Cabaceiras (PB), July 22, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Scenario for the films "Play of the Compassionate Lady" (2000), by Guel Arraes, and "Saint Jerome" (1998), by Júlio Bressane, the Carirí region was also discovered by European tourists - the "gringos from far away," as backlands residents put it. The gringos, tired of the seacoast, arrive in Cabaceiras, to marvel at that expanse of dry landscape, something which outsiders have only viewed in the films of Glauber Rocha, the Bahian who invented the esthetics of hunger.
Father Mathew's Rock, an archeological site with stone inscriptions left by the Cariri Indians, is the most-visited spot. The name of the rock formation recalls an old hermit who lived in a cave in the vicinity, in the 19th century. A wealth of stories are told about this wise backwoodsman who spurned the habits and customs of his supposedly civilized peers.
At night, around an open fire - temperatures in the backlands frequently drop to 15º C at night - "Sir" Edvaldo tells tall tales, recounts legends, and entertains visitors at a farm hotel near the prehistoric mesa. "I personally never found all that much to admire in this rock, no, but outsiders become dumbfounded," he declares. "They know about the teachings that exist in those dens and caverns."
The mayor of Cabaceiras, Arnaldo Júnior Farias Doso (PPS), knows how to draw people to his muncipality. The goat-king festival is a blast. It is held every year from the last week in May to the beginning of June. There are goat races, goat pizza for strength, goat's milk cocktails, elections for the best goat, and even a beauty contest to select the Goat Queen, who reigns until the next festival.
This year's winner was a 16 year-old student, Ivonara Veruska de Farias Souza, who beat two dozen other candidates. "I don't really like goats all that much, but winning the contest was a tremendous thrill. There were so many people, you really had to see it," she recalls.
But the city's concerns are not restricted to goats. The local government also installed a museum to preserve Cabaceiras's history and the chronicle of its customs. There, in a building once occupied by a police station invaded by the outlaw gang led by Antonio Silvino (1872-1944), famous long before Lampião (the best-known bandit leader in Northeast Brazil), can be found objects and symbols of local figures. Such as family arms, all of them sporting medieval motifs and belonging to families from the region.
The Carirí is also the region in which the Paraiban writer, Ariano Suassuna, from an aristocratic backlands family, and author of the play on which Arraes based his film, chose to raise she-goats in partnership with his cousin, Manuelito Dantas, who knows this branch as few others do, on the Carnaúbas farm, in the municipality of Taperoá. (DAS)
