The Sound of a Roaring Jaguar
As long as you are connected to the earth, you are never alone.
Historical literature is one of my favorite readings after memoirs. Knowing the facts, traveling in time, and being in someone's shoes fascinate me.
This week I went to Amazonia. I listened to wild birds singing; I walked barefoot in the jungle, and talked to the forest protectors. I went back to 1817, and I heard the sound of a roaring jaguar.
I witnessed abuse, ambition, abandon, abduction, neglect, diseases, death. I learned that nature talks and rivers link us to anywhere through this 71% water planet. As long as you are connected to the earth, you are never alone.
Brazil is home to great historians writers like Laurentino Gomes, Mary Del Priore, Lilia Schwarcz, Gilberto Freyre. They constantly write something nobody ever mentioned, and their stories become the top subject of podcasts and talk shows.
After Covid, the worldwide tv news revealed a long-time humanitarian crisis in Brazil involving the genocide of the Yanomami tribe in Amazonia. Since then, I've been reading books about the other side of the story. The native's point of view has been quite shocking.
Netflix has a documentary about the Yanomamis called "The Last Forest".
Brazil's colonization history has a different outcome than America's. My people are more racially mixed. Everybody has a tale that is told through generations about a great-grandmother being abducted from her tribe by a wild cowboy/European and taken as wife. I’ve heard stories like that from my dad's side of the family, and most likely the Brazilian you know from your work has it too or heard about it in their hometown.
The experience I described in the beginning of this newsletter was written by this amazing writer and poet called Micheliny Verunschk. What I didn't know was that she is also a historian. This book was a piece of art. Using a mix of Portuguese and indigenous dialects, she crafted a mesmerizing story inspired by true events.
O som do rugido da onça
The Sound of a Roaring Jaguar
Published by Companhia das Letras, 2021
168 pages - Brazilian version.
In this lyrical novel, Micheliny Verunschk exposes the story of two native children of the Amazon forest in XIX Brazil, kidnapped and brought to Europe by two German explorers.
In 1817, Spix and Martius disembarked in Brazil with the mission of registering their impressions about the country. Three years and ten thousand kilometers later, the explorers went back to Munich bringing with them not only a detailed travel report, but also two native kids, who will die shortly after reaching the European soil.
In her fifth novel, Micheliny Verunschk builds a powerful narration putting aside the hegemonic historiography of the time and bringing light on the main characters of this story, two children – here called Iñe-e and Juri – torn away from their native land. The plot is intertwined with contemporary Brazil, where we meet Josefa, a young girl that sees a picture of the two kids during an exhibition and understands her lack of knowledge on the matter.
If you are also interested in this subject and would like to read books written by native authors, I suggest Ailton Krenak. He is a renowned Indigenous activist and leader. In his work, he describes the devastation of his land and the impact it caused on his tribe, mother nature, and the government neglect.
In later years, Krenak has been playing a distinguished role in public debate in Brazil. He has released three books as of August 2020: Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo (Ideas for Postponing the End of the World - 2019), A vida não é útil (Life is not useful - 2020), and Futuro ancestral (Future Ancestor - 2022)
In his book, Ideas to Postpone the End of the World, which has also been translated into English, he deconstructs a number of our western concepts: humankind, reason, and also the idea of sustainability. The way the west sees it, sustainability describes a development that satisfies the needs of the present without preventing future generations from satisfying their needs. "
