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By Root 2020 0

of water, the Counselor welcomed the newcomers, exhorted the others to be hospitable, and after the Credo, the Our Father, and the Ave Marias, his eloquent voice preached austerity, mortification, abstinence to all of them and shared visions with them that resembled the stories recounted by the cantadores who wandered over the countryside reciting their traditional tales. The end was near—it could be seen as clearly as Canudos from the heights of A Favela. The Republic would keep on sending hordes with uniforms and rifles to try to capture him, in order to keep him from talking to the needy, but no matter how much blood he might cause to flow, the Dog would not bite Jesus. There would be a flood and then an earthquake. An eclipse would plunge the world into such total darkness that everything would have to be done by touch, as blind people do, while in the distance the battle resounded. Thousands would die of panic. But when the mists dispersed, one bright clear dawn, the men and women would see the army of Dom Sebastião all round them on the hills and slopes of Canudos. The great King would have defeated the Can’s bands, would have cleansed the world for the Lord. They would see Dom Sebastião, with his shining armor and his sword; they would see his kindly, adolescent face, he would smile at them from astride his mount with diamond-studded gold trappings, and they would see him ride off, his mission of redemption fulfilled, to return with his army to the bottom of the sea.

The tanners, the sharecroppers, the healers, the peddlers, the laundresses, the midwives, and the beggar women who had reached Canudos after many days and nights of journeying, with their worldly goods in a canvas-covered cart or on the back of a burro, and who were there now, squatting in the dark, listening and wanting to believe, felt their eyes grow damp. They prayed and sang with the same conviction as the Counselor’s earliest followers; those who did not know them very soon learned the prayers, the hymns, the truths. Antônio Vilanova, the storekeeper of Canudos, was one of the ones most eager to learn; at night he took long walks along the banks of the river or past the newly sown fields with the Little Blessed One, who patiently explained the commandments and prohibitions of religion, which Antônio then taught to his brother Honório, his wife Antônia, his sister-in-law Assunção, and the children of the two couples.

There was no shortage of food. They had grain, vegetables, meat, and since there was water in the Vaza-Barris they could plant crops. Those who arrived brought provisions with them and other towns often sent them poultry, rabbits, pigs, feed, goats. The Counselor asked Antônio Vilanova to store the food and see to it that it was distributed fairly among the destitute. Without specific directives, but in accordance with the Counselor’s teachings, life in Canudos was gradually becoming organized, though not without snags. The Little Blessed One took charge of instructing the pilgrims who arrived and receiving their donations, provided they were not donations of money. If they wanted to donate reis of the Republic, they were obliged to go to Cumbe or Juazeiro, escorted by Abbot João or Pajeú, who knew how to fight and could protect them, to spend them on things for the Temple: shovels, stonecutters, hammers, plumb lines, high-quality timber, statues of saints, and crucifixes. Mother Maria Quadrado placed in a glass case the rings, earrings, brooches, necklaces, combs, old coins, or simple clay or bone ornaments that the pilgrims offered, and this treasure was exhibited in the Church of Santo Antônio each time that Father Joaquim, from Cumbe, or another parish priest from the region, came to say Mass, confess, baptize, and marry people in Canudos. These were always times for celebration. Two fugitives from justice, Big João and Pedrão, the strongest men in Canudos, bossed the gangs that hauled stones for the Temple from nearby quarries. Catarina, Abbot João’s wife, and Alexandrinha Correa, a woman from Cumbe who, it was said, had worked