On feast days the candles were lit and the oratory was open for
everyone. There was no chapel at Santa Rosa, or any other plantation, probably
because the mother churches at São Miguel and Pilar were not so far. Not that my
grandfather was particularly religious. Repentance was not part of his religion
and he regularly forgot some of the commandments of the Law of God. He did not
go to mass, nor did he confess, but his favourite phrase was 'God willing'
My Aunt Maria took it upon herself to teach me and the black boys our
prayers, prayers that I can still remember to this day. But I never saw my
grandfather pray. All the same he took care of the needs of the two parishes,
both on a day to day basis and at the times of the feasts. He who would die to
protect his woods, would order the woodmen to cut down whatever wood Padre
Severino might want for his church.
When he lit candles in the chapel we would go and see the pictures and
the statues. We loved the statue of Baby Jesus, a pretty baby with cousin
Lili's blue eyes and a kind smile on his mouth. He carried a sceptre in one
hand and a ball representing the world in the other.
"If he dropped that ball the world will end." they would say.
But our Baby Jesus, dressed in a gown of blue with golden stars, wore a
baby's nappy underneath his vestments. We would lift up his gown now and again,
amazed that people in heaven should need such things.
"The children are messing about in the sanctuary!" They would
come and tell us off.
The pictures told the stories of the martyrs. One called Saint Sebastian
was shot through with arrows, and pictures of his miracles surrounded his portrait.
There was the angel Gabriel with a sword thrust into the chest of a devil with
crows' wings; Saint John with a gentle lamb; Saint Severino in a uniform, laid
out in his coffin; a tall saint with a skull in his hand.
The black boys pointed out to me a coloured saint with a child in her
arms, a woman whose face had been marked with a hot iron by her mistress.
"She was a slave," the boys told me. "And her mistress
burned her cheek."
When they spoke of the poor saint's wicked mistress, I immediately thought
of Sinházinha.
But most of the time the prayer room was shut. There was no great desire
for daily prayer on the plantation. Perhaps it was the example of my
grandfather, just and good as he was, but indifferent to the forms of religion,
who led his people away from the rigours of devotion. People would help out
their neighbours and give money for the feasts of Our Lady. But I never saw
anyone from the plantation at a communion table, not even Aunt Maria. The poor
people, those who worked in the fields, only confessed in their hour, when they
would hastily call for a priest. In the meantime, they always had prayers and
blessing and invocations on their tongues.
Aunt Maria taught me the Lord's Prayer, but nobody taught me the
catechism. What religion I had, came from conversations I had had with my
mother. I knew that God had made the world, that there was a heaven and a hell,
and that people suffered on earth on account of an apple. The black boys didn’t
know any more than me.
On feast days, when we went into town to hear the mass we could scarcely
see the priest at the altar. So we went to the coffee houses to get a drink and
then we played in the street.
On Good Friday we only had one meal on the plantation. Fresh fish came
from the city and relatives from other plantations came to visit; we ate much
more than on other days. The maids in the kitchen would speak of Jesus's
suffering from the heart and said that if the priest forgot to say Hallelujah
at the Saturday mass then the world would come to an end.
The tenants came to the main house in large groups to ask for food, as
was the tradition. They were given dried cod and flour. With their wives and
their children they would leave, weighed down by sacks of food, as if they were
walking one of the Stations of the Cross.
The whole day was sad. The train did not run on the railway line.
Sometimes an old lady called Totinha would visit the plantation at this
time of year. She knew the story of the Life, Passion and Death of Jesus Christ
in verse, and with her sad tale she would reduce us to tears.
Old Sinhàzinha was told that
Holy Week at Itambé was how it
should be done. Padre Júlio would kiss the
feet of the poor and lead the procession through the streets. In church he
would give a heart rending sermon while the congregation cried.
The maids stayed in the kitchen talking in whispers. No one bathed in
the river, not wanting to appear naked on that day. The animals were not worked
and no one insulted anyone or called each other names.
They made me release a canary that I had caught.
In our conversations we mulled over and corrected the will of God. We
decided that Jesus Christ should have liquidated all the Jews and taken over
Jerusalem. The greatness of his sacrifice was lost on us. We wanted a material
victory over his executioners.
For Holy Week the little oratory of the saints was open. The sanctuary
was bedecked in black and the pictures of the saints were turned to face the
wall. The saints were ashamed to look at the world.
Such was the religion on the plantation where I grew up.
No comments:
Post a Comment