112 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL. ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 12 



miserable place to get a meal and you have to pay an 

 awful price and even the water is bad. Yes, life on the 

 farm is much better. 



Similarly, most inhabitants of the community 

 who either have been in the city or have heard 

 about it, prefer the simple life of the country to 

 the more exacting life of the city. The wife of a 

 village oiScial recalls: 



Seventeen years ago, when I was first married — I was 

 about 16 years old at the time — I spent 6 months in Sao 

 Paulo. My husband bad been called up for military train- 

 ing. I managed to stick it out that long, but it was hard 

 to do. I didn't like anything about the city. As soon 

 as I could, I got in a truck and came straight home. And 

 I've never returned to Sao Paulo since that day. 



Said a midwife: 



Every 3 or 4 years, or thereabouts, I visit my relatives 

 in Sao Paulo. But I never can get used to the city. I 

 can't bear to stay there more than a day. The weather 

 is better here. The water is fresher ; it's not like that 

 water in the city that comes out of pipes and sometimes 

 they put something in it. If you go to a village store 

 and you don't have the money to pay for something you 

 need, the storekeeper gives it to you just the same; but 

 if you go to the market in the city and ask for something 

 and you haven't any money to pay for it, just see if they'll 

 let you have it ! The only power there is the cruzeiro. 

 In the country, no one is in actual want. Every time I go 

 to Sao Paulo, I take milk to my relatives ; I have a niece 

 there who says that the milk in the city has the smell of 

 urine in it. When I go to get the train at the station 

 to come home, I see those long lines of people waiting to 

 buy bread, or to buy meat. What have they done with 

 all the flour and all the meat? The sharks"" must have 

 taken over the Government. I don't see how those people 

 in the city can have that much patience. Flour is 12 

 cruzeiros a kilo. How can poor people buy it? 



"There in Sao Paulo," said a farm woman, 

 "people are tramping around in the street the 

 whole night through. A terrible lot of racket. 

 Not to speak of Sundays, when it's still worse." 

 "When he has to go even to Boa Vista," said a 

 woman in the village of her father who cannot bear 

 to be away from the farm, "he never stays over 

 night. He says he can't sleep with the noise in the 

 town.212 How that is, I don't know ; he's deaf." 

 "My niece tells me," said another farm woman, 

 showing great satisfaction and a certain pride, 

 "that there in Sao Paulo the moon doesn't even 

 shine ; you can't see it for the lights. But here in 

 the country, the moonlight is so clear and fine." 



=1 In Brazilian slang, "the profiteers.' 

 "^ Population, 5,367. 



"Here in the country," said a young farm woman, 

 "you don't even have to think. But there in the 

 citj', everything is so diiEcult." 



A villager whose wife had been taken to a hos- 

 pital in Sao Paulo for an emergency operation, re- 

 marked after her return, "If she hadn't gotten 

 back pretty soon, she would have died. She 

 couldn't sleep in the city. After the operation, 

 she stayed a few days on Voluntdrios da Patna 

 street with a street-car passing up and down in 

 front of the house, all that terrible ramble and 

 clatter." "I hear," said a woman in the village 

 who had never been to Sao Paulo, "that the com- 

 ing and going of people and cars and trucks there 

 in the city is something awful." "A bird doesn't 

 forget its old nest," remarked a man in the vil- 

 lage. "You get used to it. When I've been to 

 Sorocaba or Siio Paulo and I'm on the way back, 

 up there on the ridge (a high point from which 

 one can overlook a considerable part of the com- 

 munity) jd resplro mais /undo, me da mais parpite 

 de come, fco mais alegre (already I'm beginning 

 to breathe deeper, my appetite is better, I feel hap- 

 pier)." 



CONVERSATION GROUPS 



In the evening, between about 5 and 8 o'clock, 

 the men in the village, together witli a few farm- 

 ers, customarily gather in small groups for con- 

 versation. This activity takes on something of 

 a regular and consistent pattern so far as the 

 place of gathering is concerned, as well as the 

 composition of the respective groups. No women 

 or girls ever join these groups at any time. 



There are three principal gatliering places. 

 One of these is the venda of Seu Sebastiao, where 

 the homens mais ponderados, as they are called, 

 come together for conversation. They ordinarily 

 are older men, those who are said to be "more 

 thoughtful, more careful in weighing their words, 

 more reflective, more deliberate." The group al- 

 most invariably includes the owner of the store, 

 a man well-liked and resj^ected and a leader in all 

 communal undertakings; the village registrar, a 

 man 57 j'^ears old, who carries himself with dig- 

 nity and self-respect and who also is well thought 

 of in the community; a tall, athletic Negro who 

 is foreman of the men working on the fazenda 

 which lies at the edge of the village ; an able man 

 who is building a road on the same fazenda over 

 which to haul out the wood being cut by a crew 



