Backlands (29 page)

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.