Backlands (26 page)

When he arrived at the place he had spent the first part of his life, the charges were dismissed and he was set free. And the same year he returned to Bahia, where his followers were waiting for him. His return coincided to the day with the date he said he would come back when he was arrested, and this took on the aspect of a miracle, increasing his influence threefold.

He wandered for a while through the backlands of Curacá, showing a preference for staying in Xorroxó, a small settlement of a few hundred people, whose lively fair attracted the majority of the settlers along that section of the São Francisco River. An elegant chapel still marks the place where he stayed. An even more revered landmark was the little tree at the entrance to the town, which for a long time was the object of extraordinary devotion. The pilgrim rested under its shade. It was a sacred bush. In its shade the sick were cured and its leaves were an infallible remedy. The people were initiating a great series of miracles that the poor man probably never contemplated.

For a decade, beginning in 1877, he made his way through the
sertão
in all directions, even reaching the coast at Vila do Conde in 1887. In this entire region there is probably no city or settlement where he did not appear. Alagoinhas, Inhambupe, Bom Conselho, Jeremoabo, Cumbe, Mocambo, Maçacará, Pombal, Monte Santo, Tucano, and other places saw him arrive, followed by his ragged band. In almost all of these places he left some reminder of his stay: In one place the ruined walls of a cemetery were rebuilt, in another a church had been repaired, and farther on a chapel had been constructed with a display of fine craftsmanship.

His entrance to a town was always a solemn and impressive sight. He was followed by a silent multitude bearing holy images, crucifixes, and banners. All normal activity came to a halt as the population of the surrounding area converged on the town, which took on the commotion of a fair. For a number of days the local authorities were ignored as the wandering missionary would give orders and would take over the command of the place.

In the public park they erected gazebos decorated with leaves, where in the evening the faithful would recite their rosaries and sing hymns. When there were large crowds, they would set up a platform next to the fair booths in the center of the square so the words of the prophet could reach all corners of the public space and enlighten the believers.

He would mount the platform and preach. Those still alive today who heard him preach then report that his sermons were terrifying, intended to frighten his listeners to the core. His oratory was barbaric and was made up of botched excerpts from the
Hours of Mary
. His syntax was disconnected and abstruse and made even more bizarre by an abuse of Latin quotations. His broken sentences were a confused mix of dogma, vulgarized precepts of Christian morality, and outlandish prophecies.

It was clownish and grotesque.

Imagine a buffoon in the grip of a vision of the apocalypse, looking at his audience. The subdued crowd would stand there, overwhelmed by the endless torrent of nonsense.

Occasionally he would appear to be concerned about the effect of one or another key statement. He would pronounce it and then pause, raise his head, and open his eyes wide, revealing the flash of his black eyes. No one dared to return his gaze. The congregation would look away, rendered immobile by his extreme insanity. At such a moment this pathetic figure performed his only miracle, which was not to appear ridiculous.

His sermons competed successfully with those of the wandering Capuchin monks of the missions. They promulgated a vague and inconsistent religion. Anyone listening to him might make historical comparisons. One might recall the pages of
Marc-Aurèle
, in which Renan revives the mad cult leaders of early centuries with his electrifying prose. One could not ask for a better reproduction of the same concepts, images, hyperbolic formulas, and even the same words. It is a beautiful example of parallels between stages of human evolution. The backlands mystic reproduces the style of early mystics. In contemplating this, one gains a perspective that spans centuries.

He is a being out of time, one of those anachronistic beings who Fouillée, in a felicitous image, compares to “runners on the field of civilization, lagging more and more behind.” (
Coureurs sur le champ de la civilization, de plus en plus en retard.
)

He is a Themison-style dissident, hurling rebukes at the Roman Catholic Church and using Themison’s arguments against it. The Church has lost her past glory and is doing Satan’s bidding. He outlines a moral position that is a literal translation of Montanus—an exaggerated chastity that regards women with horror, while at the same time condoning free love, which threatens marriage as an institution.

The Phrygian, perhaps, had experienced the same bitter aftertaste of conjugal misfortune. Both had stern prohibitions against decorative attire for young women, especially against hair ornaments and headdresses, which would be punished with a comb made of thorns. Beauty was the temptation of Satan and the Counselor displayed a singular aversion to it, never again looking at a woman. He even turned his back when speaking to the elderly pious women, who were so ugly they could tame a satyr.

As we continue to compare the beliefs of this backlands apostle to those of earlier times, the similarity becomes more and more apparent. Like the Montanists, Antônio Conselheiro appeared at a time when the earth was undergoing a period of climatic stress. He expressed the same extravagant fear of the apocalypse and the dread of the Antichrist appearing in the last days.

The faithful should let go of all their worldly goods, anything that might mark them with the slightest trace of vanity. All material fortunes were at the brink of imminent collapse and it was foolhardy to attempt to save them.

All his followers should abandon fleeting endeavors and adopt a rigorous penitential life. Not so much as a smile should stain this discipline. Final Judgment was coming with implacable certainty.

He predicted several years of misfortune, which he recorded in small notebooks full of misspellings, bad grammar, and displays of bombastic rhetoric:

And interspersed with these mad teachings were the messianic ravings urging racial rebellion against the republican government:

Prophecies as uttered from his mouth had the same tone as from Phrygia as they made their way to the west. The same pronouncements were made about the final Judgment, the defeat of the powerful, the demise of the profane world, and the reign of the millennium and its delights.

Is there not a trace of Orthodox Judaism in all of this? There is no denying it. This return to a golden age, and the revival of ancient dreams, is a favorite apostolic theme—nothing new—and marks the return of Christianity to its Jewish roots. Montanus reappears throughout history, altered to a greater or lesser degree depending on the character of the people who revive him, but with the same thunderous rejection of church hierarchies, the same appeal to the supernatural, the same longings for heaven on earth, and the same primitive dream that was at the heart of the old religion before it was deformed by the sophist councils. Like his predecessors, Antônio Conselheiro was a fundamentalist who longed for the kingdom of God, a dream constantly delayed and in the end completely forgotten by the second-century Orthodox church. His teachings were nothing more than a precursor to a Catholicism that he poorly understood.

Consistently, with his missions, Conselheiro would order penances to be performed, which ordinarily benefited the local communities. Run-down churches would be renovated; abandoned cemeteries would be rebuilt; new and elegant constructions would go up. The stonemasons and carpenters worked for free, suppliers would provide materials at no cost, and the people would carry the stones. For days at a time these workers would labor with pious zeal for the wages laid up for them in heaven.

And once the job was done, the Predestined One would move on to parts unknown. He would take the first path out to the backlands, over the rolling plains with their crisscrossed trails, without a backward glance to those who were following him. He did not have to worry about opposition from a potentially dangerous adversary—the local priest. A reliable witness has reported that the clergy permitted and encouraged these practices that promoted activities at no benefit to him and produced income for the clergy, such as baptisms, confessions, feast days, and novenas. The vicars tolerated the antics of the possessed saint, who at least filled their empty coffers. In 1882 the archbishop of Bahia took notice and tried to put a stop to this ill-disguised form of protectionism by way of a circular addressed to all the clergy.

The intervention of the church was useless. Throughout his wanderings of the backlands, Antônio Conselheiro continued his aimless career as an apostle without any obstacles. And, as if he wished to keep alive the memory of his former persecution, he would return regularly to Itapicurú. The deputy of this town was finally forced to appeal to the authorities in the form of an official letter to the police that reviewed the agitator’s history and set forth the following complaint:

And then the writer goes on to point out the latest travesties committed by the fanatics.

After a disagreement between Antônio Conselheiro’s group and the vicar of Inhambupe, the missionary gathered his forces as if for a full battle. It is common knowledge that they were waiting for the curate to show up at Junco so they could kill him. Travelers in the area are intimidated by the sight of those misfits armed with clubs, knives, and rifles. Woe to anyone suspected of crossing Antônio Conselheiro!