spun bizarre scenes, prematurely, and they all began with the naive phrase “when I go back . . .”

One of them came out with a crazy idea, which was greeted with a riff of muffled laughter.

The glorious morning lifted their spirits. The beautiful blue sky of the sertão arched over the earth, with its rainbow of colors shading from the deep blue of the zenith to the gorgeous purple in the east. What is more, the enemy had failed to attack them yet, keeping the road clear. Only one thing concerned them: What if they should find this weed patch empty of rebels when they arrived? This was an alarming thought. The entire campaign would have been a long march followed by an undistinguished return, without a bullet being fired.

III

The First Engagement: Pitombas

They were in this happy frame of mind until they reached a farm called Pitombas.

The little stream that runs through there cuts deep into the earth, running parallel to the highway and then across it. It winds around to the farm with the same name as the well-known Brazilian fruit,[4] and then curves back almost in a semicircle, with the highway as the line connecting the ends of the curve.

The troops traveled this stretch of highway, and as the advance reached the halfway point, they heard a half-dozen shots. Here at last was the enemy.

It was probably a scout who had been following the column or who had been waiting for them here. He used the favorable terrain to attack from the side. He then ran to safety, using the streambed as cover. His aim was sharp. Lieutenant Poly, one of the rifle company, and six or seven other soldiers fell dead. The Salomão da Rocha division’s cannons were quickly loaded and they fired into the bushes with their machine guns. The vegetation bent as if blown by a strong wind. There was a response of rhythmic fire, and the Seventh broke off from the column and charged the enemy, diving into the weeds and cutting them down with their bayonets.

It was a fast and heady confrontation.

The enemy fled. The detachment returned to the line, after a few minutes, to the cheers of their comrades. The bugles played out their traditional victory tune in clear and vibrant notes. The commander joyfully embraced the officer who had led the charge against the enemy. He considered this to be a fortunate start. It was a shame that all this fine equipment and men, such an impressive campaign, would be over after just a few shots.

The weapons of the jagunços were pathetic. The soldiers found a “woodpecker” rifle at the riverbank. It was lightweight and had a very fine barrel. It was loaded. Colonel César took it in his hand, as he sat on his horse, and fired it into the air. It was an insignificant weapon, good for bird hunting.

“These people have no weapons,” he said quietly.

The march was taken up at a quicker pace. The wounded were left behind with the surgeons at Pitombas, under the guard of the police contingent and the cavalry. Most of the men were already receding into the distance at double step. The fascination with the enemy was over. The riflemen in the front lines and those guarding the flanks were beating the brush along the road and making forays deep into the brushwood, looking for spies. They were determined to find them or to catch up with the sharpshooters who were heading back to Canudos.

The encounter shocked them into a lust for battle. They were in a dangerous mood that made them feel twice as strong. They felt entitled to commit the worst atrocities.

A following army is as impulsive as the enemy that is running away. Panic and foolhardy courage, extremes of terror and bravery, overtake the minds of the soldiers. The men push forward, in a daze, through formidable obstacles. They feel an anxiety that excites and deludes both the individual running away from death and the one who is out to kill. This is explained by the fact that an army is a single body of diverse elements. A spark of passion can have the effect of turning thousands of separate individuals into a single monster. It will pursue its prey with dogged determinism. The commander alone can prevent this collective psychosis by exerting clear moral authority. The famous war strategists have understood that the first battle to be won is this emotional contagion in the ranks that will propel them to take enormous risks or to take flight. A good war plan requires smoothly functioning killing machines, clearheaded men who can work from predefined orders.

Moreira César’s men were far from this level of performance. Their commander did not repress their nervous excitement but made it worse by his own neurotic behavior. There had been a chance to bring the situation back to normal. They had arrived at Angico, where they were to halt for the night. They were going to camp there and then the next morning take Canudos after a two-hour march. The troops’ impulse, reinforced by their commander, was to rush to the enemy. The stop at Angico was shortened to a mere quarter of an hour. There was a quick meeting of the staff officers on a small hill with a view of the tired and panting men all around. Forgetting the wisdom that nothing can be done with exhausted soldiers, the expedition commander decided they should attack immediately.

“Comrades! As you can tell, I am a sick man. I have not had food for days. But we are very close to Canudos. Let’s take it!”

The challenge was accepted.

“We will eat lunch in Canudos,” he shouted.

He was given a military-style round of applause.

The march went on. It was eleven o’clock in the morning.

The riflemen up ahead fanned out through the brush. Now and then a shot could be heard in the distance. The enemy led them on. Their strategy was to lure them to the settlement and then to force the tired soldiers to fight an unequal battle.

Double-Quick Time, Gentlemen!

It was insane to drive their men to exhaustion on the eve of battle. As a result, they had to drop their backpacks, ration kits, and equipment, with the exception of their weapons, for the cavalry to collect in the rear.

Moving fast, they reached the small plain at the top of the Umburanas Hills. Canudos would be very close, within range of their weapons. The troops stopped.

Two Calling Cards for the Counselor

The guide, Jesuíno, confidently pointed in the direction of the settlement. Moreira César summoned Pradel’s division into battle. Setting the aim at one and four-fifths miles, he ordered that two rounds be fired at the target.

“Here are two calling cards for the Counselor,” he said, half-jokingly, with the condescension of a man who thinks he is in control. The remark made its way through the ranks and was relished by the men. They began a frenzied assault, which covered them in a suffocating cloud of dust. The sun beat straight down on them. Suddenly they had a view of Canudos. They were on top of Mount Favela.

A View of Canudos

Here, finally, was the enormous hole in the ground that previous expeditions had not been able to reach. It came into their sights all at once, a wide depression in the undulating plain. At first glance, before the eye could accustom itself to the maze of huts and labyrinth of alleys leading to the big square where the churches were located, the visitor would have the impression of coming upon a large city. The Vaza-Barris carved out a huge moat to the left, half circling the village and then turning sharply east, as the first floodwaters of the season flowed slowly down. The dense conglomeration of huts around the square gradually thinned out over the hills to the east and the north, looking like sentry boxes. There was not one white wall or tiled rooftop to relieve the eye of this grotesque view of five thousand shacks packed into a trench in the earth. The two churches were prominently visible. The new one on the left was still under construction. Its high, thick walls were covered with wooden scaffolding, and out of the maze the rigid lines of cranes and their swaying pulleys could be made out. This building loomed over the village and commanded a view of the plains. It was large and rectangular. Its walls were made of huge stone blocks laid skillfully to give it the appearance of a fortress. The old church, a humble building that looked like a backwoods chapel, faced it. To the right was a circular cemetery of leveled graves, a mournful pit. It had not a single flower bed or shrub. Across from the cemetery, on the other side of the river, was a small plot of ground that looked like a rustic garden, with a few trees, rows of bright palmatórias, and a few quixabeira stalks with bright green branches. An outcrop of Mount Favela juts into the river here, ending in a sudden drop. These foothills are appropriately named the Bald Headlands because their slopes are deforested. Around these hills are the ruins of a dwelling. This is the Old Ranch House. A terrace hangs over it, called Mario’s Hill. The troops were at the top of the mountain.

The first detachment to arrive was the advance of the Seventh, accompanied by the artillery. They were busy fending off a violent attack on the right while the rest of the infantry scaled the last hills. They ignored the settlement. They lined up the cannons in battle formation. The first platoons emerged. Their ranks were in disarray and the men were panting. The bombardment began, all guns firing at once. No one took command.

It was impossible to miss a target like this one. The first rounds inflicted serious damage at various locations. Huts were torn apart and buried in the debris by exploding cannonballs. The clay and wood roofs were sent flying through the air. Adobe walls were crushed, and fires started to break out.

The bombed village was now shrouded in a cloud of dust and smoke that blocked the view.

The rest of the troops were no longer visible. The mournful thunder of the artillery made a deafening sound through the desert as prolonged echoes were returned from the mountainside.

A Baffling Incident

After a few minutes, the silvery sound of bells was suddenly clearly heard through the boom of the cannons. The bell of the old church below was calling the faithful to battle.

The battle had not really begun yet.

So far, the sertanejos had not responded, except for a light attack on the flanks of the artillery. The troops had taken over the mountain slope without being greeted by a single shot. When the shooting did commence, it was a sustained but aimless fire. Eight hundred rifles were aimed in a line down the hill.

The settlement was now visible through the smoke. The town was like a disturbed beehive. Clusters of people moved through the square, ran down the paths along the riverbank, headed to the church, and weaved through the alleyways clutching weapons in their hands. Some climbed onto the rooftops.

Some appeared to be running away. They were seen approaching the brushwoods, and then they disappeared into the hills. Others feigned indifference, crossing the square at a slow pace, seemingly aloof from the commotion and the rain of bullets coming from the slopes.

One entire company of the Seventh Battalion directed its fire at a jagunço who was approaching from the Uauá road. He walked slowly. Sometimes he stopped. Occasionally he would raise his head to gaze impassively at the troops and then he would continue on his way. This was an irritating affront. The soldiers fired nervously at this exceptional individual, who seemed to enjoy becoming the target of an entire army. At a certain moment he sat by the side of the road and seemed to strike a match to light his pipe. The soldiers laughed. The figure got up and, walking at the same slow pace, gradually was lost from sight as he disappeared between the houses.

Not a single shot was fired from the settlement. The frantic bustle of the population had subsided. A few stragglers were coming in. A few women ran past, carrying or dragging their children by the arm. They sought refuge behind the big walls of the new church.

IV

Battle Plan and the Terrain

The bell was silent at last.

The troops began the descent from the mountain, funneling down from the slopes. Hundreds of bayonets sparkled in the sun. The commander in chief remarked to one of the commanders of the Seventh, who was standing next to him as they observed the movement of the troops: “We are going to take this town without firing another shot—at bayonet point!”

It was one in the afternoon.

As soon as they were down the mountain, the infantry took up a position in the quixabeira grove. On their right was the Seventh, lining up parallel to the Vaza-Barris. On the left, the Ninth and Sixteenth were stationed on ground unsuitable for their purpose. The artillery was in the middle, on the last outcrop of hills, in a leading position directly over the river. They were opposite the new church and level with its cornices. This became the axis of a pincer movement designed to close in and secure the settlement from two sides. It was a simple parallel formation that was intended for a situation in which outnumbering the enemy made more-subtle maneuvers unnecessary. It allowed simultaneous action of all fighting units on a level field.

This battle plan was completely inappropriate. The various parts of the line were situated in entirely different topographical conditions. To the right was a small level area that would have facilitated an attack because the river was flat here and the banks were low. To the left was rugged land that fell away in a series of hills and was separated from the town by a deep ravine. A cursory glance would show that while the conditions on the left would actually impede a forward assault, the location could be turned into a tactical asset for a reserve force. The nature of the terrain suggested that an oblique line would be most effective and, instead of a simultaneous attack, partial attacks from the right would be best if supported by the artillery at a range of about a hundred yards from the enemy.

There would be no surprises with such a plan. If the enemy put up a stiff resistance, the reserves would be able to respond quickly. Colonel Moreira César ignored these conditions and insisted on putting all his troops into action at the same time. He was assuming that the sertanejos would be terrified by hundreds of bayonets and would instantly flee. This was a blatantly unjustified assumption and betrayed not only an ignorance of his profession but a lack of attention to what had happened to previous expeditions. He now committed the grievous error of ordering an attack under these terrible conditions.

The fact was that if the battalions attacked at the same time from two sides they would be shooting at each other instead of at the jagunços. While at first the artillery might hit the churches and the center of town, the scope of the action would shrink as the troops advanced, until they would have to die from friendly fire or engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy in the maze of alleyways.

It did not require a genius to see this. The first minutes of action made it all clear.

A Citadel of Weeds

The battle began with heroic flourish, bugles blaring. All the troops went into action at once. The church bell was again pealing. Intense fire broke out from the walls and rooftops of the huts nearest the river. The guerrilla blunderbusses went off with a single explosion from inside the new church. With the advantage of good terrain, the Seventh advanced down to the river at double-quick pace, in a hail of lead and pebbles from the blunderbusses. Soon groups of them were seen emerging into the square. They had fallen out of battle formation. Some had fallen when crossing the river and were swept away by the bloody current. Most of the men kept moving forward under heavy fire. On the left, a wing of the Ninth took a position behind the new church while the Sixteenth and the right wing of the Seventh attacked from the center. A fierce fight was now swirling around the column moving forward in such a foolish fashion. At no point was the commander present.

The battle was now breaking up into smaller, more dangerous skirmishes that were deadly and futile. Lives were being unceremoniously wasted. Just a few yards from the square, Canudos became an impassable web of alleyways. The town, because of its mud construction, might have seemed fragile, but this was just an illusion. In reality it was stronger than an armored citadel. Although its position made it vulnerable to attack from above, in reality it was like a treacherous net that trapped anyone who ventured into it. It was dangerous because it offered up no resistance. It was easy to attack it, overwhelm it, knock it down, or break it up—the difficult thing was to get out of it. There was no hard surface to break the impact of the grenades. They fell without exploding, slicing through a dozen roofs at once. There was nothing to stop even the smallest band of invaders once they had forded the river. Canudos invited attack. But when the invaders came in, drunk with a sense of victory, and began to spread out through the winding streets, the town’s defenses came into play.

This poor backlands village stands out as a sobering example of invaded cities. It was just a pile of mud huts. It yielded in order to conquer. An army might tear it asunder, crush it, and shake it up, turning it into a pile of clay ruins, but that same army would all of a sudden be trapped like a puma trying to free itself from a snare. The jagunços were expert hunters and it is perhaps this experience that led them to build the city like a wooden game trap, tied with liana vines—a citadel of weeds.

Colonel Moreira César’s men were now in the process of walking straight into that trap.

Attack

At first the task seemed easy. They crossed the river with only a few losses. One detachment, with a brave subaltern in the lead, attacked the new church. This did not make much of a difference and resulted in the loss of two more officers and several men. Others detoured around the church and attacked houses along the river. They set fire to them and the inhabitants ran for shelter. The troops pursued them. The danger of this activity became immediately obvious. The platoons were breaking up and soldiers were running down the narrow streets in great confusion. There were hundreds of blind corners and as the soldiers ran from house to house some did not use their weapons at all and others fired at random. The entire outfit was split up into small roving detachments, which in turn broke into confused groups of ever-smaller numbers and were finally reduced to single soldiers fighting on their own.

It was a strange sight. Entire battalions were swallowed up into the maze while a thick cloud of smoke hovered over the clay roofs. It was anything but a military attack. It was not a battle but a series of hand-to-hand combats in the alleys and doorways.

The attack was fierce, and there were no apparent obstacles. A rifle butt would shatter a wall or a door only to find an empty house. In others the intruder would find a rifle barrel at his chest or else would drop from bullets fired at close range through holes in the wall. The nearest comrade would rush to assistance; there would be a brutal struggle, until the soldiers outnumbering the residents would force their way into the narrow opening of the hut. Inside, crouched in a corner, the last remaining re-sister would fire and run. Or he might stand his ground, defending his turf, using anything at hand—slashing at them wildly with a knife, machete, or cattle prong; throwing furniture at them; or, gasping for breath, rushing at them with his bare hands. The women would huddle in a corner and sob. This would go on until the last man was dead on the ground, impaled by a bayonet, clubbed by a rifle butt, or trampled by a soldier’s bootheels. There were many scenes like this.

Pillage Before Triumph

After he had taken a house, the starving soldier was almost always tempted to take what food he could find. Hanging from the ceiling were food canisters containing dried meat, clay vessels filled with paçoca flour, and bags full of the luscious uricuri fruit. In the corner were swollen pouches of fresh water, beaded with moisture. The temptation was too great. He would succumb to the need for a quick meal, followed by a long drink of water. Sometimes he would get a cruel dessert—a barrage of buckshot.

The jagunços would come in the door and fall on him. The struggle would be reversed this time, and the soldier would lie on the ground, knifed, clubbed, and trampled by the sertanejo’s crude sandals.

Many never got out of the maze of alleys. Running after a backlander, they would suddenly come face-to-face with a band of them. They would try to fire and then run into the nearest hut, where they might be faced with others lying in wait. If they could attack and scatter the enemy, the same scene would repeat itself again and again. All this time they were under the illusion that they were winning. Was this not obvious from all the confusion and fear they were stirring up in this ugly godforsaken town? The people here were as scared as beasts in a stable when jaguars attack.

There were no obstacles in the invaders’ path. Those who defended their homes had their women to think about. The sick and lame, the families, ran in every direction, screaming and praying.

The result was that in the heat of pursuit many got lost in the maze. If they tried to find their companions, they got even more lost. As they turned corner after corner, they were completely submerged in the enormous complex.

Posted in front of his command station on the right bank of the river, the commander in chief observed the attack without being able to make up his mind about it. All he could tell was that his men were disappearing in the thousand alleyways of Canudos. This was accompanied by a din of cries and shouts, interspersed with gunfire. He could only make out small groups of soldiers in no kind of formation and bands of jagunços appearing now and again in the square. They disappeared once more into the smoke in a confused jumble of hand-to-hand combat.

That was all he could see, but he was disturbed. Nothing indicated that the sertanejos were about to give up. The snipers at the church were holding their ground and were able to fire at will in all directions. The artillery had finally stopped because it might hit its own men. Above the fray the bell of the old church rang once more. Only about half the village was involved in the fight. The other half, where the Jeremoabo highway entered the city, was not affected. Even though it was not as dense, it was less vulnerable to attack. It was on a large, flat plain and could be defended on a line of fire that was at the same level as the enemy. After the other part of the village had been taken, it was still untouched. This meant that perhaps even more effort had to be directed here.

The fact was that while there was not a maze of alleys to deal with, the scattered houses in this area were placed in a manner somewhat like a chess board. This gave the marksman a good vantage for cross fire. He could control all four points of the compass while never leaving his own square. The seriousness of the situation was now apparent. Even if they had been successful in the center of the town, the exhausted troops would have to turn their attention to that slope, which was protected by a deep ravine. Colonel Moreira César was able to see this right away. Thus when the rear guard and the cavalry approached, he ordered them to the extreme right to attack this section of the settlement to reinforce the action occurring on the left. The cavalry was to go for the center where the churches were located.

A cavalry charge on Canudos! This was an odd situation. A cavalry is the arm of service used on open plains. Its force lies in its capacity to shock the enemy, as when the mounted troops follow an infantry attack. Here its movements were restricted by the walls of the dwellings as it charged down the narrow alleys.

The cavalry set off at a half gallop to the river. The horses were winded and unsteady. There, bullets were splattering into the water. They could not go any farther; their frightened animals balked. They dug in their spurs and lashed the animals with their sword handles. They barely urged their mounts to midstream, where they were thrown off their saddles by the rearing, bucking animals. The horses tore off for the banks. The police, after they had started to cross the river going downstream, stopped when they were confronted with the deep, slippery bed of the ravine running north to south. This separated the town from the section they were supposed to attack. The maneuver was thwarted from the beginning. That is when the commander in chief left his station, halfway up Bald Hill, between the artillery and the quixabeira grove.

“I am going to show those fellows a thing or two.”

He was no more than halfway there when he lurched forward in his saddle. A bullet had struck him in the stomach. His staff circled around him.

“It’s nothing, just a superficial wound,” he said, trying to assure his dedicated comrades. He was, in fact, mortally wounded.

He did not get off his horse. He returned with the help of Lieutenant Avila to the place where he had been stationed, when another bullet struck him. He was out of commission now and Colonel Tamarindo, who was given immediate notice of the disaster, should have taken over. He was so busy trying to save his battalion on the other side of the river that he could not think of taking over command.

He was a simple, good-natured fellow, averse to showmanship. He was almost sixty and he looked forward to a peaceful retirement. He had been assigned to the expedition against his will. Even if he had the ability to handle the crisis, there was no way to improve the situation.

In the meantime, the police were following the precedent of their comrades in the other part of the town and were destroying houses and setting them on fire. It was chaotic and there was no sign of military discipline. This was not an assault; it was the battering of a monster barrier, which became even more terrible as every moment passed and more buildings fell and went up in smoke. Beneath the rubble in the streets, the sertanejos were better able to get away or find secure hiding places.

Another, inevitable and greater, difficulty was about to come. Night fell on the tangle of battle. The men were exhausted from five hours of fighting.

Retreat

Even before night fell, the troops had begun to retreat. On the left bank the first of the detachments could be seen running away in confusion. Others joined them, breaking ranks completely, emerging from the corners of the churches and behind the huts on the riverbank. Officers and men mingled together; they were filthy, burned, their uniforms in tatters. They ran wherever they found a break in enemy fire. They were reduced to a terrified, screaming, staggering, running mob.

The movement spread from the left wing to the far right. Forced to move back to its original positions, the battle line, strafed by enemy fire, was pushed back to the riverbank. It was now a squirming mass of men. With no commander, every man had to fend for himself. As they approached the river, small groups would break off to set fire to the nearest huts or to engage in brief struggles. The others, wounded and without weapons, only wanted to get across the stream. It was over.

Suddenly, in their panic and confusion, the men deserted their platoons and jumped into the river. Struggling with each other, trampling the wounded, fending off the crippled, drowning them, the first of the retreating soldiers made their way up the right bank. Grasping at the thin clumps of grass, using their weapons to leverage their climb, and hanging on the legs of the men ahead of them who were already making it up to the top, they merged into a fleeing mass on the other side. It was a boiling heap of screaming bodies up and down the river. It was as if the Vaza-Barris had suddenly overflowed its banks, in a foaming, raging torrent.

Evensong

At this moment the bell ringer in the old church interrupted the chaotic scene. In the dead clarity of twilight the first notes of the Ave Maria were melodiously sounded.

Baring their heads and throwing their leather hats or bright blue caps to the ground, the jagunços fired a final shot and turned to their evening prayers.

V

On Mario’s Hill

After they had managed to cross the river, the soldiers regrouped around the artillery. They were a terrified mob, with nothing in common with the army that had been so anxious to face the enemy. The hill where they were now located was much too close to the enemy. They might be attacked in the dark and so they had to leave the place. Making no attempt to maintain order, they dragged the cannons behind them and headed for Mario’s Hill, which was about four hundred yards ahead. Here they attempted a square formation, with their decimated ranks, officers, ambulances filled with wounded, the artillery and supply trains. In the center of the “camp” their commander in chief was dying in the ruins of the Old Ranch House. All that was left of the expedition was a rough assembly of men, animals, and weapons huddled in a hollow of the hill.

Night had fallen. It was a very bright night of the type common to the backlands. Every star, fixed in the heavens, seemed to radiate heat. The horizon would light up at intervals from the lightning of distant storms.

The settlement was invisible except for the glow of smoldering fires or lanterns of people moving slowly through the dark, as if searching for something. The lights indicated that the enemy was keeping watch, but the firing had stopped and it was completely silent. The bright starlight made it possible to distinguish the outlines of the church buildings. The rest of the compact mass of the settlement, the surrounding hills and mountains, was invisible in the dark.

The terrible situation of the camp contrasted with the peaceful setting. Wounded men, suffering from pain and thirst, twisted in agony or crawled on their hands and knees. They were in danger of being trampled by the frightened horses. It was impossible to treat them in the dark. Lighting a match would have exposed them to extreme danger. There were not enough surgeons. One had disappeared that afternoon. He was dead, lost, or captured and would never return.

What was missing was the firm hand of a commander. This was too much of a burden for Colonel Tamarindo. He cursed the turn of events that had put him into this terrible position. He made no attempt to plan. When asked by an anxious officer what he intended to do, he replied with a popular country saying: “When it’s time to die, each man goes alone.”

That was his only order. Sitting on a drum box, sucking at a long pipe, he would give the same reply or mutter a few monosyllables to anyone seeking his advice. He had completely let go of his duty to revitalize this demoralized mob by forming them into fresh combat units.

There were certainly courageous men among them, and there were officers still willing to make sacrifices for them. The old soldier’s intuition convinced him that the individuals willing to make the effort were far fewer than the total number of men. He could not foresee the outcome of the events that could undermine even the best of them. He thus remained impassive and aloof, surrendering his command to the rank and file.

The tenacious officers took matters into their own hands to the best of their abilities and addressed the most urgent needs: They tried to put some order into the square formation in which men from all companies were now randomly mixed. They organized an ambulance train and ordered stretchers. They tried to lift the men’s spirits.

Many of them were animated by the thought of a new assault. At dawn they would launch another full-force attack on the fanatics. They would feel the brunt of an even stronger bombardment than they had gotten the day before. Inspired by this idea, they got together to make plans that would remediate their defeat. Victory must be won, at all cost. Within the four sides of their misshapen square, the future of the republic was in their hands. They had to win. They were disgusted and humiliated by their deadly yet ridiculous situation. They were surrounded by the best modern weapons, sitting on cases full of cartridges, and yet cornered by a band of crazy backwoodsmen.

Most of them looked at the situation analytically. They had no false hopes. They only had to compare their assessment of the situation a few hours ago with the picture that now confronted them and it was clear that there was only one solution—to retreat.

There was no other option—they had to retreat immediately.

It was eleven o’clock at night when the officers unanimously agreed upon this plan. A captain of the infantry was delegated to communicate their decision to Colonel Moreira César. At first he was surprised and disappointed. He spoke calmly about their military duty and pointed out they still had enough supplies to attempt another attack. Then he became agitated and began to criticize the scum who would drag his name in the mud forever. Finally, he could not contain himself and he shouted: No! He would not be the victim of such terrible cowardice.

In spite of him, the officers stuck to their plan.

This added insult to the unfortunate hero’s agony. Disgusted, he gave his last order. Put it all in writing, leaving space in the margin for him to write in his protest, along with tendering his resignation.

The painful reprimand of the wounded chief did not budge the staff from their decision.

They had hundreds of perfectly able soldiers, perhaps around eight hundred. They also had two-thirds of their ammunition left and they were physically located in a position looking down on the enemy.

But that night the backlands battle had begun to take on a mysterious dimension that it would have until the end. Most of the soldiers were mestizos, the same race as the backlanders. Disheartened by their baffling defeat and the loss of their leader, who was supposed to be invincible, they became victims of the power of suggestion. They were filled with irrational terror and in the events of the last few hours they discerned elements of the supernatural.

The bloodthirsty jagunço was now a phantom. Many of the fighters, even those wounded in the recent battle, had not ever laid eyes on one of them. Others from previous expeditions were astonished to see that two or three of the guerrilla leaders who had allegedly died at Cambaio were back in action. For all of them, even to the most skeptical, there did seem to be something abnormal about these ghost warriors. They were rendered impotent by them and had caught just a glimpse of them as they darted through the alleys and ran unhurt through the fires of burning huts.

Many of the recruits were from the North and they had grown up hearing Antônio Conselheiro’s name as the hero of childhood stories. His extravagant legend, his miracles, his deeds as a sorcerer without equal, now appeared entirely believable in light of this catastrophe.

Around midnight their apprehension grew. The guards who had been posted to watch the loosely organized camp were suddenly awakened and they gave cries of alarm.

The silence had been broken by a strange sound coming up the mountain. It was not the heavy thud of an attack party. It was worse. The enemy below, in the invisible village, was praying.

This extraordinary phenomenon, particularly at that time of night, was formidable. Mournful chants intoned by women’s voices, rather than men’s, rose up from the ruins of the battlefield. The effect was heightened by the fact that it was contrary to what would have been expected. The mournful kyries were more frightening than direct threats. They were eloquently being given the message that they could not compete with an adversary transformed by religious faith.

Retreat was imperative.

At dawn another shocking announcement made it urgent. Colonel Moreira César was dead.

Beating a Retreat

They beat a hasty retreat. At first light a contingent of men from all the corps formed a vanguard, which was followed by supply trains and the ambulances and stretchers carrying the wounded. On one of them was the body of the unfortunate commander of the expedition. It did not look like a serious military operation.

In reality, the retreat was a flight. Climbing to the pass of Mount Favela and then going down the steep slopes on the other side along the road there, the troops spread over the hills in a long irregular line, with no appearance of military formation.

They turned their back on the enemy below. The jagunços had made no move to interfere with them. They seemed to put all their confidence in how fast they could move to extricate themselves from their predicament. There was none of the defensive-offensive staging typical of these types of military procedures. They simply beat a retreat at top speed, with no attention to order or direction. One division alone, with two Krupps commanded by a brave subaltern and reinforced by an infantry detachment, held a position for a while on Mario’s Hill to discourage the inevitable pursuit.

When this detachment finally did move out, it was brutally attacked. The enemy had the advantage of the offensive and was now aware of the fear it had instilled in the retreating troops. With loud and joyful vivas, he launched a violent attack by encircling his enemy. Below, the bell was tolling insistently. There was an explosion of rifle fire out of the new church. The entire population of Canudos crowded into the square or ran to the hills to witness the scene. Thousands of voices mocked the retreat with a prolonged, shrill, and deadly series of whistles and catcalls.

One more time, the terrible drama of backlands war ended in hooting and hissing.

The evacuation happened quickly. The final division of artillery returned fire for a few minutes and then slowly rolled away down the slope, in final retreat.

It was afternoon. As far as one could see, the expedition spread out along the roads was escorted by jagunços.

VI

Retreat

It was a rout. The men were running now, tossing their rifles, dropping the stretchers on which the wounded lay writhing, shedding their belts and equipment so they could run faster. They ran in any direction they could, alone, in bands and small groups. They ran down the road and on trails into the caatingas, scared out of their wits. They were terrified men without a leader.

Among the litters left on the side of the road was the one carrying the body of the commander. There was no attempt to honor his remains. There was not even a token effort to push back the enemy they had not seen but heard—raucous shouts and shots at irregular intervals, like a hunter in the wild. At the first sound of gunfire, the battalions dissolved.

Only the artillery went along at a dignified pace, its ranks intact, as if it were on parade. It would occasionally stop to sweep the roadside weeds with cannon fire. Then it would continue rolling along, impervious and terrifying to watch.

These steel cannons and the brave soldiers who manned them stalled the ultimate humiliation of the troops. Their courage distinguished them from their comrades. After a while the pursuers focused on the artillery and the escape of the rest of the expedition was due to the work of Salomão da Rocha’s four Krupps and his men. To face them was like coming up against a huge dam. The roaring wave of jagunços would just break and recede on contact with them.

The pursuing backlanders kept up their jeering, which was an ugly combination of bullying and cowardice. Then an epic episode occurred.

Kept at a distance for a while, the sertanejos slowly closed in on two divisions, which either fought them off while retreating or, lining up in battle formation, let them have a deadly round of cannon fire.

The exploding grenades set the dried weeds on fire. The crackling of the flames could be heard even though they were invisible in the clear, bright morning air. With cries of pain and fury, the sertanejos burst out of their hiding places in the brush and, blinded by the smoke, came out to the edge of the road. They shouted and cursed, firing their rifles and pistols. They could not understand how this small group of soldiers could resist when they were determined to attack them with their knives and cattle prods.

These same heroic soldiers, now reduced to a small band, were making slow progress. One by one, they dropped dead. The frightened and wounded mules bucked and turned, stalling the supply train. Finally, it came to a halt. The cannons were stuck at a bend in the road and could not be budged.

Colonel Tamarindo went to the rear and was stoically trying to encourage his men. At this critical moment he made up for his previous irresponsibility. He did what he could to help his men but his attempts were in vain. He had ordered the bugles to sound the command “Column right, halt!” But the buglers had no effect; in fact, they only encouraged the retreat. There was only one command that would be followed and that was “Break ranks!”

A few angry officers pointed their rifles at their men’s chests but they were unable to stop them. They ran like madmen, away from their officers, away from the jagunços. When their companions following behind them were shot dead, they did not even turn their heads. Captain Villarim fought single-handedly. As he lay dying, there was not a single man there to comfort him. The crippled and wounded were abandoned, left to drag themselves over the ground as they cursed their deserting comrades.

Over the chaos, the buglers’ notes were not heard or heeded. At last they stopped the call. There was no more infantry left to summon.

The road was littered with abandoned equipment, backpacks, rifles, belts, and swords. Left entirely alone, Colonel Tamarindo galloped desperately down the road as if he would single-handedly head off the vanguard. The artillery was completely abandoned just before reaching Angico and the jagunços seized it immediately. This was it. Captain Salomão da Rocha was left with less than six loyal followers. The enemy bore down on him and he was murdered with a machete, next to the cannon that he never abandoned. The horrible battle was done.

Soon after, Colonel Tamarindo was hit by a bullet and fell from his horse. He was still alive when the army engineer Alfredo do Nascimento reached him. The old commander croaked his last order to his comrade: “Get Cunha Mattos.”

But this order could hardly be carried out.

A Backlands Arsenal

The third expedition was finished. It had completely disappeared. Most of the fleeing soldiers got lost in the desert and wandered with no sense of direction. Many were left to die. Some left the main road for Cumbe or even more remote points. The rest eventually showed up at Monte Santo. Colonel Souza Menezes, commander of the outpost, left as quickly as he could for Queimadas, as soon as he heard of the disaster. This place had become the destination of a human stampede.

Meanwhile, the sertanejos were harvesting the spoils of war. Along the road and in various locations, weapons, ammunition, and uniforms were thrown about. The crimson stripes of the uniforms stood out against the gray of the brushwood and would have made the fleeing soldiers too visible. Most of the troops therefore had not only shed their weapons but their clothes as well.

So it was halfway between Rosário and Canudos that the jagunços assembled their backlands arsenal. They now had more than enough arms for their needs. The Moreira César expedition had achieved one thing: It supplied the enemy with all their equipment.

Evil Sport

The jagunços hauled four Krupps back to their settlement. They were now armed with formidable Mannlichers and Comblains to replace their ancient muskets. They had no use for the uniforms and military gear that had been on the soldiers’ bodies. They did not want to be soiled by anything that had touched the skin of the enemy. They disposed of them in an evil manner.

Their success had encouraged not only their mysticism but their brutality. The sertanejos made the most of every detail of the soldiers’ cowardly retreat. The government’s power was now, in fact, the government’s weakness. The term government weakling would be used for the rest of the campaign. They had seen this impressive and terrifying army arrive with weapons that made their own look like toys. They had watched the troops attack, invade, set fire to their settlement, and blow it to pieces. Then they had watched them retreat, break ranks, and run as they abandoned their equipment along the road. It was certainly a miracle. This troubled them but they could only interpret it one way. They obviously were under divine protection. This certainty grew and inflamed their most barbaric instincts.

A strange event illustrated this. It was an evil diversion that recalled the perverted religious rites of the Ashantis and came after the events described here. After they ended their search of the roads and trails, and gathered up their spoils of war, they collected the dead, decapitated them, and burned the bodies. They lined the heads up on both sides of the highway with the faces turned to the road. Above the heads they hung the remains of the uniforms and equipment, the trousers and capes, the saddles, belts, blankets, backpacks, and canteens.

The brushwood now bloomed with the bright red of officers’ stripes, the pale blue of dolmans, and the gleam of shoulder straps and stirrups.

There is a final terrible detail we must record, which completes this barbarous scene. At a side of the road, impaled on a gum tree, hung the body of Colonel Tamarindo.

It was a horrible sight. Like a ghoulish manikin, the lax corpse resembled a demoniac’s hallucination. It remained there for a long time.

Three months later, when a new force set out for Canudos, it saw rows of bleached skulls along the road, with shreds of uniforms in the tree branches. At one spot, the spectral remains of the old colonel offered mute testimony of a terrible drama.

CHAPTER VI

THE FOURTH EXPEDITION

I

Disasters

The news of the trouncing of the Moreira César expedition turned into a major national disaster. The fourth expedition was organized as a response to the emotional reaction of the general public. The way it was done, however, hardly reflected the gravity of the situation.

The general state of alarm triggered the wildest rumors about how such a large and well-equipped army led by a famous commander could have been so completely crushed. From this confusion arose the notion that the insurgents were not acting alone against the government but were supported by unknown rebels who would attack suddenly from various fronts to eliminate the new regime. Since there had been a few cases of armchair revolutionaries in select federal and state capitals, a few years before, who were advocating the restoration of the monarchy, this was used as the grounds for irrational speculation.

Canudos: A National Predisposition

Events as grave as this required an explanation, so one was found. The unrest in the backlands was the first manifestation of a huge conspiracy against the newly established institutions of the republic. Canudos was a slum Koblentz, and the rebel chieftain Pajehú was Brunswick in disguise. The defunct Braganza royal line had found its monk in João Abade. Antônio Conselheiro, the state-fair messiah, held the future of the Brazilian people in his arthritic hands.

The republic was at risk and must be protected. This was the outcry in the atmosphere of public hysteria.

Was this an exaggeration? Any newspaper of the day would carry editorials like the one from the Gazeta de Notícias that follows:

The prestige of our constituent authority and the strength of our country have been sabotaged by an armed rebellion of supposed religious fanatics. Nobody can pretend the imperialist sympathizers are not mobilizing. They have now taken up arms.

The writer concludes:

There is not one citizen who is not aware that revolutionary monarchism is determined to destroy the republic and, along with it, Brazilian national solidarity.

And here is another opinion from O Paíz:

The tragedy of March 3, when Moreira César, the esteemed Colonel Tamarindo, and many of our brilliant young officers lost their lives only proves how the monarchist party has boldly manipulated public opinion.

Statements like these were common, such as the one from O Estado de São Paulo:

A conspiracy is under way to bring back the monarchy and an imperialist army has been formed. We are in grave peril and must respond accordingly. Let the president call all good republicans to take up arms.

This was the mood of the press and the man in the streets.

A few citizens called a rally in the capital and adopted the following resolution:

The people of Rio de Janeiro, aware of the terrible reversals inflicted on our armed forces in the backlands of Bahia, where they were attacked by armed monarchist renegades, hereby resolve to support the government and any measures the civil authorities decide to undertake to correct this affront to our army and to the country. We await news of the suppression of the revolt.

The same message was heard everywhere. The popular imagination was obsessed with the revival of monarchist sentiment. The legions of imagined monarchist rebels were no more than a few tenacious visionaries. The president of the republic finally broke his usual aloof silence. “We are aware that behind the Canudos episode there are political motives. We are ready. We have everything we need to win, by whatever means and against any foe.”

Finally, the mob took over. Here is an account from the Jornal do Brasil.

It was late. The agitation of the crowd grew as the numbers swelled. As their anger escalated, they remembered the monarchist journals, and as if on command, they made for the editorial offices of the Gazeta da tarde, Liberdade, and Apóstolo. The police arrived, but not in time. The mob, jeering and shouting, “Long live the republic!” and “Remember Floriano Peixoto,” broke into the offices and destroyed and set fire to them. They tossed everything they could find out to the street and took it to São Francisco de Paula Square. There they made an enormous bonfire of all the objects they had collected: books, papers, pictures, furniture, equipment, and signboards. Another bonfire was made on the Rua do Ouvidor.

Rua do Ouvidor and the Caatingas

At this point we must interrupt our search through the debris and focus our attention on a certain similarity between the events at Rua do Ouvidor and an incident in the caatinga, both of them equally savage. Backlands violence was making its mark on history and was a harbinger of social unrest that was not just found in a corner of Bahia but was spreading to the capitals of the Brazilian coast. The man of the backlands, a crude figure in leather, had partners in crime who were potentially more dangerous than he was. Do we need to be more blunt?

This environment was producing, through the process of heredity, a generation of new, albeit developed, cavemen. They wore gloves and had a veneer of culture, but they were complete troglodytes. Civilization generally weeds out such peoples but occasionally a traumatic event will bring them back. When they return, new lawlessness ensues. These people lack significance other than to give us perspective. They remind us to stress this point: To attribute the crisis in the backlands to a political conspiracy is to show ignorance of our race.

This situation is much more complex and interesting. It has to do with circumstances that have nothing to do with dreams of returning monarchies. Not understanding these facts has worse consequences than wiping out three expeditions. It proves that we are not much more civilized than our backward countrymen. At least they were logical. Isolated both in space and in time, the jagunço could only behave as he did. He was compelled to put up a terrible fight against the country that, after having ignored him for three centuries, tried to civilize him at gunpoint.

Of course he should have reacted. The amazing thing is that anyone was surprised. Canudos was a miserable hole in the desert, not even a dot on our maps, as remote and indecipherable as a page torn from an old book. The only comparison that comes to mind is that of geologic strata, which when disturbed or inverted reveal a modern formation below an ancient one. The moral stratification of people can also show inversion and melding of layers, with sinuous furrows and abrupt synclinal eruptions that break out into faults in the form of ancient strata through which the race has long since passed. Canudos was, more than anything else, a lesson that should have awakened curiosity similar to that aroused in an archaeologist when he discovers a prehistoric village under the foundations of a modern Swiss city.

For the Brazilian, the situation only raised tempers. We failed to comprehend the significance of the event. This eruption of the past into our present, baring all the cracks and fissures of our evolution as a society, should have alerted us to the opportunity to correct those flaws. But we did not understand the lesson. In the capital of our country, citizens were happy with burning a few journals at the stake and the government then began to act. That meant calling up new battalions.

When the first reports of the disaster filtered in, the whole country was plunged into turmoil for days. The report given by Major Cunha Mattos was unacceptable. It hardly summarized the principal stages of the action. It was also full of strange errors and was lacking the emotional quality that one might have expected under the circumstances. Those who read it got the impression that there had been a tremendous slaughter, and later reports confirmed this view. The information that circulated was unreliable and contradictory. It exacerbated the agitation and curiosity of the people. The result was endless gossip and speculation. It was impossible to discern the causes of the event. Accounts were circulated, accepted avidly, and then rejected when the next version was released. Rumors spread through homes and on the street. The people became more nervous and frightened. Nothing was known, not even who had participated in the rout. With all the inconsistency, all reports were immediately warped beyond recognition.

Tall Tales

It was said, for example, that Colonel Tamarindo was not dead. He had escaped with a few soldiers and was on his way to Queimadas. Then this story was amended. He had escaped, but was badly wounded in Maçacará, where he had arrived on death’s door. This was in turn followed by the somber confirmation of his death.

The wildest ideas were being spread around. The backlanders were not just a bunch of lunatics; they were a “well-disciplined army” equipped with Mausers and artillery. Some, including Captain Villarim, had been blown up by their grenades.

Corporal Roque

Once in a while the truth came out in heroic trappings. Salomão da Rocha’s tragic death appealed to national pride. There was also the legend of Corporal Roque, not as exciting, but which also made a strong impression. The courage of this modest soldier transformed him and led to the climax of the battle. He was Moreira César’s orderly. When troops fled and his commander’s body was left by the road, he remained with it, guarding the remains. He fought off the enemy until his last bullet was spent, giving his life for his dead commander.

This wonderful episode, highlighted by popular imagination, was almost a consolation for the horror of the defeat that the army had sustained. Donations were made and public eulogies were planned to commemorate the event. This obscure soldier was on his way to fame when he cut short rumors of his death by making his appearance in the flesh along with the last remaining stragglers from Queimadas.

This was not the only time the public was disillusioned. While on the one hand the nature of the disaster was downplayed, its consequences became ever more obvious. Some three hundred officially reported dead returned to the living. Just three days after the battle the expedition had arrived in Queimadas, about 125 miles from Canudos. A week later it was confirmed that 74 officers were present; two weeks later, on March 19, 1,081 troops were all safely accounted for.

We saw how many there were to start with. The numbers speak for themselves. Yet they did not deter the public’s enthusiasm.

The Draft

State governors and legislatures and the governments of municipalities continued to cry for revenge. Official announcements, all with the same rhetoric, repeated the single theme that the enemies of the republic, the monarchist rebels, must be destroyed. Like the citizens who lived in the federal capital, the people in other cities held meetings, made speeches, and proclaimed resolutions in support of the government and whatever it chose to do to protect the country and avenge the honor of the army. A time of national mourning was declared. Formal action on this decree was recorded in the minutes of municipal councils in the most remote towns and villages. Masses for the dead were held at all the churches. Archbishops sent out orders to the clergy, both secular and regular, to add the pro pace prayer to the mass. Men were volunteering for the army. A number of battalions were raised, including the Tiradentes, the Benjamin Constant, the Académico, the Frei Caneca—all of these led by tough veterans who had seen fire from the time of the revolt of the fleet. There were also others, with patriots of all types: the Deodoro, the Silva Jardim, the Moreira César battalions, etc. Yet even this was not enough.

Plans

At army headquarters a recruiting campaign was under way to fill slots in the various branches of the army, and the president of the republic announced that he would call up the members of congress themselves if necessary. The vice president, in a show of patriotism, wrote to the Military Club, offering his services. There were many plans and bright ideas. Engineers created blueprints for a new railway to be constructed from Vila Nova to Monte Santo, via the Itiúba pass. It would be completed in just thirty days. At the end of this time a shrill convoy of steaming engines would burst into the backlands. Meanwhile the fate of the republic was in the balance at Canudos.

There were reports to confirm this. Canudos was not a bandit hideout. There were men of rare courage there and names were mentioned: among them fugitives from the September revolt, men who were well-known army and navy officers and who had been recruited by the Counselor.

The March of the Savages

This was accepted as fact: One of the bandit chiefs was a brilliant Italian engineer who was an expert on Abyssinian warfare. A stream of detailed information ensued. The population of the settlement of fanatics was so large that when almost seven hundred deserted, they were not noticed as missing for days. The reports kept coming with relentless regularity. Each one added more anxiety to the charged environment. The jagunços already controlled Monte Santo, Cumbe, Maçacará, and maybe Jeremoabo. After wreaking havoc on these villages, they were moving south. Their forces were regrouping in Tucano and with fresh recruits they were on their way to the coast to attack the capital of Bahia.

The people were in such a nervous state that they thought they could hear the march of the savages.

Moreira César’s battalions were now hailed as the legions of Varus. They had been pursued by a horde of barbarians. Not only the jagunços were involved. In Juazeiro, a city in the state of Ceará, a dangerous heretic, the messianic cleric Padre Cícero, was assembling hundreds of fresh recruits for the Counselor. Another mad prophet in Pernambuco, José Guedes, unsettled the officials who interrogated him with his stoic resistance. The wily João Brandão in Minas Gerais had outsmarted guards watching a pack train loaded with rifles and made off with the weapons for a hideout deep in the backlands of the São Francisco River. This mad lawlessness also infected the South, where the Monk of Paraná joined the ranks of fanatic leaders.

The monarchist conspiracy was finally coming out into the open. These were just the opening shots of a very successful movement being fought by backlands gunslingers. The government had to act without further delay.

II

The Troops Mobilize

All the states in the republic had now mobilized battalions: the Twelfth, Twenty-fifth, Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second from Rio Grande do Sul; the Twenty-seventh from Paraíba; the Thirty-fourth from Rio Grande do Norte; the Thirty-third and the Thirty-fifth from Piauí; the Fifth from Maranhão; the Fourth from Pará; the Twenty-sixth from Sergipe; the Fourteenth and the Fifth from Pernambuco; the Second from Ceará; the Fifth and part of the Ninth Cavalry as well as an artillery regiment from the federal capital; the Seventh, Ninth, and Sixteenth from the state of Bahia.

General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães, commander of the Second Military District, was offered the command of the new expedition. He accepted it after issuing the following statement: “Every great idea has those who are martyred for it. We are called upon to make sacrifices so that we can be sure that the future generations of our country inherit a strong, honored republic.”

The message resounded: The republic must be saved.

Mustering at Queimadas

The troops were mustering in Salvador. They arrived in separate detachments and immediately continued to Queimadas. It was urgent to assemble the troops in this temporary base of operations. There was also another consideration. There was a growing suspicion on the part of the new expeditioners that Salvador harbored monarchists. Although this was entirely unfounded, these new recruits acted as if they had conquered the town. They were convinced this was just another Canudos on a larger scale. The ancient capital high on the mountain was still the ocean metropolis where Batavian and Norman “sea sweepers” had come into port. It was built for defense. Its ancient forts, with their crumbling walls, were scattered along the heights, their cannon holes still pointed out to the ocean. The steep hills rose above the mud wall trenches built by Governor Tomé de Souza in 1549 when he was governor of Brazil and who made Salvador the capital for two centuries. This colonial city with its narrow streets and alleys, which today look just as they did in the sixteenth century, was for these soldiers just a bigger version of a backlands scrub patch. They were not inspired by it, just irritated. They were like Cossacks in the streets of Warsaw. The citizens of Salvador were taken aback at their rude remarks as they strutted around the city with a loud clanking of spurs and jingling of swords. As this continued, it led to public disorder.

Here is but a single example. The officers of the Thirtieth Battalion took their loyalty to the republic to an extreme. They tried to destroy a shield at the entry to the customs house, which displayed the imperial arms. As they hacked away with mallets, their comrades were incited to attack innocent bystanders.

The Expedition Is Organized

Patriotic zeal was quickly becoming insanity. Protests finally came from the press in the North of the country. Popular unrest was about to ignite into riots. As a cautionary measure, the troops that arrived and disembarked in Salvador immediately changed trains for Queimadas. Soon all the detachments assigned to Monte Santo were assembled there. The commander issued the plan of the day for April fifth:

As of today, the expedition that I command will consist of: the First Brigade, under Colonel Joaquim Manoel de Medeiros, comprised of the Seventh, Fourteenth, and Thirtieth infantry battalions; the Second Brigade, led by Colonel Ignacio Henrique Gouveia, comprised of the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-seventh battalions of the infantry; the Third Brigade, under Colonel Olympio da Silveira, with the Fifth Regiment of field artillery and the Fifth and Ninth infantry battalions; the Fourth Brigade, led by Colonel Carlos Maria da Silva Telles, with the Twelfth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-third of the infantry; the Fifth Brigade, under Colonel Julião Augusto de Serra Martins, with the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, and Fortieth infantry battalions; and the Sixth Brigade, under Colonel Donaciano de Araújo Pantoja, with the Twenty-sixth and Thirty-second infantry battalions and a division of artillery.

A column commanded by General João da Silva Barbosa will include the First, Second, and Third brigades. Until General Barbosa arrives, the commander of the First Brigade will lead this column. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth brigades will form a second column, under the command of General Cláudio do Amaral Savaget.

This was the fourth expedition. The commander’s order did not include a plan of operations. This might have been because the plan was implicit and did not differ from the operations of the former expeditions. Many of the army corps favored encircling the settlement from several strategic points. The decision was to attack the rebel town from two sides. One column would come from Monte Santo. The second, after organizing in Aracajú, would march to Canudos via Sergipe and Jeremoabo.

Based on what we have previously seen, it seems redundant to insist that this plan was going to repeat the errors of the former expeditions on a larger scale. Instead of a single compact detachment of soldiers, there would now be two that were going to become trapped in the vast backlands snare. Even in the best scenario, it was not a given that the campaign would be successful. A look at the map would confirm that two columns converging from the routes that were chosen would not guarantee that the rebellion would be put down. Not even a battle on the ground would guarantee that outcome.

The Rosário and Jeremoabo roads, which join at a significant distance from Canudos, would not make it possible to lay siege to the town. If the jagunços were attacked from the southeast, they still had access to the Cambaio and Uauá roads on the north and east, leading to the Várzea da Ema plain. The huge region of the São Francisco backlands would offer them a place to hide and prepare a counterattack. But the government forces should not have assumed that the residents of Canudos would abandon the town. They would fight back, as they did before. To attack from just one side would give the Canudos rebels many options to fortify the resistance.

This should have been obvious. There should have been plans for a third column dispatched from Juazeiro or Vila Nova to meet up with the other two, thereby cutting off all the roads and creating a secure blockade. There was no consideration given to adding another division. There was no time for such an essential measure. The affront to the army and the country had to be avenged quickly.

What they had to do was to get on with the attack. As the commander in chief made preparations in Queimadas, General Savaget set out for Aracajú in early April.

Delays

The expedition did not actually start moving until two months later, at the end of June. The fighters, soldiers, and patriots made it to a remote station on the São Francisco valley railway. There, they helplessly waited around for orders.

The great military maneuvering of the month of March had been an illusion. We did not really have an army in the technical sense of the term. A real army consists not only of thousands of men with rifles but, more important, of an administrative, technical, and tactical organization. This includes managing all branches of the service ranging from the movement of vehicles to higher campaign strategy. To summarize, a real army has the administrative capacity to organize and plan military operations.

Everything was lacking. There was no organized way to move supplies. This meant that it was impossible to move rations from the provisional base of operations, although it was connected by rail line to the coast. There was no transportation system robust enough to move about one hundred tons of war munitions.

Moreover, there were no soldiers. The men who got off the train here did not come from training camps. The battalions were incomplete. Their equipment was in bad shape. The men did not have any training in military tactics. The battalions had to be filled, equipped, clothed, supplied, and trained.

Queimadas therefore turned into a basic-training camp for recruits. The days went by in a dull round of drills and maneuvers. Rifle practice was done on an improvised range in an open area in the closest caatinga. It is not surprising that the men’s martial enthusiasm faded. They were becoming lazy and bored. Hundreds of fighters marked time in eyesight of the enemy.

Since they did not have adequate transportation systems set up, the battalions had to be transported one at a time to Monte Santo. There the situation was the same. This went on until the middle of June. More than three thousand men were ready for combat but unable to leave. They were living off the meager resources of municipalities that had already been strained by the burden of the previous expeditions.

The one accomplishment of this period, although with difficulty, was the completion of the Queimadas telegraph line under the military engineering corps, led by Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes. It was the only constructive thing that was done during this waste of time. Lacking basic supplies and even wagons for transporting munitions, the commander in chief did not hold any staff meetings. He simply stayed there with his encamped men. Their food supply was inadequate. There were a few starving oxen that they found wandering around the parched weed patches on the plains. The quartermaster general’s deputy, Colonel Manuel Gonçalves Campello França, was not able to organize a reliable supply service from Queimadas that would have given them at least one week of reserves at a time. When July came around, and the second column was moving from Sergipe to Jeremoabo, they did not even have one sack of flour left in Monte Santo. The threat of starvation stalled the division that was with the head commander of the campaign.

This stagnation demoralized the soldiers and alarmed the country. For something to do, and also to relieve the camp of having to feed a thousand or so men for a few days, two brigades were sent on reconnoitering expeditions to Cumbe and Maçacará. This was the only military maneuver that was carried out and it did nothing to help the men’s exasperation.

One of the detachments, improvised from the Fifth and the Ninth artillery battalions and the Third and Seventh infantries (now detached from the First Brigade), was led by a competent officer who excelled on the battlefield but whose restless personality was unable to cope with inaction of this sort. Along the way, this detachment had seized a mule train headed for the rebel town. Instead of returning to base, they were close to continuing on to the war zone on the isolated Rosário road. Colonel Thompson Flores was not only indulging himself but also reflected the poor morale and state of mind of his men. All of them were ready to rebel against the immobility that had snuffed out their enthusiasm for the campaign. It was all the other officers could do to restrain the commander from following through with his plan.

Some were held back by the thought of how the news of an unexpected attack on Canudos would be taken by General Savaget. They also were concerned about the effect of the delay on the public, which was anxious for the situation to be brought under control. They also considered how the three-month delay favored the enemy, which already had the advantage of three consecutive victories.

This was the main consideration.

There Is No Battle Plan

General Arthur Oscar Guimarães finally decided to act. His order for the day of June 19 announced his decision. It declared that he would “leave to the objectivity of future historians to justify the delay.”

His communication was not as terse as some of its kind are. The general predicted sure victory over the followers of Antônio Conselheiro, whom he described as the “enemy of the republic.” He warned the troops of the dangers they faced when they entered the backlands. “The enemy will attack us from the side and from our rear,” in the thick of those “damned forests,” with their “roadblocks, trenches, ambushes, and everything else that is most hateful about war.”

Even though his statements were alarming, they were true. The engineering corps reported on the rough terrain that dictated three conditions for the campaign to be successful. The forces had to be well provisioned, they would have to be fast, and their formation would have to be flexible and adapt to changing conditions.

These were three essential and complementary requirements, yet not one of them was met. The troops left base on half rations. They were burdened by a siege cannon that weighed tons. They advanced in brigade formation, with battalions marching four abreast, at intervals of only a few yards.

The obsession with classical warfare still persisted. It was evident in the instructions given, just days before, by the commanders of the various corps. These were no more than a summary of the archaic precepts that any layman can find in Vial’s manuals. It reflected the stubborn notion that the jagunços and their stealthy guerrilla fighters could be summarized in a plan with graphs and charts on a general’s desk.

The commander of the expedition focused exclusively on the distribution of detachments. He did not concern himself with the tactical aspect of the campaign. This would be to use the terrain to the best possible advantage and to keep the troops as mobile as possible. His badly distributed troops were going into the unknown, without the support of supply lines. They had to rely on the minimal reconnoitering that had been done and the little information that had been made available by officers of the previous expeditions. There were no practical instructions on how to secure the vanguard and the flanks. The commander was preoccupied with the traditional European order of battle. All the corps were supposed to fall out at the distance prescribed in the manuals. Each brigade, assuming a traditional open battlefield, would be able to move in geometric formations: cordons of infantry, followed by the supporting lines, reinforcements, and reserves. This would give the troops a mechanical precision that was valued by the experts in the art of traditional warfare. The commander cited Ther Brun. He did not want to innovate. He did not have the imagination to suppose that the cold strategist he had invoked might have changed his strategy if he had to face the realities of a backlands war. This European genius would have been no match for the wiles of the colonial captain who roamed the forests in search of runaway slaves. Here he would have faced a moving war, with no rules or rigid plans. It was a guerrilla war, marked by sudden assaults at every turn in the road and continuous ambushes.

He was copying instructions that were useless because they were too exact. He was trying to chart what was impossible to foresee. An insurgence that required only an innovative leader and half a dozen courageous and well-trained sergeants was being handed over to the cumbersome bureaucracy of an Old World hierarchical structure. A prescribed number of battalions would become trapped in the narrow, twisting backland trails by terrible adversaries who would fight them on the run. To make matters worse, they were lugging a massive steel Whitworth 32 that weighed almost two tons. This massive weapon, meant for a seaside fortress, only blocked the road, slowed the march, and interfered with the supply trains. The commanders, however, thought they needed this big steel scarecrow to scare the backlands fighters. In the meantime they did not pay attention to what was really important.

For example, the men set out under impossible conditions—on half rations. Their marching formation gave them no protection from attack. They did not have the guarantee of an efficient front guard or scouts along their flanks who could head off ambushes. The scouts they did have were ineffective. They had to march beside the troops and this was impossible to do in the brush. Soldiers wearing cloth uniforms had to make their way through tangled thickets full of thorns and razor-sharp leaves. The result was that their clothing was torn to shreds. They should have been prepared for this situation and issued appropriate clothing, such as the cowmen wore. The leather armor of the sertanejo, the sturdy sandals, shin guards, and leggings through which the thorns of the xique-xiques could not penetrate, as well as chest protectors and leather hats anchored firmly with chin straps, might have allowed them to travel safely through this vegetation. One or two properly equipped and trained units would have been able to mimic the amazing mobility of the jagunços. This especially made sense since there were men in the ranks who were from the North and would have been accustomed to wearing this type of clothing.

This would not have been excessive. The European striped dolmans and highly polished boots were much more out of place in the caatingas. Moreover, the attire worn by our worthy fellow citizens who come from these backland regions actually improves the outlines of the human shape, giving it an appearance of athletic strength. It is the best protection from the harsh weather. It reduces the heat of summer and affords protection from the winter cold. The wearer is protected from sudden fluctuations of temperature. In short, it aids in normalizing physiological functions and enhances the performance of the wearer. It is adequate for the harsh conditions of war. It does not tear or fall apart. After a long battle, the exhausted soldier can still wear his uniform intact and can even lie down on a bed of thorns. At the sound of the bugle he can jump up without a wrinkle in his garment. He can walk through the worst rainstorm and not get wet. There may be a raging fire ahead of him but he can walk through it without being harmed. A river with fast-flowing waters might appear in front of him, but he can cross it easily in his waterproof outfit.

The men who planned this expedition would have thought it too strange to innovate in this fashion. They were afraid to protect the soldier’s skin with the tough hides worn by the jagunço. Everything had to be right for this expedition. It was correct and also very vulnerable.

The first to leave on the fourteenth was the engineering corps, escorted by a brigade. They had a very difficult task—to prepare the backland trails for the advance of the troops. They had to widen, straighten, level, or cover them with bridgework so the heavy artillery could be brought along paths that were interrupted by pits and caverns and overshadowed by the surrounding hills. They were supposed to make it possible for the Krupp batteries to pass through, along with the rapid-fire cannons and the terrifying 32, which could only be transported on a solid roadway. The road was built. It was opened because of the noble efforts and tenacity of this engineering corps. It ran all the way to the top of Mount Favela, for a distance of about thirty-six miles.

The Engineering Commission

This noteworthy mission was in the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes.

No one had until then understood the task as well or was better suited to it. His sound theoretical training and keen powers of observation made him the only leader for those thousands of men who had to feel their way through an unfamiliar and barbaric region. He surveyed the area carefully in every direction, alone except for one or two assistants. He learned everything he could about the country. This tireless and fearless warrior, who had learned his profession outside of the barracks, surprised even the crudest of backlands fighters. He went off on exploratory treks through the wide highlands or deep into the desert, taking notes, studying the terrain, and often fighting the enemy as he went. Riding limping steeds incapable of even a mild canter, he would dive into the canyons, sweeping through them and up the steep hills on his dangerous reconnoitering ventures. He would show up in Caipã, Calumbi, and Cambaio, everywhere more concerned with his notebook than with his own life.

The unique landscape attracted him. Strange flora and tortured topography, a geognostic structure that was still not studied, lay before him. It was a tumultuous chapter in the history of the earth that no one had read. Often the fearless military man became a deep thinker. A shard of rock, the bloom of a flower, or an interesting feature of the soil would lift him out of the preoccupations of war and into the serene world of science.

The cowboys in the vicinity got to know him and he even made friends with them and some of the jagunços. This fragile man with the Christlike face surprised them. He could be seen all about with his rifle in a sling and a pedometer on his boot. He challenged their cunning and did not flinch when he found himself in an ambush. He did not even stop reading his compass as the blunderbusses boomed around him.

The commander in chief was very conscious of this man’s value. Lieutenant Colonel Menezes was the eye of the expedition. He came from a backlands family of the northern sertão and even had close relatives among the fanatics of Canudos. He was a fair-haired and frail man of the backlands, but he had the physical and moral veneer of modern culture. He also had a wit that matched his grit. He was the best guarantor of the army’s safe conduct. He provided the expedition with a road map that surprised even the local backlanders.

Among the roads leading to Canudos, two had been used by previous expeditions: the Cambaio and the Maçacará. The remaining one was the Calumbi, which was shorter and at many points more accessible. It did not have the trenches or the vast barren plains that bordered the first two. This led the sertanejos to think that it would be the route the expedition would choose. They began to fortify it in such a way that had the troops marched that way they would have been wiped out long before arriving at the settlement.

The plan developed by the engineering corps avoided it and directed the route farther east, around the counterforts of the Aracati.

The March

Selected brigades advanced along the selected route.

The artillery, which left Monte Santo on the seventeenth, had difficulties from the start. When the light cannons had covered a distance of six miles and were already at the Pequeno River, the bulky 32 was still three miles behind. The road was slippery and filled with potholes. The twenty yoke of oxen that dragged it slowly along were guided by inexperienced drivers. Both the men and the animals were not trained for this entirely new kind of cargo transport. Obstacles came up at every turn, when they went around sharp bends, when they crossed the poorly constructed bridges, and in trying to get over the ruts in the road where the heavy weapon got stuck.

On the afternoon of the nineteenth, after they had taken three days to cover eight miles, they finally managed to drag the huge piece of equipment as far as Caldeirão Grande. When they arrived they managed to organize the artillery brigade with the Second Infantry. This would be the vanguard of Lieutenant Colonel Dantas Barreto’s Twenty-fifth Battalion. The next morning this detachment would move on to the Gitirana farm, five miles away, at the same exhausting and obstructed pace.

The same day, the commander in chief left Monte Santo with the greater part of the column. This consisted of the First and Third brigades, a total of 1,933 men.

The entire expedition was now on the march. There were about three thousand men. They moved in the direction of Mount Aracati, twenty-nine miles beyond Monte Santo, in an identical manner. The large divisions advanced one at a time, sometimes converging and other times spreading out. The lighter vanguard was constantly slowed down by the lumbering pace of the artillery.

Even farther to the rear, the general supply train followed. It was under the command of the quartermaster general’s deputy, Colonel Campello França, and escorted by 432 soldiers and the Fifth Corps of the Bahian police force. This was the only detachment in the entire force that was really able to deal with the conditions of the campaign. It had been recently formed with sertanejo recruits from the river regions of the São Francisco valley. They were neither an army battalion nor a police squadron. These were a rowdy band of tough, mean caboclos, who in the last days of the siege of Canudos would play the banjo and sing cheerful songs as bullets whizzed by. In fact, they were a battalion of jagunços. They stood out from the regular troops because of their particular kind of bravery, which was both brutal and romantic. It was savage and heroic, chivalrous and merciless—the same kind of courage that was exhibited by the forest mestizos who joined the bandeiras. These men had the primitive characteristics of a race that had been isolated in the highlands and untouched by the outside world. Now they appeared on the scene with all their original traits. They were an interesting mixture of contrasting characteristics—a charming innocence, loyalty carried to the point of self-sacrifice, a heroism that could easily turn to barbarity. We shall see this later on.

The Fifth Corps and the supply train were the last to leave Monte Santo. They were consequently at the rear of the expedition and completely isolated from it when it was important to keep the entire force together. The same thing happened to the other battalions. Contrary to plans, it was impossible to pull the troops together if a battle should break out. Since they depended on the sappers, the entire artillery train was often far away from the rest of the column. It was a huge obstruction between the advance guard and the rest of the column. If the jagunços had attacked the rear, the troops leading the line would not have been able to turn back to help their comrades because of the equipment stuck in the narrow pathways.

All of this can be found in the official record of the march. The main column left Rio Pequeno at daybreak on the twenty-first, a little more than two miles beyond Monte Santo. They arrived at about nine o’clock in the morning at Caldeirão Grande, after a march of about five miles. The rear guard was still quite far away with the 32 cannon under the guard of Colonel Medeiros’s brigade. The Gouveia brigade, meanwhile, far in the lead, reached Gitirana that evening. Here they joined the engineering corps and General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães, who had led an advance party of twenty cavalrymen and members of the Ninth Infantry. The supply train, led by Colonel Campello França and guarded by the Fifth Police, brought up the rear. It was clear that the troops were spread out over an area of about ten miles, which was entirely against orders.

At dawn on the twenty-second, General Barbosa was striking camp at Caldeirão Grande and preparing to move to Gitirana. The commander in chief, meanwhile, left Gitirana with the First Brigade, the Ninth Battalion of the Third, the Twenty-fifth of the Second, the cavalry wing under Major Carlos de Alencar, and the artillery with the order of march that had been drawn up: the Fourteenth and Thirtieth battalions were in the lead, the cavalry and artillery in the middle, and the Ninth and Twenty-fifth followed. The commander in chief made rapid progress and arrived with the advance guard at Juá, four miles beyond Gitirana. The artillery was stalled at Gitirana, waiting for the engineering corps to work on the roads and the sapping. Since most of the troops were still moving on the Caldeirão Grande road, they had to divide up frequently, exposing themselves to a disadvantageous position if they had been attacked. The men were not prepared for these large-scale maneuvers. This should have been planned ahead of time as a tactical requirement instead of being an improvised response to the conditions of the march.

The brigades finally assembled that night at Juá. They arrived around six in the evening. The artillery was followed by the rest of the column, including the Fifth, Seventh, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Twenty-second infantries. The only detachment that was not there was the supply train, which had been delayed on the road.

From here the two generals headed out on the morning of the twenty-third for Aracati, eight miles farther on. Colonel Gouveia’s battalions formed the advance guard. The artillery, under Colonel Medeiros, did not move out until noon, after the engineers supported by the Flores brigade performed some extremely difficult repairs on the road.

We relate the details of this march because they illustrate the extreme conditions faced by the expedition. After leaving Juá and arriving at the ruins of the Poço farm, an incident occurred that betrayed their inexperience with the terrain.

Incidents

Instead of proceeding to the right in search of a farm known as Sitio, which belonged to Thomas Villa-Nova, a native of the region who was completely supportive of our cause, the sappers took a detour to the left. After they had traveled quite a distance and worked very hard for hours, Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes came to the realization that it was impossible to repair the roads as quickly as was needed. “A huge amount of earth had to be moved from the caatinga thickets. The boulders were immense. The grade and unevenness of the terrain created impossible conditions to move vehicles.” They abandoned the task and moved on to the Villa-Nova farm. The experience had taught them something. They began work on a new route, which was out of the way but more viable. The artillery was only able to use this path in the late afternoon. They passed the Pereiras farm and camped at midnight on Lake Laje, a mile on this side of Aracati, where the rest of the column had been located for some time. Still in the rear were the Third Brigade and the unwieldy Thirty-second. They had been caught by nightfall at the bank of the Ribeirão dos Pereiras, which they could not cross in the dark.

Now they were entering the danger zone. That day an advance team of scouts, led by a lieutenant, caught some of the rebels who were tearing down a house in the area that belonged to Colonel José Américo. After a rapid engagement, the sertanejos ran off without returning fire. One of them stayed behind. He was on the roof. When he came down he was immediately surrounded. Even though he had been wounded, he attacked the nearest soldier, a sergeant, and knocked him off his horse. He grabbed the man’s rifle and hit him with the butt. Then he sidled up against the wall of the house, whirling the weapon around his head like a windmill. When the men surrounded him he lay on the ground and gave up. They killed him. It was the first engagement, and it took far too many men to accomplish it. There would be others like it.

On the twenty-fourth the march became arduous. The column that had started from Aracati at noon, because it had to wait for the latecomers, now set off with them for Juetê, eight and a half miles away. The roads were becoming more difficult. In addition to the work they usually do, the sappers had to use axes to clear more than three miles through a wild stretch of caatinga that justified the place’s name, which comes from the word ju-etê, meaning “great thorn.”

Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes, the man in charge of this remarkable piece of work, left this account, later published in O Paíz, under a pseudonym, Hoche:

In addition to xique-xique, palmatória, rabo de raposa, mandacarús, croás, cabeça de frade, calumbi, cansanção, favela, quixaba, and the quite respectable macambira we found the much discussed and feared cunanã.1 This was a species of liana plant that had the exact appearance of a cultivated plant with cylindrical leaves that can be found in gardens. A few inches from the ground its stalk divides into many branches, which multiply in marvelous profusion, forming a great chalice that remains suspended in the air either by its own structure or supported by plants around it. Its tendrils of cylindrical leaves spread out over the ground, each with eight flutings and an equal number of gummy filaments. It looks like a giant polyp with millions of elastic antennae, covering a considerable area of the soil and forming an impenetrable groundcover over the thin vegetation of this region. Even using the sharpest tool available, the soldiers of our engineering contingent and the police, called the Chinamen by their comrades in the fighting troops, had great difficulty. Even using this they had great difficulty dislodging this dense web of vegetation, which resisted all efforts to remove it so that the way could be cleared. In this new kind of labyrinth, the engineering unit had just a few hours to open up more than three miles of road. The artillery, impatient to advance, was right on their heels. Despite the strenuous efforts of the republican patriots in performing this heavy labor, night overtook them before they arrived at the clearing known as Queimadas. Here the treacherous vegetation suddenly disappeared from their way, as if it had taken fright and fled. Before the soldiers became completely demoralized and exhausted, the command ordered great bonfires to be lit so that the loyal soldiers, resigned to their task, could continue to work for the good cause of the country. The officers in charge of the work, representing the engineering contingent and the police, in addition to the commander, were Lieutenants Nascimento and Chrisanto and Sublieutenants Ponciano, Virgilio, and Melchiades; Captain Coriolano; and Lieutenant Domingos Ribeiro, who was doing other work at the rear.

This last stretch of road was cleared between eight and nine at night, to everyone’s great relief and joy. They were at the point where the cunanã gave way to a more benign form of vegetation. The 32 cannon, which at night could not overcome the additional obstacles that the road presented, remained in the shrubbery on the trail until the following day. It was under the care of Dr. Domingos Leite, who, with a crew of “Chinamen,” had the responsibility of transporting it from Pequeno River to Canudos.

Just after nine o’clock, the commission was camped in a clearing under torrential rains, which went on until the next day, to everyone’s great discomfort and displeasure. The artillery brigade was also camped here with the Sixteenth and Twenty-fifth infantry battalions. The Twenty-seventh Battalion was left in charge of the 32 cannon, which camped in the thickets.

It was truly an impressive sight to behold the artillery with its highly polished metal arms and equipment gleaming in the light of the great bonfires in the desert night. The army was like a queen of the world relishing its own strength, making its way by the fantastic light of those great fires. It was as if the spirit of liberty itself was leading them to the road of duty, honor, and glory.

Meanwhile General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães arrived in Juetê for the night with his headquarters staff and a scouting detachment of cavalry. At this time, General Barbosa was on his way with the First and Third brigades to the ranch called Rosário, about three miles down the road. The commander in chief arrived there the next morning. Later on the rest of the division arrived, making it necessary to grade the banks of the Rosário river so the artillery could make it across.

The Brave Scout: Pajehú

The enemy once again put in a quick, furtive appearance. It was just a scouting party to snipe at the troops. Pajehú was in charge. The notorious bandit was mainly interested in gathering information. He also had another intelligent goal in mind. He wanted to create panic among the troops with his invisible fire. This would incite the troops to accelerate their pace, as the previous expedition had done, causing them great harm. He inflicted rapid running fire on the troops from the side as they made their way through the caatinga. He disappeared. Then he sprang up again, farther on. He pounced on the vanguard with lively fire. This happened to be the Ninth Infantry. Once again he sped off with a few sharpshooters. It was impossible to make out the attackers. They would run off after firing a few shots. One Indian boy of twelve or fourteen was wounded and taken prisoner. Nothing was learned from questioning him.

The troops pitched camp at the Rosário farm without further incident.

All the fighting units were there except for the Third Brigade, which had gone on to the Baixas farm, four miles ahead.

The commander in chief sent a message to General Savaget, reminding him of their agreement to meet on the twenty-seventh in the vicinity of Canudos. On the twenty-sixth they struck camp and went on to Vicar’s Farm, eleven miles away, after a short stop in Baixas.

They were now about fifty miles from Monte Santo, in the most dangerous zone. The brief attack the night before was a forecast of similar encounters to come. Perhaps with information from their reconnoitering expedition, the jagunços were getting ready for more serious engagements. Their lurking presence, as always, was betrayed by the formation of the earth itself. Here the terrain becomes more rugged. It bristles with bare hills as far as Baixas, where the Rosário Range rises up with is hard flanks and sparse vegetation.

The troops were going to scale the southern countermure that surrounds Canudos. They advanced with caution. The bugles were silent. The quickly formed battalions marched to the highlands. They scaled them. Then they spread out as they made their way down the ravine that divides the mountains from Vicar’s Farm.

The entire column then broke up into a number of small divisions. The advance guard reached the farmhouse late in the afternoon. The light artillery, leaving the heavy 32 to the engineers, was crossing the first foothills and slowly climbing the slope on the other side, following the sappers who were ahead clearing the road. Night fell and with it torrential rains and high winds. The enemy, who had the advantage of knowing the terrain well, could have easily attacked. They did not do so. As we will see, they had other plans. They did not touch the supply train, which was at the rear, near the Juetê highway. The animals had been unharnessed. The entire load of fifty-three carts and seven large ox-drawn wagons was divided up and placed on the backs of the strong sertanejos of the Fifth Police Battalion.

The night passed peacefully. The next day, the twenty-seventh, was the date that had been set for the dangerous meeting of the two columns. They expected to be soon walking triumphantly over the ruins of the besieged settlement. Everything was put into motion for the final encounter. In all the commotion, accented by impatience and anxiety, as well as the energetic enthusiasm typical of preparations for battle, no one remembered the comrades who had been left behind.

The brigades set off, completely forgetting the supply train behind them, which was entirely unguarded. The soldiers assigned to protect it were either carrying supplies or busy tending to mules that were loaded with supplies. They were in no shape to engage in even the smallest skirmish. The brigades, however, continued on. At the head of the column was Colonel Gouveia’s, with two pieces of ordnance; in the center, Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s brigade and the cavalry. Then came the detachments led by Colonels Thompson Flores and Medeiros. They crossed the Angico, a small stream, on light pontoon bridges and then advanced in a line six miles long. The march was broken by the Twenty-fifth Battalion, flanked by two useless platoons that were barely able to hack away the vegetation that slowed their progress.

Passage to Pitombas

The jagunços launched a surprise attack at noon before they reached Angico. It was a more serious skirmish, although it could not be called a battle, which it later was. Pajehú had gathered his scouts, who had been positioned all the way from here to Canudos, and they now all fired on the column from the side. The troops were at a clearing on the slope, and because of their elevation, they were a good target for the sertanejos, who could hardly be seen in the weeds below. Nevertheless, the soldiers resisted the attack but had two casualties: one dead and one wounded. They continued in good order, at the same pace, until they came upon the memorable Pitombas farm where Moreira César had encountered the fanatics for the first time.

It was a depressing place.

The men were deeply affected by the cruel reminders of the terrible events here: Bleached shreds of uniforms swayed on the dead branches. Old saddles and fragments of military capes and coats were littered over the ground along with bone fragments. On the left of the road, on a tree branch that served as a clothing rack from which a weather-beaten uniform hung, was the decapitated body of Colonel Tamarindo, its arms dangling, the skeleton hands covered in black gloves. At the feet of the corpse lay the skull and the colonel’s boots.

In the weeds at the side of the road, the soldiers found remains of the other victims. Skeletons in filthy rags lay in tragic formation or draped over shrubs, which bending in the wind made the corpses dance like ghosts. This had been purposefully staged by the jagunços, who had not taken anything away from the scene except for the weapons and ammunition. A soldier of the Twenty-fifth Battalion found a kerchief around the lower leg bone of one of the corpses, containing a packet of banknotes amounting to more than four contos de réis, or about two thousand dollars. The enemy had no interest in the money or other articles of value.

The spooked troops had no time to linger over the scene. The enemy continued to snipe at them from the flanks. Pushed back in the previous encounter, after being outflanked on the right by a company of the Twenty-fifth under Captain Trogyllio de Oliveira, the sertanejos had lost ground but they kept up a running fire. The Twenty-fifth, accompanied by the Twenty-seventh under Major Henrique Severiano da Silva, turned and pursued them as far as Angico.

It was now noon and battle was imminent. Scattered shots were heard at various places along the flanks and in the front lines. The commander in chief prepared to confront the enemy. It seemed that they were about to surround them and attack. Cavalry scouts, led by Sublieutenant Marques da Rocha of headquarters, were deployed to search the brush on the left, without results. The march continued.

Two hours later, as they crossed a hill, the attack suddenly came again. It was met with rounds from the Krupp cannon. A cavalry sergeant and a few men dove bravely into the caatinga but again came up with nothing. The troops meanwhile continued on. The Twenty-fifth was in front, preceded by scouts and followed by the Twenty-seventh and the Sixteenth. These detachments answered the enemy’s sparse fire, encouraging the assault.

Night was falling. The advance guard was struggling to climb the last steep inclines of the Umburanas road. They were panting but did not waver in their march. They kept fighting off side attacks. Then the mountain loomed in front of them. In the last stage of their climb they arrived at an inclined plain between two large elevations with a few bare hills obstructing the way ahead. They had reached the top of Mount Favela.

On Top of Mount Favela

At this point the legendary hill is really a valley. As one climbs it, the unexpected impression is of arriving in lowland.

It feels like a descent. The exhausted traveler is painfully disappointed after the difficult ascent. His view is obstructed by many irregular features in the landscape. Instead of a row of peaks he finds a thalweg, which is a leg of the Rosário highway, in the form of a long furrow like a huge trench about a thousand feet long, walled off by a hill at its far end.

There is a view of the slopes at the top of the hill. These are striated by deep ditches, which drain the mountain of its torrential streams. The road descends unevenly to the right through a narrow passage between almost vertical ramps that are like ancient tunnels. On the left is another dip, which ends in the gentle slope of Mario’s Hill. This extends in a north-south direction and to the north is closed off by another hill, which blocks the view of the town. On the other side it drops into a deep ravine leading to the Umburanas riverbed. In front, on a lower terrace, is the Old Ranch House. The small Bald Headlands continue down to the Vaza-Barris below. In all four directions—on the east to the Macambira valley, on this side of the Cocorobó range and the Jeremoabo highway traversing it; to the north over the vast rolling plain; to the west, where two small streams, the Umburanas and the Mucuim, follow the end of the Cambaio road—in all directions, and from all sides, the sloping landscape has the appearance of a series of hills crowding each other in a jumble of peaks and valleys. The image is of a storm-beaten mountain that is slowly crumbling apart. The gorges formed by the torrential rains deepen each year. With no vegetation to protect it from the searing summer heat and flood erosion, it is a barren landscape.

Mount Favela does not have even the barbaric vegetation of the caatinga to cover its naked ruggedness. A few leafless shrubs, a rare cactus, a bromeliad here or there are the few plants one can find in the hard soil. At the summit, the crevices in the schist rock, visible in stratigraphic planes, lack even the faintest covering of a surface layer and reveal the inner structure of the earth. Though it is completely devoid of shrubbery, the view from the southern peak does not reveal the settlement to the north. One has to descend the slope into the fold of the mountain that is like a saddle between two parallel peaks.

At nightfall the head of the column entered this fold with a Krupp battery. It was followed by the rest of the Second Brigade and the Third. The First and most of the troops were still held up at the rear. They did not get much farther. The intermittent fire that had accompanied the expedition now escalated in a continuous crescendo as they made the ascent. At the top it turned into a furious fusillade.

An engagement of the most unique and cruel sort now began.

The enemy was nowhere to be seen. He was burrowed in caves, bunkered in the trenches that covered the side slopes. The first shadows of night gave him additional protection.

The two companies of the Twenty-fifth Battalion handled the attack sturdily. They broke up into sharpshooting detachments and charged through, firing randomly, as the two brigades in front of them opened ranks to let the battery through. It was thrust violently forward, dragged by hand instead of by the exhausted and frightened mules, at a quickened pace and with a great rumble. Climbing the hill at the far end of the great trough, it assumed battle position at the top. The national flag was unfurled, and Canudos was given a salvo of twenty-one rounds.

General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães, mounted on horseback next to the cannons, gazed for the first time, through the dazzling moonlight, at the mysterious backlands city. He had the briefest moment of triumph on this promontory where he was so rashly exposed to a direct line of fire.

The situation really was desperate. Under attack from all sides, surrounded by the enemy positioned above them, his troops were trapped in a narrow depression in the mountain, which gave them no room to maneuver. If all the troops had been together, there might have been one solution: to complete the dangerous mountain crossing and join General Savaget’s forces. He had now stopped two miles ahead after a march punctuated by intermittent skirmishes. The First Brigade, however, was not there. It had stayed behind to guard the rapid-fire battery and the 32. What was more serious was that the supply train was five miles behind them at Angico.

The campaign plan had resulted in the only possible outcome. According to this plan, the expedition was supposed to operate as a unit. Under one command and dependent on one supply train, it could not break up into smaller units. However, at the very moment that conflict broke out it was forced to separate, whether it wanted to or not. The opening salvo over Canudos was the most meaningless of victories. The commander in chief later referred to it as a brilliant engagement, forcing the enemy to concede its position to the troops. The fact is that subsequent events showed that the men wanted to abandon their position and the jagunços did everything they could to prevent them from doing so.

A Division Is Trapped

It was a very clever trap. Anyone who later explored the slopes of Mount Favela could see this. The slopes were mined. At every few steps was a circular hole, its top even with the ground and a protecting ridge of stone. This showed where the trenches had been dug. There were countless numbers of them. All of them opened lines of fire at the same level as the ground. This had been deliberately done in anticipation of the troops’ attempt to cross the mountain.

This also explained the relatively minor skirmishes with the sertanejos along the road from Angico on. The jagunços’ intention was to keep up harmless fire as they ran through the brush, so that they could lead the expedition in a direction away from the settlement. Their plan worked. Goaded on by an enemy that kept scattering and disappearing as they advanced, the troops had thoughtlessly entered a region they had no knowledge of. They were lured in without being aware of it by a capable scout they had not counted on—the sly Pajehú.

They fell into the trap thinking they were conquerors. They quickly lost their confidence, however. Their ranks were chaotically disrupted when in reply to the cannon boom on one side, the entire range of slopes burst into running flame from top to bottom. A deadly rifle fire burst on them from the hundreds of trenches, as if the ground itself were mined.

It was a mass shooting.

The surprised battalions became a panicked crowd. Hundreds of men ran in every direction, stumbling into each other, trampling on their fallen comrades. They were disoriented, deafened, and blinded by the cannon and rifle fire. They could not go a step farther out into a terrain they knew nothing about and where night was already falling.

It was useless to try to storm the slopes. The jagunços fired with impunity, at no risk to themselves. They squatted or lay flat in their trenches. Only their rifle barrels stuck out at the top. The idea of trying to rout them with a desperate bayonet charge up the hill was rejected. This could have exposed the troops to an even worse assault while the rear guard would have been left behind. There was nothing they could do except stand their ground in this dangerous position and wait for morning.

This decision, the only one possible, was reinforced by the enemy. After about an hour the enemy’s fire slowed down and, finally, to the surprise of the troops, it stopped completely. The brigades set up camp in battle formation. The Second took an advance position from center to the right. The First was in the rear. The artillery remained on an opposite hill with the rapid-fire battery on its right and the Whitworth 32 in the middle, guarded by the Thirtieth under Lieutenant Colonel Tupy Caldas. The general, who had commanded this battalion as a colonel, was personally responsible for putting it in this dangerous situation:

“I place the artillery in the hands of the Thirtieth and have complete confidence that it will honorably discharge its duty to defend it.”

The rest of Major Barbedo’s Fifth Regiment took a position on the left, next to Major Carlos de Alencar’s cavalry wing. Near the depression under the summit of Mario’s Hill, the weakest place in their position and later to be named Death Valley, Colonel Flores’s battalions were crowded in. A field hospital was improvised in a gulley that was less open to enemy fire. Here they carried the fifty-five wounded and twenty dead because there was no place to bury them. This brought the total number of casualties to seventy-five for only a little more than an hour of fighting.

A ring of guards was placed around. The troops, officers, and men, lay down on the ground in the most democratic promiscuity, and rested peacefully.

The unexpected quiet of the enemy gave them the illusion of having won. The musicians of the Third Brigade somewhat prematurely played triumphal tunes until dawn, going through their entire repertory. Meanwhile a magnificent moon rose and shed its light over the sleeping battalions.

But the peace was deceptive. The jagunços had accomplished their clever goal. Having lured the expedition to this place, they now had the rear guard at their mercy, along with the supply train that carried the rations and ammunition. On the same day they had simultaneously attacked two points, at Mount Favela and Angico. Although the troops had been successful at Favela, they now had to begin their attack on the settlement without munitions; that is, lacking the instruments of war.

This situation did not weigh on those who had so precipitously approached the center of operations. At dawn on the twenty-eighth, as they gathered on the outcrop where the artillery was positioned, they finally had a look at the “bandit cave,” which is how the commander in chief described it in his orders of the day.

Canudos was still growing in size, but only its primitive appearance seemed to have become more accentuated. The same red houses with clay roofs were scattered more widely over the hilltops around the tight nucleus of huts at the bend of the river. On the southwest and northwest, the river created a moat around the town. To the north and east the settlement was cordoned off by rolling hills. In the early morning light, it looked like a citadel that would be very hard to capture. It was evident that if an army corps descended into the maze of gullies, it would be like marching into a minefield. There was not a single point where the town was completely accessible. The Jeremoabo highway, two hundred yards away, entered the village along the dry bed of the Vaza-Barris. The riverbed was flanked by two rows of gullies on either side, hidden by a hedge of wild silk grass. The “sacred” Maçacará road, the one used by the Counselor on his trips south, descended between the hills, along the banks of the Umburanas. It was equally impractical. The Uauá and Várzea da Ema trails to the north were not blocked but they could only be reached after a long and dangerous detour.

The new church was now almost completed. Its two tall towers rose proudly over the low-roofed huts. It added to the impression of the town being an impregnable fortress. The church towers had a dominant view of all the roads, hills, and valleys. A sharpshooter positioned on its heavy cornices had no reentrant angle to worry about. All that was missing to make it look like a fort were cannon openings and battlements.

The uplifted, rugged land that descended to the river from Mount Favela on the north side opened on the left into the big depression that led to Mario’s Hill and the line of peaks descending in the direction of the Old Ranch House. The Third Brigade took up a position here. It formed into columns, with the artillery on the promontory to the right. Afterward followed the Second and First brigades. The troops were in battle formation by dawn. Because of the tactical advantage of their position, they felt the battle had to be started and sustained by the artillery. They thought that with cross fire on the village four thousand feet below, they would be able to achieve complete victory in a short time.

All hopes were centered on Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s batteries.

Expectations were so high that just before the first round was fired at six in the morning many men from other detachments grouped around the cannon for a view of the terribly dramatic scene to follow: Canudos burning under the curtain of fire sent down by the artillery. The entire population would be crushed under the ruins of five thousand huts.

This was one more illusion that would be rudely broken.

The first shot was fired by the Krupp on the extreme right. Its effect was in fact theatrical.

All night the jagunços had slept in their trenches on the hillsides next to the troops. When the cannon went off, it was their presence that was felt and heard.

Later on, in retelling the event, the commander in chief of the expedition confessed that he was at a loss to describe the “rain of bullets that fell from the hills and came up from the low-lying plains with a horrible whistling sound” that stunned the troops. The commander of the first column stated in his plan of the day that he had never seen anything like it in his five years in the Paraguayan War.

The sertanejos were showing a surprising steadiness in their attack. They delivered consistent fire. The bullets flew in a violent stream, exploding on the sides of the hills as if they were coming from a single train of gunpowder. After attacking the vulnerable troops in the depression below, they turned to the artillery and wiped out its ranks. Dozens of soldiers fell, along with half the officers. The men left manning the guns stood their ground. In the middle of it all, Colonel Olympio da Silveira strode up and down between the batteries, as unfazed as if he were conducting training on a firing range. His calm saved the situation. In a crisis such as this, if they had abandoned the cannon they would have been utterly defeated.

The alarm sounded through the ranks. With no orders and no definite aim, three thousand rifles blasted away at the same time against the hills. It all happened in just a few minutes. In the confined area where the troops were helplessly moving about, there was the most regrettable disorder.

No one thought clearly. Everyone was in action. Not knowing what they were doing, with no room to charge or maneuver, the overwhelmed platoons fired in all directions at once, aiming high so they would not kill each other. They were firing at a frightening, invisible enemy attacking them from all sides. Yet he was nowhere to be seen. In this madness, the Third Brigade on the left flank, in full battle formation, with the Seventh Battalion in the lead, began to move down the slope in the direction of the Old Ranch House, where the heaviest fire was coming from. Four months earlier, the Seventh had come up the same road, running in defeat and leaving behind the body of Colonel Moreira César. They now wanted to make up for this disgrace. Accompanying the Seventh on this special mission was the Ninth, which had also been with it on that terrible occasion. Major Cunha Mattos led the advance guard.

The defeated soldiers from the earlier expedition now had an unusual chance for revenge. They had a leader who was very much like their fallen commander. Colonel Thompson Flores was a superb fighter. While he lacked the clarity of mind that is an essential quality for a commander, he was a very brave man. He held contempt for any foe, however strong or bold. This made him a strong leader in stressful situations. In the bold attack that he was now single-handedly trying to lead, he was acting entirely on his own. He had no orders. He was grimly trying to lead his men in a single charge all the way to the square with the churches, where the same men had been wiped out just months ago. His brigade started to attack, swept up by the enemy’s direct fire. They had advanced just about one hundred yards when the advance broke up, every man for himself. Colonel Flores, at the head of the column, dismounted to personally direct the line of fire. In a surfeit of bravery, he refused to tear off the stripes from his sleeves, which made him a favored target for the jagunços. Later they found him dead of a wound in the chest.

He was replaced by Major Cunha Mattos, who continued the foolhardy attempt. The Seventh was the only detachment that could not fall back in that terrain. His command was short-lived. Shot by an accurate bullet, he was replaced by Major Carlos Frederico de Mesquita, who was also killed soon after. The command of the brigade then went to Captain Pereira Pinto.

The engagement was a disaster. In a half hour 114 men, along with 9 officers, were killed or wounded.

The ranks of this detachment had been reduced by a third under the relentless fire. Similar destruction occurred at other points. As the minutes went by, commanders were dying and being replaced by men of lower rank. The Fourteenth Infantry, moving up to reinforce the line on the right flank, had advanced just a few yards when its commander, Major Pereira de Mello, went down. He was replaced by Captain Martiniano de Oliveira, who was soon hit and carried to the rear. Captain Souza Campos was the next up and he had taken just a few steps when he was killed. The Fourteenth was now under the command of a lieutenant.

The slaughter continued down the line. What was worse, after two hours of fighting without any attempt at tactics, the munitions were depleted. The artillery, its ranks decimated, still stood its ground on the promontory, but it had fired its last round and the cannons were now silent. Half the officers had been lost, among them a commissary captain of the Fifth Regiment, Nestor Vilar Barreto Coutinho.

The headquarters staff was now receiving urgent demands for more munitions for the battalions.

Captain Costa e Silva, assistant to the quartermaster general’s deputy, was sent to the rear to do what he could to speed the supply train. It was too late. A couple of adjutants who were dispatched after him came galloping back after they had gone but half a mile. They could not get through the fusillade. This meant that the rear guard was completely cut off. In the din and confusion and the sound of fire all around them, the troops on Mount Favela could hear the distant fire of the Fifth Police detachment, who were in hand-to-hand combat with the jagunços, five miles away.

The entire first column was trapped. However strange this was, the victors could not leave the position they had won. The commander admitted to this: “The supply train was under attack and it was impossible for a single man to get through. There was nothing we could do except to send a cavalry detachment to General Cláudio do Amaral Savaget to try to get a supply of munitions from him. This was against my better judgment. I knew that no detachment could get by the enemy fire on our left flank.”

Thus, attacked on the right, where the cavalry detachment was beaten back and had to turn back; attacked from the rear, where two auxiliary units had not been able to get through; attacked on the left, where the Third Brigade was making a valiant stand; and finally attacked on the front, where the decimated artillery was silent, the expeditionary forces were completely under the control of the enemy.

There was just one, very dangerous, way out. They could try to leave this valley of death on top of Mount Favela at bayonet and sword point. However, one alternative could be attempted. A secret messenger was sent out through the caatingas in search of the second column, which was stationed about a mile to the north.

III

The Savaget Column

General Cláudio do Amaral Savaget and his troops departed from Aracajú, and after a march of about 175 miles, they stopped in the vicinity of Canudos. They had come through the interior of Sergipe, one brigade at a time, as far as Jeremoabo. Here the column was united on the eight of June. It proceeded to move out on the sixteenth for the scene of operations.

The column was 2,350 men strong, with an artillery bearing two light Krupps. It moved at a leisurely pace and in an order that was best suited to the situation.

The general was not an authoritarian type of leader. This would have been counterproductive. Without any breach of military discipline, he chose to delegate parts of his command to his three immediate aides: Colonels Carlos Maria da Silva Telles, Julião Augusto da Serra Martins, and Donaciano de Araújo Pantoja, commanders of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth brigades. These commanders led an exemplary march to the first houses of the settlement that stands out from the rest.

There were no preliminary orders. There was no attempt to impose the traditional formations or classical battle strategies on this crude battleground. The conditions of the campaign were well understood as they should have been from the beginning. These men grasped that textbook theories were completely inappropriate to this type of backwoods warfare. Here the tactics were limited and savage and everything depended on spur-of-the-moment decisions.

For the first time the troops were prepared for the jagunço and his particular brand of fighting. They were subdivided into independent, compact, but efficient mobile units. They were able to react quickly to surprise attacks and face the one thing that they should expect in this new kind of warfare that has no set rules: the unexpected. The three brigades were agile, flexible, and stable. They had their own supply trains, which did not slow them down. They were now free to move in the supple manner of the guerrillas themselves and in harmony with the terrain. The mass formation of the division was broken up. Instead of relying on numbers, emphasis was given to speed and strength in circumscribed arenas of conflict. They eliminated the artillery fireworks, which were impressive but useless under these conditions.

The Fourth Brigade was in the lead, composed of the Twelfth and Thirty-first battalions under the commands of Lieutenant Colonel Sucupira de Alencar Araripe and Major João Pacheco de Assis.

Colonel Carlos Telles was in command of this brigade, which was the best military organization our army has had in recent history.

He was a perfect specimen of those extraordinary leaders that come out of Rio Grande do Sul, made from the mold of the soldier-chieftain Andrade Neves. He was brave, good humored, and strong willed. He managed to be at the same time innovative and conservative, fearless and cautious, impetuous and objective. He did not hesitate to fight next to his men in the most heated battle after he had made sure to plan carefully for the operation.

The federalist campaign in the South had made his reputation. He had won his enviable laurels in the heroic siege of Bagé. The Canudos campaign was bound to increase his renown. He had the warrior intuition of the gaucho and understood the variable conditions of warfare as few others of his peers did. He was a striking figure: tall and imposing, with a clear, unwavering gaze.

He led his brigade, traveling alone, to Simão Dias. They arrived on May 4. He had shaped his detachment into a small corps that was well adapted to the conditions of the conflict. He made it lighter and more flexible. He trained his men. Although he could not give them the practical knowledge that he had acquired on the battlefields of Rio Grande, he did the best he could to make them swift and strong in charging the enemy. He selected sixty skilled horsemen from the Thirty-first, who were not suited to the slow pace of the infantry. He made them into a lance squadron under the command of a sublieutenant. This innovation at first seemed to be a mistake. The “cold silent weapon” of Damiroff, designed for cavalry charges on the steppes and pampas, seemed at first to be completely inappropriate for the rugged, brambly soil of the sertão. Later, the importance of this decision was made clear.

These new lancers were skilled riders used to jumping across the “bull pits” of the southern pampas. Now they took on the pits and gullies of the northern backlands. Later on, when the columns were reassembled on the desert of Mount Favela, the lance turned into a cowboy’s prod to round up the stray cattle that became the only source of food for the starving troops.

The lancers thus had a dual function. They kept the line of march clear for General Savaget’s division as they moved from Jeremoabo to Canudos. A few days before the division set out, a few soldiers from the squadron had reconnoitered the road all the way to the outskirts of the settlement. As a result, the road was clear as far as Serra Vermelha, where the foothills of the Cocorobó range start. At a pace of five miles a day, the column went by the settlements known as Passagem, Canabrava, Brejinho, Mauari, Canché, Estrada Velha, and Serra Vermelha. They reached this place on June 25, certain they would find the enemy near. For the first time, the government troops were not taken by surprise in the backlands.

Cocorobó

Cocorobó is the name of not just one but a number of hills. The area recalls the remains of ancient canyons, erosion valleys or ravines that were carved out by the Vaza-Barris in remote ages when the great force of its waters overflowed from a huge lake covering the rugged plain of Canudos. The mass of waters was then contained by the huge block of hills that ripple away from Favela to Caipã, to the southwest and northwest. From Favela they reached to the northeast and then, contained by the highlands of Poço de Cima and Canabrava, had no other course but to overflow eastward into narrow, trenchlike troughs.

The topographical features of this region invite us to recall the region’s geological history. Here the highlands are fragmented into steep mountain passes and jagged, saw-toothed inclines. The general appearance is that of a dike that has been severely eroded by floodwaters. The slopes seem to have been carved out of the plain. Even though they are very irregular, they allow a mental reconstruction of the original features of the land. They are the fossil remains of a mountain. The same Silurian layers are exposed here as elsewhere. The earth’s core is revealed at ground level in the proportion that the torrential waters have eroded the more recent sedimentary formations. The primitive mountain is revealed out of this process of excavation. It exhibits the pronounced hypsometric curves, which are telling signs of the strength of the natural forces that have lashed it for ages. As in the case of Mount Favela, the tough caatinga dies off at the foot of the mountain, leaving the sides completely barren. Its sides are sometimes encrusted with boulders and other times fall straight down in sheer walls, with a few stunted orchids growing out from the crevices in the rock. They can jut up in the form of reefs or cliffs whose surfaces are a series of folds that fan all the way to the summit. There they form a tight row of peaks that contrast with the flat land below, not just in form but in underlying structure.

Whoever undertakes the trip from Canudos to Jeremoabo will find an unusual passage—it is the deep gap through which the Vaza-Barris flows east on its winding course. The river becomes the real road here. After following along its bed for a few yards the sensation is of having gone through a narrow door. The mountain notch comes to an end, the steep slopes along its sides quickly flatten out, and one enters a huge, arching amphitheater. The earth is still rugged and another cluster of hills is a point of focus in the center of the semicircular space. The original passage splits. On the right it rounds the bend of the Vaza-Barris. These two gorges of varying width narrow in places to a span of about twenty yards and then continue to follow a slow curve drawn by two outlying mountain spurs. After separating for a short distance, they join again to form another single slope, which leads out to the Jeremoabo highway. Before they join, each is bordered by slopes—the hills in the center face the larger mountain defiles on the opposite side. These are ridged with steep cliffs, in random formations or clustering in terraces like stairs, reminiscent of a giant coliseum.

The slope of the Cocorobó range gives us a notion of how rough the terrain is in this region.

Its funnel-shaped extremities divide into two forking canyons that are almost impassable. The road follows this difficult divide, which in the rainy season is flooded by the waters of the Vaza-Barris, the hills in the center now islands, until when the two paths meet again, they emerge on the plain where the Jeremoabo highway cuts through and stretches on to the east.

If one comes from the opposite direction, or eastward from Jeremoabo, a similar split occurs. The traveler must choose one or the other of the two paths, the right or the left, until he reaches the single exit at the other side. When the winding gorge ends there is no level plain. Here the soil is similarly rugged. The Vaza-Barris twists and turns between the rows of hills. The uneven road, which skirts the river or follows its bed, is full of obstacles and detours around the slopes and spurs of countless hills. It continues to the valley of a seasonal stream called the Macambira, named after a backwoods chief who had a house here. From this place it continues to follow the river all the way to Canudos, five miles off.

Facing Enemy Trenches

The advance troops halted about five hundred yards on this side of the barrier, just before noon on June 25. The lancer squadron had seen the enemy. They caught a brief glimpse of him as they galloped by the jagunços’ rough trenches. When the jagunços fired, wounding two of the squadron, they returned at full tilt to the head of the column. The Fifth Brigade sent one of its battalions, under Major Nonato de Seixas, to the site. It broke up into small sharpshooting detachments. The other two battalions, the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth, stayed back as reserves. General Savaget was alerted about the incidents. He accompanied the Fourth Brigade and positioned it four hundred yards from the front, to wait for the Sixth, the artillery division, and the supply train, which were about two miles behind. While this was under way, the advance detachments consisting of about eight hundred men under Colonel Serra Martins, initiated a full-fledged attack. The dispersed shots of the marksmen mixed with the steady supporting fire of the platoons, which had moved forward and were responding to the enemy fire. The sertanejos met their attack staunchly. The commanding officer described them as “daring and tenacious . . . they had the additional advantage of positions with a good view of the plain and the road. They did not yield an inch. To the contrary, they vigorously repelled our attack. They kept up a relentless fire against our men. The result was soon evident with the mounting numbers of dead and wounded.”

The events of Mount Cambaio and Mount Favela were being repeated here. It was an identical setting, and the sertanejos were reenacting the same crude, deadly, and monotonous drama in which they were the invisible actors. Their method never varied because it worked well for them. From their mountain parapets they could fire with impunity on our men, who were a perfect target on the flat and unencumbered plain below. Their bullets were beginning to thin the closest ranks. First the sharpshooters fell, and then the supporting detachments succumbed to a spray of fire, until finally their distant fire knocked holes in the last rows of the rear guard and the entire column was in their sights.

They wasted no ammunition. They did not rely on quantity of fire but on accuracy of aim. They were careful with their cartridges and kept close count of them so they would not be wasted. After a short time their well-placed volleys produced a thundering reply of eight hundred army rifles. The chaos that they let loose reached alarming proportions.

The Fifth Brigade showed amazing discipline and stood up to enemy fire for two hours from their position in the bushes on the banks of the Vaza-Barris. Our troops did not advance one step in this entire time. It was too risky to attempt a direct attack because of the two gorges ahead of them. They would have had to make their way in small groups along the sides of the ravines, and there was no way to get around them. This would have required a flanking movement along rows of hills to the right and the left, under the wary eye of the enemy, which would have left them exposed and without sufficient men at decisive moments in the battle.

General Savaget was aware of all these conditions when he assessed the situation confronting his troops. Until the present, his eight superbly equipped battalions had the upper hand. Their safety had been assured by effective reconnoitering, which decided the day and place where they would meet the enemy. However, for the last two hours his men, unable to act, had lost their lives to rifle fire from a band of backwoodsmen who attacked without repercussions. The situation required him to improvise a quick and effective plan. It seemed that all they could do for the time being was to risk everything and hold their position under the savage bombardment. The advance guard was reinforced, and the artillery came forward with one of the Krupps and established a position near the front lines.

They began to bombard the mountain. Fired from close range, the grenades and case shot pounded the mountainside or ricocheted. The air was raining with bullets, iron splinters, and debris from the slopes. The cannons burst open boulders, dislocated and toppled them, sending them crashing down the mountain like a caving wall. They appeared to be stripping the camouflage from the enemy positions. This did not lead to any positive results and only goaded the enemy to a ferocious counterattack. It was all they could do to hold out. With their thinned ranks, the two supporting battalions began to throw themselves into the battle with more losses. The rest of the column, spreading a mile and a quarter from front to rear, was immobilized. It looked like a defeat.

After three hours of fighting, the attackers had not advanced even a foot. At a distance of only five hundred yards they had not seen a single man from the enemy lines. They had no way of estimating how many there were. The tallest hills, which jutted out in a buttress-shaped spur over the plain, seemed deserted. The blazing sun beat down on them. Every detail of the physical environment around them was clearly visible. It was possible to count the boulders scattered about on the hillsides, some swaying as if ready to fall or piled in gigantic mounds. Scattered between them were the stalks of tough bromeliads, caroas, and macambiras with their long, straight multicolored spathes, gleaming like swords in the light. There were a few sparse cacti. In the distance was a jumble of peaks that also had the same desolate appearance.

From this utter solitude and devastation issued sustained fire. General Savaget’s plan of the day remarks that it was “as if an entire division of infantry were stationed there.”

An Impressive Bayonet Charge

There could have been two hundred, or two thousand, jagunços. Once again the expedition faced the enigma of the campaign. Since their passage was blocked, they had to make a radical choice. They either had to fall back, fighting as they went, or detour around the impenetrable terrain by finding another path, risking a flanking movement that could result in their utter defeat. The final option was to storm the hills and take out the enemy. This alternative was the simplest and the riskiest. Colonel Telles suggested it, and General Savaget approved it. In an official report in which the general admits in disgust that the enemy had brought his men to a stop, he affirms that he could not allow “two or three hundred bandits to bring the second column to a halt.” Only about a third of the men were presently involved in the action. This turned out to be to their advantage. They could not have undertaken the attack if all of his men had been engaged in a mass defense.

The plan unfolded as follows: “The Fifth Brigade, which had been waiting in the caatingas, would make a charge on the left, along the river bank, with the purpose of routing the enemy from the hills in the center and lateral slopes. The Fourth Brigade, on the right flank, would assemble in battle formation at the intersection of the highroad and the plain.” The lance squadron would charge through the center of these two detachments. The Sixth Brigade was not going to participate but would remain in the rear as a reserve and to guard the supply train.

The five battalions selected for the attack were arranged in perpendicular formation, reinforced in one of the wings by the columns of Colonel Serra Martins’s advance troops. Back four hundred yards to the right was the Telles brigade, with the lancers on its left. This formation would have looked like a huge hammer if it had been seen from above the plain. The charge up the slopes that marked the climax of the battle was very much like a blow by sixteen hundred bayonets against the mountain.

At the foothills to the left was the mouth of the defile. The cavalry charged through it at breakneck speed. The Fourth Brigade skirted the gap and charged up the slopes. The jagunços had not anticipated a bold move of this kind, which was aimed directly at their positions. For the first time they were taken by surprise. They had been there to cut off the two narrow passages, thinking they would be able to crush the entire column. Now they were forced to abandon their positions and fall back. The charge of the Fourth Brigade would decide the outcome of the engagement.

It was impressive. At first they moved forward in perfect military formation. A shining row of bayonets, hundreds of yards long, swept across the foot of the hills. Then they started to climb. Swaying back and forth, the line broke and became fragmented. The sertanejos, helped as always by the uneven ground, gave them the brunt of their fire. With the lines broken at all points, the troops came on in platoon formation. They spread out and ran blind up the rugged mountainside.

Colonel Telles led the right flank of the Thirty-first Infantry and had his horse shot out from under him by a bullet that went through the saddle. He jumped onto another mount and pulled the scattered units together even though he could barely make out the two detachments under his command since they were all mixed together. With shouts of encouragement, he led the men on a charge of the nearest trenches. They found these deserted but at the bottom of each one were piles of exploded cartridges that were still hot. The jagunços had followed their accustomed practice of sneaking away, while luring the enemy on and shifting the field of combat. In a short time, the Fourth Brigade could be seen scaling the walls of the gorge. It was also possible to see the dead and wounded falling into its depths, where seventy men of the lancer squadron and the artillery had first entered the defile. They were now trapped between the heavily fortified trenches on both sides of the river, where the gorge splits and resembles a floodgate. On the left slopes the Fifth Brigade had also broken formation and was fighting in a disorganized fashion.

The battle had escalated to awesome proportions. Five battalions were struggling on the hills, with no discernable progress after hours of combat. They were losing men and falling back under enemy fire. The wounded staggered and fell to the ground, sometimes leaning on their rifles or wandering in a dazed fashion down the mountain through the dead and wounded.

Below, in the narrow valley, the horses of the lancer squadron were galloping in every direction, without their riders, and neighing in terror. The men of this unit were now making a bold charge at the fortified river trenches.

Crossing the Gorge

In the ensuing chaos, a few incredibly brave men of the platoons of the Thirty-first Infantry made their way to the highest trenches on the right slope. The jagunços were forced to abandon them and flee. It was not their customary stealthy retreat. As they ran over the heights, clutching their muskets, rolling and sliding down the slopes, the troops caught sight of the enemy for the first time. They gave chase and the attack was resumed with new energy all down the line. A coordinated forward surge spread all the way to the end of the left wing. This meant victory. A few minutes later the two brigades pushed at double-quick time into the last and only passageway of the gorge.

The jagunços began to regroup after the confusion and disorder of their flight. They went back to their same enigmatic practice of resistance. Leaving their positions and the dangerous gorge passage unmanned, they began to harass the troops with sporadic gunfire.

General Savaget took a bullet and fell off his horse, along with his adjutant and a part of his staff, just as the column was entering the gorge on the right. They could hear from a distance the triumphant shouts of the advance guard as they pushed through. As always, the sertanejos were making sure that the troops did not feel complete success, emerging inexplicably again from the destruction of a lost battle. They had been beaten but they did not allow themselves to be crushed. They had been routed out from all their positions but they found other places to take cover. They were the losers but still the aggressors; they fled and killed on the way, just like the Parthians. It was certain that they had suffered a serious defeat. The battalion that was credited with the feat was later given the name “the elites.” The battle of Cocorobó was indecisive at first, stalled by three hours of ineffective exchange of fire. The daring bayonet charge at the end, however, won the day. Even if it was not a strictly professional military maneuver, it was an appropriate action in the circumstances. The soldier from Rio Grande do Sul stood out in the ranks. The fearless gaucho, while not suited for the challenges of a drawn-out conflict, has no equal in sudden strikes.

The infantry of the South is a shock machine. Others may exhibit better discipline and precision on the firing line or in the performance of complex maneuvers. In hand-to-hand combat, by sword or bayonet, these two-legged centaurs attack the enemy as if they were chasing the wild horses of the pampas. In the case of this enormous undertaking, they were lucky, and they performed brilliantly.

As the troops set up camp beyond the gorge that afternoon, they tallied their losses. The casualties totaled 178 men, 27 killed and the others wounded. This included the officers: 2 dead and 10 wounded. The Sixth Brigade, which had not participated in the combat, was tasked with burying the dead. This detachment was at the rear of the other two, on a wide tableland overlooking the highway.

Macambira

From here on the march turned into a continuous skirmish. It was slow. The entire day of the twenty-sixth was spent on the short journey to the confluence of the Macambira, just a mile or so beyond Cocorobó.

General Savaget then told the men that the next day, the twenty-seventh, on orders from high command, they were to assemble at the outskirts of Canudos. Here the six brigades would come together to attack the settlement. The village should be very close now. They could already see the thatched huts spread over the hillsides in the special manner we have described. There they were, amidst the concealed pits and trenches, camouflaged by bromeliad stalks. They were fortresses that were also homes. The second column was on the last stretch of the long march. The Sixth Brigade led the van, followed by the Thirty-third Infantry. They entered the outskirts of the huge citadel and had barely gone a mile and a half—most of the column was still in the camp at the rear—when Colonel Pantoja’s battalions were attacked from all sides.

The measure that had worked so well the previous day was quickly adopted. The Twenty-sixth, Thirty-third, and Thirty-ninth battalions formed a line with bayonets in position and made a scrambling dash up the hillsides. From there all they could see were countless other hills, with the same rugged profiles, stretching out for miles and miles.

From all of those hills, from the huts scattered all around them, came lethal rifle fire. The huge battlefield was ideal for the enemy’s style of fighting. Once they had taken one of these hilltops there were hundreds of others still left. To go back to the lowlands was to fall into a net of gullies. The battle was going to be an exhausting process of spiraling up and down the sinuous pathways along the slopes. A few miles ahead, Canudos was a mournful sight. From a distance it looked like a deserted open mine.

A battle broke out near the settlement and it was a fierce contest. After a short time, the three advance battalions realized they could not hold out. Accurate fire from the huts and trenches crowded with jagunços was depleting their ranks. A company from the Thirty-ninth was literally crushed when it tried to assault one of the crude fortresses. When they arrived at the hilltop the men saw they were on the brink of a wide trench that circled the hut that stood there. A barrage of fire came from the cracks in the wall of the hut and from the trench. It mowed them down at close range. The commander went down, and immediately after that two subalterns were killed. They finally secured the position under the direction of a sergeant, but it was at a great loss of life.

The single brigade was incapable of handling the resistance, and so it was reinforced by two others. These were followed successively by the Twelfth, Thirty-first, Thirty-fifth, and Fortieth battalions. Now over a thousand bayonets were in action, almost the entire corps. The jagunços now fell back, slowly, retreating from hill to hill. If they were routed from one spot, they would pop up at another, forcing their attackers to continuously run up and down the slopes. The intention seemed to be to lure them to the settlement while exhausting them under the tortuous stream of fire. The sertanejos were falling back on their usual tactics. The battlefield started to recede under the very feet of the attackers. The bayonet charges here were not as brilliant as at Cocorobó—their effect was diminished by the agility of the enemy’s retreat. After a bold rush up a hill, the platoons would find no one. There, on top of the hill, they would be met by fire from opposite hills. Then they would tear down the hill to find cover in the lowlands, only to have to repeat the process over and over again. They would make the same exhausting climb and once more find themselves dangerously exposed to enemy bullets.

Now their losses were heavy. A significant number of privates and several high-ranking officers had been killed or wounded. The commander of the Twelfth Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Tristão de Alencar Sucupira, was mortally wounded as he tried to join the advance guard. The commander of the Thirty-third, Lieutenant Colonel Virginio Napoleão Ramos, was also wounded in action and had to be carried to the rear with Captain Joaquim de Aguiar, detachment commissary. Many others were sacrificed to this bloody battle of Macambira, which got its name from the nearby farm. The terrain did not allow any maneuvers, which would have blocked the purposeful dizzying retreat of the jagunços. The only guarantee of success was in a display of personal courage. Some officers, like the captain of the Thirty-second, who had more than one serious wound, refused to stop fighting and ignored orders to leave the firing line. The line stretched over two miles. The hills were on fire and the boom of the artillery echoed through the lowlands rolling toward Canudos.

Night put a stop to the fighting. The expedition was now about three-fifths of a mile away from the settlement. They could see the tall white towers of the new church gleaming in the growing shadows of dusk.

They were finally reaching the destination of their long march from Jeremoabo. The second column had paid a terrible price. Its losses on this day alone totaled 148 men, with 40 deaths; 6 officers were killed and 8 wounded. The total losses came to 327, the price of traversing less than eight miles from Cocorobó to their present location.

But the prospects for success looked good. General Savaget’s troops had punctually kept to their preestablished schedule. Minutes after they had set up camp, the silence of the sertão night was interrupted by the long booming of cannon fire echoing in the cliffs of Mount Favela. The advance guard of the first column had begun to shell the settlement.

On the twenty-eighth, they moved quickly and took a position on a small plateau about a mile from the village. They now took their turn bombarding it as two battalions of the Carlos Telles brigade went ahead to do some quick reconnoitering. A cavalry detail, led by a valiant officer who would soon meet his death, Sublieutenant Wanderley, explored the terrain on the left flank as far as Mount Favela. At eight o’clock in the morning intense cannon fire resumed.

At headquarters, just a few steps away, the second column was ready for the attack. They had gotten to this point after crossing 175 miles of the backlands and engaging in a three-day battle at the end of the march.

They felt that they had come to understand the enemy and master his exceptional style of fighting. They were eager to face him down. They thought that the energy of the charge at Cocorobó would carry them to the center of Canudos, to the square where the churches stood. In spite of their losses they felt strong and hopeful. The plan of the day for the first column on the twenty-sixth is telling.

Trabubú

The order was given at Trabubú, as they were going through the mountain pass. As terse as it is, it says a lot. The order to attack was enthusiastically welcomed by the soldiers. It was phrased in a few simple, courteous words:

On the battlefield of Cocorobó, June 26, 1897

Comrades: I have just received a telegram from our commander in chief with the news that we will meet tomorrow in Canudos. We will not fail to accept this invitation, which honors us and gives us pride and joy.

The meeting that was so fervently anticipated did not take place in the village. It happened outside it, with a full-scale enemy attack.

An Unexpected Emissary

To the general surprise of the second column, whose eyes were trained on Mount Favela, expecting to see the battalions of the first column descend the north slopes, a sertanejo appeared, saying he had been sent by the commander in chief to request their immediate aid. This was shocking news. It looked like an enemy trick. The man was held until a second emissary arrived to confirm it. He did not take long. It was an honorary sublieutenant who had joined the engineering commission. The commanding general of the expedition was making an urgent call for help. When they received the second message, General Savaget changed his plans and, instead of sending a brigade with a supply of munitions while the rest held their position, he turned left and went with his entire force to the top of Mount Favela. They arrived about eleven o’clock, in time to free the troops who were trapped there.

The Campaign Falls Apart

The entire campaign plan had been disrupted and it seemed that all the effort made on the marches from Rosário and Jeremoabo had been to no avail.

Now that the columns were together, they could send a detachment for the supply train that had been stuck at the rear of the severed first column. This task was given to Colonel Serra Martins, who immediately headed out with the Fifth Brigade. It was a dangerous mission in the middle of two battles. He made for Umburanas and got there in time to prevent the decimation of the Fifth Police. He saved part of the contents of the 180 pack trains that had been littered along the roads and damaged by the jagunços.

This fortunate intervention did not alter the dire straits of the troops. The situation remained critical. A series of desperate misfortunes followed.

IV

A Strange Victory

The plan of the day for June 28 described it as a “day stained by horror but full of glory.”

The truth is that it was clearly a reversal.

History is not deceived by the rhetoric of the defeated. The “victorious army,” as it was described in the official reports, which were written to whitewash the army’s failure, looked like a mob of refugees. They were conquerors who did not dare set foot out of the position they had secured. The campaign had reached a critical point. The troops’ courage and confidence had been sapped in futile skirmishes. Dubious victories that looked like defeats drained their morale and their strength. They were now bound together by the external pressure of the enemy they thought they could so easily defeat. Heroism was forced on them. Their mood swung from courage to fear as they tried to ward off sheer terror. They were surrounded on all sides by the most unusual “beaten” enemy they had ever encountered. It was a merciless foe, who had locked them into an indefinite siege and had cut off all possible routes to desertion. Even if they lacked in courage, our soldiers had no way of getting out of this situation. Heroes and cowards were the same here.

Military history, often so full of drama and contradictions, is full of instances in which fear is glorified. The fury of the pursuing Persian army created heroes of the “ten thousand.” The cruelty of the Cossacks immortalized Marshal Ney.

Now we can add another dramatic chapter, which is like the others, although the events are on a smaller scale. It was the fierce tenacity of the jagunço that transformed General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães’s beleaguered battalions into heroes. They stayed together because the stone walls of the trenches made retreat impossible. They were heroes in spite of themselves because they were trapped by bullets in a hole in the ground.

The huddled brigades were not in anything that resembled a camp. They did not pitch tents, because there was no space. They did not organize themselves into fighting units. The troops, consisting of 5,000 soldiers with more than 900 dead and wounded, 1,000 cavalry and draft horses, and hundreds of pack trains, became an army without advance or rear guard, or flanks. It was completely disorganized. The first column had 524 men unfit for combat, which added to the 75 from the previous day totaled 599 losses. The second column, which was now with the first, had lost 327 men. The total number of victims was 926. This does not include the countless number of men who were crippled, exhausted, and weak from hunger or traumatized from the recent slaughter.

Among the dead were Thompson Flores, the doomed commander of the Seventh Infantry; Tristão Sucupira de Alencar, who was mortally wounded as he arrived with the second column; Nestor Villar, captain-commissary of the Second Regiment, who died with more than two-thirds of the officers in command of the artillery; Gutierrez, an honorary officer who in private life was an artist and who joined the campaign because he wanted to paint it; Souza Campos, who was briefly in command of the Fourteenth; and others of all ranks and units.

A long furrow carved out by the torrential rains ran the full length of this mountaintop ravine. Within this natural trough were more than eight hundred wounded who added their screams of agony to the confusion. A field hospital had been set up in this fold of the earth. It was an image of what had happened to the expedition, which had been split open from end to end. Looking at it, the strongest grew faint. Nothing could compensate such losses or explain why the campaign had come to this end. The combined force of the two columns was immobilized and impotent in the face of this reality. The orders of the day fell flat on their ears. Here they were in the center of the action but unable to take a step forward or, even worse, a step back. They had spent more than a million bullets, driven the enemy back in all their encounters with him, and yet he was all around them, more menacing than ever, cutting off their retreat after they had trounced him in open battle.

Everything pointed to a complete siege. The Fifth Brigade, in moving to the rear, had lost fourteen men. The Fifth Police lost forty-five. The march to the rear and return was marked by endless gunfire all along the roads guarded by the men in the trenches.

In the heart of rebel territory, the expedition was cut off from communication with its base in Monte Santo. The only possible route was the perilous Rosário road, which was a minefield of ambushes. They had retrieved their supply train, but it was greatly depleted with more than half the contents going to the sertanejos or having been destroyed by them. The troops therefore lost munitions that would have been very valuable in their present situation. Moreover, they had given the enemy a gift of four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand cartridges, which were enabling him to hold out indefinitely. To put it bluntly: They had equipped the enemy. The earlier expedition had bequeathed muskets to the jagunços. The current one was giving them the ammunition to put into the muskets. The “losers” thus were able to use the bullets on the foolish “winners,” who could not respond in kind.

Night was falling and there was no break in the fighting. There was not the slightest lull that might have allowed the troops to bring some order to the ranks. A bright moon helped the jagunços keep their targets in their sights. They kept up a steady fire at long intervals. It revealed that the backlanders were keeping their terrible watch.

Once in a while one or another soldier would break discipline and reply with a random shot in the air. The rest succumbed to fatigue. They slept stretched out on the hard ground, some with their heads on the packs scattered about, clutching their useless rifles.

An Endless Battle Begins

On the night of June 28 a never-ending battle was launched.

From that date forward the troops would live in a permanent state of alarm.

This was also the beginning of a long string of torturous events. At dawn on the twenty-ninth it was determined that there were not enough rations for the men of the first column, who had already been on reduced rations for a week. The second column, although it was better provisioned, was not guaranteed subsistence for three more days, after sharing its food with the other. The result was that just as the battle was entering a critical phase, they had to use the last of their resources and slaughter the oxen that had pulled the heavy 32 cannon.

Meanwhile they were faced with the very difficult task of turning this pile of men and baggage into an army. They had to reorganize the battalions, reconstitute the brigades, treat hundreds of wounded, bury the dead, and clear the small area of the clutter of luggage and pack trains. The essential tasks were done but without any method, in a disorganized fashion and without any leadership. The commanding officers and their aides tried to assist by offering suggestions on the many things that could be done. The result was that everyone was bustling about, bumping into one another, and working at cross-purposes. They hurriedly dug trenches, took up random positions in a semblance of military formation, or cleared the space of packs and bodies, leading away the mules whose iron-shod hooves were a constant danger to the wounded lying on the ground below them.

Despair had not fully overtaken them, however.

Their spirit returned with the new day. In spite of what they had seen, they did not appreciate the fierce determination of the sertanejos. They were consoled by the thought of the bombardment that the artillery would soon direct at the town from its position on the heights. It was clear that an exposed village on the open plains could not hold out for long from the cross fire of nineteen modern cannons.

But the first cannonball that fell on Canudos had the effect of a rock tossed into a beehive. Until then the settlement had been relatively calm, but now, as on the previous evening, it was suddenly alight with rifle fire. Once more the soldiers understood that it was impossible to respond to the sweeping attack that circled around them. Since they were in a gulley and were firing upward at no specific target, their fire would have no effect and they would only waste their ammunition. The effect of the cannons was insignificant. The exploding grenades just ripped holes in the walls and roofs. They made a loud noise but they did not cause much damage because many fell intact without setting off their fuses. For this reason, the favored target was once again the new church, which stood like a rampart over the low cluster of huts. This is where the jagunços were to be found, behind the cornices of the main walls, crouched in the towers or at the windows farther down, or lying flat along the ground level, which was lined with small circular vents.

The Whitworth 32 would have been expected to demolish the walls of the church. However, the cannonballs whistled over the roof and fell into the huts below. One fell into the churchyard and nicked the facade of the building. The other shot missed. This terrible debut of the colossal weapon was due primarily to the haste with which it was fired.

It was a crazy obsession. The huge piece of equipment, the mascot of the chase, had become a great fetish that stoked primitive urges. Panting with disappointment, soldiers from all of the units crowded around it, barely able to suppress their disappointment when shots missed their mark. Finally, one of the spectators, a surgeon by the name of Alfredo Gama, could not contain himself and asked to lend a hand in firing it. He was killed. The gas escaping from the badly loaded cannon set fire to a powder keg nearby. It exploded, burning Dr. Gama to death, along with Sublieutenant Odilon Coriolano and a few privates.

This incident illustrates how the army was handling the battle.

The engagement was pointless. The loud but ineffective bombardment became a tribute to the courage of the sertanejos.

Night came and nothing had been gained by this long-range attack. The rifle fire surrounding them gave the clear message that this was a siege, even though the enemy lines were spread out in a random fashion all over the hillsides. An army unit might remove them from the clearings in between the trenches or subdue them with a bayonet charge. But the minute the troops went on the march again, they would be faced with the lurking enemy who seemed to rise up from the ground, moving around them, and attacking them from their flanks, restricting their movements. The consistent tactics of the jagunço were most clearly apparent when he was in retreat and taking cover in whatever shelter the earth provided. It was a battle between the sinuous anaconda and the mighty bull. Coiled around its prey, the snake would then uncoil itself, awarding a freedom of movement that would be exhausting to his adversary. Then it would recapture its prey within those coils, squeeze him, and again relax its hold to allow him to tire himself once again by pawing at the earth with hoof and horn. This process of approach and withdrawal, and luring on, would continue until the victim was drained of strength.

Here there was a reversal of roles. On the one side were men who had at their fingertips all the modern equipment needed for war and were materially well endowed. From the mouths of their cannons they could hurl tons of steel at the rebels. Their adversaries, on the other hand, were crude warriors who had only the experience and wiles of backwoodsmen. They handed meaningless victories to their enemy but just as a lure. Even as the “victor” paved the ground of the brushlands with bullets and raised his flag to the sound of his drumbeats, the backlander answered the victor’s song with a whine of bullets from his rifles.

The bombardment of June 29 did not perturb the sertanejos. At daybreak on the thirtieth the troops stormed the entire camp. As before, there was the sudden shock, followed by all the repercussions of a backlands skirmish, and a reenactment of the same events. This signaled another false victory. Coming at them from all sides, the enemy was again pushed back, only to return, and later to be repelled again. At brief intervals there were attacks and counterattacks, in a rhythm like a wave beating against the side of the mountain. The artillery fired a few rounds on the roofs of the town below. As on the day before, this was met with scattered fire from the slopes of Favela and neighboring hills, with no variation at all. Bullets fell on the troops the entire day.

The situation was becoming untenable. The stalemate at Mount Favela was harmful because, as they were losing men daily and getting nowhere, the morale of the troops declined steadily. Their munitions were almost exhausted. To try to abandon their position was riskier than starting open warfare. Some of the higher-ranking officers suggested an immediate assault on the settlement. There did not seem to be an alternative.

Colonel Dantas Barreto describes the predicament in his book The Last Expedition to Canudos: “On June 30 our troops were in good order. The artillery was positioned to continue its bombardment of Canudos for a few hours and then it would be possible to attack the citadel. The commanding officers as well as the subalterns and enlisted men approved of this course of action. Their overriding desire was to reach the Vaza-Barris, which for them represented everything they were lacking. They were crowded into a place that was open to attack on all sides and was not big enough for two thousand, much less six thousand, men.”

The commander in chief did not approve this plan, “thinking that a supply train would soon come in from Monte Santo. Only after three days of full rations would he allow the troops to attack the Counselor’s bunker.”

The supply train, did not exist. Colonel Medeiros’s brigade was sent out to meet it on the thirtieth. They waited for it at Baixas, to escort it to camp. When it did not appear they went on to Monte Santo, and there was no sign of it. The army was already beginning to feel the first sharp hunger pangs as the brigade set off. Now it would go through a period of unimaginable privation.

Running the Blockade: Dangerous Hunting Expeditions

They lived a dangerous, improvised existence. On their own initiative, without asking for authorization, the soldiers began to make dangerous forays through the area, either alone or in small groups. They took what they could find of millet or manioc from the fields. They hunted young goats that had been running wild since the beginning of the war. They rounded up cattle. There was no way to stop them, it was their last resort. As of July 2 they were down to flour and salt, nothing more, and that had to go to the wounded. These hunting forays were necessary, in spite of the risks. Those who participated began to dress in leather like the jagunços, and they imitated the sertanejos’ subtle way of relating to the land, treating it cautiously and using it for shelter.

We cannot convey every detail of this dark and terrible phase of the campaign. The starving soldier, surviving off his cartridge belt, disappeared into the brush. He took as many precautions as if he were going out to hunt lions. He was soon swallowed up by the wild thickets. He had to hack away the tough branches that were tangled in prickly silk grass. He would spend long hours on his exhausting mission, eyes and ears tuned to the slightest movement or sound. Sometimes he returned to camp empty-handed and depressed. Some were never seen again, lost in the desert wasteland or killed in some primitive struggle that will never be told. The jagunços began to lay traps for these inexperienced hunters. The soldiers did still not fully grasp the devious mind-set of the natives and fell prey to their wiles.

Thus it occasionally happened that the starving forager would hear the sound of bells, indicating that goats were near, since it was the custom in the region to put bells on female goats. His energy would pick up for a moment as his hopes were raised. Moving forward cautiously so as not to scare off the game, he would diverge off the path into the thick weeds, following the clear, sharp sound of the bells as they broke through the desert silence. He would follow the sound until it was very close. Then it receded again, only to ring again at a farther distance, from the labyrinth of side pathways. It did not occur to him that he was in danger. He did not realize that the sound was not coming from the goats, but from the treacherous jagunço, who was hunting him. The sertanejo was creeping flat on the ground with his rifle lock level with his beard. He moved silently through the weeds. At each movement the little bell around his neck would ring. Instead of the she-goat, it was the barbaric goatherd moving in the brush. The game was goading the goatherd. The naive soldier was usually killed by a sharply aimed bullet. He never had a chance to return fire at the man he only glimpsed a moment before his death.

Sometimes a group of ravenous soldiers would spot a corral with oxen in it at the top of a hill. This, too, was a clever decoy. The soldiers, however, did not suspect a thing. They would rush at the oxen, ready to slaughter them. As they reached the corral they were assaulted by a barrage of bullets.

Oftentimes the sound of heavy fire reached the camp from a distance. There came a time when the hunting parties were required to follow regulations. The orders of the night before would specify which battalions were allowed to participate in the hunt on any given day. These were armed but inglorious sallies. The army advanced without banners or trumpets through the wasteland. The enemy lines lay ahead of them—scattered, invisible, and deadly. The detachments would make their way quietly through the clearings. For a long time they would carefully search the countryside where the dry season was already evident in the dying foliage. They would be fired on at least a dozen times in a single outing. They would go back exhausted and discouraged.

The lancer squadron was the only one to have some degree of success. It would roam for long distances over the trails. On their crippled mounts, which would break into a limping canter at the nudge of the spurs, the gaucho-soldiers performed the work of cowboys. They galloped through a region that they were completely unfamiliar with. When they were able to find a few wild oxen they herded them into a corral next to the camp. They were not free of harassment on these forays. In addition to having to round up the frightened beasts, they had to make sure that the enemy did not scatter them in a sudden attack. On those occasions they had the double duty of preventing a stampede and returning enemy fire. They would come upon ambushes when crossing the lowlands. They never abandoned the herd but rode around it and kept driving it forward, in a stunning show of courage and horsemanship.

The eight or ten head of cattle they managed to bring in each day were not nearly enough to feed the Minotaur with its six thousand stomachs. To make matters worse, the meat was barely edible since they had to boil it in brackish water without salt or other seasonings, or broil it on spits. It was repugnant to even the hungriest man. The small portions of millet, beans, and manioc that took the edge off their hunger were soon dried up, and they had to find other sources of food.

Like the unfortunate drought refugees, the soldiers had to turn to local plants. They dug up the umbú trees for their swollen tubers. They searched for the uricuri fruit, cut up the soft stems of the mandacarú, or fed off cacti, which helped both hunger and thirst. This was dangerous even for those experienced in the use of natural plants. Some died of poisoning from eating the wild manioc and other roots that were unfamiliar to them.

Finally, even their water supplies dried up. More than one thirsty soldier was killed by the enemy while seeking water from the streams in the Umburanas valley. Every day their distress mounted. From July 7 on, they stopped giving rations to the wounded. Now the crippled, sick, and mutilated had to rely on the doubtful charity of their comrades.

Grave Misfortunes

As these misfortunes multiplied, others arose that were just as grave. The discipline of the troops had eroded. The common soldier had lost patience and did not want to accept the situation. There were surly mutterings of protest. The officers, who could not control the men, pretended they did not hear them. They could do nothing.

It was irritating to see that their defeated enemy was abundantly supplied with provisions. He hardly had the need to use the supplies that he had captured. The Fifth Brigade, on the way to Baixas, found bundles of smoked meat and bags of flour, coffee, and sugar beside the road, next to the embers of a bonfire where the jagunços had just made a meal. This was certainly a sign of their brutal arrogance. They certainly did not have so much abundance that they could justify such waste. The fact was that these crude fighting men were extremely frugal. In times of peace they would go through the day with just a few handfuls of paçoca and a drink of water. In wartime abstinence became a matter of discipline, and he carried it to such an extreme that he developed an extraordinary degree of physical endurance. Our soldiers did not have that capacity. At first they handled it well and even joked about their hunger. The dangerous foraging expeditions and the hunt for food in abandoned farms distracted them. As soon as the alarm was sounded they rushed to the firing line. In spite of their enforced fast, they had not lost their fight. But they began to weaken. It was a combination of physical exhaustion and anxiety about the future. The First Brigade had gone out to look for a supply train and never was heard from again. This increased the low morale. Every day that went by without news of the detachment caused more distress. In addition, the insistence of the enemy attacks seemed inhumane. There was no respite. At night, in the morning, all through the day—there would be one attack after the other, and always when they least expected it. Sometimes it was directed at the artillery and at other times the flanks. In the most serious instances, the entire force would come under fire, bullets flying from all sides. The bugles would sound and the men fell into line with hardly any attempt at tactical formation. They would nervously continue the fight until their attackers had again been pushed back and the mountain was again silent. But the enemy was always there, watching the “victors.” The attack stopped but every few minutes a bullet would fall into the ranks. The direction of the shots varied constantly until, after a while, all the units had been hit. The missiles came and went, sometimes tracing a large, terrifying circle. It seemed that a single marksman, on some hilltop, had decided to be the single-handed executioner of the army. And, in fact, that is what he was. Brave men, fresh out of a battle, would cringe with fear when they heard the whine of those bullets. They were random shots at a huge target and they were sure to find their victims in the thousands that were there.

The days passed. Rapid, fierce firefights were broken by days of calm. There was always the staccato rap of bullets.

Sometimes the attacks did not stop as they normally did but would escalate and compel the entire force to engage. During one of these battles, on July 1, the sertanejos penetrated the camp and went straight to the artillery post. They hated the cannons that were destroying their temples. They had come up with the incredible plot to kidnap the largest one, the Whitworth 32, which they had nicknamed the Killer. Not many participated in this exploit, about eleven, led by Joaquim Macambira, who was the son of the chieftain with the same name. This band was about to face full battalions. The bugle blared and the men charged at them in full ranks, as if they were about to charge a legion. When it was over, all but one of the jagunços were on the ground. Amazingly, one had slipped right through the troops in the confusion. The troops had the small consolation of another win, but it was not one they could be too proud of. It only increased their respect for the enemy.

The enemy grew in stature with every day that went by. The soldiers could see the trenches that surrounded their camp and were slowly encroaching on it. On the left they cut off the exit to the Old Ranch House. On the right they impinged on their corral by reducing the small pasture around it where their cavalry and draft horses were kept. In the rear the trenches ran along the Rosário highway. The detachments detailed to destroy the trenches had no difficulty. But the next day they would have to do it all over again because they had been rebuilt overnight and were now even closer to the camp.

Since their days were spent in this manner, they buried the dead at night. This was a sad and dangerous task. Sometimes one of the burial party would himself fall dead on the job and take his place with the bodies in the common grave he had helped to dig.

It is not surprising that morale and discipline suffered. Even the artillery was limited in what it could do since it had to save ammunition. It was down to two or three rounds a day.

The Attitude of the Commander in Chief

They were still hoping for the return of the lost brigade, which would have saved them. If the enemy had cut them off in Rosário or Angico, which was entirely possible, there would be no hope for the expedition. This was generally accepted. The troops could keep up a weak defense but they could not last a week longer. Only the influence of certain officers kept the army from falling apart completely. Discipline was nonexistent, but personal loyalty to commanders of some brigades kept things together.

General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães had insisted that they remain where they were. At first he believed that a supply train would reach them. Then he vetoed an evacuation. He was proving his impressive quality as a military leader. He dug into any position he had won. This contrasted with his personality, which was exactly the opposite. He was restless and blunt. He thought of the military as a knightly profession, full of sound and fury. He was an unabashed braggart when it came to relating his own exploits. He was unbeaten in planning surprise attacks. At the most critical point in the narrative he would find some expletive, robustly expressive of his jovial nature and framed in a picturesque slang, and it would be greeted with an instant, appreciative response. He had always had a strong nervous temperament and was known for his impatience. This same general turned into another being in the present circumstances. To the chagrin of those who knew him, he insisted on just one tactic: Stay put. He would not listen to anyone; he simply held out.

Completely immobilized by the enemy, he resisted with obstinate inertia. He did not even attempt to harass the enemy with sallies or bayonet charges. He did not fight the foe but simply attempted to tire him out. He did not beat him down but made every effort to exhaust him. From the beginning of the campaign he had his eye on the final phase of the conflict. He ignored intervening circumstances. He never considered the possibility of failure or the need for a withdrawal. He had one plan only and that was to march on Canudos. Everything else was secondary to that goal. He would not retreat. He would go on with his six thousand bayonets to the banks of the Vaza-Barris and win the battle. He changed just one word in the famous Roman phrase: I came, I saw, I stayed.

If his mistake of leaving behind the supply train was enough reason not to attack on the twenty-eighth, he certainly should have done so by the thirtieth, if we believe his aides. But he did not. This was in spite of the fact that the two columns were now united and the settlement was within easy rifle range below them. He made a second mistake by taking an unsustainable position, which he might have gotten out of if not for the unexpected events that followed. He was not discouraged and remained stoically entrenched.

“Don’t give in, boys!” This was his favorite phrase, which he would use like a whip to cut short complaints and rumors.

The men felt differently. They felt trapped by a seemingly immune enemy whose supple battle lines had the capacity to regenerate almost immediately after being broken. They were exhausted by their continuous attempts to charge an enemy they could not crush. They knew their situation was becoming more precarious and they did not want to hold out. In fact, they were weakening. Their feelings were expressed in angry remarks and innuendos regarding individuals they thought were responsible for their plight. The quartermaster general’s deputy became the scapegoat. The men grumbled that he was the only one to blame. They did not consider that this irrational accusation was a reflection on the commander in chief. He was guilty of not having exercised his authority as head of the expedition, but the fact is that the commander still held their full respect.

Meanwhile the commander kept them there, marking time on Mount Favela. He spent the time dreaming up solutions to the supply problem. He made equations of the men’s hunger, with formulas calculating the distribution of bags of flour and bundles of dried beef from supply trains that were purely the product of his imagination.

This was his only effort. They had still not heard from the First Brigade. The battalions sent out daily as far as Baixas would come back without having seen a trace of it on the empty roads. The Fifteenth, under Captain Gomes Carneiro, returned to camp from its futile search of July 10 with a solitary ox, a starving animal that could barely stand on its legs—just a mouthful of meat for six thousand empty stomachs.

A stultifying monotony engulfed them. The same events occurred in the same order at the same time of day. This gave the tired soldiers the feeling that time had stopped.

At the rare times in the day when there was a lull in the jagunços’ attack, the men would distract themselves by gazing at the elusive settlement. Sometimes they would creep along in single file, keeping a safe distance between each other, to some sheltered location where they could get a good view of the jumble of houses below. They became concerned as they counted: one, two, three, four, five thousand huts! Five thousand or more! It might be six thousand! There were about fifteen thousand to twenty thousand people dug into that Babylonian weed patch. They were all invisible. Occasionally they were able to see a narrow alley branching off from the huge empty square, but then they lost sight of it. All this in a biblical landscape, set against sadly barren hills, where there were no trees. A dry riverbed, winding around the town, was turned into a long, dusty highway. In the distance, commanding the four points of the compass, was a rolling line of mountains, also deserted. They stood out sharply against the bright horizon, like the giant frame of a huge picture.

It was an impressive view, and it seemed as if ancient dramas were being repeated here. It brought to mind remote locations in Indumea, the legendary region south of the Dead Sea that lay barren under the prophet’s curse and drought from the blazing plains of Yemen.

The “four-square” settlement was similar to the plan of the cities in the Bible. It completed the illusion. As night fell, waves of sound came up from the village, spread across the desert, and faded into distant echoes. It was the Ave Maria.

The cannons on Mount Favela bellowed once again, awakened by the simple notes. The belfry was their target. Shrapnel exploded above and around it. Yet the notes of the hymn continued, at half-minute intervals, slowly and serenely over the cannon fire. The impassive sexton did not waste a second of that sacred interval. He did not miss a note. Once its religious duties were done and as the last stroke was still echoing, the same bell began to ring discordantly, sounding the alarm. Huge tongues of flame shot from over the cornices of the churches and spread quickly up the side of the hill. At that moment a violent burst of fire from the enemy on the mountain made the bombardment stop. Both camps fell into utter silence. Then the soldiers could hear the mysterious rhythm of prayers, wafting up through the thick walls of the ruined temple of worship.

This show of stoicism impressed the troops. It obsessed them. Since they shared the same native beliefs and superstitions, they started to waver in the face of an enemy who had that connection to Providence. They imagined the enemy to have special resources. Their bullets burst with a loud, cracking noise as if shattering into thousands of splinters. The men began to believe the rumor that the jagunços used explosive bullets. There was evidence this was so. Then they hypothesized that the bullets shattered because the metal they were made of expanded more rapidly than its steel shell. This was seen in the nature of the wounds they inflicted. The bullet entered the body, leaving a small round opening, but would tear a huge gap as it came out through shredded bone and tissue. The men did not understand the physical law that explained these phenomena and were convinced that the enemy had weapons especially designed to inflict barbaric pain.

The desertions began. They were heroic and unbelievable, done at great risk under the ever-watchful eye of the enemy. On July 9, twenty privates of the Thirty-third abandoned their comrades and disappeared into the desert. Daily, others followed them, one by one, preferring a bullet from a jagunço to this form of slow death.

Everyone was obsessed now with finally leaving this terrible place on top of Mount Favela. The battalions sent out on forays were the envy of those who had to stay behind. The ones who stayed envied the danger, the ambushes and situations the outgoing would encounter. At least there was the possibility of finding booty and getting away from the miserable camp, even if for a short time.

As in the legendary sieges of former ages, the most mundane things became incredibly valuable. An umbú root or a cube of sugar was worth as much as a rare dish. A cheap cigarette was the most valued prize.

Sometimes there was talk of retreat. This was started by some desperate soul as a rumor and quickly spread through the ranks. It would spark angry protest and debate, and then simmer into sullen silence. Retreat was not an option. A light brigade might be able to go for a short ride and return skinned by only a few skirmishes. The army could not do that. It was encumbered by the artillery, ambulances, the dead weight of the wounded—it was an invitation to disaster. Their last and only option was to stay where they were. But if the First Brigade did not show up within a week, they would not be able to hold out. The men were completely finished, and the jagunços would eventually break through their line of fire.

On July 11 a cowboy with an escort of three cavalrymen suddenly showed up at camp. He carried a message from Colonel Medeiros saying he was on his way and asking for additional men to protect the supply train that he was bringing.

This was an electric shock for the dying expedition. There are no words to describe it. The good news took hold of the troops as it spread from one end of the camp to the other. Despondent faces were transfigured; men straightened their shoulders; they ran about in every direction, embracing each other and exclaiming. Flags were unfurled; the bugles sounded reveille. All the detachments formed ranks. They sang hymns.

The primitive leather-clad cowboy gazed in amazement at this display. He sat on his sweating, snorting nag and grasped his long cattle prod in his hand like a lance. His stocky but athletic build contrasted sharply with the lean bodies crowding around him. He was like a gladiator in the midst of bushmen.

The torrent of excitement reached the field hospital. The wounded and dying stopped their moaning and started to chant, “Viva!”

A strong northeaster rippled the flags. In the settlement below, the jagunços could hear the metallic sound of martial music, accented by shouts of joy from thousands of voices.

Night fell and waves of sound rose from the village and diffused across the desert wasteland. It awoke them from their dreams. Then it dissipated into the echoes of the mountainsides. It was the Ave Maria.

V

The Assault

The supply train arrived at the top of Mount Favela on July 13. The next day the brigade commanders met in General Savaget’s tent to plan for the assault on the settlement. The general was still recovering from the wound he had sustained in Cocorobó. The date, July 14, was favorable; it was a national holiday celebrated in Brazil, Bastille Day. That morning they had fired a salvo of twenty-one rounds to commemorate the occasion. The backlanders were jolted out of their hammocks—they were caught by surprise and ran dizzily around their wretched bunks. All this was because a little more than a century ago a group of dreamers had talked about the rights of man and had gone to war for the marvelous utopia of the brotherhood of man.

It was urgent to attack the settlement.

The commander of the First Brigade had returned to report that their first base of operations no longer existed. He said that he found nothing there and he had a hard time with the supply train he managed to bring back. These supplies would soon be depleted. A war council was convened. While they had different opinions about the details, they agreed there should be a mass attack on one flank only. The commanders of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth brigades thought they should leave Mount Favela for a position closer to the town, where they could launch their attack. Others, influenced by the three generals, had the opposite opinion. They wanted to leave the field hospital and artillery on Favela with two brigades to protect them.

There was little difference between the two plans and the generals prevailed. Once again they were making a mistake. First, by setting up a confrontation between the flight-prone, elusive enemy and the massive force of the brigades. Most of them still had no concept of what should have been done from the start of the campaign. The combat troops should have been split up. They should have understood intuitively that the best strategy was to attack from two sides: from the Jeremoabo highway and from the far left. The artillery should stay in its current position to continue the bombardment of the town center. The context of the battle was not taken into consideration. The two columns assigned to the assault were to do a flanking march for about a mile and a half to the right of the camp. This, they assumed, could be done without interference from the enemy. Then they were to take a slanting course to the left, down to the Vaza-Barris. From there, they would again turn left and attack the square where the churches stood. This was called a “wheeling maneuver” and would end in a direct-line assault. Assuming this worked, the jagunços still had three avenues of escape. They could safely retreat to inaccessible positions on the Caipã hills or some other location from which they could continue their resistance.

This was certain and should have been obvious.

Recent events should have reminded them of this. The last two weeks of bombardment and the arrival of new supplies to the army had not discouraged the enemy but, in fact, had given them new energy. On July 15, as if to mock the arrival of the supply train, bands of jagunços were seen driving many head of cattle to the settlement. The Twenty-fifth Battalion was sent out to attack them but did not succeed in reaching them. The same day, the now well-nourished expeditioners were forbidden to meander around the camp at will. To cross from one side to the other was a death sentence. The sergeant adjutant of the Ninth and a few privates were killed this way. The pasture, just a few steps away from the second column, was attacked and several cavalry horses and draft animals were taken. The Thirtieth Infantry was dispatched to retrieve them but they were unable to do so. On the sixteenth the jagunços again made a show of their bravado and attacked their well-provisioned antagonists all down the line. The engineering commission had to fight its way through a reconnoitering mission, even though it had a strong escort of two battalions, the Seventh and the Fifth. This proved that the enemy would put up a tough fight. Since they did not know what resources the sertanejos possessed, they should have taken the precaution of not engaging all their men at once. It was certainly not appropriate for the circumstances of that particular combat zone.

From the heights of Mount Favela, the route they had chosen seemed easily accessible. The terrain, with its undulating hills and gullies, made rapid maneuvers impossible. They would have to stage a unified attack due to the scattered configuration of the terrain. This would only be possible if they eliminated any plans for a mass bayonet charge up the hills and if there were an effective reconnoitering foray by a single brigade in loose formation. The compact ranks were useless here. This advance guard, clearing the way while under fire, should have been followed rapidly by the other detachments. They would have provided reinforcement at strategic points until the attacking forces, following closely behind the retreating enemy, reached the settlement in the appropriate strength of numbers.

Their plan, however, was just the opposite. The commander in chief had a habit of wavering between two extreme options. His way of overcoming his state of inaction was to leap from inertia to sudden action. He dropped the state of indecision that had paralyzed him on Mount Favela for a wild obsession with charging the enemy. This is reflected in the battle orders issued on the sixteenth. Discarding all precaution, the orders call for violent attacks: More than three thousand bayonets would roll like a tail of steel and flame down the empty bed of the Vaza-Barris.

When the signal to charge is given, no one must avoid enemy fire. Charge without hesitation and with all your strength. After each charge, every soldier will return to his company, each company to its battalion, and so on.

These instructions resonated with the troops. They did not want meticulously drawn battle plans that would prepare them for the unique character of the terrain and the very unusual enemy. They wanted revenge. They had to teach the stupid thugs a lesson and make short work of them. They would club them back with their rifle butts into that hole they called a town. The plan of the day for July 17, ordering the attack for the eighteenth, was greeted with gleeful shouts. The commander in chief held up a vision of victory by editing history:

Brave officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force in the interior of the state of Bahia! The enemy has not been able to stand up to your bravery. This is evident from the battles of Cocorobó, Trabubú, Macambira, Angico, two on Mount Favela, and two assaults by the enemy on our artillery. Tomorrow we storm the citadel of Canudos. The fatherland has its eyes on you. The country’s hope is placed in your courage. The treacherous enemy, who refuses to meet us face-to-face, who fights but is invisible to us, has suffered significant losses. He is weakened. Therefore, if . . .

We should stop to consider this telling “if.” It should have been held for the order of the next day.

. . . if your courage does not fail, if you again prove yourselves to be peerless in bravery, Canudos will be ours tomorrow. We will then rest and the fatherland will thank you for your sacrifice.

Canudos would fall the next day. That was decided. The enemy appeared to sense this resolve because it stopped its harassing rifle fire. He hunkered down, fearful and quiet. The camp was given a respite. The afternoon vibrated with the melodic notes of the bugles, which continued until nightfall.

The plan of attack was now issued in detail. About fifteen hundred men would remain on Mount Favela with General Savaget to guard the troops’ position there. This detachment consisted of Colonel Ignacio Henrique de Gouveia’s Second and Antônino Nery’s Seventh Brigade (a new unit) and the artillery, which was supposed to back up the attack with continuous bombardment. The first column, under General Barbosa, was to march ahead and initiate the battle. It would be followed directly by the cavalry wing and a detachment with the two Krupp 7.5s. The second column would follow.

A total of 3,349 men, in five brigades, were drafted into action. The First Brigade, under Colonel Joaquim Manoel de Medeiros, consisted of just two battalions. These were the Fourteenth and the Thirtieth under the respective commands of Captain João Antunes Leite and Lieutenant Colonel Antônio Tupy Ferreira Caldas. The Third Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Emydio Dantas Barreto, comprised the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Twenty-fifth under Captains Antônio Nunes de Salles, Alberto Gavião Pereira Pinto, Carlos Augusto de Souza, and José Xavier dos Anjos. The Fourth Brigade, under Colonel Carlos Maria da Silva Telles, included the Twelfth and Thirty-first battalions, led by Captains José Luiz Bucelle and José Lauriano da Costa. Colonel Julião Augusto de Serra Martins had replaced General Savaget as column commander. This detachment, comprising the Thirty-fourth and Fortieth battalions of Major Olegario Sampaio and Captain J. Villar Coutinho, was thus led by Major Nonato de Seixas. Finally, there was the Sixth Brigade, under Colonel Donaciano de Araújo Pantoja, made up of the Twenty-sixth and Thirty-second battalions, under Captain M. Costa and Major Collatino Goes. The Fifth Bahian Police, led by regular army captain Salvador Pires de Carvalho Aragão, was attached to the second column as an independent unit.

Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes was to lead a diversionary movement to the right, along the counterforts near the Old Ranch House, while the expedition launched the attack.

The list of officers indicates that there were some who would consider Canudos a minor field of combat. Carlos Telles was the stouthearted hero of the siege of Bagé. Tupy Caldas, with his irascible, nervous personality, had earned a reputation for courage in the fierce combat with southern federalists at Inhanduhy. Olympio da Silveira, artillery commander—a tall, tanned figure—was a modest soldier, mindless of glory but fearless in the face of the enemy. While his life had been spent in the chaos of battle, he seemed to be guided by a strong sense of direction. Among the junior officers were many ambitious young men wanting to make their reputations and eager for action. They were a boisterous bunch who did not know the meaning of fear. Salvador Pires de Carvalho Aragão, commander of the Fifth Police, had organized the detachment by himself with backcountry recruits from settlements along the São Francisco. Wanderley was fated to die a hero in the last phase of the campaign. The intrepid gaucho Vieira Pacheco led the lancer squadron. Fructuoso Mendes and Duque Estrada had the strength to tear down the stone walls of the church with their bare hands. Carlos de Alencar was left without a command when all the men in the cavalry wing he commanded were shot and killed. There were others.

All of them were impatient for the battle to start, because they were certain it would lead to a decisive victory. Following tradition, the soldiers advised those who stayed behind on Mount Favela to have lunch ready, because they would be tired and hungry when they returned.

The columns set off well after sunrise on the morning of the eighteenth. They headed east down the slopes, toward the Jeremoabo highway, in a countermarch to the right of the camp. After a while they turned left, still descending but heading straight for the banks of the Vaza-Barris. As they continued at a normal pace, they did not encounter a trace of the enemy. It was as if the jagunços had been surprised by the wheeling maneuver. The only inconvenience was the two Krupps, which groaned as they pulled them over the rough road. There were a few slight obstacles on the way, but they were quickly resolved. The only sound was the dull, menacing tread of marching feet.

The sad landscape was starting to come alive. The birds had long abandoned the area because for the past month the air had been filled with bullets. The morning was bright and without birdsong. Little by little, the desert, cocooned in silence, came into sight. The bare hills and the gently undulating tablelands, the caatingas with their falling leaves, already showing winter’s brown-gray stains in July, betrayed the slow spread of the drought. The plain that rolls away endlessly to the north and extends northeast as far as the Canabrava Range, and on the south to Mount Favela, swelled in a series of gradual elevations to the west until it merged with the faraway peaks of the Cambaio range. Dividing into scattered ganglia, the Vaza-Barris meanders through this plain. At one bend, after flowing due west it abruptly turns south and after a few hundred yards doubles back to the east, totally changing the flow of its current and forming an irregular peninsula with the settlement at its end. All the sertanejos had to do to ward off an attack was to spread out in a way to connect the parallel branches of the river at the nearest point, along the chord of the semicircle produced by this natural moat. The offensive would come from a direction perpendicular to that chord. After crossing the lowlands beyond Trabubú, the army would cross the dry bed of the Vaza-Barris. Making one last turn to the left, it would launch a frontal charge. Before it had completed this wheeling movement, the enemy cut it off.

It was seven in the morning. The scouts were the first to feel enemy fire as they reached the left bank of the river. Nearby was a hill that was covered to the top with primitive stone trenches of irregular shape that looked like crumbling walls. The settlement, about fifteen hundred yards ahead, was hidden from sight. They could barely see the church towers over the hilltops. Two tall crosses rose in sharp relief in the morning sun.

The soldiers of the Thirtieth Battalion returned the jagunço fire without stopping their march. They stepped up their pace as most of the First Brigade and four battalions of the Third Brigade, marching tightly together, arrived at the riverbed and crossed it. The entire first column was now ready to enter the combat zone.

The small obstacles in front of the two Krupps slowed down the detachments in the rear. This relieved the pressure of having all the battalions arrive together. General Barbosa took advantage of the break to form a line of battle. The First Brigade was to take sharpshooter formation on the right. The Third Brigade made the same formation on the left. The cavalry wing, galloping at breakneck speed, was to ride around the right flank and block the enemy there.

This general maneuver was a bad idea, as was to be expected. In addition to the fact that it had to be accomplished in the enemy’s sight, it was not appropriate for the terrain. The physical conditions for such tactics were lacking here. In this plan, the line would have the brigades spread out over a distance of one and one-quarter miles and divided into vertical planes in accordance with the slope of the hills and depth of the valleys. As the combat units peeled off and assumed new battle positions, they would expose their flanks to the enemy and be forced to take weak and precarious positions. No matter how temporary this situation was, the outcome was uncertain. The plan was not practical.

It was also very dangerous. This was clear from the rugged nature of the terrain to the strength of the enemy, which had immediately attacked the entire front with vicious fire. The plan was inadequate from the beginning. As they broke away from the loosely configured lines, rows of bayonets charged up the hills and scaled them with great effort. But they did not have the impetus and speed that was needed for this maneuver to succeed. Since they could not perform the maneuver the way it should have been done, they began to change details, which caused confusion in the ranks. The Third Brigade began to fight on the right wing of the Thirteenth Battalion, contrary to plan. The Ninth Battalion on the far left descended into the bed of the Vaza-Barris and began to move forward under heavy fire from both sides of the river. The Twenty-fifth, the Fifth, and the right wing of the Seventh were somewhere in the middle.

It was not possible to complete a scattering formation while under fire in this landscape. As the detachments, companies, and battalions split off to the right, which was the only side possible for military formations, they ended up in a maze of twisting gullies, and before long they were lost and flailing about with no sense of direction. They could not see the rest of their comrades or even hear the bugles. Attempting to fall back, thinking they were making progress in this labyrinthine line of march, they often had advanced just a few paces when they would suddenly run into other detachments that were heading at double-quick pace in the other direction.

As a result, they went completely afoul of their plans. The general who had led them into these narrow troughs was later confounded about what had happened here. He was at a loss for words. In his plan of the day he employed a crass expression from the language of the gauchos by saying that the troops got “all balled up.”

By the time the second column appeared, a half hour later, their losses were heavy. They had only two more brigades, and just one in reserve, the Sixth, under General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães. Again, these detachments should have fanned out to the right, the only feasible option under these conditions. This would have cut off the enemy along the entire front, preventing any flanking action, and would have assisted the final push. The battlefield suggested this, since it was a broad area with all points leading to the church square. But obvious as they were, these tactics were not employed. As the support brigades came up under terrible fire, throwing their men into disarray, they could not form any line at all. They should have tried to join the brigades ahead of them to reinforce them and round out their movement. Or they could have taken up positions on either wing, broadening the formation in a way that would push back at these rough opponents with a band of steel.

Colonel Carlos Telles, in his report on the battle, later asserted that the troops did not keep to the correct formation. “Nevertheless their orders were to advance and charge.”

They advanced and they charged.

It was eight on a beautiful backlands morning. It was glowing with the reflecting light of the naked earth and its quartzite folds. If the troops had been able to add to all this sparkling beauty the steel glint of three thousand bayonets, it would have been a singularly magnificent sight.

Instead it was devastating. Ten mixed battalions headed down the hillsides. Pushing through the lowlands they scaled the opposite slopes. When they reached the top, they would go down the other side with a great noise, only to have to repeat the motion once again. The hills stretched out endlessly on all sides. A sea of screaming men rolled up their flanks, overflowed into the plains below, frothed down the inclines, and then was caught in the deep ravines below.

The invisible jagunços in the meantime continued their deadly fire, sometimes falling back, sometimes jabbing at the army’s flanks, and sometimes surrounding it completely.

It was impossible to predict the outcome. The soldiers began to gain ground gradually as they captured hill after hill. They would stop for a moment at the edge of a trench, and below they would find the hot exploded cartridges that indicated the abrupt flight of the enemy. After a while they were not sure which direction of attack they should follow. The enemy return fire, coming from all different directions, was meant to confuse them. After a while longer there was a more consistent and sustained fire from the extreme right, where it would not be expected. This made them think the sertanejos were planning a vigorous attack on their right flank, which would bring the exultant enemy directly into their disordered midst. But then they realized this had been just a sideshow, and that the enemy had lost their opening for a focused attack. This was discovered by the lancer squadron on a daring reconnoitering mission. Riding at top speed into the fire, down the slope of a hill, they found themselves facing about eighty jagunços. They were shooting from a corral. They were routed out by lance point and horse hoof in a vicious charge. The lancers chased them up a slope that was not as steep as the others until they came to the summit where a wide plateau unfolded before them, stretching to the northeast. The settlement appeared unexpectedly before their eyes, less than three hundred yards away.

In the meantime, one by one, disorderly platoons of infantry scrambled up the slope.

The situation was coming to a climax.

There was a relatively flat area near the outlying houses that dotted the opposite slope, about three hundred yards from the churches. It was better suited for maneuvers. They made for this point, in small groups and without any type of order, just barely staying with their brigades. The Fifth marched on the right, the Third and Fourth in the center, and the Sixth, the last to join the action, was on the left along the river.

This was the most critical moment of the battle.

The troops were completely exposed on the hillside, particularly at their right and center. Their position was in target range of the church towers and on a level with the upper shelf of the settlement, which climbed the slope to the north. From this point to the far end of the square to the west, covering the entire quadrant for a distance of a mile and a quarter, issued a huge blast of fire. The brigades continued to advance. Their movements were incoherent and did not benefit their aim or their ability to act decisively. They had no plan to guide them. Suddenly, in all the confusion in the ranks, the men began to run out of ammunition. Each soldier had only brought 150 cartridges in his pouch. They had to stop entire battalions, in the heat of battle and under enemy fire, to break open the munitions cases and distribute the cartridges.

Making things worse, guerrillas were now able to confront their attackers at close range. In addition to the heavy fire coming from the holes in the walls of the settlement, bold guerrillas were moving into the army’s midst, keeping up a scattering fire on the right flank. They put big holes into the ranks. Occasional shots were heard that indicated the presence of sharpshooters. They fired only infrequently but their keen aim brought entire platoons to a halt.

One episode illustrates this.

It happened during the last stage of the attack. The troops were reinforced by the Fourth Brigade, under Colonel Telles, whose entire staff had been lost. They were crossing the last slopes. The farthest detachments on this flank, who had suffered heavy punishment, pressed swiftly to the right to try to repel an enemy they could not see on the empty plain, even though their view was unobstructed for miles. On a guess, they attacked in the direction of a leafy umbú tree on their right. It was the only tree around. Shots were being fired quickly, but in single succession, as if from a lone marksman. The bullets hit their mark, felled the soldiers, and depleted the ranks with lethal regularity. Some of the soldiers stopped short in disbelief, unable to comprehend such a barrage from a flat stretch of ground where there was not the slightest mound where a shooter could take cover. Others kept running toward the tree. When they were a few steps away, they finally saw a bronzed, stony face peering over the rim of a pit. Jumping out of the hole without dropping his weapon, the jagunço glided down the hill and disappeared into the labyrinth of gullies below. About three hundred cartridges in the trench proved that this fierce man hunter had been there, in that well-placed dugout, for a long time. The earth all around was pockmarked with similar bunkers. Every one had the same pile of cartridge shells. These were the deadly cartridges that had decimated our lines and made it seem that the ground itself was exploding under the soldiers’ feet. Routed out of these hideouts, the sertanejos fell back to other trenches, which in turn issued blazes of rifle fire, until they too had to be abandoned. In the meantime the troops were bearing down on the settlement. They reached the outlying huts around ten in the morning.

Assembled to the east, they moved out along a wide expanse of tableland, which was located on a meridian line and on the west dipped gently to the church square beyond. From this dominant position, they began to occupy the area by forming a winding, uneven line that ran to the Vaza-Barris on the left. Some of the soldiers took cover in the empty huts. Most of them, following officers who at this point proved themselves capable of more worthy endeavors, kept moving forward under heavy, encircling fire until they came to the back of the old church. The Sixth Brigade and the Fifth Police advanced along the dry riverbed and completed the line of offense.

This was as far as they could go. They had occupied a small suburb of this barbaric city but they were unable to complete their mission. Their losses were staggering. The rear guard, encumbered with the dead and wounded, gave the impression that it had been defeated. It was a wrenching sight.

In the midst of this, the soldiers had to make way for the two Krupps, being pulled by hand. Once they were positioned in a battle station overlooking the churches, the cannons started to bombard the city. On top of Mount Favela, which was capped with smoke, Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s batteries thundered fire. In an unforgiving cross fire from the artillery and the battalions on the eastern border, the town returned a volley of bullets aimed at the fragile walls of the huts where the soldiers had taken cover, burying them in the caved walls. The Sixth Brigade took fire from the new church on the riverbank. The Fifth Police, its ranks depleted, made it down to a narrow, twisting canyon, which saved it from a mass shooting. By noon the situation had become grave and precarious. The battle, which had started just a mile away, still continued with even greater intensity on the outskirts of the settlement.

At this juncture, when the Third and Fourth brigades had reached the cemetery adjacent to the old church, their commanders decided to send for General Oscar Guimarães. The general arrived after bravely crossing the slopes on foot, taking cover as best he could along the walls of the houses scattered there. As he approached, he found Colonel Carlos Telles, commander of the Fifth Brigade, and Captain Antônio Salles lying seriously wounded in the hut where they had taken cover. The meeting in the hut was brief. Everything around them was in chaos: the whine of bullets, the sound of running feet, the shrill call of the bugle, shouted commands, screams of fear and anger, groans and curses. Hell had broken loose.

Now every man was fighting for his life. The battalions had broken up. Small groups of men from all the corps were crowded behind the fragile mud and thatch walls, hiding in corners, and holding out as long as they could. Under these circumstances something like natural selection was occurring. With all hope snuffed out, the animal instinct of survival came out. This becomes a primitive kind of courage. Now they no longer could think about the fate of their comrades. The battle had been reduced to the little bit of ground where their own life was at stake. The soldiers piled into huts and imitated the jagunços’ example of piercing holes in the wall. Running down alleys and dodging around corners, with the sertanejos just a few steps behind them, they fought blindly. Starving and parched with thirst, they would enter a hut and, without thinking there might be someone there, immediately grope around for a jug of water or bin of flour. Often they would be struck down by a bullet fired at close range. Soldiers with trained bodies, panting from four hours of fighting, would sometimes be killed by women. Old harpies with wild manes of hair, their ugly, wrinkled faces set with eyes that glinted with anger, would attack the soldiers with their bare hands in a fit of fury. Even after they had been choked and almost strangled by the soldier’s strong hands, after they had been dragged along the ground by their hair and kicked with the soldier’s boots, even then they did not give up. Some died like wild animals, a death rattle in their throats, spitting curses and hexes on their assailants.

Another Disastrous Victory

In the middle of this disastrous confusion, the commander in chief decided to hold the position they had just won. There was no other alternative. Once more the expedition was in a bind after a violent engagement. Advance and retreat were both impossible.

As the afternoon wore on, the troops took up their position on the narrow eastern border of the settlement, or, rather, on a fifth of it: the long slope of a hill that ran from north to south, a gentle incline that ended in the village square. The houses here were less densely packed than in other places and more recently constructed. Because it had grown so rapidly, Canudos had spread out of the depression in the earth where it had been established and was populating the tops of the surrounding hills. Our forces occupied one of these suburbs. Strictly speaking, they had not yet reached the barbaric citadel, which rose up ominously in front of them. It was a fortress without walls, but still inviolable, displaying to the enemy thousands of entrances and gaps that led to the tangled network of winding alleys that make up the streets of the town.

But the troops could not do more than they had already done. The advance guard had stopped and was trying to fix its position. The Fifth Police was entrenching itself in the deep ravine on the far left, which drained the water off the slopes of Mount Favela. Its lines reached to the right bank of the Vaza-Barris, where the Twenty-sixth was positioned. This detachment would double back to the opposite bank, where it would connect with the Fifth Brigade next to the cemetery. The Twenty-fifth was behind the old church. The Seventh took a position parallel to the east side of the square. The Twenty-fifth, Fortieth, and Thirtieth were somewhere in the labyrinth of huts to the north. From here to the rear of the column, the troops of the Twelfth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-eighth arced away from the central concentration of dwellings, along the right side of the camp. The general headquarters had been set up on the opposite hill, guarded by the Fourteenth, Thirty-second, Thirty-third, and Thirty-fourth battalions and a unit of the cavalry.

For the remainder of the day and most of the night they built trenches, reinforced the walls of the huts with boards or stones, and looked for the few locations that would be safe from rifle fire. They had to proceed with extreme caution. As the expeditioners dug in on the side of the settlement, the tenacious enemy was always watching. The constant fire had subsided. Now the enemy went back to using its favorite method of fighting with ambush. From every opening of every wall a musket barrel was trained on the troops. A misstep meant death for the soldiers.

They were beginning to sense the vise of a situation worse than on Mount Favela. There, at least, they could hope and plan for attack and victory. They still hated the enemy, who was barely visible at a distance in his secret hideouts. Now not even this illusion was left. The resilient jagunço was daring them to engage in hand-to-hand combat. He was not intimidated by these professional adversaries that the “big country” had sent to invade their town. Here they were, face-to-face with him, just a few steps away. They were rubbing elbows, living in the same mud huts and in the same village. The population of the settlement had instantly grown by three thousand men. But the newcomers had not altered in the least the routine of their primitive lives. At sunset the bell of the old church quietly tolled the Ave Maria. Then from the recesses of the other church came the sad litany of the prayers.

It was as if all the commotion that had occurred that day was a routine and expected event.

The expedition was, to the contrary, experiencing a terrible crisis. About a thousand men had been lost, killed, or wounded in this engagement, and, combined with previous losses, the ranks were greatly reduced. Three brigade commanders were out of combat: Carlos Telles, Serra Martins, and Antônino Nery, who had joined with the Seventh that afternoon. The number of junior officers and privates lost was significant. Lieutenants and sublieutenants had given up their lives all down the line. The names and exploits of these men were later memorialized: Cunha Lima, a student in the Military Academy of Porto Alegre, wounded in a lancer charge, spent his last breath falling on the enemy like a human dart. Wanderley was shot after he had galloped up the last hill; mortally wounded, he and his mount rolled down the hill together and were pinned in the rocks, like a giant Titan with his steed. There were many others who died in combat while shouting praises for the republic. The bravery of these men was like the sick passion of the warriors of the Middle Ages. The analogy is perfect. In backward societies there will be noticeable traces of atavistic regression. In the chaotic days of the republic, our young army men were overtaken with patriotic zeal, which unbalanced them emotionally and filled them with the idealistic fervor of illuminati. The fight for the republic and against its imagined foes was a crusade. These contemporary Knights Templars, even though they did not wear mail vests and a cross on their swords, were still driven by the same unshakable faith. The men who fell in the assault on Canudos, without exception, wore a medal of Marshal Floriano Peixoto pinned to their uniforms. They saluted him in death. In short, they were exhibiting the same enthusiasm, dedication, and fanaticism the jagunços did when they called upon the merciful and miracle-working Good Jesus.

But in spite of its negative manifestations, this febrile delirium turned out to be their salvation on July 18.

When an army that depends entirely on discipline to maintain order becomes disrupted, it is finished. On the other hand these simple soldiers, beset with hardships and uncertainties, succumb to the hypnotic sway of their leaders’ death-defying courage and prestige. In a way, they were caught between the magnetism of their commanders and the bullets of the jagunços.

On the Flanks of Canudos

The night of the eighteenth of July passed without incident, against all expectations. The sertanejos were quiet. The commander in chief was fearful of a night attack they could not repel. The fragile defense lines, even if the enemy could not get through them at some point, could be outflanked. If they were caught between two lines of fire and were not able to move forward into the settlement, they would be easily annihilated. The situation, however, was resolved by the inertia of the adversaries. On the next day a line of red banners, made of blankets sewn together, cordoned off a small section of the town, a fifth of its enormous periphery. To the east there were no boundaries. On this side, the extreme right was clear. Also to the left, along the slopes of Favela and the edge of the Providencia valley, where the Police Corps was located, was a large open space. To complete the circle, they needed a line that would run due north, then curve west, follow the river to its bend in the south, scale the heights on the first terrace of the Calumbi and Cambaio ranges, and finally come back east along the Bald Headlands spur. This was a circuit of about four miles. The expedition had been reduced to a little more than three thousand men. Hundreds of them had been assigned to guard Mount Favela. They could not manage such a wide area, even if the enemy had allowed them to do it. Their operations were temporarily paralyzed. They could do nothing but defend their current position until reinforcements arrived.

General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães calmly assessed the state of affairs. He asked for an auxiliary corps of five thousand and took measures to guarantee the safety of his men. They wrangled this unusual victory out of defeat. This was again a victory that left them in the agonizing situation of being unable to take a step forward or a step back. The orders of the day officially stated that the army had begun to lay siege to the town. The reality was that it was the expedition itself that was under siege. On the west was the settlement; to the south their path was obstructed by the slopes of the Favela, now littered with sick and wounded; to the north and east was the formidable desert. The field of action had now been widened. There were two separate camps, which appeared to give them greater range of movement beyond the confinement of the enemy trenches. This illusion was broken on the first day of the assault. The hills, which they had secured with bayonet charges just hours before, were already manned again. It was very difficult to communicate with Mount Favela. The wounded who tried to make it down a second time were shot. A surgeon, Dr. Tolentino, was badly wounded as he descended the mountain to the riverbank. It was going to be very difficult to cross the terrain that they had won. On the other hand, they again imitated the jagunço tactics from their position on the outer edges of the settlement. They crowded into the huts that were like ovens in the midday heat. They would stay there for hours, forgetting the time, practicing the same style of ambush fighting as their opponents. Their gaze scanned the mass of huts. They would unleash fire at any moving target in the labyrinth of alleys.

The last rations were distributed—one and a quarter quarts of flour per every seven men and an ox to a battalion. This was all that they had left of the supply train that had saved them a short time ago. The soldiers now found it impossible to prepare their meager meal. Smoke from a mud roof was a sure magnet for bullets! At night a lighted match would attract a barrage of gunpowder. The jagunços were well aware that the thin clay walls would offer no security to the invaders. Colonel Nery was wounded as he entered one of the huts after he and his men had traversed the dangerous combat zone. The troops began to reinforce the walls with stone or wood planks. Then they spent the day lying prone under the thatched roofs, above the food bins hanging from the rafters, their eyes glued to the chinks, fingers clutching their triggers. They were terrified victors lying in wait for the vanquished.

Bullets flew around general headquarters on the opposite slope without doing damage. They were repelled by the reentrant angle of the hill. Throughout the night and the following day, the commander, whose tent was in the center of the camp, could hear the whine of fire from the rifle duel going on between the enemy and the advance lines at the other side of the battlefield. The commanding officers of those detachments, Lieutenant Colonels Tupy Caldas and Dantas Barreto, both fearless warriors, were concerned that disaster was imminent. They realized that “one step backward from any point on the central line would mean total destruction.” No one tried to hide this fear of approaching catastrophe. It was a logical deduction from everything that had happened before. For many days they were preoccupied with this dread.

Colonel Barreto, in his book The Last Expedition to Canudos, made the point that “an enemy trained in regulation fighting, who knew how to exploit our tactical disadvantages, would not have let this opportunity for revenge go by. This meant we would become victims of the most savage cruelty.”

But the jagunço did not know anything about regulation fighting. He was not really an enemy, which in this context was a euphemism for “bandit,” as he was called in the form of martial literature titled the orders of the day. The sertanejo was simply defending his home. As long as his aggressors kept their distance, he would simply surround them with traps to stop them. But if they crashed through his gates and attacked him with rifle butts, he would confront them face-to-face with all he had, unblinking resistance, both for self-defense and to uphold his honor. Canudos could only be taken in a house-to-house search. The entire army expedition would take three months to cross the hundred yards separating them from the new church. On the last day of this unimaginable resistance, which has few like it in history, the last defenders, three or four starving, nameless Titans dressed in rags, would spend their last cartridges on an army of six thousand men!

This amazing tenacity was evident from the eighteenth of July on and never weakened. The attack was over but the battle went on. It was endless, boring, and terrifying, with the same rhythm as when they were on Mount Favela. They either engaged in scattered, occasional fire or sustained fusillades. There were sudden attacks and skirmishes, lasting fifteen minutes, which began and ended suddenly, before the emotional sounds of the bugle alarm had subsided. In these abrupt attacks, which were spaced out by periods of relative calm, the roles were reversed. The attackers were the ones who were being assaulted. The enemy might be cornered but he decided when these sudden engagements would occur.

Sometimes it was in the middle of the night that a large rocket would be launched into the air with a harsh whizzing sound that would make a tear in the dark sky and light up the cornices of the churches that swarmed with a black mass of humanity. This would interrupt the brief repose of soldiers in the advance guard who had dozed off with their heads on their rifles. The battle would go on in the dark to the intermittent glow of gunfire. At other times a surprise attack would come at dawn or in midmorning on a bright warm day.

A detailed log of the first days of the battle gives an idea of its extremely barbaric nature. We will try to give a general picture of the situation until July 24, which did not change from that time on.

July 19: The enemy fire starts at five in the morning. It continues all day and part of the night. The commander of the first column decides to bring up two more Krupp cannons from the rear, so we can strengthen our attack against the enemy. We have to mount the cannons at night. At 12:30 P.M. the commander of the Seventh Brigade is wounded in his hut while resting in his hammock. At 2:00 P.M., after aiming and firing the right cannon at one of the towers of the new church, Lieutenant Thomas Braga dies from a bullet wound. In the afternoon a few head of cattle are brought down from Mount Favela with great difficulty to feed the troops. As they cross the Vaza-Barris, they receive fire and the herd stampedes. Our men laboriously round them up, losing just a few. At the sound of taps, the jagunços fire at our lines and keep this up until 9:30, with occasional shots continuing into the night. An officer is wounded, a subaltern is killed, and we suffer ten or twelve casualties.

July 20: The camp is suddenly assaulted at reveille. Shots are exchanged all day. We can only mount one of the cannons. Same number of casualties as the day before: one man killed.

July 21: Dawn is peaceful. There are few attacks today. The cannons on Favela keep up a bombardment until nightfall. It is a relatively calm day with few casualties.

July 22: Without waiting for the enemy to take the initiative, the artillery begins to fire the cannons at five in the morning. This provokes a virulent return fire from the sharpshooters who are hidden in the walls of the churches. The last of the wounded are taken from the field to the camp on Mount Favela. This is not easy. Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes reconnoiters the area. When he returns he reports that the enemy is strongly entrenched. We have control over just a few of the many houses in Canudos. We can only distribute rations at night to the soldiers in the front lines since during the day the enemy is always on watch. At 9:00 P.M. there is a violent assault on both flanks. There are twenty-five casualties.

July 23: The day starts quietly. An hour later, at six in the morning, the jagunços impetuously assault our rear guard after having moved around our flanks unnoticed. They are pushed back by the Thirty-fourth Battalion and the Police Corps. Fifteen dead are left behind, an Indian woman is taken prisoner, and we find a bag of flour. There is heavy firing at night. The three cannons fire only nine rounds because we are running out of ammunition.

July 24: Bombardment begins at dawn. In a deviation from its customary response, the settlement does nothing. The shrapnel from Mount Favela explodes in the town but it is as if the place is deserted. For a long time the cannonade continues to batter the town, without any reply. At 8:00 A.M. a few shots are heard on the right and there is an assault on the cannons on that flank. A hand-to-hand combat breaks out and spreads rapidly. Bugles are heard sounding up and down the line. All the troops fall into battle formation. The attack is aimed at cutting off the rear guard from the front of the line. It was a daring scheme. If they had succeeded, the jagunços would have been able to take general headquarters and place the army in the middle of two lines of fire. This was Pajehú’s idea. He was now in command. The assault lasted half an hour. The enemy, not succeeding here, returns a few minutes later and attacks furiously on the right. Held off again, with considerable difficulty, he moves back to the houses not taken by our troops and begins a barrage of heavy fire. The fallen in this engagement include the commander of the Thirty-third, Antônio Nunes de Salles, along with many other officers and men. At noon the agitation stops.

A sudden silence falls over both camps. At 1:00 P.M. a new attack is initiated, this one even more impetuous than the others. All battalions assume their formations. They are like a battering ram. The enemy is beating at our right flank. The daring Pajehú has been badly wounded. There are many casualties on our side. Lieutenant Figueira of Taubaté is dead. Among the wounded is the commander of the Thirty-third, Captain Joaquim Pereira Lobo, along with many officers. As a distraction, the commander in chief decides to call the left flank into action. The entire body of the column now fires on the settlement. A machine gun is brought in to reinforce the right. The entire artillery on Favela thunders on the village.

The enemy is repelled. All night there is constant firing until dawn.

July 25: Today, as on other days, similar incidents occur with little change. This represses the campaign with a painful monotony. The trenches that constitute the line of siege are built in between engagements. Rations can only be consumed at night by the starving soldiers. Only then do the thirsty men dare to take their canteens and buckets down to the riverbed to search for water. The days go by. . . .

Victory by Telegraph

These facts reached the leaders of the state and federal governments in a completely garbled state. This was inevitable.

Since not even the soldiers themselves could make sense of the contradictory series of events, it was understandable that those who were far away from the drama in the backlands would have been taken in by conjectures that were not only unreliable but completely false. At first there was talk of victory. The crossing at Cocorobó had indicated that the army would quickly stamp out the rebel uprising. In addition, word from the front as well as terse telegrams from the commander in chief assured them that it would be taken care of in a few days.

When two weeks had gone by, it was clear that this was just wishful thinking. There were reports that the jagunços had gotten through army lines more than once. While the expedition was fighting to exhaustion on the wasteland of Mount Favela and bleeding to death at the gates of Canudos, public opinion was engaging in extravagant rumor, and the press was publishing far-fetched opinions on what was going on. The phantom of monarchist restoration was rising again on a stormy political horizon. Despite the official orders of the day, which were crows of victory, the sertanejos again looked like the Chouans after Fontenay. Looking at history through this inverted lens, the crude Pajehú seemed like a Chatelineau, and João Abade was a Charette in a leather hat.

From July 18 on, nervousness mounted. The news of the attack that day, as on previous days, began as an ode to victory but gradually died down, leaving serious doubts. Now the people were convinced the army had been defeated. Meanwhile, from the war zone the telegrams kept coming with their falsified version of the news. They were all alike: “Bandits surrounded. Victory certain. Canudos will be in our hands in two days. Fanatics are finished.”

But they would soon have the truth. Starting on July 27, living proof of the catastrophe arrived on the seaboard, bound for the capital of Bahia.

VI

On the Roadways

It was becoming urgent to evacuate the sick and wounded to Monte Santo.

The first groups of them left under the protection of infantry soldiers as far as Juá, on the far south of the danger zone.

The backwash of the campaign began a sorrowful journey along the highways. Mount Favela was spewing them out. Every day, countless bands of disabled soldiers, everyone who was no longer of use, left the camp. The most gravely ill were carried in hammocks of caroa fiber or on rude wooden stretchers made of rounded stakes. Others rode limping or unfit horses clearly in pain. Some were piled into carts. Most went on foot.

They left to cross the war-wasted territory with no provisions, in a weakened condition, exhausted from the terrible privations they had suffered. They were resigned to their fate.

It was the beginning of summer. The sertão was starting to turn into a barren desert. The sun-drenched trees were drying up and shedding their leaves and flowers each day. On the ground was a dark gray cover of parched weeds, already foreshadowing the latent presence of the drought and its mute fires. Day would burst forth in gold and after scorching the earth for hours would snuff out at nightfall. The water level was falling and the few streams were running dry. Their pebbly beds contained tiny trickles of water, almost invisible to the eye, as in the African wadis. In short, the superheated air and the dusty, cracking earth were giving clear signs that the drought was taking over this unhappy region. The temperature was showing enormous variations. The searing heat during the day was followed by bitter cold nights.

They could only walk in the early morning and late afternoon. As the sun reached its zenith it was essential to stop to rest. This rarefied atmosphere offered no protection against the sun’s intensely refracted rays. The blinding light reflected from every crease in the earth’s surface as well as from the mountaintops. It seemed as if sparks were flying in the air from spontaneous fires over the highlands. From ten in the morning on, the caravans stopped where they could. They would stop near streams where water had collected in small, stagnant pools and where the residual moisture nourished the foliage of caraíba plants and tall baraúnas. They would stop next to the still-full cisterns of abandoned farmhouses. If no place like this was available, they would seek the ipueiras that were scattered over the plains.

They camped there.

That same day, at nightfall, hardly recovered, they continued on their way, in no order, each one progressing as best his strength allowed. They had left Favela as a group, but the bands would slowly break up until the men were straggling all along the road, either in small groups or alone. The strongest or those who were riding could move more quickly. They took shortcuts to Monte Santo, leaving their weaker comrades behind. Among those who traveled with them were the wounded officers, who were carried in hammocks by strong soldiers. The great majority was not able to keep up and dropped off along the wayside. Some would stay where they were, after a halt, in the shade of a desiccated bush, succumbing to fatigue. Others, driven by thirst that the impure waters of the backlands pools had not been able to quench, and mad with hunger, would abruptly change direction and set out on one of the multiple byways in the caatingas. They sought relief from the unusual flora with its fruits and thorns. They would often lose their way as they went about digging up the umbú roots, sucking on the swollen tubers of the spiny thistle and hunting for the last fruits of the leafless trees.

They had completely forgotten about the enemy. The ferocity of the jagunço was replaced by the brutality of the land.

After a few days the tortuous Rosário road was filling up with refugees. This was the same route they had followed a month before. Then they were confident about the prospect of meeting the cunning enemy. They were fascinated with the power of the four thousand bayonets that clanked to the feverish rhythm of the battle charges. The trail seemed rougher and more impassable now—it coiled in successive curves, plunged down steep slopes to then rise up to the next ascent. It circled jagged promontories and then led directly into the heart of the mountains.

They revisited this road, astonished by the memories it held for them.

In the Umburanas area they found the ruined hut where the sertanejos had ambushed the big supply train of the Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães expedition. Beyond Baixas the road was still littered with white bones, deliberately arranged there in a macabre reenactment of the March massacre. At the bend in the road just before Angico was the place where Salomão da Rocha had in minutes redirected his steely artillery divisions to meet the raging torrent of humanity that swooped down on the Moreira César column. In the dry canyon ahead was the steep streambed where Colonel Tamarindo had fallen heavily off his horse and both rider and horse had plunged to their deaths. Near Aracati and Juetê were rows of huts in ruins, their beams and rafters charred by fires, their gardens choked by weeds, and their old farms abandoned. This indelibly traced the path of the expeditions that had gone before.

Near Vicar’s Farm, with a display of ghoulish humor, the jagunços had decorated the dwarfed deciduous shrubbery with another flora of a fantastic nature. Tatters of uniforms with their red stripes, shredded blue and white dolmans, the remnants of black and red socks, and torn rags of red military coats made the dead foliage seem as if it were blooming again with bloody flowers.

The barbaric, monotonous landscape surrounded them on all sides. Hills had been buried by erosion; mountains were now reduced to odd shapes by quick, torrential downpours. Along their sides the bones of the earth were intimately exposed by sharply protruding formations or stone heaps that recalled ancient eruptions. Naked, flat lowlands were now huge plains or flatlands.

Everywhere in the rotting depths of the humid lowlands dying and stunted vegetation crept along through a maze of tangled branches, either close to the ground or twisting its tendrils in the air in agony.

Desperately poor huts with their doors open to the road lined various parts of the way. Their roofs were still intact but their owners were gone. They had been abandoned by cowboys who had been scared off by the war or fanatics who had migrated to Canudos.

Now these huts were abruptly invaded. At the same time, other guests that had taken up residence there were surprised: Coy, shy foxes, their eyes glinting and hair raised on their backs, jumped out of the windows or cracks in the roof, leaping by bounds into the weeds. Hundreds of bats emerged disoriented, out of dark corners, with a great whirring of wings.

The deserted farm came to life for a few hours. Hammocks were set up in the small rooms, in the little living room with its dirt floor, or outside under the trees. The mules were tied up to crossed stakes of the deserted corral. Torn overcoats, blankets, and old uniforms were laid out over the lawn. Small groups would walk around the place, curiously examining the kitchen garden, now gone to seed and invaded by bright flowers. A murmured conversation that was almost happy would imagine the contented hours a backwoodsman would spend here in the peaceful backlands. The stronger ones would head to the nearby water pit. Forgetting their slower comrades and completely putting out of their minds those who would follow in the weeks and months ahead, they bathed, washed their sweaty and dirty horses, and cleansed their wounds in brackish water that was only refreshed by passing showers from year to year. They returned with their canteens and kettles greedily filled to the brim.

Often a few cattle, the remainder of the great herds that had been let loose because of the war, would sense the activity on the farm. This peaceful place was their home and where they had first felt the branding iron. They trotted up, with loud and happy bellows, looking for their friend the cowboy, who would take them to their favorite pasturelands, the logradouros, or to the cool freshwater pools and streams. Once again he would sing to them the ballads or sad songs of returning home, the aboiados.

They trotted up, stamping onto the patio.

They got a cruel reception. The famished horde of soldiers fell on them with noisy bellows. Rifles went off and there was great confusion as the men with their weakened bodies sprang to life and began a crazed chase. The stunned animals stampeded for the brush. After exhausting themselves with the pursuit, their wounds reopened by thorns and aggravating their fever, the men would finally kill one, two, or three bulls at most in a wild round of shots that sounded like a full battle. They feasted on the meat. And then, after these providential incidents, they would rest with full bellies, almost happy in contrast to their previous plight. They would wait for dawn, when they had to continue their exodus.

In that brief moment of quiet, a terrible idea came to them—what if the jagunços attacked?

They realized they were helpless, pauperized, ragged, and repulsive, livid with hunger, being swept across the desert like useless tumbleweeds, and they were possessed by childlike fears. Their foe, who had risked attacks on veteran brigades and had even tried to capture their cannon with their bare hands, would slaughter them in minutes. And night fell, full of terrors.

Brave men, who had endured the most brutal discipline of the battlefield, would start at the most common things. They kept watch, in spite of their fatigue, listening for the vague, distant sounds of the plains.

Meanwhile they were tortured by terrible hallucinations. The sharp crack of a bursting pod in the brush was like a clicking trigger or exploding fuse. It created the illusion of shots from a night ambush. The phosphorescent blooms of the cumanan shrubs radiating at a distance in the shadows were like the embers of bonfires where countless waiting enemies watched in silence.

Morning would free them from their fears. They left the haunted rest stop. Some would remain, lying stiffly in a corner. These were comrades whom death had finally released from their suffering. They did not bury them, there was no time. They would have just broken their picks on the hard sandstone earth, which had the consistency of solid rock. Some, after taking a few steps, would succumb to fatigue for good. They would fall from exhaustion at the bend of the road. No one looked back; they simply dropped out of sight forever, forgotten and left to die alone. They expired. For days, weeks, and months ahead, travelers along that road would see them in the same position, stretched out under a tree, speckled with light through the dying foliage, their right arms bent over their foreheads, as if protecting their eyes from the sun. They looked like tired soldiers at rest. The bodies did not decompose. The hot, dry air preserved them. They just withered, the skin shriveled. They would remain for a long time by the roadside, terrible mummies in ragged uniforms.

They did not make much of an impression on passersby. Anyone who dares to cross the northern backlands in midsummer is used to strange scenes. This is particularly true in times of drought. With its alterations of extreme temperatures, the burning days and frigid nights, the earth seems to lose all humanity. Life is latent, it paralyzes without decomposing those who live on it. The backlands demonstrate the possibility of a dormant existence where life seems to be extinguished, asleep, but ready to break out suddenly again when conditions are more favorable, thus making possible the most surprising and unexpected resurrections. The dry, bare trees begin to drip sap and flower with the first rains, without waiting for their leaves, quickly transforming the desert into a flowering meadow. The birds that die in flight in the hot air, the resistant animal life of the caatinga that finally succumbs and dies, man who cannot survive the sun’s lethal rays—all seem to lie still for a long time. The worms do not attack their tissues, waiting for a better season. Once in a while one sees animals that look alive. Pumas that could not escape the drought in time lie with their claws spread out into the ground, as if in midleap. Next to dried-up waterholes, emaciated oxen, their throats stretched out in search of water that is not there, lie clustered in still herds.

The first rains would quickly clean away these morbid remains. Decomposition would occur quickly. The earth would devour all it needed to assure the renewal of life.

The fugitives just gave a side glance at these scenes of death. They were absorbed with the single thought of leaving the brutal backlands desert behind them as quickly as possible. Terror and the awareness of their misery overcame the overexertion of the journey. It gave them strength, spurring them on, in desperation, down that endless road.

There was no longer the slightest semblance of military formation among their ranks. Through a process of adaptation, they had mimicked the ways of the sertanejo. They could no longer be identified by their ragged, unbuttoned uniforms. They now wore leather sandals, cotton shirts, and leather hats instead of caps or military bonnets. This made them look like the drought refugees and their families, thronging to the coast, under the lash of the drought.

A few women, mistresses of the soldiers, haggard camp followers with ravaged, wrinkled faces, completed this impression.

Decorated officers, like General Savaget, Colonels Telles and Nery, and others, who were returning sick or wounded from the front, were painfully ignored as they passed by these bands. The men did not salute them. These men were now nothing more than wounded comrades in arms. They passed by and quickly disappeared in a cloud of dust. But they were followed by the angry looks from those who could barely contain their envy of the officers’ fast horses.

After four days, the more fortunate ones finally reached the junction of the Rosário, Monte Santo, and Calumbi roads at the Juá farmhouse. This was another mud hut in the shadow of a hillside under tall juazeiro trees. Ahead of them stretched the endless tablelands. Here they felt safe. One more day’s journey would take them to Caldeirão Grande, the best farm in the region, a manorlike structure standing on a large hill. It had a well-stocked reservoir below, fed by a creek. Within a radius of a few miles the landscape was completely different. Around them were small hills fringed with more-vivid foliage. For a few hours, the travelers were given relief from the oppressive vision of sterile plains and crumbling mountains.

They were very close to the base of operations of the campaign.

The next day they would proceed to Monte Santo. After two hours on the road, their spirits were lifted by the sight of the small town, just two and a half miles away. It was a happy sight in the rolling tablelands—little houses lined up a gentle terrace to the foot of the steep mountain. Perched on the top was a white chapel, shining against the blue sky. It appeared to be waving them a friendly and caring welcome.

When they reached Monte Santo, their hopes were dashed. They found that they were still in the desert. The dead city, completely uninhabited and without food or water, could only give them a place to stay for a day. The population had fled, falling into the caatinga, in the backlander’s colorful expression. They had been frightened away by the soldiers and the jagunços alike. A small garrison was billeted in the squalid square. There they passed their days doing nothing, just marking time. It was harder than active combat and forced marches. What passed for a military hospital was set up in a large dark, low building. This was a place to which the sick and wounded dreaded going. It only added to their suffering. The village’s narrow, winding lanes had lofty names: Moreira César Street, Captain Salomão Street. It was a stain on this thankless region where all of nature was hostile. The desert here had been contained in the walls, submerged in a labyrinth of filthy passages, and filled with the waste and offal of battalions that had camped there. It was more deplorable than the desert itself, which was cleansed by the sun and swept by the winds.

When they arrived in the town, the travelers avoided the bats that infested the abandoned houses and set up camp in the one village square. It was a large quadrangle. They contested for the shade of an old tamarind tree next to the fair booth. They left quickly the next day, each man for himself, heading out for Queimadas. This required another long, exhausting desert crossing. Queimadas was a good forty miles away, six or eight days of terrible hardship under a cauterizing sun. The journey would be broken up only by brief stops at the waterholes: Quirinquinquá, consisting of two sad dwellings surrounded by silent mandacarú trees on a ledge of exposed granite; the tiny village of Cansanção, consisting of about a dozen huts with stagnant pools of water nearby; Serra Branca, a festive-looking structure reminiscent of a pack driver’s ranch, shaded by densely foliated uricuri trees; by the Jacuricí. In fact at all lakes and waterholes, the water was brackish and polluted.

The road, which had previously been populated, became a wasteland. The deserting bands tramped through and destroyed the area, like a caravan of crippled savages. Sick and wounded, screaming and cursing, they formed menacing gangs that would invade the huts along the highway and demand the unconditional hospitality of those who lived there. At first their requests were angry demands. Then they would openly assault the residents. The peaceful scene of those poor homes, where the people of the backlands lived quiet existences, infuriated them as they saw the contrast with their own tormented existence. It pushed them to acts of destruction. As if in a hypnotic trance, they battered down doors with their rifle butts, while the terrified sertanejo family ran for safety to the nearest patch of weeds.

Then they needed a stupid distraction from their suffering. They would throw lighted torches on the roofs thatched with sapé ferns, which would immediately burst into flames. The stiff gusts of winds from the northeast would scatter the sparks over the dried brushwoods. In a short time, fanned by the wind, fires that were impossible to extinguish would spread fast for miles around, spiraling upward in clouds of smoke and flame, curling down the ravines, encircling and consuming the slopes and hilltops with the flash of spontaneous volcanic craters.

The fugitives, now safe from the enemy, could only get through the last stage of their tortured journey by indulging in vandalism of this type and widening the circle of destruction of the war as they headed toward the coast. They were at the same time miserable and mean, and they inspired pity and hate. They were horribly victimized and, in turn, they brutally victimized others. They arrived in Queimadas a few at a time, exhausted and dying. There they boarded the train that took them down to Bahia.

First Confirmed Reports

Their arrival was greeted with anxious curiosity. Finally, the first victims of the conflict that had gripped the entire country were returning. A huge crowd had assembled at the Calçada rail terminal, spilling out to the nearby streets all the way to the São Joaquim de Jequitaia fort. Every day they witnessed the return of these unhappy heroes. They never imagined that they would witness something as dramatic as this.

They experienced emotions they had never felt before.

The wounded arrived in miserable condition. The repulsive backwash of the campaign that had rolled down the backlands trails, a hideous wave of rags and human carcasses, now spread through the city streets.

It was a cruel procession. Officers and soldiers, all wearing the same uniform of misery, had lost all distinction of rank. They were dressed in the same ragged clothes: Old socks strung together to form loincloths, torn shirts, ragged dolmans on their shoulders, overcoats in tatters draped over their concave chests made this a tragic picture. As they dragged themselves painfully along on crutches, stumbling, falling, their emaciated features told their own story of this campaign. For the first time it would be seen for what it really was, in these starved and mutilated bodies torn by bullets and the thorns of the caatingas. They kept coming, hundreds a day: on August 6, 26 officers and 216 men; on the eighth, 150; on the eleventh, 400; on the twelfth, 269; on the fourteenth, 270; on the eighteenth, 53.

The citizens of the capital greeted them emotionally. As often happens, individual impressions were exaggerated by collective sentiment. The great number of people swept up in the same emotion set the tone for individual feelings. All hearts beat as one; they all became infected with the same thoughts and images, and individual personalities were submerged in the anonymity of a sorrowing crowd such as has never been seen in history. The large city became one huge home. Patriotic committees were formed to collect donations, which came in freely. Infirmaries were set up in the armory, the medical school, and the hospitals. Even the convents and monasteries opened their doors. In each location mutilated soldiers were put under the sponsorship of some famous name: Esmarck, Claude Bernard, Duplay, or Pasteur never had such a tribute from posterity.

Without waiting for the government to intervene, the people became the guardians of these patients, opening their homes, showering them with attention, encouraging them, guiding them in their hesitant steps to the street. On visiting days they invaded the hospitals in large groups, keeping a religious silence. They would approach the beds as if old friends lay there. With those who were not too sick to talk, they discussed the hardships suffered by the troops, the dangerous events that had happened. After these terrible stories of trauma and brutality, told by the sick and wounded men, they would leave feeling that they finally had a clear idea of the most brutal conflicts of our times.

But, as contradictory as this may seem, the profound sympathy was paired with a vibrant enthusiasm. These martyrs were being treated as conquering heroes. It would happen spontaneously: quick demonstrations that were over in fifteen minutes and were purely impulsive. The days were filled with noisy crowds thronging through the streets and gathering in the parks, shouting and laughing, crying and sobbing, in the midst of which solemn tribute was paid to the nation’s heroes. The wounded were a painful revelation but an encouraging one. They represented the strength of a race. The men, who had come back slashed by the jagunços’ claws and the thorns of the backlands, represented the vigor of a people that had been put to the tests of the sword, fire, and hunger. They were traumatized by the war, yet the superficial layers of national pride had uncovered the deep qualities in these resigned, stoic Titans. More than this, an unspoken but dominant thought was present in everyone’s mind: admiration for the bravery of the crude backlanders who had been able to hack entire battalions to pieces.

It was tonic for their souls and they drank deeply of it. Full of enthusiasm, they made pilgrimages to the Palma barracks, where Colonel Carlos Telles lay wounded. They went to Jequitaia, where General Savaget was recovering; when he could take a few steps out to the street, commerce in the Lower Town came to a standstill as a huge ovation broke out that spread rapidly and gathered the people around the heroic chief of the second column, turning an ordinary workday into a national holiday.

The frenzy was interrupted on a daily basis by disturbing details. The full extent of the disaster was finally made public, with mathematical precision. It was astounding.

From June 25, the day when the first shots were exchanged with the enemy, to August 10, the expedition had a total of 2,049 losses.

The official reports gave details.

The first column had started with 1,171 men; the second, with 878. The numbers were as follows:

First column—artillery: 9 officers and 47 men wounded; 2 officers and 12 men killed. Cavalry wing: 4 officers and 46 men wounded; 30 officers and 16 men killed. Engineers: 1 officer and 3 men wounded; 1 private killed. Police Corps: 6 officers and 46 men wounded; 3 officers and 24 men killed. Fifth Battalion of Infantry: 4 officers and 66 men wounded; 1 officer and 25 men killed. Seventh Battalion: 8 officers and 95 men wounded; 5 officers and 52 men killed. Ninth Battalion: 6 officers and 59 men wounded; 2 officers and 22 men killed. Fourteenth Battalion: 8 officers and 119 men wounded; 5 officers and 42 men killed. Fifteenth Battalion: 5 officers and 30 men wounded; 10 privates killed. Sixteenth Battalion: 5 officers and 24 men wounded; 10 privates killed. Twenty-fifth Battalion: 9 officers and 134 men wounded; 3 officers and 55 men killed. Twenty-seventh Battalion: 6 officers and 45 men wounded; 24 privates killed. Thirtieth Battalion: 10 officers and 120 men wounded; 4 officers and 35 men killed.

Second column—1 general killed. Artillery: 1 officer killed. Twelfth Battalion of Infantry: 6 officers and 126 wounded; 1 officer and 50 men killed. Twenty-sixth Battalion: 6 officers and 36 men wounded; 2 officers and 22 men killed. Thirty-first Battalion: 7 officers and 99 men wounded; 4 officers and 48 men killed. Thirty-second Battalion: 10 officers killed and 65 men wounded; 1 officer and 15 men killed. Thirty-fourth Battalion: 4 officers and 91 men wounded; 1 officer and 22 men killed. Fortieth Battalion: 9 officers and 75 men wounded; 2 officers and 30 men killed.

The casualties kept mounting daily, an average of eight per day. The enemy, on the other hand, seemed endowed with extraordinary resources.

Versions and Legends

The reports were being wildly exaggerated by overactive imaginations. The federal senate had come under the sway of public emotion and had issued a strongly worded demand for clarification on a rumored arms shipment to Buenos Aires, allegedly bound for the ports of Santos and Salvador, where it was rumored they were going to the Conselheiristas, or supporters of the Counselor. This incident, fed by the general hysteria, was taken as reality.

The opinion of the American republics on the situation was being voiced in their most prestigious newspapers. The news reports appeared to back up some of the rumors, such as the one just mentioned, and added to the public hysteria. One article, from La Nación in Buenos Aires, one of the most influential papers in South America, after referring to some of the curious events of the campaign, added details that had a strange and awful significance:

There is a matter of two communications that we have received in the last two days from the Buenos Aires section of the International Union of Friends of the Brazilian Empire. They inform us that, by order of the executive committee in New York City, the union has a reserve force of not less than 15,000 men in the state of Bahia alone that is ready to reinforce the army of fanatics if necessary. In addition, 100,000 are located in various northern states of Brazil and 67,000 at various points in North America. All are ready to leave at a moment’s notice to the shores of their former empire. All are well armed and prepared for war. The communications state that “we also have arms of the most modern make, munitions, and financing.”

The inscription and signature on these mysterious communications, which are well written in good penmanship and correct spelling, are penned with an ink that has the blue-black look of the dead. The capital letters are set off with red ink, the color of blood.

With this evidence of a staggering number of men and arms, as described by “friends of the empire,” we do not know whether to credit this to one of the secret associations who plan destruction in darkness or to certain gentlemen who may entertain themselves with confusing their neighbors.

Meanwhile, whatever may be behind all of this, we announce the receipt of these communications.

These reports were taken seriously. In the rebel territory, the fourth expedition was cut off and facing annihilation. This was from reliable sources. It was said that from the municipality of Itapicurú alone, three thousand fanatics had left for Canudos following a priest who was going to spread the word of the rebel leader. Thousands of armed thugs had gone through Barroca, all headed in the same direction. The names of these new rebel leaders were as clownish as those of the Chouans: Peter the Invisible, Joe Buck, Gold Snout, and still others.

Real news filtered through that aggravated the rumors. The sertanejos were making bold attacks throughout the backlands. Led by Iron Anthony they attacked the Mirandela territory. They had surrounded, taken, and pillaged the town of Sant’Anna do Brejo. They were everywhere. The scope of the campaign had now broadened, and it was clear that the jagunços were pursuing a firm strategy. In addition to the settlement, they had two new positions that were well located for defense and well manned. These were the chaotic slopes of the Caipã and the line of low hills around the river plain called the Várzea da Ema. Spreading out from Canudos, the rebellion was consolidating along the sides of an enormous triangle, capable of closing in on fifty thousand bayonets.

The supply trains sent from Monte Santo were constantly attacked even though they were guarded by brigades, not battalions. When they reached Aracati, they had to request escorts from Canudos—two or three battalions were necessary to protect them as they made for the camp. The deadly stretch of road from Vicar’s Farm to Baixas was bad enough to terrorize even the toughest veterans. It was the classic place where the rebels would suddenly open heavy fire on the pack trains, causing the herd to stampede and trampling entire platoons in their crazed flight.

In the course of these skirmishes, which were deliberately staged to disrupt the line of march, our troops began to discover a new type of jagunço who was giving direct aid to the enemy. They would catch a glimpse of him through the clearings where the brush had thinned out. He dashed about swiftly like the guerrilla fighters. Then they would see the shine of buttons from a uniform and a flash of red socks.

The starving deserter was attacking his old comrades. This was a terrible development, which added yet another dimension to a campaign that was becoming graver and graver as these events multiplied.

The disabled soldiers, who were in daily contact with the people, had become the informal chroniclers of events. They were crude and imaginative in their way of telling the stories, but they were true, even if full of exaggerations. Strange episodes were spun from these tales. Now the jagunço became a fantastical being, half man and half monster. He broke all the laws of nature with his unbelievable powers of resistance. He made daring attacks on his enemy yet remained invisible, slipping through the brush like a snake. He would glide or tumble down the steep cliffs like a weightless ghost, lighter than his own musket. He was lean, a desiccated spritelike figure, weighing less than a child. His bronzed skin was stretched tightly over his skeleton and was tough as a mummy’s.

Popular imagination ran wild in a delirious binge of imagined events embroidered with fantasy. Some of the narratives were brief and blunt, offering a keen perspective on the irrepressible energy of these hunters of armies.

In one of the incidents that followed the assault on the settlement, a young Indian was taken prisoner. He would proudly answer every question with an indifferent “I don’t know.”

Finally, he was asked how he wanted to die.

“Shoot me!”

“Then I will kill you with my knife,” came the soldier’s awful reply.

And thus it was. The blade dug through the cartilage of his throat and, as his blood gushed out, his last cry was, “Long live the Good Jesus!”

There were other epic tales. On July 1, the son of Joaquim Macambira, a boy of eighteen, approached the cunning leader.

“Father, I want to finish off the Killer.”

The sly old warrior, a backwoods, copper-skinned witch doctor, looked at him without revealing any emotion.

“Ask the Counselor for his advice and go ahead.”

The plucky boy set off with eleven handpicked companions. They crossed the Vaza-Barris, which was divided into many pools; they climbed the long, undulating slope of Favela and glided through the bare caatinga like snakes. It was noon. The sun was sending its rays deep into the earth, sending its vertical, burning rays to the bottom of the deepest grottoes. There were no shadows anywhere.

In those parts, noon is more quiet and frightening than midnight. All the heat of the earth shimmers on layers of exposed rock, reflected by the empty plains and refracted by the hard, cracked earth. These columns of heat flow into space in rising plumes of unbreathable, incandescent air. Nature rests in an enervating quietude. There is not the slightest breath of air. Not a wingbeat disturbs the air. Its transparency is ruffled only by swift, bubbling waves of heat. The hidden wildlife of the caatingas takes its noonday rest. The withered branches, stripped of bark, hang limply.

The army was also taking its rest on top of the mountain, exhausted by the heat. Sprawled randomly along the slopes, their hats over their faces to keep off the sun, soldiers were sleeping or dreaming of home as they took advantage of the lull to regain their strength for the next round of the battle. Dotted over the opposite hills were tiny huts, crowded together in a jumbled fashion. They had no streets or squares. This was Canudos, as quiet and deserted as an abandoned farm overrun with weeds.

The army was at rest.

On a slope above the artillery, over the tangled bushes on the edge of a clearing, twelve faces with nervous, darting feline eyes scanned the area. They were the faces of twelve men hidden in the bromeliads. No one saw them; they could not be seen as they slowly stood, turning their backs with arrogant indifference on the twenty quiet battalions. Before them lay the coveted prey. Like a magical beast ready to spring, the Whitworth 32 was poised on its strong base. Its enormous roaring mouth, which had spit so many grenades on their sacred churches, was pointed at Belo Monte. The sun’s rays falling with full intensity on its shining black surface made it sparkle. The guerrillas stood and stared at it for a while. Then they jumped from the clearing and attacked it, trying to strangle it. One of them fell on it with a hand spike, which he raised in a quick gesture of assault.

The blow fell, hard and loud.

An alarm broke the silence that covered every living creature, a cry that echoed through the canyons and over the hills and valleys. It filled the backlands with a thunderous echo. It was a cry of exultation and destruction that shook the camp.

The detachments quickly fell into ranks and in a second the young jagunços were surrounded by weapons as they were battered with blows and bullets. Only one escaped, wounded and bruised, by running, jumping, and rolling through the legs of the agitated troops. Under a rain of bullets and a ring of bayonets he tore into the weeds and down the steep mountain cliffs, overlooking the dangerous chasms, finally free.

This and other incidents, exaggerating the most common occurrences, gave the campaign an aura of legend that mobilized the people of the old capital and the entire nation.

VII

The Girard Brigade

It was now urgent that the government take more energetic action. Recent catastrophes had raised the level of apprehension as well as the sense that little was known about the real situation. As always, opinions clashed. The majority was convinced that the rebels had strong support. It was obvious. According to the hyperbolic orders of the day, they had been defeated. But they were still free to retreat to the backlands of the São Francisco region. Instead they remained in the settlement, where all escape routes would be closed once the siege was fully enforced. It was baffling. People came to grave conclusions. Aside from the hypothesis that their superhuman devotion would lead them to mass suicide under the ruins of their holy temples, they must have formidable skills in warfare that stumped the strategists. The numbers still in Canudos were thought to have been reduced. But this was surely a trick to keep the army there while the rebels gathered their forces at other points for a final attack along the line, where the invaders would be trapped between two lines of fire.

There were other, more optimistic, opinions. Colonel Carlos Telles wrote a letter to the press stating that the jagunços had been reduced to two hundred men, who were possibly without any provisions. The fanatics must be running out of the supplies they had taken from previous expeditions. This optimism, however, had little effect. All the facts contradicted it, especially the daily influx of wounded men, which added to the general feeling of unease.

There were more, equally disastrous, events to come. Responding to General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães’s requests, the government quickly assembled an auxiliary brigade, which unlike other units of its kind would not be known by a mere number. Following a worthy practice not customary with our army, the brigade would have the name of a renowned commander—the Girard Brigade. It was under the command of General Miguel Maria Girard and was composed of three units assigned from the garrison of the federal capital: the Twenty-second, under Colonel Bento Tomas Gonçalves; the Twenty-fourth, led by Lieutenant Colonel Raphael Tobias; and the Thirty-eighth, under Colonel Philomeno José da Cunha. There were a total of 1,042 men and 68 officers, well equipped with a splendid supply of 850,000 cartridges to feed the insatiable appetite of the war.

The Bravery of Cowards

However, through a series of circumstances that would take too long to explain, this “auxiliary force” turned out to be an encumbrance. It left Rio de Janeiro under Girard and reached Queimadas on July 31. It then departed from Queimadas on August 3, led by a colonel, and went to Monte Santo. It set off from Monte Santo for Canudos on August 10, under the command of a major. It had left a colonel and a few officers who had fallen ill, in Bahia. It then left a general, a lieutenant colonel, and a few more officers, who had fallen ill, in Queimadas. It left a colonel and a few more officers, also ill, in Monte Santo.

The brigade fell apart on the road. Men were requesting discharges at a rate more alarming than the disappearance of entire brigades. A strange virus had attacked the men, requiring not a good doctor but an astute psychologist. The truth was that fear had produced its own great men, who were so brave they were willing to tell the entire country that they were cowards.

As they left Queimadas for the front, these men had seen the lines of wounded men returning from battle and they were gripped with the fear of war. General Savaget, Colonel Nery, Major Cunha Mattos, Captain Chacha Pereira, and other officers had visited their camp at Contendas and been greeted with enthusiasm by officers and men who had lined up along the road to salute. After that their fervor cooled. After a three-day march, they began to suffer from lack of adequate rations. They were forced to share provisions with every band of wounded soldiers they met. By the time they reached Monte Santo they were exhausted and demoralized.

On the Road to Canudos

The brigade headed to Canudos, where they were anxiously expected, on August 10. The unit was totally bereft of the impressive hierarchy of senior officers with which it had started off. It was now under the command of the commissary of the Twenty-fourth, Henrique José de Magalhães, and the battalions were assumed by Major Lydio Porto and Captains Afonso de Oliveira and Tito Escobar. The march had been slow and demanding. From Queimadas on, they met with serious transportation difficulties. Their mules and draft animals, rejects they had picked up in Bahia with drivers who were forced into service, were lame and unfit. They held up the troops and slowed their progress. They arrived in this crippled state at Aracati, where they picked up a supply train that they were instructed to escort to Canudos.

In the meantime their ranks were decimated by smallpox. Two or three cases a day were being referred to the hospital in Monte Santo. Others, who were injured in the transition from the paved streets of the capital to the rugged backland trails, lagged behind and were lost in the rear of the line. They walked with the wounded, who were going in the opposite direction.

It was fortunate that they ran into the Fifteenth Infantry Battalion in Juetê on August 14. This was a battle-seasoned unit, which had been sent from Canudos to meet them. The next day, after they took a rest stop in Baixas to allow stragglers to catch up with them, they were brutally attacked at Vicar’s Farm. The jagunços hit their right flank with sustained fire from a trench overlooking the highway. The victims were a sublieutenant of the Twenty-fourth, with the advance guard, and another of the Thirty-eighth, in the rear. They also hit soldiers in the lines. Caught off guard and dumbfounded at the ferocity of the guerrillas, the soldiers became disoriented. Most of them started to shoot aimlessly. The bugles were sounded and their loud tones were mixed with confused shouts of command. The terrified draft animals broke loose and ran, and the oxen stampeded into the caatinga.

The Fifteenth Battalion, in the vanguard, guided the wavering fighters. The enemy was not repelled. The rear guard was also attacked when it reached the same point.

After this defeat, which is what it was, it is enough to say that of the 102 oxen in the convoy only 11 were left. At Angico the brigade was attacked again. They made a token bayonet charge in which not one soldier was lost. They finally made it to Canudos, where the veteran warriors, hardened by having lived under fire every day, greeted them with a new nickname, Pretty Boys. Later the action of brave officers would earn them the right to shed this name.

VIII

More Reinforcements

The news of the attack reached Bahia already blown up into the proportions of a lost battle, adding another shock to the general state of unbalance and more rumors to the buzz of conjecture. The government finally began to act with the sense of urgency that the situation required. Acknowledging the failure of the last reinforcements, it started to form a new division by assembling the last remaining battalions capable of rapid mobilization from the states around the country. The government decided to send one of its members to the scene of operations, to gain firsthand information on the crisis. The secretary of war, Marshal Carlos Machado de Bittencourt, left for Bahia in August, as fresh troops were being mustered around the country. The military effort suddenly escalated into a mass draft.

The troops came from the far north and the far south and their numbers were increased with police detachments from São Paulo, Pará, and Amazonas. They all gathered in the ancient capital, Salvador, Bahia—the Paulista, descendent of the adventurous bandeirante; the daring horseman from Rio Grande do Sul; the Indian from the Northeast, who is rivaled by none for endurance. They were men from the most diverse regions of Brazil, of many characteristics and temperaments, customs and ethnic backgrounds. The dark mestizo and bronzed caboclo marched next to the white man. They were bonded by a common mission.

The ancient capital, nestled behind its age-old bastions, prepared to greet with an ardent embrace her many progeny, sons who had been wandering for three centuries. After being dispersed for a long time, the many elements of our race returned to their point of origin. Now they were beautifully intermingled. Bahia made herself beautiful to receive them. She shed her usual apathy and became transfigured by the flux and reflux of the campaign, the casualties coming into the city and the new recruits departing for the front. The city reassumed its historical appearance of a battle fortress. Her ramparts had fallen into disuse and were crumbling like the houses that lined her streets. The trees growing from the cracks in the stones were cut down and reconstruction began. It recalled the time when long bronze culverins had thundered from those battlements.

The new arrivals were billeted in the old fortifications. These included the First Police Battalion of São Paulo, with 21 officers and 458 men, under Lieutenant Colonel Joaquim Elesbão dos Reis; the Twenty-ninth, Thirty-ninth, Thirty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, and Fourth Battalions, led by Colonel João César de Sampaio, Lieutenant Colonels José da Cruz, Firmino Lopes Rego, and Antônio Bernardo de Figueiredo, and Major Frederico Mara. These had, respectively, contingents of 27 officers and 240 men, 40 officers and 250 men, 51 officers and 322 men, 11 officers (all sublieutenants) and 219 men. This last battalion, the Fourth, had no captains or lieutenants. Finally, there were two additional police detachments: the Police Regiment of Pará, with 640 men, led by Colonel José Sotero de Menezes; and the Police Regiment of Amazonas, under the command of Lieutenant Candido José Marino, with 328 soldiers.

These reinforcements totaled 2,914 men and almost 300 officers. They were divided into two brigades: one line brigade under Colonel Sampaio, and the Police Corps. This formed a division under Brigadier General Carlos Eugenio de Andrade Guimarães, with the exception of the São Paulo police force, which marched ahead of the troops with Colonel Sotero de Menezes,

It took the entire month of August to mobilize these troops. They arrived one detachment at a time in Bahia. After they were equipped, they moved to Queimadas and then to Monte Santo, where all the forces were to be assembled by September.

The line battalions were undermanned, as the numbers indicate. They were reduced to two companies each and lacked military equipment of any kind, unless one counts their outdated muskets and their old gray uniforms, which they had worn in the federalist campaign in the South.

Marshal Carlos Machado de Bittencourt

Marshal Carlos Machado de Bittencourt was the man in charge of the situation, and he began to become very active. He was the right man for the job.

He was a cold man given to a calm and inoffensive skepticism. His common simplicity was not compatible with expansiveness or impulsive actions. To be fair, he was capable of taking risks, as he would later prove by tragically ending his life. But he did so dispassionately, in a balanced way, within the lines of duty as he saw it. He was not a man given to rash acts of bravery, nor was he a coward.

No one could imagine him performing an extraordinary feat of heroism. Likewise, they could not imagine him extracting himself with stealth and cunning from a dangerous situation. He was not a model military man but he was fond of the military machine of muscle and nerve that was trained to react mechanically to orders.

This was due not as much to the discipline of a fine education as to his passive temperament. He moved comfortably as a cog in the wheel of military regulations. Outside of this environment he was insignificant. He was a slave to written orders. He did not interpret or criticize them; he carried them out. They might be good or bad, absurd, extravagant, out of date, stupid or useful, detailed, noble, or credible—they were all the same to him if they were in writing. This is why every time there was political unrest, he cautiously withdrew.

Marshal Floriano Peixoto, a keen judge of men, would always sideline Bittencourt at critical times when the personal character of his aides or opponents was important. He did not send for him and did not send him away. He did not touch him. Peixoto knew that this man, whose career had been so dull and predictable, would never move for or against the establishment of states of siege, which Peixoto made use of to rule by decree in the early days of the republic.

For Bittencourt, the republic was an unexpected accident that happened at the end of his life. He never cared for it, as those who fought with him understood. For him it was an irritating distraction, not because it changed the future of a country, but because it altered ordinances and decrees, the formulas and precepts that he knew by heart.

When he arrived in Bahia, he repressed the enthusiasm of anyone who came into contact with him. Whoever went to him for encouragement or guidance, some decisive action in the face of a difficult situation, was surprised to find just mundane ideas and long, rambling speeches about insignificant topics. He would go on with endless trivia about the distribution of rations and remounting of cavalry, as if the world were a huge barracks and history was made by a sergeant’s reports. He arrived in the city when patriotism was at fever pitch and he found a way to deflate it. He could witness political demonstrations or hear patriotic poetry; he could be barraged with political oratory or shouting crowds. He took it all in with barely concealed indifference. He did not know how to react. He spoke little; it was hard for him to get the words out. Anything out of his routine annoyed and confused him. The wounded returning from the battle front, in want of a transfer or leave pass, would approach him with their bullet wounds, their bloody gashes, or their feverish faces. It made no difference to him. These were banal matters, all in a day’s work.

On a visit to one of the military hospitals, Bittencourt’s regrettable lack of sensitivity deeply affected those around him.

The scene in the big hospital room was impressive. There were two long rows of white cots. Four hundred wounded men, in every possible position, were lying stiffly under sheets covering them like shrouds, lying facedown or crouched against bolsters in mute paroxysms of pain, seated or bending over in agony. Their heads were bound in bloody bandages. Their arms were either missing or in slings. Their legs were stiffly extended in splints. Feet pierced with thorns were swollen out of shape. Chests were torn by bullet holes and bayonet wounds. There was every kind of injury and suffering imaginable.

The committee following the minister comprised state and military authorities, journalists and men from all walks of life. They entered quietly into the room, awed at what they were seeing.

The solemn visit proceeded. The marshal went to the cots and began to read the charts at the head of each bed. He went from one to the other.

He paused in front of one bed where the war-ravaged face of an old corporal greeted him. This was a veteran with thirty-five years of service. His face had been beaten by rifle butts from the swamps of Paraguay to the caatingas of Canudos. The unfortunate man’s tired face was shining with a broad, good-humored smile. He recognized the minister since he had served as his orderly as a young boy. In former days he had followed him in battle on long, tiring marches. Overcome with emotion, he told him this in a hoarse voice, which shook with pain and joy. His eyes shone feverishly. He forced himself to sit upright, and with his thin, shaking hands, he bared his emaciated chest, revealing the scar of an old wound on his collarbone.

It was an emotional scene. Those standing around him caught their breath and their eyes filled with tears. But Marshal Bittencourt did not stop. He moved on to the next cot, continuing to read the charts. Emotion was not on his agenda. He would not be distracted by it.

He was just the man for this emergency. The government could not have picked a better administrator for the campaign. He had no limits and was able to follow a straight course through the disorder of the crisis.

In renouncing its own priorities, the government took the position of quartermaster general and made a low-level bureaucrat the commander in chief.

The fact is that the marshal’s solid common sense and cool head, which freed him from emotional distractions, allowed him to assess the real needs of the campaign. The least of these, he realized, was more fighting men. Fresh troops would only make the situation worse. They would be entering a war-torn region still consumed by the flames of guerrilla combat. They would have to share the hardships and the scarce provisions of their comrades. It was imperative to fight the desert, not the jagunço. The campaign needed a line and a strong base of operations. It was ending where it should have started. This is the mission that the minister carried through to completion. During his assignment in Bahia he was confronted with endless details—the equipment of arriving battalions, housing for the ceaseless caravan of wounded returning from the front. In his mind these were of lesser importance to his primary objective, which was the only serious problem he had to solve. And this he did, in the end, by overcoming many obstacles.

In late August a regular corps of supply trains had been organized and was running continuously along the roads at intervals of a few days. It efficiently connected the army in the field with Monte Santo.

This result was the beginning of the end of the conflict. From the very beginning, the experience of previous expeditions had proven that their failure was due in large part to having isolated the troops in a desert region in sight of the enemy while engaging in spectacular police chases without any semblance of military strategy.

Marshal Bittencourt at least did this much: He shaped a huge, unorganized conflict into a formal campaign. Until then there had been a flamboyant but useless show of bravery. Heroism and self-sacrifice had no currency here. The campaign had been reduced to a partial siege, and the outcome was still uncertain. The endless fire accomplished nothing but to stupidly waste lives. This would go on indefinitely until the cursed settlement would finish off its attackers, one by one. Under these conditions, just replacing the eight or ten daily casualties would perpetuate a vicious cycle. Moreover, a large number of troops would be a liability. They could surround the village and cut off the exits, but after a few days, they would discover that they were surrounded by another enemy, the dry desert of the caatingas . Unbearable hunger would rise up to confront them. Marshal Bittencourt understood all of this.

Very Ordinary Collaborators

A more sophisticated strategist with technical expertise would have come up with plans but would not have solved the problem. A brilliant infantryman might have found innovative ways to attack but would have exhausted his men with nothing to show for it, as his troops marched aimlessly through the caatingas at double-quick time. Marshal Bittencourt was completely oblivious to the public’s impatience. He organized supply trains and bought mules.

The fact of the matter was that this campaign was going to be won in an unexpected and humorous fashion. A thousand tame burros were worth ten thousand heroes. The bloody backlands battle had to be domesticated. Heroism and military genius were dispensable. Attacking brigades were not needed. Pack mules and their drivers, on the other hand, were very important. This simple solution was not compatible with the patriotic protocol of the day but it was the only practical way out. It was not elegant to use such common collaborators to save our country, but we had to do it. The most ordinary beast was now king and he would crush the rebellion with his sharp hoofs.

Only mules could accelerate the operations of the campaign. Speed was of the essence. The war could be prolonged for two more months at the most. Three more months would mean certain defeat and the loss of all that had been accomplished—the government troops would be paralyzed. The rainy season would begin in November and the effect on the terrain would create insurmountable obstacles. The dry streambeds would be churning with muddy waters; the Vaza-Barris would swell into an enormous floodplain, overflowing its banks and spreading over the backlands. It would not be possible to ford the river and communications would be cut.

When the waters suddenly subsided—because the torrents that flow from the São Francisco to the sea drain as fast as they are formed—even more serious complications would arise. In the wet heat of this season, every stream, every seasonal lake, and every well becomes a hellish laboratory incubating the germs of swamp fever and spreading them everywhere the sun’s rays strike. Disease would attack the troops, whose bodies were already weak with fatigue and prone to infection. It was therefore essential to terminate the war before the start of this deadly season. An effective siege had to be mounted that would provoke immediate surrender. Once they had subdued the enemy that could be conquered, they would immediately have to face that eternal and invincible enemy, the sterile, desolate earth. In order to do this, they had to guarantee the provisioning of the troops, which with the recent reinforcements now numbered around eight thousand men.

The minister of war accomplished exactly that.

As a result, by the time he left for Queimadas in early September, everything was in place to quickly end the conflict. The brigades of the Auxiliary Division were waiting at their mustering point in Monte Santo and the first of what would become regular supply trains now left for Canudos.

They arrived just in time to revive the expedition, which had spent more than forty days in dangerous and futile action, held hostage in a suburb of the settlement. We have already reproduced brief excerpts of a diary that recorded the events of these days. We kept this brief to avoid the tedious enumeration of episodes that were very similar. There were sudden, violent eruptions of fire at odd hours followed by deceptive lulls; the strident call of battle alarms would break spells of apathy; strange periods of oppressive calm were shattered by rifle shots. The daily skirmishes were decimating their ranks and killing their most valuable men. Sometimes these encounters would involve hours of noisy rifle fire and not result in a single casualty, like the innocuous scuffles between mercenaries in the Middle Ages. But most difficult was the subsistence that they were forced to live on, one-third rations, when they were available: an ox to a battalion and a quart of flour for a squadron. As they did during the worst days at Mount Favela, they had to risk daily hunting forays in which whole detachments participated to round up stray cattle.

The supply trains came infrequently and their schedule was irregular. By the time they arrived part of their cargo would have been stolen. The expeditioners were again faced with the single most devastating threat: hunger. When they were under cover in the huts, in tents on the hillsides, or in the trenches, they had little to fear from the jagunços. The danger was from sniper fire when they had to step out of their shelters on hunting forays. The church towers rose over them like large-scale hunting platforms similar to those backlands mutans erected of leaves and branches in trees. No one could escape the accurate aim of the marksmen who manned the towers. Their posts were never abandoned, even under the heaviest cannon fire. The journey to Favela continued to be perilous for this reason. A guard was stationed on the riverbank where the road crosses it to prevent careless soldiers from taking this route. It was here that the reinforcements got their baptism of fire. The Girard Brigade, now down to 56 officers and 892 men, arrived here on August 15; the battalion, with 21 officers and 424 men, reached this spot on August 23; the Thirty-seventh Infantry, coming ahead of the Auxiliary Division, had 16 officers and 205 men, under Lieutenant Colonel Firmino Lopes Rego. The enemy waited until they had come down the last of the slopes and reached the riverbed. There they gave them a booming and theatrical reception with gunshots interspersed with strident jeers and catcalls.

The jagunços were not intimidated by these new arrivals. They remained defiant and confident. They had devised a method of communication and would send messages from one village to another or across the labyrinth of huts by firing their weapons in a certain pattern. They were also more organized. They received supply trains, which came in on the roads across the Várzea da Ema. Our troops could not capture these convoys because they were afraid to leave their positions and they also were concerned about ambush. To the north, beyond the mountains, and on to Canabrava and Cocorobó, roving bands of jagunços moved swiftly, circling the battalions at a distance. They remained invisible but they left behind unmistakable signs of their passage. Sometimes an inexperienced soldier would wander in the hills and be hit by a bullet from outside the settlement. This invisible line of siege extended well beyond the borders of Canudos. The cavalry and work animals at pasture on both banks of the river many times started to stampede from the firing. One day in August, twenty artillery mules were captured by the enemy even though they were guarded by an experienced battalion, the Fifth of the line.

These incidents demonstrated the energy and determination of the rebels.

The army forces, on the other hand, did not give them any respite. The three Krupps had been mounted on the slope since July 19. The vanguard of the Twenty-fifth was at the base of the hill. Their position was trained on the square and they kept up a steady barrage of cannon fire. This started fires that were difficult to extinguish and completely destroyed the old church. The wooden framework could be seen sticking out of the roof, which had partly collapsed. It was unbelievable how the sexton would still make his way into the belfry to sound the sacred melody of the Ave Maria.

As if the cannon barrage at close range were not enough, the Whitworth 32 was brought down from Mount Favela on August 23. This was the day that General Barbosa was wounded as he was reviewing the center battery, next to the headquarters of the first column. The arrival of the big cannon made instant revenge possible. This was done at dawn the next morning and it was formidable. As the huge weapon roared, enormous chunks of shrapnel fell through the church walls, blowing up the roof and taking away what was left of the belfry. The bell itself flew through the air, its clapper clanging noisily as if still sounding an alarm. This was the bell that every evening had called the fighting guerrillas to their prayers.

Aside from this incident the army lost the round. Something got stuck in the mouth of the cannon and silenced it forever. Eight soldiers were killed as the enemy began a stupendous counterattack that lasted until dawn. It continued the next day after a brief pause. Four of the army’s men fell, along with six of the Twenty-sixth who took advantage of the chaos to desert, bringing the day’s total losses up to ten. The battle continued on the twenty-sixth, with four casualties; on the twenty-seventh four more were killed; on the twenty-eighth, four wounded; on the twenty-ninth, one officer and four privates went down; and this continued at the same rate until the troops were completely exhausted.

The losses since mid-August along with those from previous engagements had made a reorganization of the ranks imperative. The number of brigades was down from seven to five. With more and more top officers killed or wounded, it was evident that the expedition was weakening. Junior officers now commanded fifteen of the twenty infantry battalions, not including the Fifth Regiment of the artillery, the Fifth Bahian Police, a rapid-fire battery, and a cavalry squadron. Two of the brigades were led by lieutenant colonels. The only reason that the command of the companies was not the responsibility of the sergeants was because there were fewer sergeants than sublieutenants.

The situation would soon change. Canudos was about to receive thirty battalions, in addition to other branches of service.

The division that was about to save them was on the way.

CHAPTER VII

A NEW PHASE OF THE BATTLE

I

Queimadas

Queimadas was established as a settlement in the beginning of the century. Now in full decline, it had turned into a noisy armed camp. The irregularly shaped central park was surrounded by a cluster of poor huts. The town was deeply striated with gullies carved by the torrential rains. In reality it was just a clearing in the wild. The monotony of the plains and barren hills surrounding the town gave it a sad appearance, making it look like an abandoned town quickly being overrun by the caatingas.

The place evoked painful memories. All the previous expeditions had assembled here, on the ground between the village square and the caatinga. The parched, gray-white leaves of the vegetation gave the town its name, derived from the word for “burnt” or “parched.” The repugnant detritus of these visits by the previous expeditions was littered everywhere: heaps of rags and tattered uniforms, old shoes and military boots, kepis and soldiers’ bonnets, smashed canteens, and the remains of bonfires left by the units who had set up camp here from the beginning of the Febrônio expedition. On this bit of garbage-strewn ground ten thousand men had bivouacked. Their dreams, hopes, fears, and disappointments left poignant echoes there.

Over a small hill, beyond the underbrush, was a long, wide strip of land with a shooting target at the far end. This was the firing range where the Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães division practiced. At one side was a small, low chapel, almost like a tent with walls, covered with graffiti in the soldiers’ crude handwriting. All the battalions had contributed something to these mementos, leaving their remarks on the wall of the holy house with a knifepoint or chunk of charcoal. These were devilish inscriptions formed with short, inflammatory exclamations, curses, threats, and vivas scrawled all over the chapel walls. The black characters were punctuated with exclamation points as big as lances.

The Monte Santo road begins here along a gentle decline, down the narrow, infamous trail. Three successive expeditions had passed here, full of hope. Miserable fugitives came this same way now, in the opposite direction. After fording the shallow, still waters of the Jacuricí, the trail winds across the plains beyond. At the beginning it runs parallel to another road, where the posts of the new telegraph line are located.

A Geographical Fiction

The railroad runs along the other side. These signs of progress are meaningless here and do not change the backward character of the place. After stepping off the train, the visitor walks a few hundred yards between lines of squat houses and then finds himself at the edge of the village square, in the middle of the backlands.

In reality this is the point where two populations meet, each one a stranger to the other. The cowboy dressed in leather will come out of the caatinga and make his way into the ugly settlement, tie up his nag beside the railroad where citizens of coastal towns pass by, who are ignorant of his existence.

In Another Country

The new recruits became aware of this dramatic difference when they reached Queimadas. Here they found a complete divide between the coastal cities and the clay dwellings of the interior. It was a contrast that had disturbed our social development and had become an obstacle to our national unity. The new fighters were in a strange country now, with other customs, scenes, and a different kind of people. They had the feeling of going to war in another country. They felt that they had left Brazil. Total social separation completed the geographical distance, creating the sensation of being very far from home. The mission that had brought them here only served to deepen the sense of separate-ness. There was the enemy, somewhere to the east and to the north, hidden in the endless highland plains. Far, far away, beyond the plains, a terrible drama was unfolding.

Surely it was a paradoxical country whose own native sons invaded it, armed to the teeth, and gutted it with their Krupp cannons. They committed these acts knowing nothing at all about the land. They had never seen it before. They looked in amazement at the dry earth, its rugged, brutal contours and thorny vegetation. The alien land was strewn with heaps of rock and crumbled hills torn by caverns and ravines, and all around were the parched, barren tablelands and the rolling plains.

They were being asked to do what troops before them had done: to invade a foreign territory. It was a geographical fiction. This was the tangible reality, there for all to see, and a witness to what had happened before. The soldiers sensed this and were obsessed with the thought. The unknown backwoods people were returning, day by day, their mutilated and beaten comrades who a few months ago had traveled that same road, strong in body and spirit. As a result they had no spirit left. They did not have the will to penetrate the depths of those mysterious badlands.

Fortunately, when they arrived at Queimadas, the effect that the place had on them was helped in part by encouraging news from the front. There had been no more disasters and the army troops were holding their positions in spite of the daily barrage of fire. The Girard Brigade and the São Paulo Battalion had come to Canudos in time to fill in the gaps in the ranks. The guerrillas, meanwhile, were beginning to exhibit the first symptoms of decline. They did not ring the bell of the old church anymore to show how unaffected they were. There was no bell to ring. In the intervals between exchanges of fire, the sad hymns were no longer heard. They had stopped attacking the lines. At night there was not a single light or sound. The settlement lay blanketed in darkness.

The rumor started to circulate that the Counselor was a prisoner of his own people, who had rebelled when he announced his intention to surrender and declare himself a martyr.

Other details were cited, all indicating that the conflict was dying out.

The new fighters believed that it was over even before they reached Canudos. Everything seemed to point to it. The first prisoners were being brought back after all the months of fighting. It was noticeable that there was not a grown man among them. These captives, who were under heavy guard, were pathetic: a half-dozen women with undernourished infants at their breasts, followed by older children ranging from six to ten years of age. The soldiers stared at them as they went through the town—the place was crawling with uniforms of all types and rank.

It was a sad sight as these pitiful creatures in rags came into the square, clutching their young in their hands. All eyes were on them, gazing insatiably as if seeing right through them.

They were like exotic animals at a fair.

The excited crowd exchanged excited comments, a buzz of voices punctuated by loud expressions of astonishment. The wretched little group was a temporary diversion from the long, tedious hours spent in the camp.

It stirred their curiosity without touching their hearts.

Facing a Child

One of the children, who was very thin and hardly able to walk, wore on his head an old kepi he had found on the road. It fell over his shoulders and covered a third or more of his scrawny chest. The big, wide hat wobbled comically with every step the child took. Some of the spectators laughed callously. Then the child raised his face and looked them straight in the eye. The laughter died suddenly as they saw that the child’s mouth was a gaping bullet wound that had torn open his entire jaw.

The women were mostly repugnant. Their faces were hardened and their eyes told the story of their pain and hatred. One of them stood apart. Suffering had sculpted her face without taking away its beauty. She had a classic Judaic profile that was marred now by the sharp outline of her cheekbones. Her face was pale and ravaged by hunger. She had big black eyes that were pools of dignified sorrow. She told a simple story. It was a tragedy in a few words, common enough, with the invariable ending from a bullet.

They were put in a long house on the square. The poor people were surrounded by insistent groups of curious bystanders who subjected them to interminable questioning. Finally, they focused their attention on the children, thinking something might be learned from their innocent honesty.

One of these, a boy younger than nine but with the shoulders of an athlete, shocked them with his precociousness and his cleverness. He smoked a cigarette as he talked. He inhaled with the self-assurance of a habitual smoker. He volunteered a stream of information, almost all of it made up. His audience listened seriously, because it was a child speaking. But when a soldier came into the room with a Comblain rifle in his hand, the boy stopped his patter and to everyone’s surprise he said in an uppity tone of voice that the “comblé” was a piece of junk, it was a “sissy” gun and made a “hell of a noise” but it did not have any kick. He preferred a “manulixe,” a real rifle. So they gave him a Mannlicher and he started to work the lock as deftly as if it had been a favorite toy. They asked if he had ever fired one.

With a winning smile he said, “And why not? Those soldiers are old geezers. When us young bucks go after ’em, it’s all over. We cut ’em down a notch.”

The boy was, of course, incredibly depraved. It was a lesson to everyone. He was a trained bandit, flotsam of this desert combat, carrying the burden of the tremendous legacy of its mistakes. Three centuries of barbarism had been packed into the nine short years of his life. It was clear that the Canudos campaign had to have a higher goal than the stupid one of wiping out a backlands town. There was a more serious enemy to contend with, and the battle would be slower and more dignified. The entire campaign would turn out to be a barbaric, senseless criminal act if the country did not follow the path of the artillery with a campaign of education. The mission of this new war would be to draw these rude and backward fellow citizens into the mainstream of modern life and into the life of the country.

But this was no time to dream of the future, with so many difficulties requiring an immediate solution. The minister of war stayed for four days in Queimadas, assuring that nothing would stand in the way of mobilizing the army troops, and then he left for Monte Santo.

On the Road to Monte Santo

Escorted by just two staff members from headquarters, his own and an aide to General Carlos Eugenio de Andrade Guimarães, Marshal Bittencourt had to go through a region teeming with wounded soldiers before he could get to the base of operations. Although he was well provisioned and had sturdy horses, they met as many hardships along these beaten paths as those traveling on foot on the difficult backlands trails. The journey took three days. At every turn of the road they encountered a depressing reminder of the war. The terrain was becoming more rugged with each step, as the earth became more calcified and barren. Their first stop was at the farm known as Tanquinho, or Little Cistern, and it was typical of what they would find along the way. It was an unnatural scene. The farmhouse was falling apart. It had two abandoned structures hidden behind the branches of the plains evergreens, and scrawny cactus plants ran down to the roadway. The cistern that gave the farm its name was made of a surface layer of granite, which created an impermeable strip of soil where water might collect, safe from the suction effect of the surrounding sandstone. Dozens of wounded men were resting next to the pond in the company of wagoners of the supply train. Absent was the usual noise and activity of a camp. It was quiet, just a morose cluster of emaciated forms, lying as if paralyzed in complete exhaustion.

This was a deeply disturbing sight. As night fell and bonfires were reflected in the dark water, some of the men could be seen crouched around the flames, shivering with fever, while others limped slowly about, their huge, distorted shadows projecting on the flat surface of the pond. Thirsty officers who had gone to the marsh for a drink would run into ghosts hardly able to stand as they tried to give a military salute. These officers would come back saddened by the encounter. From now on the same scene would often be repeated: The same defeated refugees were traveling the roads and the same groups of broken human beings would be found at the side of the greenish black, algae-infested swamps.

In contrast, a cowboy would run into a caravan of wounded men. He was the picture of health and affability. A friend and ally, he had been hired out to the transport service. Mounted on his leather-trapped steed, his broad-brimmed hat turned up at a jaunty angle, with his tanned and honest face, he was a welcome sign of health and strength. He wore his long alligator knife at his belt and carried his harpoonlike cattle prong in his right hand. The backwoodsman would wait motionless for the cavalcade to pass, with the respectful stance of a trained soldier. He was a solid figure in his leather vest that made him look like a sturdy warrior still dusty from battle.

The marshal’s party continued on and soon forgot the sight of the robust sertanejo. Their attention was continuously diverted by the growing bands of refugees. Some of the wounded soldiers walked haltingly, leaning on their rifles. Officers were carried in hammocks. Their hats were pulled over their eyes and they were unaware of their surroundings, stiff as corpses. Occasionally there were large dark stains in the caatinga, which were the remains of burned homes, their beams and ridgepoles exposed, weaving a skein of ruins over the desert wasteland as a stupid reminder of this backlands war.

They found some respite from these ugly scenes in Cansanção. For a few hours they experienced a comforting sense of calm. The village was a family compound, and its patriarch immediately gathered his sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for a standing ovation for the marshal. It was done with a refreshing innocence. The old “monarch” even lifted the astounded minister in his arms, tired from eighty years of hard labor.

The rest stop was providential. This place was an oasis in the desolation of the backlands war. The tough old man who ruled the village was an inspiration. He introduced a son and grandsons who were already turning gray. The complete antithesis of the precocious young thug at Queimadas, he was the personification of robust simplicity of soul that is inherent to the character of backwoods people when they are not corrupted by crime and fanaticism. This encouraged the marshal and his party. The tiny village of a dozen homes huddled together on a street a few yards long became the only place in the long history of the campaign that did not bring up horrible memories. It was the one safe zone in the madness. A small hospital had been set up there under the supervision of two Franciscan monks. They cared for wanderers heading toward Queimadas who could not go any farther.

When they left Cansanção, the marshal and his escorts returned to the perils of the dusty trail. It twisted and turned, branching into many side trails. It was bordered by ruined hovels. Once in a while they would come upon another band of refugees.

From Contendas on, everywhere they went, they found graffiti scrawled on every available white wall of any house that was still standing. They were angry protests written with lumps of coal by every wounded man who had passed there. They described their terrible experiences with complete candor through this anonymous medium. Here the army used its iron hand to write the story of this drama in enormous letters. It produced a graphic image of the momentous conflict—this was the real significance of the crude inscriptions, which so bluntly described their authors’ feelings. These furious chroniclers left a concise but accurate account of the worst scandal in our history. They did it brutally, with cartoons, pornography, expletives, and exclamations of despair. They had no concern for form or propriety—to the contrary, this was a black wave of rancor that flowed down the highway, covered the walls of the houses, and then entered them, filling the inner walls to the roof.

When they entered the huts, the marshal and his escorts were shocked by the silent chorus of profanity and insults. Unbelievable obscenities were written in crude rhyme and verse and accompanied by shocking drawings. It was as if accusations were being thrown from all corners of the room and the roughly scrawled letters were doing a grotesque dance punctuated with exclamation points that were like the thrusts of a sword. Viva! Death! These cries came from every corner, directed at famous public figures, with curses and invectives. The lines contained vicious puns, bold and insulting insinuations, and gross barracks humor.

The mission had suddenly lost its heroic dimension. It was no longer a brilliant military exercise. Future historians will attempt to cover the truth with glowing narratives. But on every page those outrageous and indestructible palimpsests will remain.

By the time they arrived at Monte Santo the new recruits did not have the same enthusiasm as their predecessors about pulling out their swords. They were dejected. They revived somewhat as they entered the village that was the base of operations.

In a few days Monte Santo had been transformed from a backwater settlement that had not seen any change for a hundred years or more into a much larger place. Two thousand white tents populated the surrounding plains, forming a new suburb, larger than the town itself, with clearly outlined streets. The tent village, clearly visible on the unobstructed plain, was divided into six groups. Banners waved atop all of them and everywhere could be heard the energetic beat of bugle and drum.

The town was filled with new residents from many different locations. They crowded in the square and overflowed into the narrow lanes. The men came from a heterogeneous mix of social and professional backgrounds: officers of all ranks and branches of the service, wagon drivers covered with dust from their long journeys, soldiers bending under the weight of their equipment, the limping sick and wounded, poorly dressed women, bustling tradespeople, groups of carefree students, journalists looking for news and asking endless questions. This made the scene look like a busy town square on market day. Marshal Bittencourt immediately declared martial law and adopted policies that responded to the complex needs of the situation. The military hospital became a reality. It was well equipped and staffed with skilled surgeons assisted by students from the College of Medicine in Bahia who had volunteered their services. Discipline was instituted everywhere, and the matter of the transportation was resolved. Supply trains were now leaving and returning to Canudos on a daily basis.

The results of these efforts could be seen immediately. They were reflected in the news from the battlefield, where the army troops were now taking more decisive action.

All this was due to the work of one man who was incapable of demonstrating any enthusiasm and who even at the base of operations refused to shed his formal alpaca coat to review the troops. This man had, through his devotion, made himself the true commander of the conflict. At a distance of forty miles from the front, he was in fact managing the conflict. He did it not with fanfare, not with elaborate plans, but by spending his days in the rough company of pack drivers in Monte Santo. He could be seen in their midst, pacing impatiently with his watch in his hand, giving the signal for them to depart.

Each supply train that arrived was worth battalions. It guaranteed success. It gave the fighting men fresh hope for victory, and little by little the stagnation that had paralyzed the operation was lifting. This is what the latest reports indicated.

Encouraging News

The month of September began well enough. On the fourth, one of the jagunços’ top leaders was killed by a gunshot. He collapsed in front of the churches. The speed at which the inhabitants came to his side and carried him away was an indication of his importance. On the sixth, an even more significant event occurred. One after the other, the towers of the new church fell to the ground. This happened after six straight hours of bombardment. It was entirely unexpected.

It was due to an error in supplying munitions to the front. Instead of sending grenades for the Krupp, they had sent plain cannonballs. They were not appropriate for the current situation and so it was decided to use them up by firing on the churches.

The astonishing result was recorded in two ebullient orders of the day. The army was free at last from the watchtowers that had been used by the sharpshooters with such lethal effect. They had a view of the entire field of battle and had crippled the men in the trenches. From July 18 on, the towers had been occupied by expert marksmen who let nothing out of their sight. No one dared to leave the shelter of the huts.

When the supply trains arrived they were always met with a loud barrage of fire from the church towers as they were about to cross the river before entering the canyon that provided a covered passage into the town. It was from this point that the new arrivals, the auxiliary brigade, the São Paulo Battalion, and the Thirty-seventh Infantry were given a backlands salute.

Wild Hoots

At last the towers were down. The entire army, awestruck at the sight, stopped firing and began to whoop and holler. They had tumbled, one after the other, tearing away large sections of the wall in huge blocks and burying the sharpshooters in the rubble. The stones crashed into the square in a cloud of mortar dust. The commander of the first column wrote about it in his plan of the day: “The men in our front line and the troops in the camp broke out into wild shouts and jeers directed at the backlands bunch.”

That was a good summary of the campaign. From beginning to end it was all “sound and fury, signifying nothing”—enthusiastic catcalls.

Be that as it may, the enemy’s advantage was gone. The spell had been lifted. The huge settlement now suddenly seemed diminished in size. Now missing the two slender white towers that had been a landmark for cattlemen for miles around, it seemed more run-down and sunk even deeper into the depression in which it had been built. When the tall spires reached into the deep blue sky or glowed on starlit nights, they served as a symbol of the sertanejo’s naive mysticism and sent his prayers up to heaven.

The Seventh of September Trench

The jagunços viewed the fall of the towers as a bad omen. The next day they suffered a major setback. Several dozen of their fighters had been holed up for a long time at the Old Ranch House, confronting Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s cannons, which were set up on the rim of Mount Favela. For more than two months the rebels had blocked the movement of the army lines in the direction of the village, in spite of the constant fire that the artillery, just two steps away, directed at them at close range. Since they held a dominant position, above the mass of forces stationed at the edge of the village, they could mow down our men, which accounted for the daily losses suffered by the ranks. This position was similar to the towers in terms of effectiveness in destroying the most carefully constructed trenches and shelters. On September 7, at ten o’clock at night, the sertanejos were suddenly routed out of this position. Emboldened by the success of the previous day, and following an order from the commander of the first column, Colonel Olympio da Silveira came down the mountain with a contingent formed by the fourth battery of the Second Regiment, one of the Fifth Regiment, and one machine gun. In the front and rear were former military cadets. The colonel positioned sharpshooters on both flanks. Creeping down the slopes, this detachment rolled like a rockslide onto the hill below. Completely taken by surprise, and stunned by the charge of three hundred bayonets from either side, the jagunços were unable to put up any resistance and were rapidly taken out of the stone trenches they had built around the ruins of the Old Ranch House. The mission took five minutes. Pushed back and dispersed, the rebels were chased by the vanguard all the way to Bald Hill, where they jumped into the riverbed below and scrambled across it until they disappeared into Canudos. Our troops had only two casualties.

Once they captured this position, which covered a broad terrace on the slope between Mario’s Hill, which had been previously occupied, and the Vaza-Barris, Colonel Olympio da Silveira pitched his tent on the same spot where the commander of the third expedition had died. They spent the rest of the night building a stone wall about three feet high with rocks taken from the sertanejo trenches along the rim of the terrace. The next day the Seventh of September Trench stood over the settlement. The siege had advanced fifteen hundred yards to the left, in a southern direction, entirely blocking the two eastern quadrants. On the afternoon of the same day it expanded even farther, circling west, all the way to the start of the Cambaio road, near the confluence of the Mucuim. It now contained the entire western section of the town.

The Calumbi Road

A more serious operation was under way, perhaps the most strategic action of the campaign. It was the work of Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes. This officer had come to understand the strategic advantage of another supply route, the Calumbi road, based on information he had gathered from loyal cowboys. It ran through the terrain between the Rosário and Cambaio roads in a straight north-south line. It was shorter than both of those roads and would improve communications with Monte Santo. He decided to explore this route even though it was very risky to undertake.

He did it in three days. The lieutenant colonel left Canudos on September 4 with fifteen hundred men. He had the Twenty-second, Ninth, and Thirty-fourth battalions under Major Lydio Porto. They traveled the road and returned on the seventh via the Cambaio road. It was a daring, fast operation with very good results.

The newly discovered road was opened for army troops and supplies and closed to the jagunços, for whom it had been a preferred southern route. It shortened the trip to Monte Santo by a day. It was the best suited of all the roads to resist attack. It was similar to the Rosário highway, forking to the left of the Juá road to the north. It followed the winding Caraíbas River for miles, sometimes crossing it, but always heading in the same direction. Small farms bordered the route until it reached the Caxomongó, another seasonal river. From this point it became a road of great strategic importance.

The Calumbi highlands ran to the southeast and flanked the road at about three hundred yards to the right. Any army heading down the road would have to expose itself to the enemy positioned on the slopes. After this dangerous point, they would head into an even more dangerous situation. After climbing a long slope, the road enters a short, narrow gulley that is completely hidden by the dense umburana stalks that grow in the area. A natural trench of siliceous marble runs just above the ground, a rough wall with a thin, wicket-shaped fracture in the center. There was no need for any other cover here. Rifles perched on the top of this ledge would be able to mow down the enemy as he came through. In case the enemy got any farther, which would be unlikely with well-positioned troops showering them with bullets, he would discover very shortly that he was entering impassable terrain.

The geology of the northern backlands has a number of common features. The land is rugged and full of obstacles. Immediately beyond the gorge, it runs down to Várzea Farm in what seems to be an easy passage, but is really very difficult for troops under fire. A layer of limestone stretches for miles in a state of decomposition due to the dry atmosphere. It is pockmarked with depressions and riddled with razor-sharp edges, deep chasms, and long, sharp spurs that are like knife blades. Occasionally the surface is broken by a wide pit. The terrain is evidence of the erosive effect of the extreme climate over a period of centuries. After seasons of prolonged drought, acidic rain corrodes, punctures, and breaks up the land. The corrupted earth reflects the turbulence of the storms that have swept over it.

The sturdiest boots would be ripped apart on this jagged steppe. There would be no protection from sudden falls into the sharp-edged gullies. It was impossible to do battle here. Even those traveling in peace could only pass through one at a time on a side trail leading to the Várzea basin below. It was a broad bowl littered with fragments of flint and surrounded by thick brushwoods. Whoever reached this point would be the target of fire from all directions. Even if they did get this far, after a thousand yards they would face certain death. Here the road disappears into the deep winding bed of the Sargento River. Along its banks the deep blue folds of a talc schist formation are streaked with white quartz veins. At points these layers are horizontal, running from one bank to the other, so that it creates the impression of an enormous old aqueduct, with the remains of its ancient vault still visible here and there. The huge ditch substitutes for the road for about a mile. Like the others in the area, it is not a river but a drain that occasionally fills with floodwaters, which are the channel to the Vaza-Barris. On either side of the banks were jagunço trenches, spaced a short distance apart, and providing either direct or cross fire on the riverbed road at every bend.

The three thousand men of the Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães column would never have made it through here. They had traveled on the Rosário road, which had saved their lives. The expeditions that preceded them had taken the Uauá, Cambaio, and Maçacará roads, always varying the route. This had made the sertanejos think that the last expedition would come on the Calumbi. If it had, not a single man would have made it. Our troops would have traveled in blind ignorance of the terrible terrain and what it had in store for them.

Now the jagunços had left these positions and were hiding in the settlement. Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes’s strategy was well thought through and highly advantageous. After leaving guards at key points along the way as far as Juá, he then took the Cambaio. He stationed a wing of the Twenty-second at the empty trenches there and then went on to Lake Cipó, where heaps of white bones served as reminders of the Febrônio expedition. He found a few enemy scouts there and captured thirteen pack animals from them. He continued on to the Mucuim, and took two enemy trenches by surprise.

The line of siege was expanding. A quick, safe route was found to mobilize the forces. The main segment of this road, from the Sargento River to Sussuarana Farm, passing through Várzea and Caxomongó, was held by the Thirty-third, Sixteenth, and Twenty-eighth battalions of the Second Brigade and a wing of the São Paulo Battalion.

Canudos was surrounded by a huge semicircle, which stretched from the north to the Old Ranch House on the south and then eastward to the Cambaio road. The only ways open to the jagunços were the Uauá and the Várzea da Ema trails to the northeast.

The end of the campaign was drawing near.

II

March of the Auxiliary Division

The new troops heading to Monte Santo on the recently opened road had an unusual preoccupation. They were afraid there would not be a single jagunço left for them to fight. They were sure that they would find that the conflict was over and they felt scandalously cheated.

The first unit to leave on September 13 was the North Police Corps Brigade. This was for administrative reasons but it upset those in the line brigade, which would follow a few days later under the command of General Carlos Eugenio de Andrade Guimarães.

Glorious Fear

So many rebels were falling every day and there were so many reverses for the enemy, which was being squeezed into an ever-tightening circle by the invading troops, that it seemed to the new reinforcements that each passing hour reduced their chances of participating in the victory. This is why the Northeast Brigade moved at a dizzying pace, stumbling along the roads from the first light of dawn and stopping only when the burning sun had exhausted it completely. The line brigade was close behind, also moving fast, traveling light and motivated by the crazy urge to arm-wrestle the enemy, even if in a small skirmish.

The champions marched along, well nourished, healthy, and full of bluster—making haste to the mud fortress that for the last three months had been razed by cannon fire, broken by assaults, and consumed by fires while being defended by a handful of men.

When they reached Sussuarana Farm, fifteen miles from Canudos, their spirits lifted because they could hear the dull thunder of the artillery. In Caxomongó, when the wind blew in the right direction, they could hear the crackling of rifle shots.

Meanwhile, in this atmosphere of warmongering enthusiasm, there were still unexpected incidents that startled the men. The backlands battle had not completely lost its mysterious nature, which it would have until the end. As they advanced deep into the backlands, entering the highlands and passing the deserted farmhouses in ruins in the open desert, the war-lusting soldiers could hardly repress a shudder of fear. I was witness to this on one occasion.

Colonel Sotero de Menezes’s brigade had arrived on the third day of its journey, September 15, at Caxomongó Farm, which was on the border of the battle zone. Those who travel from Boa Esperança have crossed a plain surrounded by beautiful highlands. If they come from Sussuarana Farm, they have passed an ipueira well full of water. Once the traveler has arrived, he encounters a sterile and forbidding landscape. The sandstone terrain is rough, reddish in color, with strata inclined at a forty-five-degree angle. This is what causes the rapid evaporation of the rare rains that fall here and turns the area into a harsh desert.

The ranch house, a miserable hovel, is on the riverbank. The river is nothing but a trough with straight walls nine feet high. It is filled with rocks of all sizes and shapes and is completely dry. The riverbed soon disappears into the bare hills.

The troops reached this place at midmorning. There were two well-disciplined corps from Pará and the one from Amazonas. All wore the uniform that had been issued in Bahia. Officers and men alike wore broad-brimmed hats of carnauba straw with the brims turned down, making them look like a band of woodsmen. In spite of the early hour, they set up camp. They had found water in a nearby pit that was deep and dark as a mine shaft. This was their last stop. The next day they would reach the settlement. The dead landscape suddenly came alive as it filled up with tents, munitions, and the noise and activity of 968 soldiers. Along the riverbanks tall ingaranas grew and their boughs stretched over the stream.[1] [2] Dozens of hammocks were tied up between the branches, and the men took their rest there.

The day went by peacefully.

There was nothing to fear.

Night came. From a distance, they heard the roll of distant thunder to the north. It was the bombardment of Canudos.

The enemy, contained by the siege lines, would have no energy for night raids. The night would pass without incident. Even if the jagunços showed up, they would find an opponent eager to greet them.

The men fell asleep early only to wake up with a start at ten o’clock. A shot had gone off on their left flank. One of the sentries on the security cordon that had been set up around the camp had seen or thought he saw a suspicious figure in the shadows and had fired his rifle. It was surely the enemy they were anxious to meet. As in previous expeditions, he had snuck up on them for a quick, bold attack.

Suddenly the men who had been so impatient to pit their strength against that of the enemy had a brief, mysterious vision of what this battle was really like. They now saw it for themselves, at close range. A strange panic gripped the battalions. The bugles sounded, commands were shouted, and the men cried out in alarm, everyone was asking anxious questions. The men leaped out of their hammocks and into the riverbed below; they scrambled about in great confusion, bumping into each other, slipping and falling. Pulling out their swords and revolvers, the officers rushed down the ranks as the men got into formation and adjusted their weapons. The scene was bedlam. Platoons and companies formed into improvised squares as if they were expecting a cavalry charge. Whole detachments pointed their bayonets at nothing. Throughout the companies, platoons, and detachments individual soldiers ran wildly about, trying to find their place in the confusing assembly.

These fighting men were in the vise of an emotion that they never thought they would experience as they waited for the enemy to attack. The brigade was like a long ship’s wake in the serene moonlight that lay over the entire sleeping landscape.

It was a false alarm.

Half Rations of Glory

The next morning their fears had dissipated and once again they were impatient heroes. Marching at a quick pace and without further trepidation, they headed for the Sargento River, which suddenly overflowed with uniforms. They climbed the bare hill that descends abruptly to the Umburanas valley. There they were surprised by the direct view of Canudos, just a mile and a quarter away.

This was a relief. There were the two ruined churches, facing each other across the famous square. The new church, without its towers, the main walls in ruins, split from top to bottom, was a pile of garbage. The old one was also blackened and in ruins, its facade was missing. Just a part of the belfry was still standing, the same bell tower where the persistent sexton had so often called the faithful to prayer and to battle. Around the ruins was the stunted mass of huts. They had arrived in time. They would not be denied their half ration of glory. So they made their triumphant entrance to the camp as if they were going down in history, but in reality they were there for a bloody and easy victory.

The Camp

The camp had changed. It was no longer as chaotic as in the early days. It was like another village next to Canudos. After crossing the dry bed of the Vaza-Barris, the new arrivals walked through a winding gully. Halfway through the ravine, in a wide concave opening to the right, was a huge shed covered in leather hides. This was the field hospital. A short distance away, they came upon the commander in chief’s tent.

They had the impression of arriving in a newly constructed town. The occupied section of the settlement had been completely reconstructed. All around the slopes on either side of the road or in small valleys were unique houses that had a festive appearance. They were completely constructed of foliage from the juazeiro tree. The green branches stood out from the gray hue of the tents. The dwellings did not seem adequate to their inhabitants, but in fact they were the only ones that were appropriate for the climate of the region. The burning heat that transformed the tents into ovens had inspired this bucolic architecture.

At first there was nothing to reveal the presence of an occupying army. It looked like a transitory backlands village. The illusion was completed by the dress of the inhabitants. They were modest-looking individuals in peasant dress, shouldering rifles or trailing swords, but wearing tasseled leather hats and sandals. Elsewhere raggedy women were calmly sewing in the doorways or walking with bundles of firewood. A stranger might think that he had strayed into a jagunço settlement until he got to the commander’s tent. After climbing the hill at the foot of general headquarters, he would find the engineering commission in a native hut on the summit. If he put his eye to a chink in the wall, which had been reinforced by blocks of stone, he would have a direct view of the church square, one hundred yards away. He was now on the slope where the stockades were located at the base—the most dangerous section of the front. Here the Twenty-fifth Battalion was holding the center. It was the “black line,” the point where the army had reached most deeply into the settlement during the assault of July 18. To the left, under the barrier of the uneven line of huts scattered there, he would arrive at the first-column headquarters. Winding down the southern slope along a ledge, he would find a small cabin belonging to the second column. This would lead him to the quartermaster general’s tent, where the São Paulo Battalion was camped on a sandy floodplain that in the rainy season is filled with the waters of the Vaza-Barris. Continuing along, he would cross the Vaza-Barris under a shelf of stone trenches running from one bank to the other and manned by the Twenty-sixth. Here he would find the outer ring of the siege lines, secured by the Fifth of Bahia, in a deep trench carved out by the Providencia River. Two hundred yards to the left, on a high hill near the Old Ranch House, is the Seventh of September Trench, looking like a hanging bastion.

In touring the camp, the new arrivals were able to gain a clear idea of the situation and they started to lose some of their initial optimism. This sector of the line was still small compared with the size of the settlement, which surprised them. They were used to the dwarfed size of most backland villages and were stunned by this Babylon of mud huts spreading out over the hills.

At that time Canudos consisted of fifty-two hundred houses—later they were counted one by one. The red clay roofs could not be distinguished from each other and they created an illusion of disproportionate size to someone who first looked at the compact huddle of houses around the square. Seen from this perspective, the mass of huts created a strong impression adding to the strange atmosphere of the settlement. It was hard to believe there were so many lives in that place. The closest observer would not see a single individual or hear the slightest sound of any kind. It was like an ancient necropolis, eroded and pitted all over its surface.

However, if the observer exposed himself too much, a rain of bullets would betray the presence of the people burrowed in the ruins. A single shot fired at any time from the top of the hill would evoke the same quick response. Even though the jagunços no longer had the advantage in initiating attacks, they responded with the same strength. The siege might be wearing them down but they had not lost their dignity, and it was a point of honor to hide any signs of weakness. It was clear that they were in bad shape. Their town was in ruins; it no longer had its supply of infamous bandits. The population was mostly women and young children, who had been put through a terrible trial of fire and sword for three months. Many times, above the din of the battle would come the sound of pitiful cries. A few days before, shrapnel fired from Mount Favela skimmed over the new church and fell on the huts near the arbor where the prayer services were held. Suddenly there was a heart-wrenching cry, which upset even Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s firing squad. It was a long and tragic chorus of cries. The officer, deeply affected, gave a stern order to cease fire and the cannons fell silent.

Doubly hemmed in between thousands of soldiers on the one side and thousands of women on the other, between the cries of distress and the war hoots of soldiers, between tears and bullets, the rebels were losing ground quickly. It was just a matter of time. The confidence that they were winning led the soldiers to daring acts. A sergeant of the Fifth Artillery crossed the entire square at night to collect two dynamite bombs that had not exploded. A sublieutenant of the Twenty-fifth did more than that a few days later when he set fire to the remains of the old church, which burned to the ground.

The recent arrivals to this unequal contest started to worry once again that they would not have the chance to test themselves against the enemy. The iron-muscled new brigades were chafing at the chance to put down the rebellion in its last thrashing moments. The soldiers who had been there during the previous months had received more than enough glory. They were tired of the whole thing and now that they were well fed, thanks to the daily supply trains, they thought that no more lives should be thrown away to speed up the enemy’s surrender. They remained irritatingly aloof.

In between attacks, which were occurring at greater intervals, the camp had the order of a well-policed town. Nothing indicated that a terrible war was being fought. At the engineering quarters, General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães, who was open and good-natured, would give lectures on a number of topics having nothing to do with the conflict: memories of the past, funny stories, and lengthy discussions of politics. At the same time, others who were persistent in recording details of the battle would note hourly temperature readings and barometric pressure, always recording a zero for cloud cover as they checked their hygrometers with long faces. In the military pharmacy the student volunteers would joke around and recite poetry. Voices and laughter could be heard through the thin walls of the huts made of juazeiro branches. The few bullets that did fly around were harmless as they bounced off the hillsides. Nobody paid any attention to them anymore. Their precision and the rhythm with which they were fired indicated that there were still sharpshooters whose job was to remind them that the sertanejos were still watching. They did not cause concern, although some would hit the canvas of the officers’ tents. Heavy fire still occurred occasionally at night, when our men least expected it.

Life was becoming normal in that abnormal situation. At times it took on bizarre dimensions. Sometimes the soldiers in the black line, the trench closest to the settlement, would in the early morning have long conversations with the jagunços. The man on the army side would stand at the edge of the trench, facing the square, and call out some remark and add a name, the first he could think of, in a friendly voice as if calling for a friend. Usually someone would answer from the huts, or closer by from the rubble around the church, in a soft, somewhat ironic twang. An unusual conversation would begin in the shadows, an exchange of information about all kinds of matters: baptismal names, birthplaces, family, and details of their lives. Occasionally they would exchange an obscene joke and there would be a burst of laughter. This banter would continue until there was a difference of opinion, and then suddenly a few loud insults would be exchanged in colorful slang and the conversation would come to an end with a gunshot.

The soldiers of the Fifth Police Brigade would while away the time with songs that expressed their homesickness for the banks of the São Francisco. If they were interrupted by shooting from the enemy, they would make a dash for the firing line, unloading their rifles and fighting like devils, still singing their love songs but now to the time of bullets. Some would fall dead, a song on their lips. After the battle was over others would continue with their diversion, languidly strumming their mandolins and singing their love ballads as if they were on a pack drive and taking a noonday rest.

A Travesty of Courage

Everyone was adapting. The daily exposure to death had fostered a disrespect for life. Toward the end of the campaign, the soldiers would walk from one end of the camp to another without taking any precautions. As they emerged on an exposed hilltop they would not even bother to walk more quickly as bullets fell around them. They would laugh at the newcomers, who would be terrified when fighting broke out. The sight of them dodging and ducking was very funny to them. The newcomers were unable to keep themselves from jumping as a bullet sped by with a low hissing sound. They were also unable to hold back their feelings when the dying were carried back from the front lines.

Some of the soldiers were just making a travesty of courage; it was a kind of arrogance. In their uniforms, with their stripes and buttons shining in the sun, they would stand in an open place completely exposed to enemy fire or on top of a hill within about a mile of the settlement, to test the jagunços’ firing range. The long exposure to the fight had hardened them. They would tell their war stories to the newcomers, embellishing the dramatic details. They retold the episode of Mount Favela and its many battles, describing what they had gone through there. There was the case of the sublieutenant who died when he broke his fast by stuffing himself with handfuls of flour after not eating for three days. There were the wild hunts for goats and having to pick dried berries off dead shrubs. They ended by saying that there was little more to do. The enemy was dying. All that was going on now was just a party, nothing more.

The men of the Auxiliary Division were not resigned to the minor role they were given. Was this why they had traversed seventy-five miles of backland terrain, just to look on as spectators at the slow death of the enemy by strangulation, without the satisfaction of a battle?

III

Ambassador to Heaven

The blockade of the town was incomplete. There was still a wide opening to the north, so the enemy was not yet down to its last resources. The Várzea da Ema and the Uauá trails were still unprotected. They branched out into many side trails over the plains, meandering toward the wide basin of the São Francisco. They would go through remote places until they reached the tiny villages along the banks of the river between Chorrochó and Santo Antônio da Glória. Here the jagunços got their supplies, and fresh reinforcements found no resistance on their way to Canudos. These roads went in the most favorable direction, across the vast territory linking the backlands of six states, from Bahia to Piauí.

This gave the sertanejos their best escape route, leading to the very place that the revolt had started. If they had to flee, the desert would protect them.

But they were not leaving, even though they understood that the army was gaining strength while they were getting weaker. Their top fighters were gone: Pajehú, who died in July; João Abade, who fell in August; the sly Macambira, recently killed; José Venâncio, and others. The key men left were Big Peter, the ferocious defender of Cocorobó, and Joaquim Norberto, who was made a commander because no one else was available. They were running low on food. Every day the imbalance between the number of fighting men and the women, children, sick, and crippled grew greater. This useless majority restricted the movement of the fighters and deprived them of food. Some of the weaker ones could have departed a few at a time via the open trails, leaving the others free to fight and sparing themselves a certain death. But they chose not to do this. Of their own free will, the ones who could not help, aware that they were burdens, stopped eating to save their defenders. They would not desert them now.

Life in the settlement was unbearable. This was proven later on by the horrible state of emaciation and misery of the six hundred prisoners taken. The inhabitants spent days in terrible suffering, even though the doors to life and freedom were still open to them. This stoicism would have never been understood had the story not been told by those who went through it. It was simple enough.

On August 22, Antônio Conselheiro died. His death was caused by the destruction of the churches. As he saw them fall, the Sanctuary ruined, relics strewn on the floor, and the Good Jesus dismembered on the floor, he suffered a shock that was too much for him to survive. From that moment on he began to die. He now refused to eat at all. One day they found him in the destroyed church, lying on his face, his forehead pressed to the ground and a silver cross on his chest. His body was cold and rigid when Pious Anthony found him there.

This event seemed to give new life to the rebellion instead of ending it, as might have happened. It could have been due to the quick thinking of one of the leaders, who could foresee the terrible consequences, or it could have been the power of suggestion when the faithful became upset by their leader’s absence. Whatever the source, the following story emerged, as told by the people taken prisoner later on.

Antônio Conselheiro had gone to heaven. When he saw his leaders being killed and the number of troops growing, he decided to appeal to God. The ambassador was now in God’s presence. He had taken care of everything before he left. That is why the soldiers were unable to leave as they had before. They were stuck in their trenches. They had to remain here on the scene of their crimes to pay for their sins. The prophet would return with millions of angels, their flaming swords glowing in the heavens, and they would descend like a flock of heavenly birds and smite the invaders. The Day of Judgment would begin.

This gave them great relief. The believers prepared for the final penance, which would be their salvation. None noticed that some of the population, people like Villa Nova, abandoned the settlement, taking off for unknown parts.

They left just in time. On September 24 the situation changed.

The Siege Is Over

That morning, the left wing and the cannon on Favela launched a heavy attack to distract the enemy. Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes went off on an expedition, followed by the Twenty-fourth, Thirty-eighth, and Thirty-second battalions under Major Henrique de Magalhães, Captain Afonso Pinto de Oliveira, and Lieutenant Joaquim Potengy; the Amazonas unit; the right wing of the São Paulo detachment, under Major José Pedro de Oliveira; and a cavalry wing under Sublieutenant Pires de Almeida. They were going to the section that was not under their control, fighting along the way small bands of jagunços in the last houses on that side of the settlement.

The sertanejos had not expected that the troops would enter there. It was the part of Canudos opposite the Old Ranch House and most distant from the original line of attack. A new suburb had appeared here, called Red Houses. It was built after the defeat of the third expedition. The huts looked more like ordinary houses: Some had tile roofs. They were not fortified and did not have the trenches that were so common elsewhere. Because they were at a distance from the firing line they were full of women and children.

With the Twenty-fourth in the lead, they went along the riverbed and cleared out these houses in a few minutes. They were held up by the terrified women. The jagunços did not give up immediately. They fought as they fell back, and the soldiers became entangled in the narrow trails as they gave pursuit.

Now on the offensive, the attackers reenacted another of the inevitable scenes. Shoving their rifles through the mud walls, they fired at random and then knocked down the huts and threw lighted matches on the miserable possessions inside. The fires lit the way as the sertanejos kept falling back to the nearest hideout. Occasionally one of them would put up an incredible fight, at the cost of his life. At one hut, a man with his wife and daughter hanging on him threw them aside and jumped to the door, where he killed the first man he encountered with a terrible blow. It was Sublieutenant Pedro Simões Pinto, of the Twenty-fourth. Soon he was laid out on the floor surrounded by soldiers with drawn swords. As he expired he said, “At least I killed one of them.”

Another gave the men some diversion. It was a funny but horrible scene. In a corner of a room that the soldiers had broken into was an old Indian, unable even to sit up. He was emaciated and half-naked, covered with just a sheet. The old man was trying to fire an old birding rifle but could not even lift it. It fell back on him while his bony face made a grimace of helpless rage. The soldiers surrounded him and started to laugh a loud, derisive laughter.

This desperate resistance, which even the dying put up, slowed the advance. In a short time the attackers suffered thirteen casualties. The enemy was falling back but not running away. He stayed a few steps ahead—in the same house, in the next room, or behind the next wall. So they would not lose what they had gained, they made a barricade out the ruined houses and furniture. This was the usual and necessary thing to do. There was no neutral territory ahead. The jagunço was clinging tenaciously to the opposite slope, vigilant, practicing his aim.

The loud reverberations of this engagement to the north caused great excitement in the camp. The huts near the engineering commission became an enormous amphitheater from which to observe the drama. Focusing their binoculars through the cracks in the walls, the audience stamped, clapped, and hooted. The scene in front of them, although it was very real, took on the aspect of a play being performed on a crude stage in the sinister glow of flames that were fanned by the northeast wind. Yellow smoke shot up in huge puffs while tongues of fire licked the air. It was the lighting on the set that would occasionally reveal the entire stage or darken it, like the curtain that falls after the last act of a tragedy.

At times the settlement disappeared behind the smoke. Against this backdrop was a red disk, the sun in eclipse. Suddenly the curtain would be torn open by a stiff gust and then a triangular section of the village could be seen. Groups of panicked women and children were running south in great confusion. They could barely be distinguished against the dry foliage of the arbors near the square. The artillery on Mount Favela was subjecting them to a terrible pounding, and the poor things were caught between two lines of fire, the bullets on the one hand and cannon on the other. Some dove into the church ruins. At other times the figures were hidden by the dark smoke from the slow fire. It rolled over the rooftops, hovered over the ground, and spiraled upward with the undulating motion of a big wave, rising and falling with the wind. For a moment the smoke would clear, revealing the broken facade of the new church, and then everything would be covered again. Farther on, an empty stretch of the riverbed could be glimpsed or the circles of smoke could be seen twirling around the tops of the hillsides.

The fascinated gaze of those who did not participate in the battle was fixed on the fog curtain. Whenever it closed over the big amphitheater, the audience would go out of control, shouting and waving binoculars, trying to follow the plot that had been abruptly hidden from its view.

The action went on for an abnormally long time. Instead of occasional rifle fire, the shooting was steady and lively. The bullets popped like reeds in a cane fire. As a result, the anxious spectators thought the sertanejos might have broken through the northern lines. The echoes from the gunfire, reverberating off the hills and growing in strength under the thick blanket of smoke, distorted the perceptions of the onlookers. The cracking gunfire seemed to be very close, to the right and behind them, giving the illusion that the enemy might have escaped and was attacking them in sudden retaliation. Orders were shouted back and forth.

Then there was a distant din of shouts and vivas. The onlookers snatched up their binoculars and rushed to the lookouts. At that moment the wind opened a broad swath in the smoke and revealed the scene of the drama once again. They were much relieved and burst into cheers. The jagunços were in retreat. They could at last see a line of red flags stretching to the Cambaio road. Canudos was completely surrounded.

It did not take long for the news to reach the camp. Swift couriers rode to Monte Santo, and the news would be telegraphed to the entire country.

The settlement was circled by an uneven line of trenches, but there was no possibility of escape. To the east was the middle of the camp. In the rear of the black line, the Third Brigade held the center; on the north the recently won positions were guarded by the Thirty-first, the left wing of the Twenty-fourth, the Thirty-eighth, the right wing of the São Paulo Battalion, and the Thirty-second Infantry. They cut across the Uauá and the Várzea da Ema trails. Fortified garrisons were spaced out along the northeast sector at the end of the Cambaio road. A line ran south to Mount Favela and the dominant Seventh of September bastion.

Even though it was choppy, the circle had been drawn around the settlement. The insurrection was dead.

Photographs by Flávio de Barros

Canudos

Monte Santo

Fire in Canudos

A fighter

Two fighters

Officers of an Infantry Brigade

Soldiers with a prisoner

Women and children prisoners

Burial of Captain Antônio Manuel de Aguiar e Silva

Ruins of the Old Church

Ruins of the New Church

Body of Antonio Conselhiero

CHAPTER VIII

LAST DAYS

I

The Defeated Resist

Something really extraordinary and completely unexpected happened. The devastated enemy suddenly came back with incredible vigor. The troops who had engaged with him from the beginning did not really know him. They had perceived him, until that day, as an astute antagonist, able to disappear in the labyrinth of trenches and lure him on, staunchly repelling the most violent charges, and peerless in his agility in surviving even the most unexpected attacks. They started to view him as a hero.

The dragnet of thousands of bayonets only motivated him and made him more aggressive in battle. And the battles continued from September 23 on, as intensely as before, striking out at all points in the circumference of the siege in a whirling, dizzying motion. The jagunços fought down the line, trench by trench.

It was like a huge wave breaking into a churning whirlpool. Dammed by the advance trenches to the east, it flowed back with a bright wake of gunfire toward Cambaio, crashing against the slopes that descend steeply to the river. Under direct fire from our mountain trenches it flowed north and then burst foaming on the bed of the Vaza-Barris until it swept over the stockades that formed a barrier on that side. There it roared south and the soldiers could see it rising and falling, in turbulent eddies, within the settlement itself. After crossing the river it rose up the outer spurs of Mount Favela, receiving fire the entire time, and then twisted noisily to the east, rushing at the left flank of the Fifth Bahian Police. Stopped here, it subsided at the barrier of the Twenty-sixth and then receded from this point to the center of the square in a twisting course. A minute later it broke against the black line. Hardly visible now in the glare of the fusillade, it surged north over the same places it had been before. Always repulsed, always attacking, the wave of jagunços kept crashing on and on, with the force of the ocean in a hurricane. Then it stopped. The furious storm was followed by sudden stillness. An absolute quiet fell on both camps. The army forces kept their battle formation but they were given a moment of rest.

Then the cannons boomed. They were firing at the new church. Above the broken cornices, figures could be seen hanging on to the swaying blocks of stone or dashing around in all directions. In addition to the spray of case shot, whole sections of the wall that had been battered by the artillery now fell on them. This was more than they could take and they were forced down, slipping and sliding like monkeys, running for cover in the rubble of the Sanctuary. But they would suddenly pop up again, somewhere on the line, and attack the trenches. Again they would be pushed back, and the cycle of rotating assaults would start over.

Those who before had cast aspersions on the burrowing enemy were now amazed. As in the former bad days, but more intensely now, they were throttled by fear. The displays of foolish bravery stopped. An order was issued that there would be no more bugle calls. The only call to arms was the one made by the enemy. The hills were depopulated and the men stopped strutting and prancing around in open defiance of the enemy’s bullets. Men of courage now crawled carefully through covered passageways, stooping and dashing across open areas. Communications again became very difficult. The supply trains were vulnerable to vicious attack the moment they crossed the hills along the Calumbi road. A number of supply men fell wounded on the last stage of the haul at the entrance of the camp.

The situation had suddenly become unnatural.

It was difficult to comprehend how the jagunços still had so many munitions after months of war. They did not ration them. On some occasions, in the pitch of battle it was as if a sustained howling wind was blowing over the camp.

The Mannlicher and Mauser made a smooth hiss; the Comblains had a vibrant hum; blunderbusses cracked as sharply as machine guns. There were projectiles of every kind flying over every point of the far-flung line: over the tents at headquarters, over the hills, to the protected Mount Favela pass where the supply train drivers and the wounded were quartered, over the trenches, along the winding riverbed and the deepest depressions. The fire burst through the leather tent flap of the field hospital and startled the patients and shattered glass vials in the pharmacy beside the hospital. The fire grazed the leafy huts and fell within a hair of the hammocks, shaking the exhausted fighters who were trying to catch a nap. It pounded like a rockslide against the walls of the engineering commission huts and first-column headquarters. It lashed the folds of the tents. It drenched the hillsides. The bullets cracked and ricocheted, bounced and slid into the schist folds, shattering them to splinters like grapeshot.

The battle was feverishly coming to a final climax that would end the conflict. But this spectacular show of resistance on the part of the backlanders made cowards of the conquerors.

The Prisoners

The first prisoners arrived on September 24.

The troops brought them in proudly. At first they had found just a few children, ages four to eight, who were straggling along the road and shaking with fear. A more extensive search of the occupied huts yielded a few women and wounded men. They were in terrible condition. One of them was barely conscious and had to be supported under the armpits by a soldier on either side. He had a deep scar on his chest from a saber wound. Another was the old dying half-breed who had tried to shoot at the soldiers. He looked like a disinterred corpse. Months ago he had suffered a stomach wound from a grenade blast. On his abdomen were two holes rimmed with red scar tissue, through which his intestines bulged. He could not even cry out. They left him in the shade of a tent in a state of agony he had probably been enduring for at least three months.

Some of the women offered interesting information. Villa Nova had escaped the settlement on the Várzea da Ema trail. The people in the settlement had been hungry for some time, since all the supplies were given to the fighting men. The most important revelation was that the Counselor had not been seen in a long time.

Moreover, since all the exits were cut off, the villagers were starting to suffer from thirst.

That is all the information they could give. They were so weak that they were barely able to talk. One of them alone was not in the same debilitated condition as the rest. He had a sturdy build, was of medium height, and had broad shoulders. He was a perfect specimen of the backland Hercules found at sertanejo fairs. His bone structure was like iron and his prominent joints were gnarled and rigid. Everything indicated that he was a front-line fighter, possibly one of the warriors who had hung like acrobats from the cornices of the new church. Although he was white skinned he was sunburned and his face was covered with freckles. He wore a belt with an empty knife sheath dangling down to his knee. They had seized him in the middle of a fight. He had taken down three or four solders and would have been able to escape if he had not been wounded by a stray bullet that hit him in the right eye socket and knocked him out. They brought him trussed like a wild animal to the tent of the first-column commander. There they released their hold on him. He stood panting from the exertion of the fight. He raised his head. His good eye was sparkling and the wounded eye was full of blood. His expression was frightening. He stuttered and tried to say a few words, which they could barely understand. He took off his broad-brimmed leather hat and ingenuously motioned for permission to sit down.

The soldiers viewed this gesture as an act of utter insolence by an outlaw.

He was brutally shoved out the door. Outside they looped a rope around his neck. He did not protest. They dragged him to the right side of the camp where the unfortunate man and his grim handlers disappeared into the brush.

As soon as they reached a clearing, a horrible scene ensued. In these cases the soldiers would demand that their prisoner salute the republic. This was seldom done. It was the customary preliminary to the cruelty that would follow. They seized the victim by the hair and bent his head back to bare his throat. Then they decapitated him. Often the eager murderers did not want to go through these gory procedures and simply thrust their knife into the prisoner’s belly, disemboweling him.

We had strong men in our ranks who relished these disgusting acts of cowardice. They had the tacit approval of the leadership. In spite of three centuries of underdevelopment, the sertanejos did not rival our troops in acts of barbarism.

II

Eyewitness Testimony

We will expose these atrocities with a deposition.

The incident we have narrated was a common one. It was minor in the greater scheme of things.

It started after the first reversals caused irritation among the troops and it became a coldly accepted practice, just a minor detail compared to the more pressing matters of war. The moment a jagunço was taken prisoner, if he was able to carry a gun they did not waste time in debate. They cut off his head or ripped out his guts. A commanding officer might make a show of disapproval but this was generally ignored.

It was a simple job. They would tie a leather strap around the victim’s neck and drag him through the rows of tents. They did not concern themselves with shocking their comrades or that their prey would try to escape. At the least sign of resistance they would tug on the halter and it would do the work of the knife. Strangulation would substitute for a beheading. They would proceed to the first deep depression in the hills, just a formality, and then would execute the victim. Depending on the mood of the assassins, they might introduce variations. It is well known that the sertanejos fear death by cold steel above all else. It is not because they fear death but because they believe that by dying in this fashion their souls will not be saved.

Our men played with this superstition. Sometimes they would promise the jagunço a bullet if he would give them information they wanted. This information was rarely given. In most cases the prisoner would not say a word, stoic and unbreakable— facing eternal damnation. The soldiers would try to make him salute the republic with vivas. Or they would mock him with insults and cruel remarks in a brutal, hysterical chorus. Then they would set to beheading their victim or hacking his stomach open with knife thrusts. This unwritten tragedy would play itself out against the backdrop of the desolate hills, spiny with cacti and rocks. Laughing ghoulishly, the soldiers would return to camp. There no one questioned them. The incident was too common. The jagunços knew full well what their fate would be if they were captured. The people in the settlement were informed about this system of justice, and this is why they put up such a fight. They would have surely surrendered to any other enemy, in light of the tortures they had suffered during this campaign, but instead they fought to the death.

When they were captured and trussed they were taken to the military leaders. By that time they were resigned to their fate. They were strangely serene, which was inexplicable in fighters of so many races and types—they were mestizos of every kind, with personalities as varied as the shades of their skin. Some of these creatures were at the lowest rung of our social ladder yet they presented an incredible arrogance in the face of their tormentors. We record one or two cases.

A black man, one of the few pure Negroes in the settlement, had been captured in late September. He was led to the presence of the commander of the first column, General João da Silva Barbosa. He was still worn out from the skirmish in which he had been captured and from the mistreatment he had received from the soldiers. He was tall and lean and his emaciated body made him seem taller than he was. His thin and slightly stooping posture betrayed the ravages of hunger and of combat. His long hair revealed only a small part of his narrow brow. His notably prognathous face was a bruised and filthy mask covered by a tufted white beard. He walked with a wheeling gait. His unstable and tottering gait, his wooly hair, the small forehead, flattened nose, thick lips, crooked buck teeth, small eyes glinting in their deep sockets, and his long, dangling arms, made him look like an old, sick orangutan.

He did not get in the door. They would not waste time on him because he was an animal and not worth questioning. The general of the brigade, João da Silva Barbosa, gestured from the hammock where he lay recovering from a wound. The corporal attached to the engineering commission, famous for these deeds, understood him at once and brought out the rope. He was short and had difficulty getting the halter around the man’s throat. The prisoner calmly helped him, tying the noose around his own neck.

Those who observed the scene included a headquarters lieutenant and a fifth-year medical student. They witnessed a transformation in the poor man as soon as he started to walk to his death. The filthy body now straightened and took on a sculptured elasticity that was stupendous. It was as if a statue had been made out of the mud. He was now erect and rigid, in a beautiful pose that expressed his pride. His head was held high, his shoulders were thrown back, and he walked like a nobleman while his eyes lit up his dignified face. He walked with determination behind his captor. He was silent, impassive. His muscles stood out against the bones of his skeletal frame. He gave an impeccable performance. He looked an ancient statue of a Titan, buried four centuries ago and now unburied, blackened and chipped, in the heap of ruins of Canudos. It was a reversal of roles, a shameful contrast.

Yet this did not impress anyone.

One concession was made to the human race. They did not kill women and children. There was a condition, however. The prisoners must not appear to be dangerous. There was a case of a forty-year-old mameluca who had been captured and brought to the tent of the commander in chief. The general was indisposed and he interrogated her from his cot, surrounded by officers. The customary questions were asked: what were the conditions, how many fighting men were there, what supplies they had. Usually the answer was “I don’t know” or a passive “Would I know?” This one was fresh, aggressive, and angry and she bluntly told them how she felt.

Their questions were pointless. They were done for. They were not our guards; they were our prisoners. They wouldn’t leave here the way the other expeditions did. They would soon suffer terrible misfortune and go blind and be condemned to stumble around the hills. Her rant was accompanied by rude and unrestrained gestures.

This was irritating. She was a dangerous shrew and should have no consideration from the warriors. When she exited the tent, a sublieutenant and a few privates seized her.

That woman, that devil in skirts, who was putting a hex on them just as victory was within reach, was beheaded.

The meek ones were usually spared but were considered inconvenient baggage. This was true of an old woman who, along with her two grandchildren who were about ten years old, was housed near the slope where the cavalry detachment was located. The children were so malnourished that they could no longer walk and they had to crawl. They cried from hunger. The desperate grandmother went from tent to tent begging for food. Then she would rush back and wrap them in the remnants of old shirts and try to rock them to sleep. She cared for them tirelessly. She went here and there, searching for a discarded shirt, a cracker that had fallen out of a soldier’s pocket, a bit of water. Bent with old age and shaking with a tubercular cough, she staggered about, coming and going. She was a sight to move even the hardest heart. She was like a ghost reminding everyone who saw her of their sins.

Decapitation was more practical, the men insisted. This was not a campaign; it was a slaughter. It was not a question of law, but vengeance. A tooth for a tooth. The ashes of Moreira César demanded that others burn. The decapitated body of Colonel Tamarindo demanded that other heads roll. Revenge had two forms: fire and the knife. They rationalized all of this. Colonel Carlos Telles had once spared a captured sertanejo. He later paid for that unpardonable lapse of a good deed. The man escaped and he was the one who fired the shot that took the colonel out of action. They believed these stories. They made them up, trying to find absolution before committing their crimes. Sometimes they deliberately exaggerated. Martyred friends had fallen into the enemy’s snares and been murdered. The jagunços had made sport of their bodies and hung them like scarecrows along the road. Their own impious acts of cruelty were transformed into pity for their dead companions, acts of remembrance. Shedding tears, they washed themselves in blood.

They did not have to fear the weighty judgment of posterity, for history would not venture to this place. It would have no time for this crude slaughter pen. It was more interested in the majestic ruins of big cities, great coliseums, and the glory and gore of classic battles and great invasions.

The sertão is home to the criminal. Whoever travels on these trails and sees a cross by the side of the road does not stop to investigate the crime but tips his hat and moves on. There would be no investigation here by public authorities. In this case the crime was perpetrated by the government. Its chief representative in Monte Santo was complicit with it and kept it quiet. The perpetrators knew they would get away with it. The result was that men who were paid to kill and armed to the teeth fell upon the wretched backlands population.

It was fitting that Canudos was circled by a ring of mountains. It was a parenthesis, a vacuum. It did not exist. After scaling that mountain chain, no man could sin any longer.

The clock of time was set back several centuries. As one descended the slopes and saw the enormous bandit hideout clustered there, it was easy to imagine a bloody Stone Age drama was taking place there. The setting was suggestive. The actors on both sides—Negro, caboclo, white, and yellow—carried on their faces the imprint of many races, which had in common their baser instincts. A primitive bestiality that had been erased by civilization was being revived here in its original form. The skein was being unraveled. Replacing the stone hatchet and the bone harpoon were the sword and the rifle. The knife was a reminder of the sharp dagger of ancient flint. The killer had nothing to fear, not even the remote judgment of the future.

Let this simple passage be read in the bright light of the future. It is not brilliant. It is not written in elevated language, because the subject is depressing. It is a blunt and angry cry of protest against the dark stain of bloodshed that we have seen being committed on this battlefield.

III

Titans Against the Dying

The battle of the twenty-fourth was the precursor to the denouement. Our attack closed in on the north and was followed by another equally vigorous advance from the south the next day. It was a pincer maneuver. The two Pará battalions and the Thirty-seventh were called up from Mario’s Hill, where they had been camped in a protected neck of the hill behind the Seventh of September Trench. They did this on their own, without orders from headquarters.

They had serious motives. It seemed to them that the fall of Canudos was imminent. From the heights of their camp, at a reentrant angle of the slope, they had an unobstructed view of the settlement below. They could see the siege lines drawing in as the fires continued to spread. It was a desolate scene. The village was being reduced to the large open space of the square. This was usually empty because the fighting men were afraid to expose themselves there. Nearby was the artillery parapet issuing the loud fire that was a stimulus to action. Below them was a constant pop of rifles and incessant shooting. They were sitting by uselessly. Even the stray bullets ignored them, whizzing inoffensively over their heads.

It would all be over soon. There would be nothing for them to do but to return home without any honors. Their swords would be untouched, their banners intact, and they would have earned no medals. The commander in chief had made it clear that he did not want to waste any more lives when the surrender was just a few days off. This clearly communicated intention was both practical and humane. But it threatened the reputation of those who had not taken part. They felt that fate had dealt them a bad hand by forcing them to accept, unearned, the laurels that their doting mothers, wives, lovers, and sisters were preparing for them in their home states. They were unable to stop themselves and they clattered down the slopes.

A skirmish began that was less of a surprise to the enemy than to our own men. It broke out along the Cambaio slopes, where it was reinforced by Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s artillery. In a brief time it spread with extraordinary intensity.

As it later came out, the impatient heroes, led by Colonel Sotero de Menezes and Lieutenant Colonel Firmino Rego, intended to take the settlement. They would race down to the river, fight their way across, and burst into the empty square. Scattering in several directions, they would continue with a bayonet charge down the alleys, cleaning them out, jumping over the smoking garbage and trampling the backlanders. Then they would continue to the northern trench and its dumbfounded garrison to the cheers of their comrades.

It was an audacious move, but they underestimated the backlanders. The sertanejos put up a stiff fight. They brought them to a halt. They hamstrung them. After a while they foiled the attempt completely. Without being aware of it, the jagunços had their revenge. There was something insolent and irritating about the blustering military braggarts, all of them healthy, well dressed, well fed, well armed, and well trained, seeking to undo an adversary that had been starving for three months, subjected to constant fire, his homes burned, his strength faltering, his blood draining away, his courage waning, as every day he sank deeper into exhaustion. They might give the death blow to a dying man or do him a kindness by shooting him, but they would not become famous for such a prank. The siege lines were narrowed but the results did not justify the sacrifices. The troops suffered about eighty casualties, including Colonel Sotero de Menezes, who was wounded, and Captain Manoel Batista Cordeiro, from the Pará Regiment, who was killed.

The enemy’s losses were huge—hundreds dead, and hundreds of houses captured. The section of the settlement that was still controlled by the jagunços was now restricted to the northern rim of the square and the huts around the church. Eleven battalions, more than twenty-five hundred men, had in the past few days taken almost two thousand houses and were pushing the sertanejos up the south slope where the Old Ranch House stood and up against eight battalions and the Fifth Police to the east. This amounted to about five thousand soldiers, excluding those who were guarding the camp and the Monte Santo highway.

The embattled settlement was now surrounded by a tight circle of twenty battalions instead of a loose siege line. They were crowded into five hundred huts in and behind the church at the bend of the river. Even this area was being shrunk by the fires. While the houses had little wood, they were steadily being consumed. Heavy clouds of stifling gray smoke filled the air. It rolled over the roofs and darkened the sky, making the scene even more desolate than it usually was. The artillery was almost silent now. Great care was required when aiming because the slightest deviation would send projectiles over their own men.

In spite of this the square remained empty. No one tried to seize the houses that bordered it on the north, in a line perpendicular to the arbor. These dwellings and those beyond them, next to the church, sheltered the last of the jagunços. The most daring of them still fought from positions in the collapsed church, under the command of leaders of no special fame. These anonymous heroes were preparing their people for death. They ran back and forth, goading them on to incomprehensible resistance, taking whatever measures were necessary to prolong the defeat.

From the twenty-sixth on, these men took turns leaving the trenches to perform other duties that were more important.

They were preparing their last stronghold next to the Sanctuary. It was a wide, rectangular pit. They were digging their own grave. Surrounded on all sides, these undaunted warriors intended to fall back, yard by yard, inch by inch, into their own tomb.

Searching for water, of which they were in dire need, they dug deep wells. The women and children, the old and the sick, helped with this backbreaking task. The ground was so hard they could not get deeper than about six feet in their effort to reach the last trickles of groundwater. Once in a while they found traces of water, only to see the wells sucked dry by the spongelike action of the exsiccating air. Thirst became the worst torture for them, with their exertions in the burning heat.

Battle became a gruesome distraction that took their mind off their greater misery. They fired in a random fashion up and down the line, without the careful aim of former days and with an expenditure of ammunition that could deplete the best-stocked arsenal. The men stationed in the new church continued to raze the hilltops with their fire while others a few paces away faced the battalions that had fought their way into the labyrinth of huts. Brutal fighting broke out. The field of action was so reduced and the alleys were so narrow that any kind of maneuver was impossible even for a small detachment. The struggle was now down to hand-to-hand combat. Some of the officers would unbuckle their belts and cast aside their swords as they began to fight with knives.

In the end, things became very hard for the attackers. The sertanejos were confined to the houses in a narrow strip of the town. The huts were packed with them and they put up a stiff fight. When the enemy did give in at one point or another, the soldiers were given shocking surprises. Even now the sertanejos were up to their old tricks.

This happened after the troops had captured a hut that had been fiercely defended. The soldiers rushed in and found their way barred by a heap of corpses. Undeterred, they would enter the dark room and one of them would get a bullet in the back, fired at close range from the pile of bloody rags. Stunned, they would spin around and someone else would get a bullet in the chest. As they cowered there they would see the phantom fighter leap off. He had fought them off from behind a wall of dead bodies.

At the Water Cistersns

The slow advance of the siege was again stalled. The vanquished fighters brought it to a halt for the last time. The situation did not require much effort. Victory would come on its own. All they had to do was to hold their positions. With all exits closed and access to the water pits along the riverbanks blocked, the surrender of the settlement was inevitable and would take two days at most. In this heat it was doubtful that the besieged could hold out that long with no water.

But the resistance continued for another week. The circle of side-to-side battalions was being broken occasionally by the sertanejos after dark.

On the night of the twenty-sixth there were four violent attacks; on the twenty-seventh, eighteen. On the following days there was just one each night because they continued without interruption from six in the evening until five in the morning.

They were not trying to tear open a break in the circle so they could escape. They crowded into the southern section of the settlement; they expected that the water pits and stagnant pools of the Vaza-Barris would soon be off-limits to them. While most of their companions were fighting and luring most of the soldiers into the core of the settlement, a few brave men without weapons, carrying empty pouches, advanced cautiously to the riverbank. They filled their leather bags in the small pools and would return at a run, bending under the weight of their precious cargo.

This endeavor, difficult at first, little by little became impossible.

When the sole motive for the attacks was discovered, the troops aimed their fire at the water pits from positions along the riverbank. They were small dark disks shining in the moonlight, reflecting the sparkle of the stars in the shadows.

When they reached the pools, the sertanejos found bullets hailing down all around them.

They approached and fell, at times one behind the other, at other times all together.

Some were killed before they reached the dry flood ponds, now nothing but muddy holes. Some were shot as they lay facedown, sucking up the filthy brackish liquid; others at the end of their errand when they were running back with full pouches. They were replaced by other companions who desperately faced the fire and ran to their deaths. What usually happened was that they would wait until the firing had died down and they thought the soldiers were no longer paying attention. The troops were now wise to the jagunços’ ways. They knew that they would come back. They waited for them, their weapons pointed, ears tuned to the slightest sound, eyes steadily scanning the darkness, like hunters waiting for their prey.

They would in fact catch sight of them after a few minutes. They were indistinct shadows on the opposite bank, fading into the dark. They could see them slithering slowly, slowly down the bank, flat on the ground, in a serpentine movement of great silent saurians. Then they would see them below, crawling along the sandy riverbed.

They cocked their rifles. They let them approach and reach the stagnant pools that were the only decoy in this terrible manhunt.

Then the rifles suddenly blazed. They blasted them. Fifteen yards ahead, lacerating cries of anger and pain would pierce the air. Two or three bodies writhed next to the wells. The others ran off, some limping and wounded. Others, running up the bank and jumping over their dying companions, would abandon all caution—swift, terrible, and defiant under the infernal barrage of bullets.

One or another sometimes escaped at a run. He would leap up the bank and then disappear from sight into the rubble. He would bring his companions a few liters of water that had cost lives. And it was a contaminated, stinking liquid, full of organic debris and the poison of ptomaine and phosphates from the rotting corpses that had been lying unburied all along the edge of the river.

These incidents were the culminating acts of backlands heroism. Their adversaries, in the end, were profoundly touched by it.

On the Walls of the New Church

Occasionally, when the entire northern line was lit up with sustained fire that was so constant it was impossible to distinguish the sound of individual gunshots, there was an intense rumble that was like an opening floodgate, compounded by the noise of the artillery on the hill. At these times the fighters of the central line would, at risk of being hit by a stray bullet, become spectators of an amazing drama.

Many came to sincerely admire these valiant martyrs. They did not disguise their feelings. The scene before their eyes immortalized the defeated sertanejos. Every time they witnessed it, they were awed.

The sinister church was a hulking silhouette against the ruined huts. Impassive before the bullets coming at them from every direction, their figures were backlit by the rifle fire. These resilient fellow citizens glided up the walls and over the mounds of garbage, climbing up the towers or dropping from them, clinging to the swaying blocks of stone like Titans being struck by lightning as they were illuminated in a flash of white light.

IV

A Stroll Around Canudos

Hour by hour it was becoming obvious that the enemy was completely exhausted.

During the day the silent settlement wasted away in the stagnation of the blockade. There was not even the occasional attack. On September 28 the jagunços declined to reciprocate the salvo of twenty-one guns that greeted them every morning and evening. That beautiful date marks the end of one of the manliest episodes in our history. The end had come.

In the camp the men were preparing for their return home. The bugles sounded freely; the men had free run of the camp; the daily supply and mail trains went back and forth, bearing greetings and expressions of longing to distant homes from the triumphant troops. Careless bands wandered around. They held impromptu banquets. In the evenings musicians played martial tunes in front of the headquarters of the various command centers.

The entire settlement was accessible and it was possible to walk freely through it.

On the twenty-ninth the commander in chief and the commander of the second column decided to inspect the settlement with their respective staffs. At first they traveled along the hilltops above the right section of the camp, then turned left and came down a winding ravine that was covered with wide strips of foliage so that it had the appearance of a tunnel. They advanced until they reached the outlying houses. There, lying in mounds of burned beams, rafters, and other remnants, they came upon the first unburied corpses. The scene resembled an ancient necropolis that had risen out of the ground at their feet. The ruins compounded the disarray of the tiny dwellings, built so hastily, facing each other across lanes that were not even a yard wide and were strewn with the debris of the clay roofs that had fallen there. They had to make long, complicated detours. With each step they took, past huts that were still standing but precarious and ready to fall, the terrible life the inmates of these hovels must have endured became more and more evident to them.

The nakedness of the corpses was one sign of this. They lay in every possible position: flat on their backs, face heavenward, wearing the medals of their favorite saints. There were some who were bent double in the agonies of death; others could hardly be seen under the piles of charred wood. Others yet were crouched in their trenches where death had surprised them. All of these emaciated, still forms and the rags that covered them spoke of the lack they had suffered. Some were being slowly cremated by the fire, although there were no flames, just smoke. Others had already been incinerated and reduced to mounds of white ashes that contrasted with the dust gray of the earth. They were like huge caricatures drawn in chalk.

As they moved on, it became more difficult to climb over the many heaps of refuse in this hellish dunghill. When they had searched the houses, the soldiers tossed everything in them into the alleys, blocking them with junk. There were broken bits of furniture, small cedarwood chests, stools and benches, food cages, shredded hammocks, cradles and hampers made of liana stalks and taquara cane, casks with no bottoms, torn cotton clothing faded to an indistinct color, battered iron cooking utensils, broken dishware and glasses, portable altars of all sizes and shapes, suitcases made of raw leather, broken sandals, bent oil lamps, exploded shotgun barrels, blunted knives, and broken cattle prongs and wagon bars.

In all of these trash piles there was not a single object that did not speak of a primitive, miserable existence. There were rosaries of all kinds, from the most modest polychrome glass beads to the most ornate, fashioned from uricuri coconut shells. There were also spindles and distaffs, tools of the ancestral craft of backlands women, which they tenaciously continued to practice, as they did many other customs. In addition to all of these objects, there were countless others: religious cards and holy relics, charms sewn into little bags, tattered catechisms, grimy pictures of miracle-working saints, crosses and crucifixes, amulets and dirty scapulars.

Occasionally the officers would come to a clearing, ground that had been swept to keep the fire from reaching the trenches. From here they could approach the mass of huts for a closer look. They approached a sentinel who said in a low voice that they should move cautiously because a jagunço was just three yards away at the other side of the stockade.

The officers, from the generals and colonels to the last man in the ranks, dropped to a squatting position and, in a comic display of heroism, they ran as fast as they could until they had passed the danger zone. After moving through two or three more alleys they found another trench. Soldiers waited motionlessly, either silent or talking in whispers. The same scene was again repeated. The visitors ran with their hearts in their mouths to the next trench, where again they found silent, cautious guards lying stretched on the ground with their rifles trained on the breastworks.

After about fifteen hundred yards, they turned left, leaving Red Houses behind. They were surprised to find a long street, the only one with a name, Monte Alegre, that ran all the way across the village to the square. It was wider than the rest and along it were the better houses, a few made of brick and wood frame. Antônio Villa Nova had lived here, and it was here that the soldiers had found the munitions seized from the Moreira César column.

Traveling down this sloping street, they could see a piece of the ruined church wall on the square. They were brought up short by another trench where a larger number of fighters were gathered. This was the last one before the church. It would have been suicide to approach it. The entire sector of the settlement ahead of them and to the right was still controlled by the jagunços.

The enemies were now rubbing elbows with each other. Through the mud walls of the huts came the muffled noises of the people burrowed there, hurried whispers, scraping furniture, footsteps, cries, groans, and occasionally the dramatic shouts, tears, and laughter of small children.

At this point they turned back, following a path to the left between the rows of huts that had been recently taken. Then their visit began to become terrifying. In recent weeks, in advancing to this point the soldiers had not destroyed the dwellings. They had just removed their inner partitions and roof beams. The mud roofs therefore took on the shape of a long barracks. The battalions were lined up behind the barricade of beams and joists, broken furniture, and other detritus. This wall wound along for a long way and disappeared into the shadows. On one side were the soldiers who guarded it. In dark corners were the bodies of jagunços who had been killed in the last few days. It was dangerous to burn them with all the rags and woodpiles lying around.

The air had the acrid smell of a cave. It took some resolve to continue through the dark passage. In the distance a pale glow of light could be seen. Parallel to it, on the other side of the jagged walls, was the invisible enemy trench. A careless move or glance over the barricade would exact a heavy price. The truth was that each side was now acting in the same way, each consumed with the same emotions of fear and hatred. As the conflict wound down to its grim conclusion, each held the other in fear and both were anxious to avoid combat. Instead they lured each other on, making a wily show of inactivity. Facing each other off, idle most of the time, they both seemed to suffer from exhaustion. Their major activity was to spy on each other. There could be no better setting than this manure pile of rags and corpses, submerged in a dark cave, to reveal to the army soldiers and the sertanejos alike the ugly side of heroism.

The officers moved quietly down this morbid passageway. Soldiers were about. They were ragged and unwashed, without uniforms or caps, wearing straw or leather hats and worn-out sandals. They were dressed like the enemy. It was easy to believe that a jagunço could pass unnoticed through this area and take his place with the soldiers to escape the horrors of the siege. This would have been easy because these were mixed detachments, comprising men from several different battalions. Lack of mil- itary training would not have been an issue because all discipline had been let go. There were no more reviews, formations, bugle calls, or orders. As soon as the cartridges were distributed, each one took his place at that wall made of junk and dead bodies, and prepared for what might come.

Rations were abundant now. When they were distributed, each man made his own meal as he could. Here and there at the back of the line or on small improvised shelves, kettles boiled for coffee, cooking pots sat on a fire, and huge sides of beef roasted over the braziers. Groups of fighters squatted with rifles in hand, preparing their lunch or dinner. Occasionally the sound of firing interrupted their meal. Bullets whined overhead, splintered the overhead beams, shattered walls, overturned the cook pots, and scattered the soldiers. They would jump up, toss aside their jugs of jacuba juice and their slices of beef, and run for the stockade. A quick reply would come from the other side of the barricade. Those already positioned there would fire at the opposite side, from wherever the attack had originated. A spasm shook the tunnel from one side to the other as a furious battle began between opponents who could not see each other.

There were a number of killed or wounded, two or three more huts were taken, and the trench of junk extended the line. The fighters who had pursued the enemy returned to their original positions, and a formidable silence fell again on the scene. Still figures waited expectantly along the sinister hunting field, while in back around the braziers their companions consumed a light meal in the tragic company of their dead comrades and enemies.

They now left this segment of the siege line, which cordoned off almost the entire northern quarter of the settlement, and continued their inspection in daylight. They passed sad-looking kitchen gardens with fallen enclosures and trampled beds. There was not a blossom in sight and garbage was everywhere. On these piles were more bodies, some with their legs sticking straight up in the air, bare arms in attitudes of anguish, palms flat or twisted and clutching like animal claws. They were frightening hands that seemed to gesture both threats and appeals.

They encountered some forms of life in the shape of emaciated dogs that sniffed and scraped at the piles like jackals. Some of them were feasting on their own masters. Most of these dogs ran off as the officers approached but a few ferocious curs, big bony animals, slunk off with threatening growls. They had caught scent of the enemy, the hated invader.

Now proceeding downhill, the delegation entered the deep ravine running perpendicular to the Vaza-Barris, where in the rainy season the waters ran into a channel from the slopes. At the top of the hill was the border of the settlement that had been won on July 18, and where the engineering commission was located. They could get to camp by going straight ahead, crossing the moat, and climbing halfway up the hill past the Krupps, which were mounted behind first-column headquarters. Or they could detour to the right, following the moat along the original siege line, heading downhill to the south. It was not dangerous to attempt this. The houses here were in ruins along the erosion gulley that ran down the slope, mimicking the sharp spurs with twists and bends. Most of the huts had been torn down but a few had been converted into orderly rooms for the brigades, headquarters, and mess halls. One was particularly interesting. It was a blacksmith’s shop. There were a few broken sledgehammers and tongs, and there was a brick forge, now in ruins. The surprising thing was that it contained a beautiful anvil, made of the best Essen steel, which came from the captured cannons of the Moreira César expedition.

Going on their way, they came upon the black line. This name had been appropriate early on but it seemed very inappropriate now, after a visit to the horrible trenches they had just seen to the north. They went along a ditch until they came to a broad clearing on the right. This was the square where the churches had stood. It was swept clean, completely deserted. The open space made the huge house of worship seem even more imposing than ever, with its split walls and huge facade reduced to monolithic stone blocks, its towers in ruins, and its dark nave completely empty.

A few more steps led them to the old church, which was completely burned down. Only the outer walls were still standing. To their left was a run-down cemetery, with hundreds of crosses. Stakes bound with liana stalks marked the grave sites.

Once they had crossed the Vaza-Barris, they wended their way to the deep trench of the Providencia River. The winding bed led them to the thin ranks of the Fifth Police, which was down to a third of its original strength. Then they came out on a hillside, on the slope of Mount Favela. Ahead was the Seventh of September Trench, hanging like a balcony over the view. It was a dangerous spot. They crossed it quickly until they reached the trench.

From here they could observe the settlement. It had a different appearance now. There were large dark stains where the fires had burned. The debris of the conflict had created a scene of complete ruin and abandonment.

Only the strip to the north of the square and the cluster of huts next to the arbor and behind the church were intact. There were maybe four hundred houses crammed into that narrow space. All who were inside them would not be able to hold out under an attack by six thousand men.

It was worth a try.

V

The Attack

The commander in chief proceeded to organize an attack. Since the rebels were weakening, he decided to abandon his plan to wait until they surrendered, to avoid the loss of more lives. The officers were summoned on September 30 and plans were made for an immediate attack. Combat units were quickly assembled and they were assigned positions for the next day. The battalion charts indicated there were 5,871 men under arms on September 30.

The assault was going to be led by the Third and the Sixth brigades under the commands of Lieutenant Colonel Dantas Barreto and Colonel João César de Sampaio. The first detachment was made up of seasoned veterans who had been constantly skirmishing with the enemy. The second, comprising new recruits, was eager to match its strength with the jagunços. The Third Brigade moved from its original position on the black line and was replaced there by three battalions: the Ninth, Twenty-second, and Thirty-fourth. Countermarching toward the Old Ranch House on the right, it was joined by another brigade composed of the Twenty-ninth, Thirty-ninth, and Fourth battalions. The two brigades moved to a position in the rear and along the sides of the new church, which was the target of the assault.

This first movement was followed by other secondary and supplementary ones. At the order to charge, the Twenty-sixth of the line, the Bahian Fifth, and the right wing of the São Paulo Battalion were supposed to move quickly to positions on the left bank of the Vaza-Barris, on the corner of the square. They were to stay there until further orders. At the rear the two Pará corps were to remain in reserve, ready to replace or reinforce the active detachments. The action was to start at the rear of the church and move gradually along the line of bayonets at the riverbank to the south of the square.

It was a strong pincer movement. The troops manning recently captured positions as well as those in camp were to participate. They were to come into action as needed or when the enemy would start to fall back en masse from the front trenches.

In addition to all these preliminary maneuvers there was supposed to be a sustained bombardment by all the siege guns. They would aim their fire for about an hour on the small area they planned to capture. The brigades were to attack only after the cannons stopped their fire. They were to proceed with fixed bayonets but holding fire unless circumstances forced them to do so. In this case they were to aim only along a meridian line in order to avoid friendly fire. When the commander in chief issued the order “Infantry, advance!” the Third Brigade was to march in double-quick time to a point on the left side of the church. There it would take a position 150 yards long, with two battalions of the Sixth Brigade, the Twenty-ninth, and the Thirty-ninth in the rear. The Fourth would attack on the right after crossing the Vaza-Barris. The rest of the troops would just be spectators, unless something unusual happened.

The bombing began at dawn on October 1. The batteries were arranged in a semicircular line a mile and a quarter long. It extended from the cannon closest to the camp to those on the redan at the other end. The Cambaio road came in here. All fire was focused on the reduced nucleus of huts. It lasted just forty-eight minutes but the effect was crushing. The guns had been carefully put into position the night before. They could not miss the stationary target.

They were giving the impenitent guerrillas a last lesson. They had to clear the ground for the attack so there would not be any unpleasant surprises. They did this in a steady, unrelenting way. They wanted no obstacles except ruins in the way of their bayonet charge. They made the ruins.

The results of this horrific battery were visible to the naked eye. Roofs were falling and certainly crushing those underneath. Walls crashed down, sending splinters and clods of earth flying through the air. Here and there, against the dusty trash heaps, fresh fires were flaring up. They were separate at first but then they merged into a huge blaze. Over the bright backlands morning a canopy of cannonballs formed. Not a single grenade could be wasted. They beat against the fractured cornices of the church, exploded in fragments, and bounced off the Sanctuary and the arbor, sweeping over the area in broad ricochets. They burst in the air, exploded in the square, and hammered the clay roofs, tearing big holes into them. They fell through the roofs, exploding inside. They swept down the alleys, blowing up the garbage heaps. They pounded this last holdout of Canudos, from top to bottom. The inhabitants no longer had any barriers or shelters behind which to hide. The reentry angle made by the walls of the new church, which was their cover from fire from the Seventh of September Trench, was now entirely destroyed. The jagunços were completely exposed to the virulent bombardment.

Meanwhile they did not hear a single scream or see a single person, however fleetingly. When the last shot had been fired and the roar of the cannons had subsided, the sudden quiet that fell on the dwellings was hard to grasp. It was as if the entire population had fled in the night.

There was a brief pause and then a bugle sounded from the top of Mount Favela. The charge was beginning. According to plan, the battalions were to converge from three points at the new church. Out of sight of the enemy, they made their way along the huts or the thalweg of the Vaza-Barris. One battalion alone, the Fourth Infantry, stood out from the rest. It was marching in plain sight across the river at a quick step, where it scrambled up the bank and marched into the square in closed ranks.

This was the first time that troops had entered the city in military formation.

When this movement was complete, the troops marched forward. They had gone just a few steps when they were thrown into disarray. Some dropped to the ground as if preparing to fire. Some fell back without any attempt at formation. Others ran ahead in front of their comrades. There was a melee of bayonets, people charging at each other and running into each other. The silence was broken by an explosion that sounded like a mine blowing up.

The jagunços were coming back from the dead, as always. They were theatrically and gloriously blocking the aggressor. The Fourth Battalion took the full brunt of the ambush and was brought to a stop. The same occurred with the Twenty-ninth and the Thirty-ninth, which received fire at close range at the back of the Sanctuary walls. On the left the Dantas Barreto brigade was stopped short. Hit on one of its flanks the brigade had to abandon its original direction and meet the assault head on, a movement that was badly executed by three companies that had been separated from the battalion. All the plans had to be changed. Instead of converging on the church, the brigades were stopped or scattered and lost in the alleys.

The onlookers viewing the battle from the surrounding hills could make out nothing through the increasing din. There was a confused uproar of rifle fire and shouting, occasionally punctuated with the sounds of the bugle. Two brigades had disappeared into the maze of huts. Against all expectations, the sertanejos could still not be seen. Not one of them was seen running to the square. Attacked on all sides, they had to make for the square where they would run smack into the army troops. The plan failed completely and this was equivalent to a defeat for the army. The soldiers met resistance they did not expect. They had not only been stopped but were now on the defensive. The jagunço s poured out of the huts and began to attack them.

They had barely been able to take the new church. In the ruined nave the soldiers of the Fourth, standing on a pile of rubble, were mixed up with the Third Brigade. This did them no good. From the sidelines, a fierce and continuous fire came from big blunderbusses. The guerrilla fighters were firing from within the Sanctuary. The square was still deserted.

The advance of the battalion was not a closed formation. Instead it was a long, fast-moving line that suddenly burst into flame, unfurling a gleaming ribbon of steel from the riverbank to the walls of the church. It was a quick, stunning movement, typical of the jagunços, an indescribable serpentine motion. It was not a charge but a thrust. For a while a flexible line of steel wrapped itself around the enemy’s holy bastion. There was the glint of two hundred bayonets. Then the Fifth disappeared from sight into the ruins.

This did not change the situation. The ruined sector of the settlement, which they thought could be taken by two brigades, had now used up those brigades and their reinforcements and would need entire new battalions—the Thirty-fourth, the Fortieth, the Thirtieth, and the Thirty-first Infantry. The attacking army had been doubled. The noise of the invisible battle rose to a crescendo. Fires were spreading. The entire arbor had been burned down. In the dense smoke, the square stood out, an empty white space.

After three hours of fighting they had put two thousand men into action with absolutely no effect. Army losses were increasing. In addition to a number of privates and lower-ranking officers, the commander of the Twenty-ninth, Major Queiroz, and the commander of the Fifth Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Tupy Ferreira Caldas, were killed.

The death of Colonel Ferreira Caldas inspired his men to an act of great courage. His brigade idolized him. He was one of the rare men born to be a soldier. His nervous, restless, and impulsive nature was well suited to the rhythm of rapid charges and the rough life of the barracks. He was the commander of the advance guard on July 18 and had come out of the deadly fire unharmed. The bullets had grazed him, blown off his hat, and scratched his belt buckle. The one that finally killed him struck him in the arm as he was viewing the battle through his binoculars. It went through his chest, knocking him to the ground and killing him instantly. The Thirtieth was seized with a shudder of fear and anger. With a leap, the men ran from behind their trench and were off, on the double, down the narrow lanes to launch a personal attack on the huts that had fired the shot. Not a shot was heard but the soldiers were dropping from bullets fired at close range. Their comrades ran over them, throwing themselves against the doors and battering them down with their rifle butts. They forced their way into the tiny rooms and became enmeshed in hand-to-hand combat.

This attack was one of the most daring attempted in the entire conflict. But like the others, it was thwarted. The unflagging tenacity of the jagunços reduced the numbers of the Thirtieth and they had to return in disarray to their position. The same attacks and retreats occurred along the entire line. The final death throes of their victims were too much for the iron-bound brigades.

Nevertheless a little before nine o’clock the army troops were given an encouraging illusion of victory. As one of the reserve battalions came up, a cadet from the Seventh placed the national flag on the rubble of the church walls. Bugles blew and a viva to the republic resounded from thousands of throats. Surprised by this show, the sertanejos stopped their fire and the square started to fill up with fighting men. Many of the onlookers, including three generals, ran down the hillsides. As they went by the black line at the bottom, they met four privates holding two captured jagunços. All around them men from everywhere in the line were running about, embracing each other, throwing up their hats, waving their swords and rifles, and running into the square with shouts and cries of celebration.

At last the cruelest of wars was over.

The generals were having a hard time getting through the surging crowd. When they reached the lime deposit across from the arbor, they were caught short by the whine of bullets flying over their heads.

The battle was still on and the square was once again emptied out.

It was a rout.

Running back to their trenches and ducking into any spot they could find, sidling up to the riverbanks, the men were fearful and horribly disappointed. Just as victory was imminent, they were mocked by the defeated as they lay dying. These assailants of a kind that history had never seen before finally understood that the enemy’s last stronghold would eat them up. It was not enough that they had six thousand rifles and six thousand swords; the strength of twelve thousand arms, the thud of twelve thousand boots, six thousand revolvers and twenty cannons, thousands of grenades and shells—all were of no use. The executions and fires, the hunger and thirst they had thrust on the enemy were not doing the job. What had they gained in ten months of fighting and one hundred days of endless bombing? What use to them were the mountains of ruins, the destroyed churches, and the rubble of broken images, crushed altars, and shattered saints? All of this had occurred under a bright, serene sky that cast doubt on their obsession with crushing a form of deeply rooted religious belief that brought comfort to their fellow human beings.

Other measures were needed. The opponent was immune to all the forces of nature and adept at havoc and destruction. They had made plans for such an emergency and had foreseen this awful epilogue to the drama. A lieutenant, an orderly of the headquarters staff, ordered up dozens of dynamite bombs from the camp. This was the only thing left to be done. The sertanejos had defied all the psychology of ordinary warfare. Their resistance was emboldened by defeat and they were strengthened by starvation.

The troops were attacking the very bedrock of our race. Dynamite was the only suitable weapon. It was a tribute.

The firing stopped now and an intense silence fell over the expectant troops. Then a violent tremor shook the circumference of the settlement, running along the camp and spreading to the artillery on the hillsides, covering entire sectors with a shaking grid of seismic curves, intersecting over the ground. The pointed ruins of the churches came crashing down, walls swayed and fell, and rooftop after rooftop jettisoned into the air, forming a plume of dust to add to the smoke. Shrieks of terror came from hundreds of victims as mighty explosions shook the earth. What was left of Canudos was being torn apart.

The battalions crouched in the alleys outside the death zone were waiting for the flames and dust to subside so they could initiate their last attacks. Beams and splinters were flying all around, and a thundercloud of dust rose above them. They were not meant to accomplish this task. A heavy round a fire swept over them from the burning huts. They sought cover wherever they could: in corners, creeping along the foundations of the huts, or running back to the trenches.

Ahead, an indescribable disonance of screams and wails, curses and shouts, expressing terror and pain, anger and frustration, rose from the tortured multitude. In the glow of the fires, silhouettes could be seen running in and out. Women ran from their burning shacks, carrying babies in their arms or dragging children along as they hurried down the lanes and disappeared into the maze. People were fleeing in every direction, rolling on the ground, their clothing afire. Bodies were burning and writhing in agony. They were human torches. Overlooking the horrible scene, running about and making no attempt to hide, leaping over the bonfires and standing on the rooftops, the last defenders of the settlement shouted and gestured. They were barely visible through the smoke. Then from all around, two steps away from the line of fire, sinister figures with masks of soot and singed chests, returned to the battle. The jagunços were back.

These men had come to confront the enemy in the troops’ own trenches. The army troops were discouraged. They realized the futility of the bombardments, the constant firestorms, and the extreme resort of dynamiting the settlement. They lost all unity of action and of command. The bugles sounded discordantly but no one paid attention to them. It was impossible to follow their signals when conditions were changing from minute to minute. Detachments from the same company would move forward, fall back, or stop, breaking up into smaller units at every corner. They would mingle with other corpsmen as they attacked the houses or moved around them. This process was repeated again and again, with the same advances and retreats, ending in dispersion of the men. Soon small bands of soldiers were milling about, completely disoriented.

Taking advantage of the confusion, the jagunços gave them heavy fire. After a while, men who did not have any cover were huddling against the walls of the few dwellings that were still standing. Others had backed off a considerable distance down the lanes to the part of the compound that was controlled by the army. This was in an attempt to avoid the danger zone, but that zone was now expanding. Men on the other side of the trenches, outside the battle zone, were falling as well. It was reminiscent of the first terrible days of the siege. The slightest incaution would cost a life.

The captain commissary of the second-column command, Aguiar e Silva, stopped to let a platoon pass by behind a corner of a hut and shouted a viva of encouragement. He had hardly got the second syllable out of his mouth when he was struck by a bullet in the chest.

The commander of the Twenty-fifth Battalion, Major Henrique Severiano da Silva, suffered the same fate. He was a fine man. In the middle of the fighting he saw a child struggling in the flames and dashed through the blaze to carry it to safety. It was the one act of heroic altruism in that bloody day. But he paid for it. He died from a gunshot a few hours later.

The battle went on. It had become unnaturally torturous for both sides.

Army losses were escalating again. The spectators, who were gathered at observation points on the hill at the far side of the camp, were able to get an idea of the extent of the losses from the lugubrious procession of stretchers and hammocks coming over the hill. Emerging from the ravine, the stretcher bearers would make their way slowly upward around the houses on the slope. At the top they would start the descent along the other side to the field hospital where at one o’clock in the afternoon there were already about three hundred wounded.

The leather awning that covered the depression in the hillside could not accommodate all of them. The patients were crammed in and they spilled over onto the rocks on the southern slope. They could be seen dragging themselves along and competing with each other for the shade of the barracks. The medical staff, too few of them, ran back and forth. The wounded from previous engagements, lying in their cots or leaning on their elbows, looked anxiously at these new companions in misery. Outside on the bare ground in the hot sun were the stiff corpses of a number of officers, Lieutenant Colonel Tupy, Major Queiroz, Sublieutenants Raposo, Neville, Carvalho, and others.

The panting, sweating bearers came in and out, bending under the weight of the stretchers. They would place them down and go back to the battleground. This funereal procession threatened to continue all day because the situation was not changing. The guerrillas continued their ferocious counterattack. Successive charges were made. The bugles kept up their insistent bellowing. Huge waves of fire and metal crashed and thundered against the floodgates they were unable to break down.

The ninety dynamite bombs that had been detonated kept exploding on and off but with no effect. They had to resort to still other means. Cans of kerosene were tossed into the houses to spread the fires. This, too, was futile.

At two in the afternoon the assault stopped. The charges ceased and the attackers, on the defensive and back at their positions, experienced the disappointment of a defeat. In the stretchers and hammocks, or being carried under their armpits by their comrades, the wounded continued the climb up the hill. The exhausted bearers were staggering, leaning against the houses for support. The bullets kept coming through the night, flying all over the camp, reaching to every point of the line. They whistled through the air, making every imaginable sound. They came from the tiny circle where the jagunços were confined.

It was a cruel and sterile battle. Five hundred sixty-seven men had fallen, with no apparent result. After the battle died down there was as always scattered fire. The night went by with the beleaguered troops keeping watch. All they had to look forward to were more encounters, useless losses, and wasted effort.

Meanwhile the situation of the sertanejos had become worse. They had lost the new church and the last of their water pits. They were surrounded by huge fires that kept them penned in their last holdout. Yet at dawn on October 2, the weary conquerors were awakened by firm, sustained fire.

Notes from a Journal

That day . . .

Let us transcribe without changing a single line, the final notes from a journal written as these events were taking place.

At one o’clock a great number of new prisoners arrive. This is a clear sign that the rebels are losing strength. They were expected. Soon after midday a white flag was raised from the middle of the last group of huts. The attacks ceased immediately on our side. This was the final surrender. The bugles were quiet. A deep silence fell over the battle lines and the camp. The flag, just a rag being waved nervously in the air, was withdrawn. Shortly afterward, two sertanejos came out of a dark passageway and gave themselves up to a commander of one of the battalions. From there they were taken to the commander in chief at the engineering commission quarters.

One of the envoys was Pious Anthony, the Counselor’s acolyte and assistant. He was a tall, light mulatto with erect posture. He was very pale, lean, and flat chested. He looked resigned but proud. His face was lit up by his intelligent eyes. He had a sparse beard. He was dressed in an indigo blue tunic and in the fashion of the community he carried a staff. He and his companions were escorted by privates and followed by a curious crowd.

When he came before the general, he took off his blue linen cap with its white stripes and tassels and stood there in an attitude of respect, waiting for the victor to say the first word. Not a word of the dialogue was lost on the listeners.

“Who are you?”

I inform the doctor general that I am Antônio Beato, Pious Anthony, and I have come on my own will to turn myself in because our people have no more opinion on this matter and they cannot survive any longer.

As he spoke he twirled his cap in his hands and looked around at the bystanders.

“Good. And the Counselor?”

“The good Counselor is in heaven....”

He went on to say that the Counselor had died on September 22 of dysentery, “the runs,” as he said it, in a grotesquely comic way that caused people to burst out laughing in spite of the seriousness of the situation. He ignored this and stood motionless. His expression was calm and impenetrable. He looked straight at the general in a way that was both humble but firm. The dialogue continued:

“And your men are not willing to surrender?”

“I argued with them, trying to convince them to come but they did not want to. They are of mixed opinions. But they can’t take any more. Almost all of them are ready to collapse. They are dying of thirst.”

“And you can’t bring them in?”

“I cannot. They were ready to shoot me when I left.”

“Do you see how many men we have, all of them armed and ready?”

“I am surprised to see so many.”

His reply was either genuine or calculated. A brief expression of fear passed over his face.

“Well, then. Your people can’t hold out and they can’t get away. Go back and tell them to surrender. They will not be killed. I will guarantee their safety. They will be turned over to the government of the republic. Tell them the republic is good to Brazilians. They need to surrender without conditions.”

Pious Anthony refused to accept the mission. He gave reasons why he could not go.

At this juncture the other prisoner intervened. Until this point he had not said a word. For the first time our men had the chance to see a jagunço who looked well nourished and who was not the typical sertanejo type. His name was Bernabé José de Carvalho and he was a second-line leader. He looked Flemish. He reminded us of the Dutch who had commanded these northern territories for many years, trading with the Indians. His big blue eyes sparkled. His flat, strong head was covered with a thick mane of straw-colored hair. He had the credentials of a higher racial stock. He was not the common backwoodsman and he was married to a niece of Captain Pedro Celeste of Bom Conselho.

He appeared to be annoyed with his companion. He spoke up, insisting with the recalcitrant Anthony.

“Let’s go, man. Let’s go. . . . I’ll have a talk with them. Leave it to me.”

And they went.

The outcome of this mission was completely unexpected. The holy man returned after an hour with three hundred women and children and six weak old men. It seemed that the jagunços were masterfully playing their last trick. They were going to rid themselves of the useless crowd that competed for their scarce resources. This way they could prolong the conflict. Pious Anthony had perhaps performed a brilliant move. Consummate diplomat that he was, he had saved these wretched creatures from the flames and the bullets and gotten rid of them at the same time.

This was very possibly a trick. We do not ignore the fact that the clever ascetic did return with the others. This was to his advantage and may be proof of his good faith. But it could be that he was motivated to make the final sacrifice on behalf of his community by returning to camp and giving himself up to the authorities. Perhaps this was evidence of his mysticism and desire for martyrdom. There is no other way to understand the situation since the other envoy did not return and remained with the fighting men in the settlement. There he was probably organizing the next attack.

The arrival of the prisoners was a touching event. Anthony led the way. His posture was erect, he kept his eyes lowered, and he walked with the slow cadence that is customary in religious processions. He waved his long staff in his hand as if it were an enormous baton for a funeral procession. The line of prisoners formed a long line that curved down the slope of the hill, kept going in the direction of the camp, and stopped a hundred yards beyond the first-column headquarters. It was an ugly assembly of repulsive bodies dressed in rags.

Our men looked at them remorsefully. They were shocked and moved. In this short truce the settlement was putting in front of them their legions of harmless, crippled, mutilated, starving souls in an assault that was harder to take than any barrage of enemy fire. It was hard for them to acknowledge that these weak, helpless people were the ones living in the huts during the three-month bombardment. The dark faces and filthy, emaciated bodies covered with wounds, scars, and gashes made the victory they so longed for shallow and shameful. They now saw the reward of all the battles they had fought, the reversals they had experienced, and the lives they had wasted. Here were their prisoners, an assortment of human jetsam. It was tragic and disgusting in the extreme.

There was not an able-bodied man among them, no one able to carry a weapon. There were nothing but women, ghosts of women, young girls prematurely aged, the young and old alike in their ugliness, filth, and state of extreme malnourishment. The children could barely stand on their bowed legs. They clung to their mothers’ backs or to their withered breasts. They were dragged by the hand. The lineup of children and old people was endless. There were few men among them, only invalids, who had swollen waxy faces, bent over double, wobbling as they walked.

There was one old man who had to be propped up by his companions and who held up the line. He seemed to be there against his will. Twisting to free himself, he turned back and waved his shaking arms at the settlement. He might have left sons there to participate in the final struggle. Only he was weeping. The others had stony faces. To these rough woodsmen, this terrible episode was just one of many tragedies of backlands existence. Some of the crowd bared their heads as they passed through the curious groups of soldiers. One was an eighty-year-old man who was not stooped like the others. He walked slowly, stopping now and then to look back at the church. He kept this up while saying the rosary, for he was a true believer. He was perhaps hoping for the miracle he had been promised.

Some of the sick could not walk more than one or two steps before they would collapse. They had to be carried by the arms and legs, taking four soldiers each. They did not make a sound but lay still, with their eyes open as if they were dead. Little children ran up and down the line, crying and calling for their parents who were either there or dead in the settlement below. Tiny toddlers were carried on the soldiers’ backs. These men who had just half an hour before been fighting in the trenches were playing nursemaid and trying to figure out how to carry a child.

There was a skinny hag, perhaps the most horrible witch in the backlands, who was the only one to lift her head and look the crowd in the face. Her tangled white hair was filled with clumps of earth and it fell over her bare shoulders. She was restless and angry, active in spite of her advanced age. She broke into a run and forced her way through the group of refugees. She carried a small child in her thin arms, her granddaughter, great-granddaughter, or possibly her great-great-granddaughter. The child was in horrifying condition. The left side of its face had been torn away some time ago and the jawbone stood out from the wound. The right side of her face was lit up by a lovely smile, which obliterated the terrible gash on the other side. This was the most ghastly sight of the entire campaign, to see the old woman barging through the line of sad creatures.

The procession stopped next to the cavalry squadron tents inside the four lines of a military square. Then for the first time the men had a chance to see the Canudos population. Aside from the ravages left by the war and starvation, there was a remarkable similarity among the facial features of the prisoners. There were few whites or pure Negroes. The likeness came from a mixture of the three races. The predominant type was the pardo, a mixture of Kaffir, Portuguese, and Tapuia. They had bronzed faces, stiff or curly hair, and square torsos. Occasionally there was a profile with straight lines, indicating that the person had come from a higher racial stock. Around them were the soldiers, also of many racial types, the white man, the black man, the mulatto, and cafuzo , with all color gradations. There was a contrast to be noted: The strong race had been reduced, in the boundaries of the square, to these indefinable mestizos, who had been broken by the war. They were broken and humiliated. From the miserable crowd came whining, plaintive voices asking for charity. They were consumed by the hunger and thirst of many days.

The commander in chief had given the rebels a truce of a few hours. The result had been to evacuate the useless prisoners from the war zone. The afternoon was peaceful for the jagunços, who were biding their time until the truce ended. The end was announced with two blank rounds fired by the artillery. This was followed by a cannonball. The defenders in the settlement again sent heavy fire to the attackers. The night of October 2 noisily ushered in a lively gun battle.

VI

The End

We do not have to narrate what happened on October 3 and 4. The battle was losing its military aspect on a daily basis and it finally fell apart completely. They abandoned the last shreds of useless formality. Meetings of the commanding officers, maneuvers, placement of troops, even the bugle calls—in fact all hierarchy of rank was virtually eliminated in an army without uniforms.

They surmised that the jagunços could not hold out much longer. Some of the soldiers had gone down to take a look at the enemy position and the situation was incredible. In a square trench a little more than a yard deep, next to the new church, a dozen fighting men who were weak with hunger and horrible to look at, were preparing to commit a terrible form of suicide. They called it their field hospital but it was a grave. There were already more dead than living in the hole. Some had been there for a few days. Their bodies formed a gruesome square in which a dozen dying men were attempting to fight an army.

They did fight, keeping the advantage on their side. At least they had stopped their adversaries. Anyone who came too near would be added to the trench of bloody bodies. Scattered over the pile of jagunço corpses were the red stripes of army uniforms. Lying there was the sergeant adjutant of the Thirty-ninth, who had fallen into the pit. A similar fate was in store for his comrades. They thought this engagement would be easy. All they had to do was take the remaining huts and crush whoever was still in them.

The terrible things that followed are buried for all time. Those who committed the acts never returned. Standing at the ditch, they were overwhelmed by the horror of it all. Before their eyes was a trench of dead men, covered in blood and draining pus. It was beyond their wildest imaginings. They were struck dumb by it.

We will finish this book.

Canudos did not surrender. The only case of its kind in recorded history, it resisted until the last man was down. It had been conquered inch by inch in the literal sense of the words. It fell on October 5, at dusk, when its last fighters fell dead, every last one of them. There were only four left: an old man, two full-grown men, and a child, facing a raging army of five thousand soldiers.

We will forgo describing the last moments. They are impossible to describe. The story we are telling was a deeply moving and tragic one to the very end. We must finish it hesitantly and with humility. We feel like someone who has climbed a very high mountain. On the summit, new vistas unfold before us, and with that greater perspective comes vertigo.

Should we test the incredulity of future generations by going into detail about the women who flung themselves on their burning homes, with their children in their arms?

What words are there to express that from the morning of the third nothing more was seen of the able-bodied prisoners who had been taken the day before? Among them was Pious Anthony who had surrendered to us in trust and who had given us so much valuable information on this obscure event in our history.

The settlement fell on the fifth. On the sixth they finished the task of destroying and razing the houses—a total of fifty-two hundred by the last count.

The Counselor’s Skull

At dawn that day a commission assigned to find the remains of Antônio Conselheiro located his corpse.[1] It was lying in a hut near the arbor. The body was under a shallow layer of earth and was wrapped in a filthy sheet. A few withered flowers had been scattered over the humble shroud. Resting on a reed mat were the last remains of the “notorious and barbaric agitator.” They were in a condition of advanced decomposition. Clothed in his old blue tunic, the Counselor would not have been recognized by those who had been closest to him in life.

They carefully exhumed the body, a valuable relic and the only prize this war had to offer. They took care that it did not fall apart. If it had, they would have had nothing but a disgusting mess of rotting flesh on their hands. They photographed it and drew up a document certifying its identity. The entire nation must be convinced that the terrible foe had been beaten.

Later they reburied it. The thought occurred to them afterward that they should have preserved the head. This was the head on which so many curses had been heaped. Since they did not want to exhume the body again, a twist of a knife did the trick. The corpse was decapitated and the horrible face, running with scars and pus, again faced the victors.

Afterward they took it to the coast, where it was greeted by crowds dancing in the streets in impromptu carnival celebrations. Let science have the last words. There, in plain sight, was the evidence of crime and madness.

VII

Two Lines

It is truly regrettable that in these times we do not have a Maudsley, who knew the difference between good sense and insanity, to prevent nations from committing acts of madness and crimes against humanity.

Notes

A PRELIMINARY NOTE

1 jagunço—gunman or outlaw, usually a cowboy who can be hired as a mercenary; in this text the term is often synonymous with sertanejo, the native inhabitant of the backlands; tabaréu— greenhorn, comes from the word tabareo, a new army recruit, and connotes a backwoods rustic, someone who is awkward and lacks education; caipira—country bumpkin, a term used in southern Brazil.

2 The author wrote eight notes to the third edition of Os Sertões (1905). These are reproduced at the end of the Samuel Putnam translation (1944, 479-87) and also by Alfredo Bosi in his didactic edition (1973, 395-99). The translation of the notes is by Elizabeth Lowe.

unconscious mercenaries—author’s note 1:

“This term has been questioned by some, but I let it stand. My intention was not to attack the sertanejos. I regret to say, this book is an open if unwilling attack, not a defense. In my seeming assault on these extraordinary inhabitants of the backlands, men with their own form of civilized existence who inflicted barbaric acts on our semibarbaric troops, I was only reporting the facts. If I were not concerned with appearing presumptuous, I would have added an epigraph by Thucydides that comes from his history of the Peloponnesian War. Even though I lack his eagle-eyed foresight, I too could claim: ‘I have not relied on eyewitness reports and my own subjective reactions; I have simply narrated the events that I witnessed firsthand or those for which I had reliable sources.’” (Putnam, 479; Bosi, 399)

CHAPTER I

1 Sebastião da Rocha Pita, a seventeenth-century Portuguese writer who imitated the Spanish Gongorist style and was the author of History of Portuguese America; Henry Thomas Buckle, author of History of Civilization in England (London, 1872).

2 Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege, German explorer who published a book on his 1811-17 journeys through Brazil.

3 campos gerais—a generic term for open country that is not forested; Campos Gerais is also a place name for the open areas of the Paraná plateau (cf. Putnam, “List of Terms in Regional Use,” 495).

4 massapé—fertile topsoil (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 496).

5 bandeirantes—members of a bandeira, or expedition of armed adventurers, usually from the São Paulo region, who went to the backlands in search of gold and precious stones (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

6 caatinga—scrub forest typical of the backlands (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

7 uricuri palms—Attalea phalerata Mart. (cf. Putnam, “List of Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493); ipueira—pond or lake that fills during the rainy season, a wetland (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 496).

8 mandacarú—the cactus Cereus jamacaru and similar species (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

9 Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, a nineteenth-century German geographer, coauthor with J. B. von Spix of Travels in Brazil, in the years 1817-1820 (London, 1824).

10 mangabeira—a variety of rubber tree, which yields a milky sap from which Pernambuco rubber is produced. Hancornia speciosa Gomez (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493, and note 16, p. 245).

11 completely unprotected from the corrosive acidity of the cyclonic downpours—author’s note 2 (1905 edition):

“This phrase has been criticized as inaccurate and an example of my scientific dilettantism (Revista do Centro de Sciencias, Letras e Artes de Campinas, No. 2, January 31, 1903). Since there is no time for extensive references, I will point to page 168 of Contejean’s Geology, which discusses rock erosion: ‘des actions physiques et chimiques produites par les eaux pliviales plus ou moins charges d’acide carbonique—principalement sur les roches les plus attaquables aux acides, comme les calcaires . . .’ Em Liais’s work on Brazilian geology describes this phenomenon: ‘se montre en très grande échelle, sans doute à cause de la fréquence et de l’acidité des pluies d’orage’ (151). The aforementioned critic gives me this lesson: ‘Rains do not cause erosion because they may contain niter or ammonium; erosion is due to the pressure of the upper atmospheric layers on the softness of the lower ones.’ This is a strange sort of geology indeed.” (Putnam, 479; Bosi, 395)

12 Charles Frederick Hartt led the Morgan expedition (1870-71), which conducted geological exploration of the Amazon region.

13 quixabeira—a tree of the Sapotaceae family, Bumelia sartorum Mart. (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

14 cajuí—Putnam identifies this as the cashew tree, Anacardium occidentale , but da Cunha’s Anacardium humilis may be Anacardium humile, a relative of the cashew sometimes called the monkey nut (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

15 macambira—a bromeliad, Bromelia laciniosa Mart. ex. Schult., common in northeastern Brazil (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

16 caroa—a sharp cactus, Neoglaziovia variegata Metz (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

17 They possess in their leaves cells elongated into fuzz, which are a notable tool for condensation, absorption, and defense—author’s note 3 (1905 edition):

“I hasten to correct this obvious mistake. The correct wording is ‘ . . . the favelas . . . possess cells in their leaves that, expanded in the form of villosities...’ ” [The literal wording of the source phrase is: “the favelas . . . possess, in their leaves, stomata that, expanded in the form of villosities...”] (Putnam, 480; Bosi, 395)

18 In addition to the botanical terms noted here, there are abundant references in the text to various families, genera, and species, including amaryllis, bignonia, bromeliads, cacti, euphorbia, Gramineae, Lecidea, Mimosaceae, tillandsia, and the like.

19 canudos—tubes made out of the pipe reed, canudo-de-pito (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

20 Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist who traveled extensively throughout the Americas from 1797 to 1804.

21 juazeiro—a tree, Ziziphus joazeiro Mart., of the Rhamnaceae family, which produces the juaz fruit (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

22 xique-xique—sometimes spelled chique-chique, this cactus is identified by the author as Cereus peruvianus and may be Opuntia brasiliensis and other cacti in that genus or Pilosocereus gounellei (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

23 quipás—creeping cacti, Opuntia inamoena Schum.; Rhipsalides—Cactaceae family, genus Rhipsalis (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

24 caatanduva—desolate scrubland, literally “sick forest” (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

25 Augustin François César Prouvençal de Saint-Hilaire published Voyages dans l’intérieur du Brésil in 1830, recounting his travels through the country from 1816 to 1822.

26 simaruba—Simarouba versicolor var. angustifolia Engl., also called caraíba; baraúna—a hardwood tree, Melanoxylon brauna Schott., of the Leguminosae family used for mine shafts, railway ties, and construction work (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

27 mariseiros—cassia trees (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

28 umburana—tree, Amburana cearensis A.C. Sm., of the Leguminosae family (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

29 juremas—acacia trees, Acacia jurema Mart. (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

30 seriemas—long-legged, crested birds, Cariama cristata, common to the plains of Brazil and Paraguay (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

31 maritacacas—Putnam identifies these as carnivores of the Mustelidae family, such as skunks or weasels, but da Cunha may mean the maritaca, a common parrot (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

32 The morphology of the land is, in fact, in violation of general climatological laws—author’s note 4 (1905 edition): “My critics have also found fault with this statement. I am challenged by a respectable scientist: ‘. . . if nature combats deserts, the geography of the land does no more than modify extrinsic conditions. If violence means modification, “to violate” implies going against what is naturally pre-established. There is no such thing as a violation of climatic laws’ (Correio da Manhã, February 3, 1903).

“This objection—which places in question the reputation of my critic—goes against all the findings of modern meteorology! Since the general laws that determine climate come from astronomical relationships, it follows that the undulations of the isotherms follow the parallels and thus are an instance of such violation. We shall not try to give examples of the particular or secondary causes of climatic variation in different countries. We could find excellent examples from Santos, whose equatorial climate is an anomaly in a latitude above the tropics, to ice-covered Greenland opposite the benign coast of Norway. Boutmy’s recent work on the psychology of the English brilliantly observes that their land on the fifty-second parallel has a temperature similar to that of the thirty-second parallel of the United States. If one follows on a map the isotherm of zero, starting from frigid Iceland, one will follow a capricious curve southward, in the direction of England, without ever touching that country. Then one will twist back to the extreme north of Norway, after which one will again return south and in the cold months come near to Paris and Vienna, which despite their much lower latitudes are linked to the frozen polar regions. The traveler who follows our coast from Rio to Bahia in the direction of the equator will also follow a line that geometrically reflects the constancy of the climate along the way. This is seen in the lush forests that turn this stretch of seaboard into a botanical garden. Should he at any point stop and turn west, along a parallel, the line that astronomically determines climatic uniformity, he will have gone just a few miles before he comes upon habitats that are completely different. Are these examples, which we could multiply if we wished, not obvious instances of the violation of general climatic laws?” (Putnam, 480; Bosi, 396)

33 caapuera—tract of land that has been slashed and burned, literally a “dead forest” (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

34 André Rebouças—renowned Afro-Brazilian engineer who was a favorite of the court of Pedro II.

CHAPTER II

1 sambaquís—shell mounds on archaeological sites.

2 mulatto—term for offspring of black and white parents; mameluco —generic term for mixed race (mama ruca, “mix product”); curiboca—white and Tupi Indian (cari-boc, “origin of the white”); cafuzo—offspring of Indian and black parents. (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

3 caboclo—literally, “copper-colored skin,” regional term for the Brazilian Indian; feminine, cabocla (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

4 We do not have a unified race. We may never have one—author’s note 5 (1905 edition):

“The same critic finds another contradiction in my work. He says: ‘. . . on page 70 [of the earlier edition] I encounter the definitive statement: We do not have a unified race. We may never have one. And on page 616 [of the earlier edition] our author declares that it was the very core of our nationality, the bedrock of our race that was attacked at Canudos.’ In this span of 546 pages (616 minus 70) it might be reasonable to expect a few seeming contradictions. However, anyone who has read my work on our racial heritage will recall that I have said we do not have uniformity of race but that I do find in the backlands type an ethnic subcategory that has been liberated from a borrowed civilization that would hinder his evolution. This is the same as saying that in the Brazilian of mixed blood I find a stable element similar to the integrating molecule in the initial stage of crystallization. It then follows that since I believe we are destined to national unity, I would be able to see in the sturdy caboclo the seed of our future or the bedrock of our race. “The bedrock . . . This is a suggestive metaphor. The truth is that our racial background, like a block of granite, is formed from three principal elements: clay, decomposed feldspar in various colorations, and bits of mica. Beyond that is the dust of pulverized quartz. From a distance the hill has the irregular shape of glaciated rock, while all around is a mixture of these elements, with the addition of others. All of these form a fertile land that is extremely complex and atypical of the terrain. Under the surface layer of the soil is a nucleus of hard, solid rock. The topsoil has been formed of elements that are scattered and mixed in a highly diversified manner because the exposed top layer retains even foreign matter that is carried by the winds. The deeper one digs, the closer one comes to the core.

“The same thing happens with respect to race, as we distance ourselves from the cities of the coast and make for the hamlets of the backlands. At first, there is a wide range of skin colors and human types. The Brazilian cannot be singled out from this intricate mix of white, black, and mulatto, which carries the blood of all races in its veins in every possible combination. We are just scratching the surface of what defines us racially. But as we travel deep into the backlands, we encounter the first stable groupings—the caipira, or backwoodsman, of the south and the tabaréu, or rustic of the north. The pure white, the pure Negro, and the pure Indian become a rarity. As we continue on, these nuances disappear and we find greater uniformity in physical and moral characteristics. To summarize, we have struck bedrock in finding the man of the backlands.” (Putnam, 481; Bosi, 396-97)

5 Bahians—residents of the state of Bahia; Paulistas—residents of the São Paulo region.

6 pampero—cold front marked by a strong dry wind from the southwest.

7 igarapés—natural channels between islands or between islands and the mainland (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 496).

8 siphonia—rubber trees of the Hevea genus (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

9 Fernão Cardim, a sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary whose travel writings contain valuable information on Brazilian Indian ethnography.

10 Adolfo Varnhagen (1816-1878) is author of História geral do Brasil. He held deep prejudices toward the Brazilian Indian and wrote apologies for the Portuguese influence on Brazilian civilization.

11 Minister Pombal (1750-77), a Portuguese minister who instituted reforms giving Indians freedom and the right to own property.

12 azenegues, jalofos—sixteenth-century Portuguese terms for Moors or blacks.

13 araxá—a high place with a view of the horizon (ara echá, “day distance”) (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

14 Pora-pora-eyma—a deserted place.

15 sapateado—regional dance that derives its name from the word sapato (“shoe”) since its rhythm comes from the sound of tapping shoes or sandals (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 497).

16 jerimum—an edible gourd (Cucurbita maxima) that is made into a mash considered a delicacy.

17 panasco, mimoso—varieties of grazing grasses, Aristida setifolia H.B.K. and genus Mimosa (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 497).

18 sambas, cateretês—folk dances of northeastern Brazil; the samba is now known as the national dance (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 497).

19 choradinho, baiano—songs typical of northeastern Brazil, usually accompanied by a mandolin and percussion instruments (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

20 sericoias—waterfowl, Aramides cajanea (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

21 Hemeralopia is day blindness, just the opposite of what is described here. Nyctalopia is night blindness. This appears to be da Cunha’s mistake.

22 caapora, sací—a goblin and sprite, respectively, the latter usually depicted wearing a pointed, bright red cap; caitetú—a wild boar or peccary (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

23 candomblé—Afro-Brazilian syncretic religion; paracé—religious ceremony of the Tupi Indians (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 495).

24 oiticica—two types of tree: the commercial variety is Licania rigida from the Rosaceae family, and the second is Clarisia racemosa (formerly Clarisia nitida) from the Moraceae family (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

25 parnaíba—weapon with a sword-length blade (cf. Putnam, “Regional Terms,” 497).

26 Da Cunha cites the Folhinha Laemmert. Rio de Janeiro, 1877, probably a reference to E. & H. Lammert, 1876. Imperio do Brazil na exposição universal (Brazil, a Geographical Sketch). An English version of the text has been digitized by Google Books < www.archive.org/stream/.../unitedstatesbraoounkngoog_djvu.txt>

27 Tertullian—early church father (born circa AD 155), quoted from his tract De jejuniis.

28 dead society, brought back to life by a madman—author’s note 6 (1905 edition):

“Our critic has yet another objection: ‘If he says that what we faced was “an unbidden armed insurrection, of a dead society, brought back to life by a madman,” then how can we have been attacking “the bedrock of our race”?’ In referring to a ‘dead society’ I was making a reference to an unusual situation. Backlands society was being corrupted by a group of insurgents. The comparisons that I draw with other peoples in similar situations underscore its unique character. In my other reference I was making a general statement and not one directed to a specific time, 1897, and place, Canudos. We find an appropriate simile in isomeric phenomena, in which identical bodies, with similar atoms in similar arrangements, can exhibit the most diverse properties. If viewed in this light, and I hope our scientific community will not become too annoyed and accuse me of obscurantist thinking, I see in the jagunço the isomeric body of the sertanejo. Antônio Conselheiro represented an ‘integration of various social traits, which were not readily distinguished when lost in the crowd.’ He is not a simple case of individual pathology. He is a product of an unusual set of circumstances that led to his becoming a synthesis of all the mistakes, beliefs, and superstitions that form the foundation of our character.”

29 An allusion to the Vendée rebellion of the 1790s, which sought to restore the monarchy in the wake of the French Revolution and was dramatized in Victor Hugo’s last novel, Quatrevingt-treize.

CHAPTER III

1 cangaceiro—backlands bandit, from the term cangaço, which refers to the assortment of weapons carried by the individuals, either hanging from belts draped around their waists and chests or in their vests and clothing.

2 Even the brushwoods take on a different appearance—author’s note 7 (1905 edition):

“This statement has also been controversial. Pompous amateurs who fear for every leaf that is trampled by my scientific dilettantism (for shame!) have objected as a body to the false doctrine [sic] of this book. They preach at me: ‘The caatinga (bad forest) is not the result of the terrain but of the dry air, whereas the caatanduvas are the chlorotic growths that result from the porosity and dryness of the soil’ (Revista do Centro de Sciencias, Letras e Artes). This is a charming distinction that begins with disagreement with the Tupi language and ends up by challenging the Portuguese language. Caatinga (bad forest!) . . . caatanduva (sick forest!) . . . chlorotic growths . . . Chlorosis in a plant means, in the vernacular, its ‘blanching’ (etiolation); that is to say, a change due to insufficient light. This is very strange, indeed, since they grow in regions of Brazil subject to a blazing sun! As for the famous ‘doctrine,’ I will say a few words. A rigorous study of our flora has yet to be conducted in Brazil. I have noted that the distinguishing characteristic of the caatinga (white forest) is a rarefied and stunted thicket (cerrado). The caatanduva (sickly forest) looks like a desert scrubland. I used the phrase in question because the flora that we reference here, unlike that which prevails in the backlands, really did look to me as I described it. (Putnam, 482; Bosi, 398)

3 taquara—a bamboo-like cane, Guadua spp. and Chusquea spp., that grows wild in Brazil (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

4 araticú—araticum tree (genus Annona); marí—mariseiro tree; quixaba—quixabeira tree (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493-94).

5 palmatórias—cacti, Opuntia vulgaris Mill.; juás—Solanum balbisii Dun. and other plants of the Solanaceae family (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

6 cumanan—a shrub, Euphorbia phosphorea Mart., of the Euphorbiaceae family; candombá—a variety of palm, likely Iriartea ventricosa Mart. (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

CHAPTER V

1 nativism—political activism based on indigenous social and cultural issues.

2 cajá—fruit that resembles a yellow plum, from the cajazeira tree, Spondias lutea L.

3 mangaba—round orange fruit of the mangabeira tree, which yields a milky juice (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms, 493).

4 pitomba—common Brazilian fruit from the small evergreen tree Eugenia luschnathiana Berg (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 494).

CHAPTER VII

1 cunanã—another name for cumanan.

2 ingaranas—Pithecellobium racemosum Ducke and other trees of the genus Pithecellobium (cf. Putnam, “Botanical and Zoological Terms,” 493).

CHAPTER VIII

1 the remains of Antônio Conselheiro—author’s note 8 (1905 edition):

“Excerpt from the report by the first column commander: ‘. . . I ordered them to exhume the body and take it to the square where it could be identified. Once this was properly done, and witnessed by affidavit that this was the body of the infamous Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel (known by his followers as the Good Jesus Counselor), I dispatched the photographer so that we would have proof that it was indeed this person.’”

Index

Abade, João

Abbreviated Mission

abolition of slavery

Académico Battalion

Acarú Range

A casca da serpente (The Serpent’s Skin) (Veiga)

acclimatization

accounts of Canudos assault

battle reports

journal entries

Açuaruá

Adamites

administrative skills

Adorno, Dias

Afonso, Paulo

African cultures

African population

Agassiz, Jean

agriculture

aguardente

Aguiar, Durval de

Aguiar, Joaquim de

Aguiar e Silva

Aimorés Mountains

Alagoas

Alagoinhas

Albertazzi, Everard

Albuquerque, Fragoso de

Alcácer-Quibir, battle

alcohol

Alencar, Carlos de

Alencar Araripe, Tristão Sucupira de

Alexander of Abnoticus

Almeida, João Mendes de

Almeida, Pires de

Álvares, Bastião

Amaral Savaget, Cláudio do

arrival at Mount Favela

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and evacuation of the wounded

and expedition timetable

and the Girard Brigade

and the Guimarães expedition

and Macambira skirmish

and mobilization delays

replacement for

at Rosário

and the Savaget column

and supply trains

À margem da história (da Cunha)

The Amazon: Land without History (da Cunha)

Amazonas detachment

Amazon region

climate of

Cunha’s travels in

and exploration

geology of

rain forest

Amazon River

ambulances

ambushes

and assaults on Canudos

and the Auxiliary Division

and battle plans

and defense of Canudos

and foraging parties

and guerrilla warfare

lack of preparation for

on supply trains

at Sussuarana Farm

at the tablelands

and water sources

American Revolution

Américo, José

ammunition

and ambushes

for artillery

for blunderbusses

captured

depletion of supplies

explosive bullet legend

and the Guimarães expedition

jagunço supplies

and sharpshooters

shortages

transportation of

Anacardium humile

Anchieta, José de

Andes

Andrade Guimarães, Arthur Oscar de

and advance party

ambushed

arrival at Juetê

arrival at Mount Favela

and assaults on Canudos

and the Auxiliary Division

and battle plans

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and the Calumbi road

command of expedition

and expedition timeline

lectures

at Mount Favela

and reinforcements

and supply shortages

and training of soldiers

and trench warfare

Andrade Neves

Angico

and evacuation of wounded

and the Girard Brigade

jagunço attacks on

and the Moreira César expedition

and supply trains

Anhangüera

animal husbandry. See also cattle and cattle ranching

animism

Anjos, José Xavier dos

annatto trees

“A nossa Vendéia” (da Cunha)

Anthony, Saint, Archbishop of Florence

anthropology

Antichrist

anti-republicanism

Antônio Conselheiro (Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel)

appearance of

and asceticism

background

and Bahian politics

and battle accounts

body of

and Canudos Campaign timetable

and causes of the conflict

childhood

and church construction

and conflict with Bahia

Cunha’s description of

death

decline of

diversity of followers

domestic life

and evening prayers

family

flight into backlands

and gender relations

and gnosticism

and governance of Canudos

Guimarães on

legends of

and mental illness

and miracles

and missionaries to Canudos

Montanism

and penances

and poverty

prisoner reports on

prophecies of

public opinion on

rumors about

sermons

spies of

and women

apocalypticism

Apóstolo

Aracajú

Aracati range

and geology of the backlands

and the Girard brigade

and Monte Santo

and routes to Canudos

and supply trains

and war damage

araticú-araticum trees

Araújo, Manoel de

Araújo, Pascoal de

Araújo family

Araújo Pantoja, Donaciano de

araxá

architecture

arms shipments to Canudos

artesian well

artillery. See also Krupp field guns; Whitworth cannon; specific guns

and ammunition shortages

and ammunition types

arrival at Canudos

attacks against

and the Auxiliary Division

and battle of Cocorobó

bombardment of Canudos

and the brushlands

captured by rebels

casualties among ranks

and geography of Canudos

and the Guimarães expedition

jagunço attacks on

and Macambira skirmish

and march to Canudos

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio,

at Mount Cambaio

at Mount Favela

and retreats

and the Savaget column

Arzão

asceticism

Ashantis

As meninas do Belo Monte (The Meninas of Belo Monte) (Chiavenato)

Assis, Dilermando de

Assis, Dinorah

Assis, João Pacheco de

Assis, Machado de

Atacama Desert

Atanásio Range

Australia

Auxiliary Division

ambushed

arrival at Canudos

at Monte Santo

and supply trains

Ave Maria

Avila (Lieutenant)

Azambuja, Pradel de

azenegues

Bagé

Bahia. See also Fifth Corps Bahian Police

and the backlands

and backlands pioneers

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and Canudos

and cattle ranching

and the central plateau

and climate of the backlands

and Conselheiro’s followers

and Cunha’s ancestry

Cunha’s travels in

and desertification

exploration of

and geography of the backlands

and geology of the backlands

and the Guimarães expedition

and Jesuits

and military response to Canudos

and mining

newspapers

police units

politics of

racial composition

religions of

and responsibility for Canudos

and settlers

and state government

and wounded soldiers

Bahians. See also Fifth Corps Bahian Police

and backland traditions

and Cunha’s ancestry

defined

and Jesuits

and mestizos

and the Moreira César expedition

and the São Francisco River

and settlement of the backlands

baiano

Baixas

and the Girard brigade

and routes to Canudos

and supply trains

and war damage

Bald Headlands

Bald Hill

“Ball and Chain” Joaquim

bandeiras / bandeirante

and Conselheiro’s sermons

and defense of Canudos

defined

descendants of

and desertification

and Jesuits

and mestizos

and rebellions in the backlands

and the São Francisco River

and settlement of the backlands

Bantu

baraúnas

Barbacena

Barbedo (Major)

Barbosa (General). See Silva Barbosa, João da

Barlaeus

Barra

barrens

Barroca

Bastille Day

bats

Battle of Coxomongó

battle reports

Bayard, Chevalier

bayonet charges

and ambushes

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and the Girard Brigade

and Macambira skirmish

and Mount Favela

Belchior Días silver mines

Bendegó de Baixo

Bendegó River

Benício, Manoel

Benjamin Constant Battalion

Big John

bignonias

Big Peter

biological determinism

birth of da Cunha

Bittencourt, Carlos Machado de

blacks. See Negroes

blacksmith’s shop

blunderbusses

Bolivia

Bolivia

Bom Conselho

attacks on

and backland pioneers

Conselheiro at

and the Jeremoabo highway

and the Moreira César expedition

Bom Jesus da Lapa

Bosi, Alfredo

Bossuet, Jacques Benigne

Braga, Thomas

Braganza royal line

Brandão, João

brands

Brazilian Academy of Letters

Brazilian Army

Brazilian Portuguese

brimstone

Brito, Antônio Guedes de

Brito, Febrônio de

Brito expedition

Brito Mendes

Broca

bromeliads

brushlands

Bryce, James

Bucelle, José Luiz

Buckle, Henry Thomas

Bueno, Amador

Bueno, Bartolomeu

Buenos Aires

bunkers. See also trenches

Burgess, Anthony

caapora

caapuera

caatanduvas

and climate of the backlands

described

and environmental damage

and settlement of the backlands

caatingas

and ambushes

and the backlands environment

and backlands violence

and battle accounts

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and casualties of war

and the Cocorobó range

as cover

and description of the backlands

and drought

and environmental damage

and fortifications of Canudos

marches through

and mobility

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

and racial makeup of Brazil

and refugees

scholarly differences on

and scouting missions

and settlement of the backlands

and the tablelands

and warfare in the brushlands

wildlife of

caboclos

and backland traditions

and Conselheiro’s followers

and Cunha’s writing style

and defense of Canudos

and diversity of Canudos

and racial development of the backlands

and reinforcement troops

Cabral Range

cacti

cafuzos

and backland mestizos

and Conselheiro’s followers

defined

and diversity of Canudos

and racial development of the backlands

and the Rock of Miracles

and surrenders from Canudos

Caipã

caipira

caitetú

cajá

Cajazeiras

cajuí

Calçada

Caldas, Francisco

Caldeirão

Caldeirão Grande

Calumbi range

Calumbi road

Camaçarí

Camarão’s Indians

Cambaio range

Cambaio road

and artillery barrages

and defense of Canudos

and march to Canudos

and military engineering

and Mount Favela

and siege lines

and supply routes

Campeiro, Saint

Campello França, Manuel Gonçalves

camp followers

Campo Osório

campos gerais

Canabrava

Canastra Range

candombá

candomblé

cangaceiros

cannonballs

Cansanção

Canudos

and conclusion of Os sertões

and Conselheiro’s army

and Conselheiro’s sermons

diversity of population

escape routes

and evening prayers

final assaults on

and first expedition

fortifications

and gender relations

and the Girard Brigade

governance of

growth of

and Macambira skirmish

and Monte Santo

and Moreira César expedition’s

and mysticism of Canudos

national focus on

origins

police force

Red Houses section

size of

temple

Canudos (Marcondes)

canudos (plant)

Capanema, Baron de

caper plants

Capim Grosso

Capuchins

caraíba

Caraíbas range

Caraíbas River

Caraibinhas

carandá palms

Cardim, Fernão

Cariacá River

Carinhanha

Carirí Indians

carnauba wax palm

Carneiro, Gomes

caroas

and climate of the backlands

described

fibers of

and sertanejos

Carthage

Carvalho, Bernabé José de

Carvalho, Martins

Carvalho Aragão, Salvador Pires de

Carvalho (Sublieutenant)

Carved Mountains

Casa da Torre

Casal, Manuel Aires de

Castro, Apulchro de

casualties

and artillery barrages

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and battle of Uauá

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

burial of

and climate of the backlands

and evacuation of the wounded

and the Girard Brigade

of jagunços

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio

at Mount Favela

official figures

at Pitombas

and prisoners of war

and public opinion

on road to Monte Santo

at the tablelands

and unburied dead

and urban warfare

Catholic Church

and backlands religion

and Conselheiro

and Conselheiro’s followers

and mestizo religion

and Montanism

and significance of Canudos rebellion

cattle and cattle ranching

and backland races

brands

and Conselheiro’s followers

and cowboys

and drought

and flora of the backlands

and the Jesuits

and refugees

and roundups

and the São Francisco River

and settlement of the backlands

and stampedes

and traditions

cavalry. See also Ninth Cavalry

and ambushes

animals stolen from

and assaults on Canudos

and Bittencourt

casualties

and cowboys

and end of siege

facilities for

and lance squadron

at Macambira

march to Canudos

march to Pitombas

and Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

and scouting

and supply trains

and trench warfare

Caxomongó

Ceará

Celeste, Pedro

central plateau

cerebral deficiency

Cereus jamacaru

Cereus peruvianus

Cervantes, Miguel de

Cesalpinia

César, Moreira

chapels

Chiavenato, Júlio José

Chico Ema (“Ostrich Kid”)

childhood of Antonio Conselheiro

children

choradinho

Chorrochó

Chrisanto (Lieutenant)

Christianity. See also Catholic Church

Churchill, Winston

cisterns

civil engineering

civil government

civilistas

civil war

classical warfare

climate of the backlands. See also drought; environment of the backlands; weather

and data collection

and desertification process

and disease

and drought

and environmental degradation

and ethnography

and geography of the backlands

and geology of the backlands

and Monte Santo

Climates of Brazil (Draenert)

Cocais Range

cochineal bugs

Cocobocó, Fabrício de

coconuts

Cocorobó range

and the Auxiliary Division

battle at

and bayonet charges

and description of the backlands

and the fourth expedition

and jagunço sentries

topography of

Coelho, Diogo

Coiqui, Quimquim de

Colégio Aquino

colonialism

Comblains

communications. See also telegraph

Comte, Auguste

conspiracies

Contrastes e confrontos (da Cunha)

Convento do Carmo

convents

coral trees

Cordeiro, Manoel Batista

Coriolano, Odilon

Corografia Brazilica (Casal)

Costa, Araújo da

Costa, José Lauriano da

Costa, M.

Costa, Manoel Francisco da

Costa e Silva (Captain)

Coutinho, J. Villar

Coutinho, Nestor Vilar Barreto

cowboys. See also gauchos; jagunços

and backlands religion

and cattle ranching

and Conselheiro’s followers

and drought

and jagunços

at Monte Santo

and racial characteristics of sertanejos

and reconnaissance missions

and roundups

and settlement of the backlands

and stampedes

and traditions

and war refugees

Coxomongó range

Crane, Stephen

creeping quipá vines

crime and criminals

and antecedents to Canudos

and Canudos

and Conselheiro’s army

war crimes

Cruz, José da

cults of the dead

cumanans

Cumbe

cunanã

Cunha, Euclides da

ancestry

birth

education

family life

and Floriano Peixoto

and military engineering

personal life

physical appearance

travels

Cunha, Euclides da (son)

Cunha, Philomeno José da

Cunha Mattos, Raphael Augusto da

and the Girard Brigade

and march to Angico

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

report on expedition

and retreat from Canudos

curibocas

curses

dams

Dantas Barreto, Emydio

and assaults on Canudos

march to Canudos

at Mount Favela

Darwinism. See also evolution

Day of Judgment

defections. See also desertions

defensive structures. See also trenches

deforestation

Della Cava, Ralph

Democrat

democratization

demographic patterns. See also race and ethnicity

Deodoro Battalion

Derby, Orville A.

desertions

and battle accounts

and battle losses

from Canudos

from expedition forces

and the Girard Brigade

pack drivers

deserts

desertification process

and geography of the backlands

and settlement of the backlands

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Guimarães Rosa)

diamond mining

Diario de uma expedição (Diary of an Expedition) (da Cunha)

Días, Belchior

Dias, Gonçalves

Dias, Henrique

Dias, Robério

Dias Taño

discipline

diseases

Doce River

Don Quixote de La Mancha (Cervantes)

doves

draft

drought. See also climate of the backlands

and Canudos

and cattle ranching

and climate of the backlands

and desertification

and environmental degradation

and evacuation of wounded

and geography of the backlands

and marches through the backlands

and settlement of the backlands

Dutch population

dwarf cashews

dynamite bombs

Eannes, Gil

earthquakes

economics

education of backlanders

education of da Cunha

elections

emboabas

Emerald Mountains

Encratites

engineering corps

camp at Canudos

casualties

and executions

and the Moreira César expedition

and railway plans

and reconnaissance work

and Siqueira de Menezes

and telegraph lines

and transportation

entertainment in the backlands

entradas

environment of the backlands. See also climate of the backlands

and backlands religion

damage to

and desertification

and ethnography

impact on history

and racial development

epilepsy

Eschwege, Wilhelm Ludwig von

Escobar, Tito

Espinhaço Range

Estêvão

Estrada, Duque

ethics codes

ethnicity. See race and ethnicity

evacuation of the wounded

evening prayers

evolution

Évora

executions

Exemplary Novels (Cervantes)

exiles. See also refugees

explorers. See also bandeiras / bandeirante; settlers

Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism (Sarmiento)

family feuds

family life of da Cunha

fanaticism of Conselheiro’s followers

fasting

favelas (plant)

Fazenda do Escuro

Felix, José “the Talker”

Ferreira Caldas, Antônio Tupy

Ferreira expedition

festival days

feudalism

feuds

field hospitals

at Canudos

at Mario’s Hill

at Mount Favela

on road to Monte Santo

Fifteenth Battalion

Fifteenth Brigade

Fifth Artillery

Fifth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and engineering units

at Juá

livestock captured from

mobilization of

and organization of expedition

Fifth Brigade

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

casualties

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Savaget column

and supply shortages

and supply trains

and trench warfare

Fifth Corps Bahian Police

and assaults on Canudos

and battle accounts

casualties

and inspection of Canudos

and jagunço resistance

at Mount Favela

sertanejo recruits

and siege lines

and stalemate at Canudos

and supply trains

and travel difficulties

Fifth Regiment

Figueira (Lieutenant)

Figueiredo, Antônio Bernardo de

firearms. See also artillery; weaponry

blunderbusses

Comblains

of jagunços

machine guns

Mannlicher rifles

Mausers

fires

First Brigade

arrival at Mount Favela

and assaults on Canudos

and the Guimarães expedition

and march to Canudos

at Mount Favela

at Rosário

and supply shortages

and supply trains

First Police Battalion

First Principles of a New System of Philosophy (Spencer)

flagellants

Flatland rosemary

floods

flora of the backlands. See also caatingas; specific plant types

and cattle ranching

and climate of the backlands

and geography of the backlands

and guerrilla warfare

and military engineering

and mobility

and Monte Santo

and Mount Favela

and prospecting settlers

Flores, Thompson

Angico crossing

death

leadership shortcomings

and morale

at Mount Favela

and road repairs

Fogueteiro, Antônio (“Iron Anthony”)

folklore. See superstition and folklore

followers of Conselheiro

and Bahia

caboclos

cafuzos

and cowboys

Indians

in Itapicurú

in Juazeiro

mysticism of

sertanejos

and the sertão

superstition and folklore of

food supplies

and arrival of supply trains

at Canudos

and foraging

and hunting expeditions

jagunço supplies

and livestock

at Mount Favela

and prisoners

and surrenders from Canudos

foraging parties

Fortieth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and the Guimarães expedition

and Macambira skirmish

fortifications. See also trenches

fossils

Fouillée, Alfred Jules Emile

Fourteenth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and march to Canudos

at Mount Favela

and organization of fourth expedition

Fourth Battalion

Fourth Brigade

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Savaget column

France

Franciscans

Franco, Pedreira

free love

Frei Caneca Battalion

French Revolution

Freyre, Gilberto

friagem

Furna Range

furos

Gama, Alfredo

Gamo, José (“Joe Buck”)

Garcia, Miguel

Garcia d’Ávila

gauchos

and Carlos Telles

fighting skills of

and jagunços

and lancer squadron

language of

Sarmiento on

Gazeta da tarde

Gazeta de Notícias

gender relations in Canudos

geography of the backlands

backlands as terra incognita

categorization of the backlands

central plateau described

and class structure

and the Cocorobó range

and desertification

and environmental degradation

and flora of the backlands

and gateway to the backlands

and geology of the backlands

and march to Canudos

and military engineering

and military tactics

and Monte Santo

and Mount Cambaio

and Mount Favela

and railways

and São Paulo

and the Vaza-Barris River

geology of the backlands

and the Calumbi road

and climate of the backlands

and the Cocorobó range

and construction of fortifications

and fossils

general description

geologic past of the backlands

and gold

and Minas Gerais

and Mount Favela

and Paulo Afonso

and Rio Grande do Sul

and rock erosion

and the São Francisco River

and settlers

Geral Range

Gerber, Johann Gottfried Heinrich

German Renaissance

Girard, Miguel Maria

Girard Brigade

arrival at Canudos

and the Auxiliary Division

march to Canudos

Gitirana farm

Glimmer expedition

gnosticism

Gobineau, Joseph Arthur, Comte de

Goes, Collatino

Goiás

gold

and geology of the backlands

and history of backland conflicts

and jagunço honor

and settlement of the backlands

Gonçalves, Antão

Gonçalves, Bento Tomas

Gonçalves, Manuel

Gouveia, Ignacio Henrique de

and assaults on Canudos

and march to Canudos

march to Pitombas

and organization of fourth expedition

graffiti

Grande Range

Grande sertão: Veredas (Guimarães Rosa)

Grão Mogol Range

grenades

and assaults on Canudos

at Canudos

casualties from

at Cocorobó

fired on Canudos

and Krupp canons

at Mount Cambaio

and the Whitworth

Grosso, Mato

Guaíra

Guarani Indians

Guedes, José

guerrilla warfare

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and the caatingas

and command of expeditions

historical development of

and organization of expeditions

and the Savaget column

Guerreiro, Ignacio Mendes

Guianas

Guimarães Rosa, João

Gumplowicz, Ludwig

gunpowder

Gutierrez

habitats. See also environment

of the backlands

hand-to-hand combat

and assaults on Canudos

and attacks on artillery

and battle accounts

at Battle of Cocorobó

casualties of

and defense of Canudos

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

at Uauá

Hartt, Charles Frederick

Hausa blacks

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

heliotropes

hemeralopia

Herschel, Sir William

Historical and Geographic Institute

History of Civilization in England (Buckle)

Hobbes, Thomas

Holy Week

Homo afarensis

horsemanship

hospitals

Hours of Mary

human sacrifice

Humboldt, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von

hunting parties

Huxley, Thomas Henry

hydrography

hygrometers

hygroscopic capacity

Iberian Peninsula

ideational hallucination

ideology

igapós

igarapés

Iguaçú River

immigration

India

Indians. See also caboclos; indigenous population

and backland rebellions

and backlands settlers

and Bahia

and cafuzos

Carirí

and Conselheiro’s followers

and Conselheiro’s followers

and cowboys

and environment of the backlands

Guarani

and jagunços

and Jesuits

and juremas

and mestizo religion

and military recruitment

and mulattoes

Potiguara

and prejudice

and prisoners of war

and racial development of the backlands

rights of

and the São Francisco River

Tabajara

Tapuia

Tupi

Tupinquims

and Uauá

indigenous population. See also Indians

and the backlands environment

and caatanduvas

and Cunha’s portrayal

and ipueiras

and Jesuits

and nativism

and racial development of the backlands

and settlement of the backlands

and the Vaza-Barris River

Indumea

industrialism

infirmaries. See also hospitals

ingaranas

Inhambupe

Inhanduhy

Instituto Politécnico

insurgency

intelligence. See scouting and reconnaissance

International Union of Friends

ipueiras

Ipueiras (farm)

Irapiranga River

Iron Anthony

irons (brands)

irrigation

Itabaiana

Itamaracá

Itapicurúaçú River

Itapicurú de Cima

Itapicurú River

Itapicurú (town)

and Conselheiro’s followers

and Conselheiro’s travels

and growth of Canudos

and the Jesuits

and reinforcement troops

and settlement of the backlands

Itararé

Itiúba Range

jacaré

Jacobina

Jacobina Mountains

Jacobinism

Jacuricí

jaguars

jagunços. See also cowboys

ambushes

and assaults on Canudos

attacks on artillery

and the Auxiliary Division

and banditry

and battle of Uauá

bravery of

and Brazilian politics

and Canudos Campaign timetable

and class structure

clothing of

and conflict timetable

and Conselheiro’s army

control of Monte Santo

defined

described

and diversity of Canudos

and end of siege

and ethnic makeup of the backlands

and expedition’s march to Canudos

and governance of Canudos

and growth of Canudos

and guerrilla warfare

and hand-to-hand combat

and Juazeiro

leader killed

leather armor

and military tactics

and monarchism

at Mount Cambaio

at Mount Favela

myths of

origin of

and racial characteristics

and rebellions

response to expeditions

and retreats

and scouting missions

and superstition

and supply routes

at the tablelands

and urban warfare

Vendée rebellion compared to

jalofos

Januária

Jaret, Margaret E.

Jequitaia

Jequitinhonha River

Jeremoabo

backlands as terra incognita

flatlands

and the Guimarães expedition

jagunço control of

and the Jesuits

and the Moreira César expedition

and rivers of the backlands

sertão at

Jeremoabo highway

and assaults on Canudos

and the Cocorobó range

and growth of Canudos

and Uauá

jerimum

Jesuíno, Domingos

Jesuits. See also missions and missionaries

Jewish War (Josephus)

João VI

Joaquim

John III

Jornal do Brasil

Josephus

journalism

Journey around Brazil (Fonseca)

Juá

juás

Juazeiro

army crossing to

and causes of the Canudos conflict

and Conselheiro’s followers

expedition camps at

and geology of the backlands

and the Guimarães expedition

and jagunços

and the São Francisco River

and settlement of the backlands

and supplies to Canudos

juazeiros

and Canudos structures

and climate of the backlands

described

on the Rosário road

and the sertão

Judaism

Juetê

jujubes

juremas

Kapuściński, Ryszard

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb

Krupp field guns

and the Auxiliary Division

barrages on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and the Brito expedition

captured

of first expedition

and the Guimarães expedition

and inspection of Canudos

and march to Canudos

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

and the Savaget column

Lagem de Dentro

La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World) (Vargas Llosa)

Lajedo range

Lake Cipó

Lake Laje

Lalau

La Nación

Lancastro, João de

lance squadron

and assaults on Canudos

and bayonet charges

and foraging parties

formation of

and trench warfare

landowners

Lapa

The Last Expedition to Canudos (Dantas Barreto)

Latin America

Leal, Pedro Barbosa

Leal, Wenceslau

Leão, Mariza

Leaves of Grass (Whitman)

legal conflicts

Leite, Domingos Alves

Leite, João Antunes

Leme, País

Lençois

Leoni, Arlindo

Levine, Robert M.

Liais, Em

liana

fibers of

furniture made of

and grave sites

and jagunço traps

and litters for the wounded

and mobility in battle

Siqueira de Menezes on

as writing instrument

Liberdade

Lima, Cunha

Lisboa, João Francisco

Little Cistern

Little Tablelands

llanos

Lobo, Joaquim Pereira

logistics. See also food supplies; military engineering; supplies for expeditions

and ammunition shortages

and Bittencourt

and Bittencourt

and first expedition’s march to Canudos

and guerrilla warfare

and the Guimarães expedition

and military engineering

and railways

and sappers

Lopes, Vicente

Lopes range

Losch, Paul

Louis XI

Lowe, Alan

Lowe, Elizabeth

Lund, Wilhelm

Lusitanians

lynchings

Maçacará

Maçacará road

Macambira, Joaquim

Macambira River

macambiras

Macambira (town)

Macambira valley

Macaúbas

machine guns

and assaults on Canudos

at Bendegó de Baixo

and Canudos battles

and first expeditionary force

jagunço attacks on

at the Old Ranch House

at Pitombas

and the second expedition

Maciel, Antônio

Maciel, Helena

Maciel, Miguel Carlos

Maciel, Vicente Mendes

Madeira

Magalhães, Benjamin Constant Botelho de

Magalhães, Henrique José de

malocas

mamelucos

and infantry charges

and mestizos

and the Pedra Bonita

prisoners of war

and racial development of the backlands

and rebellions in the backlands

and the São Francisco River

and settlement of the backlands

mandacarús (Cereus jamacaru)

and climate of the backlands

described

and geology of the backlands

on the Rosário road

and the sertão

and settlement of the backlands

Siqueira de Menezes on

as water source

mangabas

mangabeiras

Manichaeans

Mannlicher rifles

and Canudos battles

captured by jagunços

and casualties

and first expeditionary force

and jagunço resistance

and the Moreira César expedition

and prisoners from Canudos

Manoel I

Manoel the Crate

Mantiqueira ledge

Mara, Frederico

Maranhão

and cowboys

and the Guimarães expedition

and Jesuits

and racial development

and settlement of the backlands

Marc-Aurèle

Marcondes, Ayrton

Marcus

marí

Maria II

Mari Mucambo

Marino, Candido José

Mario’s Hill

encampments at

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Moreira César expedition

and trenches

mariseiros

maritacacas

marriages

martial law

Martins, Oliveira

Martius, Carl Friedrich Philipp von

martyrdom

Masada

Masonry

massapé

Massete

Mata da Corda

Mato Grosso

Maudsley, Henry

Mauritia

Mausers

McCoy, Terry

Medeiros, Joaquim Manoel de

and assaults on Canudos

march to Canudos

and organization of expeditions

and supply trains

Melchiades (Sublieutenant)

Melocacti

Mendes, Fructuoso

Menezes, José Joaquim de

Menezes, José Sotero de

mental illness

and Conselheiro

and the Girard Brigade

and the Girard Brigade

and Moreira César

mercenaries

Mesquita, Carlos Frederico de

mestizos

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and cattle ranching

and defense of Canudos

and diversity of Canudos

and growth of Canudos

in the Moreira César expedition

Pajehú

and racial features

and rebellions in the backlands

religion

and surrenders from Canudos

Meyer, Adolf Bernhard

Middle Ages

migrants. See also bandeiras / bandeirante

Military Club

military engineering

Cunha’s career in

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Moreira César expedition

and railway plans

and reconnaissance missions

and routes to Canudos

and sappers

military history

military tactics

and assaults on Canudos

and attacks on artillery

and classical warfare

and geography of the backlands

guerrilla warfare

jagunço tactics,

jagunço tactics

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio

Prussian military tactics

and psychology of the Brazilian soldier

sertanejos tactics

vulnerable maneuvers

mimoso

Minas Gerais

and the central plateau

and climate of the backlands

and geology of the backlands

and racial makeup of Brazil

and support for Conselheiro

and the Tietê River

Minas massif

mining industry

Ministry of the Exterior

miracles

miscegenation

missions and missionaries. See also Jesuits

and backlands religion

to Canudos

and Conselheiro

missions to Canudos

and Monte Santo

and racial development of the backlands

and settlement of the backlands

Mississippi Valley

mocos

monarchism. See also anti-republicanism

and military recruitment

and public opinion

and Salvador

monasteries

Monk of Paraná

monk’s head

monsoons

Montanism

Montanus

Monte Alegre

Monte Alto

Monte Marciano, João Evangelista de

Monte Santo

and the Auxiliary Division

and backland pioneers

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and climate of the backlands

and communication lines

Conselheiro at

and description of the backlands

and engineering efforts

and evacuation of wounded

expedition’s arrival at

and geology of the backlands

and the Girard Brigade

and the Guimarães expedition

insurrection at

jagunço control of

and the Jeremoabo highway

and the Moreira César expedition

and preparations for battle

road to

and settlement of the backlands

and supply trains

Monte Santo highway

Moorish culture

Morais, Prudente de

Moréia, Belchior Dias

Moréia mines

Moreira César, Antônio

and attack on Canudos

background

and backlander weaponry

body abandoned

and Canudos battle plan

death

and epilepsy

and expedition timetable

impulsive nature of

march to Canudos

and military tactics

munitions captured from

organization of expedition

and psychology of the Brazilian soldier

Moreira César Battalion

Moreira da Cunha, Eudóxia

Mornay, A. F.

Morton, Samuel George

Mota, Chiquinho da

Mota, João da

Mount Aracati

Mount Caldas volcano

Mount Cambaio

artillery on

casualties at

and defense of Canudos

first engagement at

and geography of the backlands

and the Guimarães expedition

munitions wasted at

and siege of Canudos

and the Vaza-Barris River

Mount Favela

artillery on

and assaults on Canudos,

and assaults on Canudos

and battle accounts

and battle accounts

and climate of the backlands

and description of the backlands

fortification on

and growth of Canudos

and the Guimarães expedition

and jagunço sentries

and Macambira skirmish

and missionaries to Canudos

and the Moreira César expedition

and origins of Canudos

and the Savaget column

and siege strategy

skirmishes at

stalemate at

and supply trains

trap at

and trench warfare

and the Vaza-Barris River

Mount Itataia

Mount Piquaraçá. See also Monte Santo

Moura, Trajano de

Mucuim River

mulattoes

defined

Pious Anthony

and racial development of the backlands

and racial mix of the backlands

and surrenders from Canudos

mules

Murrow, Edward R.

music and song

mutans

mysticism. See also superstition and folklore

and backlands religion

of Conselheiro

Conselheiro’s followers

and martyrdom

and mestizo religion

and Pious Anthony

of sertanejos

mythology. See also mysticism; superstition and folklore

Nabuco, Joaquim

Napoléon

Nascimento, Alfredo do

nationalism

nativism

Natuba

Naturalist on the River Amazonas (Bates)

natural selection

Negroes

and defenders of Canudos

Estêvão

and the Jesuits

and mulattoes

in pora-pora-eyma region

and racial development of the backlands

and religious practices

Nery, Antônino

Neville (Sublieutenant)

newspapers

Ney, Michel

nightshades

Nina, Ferreira

Ninth Artillery Battalion

Ninth Battalion

ambushed

and assaults on Canudos

and the Calumbi road

casualties

dispatched to Juazeiro

and march to Canudos

and mobilization of fourth expedition

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio

at Mount Favela

and organization of expeditions

Ninth Brigade

Ninth Cavalry

Ninth Regiment

Nóbrega, Manuel da

Nogueira Galvão, Walnice

nopals

Norberto, Joaquim

Nordenfelt machine guns

Northeast Brigade

Northern Brazil

Notes on Paraíba (Yoffily)

Nott

nyctalopia

O Estado de São Paulo

oiticica

Old Macambira

Old Ranch House

and assaults on Canudos

diversionary attacks

and growth of Canudos

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Moreira César expedition

and siege lines

and trenches

Oliveira, Afonso Pinto de

Oliveira, Antônio Caetano de

Oliveira, José Pedro de

Oliveira, Martiniano de

Oliveira, Trogyllio de

O Paíz

oratorical style of Cunha

Orthodox Judaism

Os sertões, Rebellion in the Backlands (Cunha)

Ouro Prêto

Ox Lake

Pacheco, Vieira

pack mules

paçoca

Padre Cícero

paganism

Pajehú

ambushes

and anti-republicanism

and Conselheiro’s followers

death

described

and public opinion

and scouting missions

traps

wounded

paleontology

Palmares colony

palmatórias

pampas

and geography of the backlands

and jagunços

and lance squadron

Sarmiento on

and sertanejos

pampero

panasco

panthers

Pantoja, Donaciano de Araújo

Pão Branco

Pará

climate

and settlement of the backlands

troops from

Paraguaçú River

Paraíba River

Paraíba (state)

Paraíba Valley

Paraíso perdido (Cunha) (unpublished)

Paraná

paranamirins

paranoia

pardo

parnaíba

Parnaíba River

Patamoté highway

Patamoté River

patriarchalism

Paulistas

and Bittencourt

defined

and Jesuit missions

and reinforcement troops

and settlement of the backlands

Paulo Afonso

and the backlands environment

and geology of the backlands

and insurrection at Monte Santo

and jagunços

and Jesuits

peasant revolts

peccaries

pedometers

Pedra Bonita (Rock of Miracles)

Pedrão (“Big Peter”)

Pedro II Institute

Pedro II of Brazil

Peixoto, Afrânio

Peixoto, Floriano

and backland rebellions

and Bittencourt

Cunha’s connection to

and Moreira César

and patriotism

Penedo

Pequeno River

Pereira, Chacha

Pereira de Mello (Major)

Pereira Pinto, Alberto Gavião

Pereiras farm

Pernambuco

and backlands climate

Dutch rule

and environmental damage

and the Guimarães expedition

and Pedra Bonita

and roads to Canudos

and settlement of the backlands

and support for Conselheiro

personal life of Cunha

Peru

Peru vs. Bolivia (Cunha)

Phrygian Montanists

physiology. See also race and ethnicity

Piauí

and backlands climate

and cattle ranching

and the Guimarães expedition

and roads to Canudos

and settlement of the backlands

Pico-arassa

Pico do Diabo

Pilão Arcado

pilgrimages

pillaging

Pimenta da Cunha, Antônio

Pimenta da Cunha, Manuel Rodrigues

Pinto, Francisco Gregorio

pioneers. See also bandeiras / bandeirante; settlers

Pious Anthony

Piquaraçá

Pires Ferreira, Manuel da Silva

Pita, Sebastião da Rocha

pitomba

Pitombas

Poço de Cima

police units. See also Fifth Corps Bahian Police

Poly, (Lieutenant)

Pombal (Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo)

Pompeu, Tomás

Ponciano (Sublieutenant)

pora-pora-eyma

Porteira Velha

Porto, Lydio

Porto Nacional

Portugal

and Brazilian culture

and Brazilian history

and Catholicism

and colonialism

and Cunha’s ancestry

and racial development of the backlands

religious influence in the backlands

positivism

Potengy, Joaquim

Potiguara Indians

poverty

Praia Vermelha

press

prickly pear cacti

primitive warfare

primitivism

prisoners of war

and accounts of Canudos assault

and executions

and food shortages

and intelligence on Canudos

surrenders from Canudos

women and children

pro pace prayers

propaganda

property rights

prophecies

Providencia River

Providencia valley

provisions. See logistics; supplies for expeditions

Prussian military tactics

psychiatry

psychology

public opinion

and anti-republicanism

and battle reports

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and casualties of war

and civil war

and Conselheiro

and monarchism

and the Moreira César expedition

and patriotism

and the republic

pumas

punctuation issues

Putnam, Samuel

quartermasters

Queimadas

ammunition stored at

and the Auxiliary Division

and the backlands environment

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and climate of the backlands

and communications lines

and evacuation of the wounded

and the Girard Brigade

and the Guimarães expedition

history of

history of

and Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

and organization of the second expedition

and refugees

and retreats

Queiroz (Major)

quilombos

quipás

Quirinquinquá

quixaba

quixabeiras

at Canudos

and climate of the backlands

described

at Mount Favela

Quixadá

Quixeramobim

Rabassa, Gregory

race and ethnicity

atavistic regression

and backland mestizos

Brazil’s ethnological problem

and cowboys

and Cunha’s education

and environment

and ethnography of the backlands

and geography of the backlands

and jagunços

and mestizos

racial categorizations

and racial characteristics

and racial development of the backlands

racial diversity of the backlands

racial mixing

and sertanejos

and social unrest

and structure of Canudos

and surrenders from Canudos

railways

Raimundo “Crooked Mouth”

Ramos, Virginio Napoleão

Rancharia

Rancho das Pedras

Rancho do Vicário

Raposo, Antônio

rattlesnakes

Ratzel, Friedrich

rebellions in the backlands

Rebouças, André

reconnaissance. See scouting and reconnaissance

recruitment of soldiers

of Conselheiro’s army

draft

and Fifth Bahian Police

and mobilization

national effort

and Queimadas

and reinforcements

sertanejo recruits

tabaréus

and training

Red Houses section of Canudos

refugees

and the caatingas

from Canudos

and cattle

and drought

and evacuation of casualties

and road to Monte Santo

and Rosário road

women and children

Rego, Firmino Lopes

reinforcements. See also Auxiliary Division

Reis, Joaquim Elesbão dos

religion. See also Catholic Church; Jesuits; missions and missionaries

of backlands mestizos

and class structure

cults of the dead

and evening prayers

and gnosticism

historical influences

and Monte Santo

and Pedra Bonita

and racial makeup of the backlands

of sertanejos

and structure of Canudos

Renan, Ernest

rengue

republicanism

and Bittencourt

Conselheiro’s anti-republicanism

and Cunha’s education

and significance of Canudos rebellion

Resende, Garcia de

revolutionary monarchism

rheas

Rhipsalides

Ribeirão dos Pereiras

Ribeiro, Darcy

Ribeiro, Domingos

Ribeiro, João

rifles. See firearms

Rio das Éguas

Rio das Velhas

Rio de Janeiro

Rio Doce

Rio Grande do Norte

Rio Grande do Sul

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

climate

and geology of the backlands

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Savaget column

and the Tietê River

Rio Grande region

Rio Grande River

Rio Prêto

Rocha, José Agostinho Salomão da

death

and Krupps unit

and march to Angico

march to Pitombas

and the Moreira César expedition

and retreat from Canudos

Rocha Pita, Sebastião da

rodeador

Rodelas backlands

Rodrigues, Nina

Rohan, Beaurepaire

Roman Catholic Church. See Catholic Church

Roman Empire

Rosário

Rosário highway

Rosendo, Manoel

Rua do Ouvidor

runaway slaves

Ruy de Montoya

Sabará-buçú

Sabugosa, Conde de

sací

saddles

Sahara Desert

Saint-Hilaire, Augustin François César Prouvençal de

Salles, Antônio Nunes de

Salvador

sambaquís

Sampaio, João César de

Sampaio, Olegario

Sampaio, Teodoro

Santa Catarina

Sant’Anna do Brejo

Santo Antônio da Glória

Santo Ignácio

Santos, João Brígido dos

São Francisco River

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and the central plateau

and Conselheiro’s followers

and crime in the backlands

and desertification

and gateway to the backlands

and geology of the backlands

and mining

and racial makeup of Brazil

and the road to Monte Santo

and settlement of the backlands

and supply lines

and Tapuia culture

and the Tietê River

São Francisco (town)

São Francisco valley (search)

São Joaquim de Jequitaia

São Leão, Caetano de

São Paulo. See also Paulistas

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and the central plateau

and climate

and geography of the backlands

and settlement of the backlands

São Paulo Battalion

arrival at Canudos

and assaults on Canudos

and end of siege

and organization of reinforcements

and siege lines

Vaza-Barris camp

sapateado

sappers. See also military engineering

Saraiva, Gumercindo

Sargento River

Sariema

Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino

Saúde Range

Schulte, Rainer

Scliar, Moacyr

scouting and reconnaissance

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and the caatingas

and cavalry

and cowboys

and engineering corps

and the Guimarães expedition

and jagunços

and lance squadron

and Macambira skirmish

and the Moreira César expedition

and Pajehú

at Pitombas

and the Savaget column

and traps

Sebastian, King of Portugal

Sebastianist movement

Second Artillery Division

Second Battalion

Second Brigade

and assaults on Canudos

and the Guimarães expedition

and march to Canudos

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

and organization of fourth expedition

and siege lines

second coming

Second Regiment

secret associations

sedition

Seixas, Nonato de

September revolt

the Serene Ones

serfs

Sergipe

and backland pilgrimages

and backlands climate

and Conselheiro’s travels

and the Guimarães expedition

and roads to Canudos

and the Savaget column

and settlement of the backlands

sericoias

seriemas

sermons of Conselheiro

Serra Branca

Serra do Mar

Serra Geral

Serra Martins, Julião Augusto da

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and the Guimarães expedition

and the Savaget column

and supply trains

and trench warfare

wounded

Serra Talhada

Serrinha

sertanejos

arms captured by

and artillery barrages

and assaults on Canudos

and backlands environment

and backlands religion

and cattle ranching

clothing

and Conselheiro’s followers

defined

and drought

escape route

and governance of Canudos

historical influences

intelligence on

and the Maciel family

and military tactics

and missionaries

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio

and mysticism

preparation of fortifications

and racial characteristics

and reconnaissance

and reinforcement troops

trap at Mount Favela

and urban warfare

and water supplies

sertão

and banditry

and Conselheiro’s followers

Conselheiro’s travels in

and crime

at Cumbe

and droughts

and evacuation of wounded

farmlands of

and guerrilla warfare

isolation of

at Jeremoabo

and juazeiros

at Macambira

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

and the Rock of Miracles

and routes to Canudos

and the Savaget column

and superstition

and title of book

and Uauá

and umbú trees

and uricuri palms

Sertão, Domingos

servitude

settlers. See also bandeiras / bandeirante

and climate

and desertification

and growth of Canudos

and mining

and origins of Canudos

and racial mixing

and rebellions in the backlands

and the São Francisco River

Seventh Battalion

arrival at Canudos

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and engineering units

and march to Canudos

and mobilization delays

and mobilization of fourth expedition

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

and organization of fourth expedition

Seventh Brigade

Seventh of September Trench

Severino da Fonseca, João

Severino da Fonseca, Joan

sharpshooters

and ambushes

and assaults on Canudos

and church towers

and trench warfare

shrines

siege cannon. See also Whitworth 32 cannon

siege lines

Sighele, Scipio

Silva, Henrique Severiano da

silva aesta aphyla

Silva Barbosa, João da

and assaults on Canudos

and expedition timeline

move to Gitirana

move to Rosário

and organization of expeditions

and prisoners of war

wounded

silva horrida

Silva Jardim Battalion

Silva Telles, Carlos Maria da

and assaults on Canudos

and battle reports

and bayonet charges

and Macambira skirmish

and organization of fourth expedition

and prisoners of war

and the Savaget column

wounded

Silveira, Olympio da

and artillery barrages

and artillery units

and assaults on Canudos

march to Canudos

and organization of expeditions

silver mines

Simão Dias

simaruba

Simões, Felipe

Simões Pinto, Pedro

Sincorá Mountains

Sincorá Ranges

siphonia

Siqueira de Menezes (Colonel)

and assaults on Canudos

and battle accounts

and end of siege

and military engineering

and supply routes

and telegraph line

Sitio farm

Sixteenth Battalion

and artillery transportation

casualties

and march to Canudos

march to Pitombas

and mobilization of fourth expedition

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio

and siege lines

Sixth Brigade

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and the Guimarães expedition

and Macambira skirmish

and the Savaget column

slavery

smallpox

snipers

and ambushes

and assaults on Canudos

and church towers

and trench warfare

Soares, Gabriel

Sobradinho River

social Darwinism

social instability

Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

Sólon Ribeiro, Ana

Sólon Ribeiro, Frederico

Sousa Pimentel, André Jacinto de

Souza, Carlos Augusto de

Souza, Tomé de

Souza Campos (Captain)

Souza Menezes (Colonel)

Souza Velho, José Américo C. de

Spanish moss

Spencer, Herbert

spies. See also scouting and reconnaissance

Spinosa, Bruzzo

Spruce, Richard

stampedes

Stavans, Ilan

steppes

Stone, I. F.

stürmisch sect

subversives

sugarcane culture

suicide

sunspots

superstition and folklore

and backlands religion

and Conselheiro’s followers

and drought

and evening prayers

and jagunço fighters

legends of Conselheiro

and manner of death

and marching dates

and mestizo religion

supplies for expeditions. See also food supplies; water sources

and ambushes

and ammunition shortages

arrival at Mount Favela

attacks on

and the Auxiliary Division

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and the Calumbi road

to Canudos

and food rations

and foraging parties

and the Girard Brigade

and guerrilla warfare

and the Guimarães expedition

jagunço supplies

loss of

and march to Canudos

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Favela

surgeons

Sussuarana Farm

syncretic religion

syntax issues

Tabajara Indians

tabareo

tabaréus

tablelands

Tabuleirinhos

Taine, Hippolyte

Tamarindo, Pedro Nunes

and attack on Canudos

body displayed

death

leadership failures

and march to Angico

and the Moreira César expedition

and organization of expeditions

and retreat from Canudos

rumors about

Tanquinho

tapirs

Tapuia Indians

tapuí-retama

taquara

Taques, Pedro

taxation

tejupás

telegraph

terra incognita

tertiary terrains

Tertullian

Third Battalion

Third Brigade

and assaults on Canudos

and end of siege

and the Guimarães expedition

and march to Canudos

at Mount Favela

and organization of fourth expedition

at Rosário

and siege lines

skirmish at Ribeirão dos Pereiras

Thirteenth Battalion

Thirtieth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and march to Canudos

and mobilization of fourth expedition

at Mount Favela

and organization of fourth expedition

at Queimadas

Thirty-eighth Battalion

Thirty-fifth Battalion

Thirty-first Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

casualties

and the Guimarães expedition

and Macambira skirmish

and mobilization of fourth expedition

and the Savaget column

and siege lines

Thirty-fourth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

and the Calumbi road

casualties

and the Guimarães expedition

and mobilization of fourth expedition

and trench warfare

Thirty-ninth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

casualties

and Macambira skirmish

Thirty-second Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and end of siege

and the Guimarães expedition

at Macambira

and march to Canudos

and mobilization of fourth expedition

and siege lines

skirmish at Ribeirão dos Pereiras

Thirty-seventh Battalion

Thirty-third Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

and battle accounts

desertions

and the Guimarães expedition

at Macambira

and mobilization of fourth expedition

at Monte Santo

and the Moreira César expedition

at Mount Cambaio

and organization of expeditions

and siege lines

Thucydides

Tietê River

Tiradentes Battalion

Tobias, Raphael

Todi, Apolônio de

Tolentino (Doctor)

topography. See also geography of the backlands

Tourinho, Sebastião

Trabubú

trabuco

traditions of the backlands

training of soldiers

trains. See railways

translation issues

transportation. See also logistics; railways; supplies for expeditions

treason. See also desertions

trenches

and Andrade Guimarães

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

at Mount Favela

at Rosário highway

and Serra Martins

Seventh of September Trench

and siege lines

tube reeds

Tucano

Tunisia

Tupi Indians

Tupinquim Indians

Turreau, Louis Marie

Twelfth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

casualties

and the Guimarães expedition

and Macambira skirmish

and mobilization of fourth expedition

and the Savaget column

Twenty-eighth Battalion

Twenty-fifth Battalion

and artillery transportation

and assaults on Canudos

and the Auxiliary Division

and the camp at Canudos

casualties

and march to Canudos

and march to Pitombas

and mobilization of fourth expedition

at Mount Favela

Twenty-fifth Brigade

Twenty-fourth Battalion

Twenty-ninth Battalion

Twenty-second Battalion

Twenty-seventh Battalion

Twenty-sixth Battalion

and assaults on Canudos

and the Auxiliary Division

and the camp at Canudos

casualties

and the Guimarães expedition

at Macambira

at Monte Santo

and organization of expeditions

Uauá

Uauá road

Umburana Hills

Umburanas lowlands

Umburanas River

Umburanas road

umburana trees

umbú trees

and backland traditions

at Canudos

and climate of the backlands

and mobility in battle

and the sertão

as water source

umbuzada drink

uniforms

Upper Amazon

urban warfare. See also hand-to-hand combat

and assaults on Canudos

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and jagunço traps

and the Moreira César expedition

and pillaging

uricuri palms

and climate of the backlands

described

and flood ponds

fruits

rosaries made from

on the Rosário road

and the sertão

as water source

Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1897 (Levine)

Vargas Llosa, Mario

Varnhagen, Adolfo

Várzea basin

Várzea da Ema

Várzea da Ema trail

Várzea Farm

Vaza-Barris River

and access to Canudos

and assaults on Canudos

and battle of Cocorobó

and Bittencourt’s reinforcements

and boundaries of the backlands

and camp at Canudos

and the Cocorobó range

and description of the backlands

and geography of the backlands

and geology of the backlands

and growth of Canudos

and the Guimarães expedition

and inspection of Canudos

and jagunço resistance

and march to Canudos

and the Moreira César expedition

and supply routes

Veiga, José J.

Veja

Venâncio, José

Vendée rebellion

Veras, Pedro Martins

Veras, Silvestre Rodrigues

Viana, Manuel Nunes

Vianna, Luis

via sacra

Vicar’s Farm

Viera, João Fernandez

Vila do Conde

Vila Nova da Rainha

Villa-Nova, Thomas

Villar, Nestor

Villarim, Joaquim Quirino

Villazón, Eliodoro

Virgilio (Sublieutenant)

voting and elections

wadis

Wanderley (Sublieutenant)

water sources

and artesian well

and backlands flora

cisterns

and drought

and evacuation of the wounded

and foraging parties

and march to Canudos

and Monte Santo

shortages in Canudos

Sussuarana Farm

and the tablelands

weaponry. See also artillery; firearms; specific weapons

and artillery ammunition

of backlanders

of Conselheiro’s army

and logistics

weather. See also climate of the backlands

white supremacy

Whitman, Walt

Whitworth cannon

attacks on

bombardment of Canudos

difficulties transporting

failures of

fired on church

at Mount Favela

wildlife of the backlands. See also cattle and cattle ranching

Wollaston, William Hyde

women

and assaults on Canudos

and Conselheiro

and evacuation of wounded

and gender relations in Canudos

prisoners of war

refugees

and surrender of Canudos

wood rails

wounded soldiers. See also casualties

Ximenes, Manuel

Xique-Xique

xique-xique cacti (Cereus peruvianus)

Xorroxó

Yoffily, J.