The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [55]
In my last letter I told you, comrades, of a popular rebellion in the interior of Brazil, that I learned of through a prejudiced witness (a Capuchin friar). I can now pass on to you more reliable testimony regarding Canudos, that of a man who is himself one of the rebels, sent out to journey all through the backlands, his mission doubtless to make converts to their cause. But I can also tell you something exciting: there has been an armed encounter, and the jagunços defeated a hundred soldiers headed for Canudos. Are there not clearer and clearer signs that these rebels are fellow revolutionaries? There is an element of truth in that, but only relatively speaking, to judge from this man, who gives a contradictory impression of these brothers of ours: sharp insights and normal behavior exist in them side by side with unbelievable superstitions.
I am writing to you from a town whose name you no doubt would not recognize, a region where the moral and physical servitude of women is extreme, for they are oppressed by landowner, father, brothers, and husband alike. In these parts, the landowner chooses the wives for his relations and the womenfolk are beaten right on the street by their irascible fathers or their drunken husbands, a matter of complete indifference to those who witness such scenes. Food for thought, comrades: we must make certain that the revolution will not only do away with the exploitation of man by man, but also that of women by men, and will establish, along with the equality of classes, that of the sexes.
I learned that the emissary from Canudos had been brought here by a guide who is also a tigreiro, a hunter of jaguars (fine occupations: exploring the world and killing the predators preying on the flocks), thanks to whom I managed to see him. Our meeting took place in a tannery, amid hides drying in the sun and children playing with lizards. My heart began to pound when I laid eyes on the man: short and heavyset, with that pale complexion somewhere between yellow and gray that half-breeds inherit from their Indian forebears, and a scar on his face that told me at a glance that he had been a bandit or a criminal in the past (in any event, a victim, since, as Bakunin explained, society lays the groundwork for crimes and criminals are merely the instruments for carrying them out). His clothes were made of leather—the usual dress of cowherds, I might add, enabling them to ride through thorny brush country. He kept his sombrero on his head and his shotgun at his side all during our interview. His eyes were deep-set and sullen and his manner shifty and evasive, as is often the case here. He did not want the two of us to talk together by ourselves. We had to do so in the presence of the owner of the tannery and his family, who were sitting on the floor eating without looking at us. I told him that I was a revolutionary and had many comrades in the world who applauded what the people in Canudos had done, that is to say, occupying lands belonging to a feudal owner, establishing free love, and vanquishing a company of soldiers. I don’t know if he understood me. The people in the interior are not like those in Bahia, who thanks to the African influence are loquacious and outgoing. Here people’s faces are expressionless, masks whose function would seem to be to hide their feelings and their thoughts.
I asked him if they were prepared for more attacks, since the bourgeoisie reacts like a wild beast when the sacrosanct right of