CRUZ DAS almas: a BRAZILIAN VILLAGE — ^PIERSON 



107 



entire time he was on the bus, with one foot out 

 into the aisle, where persons had to step over it to 

 get past. Wlien the bus pulled up at a wayside 

 store, he seemed undecided what to do. Finally, 

 after the bus began to move on, his seatmate, a 

 stranger who had been talking to the man back 

 of him, discovered his plight and pulled the cord 

 to signal the driver to stop, after which the pas- 

 senger made his way hesitatingly and with diffi- 

 culty through the crowded aisle and out of the bus. 

 A few other persons, including two boys about 

 14 and 16 years of age, respectively, sprawled in 

 their seats with a leg or other part of the body 

 thrust out into the aisle, apparently without real- 

 izing that a slight alteration of position on their 

 part would enable persons nearby to stand more 

 comfortably. Each i^assenger tended generally to 

 ignore the presence of persons unknown to him, 

 even when someone was thrown oil balance by the 

 sudden lurch of the bus, as it passed over a par- 

 ticularly rough spot in the road, and brushed 

 against him. Occasionally, however, such physical 

 contact resulted in frowns or even scowls. 



The inauguration of bus transportation not only 

 increased the possibility of travel but also afforded, 

 in the bus driver, a ready means of communication 

 with the towns at either end of the bus line. The 

 present driver is a young man born and reared in 

 the village and known and liked by everyone. 

 Regularly, four times a day, he brings in parcels, 

 messages, and news from the outside. As soon as 

 the bus pulls up in the village, he leaps out to go 

 into the store to confer with the storekeeper and 

 the sub-delegado, both of whom are part owners of 

 the bus line, about occurrences on the trip over. 

 At this time, he also may pick up or deliver mes- 

 sages or parcels intrusted to his care. He is at 

 once surrounded by villagere who have come down 

 to the store to see the bus pass through. He may 

 have news which he has heard in the town from 

 which he has just come; or he may recount an 

 interesting conversation overheard from passen- 

 gers on the bus or at a stop along the way. On a 

 recent occasion, he was heard to say, for instance, 

 "Chiiif Boa Vista is just boiling with politics ! 

 They tell me Laurindo ( a man born in the village 

 and now a councilman of the municipio) has gone 

 over to the party of the fvefeitoP After the bus 

 has left, each person about the store will carry 

 awav the information or rumor he has picked up, 



until shortly it is known all over the village and 

 well out into the surrounding country. 



The present driver was hired a short time after 

 the bus line began to function. The first driver, 

 a young man from Boa Vista, was dismissed by the 

 owners of the bus shortly after he began work, 

 one of the principal reasons being, it seems, his 

 inability or unwillingness to i-espond to the expec- 

 tations laid upon him of carrying messages and 

 parcels for local inhabitants. Previous to his dis- 

 missal, comments like the following were heard: 

 "I don't think Miguel will get ahead in this world. 

 You give him an encomenda and when he comes 

 back he has the same excuse every time : 'Oh ! I 

 forgot.' That won't do ! The driver of a bus 

 must know how to treat people." 



The present driver is considered much more de- 

 pendable in this respect. If by chance he forgets 

 an encomenda, he, as a villager tells it, "makes a 

 scene that is impressive. He strikes his head with 

 his hand and exclaims, 'Oh, what luck! But it 

 isn't that I forgot, Seu Joao. You can be sure that 

 wasn't the reason. Tomorrow, God willing, I'll 

 bring it. Forgive me for today." To forget an 

 encomenda, however, is a rare occurrence with this 

 young man. He is aware of, and accepts, the local 

 expectations in this respect. 



CAIPIRA VERSUS "CIDADAO" 



The comparative lack of contact over a consid- 

 erable period of time between the inhabitants of 

 rural communities like the one under study and 

 the inhabitants of a city like Sao Paulo, together 

 with the more extensive and more varied round of 

 contacts to which the inhabitants of the city are 

 continually subjected, has resulted in the develop- 

 ment of certain characteristics in the members of 

 each group which mark them off from the mem- 

 bers of the other group. Thus, the inhabitants of 

 the city (and to a lesser extent, owing to their 

 greater isolation, those also of the country) have 

 come to think of themselves as belonging to dif- 

 ferent and distinct entities which stand over 

 against each other. 



The inhabitants of the city usually refer to the 

 inhabitants of the country as caipiras (see below). 

 The latter sometimes refer to themselves by this 

 term but more often as ^'■gente da roga^'' (people of 

 the fields) ; or, less commonly, as the timber is cut 

 away, gente do mato (literally, "people of the 



