Backlands (32 page)

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.

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:

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:

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.