Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

So that when the Kubitschek government wanted to distinguish its term in office with some sensational and never-to-be-forgotten public work, the idea of turning the old dream of Brasília into a reality immediately ocurred to them. Kubitschek, optimistic, energetic, and ebullient, refused to see any difficulties, or, later, to recognize the serious economic crisis and the spiral of inflation the country was entering. There was a great deal of opposition to it, and still is.

But it got built, even at the cost of over a billion dollars and the destruction of the national budget, at the expense of everything else. It also became a symbol to the Brazilian people and such a strong one that even politicians opposed to it (as the next candidate, Quadros, was known to be) did not dare speak of abandoning the whole project and returning the government to Rio. The government was installed on the 21st of April, 1960, and the government functionaries were all required to move there — or at least as many of them as there were buildings enough ready for. It has been hard to get a quorum in the Senate; the course of justice has become slowed almost to a standstill. The controversy still rages. It is only fair, of course, to try to distinguish between the really tragic drawbacks of the move, and those that are merely temporary discomforts, such as attended the building of Washington, D.C.

Even events leading up to the renunciation of Jânio Quadros as president have been blamed on Brasília.

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In Rio, the Cariocas (and all Brazilians are potential Cariocas) conceal their jealousy, if they feel any, and laugh at the tribulations of Brasília. The fact is that no one is really yet accustomed to the idea of the new capital. The government that is there feels itself more like a “government in exile” than anything else. Rio continues to be the heart and soul of the country. São Paulo only recently overtook it in economic power and in population, and in Rio they still keep saying that good “Paulistas” when they die, come to Rio.

While Brazil remains in many ways an agricultural country — agriculture produces almost 30 per cent of the national income and employs more than half of the working population — revenue from industry is beginning to overtake that from agriculture. In 1960 Brazil produced more than 134,000 vehicles with parts made almost entirely within the country. Steel production is increasing, and Brazil is now turning out more than 2 million net tons a year, compared with 350,000 net tons in the immediate postwar period. Even appliances are beginning to be produced in volume.

Remarkable as this achievement is, it does not necessarily mean that Brazil will soon become an industrial colossus. The country has ample resources — its hydroelectric potential alone is the world’s greatest: 80 million kilowatts. But Brazilians, it is said, “collect the fruit without planting the tree.” They have a national penchant for skimming off quick profits instead of laying the foundation for solid future earnings. The economic history of Brazil could almost be told in its long succession of spectacular booms. Brazil’s economy was dominated by sugar, gold, and coffee in succession, with brief interludes devoted to other products. But the country is today trying to diversify, rather than depend on single crops or industries.

One of Brazil’s earliest occupations was cattle raising, and it was necessarily an imported one. The Portuguese discoverers had been surprised to find that the Indians had no domestic animals, or at least no useful domestic animals. The Indians had only dogs, monkeys, and birds.

One of the first, and very difficult, undertakings of the Portuguese was to bring to Brazil all the domesticated animals they were accustomed to at home. In the middle of the 16th century cattle were brought to Bahia from Portugal and the Cape Verde Islands. They were the forebears of the cattle of the plains of the northeast.

Cattle were introduced in the south as early as 1532. The settlers who followed the bandeirantes took with them cows, horses, pigs, and goats. Later they drove the descendants of these animals through the one natural passage which penetrates the coastal mountain range and into the open stretch west of São Paulo. Horses and cows were allowed to range freely. As in the early days in the west of the United States, rustling and the roundup of wild herds — for the most part strays from the Jesuit villages — were important aspects of the life and legend of the region.

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Although from the beginning sugar was the principal product in the northeast, cattle were a stimulus to colonization and the opening of new lands. In search of pastures for their herds, cattlemen pushed deep into the northeastern interior. Cattle raising changed from a simple adjunct of the great plantations to an independent activity. From it came the so-called “leather culture” that developed in this whole vast region of Brazil during the first centuries of the country’s history. The horse, upon which cattle raising depended, today inseparable from the gaucho of the Brazilian pampas and the vaqueiro of the northeast, became acclimated throughout the country. Today Brazil has more than 8 million horses.

In the northeast most of the cattle are descendants of the original herds. They are small and give little milk, but are tough and resistant. Over the years, the government and progressive cattle raisers have improved the stock throughout the country by crossing it with the zebu, or Brahman, introduced from India. This animal is well-adapted to the harsh northern conditions of heat, drought, and meager pasturage, and it thrives where the finest European stock dies off or quickly sickens and degenerates. Zebus, with their high shoulder humps, high-domed skulls, and long, drooping ears, have become common in most of Brazil, adding an exotic yet somehow not incongruous note to the landscape.

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At the turn of the 20th century, zebus were imported into the huge section of fine cattleland in Minas Gerais called the “Minas Triangle,” which is now the center of the cattle industry. They became acclimated so successfully that zebu-owning became a passion with cattle raisers; prices soared, zebu buying and selling became a form of gambling, and there was wild speculation. In the 1920s the fever reached such a pitch that a single good bull brought as much as $7,500, compared to an average price of $250 for bulls of European breed.

Outside the beef-raising Triangle, the cattle of Minas Gerais are dairy cattle, and their products, including the white Minas cheese (no longer seen on every table at least once a day), are sold everywhere. Beef cattle need huge tracts of land, and with the rapid and progressive industrialization of the central-southern part of the country the cattle are being shifted to the wilder regions of Goiás and the Pantanal in Mato Grosso, which offer favorable conditions and are also near the biggest consumer of beef, the State of São Paulo.

In Pará, especially on the island of Marajó, the Indian water buffalo has been introduced and seems completely at home. The wilderness and abundant rivers and swamps of the huge island provide the kind of semi-aquatic life this semidomesticated beast prefers, while ordinary cattle, even the zebu, do not thrive there.

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In a country with few refrigerators, the industry of making charque, a dried, salted meat which does not spoil easily and which is usually cooked with the staple black beans and rice, is very important. The industry started in the northeast and was taken by immigrants to Rio Grande do Sul. Although outranked in total number of cattle by Minas Gerais, this state now raises the country’s finest beef and is a center of the meat-packing industry. With 72.8 million head, Brazil is second only to the U.S. in number of beef cattle, but not in beef production, primarily because of poor disease control, inadequate transport and refrigeration facilities, and antiquated methods.