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are paid off—and in Acre recently there were many meetings for formalizing this alliance, creating
heavy fines for recalcitrant patrons. . . .
This circumstance, this unleashing of activities in a highly dispersed routine, matched to the other
anomalies that we have discussed, contributes substantively to the stagnation of a civilization that
thrashesaboutasitdrownsinthethickwoods,sterile,withoutdestiny,withouttraditions,andwithout
hope, in an illusory advance that always returns monotonously to its point of departure, like the de-
pressing estradas of rubber trees.
It was not by accident that da Cunha's first public presentation of his Amazonian ex-
plorations contained a denunciation, even as it glorified Brazilian ingenuity. This para-
dox and ambivalence is key for understanding his work. But he was never purely an
ideologue,anditishisdeepempathythatpervadesoneofhismostmovingfragmentsof
Amazonian writing, “Judas Asvero,” and captures best the anguish of this internal exile:
On the Saturday preceding Easter, Hallelujah Saturday, the seringueiros of the Upper Purús liberate
themselves from their days of sorrow. On this day the tappers hallow all evils and, following their
basic view of life, embrace the sanctification of the worst lapses. Above, God, infused with delight at
thearrivalofhisresurrectedSon,nowfinallyfreedfromhumantreachery,smilescomplacently atthe
fierce happiness unleashed below.
They have no solemn masses, nor luxurious processions, no footwashing, no touching ceremonies
of abnegation. During Holy Week the seringueiros continue in the torturing sameness of their im-
mutable existence, fashioned of identical burdensome days of penury, of half-starvation, which for
them is a kind of interminable crucifixion—an endless Good Friday extending infinitely, relentlessly
though the entire year.
Some tappers vaguely remembered that in their distant native villages during that funereal period
of Holy Week people stopped all activities, deserting the streets, paralyzing business—the flames of
tapers flickering in the agonized processions, voices faded into prayers and meditation, as a great and
monstrous silence fell over the cities, towns, and villages, even well into the backlands, where an an-
guished populace identified with the prodigious suffering of God. Enraptured, people assumed that
these seven exceptional days of sorrow were transitory everywhere, and so established the greater
happiness of the other, more numerous days. But in the forest, days of mourning are human beings'
entire existence, monotonous, painful, obscure, and anonymous—oppressive rounds of bitter and un-
alterable paths, without beginning and without end, inscribed in the closed circuit of the rubber trails.
The shadow of a singularly pessimistic view of life falls on their simple souls and darkens the most
dazzlingillusionsoffaith:NoRedeemerwillsavethem,Hehasforgottenthemforalltime.Ormaybe
hejustdidn'tseethem,remoteastheyfindthemselves onthosesolitary rivers,riverswhoseverywa-
ter is the first to flee those sad, unfrequented, and forgotten recesses.
But they neither rebel nor blaspheme. The rough seringueiro , in contrast to the artistic Italian,
doesn'tabusehisGod'sabundancewithexcessiveremonstrance.Thebackwoodspositionisstronger,
purer. They resign themselves to misfortune. They don't grumble, they don't pray, although some-
times anxious appeals will ascend to the sky carrying the frank bitterness of resentment. But the
seringueiro doesn't complain. He has a tangible practical notion, that of fatality—a notion without
excuses or metaphysical dilutions, a massive and inexorable notion. And he submits to this burden
withoutthesubterfugeofkneelingandcowardlypleading.Itwould,inanycase,beauselessexercise.
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