Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
4
A
Quilombo
Called Canudos
An African Kraal
Inthelastdayslefttohis“cityofruins”EuclidesdaCunhagazedoutoverthelumpyhov-
els of the millenarian settlement of Canudos, his “mud-walled Troy.” It was the second-
largest city in Bahia, after the slave entrepôt of Salvador, but for him it had the appear-
ance “midway between a warriors' camp and an African kraal.” That was indeed more or
less what this backland city was. Canudos was located at a sharp jog of the Vasa Barris
River.Itwasunusuallywellwateredforthebacklands,akindofoasis.Itwasencircled in
a small mountain chain and, like many fugitive slave refuges, hard to get to, with ample
possibilitiesforambushanddefense.AbovethevillageroseFavelaMountain,whichwas
later to give its name to impoverished urban squatter settlements—favelas—throughout
shed over was the settlement known as Mucambo: the name for communities of fugitive
slaves. It seemed exquisitely geographically isolated: “the merciless climate, the period-
ic droughts, the rugged sterile soil of the barren mountain ranges lying isolated among
the
araxas
of the central plateaus . . . this unprepossessing region, . . . this was the last
backlandsoftheNortheast:Piauí,Sergipe,andCeará.Onceoverthemountains,Canudos
was linked to the gold and gem states of Goiás and Minas Gerais through the great artery
of the Rio São Francisco. Canudos itself was at the center of a vast network of
quilom-
bos
, Indian settlements, mission centers (
aldeias
), and hamlets, the backland circuits of
market towns, trading posts, and pilgrimages. There were also routes of the great cattle
drives, the
boiadas
, that assembled the beeves from the infinity of the Sertão and drove
themtothecoastalcitiesortoportsontheSãoFrancisco.Canudoswasattheintersection
of landscape whose apparent stasis belied its deeper and unceasing movement, triggered
by climate, spiritual impulse, markets, water, culture wars, and flight.
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