CRUZ DAS almas: a BRAZILIAN VILLAGE — PIERSON 



43 



right angles to these smaller poles, long, narrow 

 sticks are tied on at short intervals with cipo, 

 both on the inside and outside (pi. 6, /). At the 

 points where a door or window is to appear, 

 poles and sticks are interrupted to leave the neces- 

 sary open spaces. From the ridge, poles are then 

 suspended as rafters and other smaller poles are 

 laid over these at right angles and the whole 

 covered over with either a thatch of sape or tile. 

 Sape {Imperata hra-sUiensls) is a coarse grass ex- 

 tensively used in Brazil for this purpose. A shal- 

 low excavation is then dug in the ground near the 

 structure, and earth and water are mixed in it to 

 form a thick mud which is then slapped over the 

 framework inside and out, and left to dry. 



The walls of most houses of brick and a few 

 of those of pau a pique are covered over with 

 rehoque, a plaster made of lime, earth, and water. 

 Some are then calcimined on the outside in light 

 yellow or white, especially at the front. If this 

 is not done, the dried mud of a pmo a pique house 

 gradually wears or breaks off so that after a few 

 years the house is in considerable disrejsair. 



As indicated, there are two kinds of roofs: 

 those of tile and those of sape. All of the roofs in 

 the village are of tile. Of 25 farmhouses visited, 

 21 were of tile and 5 of sape. 



In the older houses, doors are of heavy wood, 

 usually peroba or cdbreuva}"'^ In the more re- 

 cently built houses, however, due to the increasing 

 difficulty of obtaining peroba and other hard- 

 woods as the forest is cut away, cedro, canela, and 

 even pine shipped in from other areas of Brazil, 

 are used instead. Doors always open inward. 

 They are fastened shut with a wooden bar, dropped 

 into iron cleats set in the jamb. Most of the front 

 doors are also equipped with a latch and a lock. 



In all the houses on the farms visited and in all 

 but a few of the houses in the village, windows are 

 merely openings in the wall. At night or on rainy 

 days, a shutter of unpainted boards which opens 

 inward, is swung shut and fastened on the inside 

 with either a wooden catch which pivots on a nail 

 driven into the jamb, or a wooden bar passed 

 through iron cleats set in the frame. No house 

 observed on farms and only about a dozen houses 

 in the village have glass in one or moi'e windows. 

 Approximately half the floors in the farmhouses 



^ Myrocarpus Jastigiatus. 



and about a fourth of those in the village are of 

 earth and sometimes are quite uneven. The other 

 houses have either wooden or brick floors, with 

 the exception of an occasional floor made of 

 cement. The kitchens in all but a few houses, and 

 often the other rooms, especially in pau u pique 

 houses, are without ceilings and ojien to the roof. 



Most houses have been built by their present or 

 former occupants, in some cases with the assistance 

 of a local carpenter, especially with the windows 

 and doors. A farmer and his three sons, for in- 

 stance, assisted by a neighbor, are at present build- 

 ing a pau a pique house (pi. 6, /, g). "I put this 

 house \\\) 6 years ago," said another farmer. "I 

 could not afford to have it built for me." "My 

 husband is very handy with tools," explained his 

 wife, "and he did all the work." 



The walls inside many houses are bare, except 

 for old calendars, or prints of up to 20 santos, or 

 family photographs with perhaps as many as eight 

 in a single frame, or an oratorio in which the house- 

 liold Santos are kept. In several homes, there also 

 hang on the walls objects like oxhorns, saddles, 

 animal skins, or the skull of a sheep. 



In a few homes, especially in the village, one 

 sees an occasional embroidered cloth or vase of 

 flowers on a table, a crocheted doily on a cupboard, 

 or a potted jjlant on a box in the corner of the 

 room. These individual attempts at decoration, 

 however, may not be supported by community 

 standards. A farm woman, for instance, who ap- 

 parently had considerable desire to improve the 

 appearance of her home, remarked, "If I put a 

 clean cloth and a vase of flowers on the table, some- 

 one who passes by will make fun of me and say, 

 '■Casa de tapera, cheia de lusco,^ ( an old dilapidated 

 house, full of luxury). That way, you soon get 

 discouraged." 



The furniture is usually scanty and either home- 

 made or of cheap factory manufacture. Occasion- 

 ally one finds that members of the family have 

 built such articles as rough-hewn benches; crude 

 tables, made of boards or boxes and smoothed with 

 sandpaper; cupboards, with shelves for kitchen 

 utensils, and crude oratonos, both made from 

 boxes ; wooden supports for lamps or for bags used 

 to strain coffee ; and taborets, with broom handles 

 for sui^ports. 



Most of the beds are of factory manufacture and 

 include single, double and "three-quarter" beds. 



