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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 12 



other farmers, each of whom lives in a quite iso- 

 lated part of the community several miles away, 

 still use this means of transportation. The pack 

 train is now no longer to be seen. Produce, as has 

 been indicated, may be carried in from the field by 

 the farmer himself, or in jacds on the backs of 

 horses, mules, or burros. The carrinho, which used 

 to be pulled by goats to transport light articles, 

 occasionally is still to be seen, pulled by hand (pi. 

 13,/). 



A man in the village, 59 years old, vividly re- 

 members the transition from pack train and ox- 

 cart to truck . He said : 



From 190S to 1927 I had a mule train here in the vil- 

 lage. There were 19 mules. I drove them down to Sao 

 Jos(5 dos Patos and back and up to Piracema and back. 

 I charged only 1 milreis, 200 reis a mule on the way over 

 and 1 milreis back. Each mule carried 120 kilos. Once, 

 when I was driving the train, I fell asleep on the back of 

 a mule, I was so tired. I fell off on the ground and my 

 companions laughed at me, but I got up and said it 

 wasn't anything. The mules carried beans, maize, and 

 potatoes. You should have seen how much went out of 

 here in those days. It was a great life. £)-e-e! There 

 was a lot of everything ! 



Then, in 1S27, the first truck appeared in these parts. 

 Tonico (a farmer) bought it. He"d carry 25 sacks into 

 Sdo Paulo at 3 milreis a sack ; on one trip alone, he'd 

 make 75 milreis. A little later, the father of Bigodinho 

 bought a truck and soon another man got one. Things 

 changed a lot, then. The drivers of pack trains like my- 

 self, Gino, Chicao, and the father of Oracy and others 

 who had earned their living driving mules, soon went 

 out of business. And the oxcarts also began to disap- 

 pear ; first those with solid wheels, then the other kind. 

 The bread man quit coming, too. I remember him well. 

 He came from Boa Vista with two mules loaded with 

 bread. He'd stop at the farm and sell us some and take 

 in return eggs and chickens. He used to go all over the 

 country selling his bread. Up to Piracema and far along 

 the road to ltd. 



The old road to Paratinga has become so over- 

 grown with grass and weeds that traveling over 

 it in recent years has been quite difficult for other 

 than horsemen and oxcarts and, since May of 

 1948, when one of the log-and-earth culverts fell 

 in, impossible. Work on the dirt road to Pira- 

 cema, previously little more than a trail for ox- 

 carts, which extended from March to October of 

 1946, materially improved this outlet to the outside 

 world. In rainy weather, however, the steeper 

 slopes are still quite difficult for loaded trucks to 

 climb. The dirt road to Boa Vista, which is the 

 most adequate in the community, recently has been 



improved so that now it is readily traversable by 

 motor vehicle except following a heavy rain, when 

 slippery mud on steep hills sometimes makes trac- 

 tion almost impossible for heavy trucks. Other 

 roads in the community are merely trails which 

 branch off in different directions to reach the vari- 

 ous farmhouses (pi. 1, c). In dry weather, how- 

 ever, they are traveled readily even by trucks. In 

 places, all the old, unworked roads and trails run 

 through cuts up to 10 feet deep, where the travel 

 and erosion of many decades have cut the roadbed 

 down below the level of the land on either side 

 (pl.l,/). 



At Sao Jose dos Patos, one can take the train 

 for Sao Paulo three times a day, once in the morn- 

 ing and twice in the afternoon. The ride into the 

 city takes a little more than an hour. There is 

 also a train in the other direction, to Sorocaba 

 and cities farther to the west, once each morning 

 and twice in the afternoon. If one goes to Boa 

 Vista, a few miles further away on the rail line, 

 he can take still other trains which do not stop at 

 Sao Jose dos Patos. A bus line which offers trans- 

 portation daily on a usually packed bus, each way 

 from Sao Paulo to Itii, as has been indicated, 

 passes tlirough Piracema, 7 miles to the northeast 

 of the village. Another bus line which offers daily 

 transportation each way from Sao Paulo to Soro- 

 caba, passes through Boa Vista, 11 miles to the 

 south of the village. A plane from Sao Paulo to 

 Curitiba flies over the area daily. Although no 

 person in the community has yet been in an air- 

 plane, all the inhabitants are now familiar with 

 the sight of one passing overhead. Its passage, 

 however, especially at night, still continues to at- 

 tract considerable attention. 



The relative recency of these new means of trans- 

 port is reflected in the attitudes of certain resi- 

 dents, especially among the older generation, living 

 in the more isolated parts of the community. As 

 an airplane passed overhead, for instance, a farm 

 woman remarked: 



They make «wc7i- a noise. Credo! I'll never get in one ! 

 They go above the clouds. Even at night. They say they 

 sometimes have accidents. The train also scares a person 

 to pieces. They have wrecks and people die. I don't go 

 anywhere except when I just have to. Even a truck is 

 very dangerous. The roads are not safe, especially when 

 it's raining. It gives you great fear. Tiie last time I 

 went, they used chains on the ti'uck. I almost didn't stand 

 it, I was so frightened." 



