INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 12 



If he prefers, he can continue on a few miles to 

 Boa Vista where he may be fortunate enough to 

 fuid a truck going to the village ; or, by paying a 

 rather high fare, he may hire an automobile to 

 take him there. 



When the Tiete River reaches the town of Para- 

 tinga, it is only 12 miles east of the village and 

 at Piracema only 7 miles away. Soon thereafter 

 it bends to the north, then again to the west, then 

 to the south where it passes to the toe»t of the vil- 

 lage, before once more continuing on its generally 

 westerly way toward the Parana. The river thus 

 creates to the north of the village a "peninsula" 

 approximately 4 miles long and an equal distance 

 wide, a part of the community where the river has, 

 as it were, trapped the population. There are no 

 bridges here of any kind for many miles. The 

 river is passable by canoe or row boat, but only 

 in the dry season. At the most southerly point 

 of the curve, a shallow creek flows into the river. 

 Three miles up this creek is the village. 



From the right bank of the creek, the village 

 spreads out over a gently rising slope up toward 

 the ridge where the cemetery is located. The 

 principal street, called the Rua da Penha, connects 

 the cemetery at this end of the village with the 

 church which faces it at the other end, near the 

 creek. A thiid of the way up from the church, 

 the Rua da Peiiha is joined by a road which comes 

 in from Boa Vista. At nearly the same spot, it 

 is joined by another road which comes in from the 

 opposite direction after following a generally 

 northward course from Sao Jose dos Patos. 



This central pattern of a rude cross as seen from 

 the cemetery is elaborated in three respects: an 

 oblong praga, known as the ProQa da Matriz, 

 leads off the Rua da Penha to one side of the 

 church; a short street, the Rua do Pasto, leads 

 off this praga and roughly accompanies the creek 

 as it flows away from the village; another short 

 street, the Rua Nove de Julho parallels the Rua 

 da Penha from the church up to the Sao Jose dos 

 Patos road. 



Tlie Rua da Penha takes it name from Nossa 

 Senhora da Penha, to whom the village church is 

 dedicated ; the Praga da Matrh, from the church 

 itself. The Rua do Pasto, or "the Street of the 

 Pasture," apparently led originally to a commu- 

 nity gi'azing ground on the outskirts of the village. 

 The Rua Nove de Julho (July 9th St.) commemo- 



rates the Sao Paulo uprising of 1932. All the 

 streets are of dirt. An occasional sidewalk of 

 broken stone is wide enough only for one person 

 to pass at a time. 



Immediately behind the church and across the 

 creek, a grass-covered hill rises some two hundred 

 feet. At the opposite extremity, as has been in- 

 dicated, is a ridge. At the other two sides of the 

 village, the land also slopes in from surrounding 

 elevations. The village thus lies in a hollow be- 

 tween ridges and hills. From whatever angle it 

 is approached, one comes upon it suddenly, almost 

 unwarned by any evidence of its existence. 



That the inliabitants of the village live close to 

 the soil is symbolized in their dwellings. The 

 houses settle down into the surrounding vegeta- 

 tion and tend at times almost to disappear. The 

 once reddish-brown tiles have mildewed or weath- 

 ered into a dark gray or greenish-black color 

 which blends into the trunks and branches of the 

 trees and shrubs. The bare mud walls of those 

 houses which are without calcimine resemble 

 closely the earth from which they have come. The 

 bricks of other houses are naturally of the same 

 reddish-brown color as the soil of which they have 

 been made. Even those dwellings whicli have been 

 calcimined in white or pale yellow, with the pass- 

 ing of time and the accumulation of dust, also 

 look much like the earth around them. It almost 

 seems that the village and its surroundings are 

 one, houses and vegetation blending into each 

 other and both into the earth from which they 

 have sprung. 



On Sundays, when the farm families come in 

 to Mass or to make purchases at the village stores 

 or to visit their relatives and friends, and on days 

 of festa, there is considerable movement in the 

 village. Ordinarily, however, the streets are 

 largely deserted. Only an occasional man or boy 

 may be seen walking along or going into one of 

 the stores. Two or three men or (more rarely) 

 a group of men may be talking quietly together. 

 An occasional horseman rides into the village. On 

 rare occasions, an oxcart appears, creaking on 

 wooden axles, or perhaps a truck. The children 

 play quietly at their homes ; only occasionally are 

 they to be seen in the street. Women also are sel- 

 dom seen. They keep pretty much to their houses, 

 appearing only when one or more of them have 

 to go down to the creek to do the washing or to 



