CRUZ DAS almas: a BRAZILIAN VILLAGE' — ^PIERSON 



109 



Sao Paulo, who were asked to indicate what they 

 considered to be the significance of the term. 



To me, caipira refers to a person reared in a rural and 

 isolated society and who for this reason has had little 

 or no opportunity to get on with persons reared in an urban 

 society. Consequently, when he is with persons in the 

 city, he feels and acts as if he didn't know how to conduct 

 himself. He gives an impression of being naive, even igno- 

 rant, regarding matters common to the daily life of the 

 city ; and at the same time, he is very desconflado. 



In current speech, caipira means (1) a man from the 

 country; (2) an uneducated person who has never gone 

 to school and who speaks a queer dialect; (3) a cahoclo, 

 or person whose ancestors were Indians, mixed with Euro- 

 peans; and (4) in a general way, an inhabitant of any 

 other city except Sao Paulo (the patitistancj-'^' considers 

 an inhabitant of Campinas (a city of 90,000 inhabitants) 

 to be a caipira and he himself would be a caipira to the 

 carioca ) ."' 



A caipira is someone who lives in the "interior" of the 

 state (by "interior," we mean outside the capital city). 

 His habits, although basically Brazilian, do not coincide 

 with those of the city dweller. Even a person wlio lives 

 in the city but who comes from a small town and who 

 keeps his original habits is also considered a caipira, no 

 matter how long he has lived in the city. 



Caipira for me means a man who lives in the "interior," 

 is not well informed, and has a low standard of living. 

 He lives by farming, using nonrational practices which 

 give him less return than he could get by other means. 

 Although this brings him discomfort, he doesn't feel the 

 necessity of adopting certain improvements which civili- 

 zation brings. 



A caipira is a naive individual who lacks social "polish." 

 He is timid, shy, bashful, awkward ; he doesn't know 

 how to do things, how to orient and conduct himself. In 

 short, he is clumsy socially. 



Caipira is a term which refers to a person who resides 

 in a rural area. Usually he lives on a bare subsistence 

 level even when he owns some property. When he comes 

 to the city, he feels out of place and insecure for he is not 

 accustomed to so many pedestrians in the streets and to 

 traffic. His beliefs differ a lot from ours in the city. 

 He believes many things which we think are merely 

 "superstitions." 



The caipira is the most humble type of rural inhabitant. 

 Often, however, in anecdotes, he is presented as a person 

 who gives an appearance of being stupid but who turns 

 out to be possessed of great shrewdness. City inhabitants 

 are accustomed to call each other caipiras if the person in 

 question does not behave according to the norms taken 

 to be characteristic of the "great centers." The shy and 

 timid also are often called caipiras, owing to the fact that 

 they cannot keep from showing embarrassment in their 

 contacts with other people. 



'" An inhabitant of the city of Sao Paulo. 



™ An inhabitant of the city of Rio de Janeiro and the sur- 

 rounding portion of the Federal District. 



Several persons born and reared in the city of 

 Sao Paulo and who presumably had not lost their 

 natural ethnocentrism by reason of courses in 

 the social sciences, were asked, "Wliat is a cai- 

 pira?" The responses were : 



Girl, house servant, 15 years old : 



Caipiras are silly people. They don't even talk right. 

 And they go around laughing at nothing. 



Man, pharmacist, 68 years old : 



A caipira is a person from a farm, who doesn't know 

 how to behave. 



Man, owner of a sawmill, 42 years old : 



The caipira is an ignorant man. He has no notion of 

 civilization. 



Housewife, 40 years old: 



A caipira is an animal from the woods, shy, timid, gos- 

 sipy. He usually lives in a house made of pan a pique 

 and he's dirty. 



Woman, normal-school teacher, 52 years old : 



A caipira differs from other people in the way he 

 walks, the way he speaks, and the way he dresses. He 

 is full of superstitious beliefs. He is simple, reticent, 

 desco?iflado. 



Woman, clerk, 23 years old : 



You can tell a caipira by his clothes. You don't even 

 need to talk to him. Just notice his trousers; they are 

 always short and tight. 



Man, student, 22 years old : 



The caipira is a simple fellow. When someone lets him 

 farm a piece of land, what does he do? He sets four 

 posts into the ground for a house. He plants a little 

 patch of maize and raises two or three sickly pigs. 

 That's all he does. He makes no effort to improve any- 

 thing. When a part of his shack falls down, he simply 

 props it up with a stick. When, by afternoon, he's hoed 

 his little patch of corn, he comes to the house, sits down 

 in the doorway, takes out his pito (pipe) and smokes as 

 long as he likes. 



Woman, student, 21 years old : 



I live near the railroad station. What we think of as a 

 caipira is a person who comes in from the "interior" and 

 goes either to a charity hospital or to the police station. 

 He is dressed in a cheap, cotton suit and wears high shoes ; 

 he is dirty from the dust of travel and he carries a sack 

 instead of a suitcase. 



Man, lawyer, 35 years old : 



A caipira is a mixed-blood of Portuguese and Indian 

 extraction. 



