The War of the End of the World

By 1877, the Counselor has amassed a large group of followers. This is the year of a terrible drought in Bahia, which triggers an even worse famine. Attacks by bandits multiply, but they refuse to harass the Counselor or his followers. They listen to his preaching, in which he describes the drought as a forewarning of the Antichrist, and some choose to join him. They travel aimlessly, surviving on offerings, until every town and village in the backlands knows them.

In 1888, slavery is abolished. A year later, the monarchy is overthrown and the Republic of Brazil established. Church and State are separated: there is civil marriage; towns, not parishes, become responsible for cemeteries; the metric system is introduced; the census instituted. The Counselor preaches against all of these developments. He says that the new government plans to persecute Catholics and reintroduce slavery. Arriving in the town of Natuba, where posters announce the collection of taxes for the first time, the Counselor rages through the streets tearing them down. Finally he announces that “the Antichrist was abroad in world; his name was Republic” (22).

At a military field hospital, Lieutenant Pires Ferreira explains to a skeptical commissioner from the city how his company was defeated by a religious procession from Canudos. Ferreira and his men assumed the procession was composed of peaceful pilgrims, and by the time they realized their mistake it was too late: The pilgrims were on top of Ferreira’s men with knives and clubs, screaming, “Down with the Republic” (24). The doctor sees signs of explosive bullets in the soldiers’ wounds. A man babbling in the corner is revealed to be the company’s medical officer. He is restrained, because earlier he tried to shoot himself in the head. The same nearsighted journalist from Chapter 1 takes notes with a goose-quill pen.

Big João was born into slavery on the estate of Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio. He is a favorite of the landowner’s sister, who brings him on trips and dresses him up. Nevertheless, he is a violent child. Despite being several years younger than the cook’s son, Little João, he easily overpowers him in games. One day, Adalberto’s sister leaves the estate with both boys, planning a trip to a convent. When they fail to arrive, search parties are convened. The search continues for months without results, until a magistrate finds the Gumúcio monogram on a coach he buys. Soon, a gang of outlaws turns in Little João, who tells the whole story. Big João knocked the mistress out, took control of the coach, and drove away. Then he tortured her with stones before stabbing her to death. When Little João asked why he killed her, Big João said, “Because I’ve got the dog in me” (29). He started calling the Devil “Father,” and one day he commanded Little João to kill him. Instead, Little João ran away. Because of his crimes, Little João is hanged. Despite a hefty reward, Big João cannot be found. He wanders the backlands, begging. One day, he hears the Counselor preaching about the Devil. His soul is touched and he joins the band, following at a distance.

In his first years in Salvador, Galileo Gall becomes friends with Jan van Rijsted, a Dutch former smuggler, who rents him a room and finds him students, and Dr. José Batista de Sá Oliveira, an elderly physician. They teach Gall about Brazil, and he writes articles for L’Etincelle de la révolte on subjects such as the abolition of slavery. Despite their friendship, “neither […] had the impression that they really knew this man” (32). Gall tells them nothing about his past and disappears for weeks on trips through the country. These inspire his revolutionary fervor: The inequality and wretchedness he witnesses confirms his hatred for the state and his admiration for those who oppose it, including criminals and ex-criminals like van Rijsted.

A squad of Bahia Police arrives in Natuba to investigate the Counselor’s vandalism. Following his trail through the backlands, they eventually come upon him preaching to a crowd of 150 sertanejos. When the police command the sertanejos to hand over the Counselor, the crowd rushes them. Four police are killed and the rest chased away. The Counselor warns his followers there will be greater violence to come and to leave now. Not one of them does. Blessing them, he proclaims it is “time to build a Temple,” which will “be what Noah’s Ark had been in the beginning” when the end of the world comes (36). They continue to wander until they arrive at Canudos, a collection of huts and a crumbling mansion. The Counselor declares this is the place they will settle, as the inhabitants, including the Vilanova brothers, watch them stream into the area.

Galileo Gall seeks a guide who can take him to Canudos. He arrives at a hut owned by Rufino, a jungle tracker, outside the town of Queimadas. Rufino is reluctant at first; he mentions that inhabitants of Canudos have killed soldiers of the National Guard in a battle at Uauá. Gall says they should keep their intentions secret, as Rufino invites him to his house in town to discuss further.

A penitent named Maria Quadrado is carrying a cross on her back over 200 miles from Salvador to Monte Santo. She survives on fruit from trees and charity from passersby. She is shoeless, has given away almost all her clothes, and has survived four rapes by the time she arrives. The town ascends to a mountaintop, the route marked with chapels. Maria Quadrado stops in each, taking not one drop of water or bite of food for the whole ascent. At the top, she faints. The locals come to revere her as a saint, paying her homage in the dank cave where she installed herself after the ascent. The missionaries, however, warn them “against the wrong sort of religiosity, the sort that escaped the control of the Church” and regard her with suspicion (42). One day the Counselor arrives. Maria Quadrado is part of the audience for his speech and regards him as different from the false prophets who are frequently drawn to Monte Santo. At the end of his speech, she offers her cave for the night. He stays there for the time it takes to repair every chapel on the roadside, until one day he moves on, and the locals discover Maria Quadrado has gone with him.

The chapter’s final section is an article by Galileo Gall for L’Etincelle de la révolte. It describes Gall hearing from a patient of Dr. Oliveira that a large hacienda owned by Bahia’s wealthiest man, the Baron de Canabrava, has been occupied for two years by fanatics. This hacienda is Canudos. Gall approves of their rejection of the institution of marriage in favor of “promiscuity,” which he interprets as the revolutionary act of “free love” (45). His curiosity leads him to visit a Capuchin friar who has been to Canudos. The friar’s account confirms Gall’s suspicions, that an uneducated group of penniless sertanejos “by the sheer powers of instinct and imagination, are carrying out in practice many of the things that we European revolutionaries know are necessary in order to institute a reign of justice on this earth” (46). The friar recalls his terror at how many of the inhabitants were armed, and at the bandits he recognized among them. The Counselor says that the reason he allows these murderers to follow him is because they killed as a result of poverty. Gall agrees. In Canudos, he discovers, they refuse to use money minted by the republican government and have abolished private property. Gall concludes by proclaiming that the spirit of revolution, which has been defeated in Europe, is being revived in Brazil.