Triste Tropico Page #3

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He would be accompanied by a black slave

with whom he claimed

to have a daughter.

With Lucifer

he called himself

the Pastor and Captain

of the blind nations.

He sends his double,

Fortunato Xumbergas, to the sky

to extinguish the meteors.

- When you were born?

- July 8

- How many years have you attend the troupe?

- 38 years with Bola Preta's troupe

- And why come out with this fantasy?

- It's a tradition now!

- I've been the standard-bearer

of Bola Preta for 25 years...

- And now I'm a clown!

- Very well!

He encourages the Indians

to stop working

so the plants, henceforth,

grew alone,

the arrows will hunt animals

automatically.

He promises many

spicy enemies to devour.

Enemies' rifles will spit water.

When visitors asked him how

the people of Europe are, he said:

They are aerial monsters, hairy,

with their heads pierced,

blurting out tobacco smoke.

They are footless,

their nails are a meter in length,

they have a velvety body, like bats.

Five years go by.

We find him as Adam

putting, into Hebrew, the proper names

of all the animals,

renaming 15,000 adults.

He healed the sick by shamanism,

by blowing on them,

and was helped by women

whose profession was to suck

and lick the aching parts.

He revived the forbidden cult

of Jurupari.

With flagellation rituals and the

consumption of strongly alcoholic drinks.

Possessed by the gods,

some inexperienced sectarians

offered themselves in sacrifice

by throwing themselves off cliffs

in a conspicuous suicide.

The itinerant notary

Tutimosis Loposiana, tells

that such was the zeal of Dr. Arthur

in converting souls

that walking from one part to another

special measures were necessary

to alleviate the traffic of pilgrims

in the foothills of Sierra de Ibiapaba.

He assimilated Christ

as a civilizing hero

of the Tupani type.

And the saints,

the sorcerer-healers

believed to promote

a truly national syncretism.

His hidden desire

was to walk through the sky

as his contemporary did,

Bartolomeu de Gusmo.

One day the immigration began

The band sought to retrace

a centenary rout of Guarani messianism.

The Direction:
Santa Cruz,

north of the Scorpion Zone

In his cohorts

they sowed maps

of uncharted territories

with names of the positivist calendar.

Dr. Arthur went ahead

dressed in white

and was carried on crossed swords.

amongst the most healthy

surrounded him,

singing licentious songs.

He claimed that the statues

adored by Christians

were disguised statues

of his wife, Grimanesa Le Petit.

About her, says Euclides da Cunha,

who knew her personally:

Scary megaera,

rebarbative witch,

the most hideous old woman

of these hinterlands,

frightening picture of

voracious motherhood.

One of her feet is human,

the other, animal.

Dr. Arthur wanted his

love story on an epic scale.

But he went into secret negotiations

with his mistress,

Dorotia de Gracia Tavarela D'almira,

author of the book:

Maxims of virtue and beauty

by which Difanes,

Criminia and Emirena,

Prince of Thebes

defeated the hardest moves of doom

by imitating the wise Fenelon

on his journey to Thelema.

The walk was long,

even fatiguing.

The group would still

stop to dance,

sing and fast,

following the ritual in detail.

At times, until the total

annihilation of their forces.

On the way, once,

they stumbled upon the

corpse of a woman strung up,

hanging from a tree branch

Dr Artur says:

The gods have made

all the trees to give fruit.

Sometimes, to distract them,

he'd tell trite jokes

from his old almanac

like the ones of

"professional diseases"

Lawyers have "forumculosis"

Farmers have milk leg

Dancers, pernicious 'akneemia'

Warehouse Clerk,

loss of weight

Sailors,

'searrhosis' of the liver

Public officials,

sleeping disease

Hunters, elephantiasis

Grammarians, conjunctivitis

Miners, 'coalera'

Jockeys, galloping TB

Players of Billiards,

'biliary' calculations

Sextons, 'bellagra'

Drivers, 'taxicardia'

Soldiers, gunner-ear

Painters, yellow fever.

Dr. Arthur began to demand

unconditional worship.

This would tend to hasten the

advent of the golden age.

A critical review

of Brazilian culture.

During the journey

they practiced abortion and infanticide

They would involve themselves

in wild discussions

on how to interpret

The Last Supper.

When crossing rural properties

Dr. Artur needed

to unite certain pilgrims

who wanted to kill and eat

all the baptized children

they met en route.

Arriving in Santa Cruz,

just to impress,

he gives order to construct a shack

carpeted with red velvet,

with sinks of crystal,

alabaster figures

and fragrances.

Fifteen maids struggled to clean

and take care of the relics.

And the indexing of relics huh?

It has to be a section without emphasis.

Part of the crown of thorns

A piece of wood from

The True Cross,

the slipper of The Virgin,

a bonnet of St. Mary Magdalene.

He ordered supplies

in the capital.

Bullets, kerosene, sewing needles,

fabrics, coffee, sugar,

rum, dried vegetables,

dried beef, flour

and soap.

He sold, assisted by

a primitive marketing team

and 600 parrots

already knowing a few french words.

I go straight to the hot spots!

His powers increased.

He believed that

he could provoke flooding

and the rupture of dykes.

Paralyzing his enemies,

disabling them

from eating or sleeping

Sometimes he blocked their bowels,

thereby impeding them from evacuating.

The power to bring together

river banks

for crossings and escapes.

The power of drying lagoons and rivers,

whose waters'd retreat respectfully

under his orders.

He had the power

of giving human form

to the trunks of trees,

to please the fantasies of children.

And the power to freely

change his sex,

to please his own fantasy.

As the messiah of the Chaco

he could describe scenes

occurring several miles away,

as if he was watching a movie.

He claimed to have captured

Halley's comet

and the drought of 1910 in a vase,

so he'd release it at the right time.

to destroy the Christians.

His miracles were growing.

There were so many candidates

that the proposals for salvation

had to be referred

in a sealed envelope.

He acquired rights:

The right to steal, to rape.

The right of prey.

The inhabitants paid

agricultural tributes

in exchange for material

and spiritual

protection.

Alongside were served

But the Devil was

not satisfied with certain excesses,

inadmissible within their

moral and legal standards.

And then the hostilities against

Dr. Artur began.

Under the direction of a

Franciscan with abscesses,

intestinal worms

and pustules on his face,

The 'Neophytes',

catechumens from the mission

near Abapa

gave the first skirmishes against

the troops of Dr. Arthur.

Result:

and 580 deserted.

On January the first

The obscure St. Zataualpa

receives sudden divine inspiration

and shouts that Dr. Artur

is nothing but a carnival king.

He establishes a mysterious

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