Mud-Walled Jerusalem, Mud-Walled Troy - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 63

cumbed totheslowprocess ofstrangulation,” while thenewlyarrived artillery fromSão
Paulo longed for the “feverish convulsions of battle.” 6
DaCunha'sownwordsarethemostmovingamongthoseproducedthecadreofjourn-
alists who, against their own initial posture, were overwhelmed by an increasingly un-
bearable reality: the guerrilla fighters were genius at military strategy, and there seemed
not to be a coward among them. 7 The women, the wounded, the aged, and the ill re-
mained stalwart. As da Cunha put it: “The sertanejos had inverted the psychology of
normal warfare: their resistance was stiffened by reversals, and they were strengthened
by hunger and hardened by defeat.” 8
A Land outside History
Da Cunha had arrived at Canudos during the final days. The siege by then had been go-
ing on for months. All inhabitants of the town were now criminalized and called jagun-
ços , even the women and children; all were targets. Although there were still a few lines
to sneak supplies in and out of the blockaded town and its wells still must have worked
tosomedegree,theVasaBarriswasdryingup,andthemortalityfromfamineandwater-
borne disease was growing. Conselheiro was taken to his next life not by a bullet but by
dysentery. Incessant bombardment and sniping were the norm, even as the inhabitants
of the town sang their hymns and the landscape rumbled with their prayers. When on
September 25 the final line of the siege was put into place, the town was doomed.
Figure 5.1. Huddled women prisoners from Canudos.
Once the siege lines were set, a white flag appeared, and the most wounded and the
women were taken out of the town that was about to become a crematorium. With his
cameraJoãoBastoscapturedthehuddled,horrifiedwomenandchildrenwhosenextstep
involved abuses of all kinds and a “next life” in some indentured situation among fam-