Cangeceiros Brazil's Bandit Kings.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Essay

Seventy years after they roamed northeastern Brazil as members of Latin America's most publicized bandit gang of the twentieth century, their recollections remain as sharp as the razor-edged thorns of the caatinga shrubs that cover the perpetually and sertao, the country's desolate backlands. Sitting side by side in a spare but tidy apartment in a quiet, working-class neighborhood in the city of Belo Horizonte, Ant6nio Inacio da Silva and his wife, Durvalina "Durvinha" Gomes de Sa, their voices tinged with emotion, talk of gun battles with police and vigilantes, of witnessing unspeakable torture, and of their day-to-day struggle just to survive.

"Yes, I was a cangaceiro," Antonio Inacio says matter-of-factly, weathered hands clutching his always-present walking cane. "I moved through the woods under light and heavy rain, in the darkness, leaning on a tree and holding a musket, waiting to kill or be killed at any moment."

"We suffered a lot," adds Durvinha, tears welling up in her large, expressive eyes, as she recalls the trials of life in the sertao. The desert-like expanse, one of the most inhospitable regions in all of the Americas, includes part of seven Brazilian states and is known for its history of feudalism and frequent peasant revolts.

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Da Silva, 97 years of age, and Gomes de Sa, 93, are among the last members of a rapidly vanishing breed--the extended family forged by those who shared the experience of living with and fighting at the side of Lampiao, the infamous chieftain who led the cangaco movement in the 1920s and '30s. (The name of the movement, according to Brazilian folklorists, comes from the Portuguese word for "yoke" and alludes both to the bandits' unity and to the heavy loads of armaments they carried on their shoulders.)

What remains very much alive is widespread interest--both in popular culture and academic research--in the cangaceiros, their fabled leaders, their daring exploits, and their bloody demise. Both in Brazil and abroad, the cangaceiro has been romanticized, often portrayed as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood, a heroic and stoic "social bandit" who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. This image, more myth than reality, has become an important touchstone for authors, filmmakers, artists, composers, musicians, and political activists in Brazil and beyond.

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In Brazil, over two dozen feature films, both of the lowbrow and critically acclaimed varieties, have mined the cangaceiro theme. The most noted, considered one of the best Brazilian films ever, is the 1964 Cinema Novo epic Deus e O Diabo na Terra do Sol (God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun, also known as Black God, White Devil), by director Glauber Rocha. Other titles include Os Cangaceiros do Vale da Morte (Cangaceiros of the Valley of Death); Baile Perfumado (Perfumed Dance); Os Tres Cangaceiros (The Three Cangaceiros); and Rocha's 1969 follow-up effort, Antonio das Mortes. In the works is a new documentary being produced by Vera Ferreira, a granddaughter of Lampiao and his companion Maria Bonita, to be directed by noted Brazilian cinematographer Wolney Oliveira.

Popular music has a particularly visceral connection to the bandit movement and the greater regional culture that sustained it, Grounded in the folklore of the region, the forro style, noted for its jaunty and festive rhythm, became all but a soundtrack for the cangaceiro lifestyle. As a young man, singer, composer, and accordionist Luiz Gonzaga--born in 1912 in the state of Pernambuco, where cangaceiros enjoyed wide popularity among the rural poor--entertained fantasies of joining Lampiao's gang. It's no wonder why Gonzaga and his music, including his most popular tune, "Asa Branca" ("white wing"), became so emblematic of cangaceiro culture: He performed to rustic...