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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 12 



disposal of the local sui-delegado to aid in enforc- 

 ing the law. Vicente was inexperienced, brash, 

 filled with self-importance, and indiscreet. He 

 was soon heard to speak slightingly of persons in 

 the village and of the village itself. These re- 

 marks were almost immediately known to every- 

 one in the community. But they were passed over 

 in silence. Attitudes of disapproval and dislike, 

 however, immediately formed against him. These 

 attitudes first made themselves evident in the diffi- 

 culty he encountered in finding someone in the 

 village to wash his clothes, in spite of the fact that 

 work of this sort usually is readily accepted, since 

 several widows are in need of increasing their 

 meager incomes. And, although he needed some- 

 one to prepare his meals, since there is no hotel 

 or pension in the village, no one seemed to be will- 

 ing to do so. He eventually discovered also that 

 when he purchased fruit or similar items of a 

 villager, he had to pay much more than is cus- 

 tomary in the community. In other words, the 

 local society, as it were, was closing up against 

 him. 



The soldado Vicente had been in the village a 

 few weeks when, one night, he was talking to a 

 village storekeeper and leader, in the presence of 

 a mutual acquaintance. The conversation had to 

 do with prices in comparison with those of former 

 times, the attempts of the Government to control 

 production and the difficulties of transpoi't. An 

 undercurrent of antagonism was soon apparent. 

 From time to time, Vicente revealed, in some re- 

 mark, his dislike for the village and villagers. It 

 was not long before whatever one came to say, the 

 other contradicted. Then Vicente remarked, "The 

 soil of northern Brazil is rich but it doesn't do 

 any good to gather the crops or to plant new ones 

 because they just pile up. There's no way to move 

 them to market." And he added, "Here in this 

 community, there's plenty of transport but the 

 Paulistas"* are vagabundos (good-for-nothings) ; 

 if it wasn't for the Italians and the Japanese 

 who've settled in this State, it would be worse off 

 than Ceara." The face of the storekeeper became 

 livid with rage. Coldly and deliberately, with a 

 great show of restrained emotion, he said, "For 

 me, there is no greater vagabundo than a soldado 

 and if it's so good there in the North, what are you 



•" Persona native to the State of SSo Paulo. 



doing here ? Why, you ( using a vigorous and 



obscene expletive) ! Go back to Ceara ! No one 

 asked you to come to this village !" Rising from 

 the table and beating on his chest, he added, in in- 

 creasingly strident tones, imconsciously and quite 

 revealingly dropping into the formal and rarely 

 used mode of address, "I, Sebastiao, will put thee 

 out of here myself." The situation became charged 

 with deadly menace as the soldado fingered his re- 

 volver. The third person present then said, "Seu 

 Vicente, you should not speak ill of the village 

 here because the people love this place like you 

 love Ceara." "But I was only kidding," said 

 Vicente, "and Seu Sebastiao got all excited." 



"And I'll always get excited," replied the store- 

 keei^er, "whenever I hear anything like that. 

 I live here. My parents and my grandparents 

 lived here. We have struggled here and we have 

 suffered here, but we have never complained of 

 this place. And now a mere sordado, who doesn't 

 do anything but loaf around all day, who spends 

 all his time playing cards, comes here from Ceara 

 and sjjeaks ill of us. Get out ! No one asked you 

 to come here!" And the storekeeper left the 

 room. 



The following day was Sunday. Vicente came 

 to Sebastiao's store and, as the latter said later, 

 "talked as if nothing had happened." "For me," 

 he added, "that incident was a serious thing. I'll 

 never treat that fellow the same way again. All 

 of us here are tired of him, and now he knows 

 it." A little later that day, the soldado left the 

 village in a truck which happened to be going 

 over to a neighboring town. With him was his 

 rifle, pack, and the few household goods he pos- 

 sessed. He has not been seen in the village since. 



Wlien he was told that Vicente had left, an el- 

 derly villager remarked, "That fellow ! The very 

 first day he was here, I was standing in front of 

 the hotequim talking and some young men about 

 half drunk were galloping their horses up and 

 down the village streets. I was saying that they 

 ought not to be allowed to do that; that the vil- 

 lage was no race track and that the first thing 

 you'd know, someone would get hurt. The sor- 

 dado heard me and do you know what he said? 

 'So far as I'm concerned, all these people here can 

 be run over. An atomic bomb can fall on them, 

 and it'd be the same to me. The only thing I 

 want to see is that no one gives me any trouble 



