CRUZ DAS ALMAS : A BRAZILIAN VILLAGE! — ^PIERSON 



71 



I plant little ; when I need help, I can always hire some- 

 one. 



I used to "have mutirdo" when I planted more; but my 

 fields are now too small. 



My men do all the work on this fazenda; we don't need 

 anyone else. 



In the olden time, a man seldom had more than one 

 principal crop. Today, there is a little patch of onions 

 here, a piece of corn there, a few stalks of rice in another 

 place, and a patch of beans somewhere else. 



It costs too much to feed the men. 



One has to kill a fat pig and get a lot of other things for 

 the men to eat and in these days that costs a lot of money. 



There used to be lots of men but today there are not 

 enough who are willing to exchange work with you. 



Exi'hanging work is more difficult now ; some men work 

 at the quarry, some cut wood, some work for other men 

 and don't have farms of their own. 



Today, people want to be paid ; that makes it more 

 difficult. 



It is better to hire workers than to owe a debt. 



They don't do a good job. One can't order someone else 

 to work as he should, when he is just doing you a favor. 



I dcm't want people stepping all over my crops. They 

 drink too much. They all want to get through in a hurry 

 and the work is not well done. 



The men on my fasenda do all the work. 



Two vestiges of the mutirdo, however, still re- 

 miiin. In an isolated part of the community which 

 lies in the bend of the river several miles from the 

 village, two related families occasionally help each 

 other in this way. A farmer interviewed said, 

 "Once in a while I have in a few men. Usually to 

 clear land for pasture. Sometimes to hoe a field 

 of maize. I give them almoqo and a little pinga. 

 I never have anyone for harvesting; I do that my- 

 self. People used to "have mutirao''' with singing 

 and everything. But today, it's not like it was in 

 the olden time." One or two women come in to 

 help with the almoQo which is taken to the field 

 where the men are working. The samhas in the 

 evening and "the man playing the vioJdo in the 

 terreiro"' apparently are now events of the past. 



Another vestige is the custom of trocar dia (ex- 

 change a day). A man will agree to work for a 

 day or two on the farm of another man, in return 

 for which the other man will work for him a 

 similar length of time. Even this arrangement, 

 however, is disappearing. "Except when some- 

 thing has to be done in a hurry," said a 

 local farmer, "What do I gain by exchanging a 

 day with another man ? If I put in a day working 

 for him to get him to work a day for me, I am no 



further ahead than if I had worked both days on 

 my own farm." 



This remark would seem to emphasize the fact 

 that the economic aspect of the mutirao was con- 

 siderably less important than other aspects. It 

 was probably not so much the amount of work 

 actually accomplished that once made the mutirdo 

 a vigorous institution. It was rather the satisfac- 

 tions to be gotten from working together with 

 other persons in a joint undertaking under agree- 

 able circumstances. The singing while at work 

 and the stimulus of competition with one's friends 

 made the actual labor light, and the subsequent 

 feasting and music and dancing intensified senti- 

 ments of belonging and periodically renewed the 

 collective life. 



DECLINE OF AGRICtTLTUEE 



In the conversation of villagers and farmers, 

 one hears rather frequently the phrase ahandono 

 da lavoura (literally, abandonment of tillage). 

 The impression is general in the communitj^ that 

 less farm produce is being grown now than for- 

 merly."^ 



The decrease is due to a combination of circum- 

 stances. As already indicated, the population of 

 the area, by reason of the emigration of individu- 

 als and families, has declined in recent years. Al- 

 though a considerable portion of the land only 

 recently was cleared of forest growth, the fertility 

 of the soil of this part and, more particularly, of 

 that which has been tilled for decades, in all prob- 

 ability has decreased considerably as a result of 

 erosion and cropping, especially since the use of 

 commercial fertilizer is rare and that of barnyard 

 manure unknown. Some land is being taken out 

 of cultivation and put into grassland for grazing 

 purposes, the total acreage of which is still small 

 but growing. 



A perhaps more important circumstance lead- 

 ing to the decline of agricultural production, how- 

 ever, is the unrest among farmers due especially 

 to the difficulties experienced in dealing with the 

 price and distribution system of the expanding 

 market of the city, under war and postwar condi- 

 tions. 



"» Unfortunately, statistical data either to support or to 

 deny this general impression are unavailable, but there would 

 seem to be no reason to doubt it. 



