Life and water are practically synonymous. If it’s true that water governs life in every part of the world, then in the case of the Marajó Archipelago in Pará, the aphorism acquires an even greater degree of truth. In this group of islands set between the mouth of the Amazon River and the Atlantic Ocean, periods of rain and drought define life to such an extent that Rosivaldo Moraes Correa, a mathematics teacher at the Comunidade de Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá school, in Cachoeira do Arari, one of Marajó’s sixteen municipalities, talks about a “dictatorship of water.” The expression is a reference to Marajó: a ditadura da água, a book by Italian priest Giovanni Gallo, who spent part of his life there on the archipelago:
On Marajó it is not the national president, nor the governor, who reigns. Here, there is an absolute and total dictatorship: water. It is water that offers the means of subsistence and impedes life; it conditions health, work, everything, without raising its voice in a disloyal, ruthless manner. The seasons of the year have different names: water, mud, drought. It is a dictatorship of water.
Today, however, the waters flowing around Cachoeira do Arari are being impacted by external agents with the power of an earthquake: water poisoned by the intensive pesticide use, escaped animals, and the previously inconceivable drying up of streams coupled with Marajó’s drastic transformation into a focus for rice cultivation.
Correa explains how the water cycle is governed by two primary forces: the tides, which dictate the daily opportunities for moving from house to house, which can only be done by boat, and the seasons, characterized by high levels of rainfall in the winter and droughts in the summer.
As the crow flies, only seventy-one kilometers separate Cachoeira do Arari from Belém, the capital of Pará. But the trip is a long one and involves a torturous ferry crossing, which itself can last three hours, between Belém and Salvaterra, a municipality next to Cachoeira do Arari. Until a few years ago, the quilombo could only be reached by boat. Today you can get there via a branch of the road that connects Cachoeira do Arari with Salvaterra. This winds through side roads, crossing rice paddies and open fields where buffalo range freely, often right into the road, all of which demands great caution from the driver.
Little by little, the vegetation begins to change. The savanna grows thicker until it reaches the quilombolas’ territory, which is surrounded by dense forest and açaí groves. On part of that territory, along the Gurupá River, there’s an area of solid ground where some of the 850 or so families that make up the quilombo live. It occupies an area of eleven thousand hectares, divided into seven sectors, which together form a single community. In addition to this bit of terra firma, there’s also a fertile floodplain region perfect for açai palms, which stretches along the Arari River and its beautiful streams—winding water courses edged by leaning trees.
Rice paddies have impacted life in Quilombo Gurupá since 2010, when agriculturalist and politician Paulo César Quartiero arrived here to expand his rice business. According to the quilombolas, the impacts have been many and multifaceted. Originally from Rio Grande do Sul, Quartiero built a port in territory claimed by the quilombolas, without their consent. The rice paddies attract ducks and geese, drawing them away from quilombo territory. The birds’ departure has influenced both the ecosystem and the locals’ food supply: in addition to losing an important source of protein—duck is traditional in Paraense cuisine—they also lost the birds’ predators. In order to protect his rice, Quartiero uses pesticides that can reach the quilombo though the rivers and streams. And finally, in order to irrigate the paddies, water is siphoned off from the mouth of the Arari River, drying up streams and affecting spawning of the fish. The açaí groves, a primary source of income for the quilombolas, have also begun to dry up, though the locals don’t know why.
“We’re here at the mouth of the Arari River. When it comes to the rice-growing in and around Cachoeira do Arari, and the arrival of Quartiero, who has a business venture that’s tied to the municipal center, just off highway PA-154, you might be thinking, ‘It’s far enough away from the quilombolas’ territory; it shouldn’t have any effect.’ But we believe it does have an effect. A direct one,” Correa declares.
I visited the Quilombo Gurupá community in early January 2020. Correa was adamant in condeming the effects of pesticides in the area. This is a reality that plagues not only the quilombo but many small, traditional communities in the Amazon. “It’s applied by air. Every day, for as long as they’regerminating. That’s the period they consider necessary,” he says. “Everyone is a witness because everyone sees it as they’re driving down PA-154. Sometimes, if you’re riding a motorcycle, you get soaked in it.”
He also says there’s intensive use of chemicals to dry out Quartiero’s rice fields. Sometimes, when Correa goes to the city on an errand, the vegetation is green. When he returns to the quilombo a few hours later, it’s completely dried out and ready for harvesting. “There’s just no other word for all of this,” he says: “It’s poison.”
The teacher fears that all the pesticide-laced water will filter directly into the quilombo. “Here in the Amazon, in the middle of the winter, the water only comes down, so whatever’s up there comes down with it,” he says. “Of course, it goes straight to Arari, and has a direct impact on us here,” he adds, fearing that the fish and shrimp, two important foods for the quilombolas, may well be contaminated.
According to Correa, no in-depth studies have been conducted to determine the impact of pesticides in the region. What he does know is that nobody was informed of the imminent arrival of large-scale rice production. A study done by the Evandro Chagas Institute back in 2013 didn’t find excessive levels of pesticides in the water used to irrigate Quartiero’s farm. But no samples were taken in the quilombo, which is where much of the runoff from the rice paddies accumulates.
Rosivaldo Correa then points to yet another threat posed by rice production. During the summer months with lower rainfall, rice farmers draw the water they need from the Arari River. “They take millions of liters of water from the river to irrigate the rice.” Which is why Correa believes that the Arari and its tributaries are starting to run dry.
“The channels we once used aren’t there anymore. Since I had a boat for transporting things, I just got tired of trying to get through that part of the territory. We used to always go to Cachoeira [do Arari]. But now, the channel I used to know just doesn’t exist,” he says.
Alfredo Neto Batista da Cunha, who left his role as president of the Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá community association in 2020, is emphatic about the drought. “The impact runs deep through the river. Nature herself is drying up once and for all.” He goes on to link the drought to the decrease in fish and shrimp: “The populations are dropping. That’s what we’re seeing the most. The Laranjeira used to be such a deep river … but today, if you’re not careful, you can get stranded right in the middle of it.”
Quartiero was one of the rice farmers forced out of the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory in Roraima. On March 19, 2009, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court confirmed the demarcation of 1.7 million hectares could only be inhabited by Indigenous people, upholding the original decree made by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2005. This was intended to end conflicts with the Ingarikó, Makuxi, Patamona, Taurepang, and Wapishana people, among others: a problem that had plagued the region since the 1970s.
Quartiero was born in Torres, Rio Grande do Sul, in 1952. He first came to Roraima in the early 2000s and quickly bought a number of farms. From 2005 to 2008 he served as mayor of Pacaraima for a center-right political party. During his term, he was accused of a number of crimes against Indigenous people, including one incident in which he ordered his ranch employees to open fire on a group of Makuxi in 2008.
The Indigenous people were holding a protest, calling for rice farmers’ immediate departure from the land, when shots were fired. Ten people were injured, three of them seriously. Quartiero was arrested shortly thereafter and spent nine days in the Federal Police jail in Brasília on charges of conspiracy and illegal possession of explosive devices. Upon his release, he returned to Roraima, to a welcome party thrown by admirers and sympathetic politicians.
Continuing his career as a politician, the rice farmer served as a federal representative from 2011 and 2015, and later as vice-governor of the state from 2015 and 2018.
Quartiero started his business in Marajó a year after pulling out of the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous territory. In 2010, he bought the Reunida Espírito Santo and Santa Lourdes farms, situated between the municipalities of Cachoeira do Arari and Salvaterra, for roughly $380,000. Together, the two properties total 12,580 hectares.
He also held a 90 percent share in the Quartiero Almeida company (also known as Acostumado Alimentos Ltda or Arroz Acostumado), which had a market cap of $175,000 until 2014. But, according to records Amazdnia Real obtained from the Board of Trade, he handed over control of the company to his family members Ericina de Almeida Quartiero, who manages the family business in Boa Vista, and Larissa de Almeida Quartiero, a lawyer in Florianópolis. The Reunida Espírito Santo and Santa Lourdes farms are registered in the name of his son, Renato de Almeida Quartiero.
Elielson Pereira da Silva worked at INCRA for nearly a decade, and has come to know thirteen of the sixteen municipalities that make up the archipelago. He understands the reality of the situation in Marajó well, despite not beingborn there. As INCRA’s Regional Superintendent, his arrival coincided with that of the rice farmers.
“Everything suggests that the appropriation of this land happened in a completely illegal, illegitimate way,” Da Silva says. “If you’ve got the money, you could buy the entire state of Pará. Yes, it’s true. There’s no legal or constitutional provision preventing this, as long as you get legislative authorization from the National Congress for anything over twenty-five hundred hectares. Back then, in 2010, Quartiero listed his land at twelve thousand hectares. Where is the authorization allowing for Quartiero, or whoever it may be, to buy up that much land in Marajó?”
The argument Da Silva made in 2010 was finally confirmed in August 2019, when the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the State of Pará successfully revoked the registration of Quartiero’s lands. In a public statement, the prosecutor’s office announced that, “In considering this case, and all the documents presented by the defense, Judge André Filo-Creão da Fonseca rules that the proceedings do not indicate the specific moment at which the transfer of these properties from public ownership to the private domain would have taken place, thus depriving the previous owners of their right to proceed, through normal means, with the sale of the properties.”
Da Silva sums up the legalese in this way: “When Quartiero arrived, he had no legal authority [to do what he did]. Public lands were not being allocated. He had no legal ground to stand on.” He also points out that certain damages could have been avoided, arguing that “it took eight years to get the result we’d been arguing for from the very beginning.”
The new president of the Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá community association, Maria de Fátima GusmãoBatista, confirms that they were never consulted or otherwise contacted regarding the arrival of the rice farmers.
“At no time were we ever consulted about Quartiero’s arrival. He just showed up, started buying up the land, getting his hands on it, and he’s been working it ever since. It wasn’t very neighborly to just swoop in and set up next to us like that.”
What Does Quartiero Say?
In an interview with Amazônia Real, Paulo César Quartiero denied having legal problems with the Comunidade de Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá. “I don’t know. That community is far away. Almost seventy kilometers,” he says, claiming that there’s no interference or territorial conflict. “The farm belongs to a family that’s been in the region for a century or more, so there’s no problem there.”
When asked about his use of Caracará port, Quartiero defends himself, saying it’s open to the public. “It’s a public port. Anyone can use it. It’s for the community,” he says.
“Here’s the situation,” Quartiero goes on. “We’re planting. We have the largest plantation. It’s ours. So we’re planting here. In Brazil, the problem is that big growers like us are always seen as suspicious, as criminals, when in fact we’re employers. We’ve had the privilege of being harassed. Not just in Marajó, but in Roraima and the rest of the country. But fortunately, Brazil is starting to change. It used to be the people doing nothing were the heroes, while the growers were the bad guys. Now, that’s changing a bit.”
This “change” in Brazilian politics was the election of extreme right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. Quartiero’s insinuation—that the Labor Party, whichgoverned Brazil during the administrations of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, harassed and oppressed large-scale farms across the country—is clear.
Amazônia Real asked Quartiero whether he saw the change as positive or negative. “Do you think it’s better to be like Venezuela?” he replied. “Of course not. Better production means better development. Marajó has the worst Human Development Index (HDI) in Brazil. Of the ten municipalities with the worst HDI, three are in Marajó, including the worst one, Melgaço. But here we are, contributing to development, paying taxes, and creating jobs.”
As a final note, the rice farmer adds that he has, in total, “over a hundred” employees working his land. He agreed to this interview on February 27, 2020.
Where the Conflict Began
Since the 1970s, residents of the Quilombo Gurupá have been in conflict with the farm that surrounds them and which claims a right to their land.
Alfredo da Cunha, a farmer and former president of the quilombola association, makes a point of relating the history of the quilombo’s lineage. He speaks slowly, pointedly. He uses short sentences to synthesize major events from the past. With a single word—Africa—he references centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. He curls his right hand tightly into a fist, striking his left palm with small, emphatic punches as he tells his story:
“Africa. To a specific place: Santana. Near Ponta de Pedras. For a while. The slaves were so badly abused. Like animals. I mean, they were scarred. With an iron brand onthe arm. Or wherever.” And so they fled the sugar plantation in Santana. Alfredo shows me pictures on his cell phone of his visit to the old sugar mill. He gets noticeably choked up.
After fleeing Fazenda Santana, the enslaved would stop at other plantations where many were recaptured, according to Alfredo. Two of them made it as far as Gurupá. “So, long story short, that’s what happened. They ran. From Santana to Gurupá. And that’s how our community got its name.” But their escape was not ultimately successful: the pair was eventually recaptured. Hence the designation they gave themselves: Gurupá, from gorou o par, meaning “they went in vain,” chosen by the others who would later go on to fully escape slavery, in honor of the two who were recaptured.
The story is undoubtedly tied to history. Nevertheless, the frequency of Alfredo’s retellings suggest that, in some way, it still speaks volumes about the challenges and conflicts quilombolas are experiencing to this day.
First Female President
The first woman to hold the position of president of the Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá community association, Fátima Batista recalls the old conflicts with the farmers. Her voice has reached a point where pain and bravery cannot be told apart. “The late Liberato Magno da Silva Castro was believed to have had a farm in Caroba and another in Boa Vista. This farmer took over our land and set up his own two farms there. But it belonged to us, the Batista family. After that, he got our people moved off the shore here. He put some other families into our community, and he sent others into other places to clear out the area so he could control it.”
In the mid-1970s, the quilombolas who lived along the branches of the Arari River were driven out by Liberato Castro. Teodoro Lalor de Lima, known as Seu Lalor, was the only one who decided to remain. Eventually, he became president of the quilombola association.
There, traditionally, each family unit occupied a particular stream. The streams are part of an area generally considered very fertile, filled with açaí groves cultivated for decades by quilombolas. These follow the winding watercourses. During harvest season, the residents transport the açaí berries by boat to be sold in Belém. In the off season, when the land is managed to ensure the trees’ continued healthy growth, the main product is the açaí palm itself, although according to the quilombolas, this has a lower market value than the berries.
Until the quilombolas were removed from the Arari River, the ethnic territory covered both this river and its tributaries as well as the Gurupá River. Since Liberato Castro took over the land, families have had to cluster around Gurupá, where they have been subjected to harassment.
Rosivaldo Correa explains how the output from Liberato Castro’s Fazenda São Joaquim Agropecuária depended on rent paid by quilombolas for rights to the açaí groves. “The farm primarily raises free-range cattle on extensive fields,” he says. “But their biggest source of income was from the açaí groves, which they lease out every year.” They charged what they say is “half” the value of açaí harvested in Marajó, but can actually be as high as two-thirds, according to Felipe Moura Palha, a prosecutor with the Federal Public Prosecutor 3rd office for traditional communities.
“In 2002, we created the Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá community association, and petitioned INCRA torecognize our territory,” Correa recalls. According to him, in 2008, with increasing demand for quilombola land, the farmer reacted and the conflict intensified. Only after the process of formalizing the quilombo through INCRA had begun could they reclaim the lands from which they had been expelled in the 1970s. The year 2011 finally saw the historic repopulation of the land and streams along the Arari River.
In an interview, Palha said that “the local police are often used to intimidate the quilombolas. The company foreman is still there at the farm. He uses the police and his local political influence to persecute and criminalize the quilombolas. One of his tactics is to accuse them of stealing agaí. How can a guy be accused of stealing something off the land that belongs to him?” the prosecutor asks.
The Martyrdom of Seu Lalor
A smoldering climate of violence hangs over the Comunidade de Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá. Every year, around the summer harvest time, it flares up. In response, the Public Prosecutor’s office has taken steps, including sending letters to public authorities and local Cachoeira do Arari government officials “to ensure that the traditional quilombola population can enjoy the harvest in accordance with their way of life,” Palha says. Agaí has now become a known source of conflict.
“Fear” is a word commonly heard around the quilombo. The presence of police and farm agents in the surrounding forest puts the quilombolas in the unfortunate position of being observed. Whoever is in the forest can see out, but those outside it cannot see in, and so they are vulnerable. The sense ofliving under a constant threat of siege occasionally becomes a reality in the form of arrests and attempted murders.
But nothing brought more pain to the community than the killing of Teodoro Lalor de Lima—Seu Lalor, on August 19, 2013. By refusing, back in the 1970s, to leave the banks of the Arari River and its streams—an area that was beginning to be occupied by Liberato Castro—Lalor played an important role in the community. Many years later, sick and elderly, he was arrested and handcuffed to his hospital bed, to the quilombolas’ great indignation. He also visited Brasília a few times to speak out against what was happening to the community.
Quilombolas still find it hard to accept the explanation given by the Civil Police and reports published by various Pará media regarding the murder of Seu Lalor. “This crime had repercussions, and to this day, we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of our leader’s death,” Fátima Batista says. “They rounded up some guy with a record to charge with the crime, but I believe it was an orchestrated killing”.
The alleged perpetrator of the murder was convicted in 2015. The official explanation was that Seu Lalor was at a lover’s house and was surprised there by her ex-husband.
The anthropologist Eliana Teles was in close contact with Seu Lalor in the days leading up to his murder. She had just completed her doctorate and was conducting research on the quilombo. To her, the whole situation was aimed at demoralizing the inhabitants, at shattering their pride.
For Fátima Batista, the future of the quilombo and the safety of its residents depends on regulating the land on which they live. “What we want is the title,” she says. “And we want the government to help us get it. If we had the physical title in our hands, this whole scheme of farmers wanting to take overour land would be over. We’d be able to work and get what we want within our own community, our quilombo.”
INCRA Drags Its Feet
The dispute over the land and its use is the biggest problem facing Quilombo Gurupá. Who got the land, and how, is a central part of that discussion.
In 1989, the Pará state government created an Environmental Protection Area on Marajó Island. Sixteen years later, in 2005, INCRA began the process of recognizing quilombola land in the Gurupá community. In 2010, a certification was issued for the territory known as the Comunidade de Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá.
But the process stalled when it came to removing squatters and farmers from the lands. Despite the certificate, the quilombo’s territory isn’t titled by INCRA. “We had meeting after meeting with INCRA, and all they have to say to the people is ‘The state has no funds for this, the state can’t force them out.’ So were basically stuck with documents that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on,” Fátima Batista says.
The legal dispute with Liberato Castro and his heirs over the territory is a lengthy one. The prosecutor Felipe Palha indicates that it’s highly likely the farmer’s title was the result of a land grab: a historical practice of corporate farms illegally appropriating public lands in the Amazon and which is often associated with deforestation, the expulsion of local residents, and agrarian violence.
“During this whole process, we found out that the property title, which this farmer, Liberato Castro, offered as proof that the land was legally his, was invalid,” Palha says. “It hadn’tbeen properly registered with the public authorities. In all likelihood, this was a land grab. In other words, that area belongs to the union. It’s not private. The title Liberato Castro has been waving around is null and void,” he concludes.
In a written response to Amazônia Real, INCRA confirmed that the “territory pertaining to the Comunidade de Remanescentes do Quilombo Gurupá, in the municipality of Cachoeira do Arari, Marajó region, a Certificate of Self-Determination was issued on June 21, 2010, and was recognized by Presidential Decree on April 1, 2016, with ‘a declared social interest for the purposes of expropriation.’” According to the institute, rural properties included in the Gurupá quilombola territory are in the phase in which non-quilombola occupants are removed.
According to INCRA, there is a lawsuit, filed jointly by the federal agency and Brazil’s attorney general, which “aims to declare null and void the property title, followed by the cancellation of the real estate records and registrations of the property known as Imóvel São Joaquim, comprised of the Murutucum Miry, Saparará-Miry, Igarapé da Roça, Santa Roza, Acará, and Gurupá farms, irregularly occupied by the alleged owners, owing to the effects they have on land in the public domain, which includes an area belonging to the Quilombola Territory of Gurupá.”
Heir Contests Land-Grabbing Accusation
Consuelo Maria da Silva Castro is Liberato Castro’s daughter and heir. She also served as mayor of Ponta de Pedras, a municipality adjacent to Cachoeira do Arari, from 2012 to 2016. She disputes the allegations of land grabbing committed by her family. “That land there doesn’t just belong to my father,” she says. “It’s in my father’s name because he was the executor and eldestson. But originally it belonged to my grandmother, who kept it in the family. It’s four children’s inheritance. Land that was bought by the crown, right there at the mouth of the river, at the entrance to the Arari River.”
According to Consuelo, no quilombo ever existed there. “Does the government want to take what you’ve got and give it to those who don’t? So would it reimburse us for the cattle there? And for the improvements we made to the land? The land that you’re saying isn’t even ours?” speculates the former mayor, now Director of Agricultural Development at the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture in the state of Pará.
On December 18, 2018, the attorney general filed a basic injunction requesting that the property title be declared null and void, and that real estate records and orders of reintegration of possession be cancelled. The lawsuit has yet to be heard by the Federal Court. In short, if it’s deemed to be valid, Liberato Castro and his heirs “wouldn’t be entitled to compensation, because their possession of the land was done in bad faith,” Palha says. “In this process of removing current occupants, there wouldn’t even be compensation for Liberato Castro’s farm.”
Bargaining by Public Agents
When it comes to the phenomenon of rice farmers popping up everywhere, from Roraima to Marajó, Palha points to political bargains available to public officials that enable farmers to continue working in the area. “Authorities in Pará made agreements to allow rice farmers to come to Marajó Island,” he said.
Palha went on to say that the Public Prosecutor’s office warned farmers that quilombola populations were already living in the area and that prior consultation was necessary beforeany land was tilled. The Environmental Impact Study would also have to be taken into account. “None of this was done,” he said. “They pushed everything through a simplified licensing process in order to kickstart farming in Marajó.”
Based on his experience with similar cases involving palm oil in eastern Pará, the prosecutor drew comparisons with other incidents of monocropping implemented in the Amazon. “We alerted the local authorities, letting them know it was going to happen. And it did. The conflict between rice farmers and traditional communities in Marajó is just another chapter in the long history of people exploiting the rainforest without regard for anything. Not even for the people already living there,” he said.
Palha went on to warn that, while the farm is not technically within the quilombolas’ territory, its activities are affecting the territory. “The community certainly isn’t benefitting from silt and pollution building up in their streams.” He also reflects, more broadly, that “the greatest mistake of the economic development in the Amazon, and especially in Pará, is that they don’t care about the fact that people actually live there.”
A Different Look for Marajó
Eliana Teles, a researcher with a long history of working in Marajó, laments the transformation of the archipelago’s terrain. “The countryside, which European travelers marveled over when they passed through in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries … that vibrant landscape they described is now dominated by agribusiness: rice in the Arari watershed, which includes part of Salvaterra, while further to the east, the northwest part of the region is being covered in soy.”
Despite the lack of specific studies, mathematics professor Rosivaldo Correa, who lives within the Quilombo confirms what, in the view of those feeling the rice fields’ impact on a daily basis, has become obvious. “You don’t need to be an expert to know that we’re bearing the brunt of this, as much in the rivers as on land,” he says, boiling it all down. “There’s nothing good for us on the horizon.”
DAYS AND NIGHTS in an Indigenous village can be tedious. Most of the day revolves around activities which require a certain skill set, leaving someone like me, born and raised in an urban environment, unable to contribute. I try, but I’m not much of a hunter or fisherman, and my ability at clearing the manioc fields was so lacking that the Tupinambá—a people with whom I spent most of my time in the Amazon and with whom I’m writing my doctoral thesis—definitely preferred that I keep out of their way.
The fact is there isn’t an important interview every day. Often, my primary goal of the day is “just” seeking refuge from the sun. These days are repeated with impressive regularity, and are especially slow and weighty.
When the sun sets, I often go out with Josi, one of cacica Estevina’s nephews, for a canoe ride. Josi recently turned eighteen, and is starting a physical education course at a private school in Santarém, so he divides his time between the village and the city. So when he is around, we go out on the water. When he isn’t, I stay in.
I took a small canoe this time, smaller than the one I normally used with Josi. It took me a while to figure out how to balance it. Only after a disastrous twenty minutes of failing to navigate myself out of the smaller watercourse into the larger Amorim stream did I realize I was attempting to paddle backwards. Happy to have figured this out, and happier still that, thanks to the dense undergrowth, nobody in the village had noticed my predicament, I decided, confidently, to head out to the first bend in the stream.
Then, believing I had finally mastered the vessel, I thought I could calmly proceed to the second bend. As I approached, in the distance I saw a black animal swimming in the water.Without binoculars, I could only barely make it out, but my excitement was such that I decided to venture closer. It looked like an ariranha, a giant river otter. I’d seen one earlier on the bank, and was fascinated by its shiny black fur. I naively decide to paddle faster in order to reach it.
The animal was swimming from left to right. The Amorim stream is a winding one, and its lush borders alternate between flooded forest and strips of land at the entrance to the villages. These flooded areas exist only during the rainy season, and are marked by twisting trees with aerial roots through which you can navigate a canoe to fish, as well as be surprised by the occasional snake.
I was afraid the animal would duck into the labyrinthine tangle of trees and roots and I’d lose sight of it. As I grew closer, I could see that it wasn’t an otter at all: there was a huge head above the water, and a tail poking up in the back. A bull, I thought to myself. But then again, I wondered, “What’s a bull doing here, in the middle of the rainforest, swimming from one bank to another?” After a few more strokes, I was able to discern a pair of pointed ears, like those of a cat.
It was a jaguar.
More precisely, a black panther, which is simply a jaguar with an excess of black pigmentation.
I had seen a jaguar.
But had it seen me?
A game of fleeting glimpses so uncertain that I have to wonder whether “game” is the right word for it.
That uncertainty may well be why panic suddenly overcame me.
I rowed on, constantly looking behind me, afraid the jaguar was on my tail and ready to capsize my canoe at any moment. I could almost hear the dun-dun, dun-dun music that precedes a shark attack in Jaws.
All my difficulty paddling the canoe vanished. If I took forty minutes to get to the second bend in the creek, I made it back to the village in ten. I arrived breathless, while at the same time thrilled by what I had just witnessed. I told everyone what I’d seen, and none of them had any doubts about my account. “It was definitely a jaguar,” the Tupinambá nodded, one by one. As they usually do, everyone had fun with the story. As spirited as ever and playfully feigning fearlessness, Seu Pedrinho added, “If it’d been me, I’d have rowed right over its head.” I’m sure that the next time I come to visit, my story will be the source of great entertainment.
The strangeness, the otherness of being in a place as different and unique as a Tupinambá village in the middle of the Amazon rainforest suddenly becomes relative. In a matter of days, we can succumb to routine, we can forget that we’re surrounded by a jungle where it’s entirely possible to have a singular encounter with something as extraordinary as a black panther crossing a stream.