Travel Reference
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In him dominates the rough criterion of a conviction perhaps too objective or ingenuous, but one
that is irreducible—one whose reality shadows him at every instant: it is that distance itself excom-
municateshimfromothermen.EvenGodprefersnottosullyhisviewbycastinghisvisionintothose
bayous and backwaters, so it's not worth the effort to become a penitent (which is a cautious way to
be a rebel) and demand a place in the undefined hierarchy of blessedness. In any case, there are other
competitors for those places who are happier, better connected, and more numerous. And making the
whole enterprise more efficient, they are more visible in the chapels, churches, and cathedrals of the
rich cities, where they can display the pomp of a suffering embellished in black or retreat into an ex-
travagance of tears, vaunting their sorrow.
There in the forest the tapper continues, impassive and mute, stoically, in the face of his great mis-
fortune.Butbeyondthis,healoneisallowedtopunishhimselfforthecursedambitionthatledhimto
those places where he delivered himself, shackled, a slave, to brazen and treacherous traffickers. His
sin, which is its own punishment, transmutes his life into an eternal penance. What remains to him is
tounmaskandwresthisspiritfromtheobscurityoftheforest,revealing itnakedlyinitsmostterrible
form to a distant humanity.
To do this, the Church has given him a sinister emissary: Judas—and only one day of celebration,
Hallelujah Saturday,theSaturdayaffixedtothemostsacredoutrages,themostconfessable disorders,
the mystical turbulence of those embracing the apotheosis of vengeance.
But the usual straw effigies of this outcast on this day are banal and nowhere up to the complex
and grave mission of the tappers. The effigy Judas arrives beaten down by centuries of rejection, so
trampled, so tattered and abused, that his infinite misery is transformed into something trite, cheaply
monopolizing the universal odium, further diminished by the insipid general loathing. They emphas-
ize in streaks of charcoal the most vivid and cruelest lines on his grimy face, a torment so tragic and
in so many ways close to reality that the eternally damned one appears to resuscitate at the same
time as his divine victim. This practice defies a more spontaneous repulsion and understandable ven-
geance—and satiates the resentful souls of believers with a perfect image of Judas's misery and ter-
rible agonies.
The
seringueiro
embracesthiseffigyashisownstatue,assistedbyhischildren,whodelightloudly
in giggles and run in search of a few straws and bits of repulsive outfits made of old borrowed cloth-
ing, enchanted by this acrobatic task, which breaks for them in one blow the sad monotony of a quiet
and invariable existence. They make Judas as they always have, an old shirt, a pair of pants coarsely
sewn and full of patches, with outstretched arms and jointless legs akimbo, impaled upright in the
center of the patio. On top is a ball of rubber ungraciously representing the head. This is the vulgar
mannequin produced everywhere, which satisfies most people. But this is not enough for the tapper.
Forhimitisfromthisrubberblockthat hewill bringforthhissculpture, thetapper'schefd'oeuvre,a
disturbingcreation ofhisprimitive genius,informedbyhisceaseless adversity.Whereothersperhaps
distinguish the admirable traces of a highly subtle irony, for the
seringueiro
the carving is a concrete
expression of a painful reality.
He thus goes round the deformed visage, emphasizing and decorating the nose, deepening the eye
sockets, sculpting the forehead, accentuating the cheekbones, modeling the jaw in a slow and careful
massage—he paints his eyebrows and opens slowly, with slow, patient fingers, the eyes—usually sad
and filled with a mysterious gaze. He designs the mouth, shaded by a coarse mustache and down-
turned at the corners. They dress him later in shirt and pants of cotton, still serviceable, and provide
him with old broken-down boots. The
seringueiro
steps back a half-dozen steps, contemplating Judas
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