Palmares

by Gayl Jones

  Another Mining Camp

  WE ARRIVED AT ANOTHER deserted mining camp at noon that day, a smaller camp than the other, with only two buildings. Mauritia stopped the horse, and grabbing her basin, went to explore the stream. I reluctantly dismounted, tied the horse to a tree and followed her.

  She had not been rotating the basin two minutes, when a voice behind us said, “This is my ‘ole.”

  Startled and afraid, I turned around to face the grizzly Paulista, who was looking around me at Mauritia.

  “I thought this was an abandoned hole,” she said casually and without alarm. The man, who had scratchy gray hair and beard, and a sun-darkened complexion, seemed to ignore my presence and was staring fixedly at her. I also turned to watch her. She emptied the basin of its contents and rinsed it in the stream, then she came onto the bank.

  “Well, I still have my claim, but I don’t work it anymore.”

  He was carrying a musket, though he had not pointed it at us. He seemed ready to level it if it became necessary.

  I glanced at Mauritia, who was staring at him calmly, while I felt every kind of apprehension, thinking of her tales of all the murders over claims.

  “Why don’t you work it?” Mauritia asked. “It’s a very rich claim.” He made a sneering face.

  “Eh, I’m giving up mining and turning to agriculture. I’m not suited to gold-mining.”

  “What do you mean suited to it? Don’t you have any slaves to work your claim?”

  I looked at Mauritia with surprise.

  “I’ve got Indian half-breeds,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I’m setting them to planting manioc.”

  “This isn’t very good soil for manioc. Not much of this region is any good for planting.”

  “Hmph. Well, I’ve set them to growing manioc. It’s enough for a man to subsist on, and it’s better for his moral existence.”

  Now he was neither looking at Mauritia nor me, though he was still staring in our direction. His blue eyes seemed to be hidden in the face of white hair.

  “This is the cause of the moral decline of the people, their decadence and degeneracy. Right here, right where you’re standing. Agriculture will put them on a higher level. I’ve turned it into a manioc plantation. It’s a resting place for strangers and muleteers. Do you travelers want any free food or fodder for your horse?”

  I started to say no but Mauritia said, “Yes.” Was she pressing our luck? Couldn’t she see that this was some crazy man?

  He placed fodder in front of the horse.

  We followed the “manioc farmer” into a crudely built hut that was covered with carnauba palm thatch. Inside there was a rudely built table and bench. Mauritia sat down first and I sat beside her. There was the smell of fermenting manioc root. The man put two dishes of fish, rice, and farinha d’agua on the table. The “manioc mush” looked awful, so I ate the fish and rice first. Though I saw Mauritia starting on the bowl of mush. I hoped that all the “poison” juice had fermented out of it, so I took a spoonful of it to “test” for Mauritia’s protection. It was all right, so I went back to the fish and rice, though the rice was hard and the fish was almost raw.

  The man fixed his plate and then sat down at the table across from us. I picked a small bone from my teeth and put it on the plate. I almost swallowed another small bone, coughed, turned aside, and found it, deposited it on the plate. When I turned the man was looking at me, though not as someone who really “sees” another. I wondered why he had not asked to examine our documents. Did he already know Mauritia?

  “That’s why there’s such a shortage of food,” the man said, as if he were continuing a long conversation. “That’s why there’s such a shortage of food, and what little food, and what little food there is sells at such high prices. What I say is that they should put their energies into crops and not into this metal. Hunger and high prices always go together.

  That’s why I’m investing my energies not in metal but in the bread of the land!”

  Mauritia finally moved to the plate of fish and rice and ate it carefully while I struggled with the bowl of manioc mush.

  The man continued talking about his investment in the “bread of the land” and not in the “corrupting” metal.

  “That’s why there’s a shortage of food and hunger. Isn’t manioc hearty and wholesome? It’s more wholesome than wheat or corn.”

  When we finished eating, Mauritia continued to sit and listen to the man, though he continued to say the same thing over and over again.

  Then finally he noticed that we had finished eating. “Do you travelers want anything else?” he asked.

  Mauritia said that we were quite full and didn’t care for any more but that we were grateful for his hospitality, as we had been traveling for quite some time.

  “That’s the way it is,” he said, standing. Mauritia stood up, and so did I.

  We followed the man outside.

  “Well, if you’re ever back this way,” he said, “you have a resting place to come to that doesn’t have any brawling and gambling and drunkenness.”

  When we were back on the trail, Mauritia said, “I was afraid of that man.”

  “What? I thought you knew him. I was scared. But you seemed to know exactly what to do.”

  “No, I just went along with what he suggested. I don’t know what he might have done with that musket.”

  I breathed deeply. I was more frightened now that I knew she had also been.

  “I certainly thought you knew the Paulista,” I said.

  “Paulista. He was no Paulista. No Paulista would talk that way. A Paulista would run from agriculture, the same as I would!”

  A Freshwater Lake

  WE CAME TO A FRESHWATER LAKE and Mauritia wanted to catch more fish to take into the town. We dismounted and tied the horse to an iuca tree. I had also wanted to stop, but it was not fish I wanted to catch but a certain lizard that lived in freshwater lakes. If any incident like the one with the old Paulista, or whoever he had been, occurred again I wanted to be prepared. I moved away from Mauritia to a different part of the lake to fish.

  “We should keep together,” she said with concern.

  “I won’t go far. We can still see each other. We’ll catch more.”

  As I fished, I looked out for the lizard, and when I saw it, caught it with my hand, and with the small sharp stone, as I had seen Luiza do, I cut off the parts of the lizard that I would need and placed them in the medicine gourd. Then I looked up, seeing the canoes made of long, hollowed-out logs. Some of the Indians were standing, others sitting. I wondered if they were “friendly” or whether they would attack us. I looked toward Mauritia.

  She was also looking up, but without alarm. She held up her hand and said something in an Indian dialect I had not heard before. One of the men responded. The Indians did not come to the shore but continued on their way.

  Mauritia raised her hand up to me too indicating that I should stay where I was. When the Indians had disappeared around the curve of the lake, she came to me.

  “What tribe was that?” I asked.

  “Paragua.”

  “They’re very hostile. Why didn’t they attack us?”

  “Palmyra taught me some words in their dialect.”

  “Ah, that’s luck.”

  “I don’t believe in luck,” she said. “But let’s go.” We climbed back on the horse and rode off.

  “People say they can catch fish with their bare hands,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The Paragua.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I never trust what ‘people say.’“ I was silent.

  “How did you meet Palmyra?” I asked.

  “I met her a long time ago,” she said. “That was when they murdered the Paraguayan. They were going to murder me too, or do worse things, but I escaped. One of them shot me. One of them started after me, but the other said, ‘Leave her, Engenho.’ I would have bled to death if Palmyra hadn’t come. She stopped th
e bleeding and took me back with her. She taught me what I know about the trails, and the dialects of certain tribes. I might have stayed with her, but the two Jesuits came and made me leave. They thought I would corrupt her and that it was her soul that they were bound to protect.”

  “Why didn’t they stop you from seeing her?”

  “She convinced them to let me visit her, but I can’t stay there for long periods.”

  “Where did you go when they made you leave her?”

  “I just wandered. Until I was captured by a new master . . . you know the rest.”

  A Tavern in Vila Rica

  IS THAT MINAS?” I asked, when we were in view of the town.

  She explained that actually Minas was the territory, the captaincy as a whole, so that we had been in Minas all along—that the towns in it had different names, and that the one we were entering was called Vila Rica.

  Before we entered the city, Mauritia wrapped the musket in leather and hid it, together with the bow and arrow, under a tree. She covered the weapons with vines, grass, and leaves. She also tied the horse to the tree, took the leather-wrapped bundles and the pouch of gold, and we walked into the town.

  We did not walk down the main street, but through the backstreets of the town. There was a mixture of “fine” houses, smelting warehouses, churches, public buildings, boarding houses, taverns, stick and mud huts.

  We passed many street vendors, got out of the way of muleteers and miners on their way to smelting houses.

  Mauritia walked up to one of the vendors. I thought she was going to buy fish from the woman, though we already had fish.

  “Capistrana,” she said, kissing the cheek of the woman.

  “Eh, Mauritia, it’s been a long time.”

  “I’ve brought you some merchandise,” said Mauritia, placing all of her bundles on the woman’s table.

  The woman, who seemed to be perhaps ten years younger than Mauritia, thanked her. There was a resemblance between them. Were they sisters, cousins? She also placed the pouch—her share or a share of her share of the gold—in the woman’s bosom. Would she come back for it when she needed it, or was everything a gift?

  “This is my sister, Capistrana,” she said. “This is Almeyda.”

  The woman said hello to me and then looked again at her sister.

  Behind her was a square two-story building made of white sandstone. To the left were stairs leading up to a little balcony.

  “But why are you here?” asked Capistrana.

  “She’s looking for someone, though she won’t tell me who he is—and I agreed to be her guide. Otherwise I would not have come here, as I said I did not care to see Vila Rica again.”

  “Eh, you’re the same rascal.”

  “Why do you call me a rascal? Because I don’t care to live in this city?”

  “You could be very prosperous here. Me? I’m owned by the forasteiro. What can I do? But you could be very prosperous and a ‘free agent.’“

  “And if they had bad luck, or got in trouble with the authorities for not paying the king his share, or there was an epidemic of smallpox or some such ill, I’d be the first they’d blame. No, I prefer the wilderness.”

  “Eh,” said her sister, tossing her head. “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you’d murdered the men yourself!”

  Mauritia said nothing though I looked at her and saw her flinch. “So that now, you can live your life of rascality.”

  Mauritia was silent, though she sighed deeply. Then she looked at me, “Well, do you want to tell Capistrana the name of the fellow you’re looking for? She’s been in Vila Rica and in the Minas district for a long time.”

  “I’d like to talk to Mariana first.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know her.”

  “I’ve heard her name before. Perhaps it’s not the same Mariana.”

  Capistrana was looking at me so intensely that I felt uncomfortable. I wondered why I had come here. How did I expect to find him here?

  Now Capistrana was opening the bundles of salted and fresh fish and other items that Mauritia had brought her. Why had she given her the gold? I wondered.

  “Well, we’re going to see Mariana,” Mauritia said.

  Capistrana looked up and said, “All right . . . How long will you stay in Vila Rica?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mauritia.

  “Why does she call you a rascal?” I asked, when we were some distance from the woman.

  “Because if she had my ‘freedom’ she would use it differently. But I’m only free here in this district where they had that myth of me.”

  She stopped at the back door of one of the taverns.

  “There’s discipline in freedom that she wouldn’t understand,” she said. “But do I? If I were a man I’d go into the backlands.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Without answering, she knocked softly on the back door. A handsome young mulatto woman opened it only part way, so that she only saw me.

  “Mariana, this is Mauritia. Can my friend and I come in?”

  “I’m not Mariana, but come in.”

  She opened the door. I stood aside, so that Mauritia was the first to enter.

  In the kitchen there was a long table full of different kinds of dishes, and there were several pots cooking in a fireplace. There was another woman, about my age, an Angolan, who stood at the fireplace stirring and cooking the pots. The woman turned.

  “Sit down, Mauritia, and your friend too,” said Mariana.

  I had expected the longhaired mulatto to be “Mariana” as she’d been in my dream.

  The “dark” woman was tall, slender, wearing her fuzzy hair brushed back from her forehead. She was wearing a white apron over her blue cotton dress. She reminded me of one of the women I had worked with at the manioc plantation.

  “My friend’s name is Almeyda,” said Mauritia.

  “I’m Mariana and this is Garimpeira,” she said of the mulatto woman.

  The mulatta nodded, but did not say anything. She arranged plates on a wooden tray and went out. We could not see into the saloon, but we could hear the conversations. Mariana asked us to sit down. We sat down on a bench placed against the wall, while she stood carving beef.

  “Girl, bring me some strong beer for my cough,” said someone. “It’s not for my cough. Come here, girl, and take me to Brazil’s paradise on earth.”

  “There’re plenty on the coast.”

  “Eh, Buspar Belaude. What would you take for this one?”

  “This one’s like the wilderness, that’s why I like her. That’s why my name’s Sertao, because I love the wilderness. I can’t exist without the wilderness. I’d like to take this wilderness into my wilderness. I like to keep my distance from the cities to avoid the authorities, I don’t like government, but I certainly wouldn’t keep my distance from that one.”

  The mulatta came back into the room, without showing any expression. She deposited empty plates and fixed another tray.

  “Is that why you’re Sertao?” asked a voice from inside.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a criminal?”

  “No, I’m no criminal, I just like to stay free of authorities. I don’t like governments.”

  “I thought you were a miner.”

  “No, I’m a Sertanista and an explorer. I haven’t seen the coast in twenty years.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I come back here every few years for a good drink and to see what has developed.”

  “And a good woman, eh?”

  They continued talking, but Mauritia was telling Mariana that they had come there because I was in search of someone, and that since she saw many of the miners, who came there during their “holidays” . . .

  “Do they allow Negroes in there?” I asked suddenly.

  “No, they have their meals and drink in here,” said Mariana, as Garimpeira went back into the saloon. “Who are you looking for?”

  “A Sudanese, a Moha
mmedan, eh, I mean to say Muslim from the coast. A man.”

  She laughed. “Ah, I know many Sudanese from the coast. What’s his name? When was he brought here?”

  “She won’t give his name.”

  “I’m sure he would have gone by another name if he was here.”

  “I don’t know how you expect us to help you if you can’t even trust us with his name,” said Mauritia.

  “It’s Anninho,” said I.

  I couldn’t tell by her look whether she knew the name or not, but she said, “No.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Mauritia. There was a strange sound in her voice, or my imagination put it there.

  “Well, nearly all the miners have been here one holiday or another.”

  “How do they get money to buy food?” I asked.

  There was laughter from the women, but I didn’t ask its meaning.

  “Some of them are required to turn into their masters a set amount of gold, and they may keep the rest for their own use. Some have been able to buy their freedom in that manner. But where that is not the case, don’t you think it would be easy for me to get gold dust in my hair if I worked in a mine, and transport it with me anywhere?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said.

  “But this Anninho. No. I would recognize such a name.”

  I told her also about Palmares and King Zumbi, and that I had first met Anninho there.

  She said she had heard of Palmares, of how they had executed the leader, and the survivors had scattered, but did not recognize the man I was speaking of.

  “He’s her husband,” said Mauritia.

  “I don’t know him.”

  “He wouldn’t have been exactly a miner. He would have been passing through. He was a free man.”

  “I still don’t know him.”

  I did not know what else to say. Should I tell them that he might have spoken to some miners here? That there was some plan . . . I could not explain it to them. I did not know these women.

  “There are other towns in Minas,” said Mauritia, shaking her head.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” I said. “Will many miners be here then?”

  “Yes,” said Mariana. “Would you like something to eat?”