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By Root 1921 0

in the sertão, with burnished skin, prominent cheekbones, slanted eyes, a broad forehead, laconic, a fatalist, who had pals and subordinates but no friends. He did have a woman, a girl from Quixeramobim whom he had met because she washed clothes in the house of a hacienda owner who served as coiteiro for the band. Her name was Leopoldina, and she was round-faced, with expressive eyes and a firm, ample body. She lived with João during the time he remained in hiding at the hacienda and when he took off again she left with him. But she did not accompany him for long, because João would not allow women in the band. He installed her in Aracati, where he came to see her every so often. He did not marry her, so that when people found out that Leopoldina had run away from Aracati to Jeremoabo with a judge, they thought that the offense to João was not as serious as it would have been if she were his wife. João avenged himself as though she were. He went to Quixeramobim, cut off her ears, branded Leopoldina’s two brothers, and carried her thirteen-year-old sister, Mariquinha, off with him. The girl appeared early one morning in the streets of Jeremoabo with her face branded with the initials S and J. She was pregnant and there was a sign around her neck explaining that all the men of the band were, collectively, the baby’s father.

Other bandits dreamed of getting together enough reis to buy themselves some land in a remote township where they could live for the rest of their lives under another name. João was never one to put money aside or make plans for the future. When the cangaço attacked a general store or a hamlet or obtained a good ransom for somebody it had kidnapped, after setting aside the share of the spoils that he would hand over to the coiteiros he’d commissioned to buy him weapons, ammunition, and medicines, João would divide the rest into equal shares for himself and each of his comrades. This largesse, his cleverness at setting up ambushes for the flying brigades or escaping from those that were set up for him, his courage and his ability to impose discipline made his men as faithful as hound dogs to him. They felt safe with him, and fairly treated. Even though he never forced them to face any risk that he himself did not confront, he did not coddle them in the slightest. If they fell asleep on guard duty, lagged behind on a march, or stole from a comrade, he flogged them. If one of them retreated when he had given orders to stand and fight, he marked him with his initials or lopped off one of his ears. He administered all punishments himself, coldly. And he was also the one who castrated traitors.

Though they feared him, his men also seemed to love him, perhaps because João had never left a comrade behind after an armed encounter. The wounded were carried off to some hideout in a hammock litter suspended from a tree trunk even when such an operation exposed the band to danger. João himself took care of them, and, if necessary, had a male nurse brought to the hideout by force to attend to the victim. The dead were also removed from the scene of combat so as to bury them in a spot where their bodies would not be profaned by the Guardsmen or by birds of prey. This and the infallible intuition with which he led his men in combat, breaking them up into separate groups that ran every which way so as to confuse the adversary, while others circled round and fell upon the enemy’s rear guard, or the ruses he came up with to break out when the band found itself encircled, enhanced his authority; he never found it difficult to recruit new members for his cangaço.

His subordinates were intrigued by this taciturn, withdrawn leader different from themselves. He wore the same sombrero and the same sandals as they, but did not share their fondness for brilliantine and perfume—the very first thing they pounced on in the stores—nor did he wear rings on every finger or cover his chest with medals. His knapsacks had fewer decorations than those of the rawest recruit. His one weakness was wandering cantadores, whom he never allowed