Prelude to a drought

» The Sertão in Brazil is not only a semi-arid climate zone. It is also characterized by a semi-arid culture.«

Prof. Daniel Duarte Pereira

» Marginality was forced since the poor living in the sertão had only two options in the 1920s: to kill or to die.«

Raimundo Garrero

Brazil's coast – Atlantic rainforest, palm trees, sandy beaches stretching for miles. Lavish nature, plenty of green and: water. When Europeans picture Brazil, they don’t only think about rain, they also see small streams everywhere, creeks, rivers, sloughs, lakes and the sea. Brazil has approx. 8,000 kilometers of coastline, but also the world’s largest tropical rainforest as well as the world’s longest river – the Amazon.

In this tropical paradise it is impossible to believe that in the northeast inland, only 200 to 300 kilometers away from the coast, the aridity and lack of water determine everyday life. Brown-yellow, gray with a sprinkling of green – this is the landscape of the sertão during the dry period. A million square kilometers of scraggly bush country – that is about three and a half times the area of Germany – interspersed with mountain chains of bizarre mesas and the Rio Sao Francisco. More than twenty million people live in the northeast hinterland, which dominates eight federal states: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Paraiba, Pernambuco, Piaui, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe.

The Portuguese gave the land its name. They reached the hinterland 150 years after the first settlement in 1532. When they crossed the coastal plateaus, they reached hopeless regions in the northeast which are called “O Desertão” – the big desert. Desertão turned into sertão. The semi-arid, hostile conditions of endless vegetation equipped with thorns remained. The cactuses reach a height of six to eight meters, even the trees have thorns, the grass is hard, the soil dusty. There are only two seasons: the dry season from April to December, and the rainy season from January to March. The only constant thing is the average yearly temperature of 28 degrees Celsius, although in September and October there are a few weeks that can get as hot as 40 degrees Celsius.

The colonial rulers did not attempt to systematically settle this region. They ignored it and concentrated on the economically more efficient coastal regions. The sertão was taken over by adventurers in search of precious metals, landless peasants, fleeing criminals and former slaves. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century, as the price of land increased along the coast and fugitives from Portugal needed land, that a more systematic settlement took place. Without state infrastructure and control, an independent society developed – one which was and still is dominated by cattle breeding, religion and the practice that “might makes right”, combined with an archaic morality and honor codex.

Wealthy major landowners could buy the rank and title of “colonel” for themselves. Along with it also came the right to form an armed troop. These were used not only to put a mayor into office, they also suppressed all forms of opposition and protest in the regions they dominated. For elections in the young Brazilian republic, it was usual that the colonels and their gunmen with their power of influence determined which candidate received the votes. This practice of buying votes still takes place today throughout large parts of the sertão. A couple of bags of cement, 30 euros, or new windows can buy a poor family’s approval for mayor candidates. These expenditures are worthwhile for the politicians thanks to the systematic corruption in Brazilian politics. Many leave public office after two terms, taking with them a large fortune.

The three centuries leading up to the year 1896 saw this region in a kind of Sleeping Beauty slumber, all but forgotten by the Brazilian government. It took a disaster to bring the sertão back into the consciousness of the world. At that time, the itinerant preacher Antônio Conselheiro –“Anthony the Counselor” – settled near the Fazenda Canudos (Canudos plantation) in the northwest of Bahia. The Counselor was a passionate advocate of social reform and of the monarchy which had been overthrown two years before. He strictly refused to recognize the young republic and denounced their failures regarding social reform. The reply was as follows: the government sent four military expeditions with in total 12,000 soldiers to the religious, social revolutionary monarchists. At that time, more than 20,000 landless supporters lived with their prophet, the Counselor, on the Fazenda Canudos. These backwoodsmen were able to hold off the army for nine months – an army which had state-of-the-art equipment – until their small city was finally taken over and completely destroyed. Very few of Antônio Conselheiro’s supporters survived the massacre. Nevertheless the deployment was a huge disgrace for the army – so much so that decades later, the military regime under General Emílio Garrastazu Médici decided to get rid of Canudos’ remains by flooding it – it is now submerged in an artificial lake.

Journalist Euclides da Cunha participated in the military expedition. Impressed by the sertanejos’ courage and will to survive, he wrote the book “Os Sertões”. The first chapters precisely describe, in the style of that time, the appearance and the qualities of the sertanejos.

» He is uncouth, clumsy, crooked. This Hercules-Quasimodo reveals the typical ugliness of the weak. His feeble, slouching, almost rolling and stumbling gait resembles the motion of dislocated limbs....
One arbitrary skirmish suffices to transform the sertanejo. He straightens up, reveals a different form, new characteristics in stature and gesture; and his head rises higher upwards from his broad shoulders, illuminated by a vigorous and fearless look.«

Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands

The cliché was born, the Brazilians had their “noble savages”. From then on the sertanejos were regarded as backlanders: stoic, slow, uneducated – sometimes also stupid, but persistent, courageous and loyal.

The cangaceiros are also among the mythical figures of the sertão. Bands of robbers – from fifteen to two hundred – these armed bandits roamed through the sparsely populated areas with their ringleaders between 1870 and 1940, sometimes confronting the colonel’s forces of law. They fought against social iniquity, lack of justice and the oppression and domination by the elites. The most famous of these modern, Brazilian “Robin Hoods” was Virgolino Ferreira da Silva, who made it to the cover of the New York Times under his nickname Lampião (lantern or oil lamp).

The cultural importance of the sertão for the Brazilian nation is usually underestimated. Forró, a popular music and dance style in Brazil, developed at the end of the 19th century in the secluded regions of the hinterland. Music is played especially during religious celebrations, for example on the 24th of June for the Sao Joao festival – the day of the Brazilian winter solstice – using only three instruments: the zabumba (bass drum), the sanfona (accordion), and the triangle. Since the 1970s, forró has become very popular all over Brazil. Even the samba – Brazil’s national rhythm – has its origins in the dry hinterland. The colonial rulers were quick to observe the various rhythms of their slaves. They grouped them together under the general term “batuque” (drumming). Still today, regional samba forms can be found: coco (Bahia); tambor-de-crioula (or ponga) (Ceará) and partido-alto, miudinho, jongo e caxambu (Rio Grande do Norte).

The success of da Cunha’s book “Rebellion in the Backlands” inspired such writers as João Guimarães Rosa “Grande sertão: Veredas”, Graciliano Ramos “Barren Lives” and Jorge Amado “Capitães da Areia” to address the living conditions in the northeast in a literary way. They wrote international best sellers and co-founded the magic realism of Latin America. Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 for his work, including the book “The War of the End of the World”, a re-telling of the events around Antônio Conselheiro and his supporters. As if under a magnifying glass, the unreal living conditions and archaic coexistence show the extreme inequalities of a postcolonialist society. The illiterate poet Patativa do Assaré from the federal state of Ceará incorporated these in his poems and recitations. In the 1980s, his poems subtly denounced the military dictatorship and the role of the Catholic Church, which played an important role during the maintaining of the oligarchical system in the northeast. He describes the drought and its destructive consequences in the poem “A Triste Partida”– the sad departure - This and other poems of his were set to music by the nationally acclaimed forrò musician Luiz Gonzaga from the federal state of Pernambuco.

Recurring droughts belong to the semi-arid habitat. There is a long list of “worst of the century” droughts in the sertão. From 1843 to 2017, the Ministry of National Integration counted at least 12 droughts over a period of three or more years each. Not only did these droughts cause severe damage to agriculture, they also brought with them social problems. During a drought from 1877 to 1879, approximately one quarter of Ceará’s population had to be placed in camps, or migrated to other federal states. Food could be guaranteed there and they did not need to move on in search of food throughout the region. Many of the climate refugees later settled on the outskirts of large cities –Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where they set up the first favelas (slums). Favela is most probably derived from the bush of the same name (Cnidoscolus phyllacanthus) found in the sertão – it is a thorny and very resilient plant which frequently grow on steep slopes. The rich middle class welcomed the refugees as day laborers in preindustrial Brazilian society. Still today many sertanejos and their descendants earn their living as domestic help and unskilled workers in the cities.

About 140 years later, the sertão yet again is in the midst of one of the biggest droughts in its history. There has not been sufficient rain in many places in the “drought polygon” between 2012 and 2016, the earth has turned to dust; the Caatinga – the bushland – juts out like a dried carcass into the sky. In July 2017, the federal state of Ceará declared a state of emergency for 115 districts. In Pernambuco, known for its cattle breeding, livestock decreased about 75% in the last four years. The water levels of most dams are at or under 10%. Even the water-rich south suffered – drinking water had to be rationed in the metropolis of São Paulo.

In the past, people would flee from the drought, this time they stay where they are. They fight for every cattle, every sheep and every speck of fertile soil. Wells drilled with the most modern of technology slowly run dry, artificial lakes dry out. Two decades of developmental aid are swept away by global climate warming. President Lula's government and his Workers’ Party implemented extensive assistance programs – the “Bolsa Familia” and the “Bolsa Escolar”; only these, as well as the supply of electricity to the furthest corners of the region and the intensive construction of cisterns for the poor rural population have been able to prevent a further exodus. However, the one thing that has remained for the inhabitants of the sertão: the hope for rain.