A Nation Claims Its Voice

About the time that Al Capone was terrorizing Chicago, a lesser-known—but equally bloodthirsty—gangster was wreaking havoc south of the equator. Although many bandits roamed the badlands of northeastern Brazil in the early 20th century, Lampião was by far the most notorious, and most feared. Robbery, rape, murder—no crime was too serious or too gruesome for this bandit. Although his gang rarely totaled more than 40 men, they often successfully fought off up to 200 police at a time.

Their luck could not last forever. In 1938, one of Lampião’s local supporters betrayed him to the police. A group of soldiers ambushed the gang, killing Lampião, his girlfriend, and several other members of his group. To prove that these fearsome bandits had really been killed, the police cut off their heads and put them on display in Salvador, where they remained for 30 years.

Lampião’s notorious career was chronicled in the Brazilian folk poetry known as la literatura de cordel. The little booklets of verse, with their woodprint covers, can be found in fairs and marketplaces all over northeastern Brazil. Their poets call out to the crowds, reciting their tales. They are at once journalists, storytellers, and commentators. These poets are the voices of the poor.

With Lampião’s death, the stories did not stop. Rather, the poets followed him straight to the afterlife. Tales included “The Arrival of Lampião in Hell” and “Marriage of Lampião with Daughter of Satan.”

The story continued. The line between fact and fiction blurred. Lampião ceased to exist in the physical world, but his impact reached well beyond his lifespan.

For the past century, cordel has provided news and entertainment to the poorest people of northeastern Brazil. Created by the poor, for the poor, cordel has been a trusted source of information for every major local and international event.

“In much of Brazil they didn’t have much modern communication until the transistor radio arrived in the 1960s,” explains Mark Curran, ASU professor emeritus of languages and literature. “Even in the 1960s, folk poets still used cordel to tell of major events. They were holding on to the tradition. The public trusted these poets. They knew they were honest.”

But now, even the poorest, most remote villagers have access to mass media like television and the Internet. Curran says the tradition is slowly dying out.

Dying, but like Lampião, not disappearing. After decades of neglect from the cultural elite, cordel is finally getting its due. In spring 2001, the Brazilian business group SESC-POMPEIA hosted “100 Years of cordel.” The event, held in São Paulo, received 80,000 visitors over its two-month duration. All the major national media covered the event. For the first time, the storytellers became the story.

Curran is a pioneering scholar and expert on cordel. The ASU professor was the principal foreign expert at the “100 Years” celebration. He has devoted his career to studying cordel, publishing eight books on the subject, including: History of Brazil in Cordel (1998), and the more comprehensive Portrait of Brazil in the Cordel, currently on press.

Curran spent much of his career justifying the legitimacy of his work. “There was a rather significant bias against the poetry and its public,” he explains. “It still exists. I fight it all the time.”

But things are slowly changing.

“The 100 Years Celebration did a lot to legitimize cordel in Brazil. This poetry is an important part of the national cultural heritage,” Curran explains.

“cordel has documented just about every major event of the 20th century,” he continues. “It’s like an unofficial history of Brazil. The poets narrate the story but also give opinions and make judgments. It’s history by the humble class.” In that respect, cordel offers a perspective rarely found in history books.

While much of cordel chronicles current events, other poems tell fairy tales and love stories. Sometimes, the stories blend reality and fantasy, as with the tales of Lampião and other cangaçeiros, or bandits.

Lampião is one of many colorful characters who now reside in Curran’s personal library. The scholar started collecting the poems in 1966, traveling to marketplaces and fairs all over northeastern Brazil. There, the poets would recite and sell their works. Experts estimate that 70,000 to 100,000 different cordel titles have been published. Curran’s collection includes nearly 4,000.

Curran has met many of the poets who write these tales, documenting their personal stories as well as their published ones. Although the poets are well respected and trusted in their own communities, most never earn much money.

“They always say they don’t write for themselves, but for their public. They will tell you, ‘I am the voice of the poor,’” says Curran. Many of them work a regular job and write cordel on the side. But the more successful poets eventually buy their own printing presses. This frees them from having to find a publisher.

“It’s a big battle to get a story published initially,” explains Curran. “You have to take it to someone who is in the business, and convince them to print it. The publisher will take a cut of the copies as payment.”

A successful novelist in Brazil can expect to sell perhaps 100,000 copies of a story. Good cordel can sell several times that amount. The most famous tales have sold more than a million copies. Yet even these popular writers never made it beyond humble class status. Now even the poorest villages have television sets, and cordel is a dying art. But it will not disappear from history, thanks to the work of scholars like Curran, who recognize its value.

Once considered nothing more than dime novels, cordel poems are now recognized even by the Brazilian Academy of Letters. The U.S. Library of Congress, and libraries at the University of Texas, UCLA, and the University of California, Berkeley all house respectable cordel collections. And the woodcuts that decorate the covers of most cordel booklets have become an art form in their own right.

“Some of the artists are now middle class and internationally known. The best of them can make up to $3,000 a print,” says Curran.

Many of the major poets and artists appeared at the “100 Years” celebration. They hosted workshops in which participants could create their own poem and woodcut. Thousands of schoolchildren visited to learn about this important part of their national history.

Although Curran has retired from ASU, he still teaches one class as professor emeritus, and continues writing about his experiences. He has started a new book based on diaries he kept during his many trips to South America, describing his experiences as a gringo in Brazil.

“Along with more serious matters, there will be stories that will have people rolling on the floor,” he says.—Diane Boudreau