CRUZ DAS almas: a BRAZILIAJSr VILLAGE' — ^PIERSON 



111 



one) . Local residents take pride in their greater 

 knowledge of field and forest and in their ability 

 to deal with the latter. "When cidadoes get here 

 in the woods," said a villager who likes to hunt, 

 "they are completely lost. If you was to leave 

 one there in Paio Veio,^°° he'd be dead before you 

 knew it." Life in the city is thought to reduce 

 masculine qualities. "Men in the city have such 

 fine little hands," said a villager. "To take hold 

 of one of those fellows' hands is just like taking 

 hold of a woman's. They're all the same." Local 

 residents think of themselves as more healthy. 

 "Those people in the city," remarked a young 

 farmer, in a scornful tone of voice, "who always 

 live in the shade ; they can't be healthy. It's bet- 

 ter to be black ^'^ and dried out like I am and never 

 need a doctor." "These people in Boa Vista," re- 

 marked another villager, "haven't they seen that 

 us caipiras around here are all he men?" 



Inhabitants of the community, however, are 

 beginning to take over the disparaging meaning 

 of the term calpira and to use it for their own 

 purjioses in their own society. Two villagers, for 

 instance, were discussing a matter in a hotequim 

 when one of them raised his voice a little and said, 

 "You must remember you're a caipiraP^ The ac- 

 companying facial expression and other manner- 

 isms, however, indicated that the remark was not 

 designed to offend but only to call attention to the 

 fact that the other man, bj' reason of his lack of 

 knowledge of the outside world, was not in a po- 

 sition to make the dogmatic i-emark he had just 

 made. '■'■QudP^ said a farmer, in criticism of a 

 villager, "He's a calpira just like we are. But he 

 thinks he's not." The term is also employed by 

 villagers, especially the more competent persons, 

 to distinguish themselves from less able persons in 

 the surrounding country who are extremely shy 

 and do not know how to conduct themselves when 

 in the village. "These people who never go any 

 place," said a man, "these caipiras who live there 

 in the woods and never go out, they're the real 

 caipiras, people who can't even talk to anyone else. 

 They live all their lives in one place, no wonder." 

 "A caipira''s like that," remarked a villager of a 

 man on a farm who had behaved in a manner of 



=<»An uncultivated area near the river, overgrown with brush 

 and vines and much used for hunting by local inhabitants. 



"" The man in question is a Caucasian. Reference is to the 

 heavy tan acquired by worldng for years under the rather direct 

 rays of the sun in this latitude. 



which he disapproved, "he never knows how to 

 treat another person." "A caipira is certainly a 

 brutish fellow," remarked another villager in a 

 similar situation, "at the least little thing, vai 

 fazeno desaforo (he shows lack of consideration, 

 intentional or unintentional)." 



The dissatisfaction with life on the farm which 

 was evident from the remarks of the yomig men 

 cited in the section on Decline of Agi-iculture (p. 

 74) is by no means universal in the community. 

 Wliile lamenting the hard work, long hours, and 

 crop uncertainties, most local inhabitants find that 

 the satisfactions of farm life overbalance the draw- 

 backs. This fact is reflected in the following 

 remarks : 



A farm boy, age 15 : 



Life is good on the farm. I like it here. I'm going 

 to plant a large patch of maize. When you see maize 

 growing, strong and healthy, it makes you happy. 



A farm boy, age 18 : 



Life on the farm is fine, especially at harvest time. 

 Then the farmer is content. Spring also is a very beau- 

 tiful season, when the meadovcs are covered with flowers 

 and the birds sing so sweetly. If you want to enjoy it, 

 though, you must get up early. If you don't you will miss 

 it all ; when the sun begins to get hot, the flowers droop 

 and the birds stop singing. Farm life is a good life, if 

 you are not afraid of getting up early. 



A farm boy, age 15 : 



Farming is a good life, even though you have to work 

 hard. You always have your own food. You can plant 

 beans, rice, potatoes, sugarcane, peanuts, coffee, and vege- 

 tables, and then you will need to buy very little. 



A. farm boy, age 19 : 



Life on the farm is better than life in the city because 

 if you have to wear patched clothes and if your house is 

 not furnished as well as you would like it to be, no one 

 will talk about you. Besides, on the farm you can take 

 your gun and go hunting whenever you like. 



A farm boy, age 14: 



I like life on the farm because here you can breathe 

 pure, fresh air. In the city, there is so much noise that 

 anyone who isn't used to cars and trucks whizzing by, 

 soon gets dizzy. In the city, you go to buy a bunch of vege- 

 tables and they're all wilted; you get a dozen eggs and 

 when you break one, it pops with such a noise that it 

 breaks your ear drums. You can't find a good house to 

 live in without paying out almost all you can earn to rent 

 it, and you even have to buy water. If you stop some- 

 where to get a cup of oaf 6 you have to pay half a cruzeiro 

 for a little cup only 3 fingers high. One cupful isn't 

 enough ; they're too small. So you have to buy three more 

 cupfuls and spend at least two cruzeiros. You go to a 



