AMAZON, AMAZON
Translated and synched by Bsantos
The Black river finds the Solimoes river
Two streams of water culminate in one.
Great waters, great rivers
that I found on June 22nd, 1542
while on a mission for the Spanish Kingdom.
Myself, Francisco de Orellana
faced the unknown.
I fought long-haired indians that resembled warrior women from other legends
With dangers defeated
I baptized the conquered:
Amazon, Amazon.
Green inferno, green paradise.
This is classic Amazon
where one thinks of the past
of gigantic snakes, of magical fish
of the exotic world created by the first travelers
whose imagination exalted upon these lands discovered by Spain
and later came to integrate the Kingdom of Portugal.
The Amazon we know is another one
Amazon today, the largest state of Brazil
Where men already fixed roots
and fight to develop their civilization
Where men
turning trees into houses,
Seeks cultivation from the environment’s special conditions
- Where are you from? - From the State of Para, Castanha, by Bragança Railway.
In 1956, I came here with Dr. Rui
to work on the Manaus-Itaquatiara roadway.
It didn’t work, so I came back to Manaus
became a longtime employee of Vitória Plant, distillery,
then worked in Icaracarai, then Porto Velho,
the upper Black River, and on the Aracá river extracting Piaçaba for Judge Rui.
From there I came back to Manaus,
found a job again here on the Manaus-Itaquatiara roadway,
went to Manacapuru,
worked on some of the roadways there, and now I’m here in Mr. Pedro’s land.
Will you go back?
I want to go back to Icaracarai now at the end of the month.
If it works out there I’ll stay, if not I’ll go back to Belém,
‘cause my brothers arrived and I’m the oldest one.
The thing is, we are nine heirs, and my father left two pieces of land for us.
My brothers want my signature to sell them.
The lands are not good anymore, and crops are better here,
unless I fertilize it to plant pepper.
They want to sell to the japanese guy for two, three million it seems.
I won’t stay here ‘cause, you see,
you can’t plant much and I don’t have land for myself.
If I did I would stay ‘cause I was born and raised
on harvesting work, making flour, all this I know how to do.
We traveled far,
from the Ceará wilderness touched by drought,
seeking in the jungle wealth for our hunger.
Hope was in the trees discovered by the Cambebas Indians.
These great lost trees bled this strange mixture.
Syringe trees that gave white gold,
dream gold, black gold,
plastic gold.
That was the rubber cicle.
Ambition led to conquest.
Conquest led to the extraction where warlords set their homicide laws.
Extraction led to the sudden wealth of adventurers from all over.
It was the ‘El Dorado’,
splendor of a wild nobility of the tropics
whose scenery and costumes were imported from England, France and Italy.
The Amazon rubber dominated world markets at the turn of the 20th century.
The British, however,
transplanting seedlings from the syringe to the botanical gardens of London,
recreated the product in Asia.
They started fatal competition.
Falling prices and consumption,
a consequent decrease in exploration,
fall of kingdoms, the despair of ambitions,
pride offended, bankruptcy.
The lack of planning ended another economic cycle of Brazil's past.
Today`s Manaus, Manaus of the memory of rubber.
The port to the north
limit from other Amazons.
Manaus that reemerged more slowly and realistic.
Manaus waiting for the Amazon to be incorporated into Brazil
not as an incidental part
but as an agent of our economic process.
Jute, wood, guarana, rubber.
The main crops of today.
Exports, however, are minimal compared to what actually lies in Amazonian soil.
Manganese, coal, gold,
oil, atomic minerals and other assets at risk of foreign exploitation.
But while we think of the future
the reality of present brings to mind the most remote past.
A style of work which
in the words of Professor Arthur Reis
makes the Amazon the most underdeveloped region of the country.
We return to the trip.
It was hard to defeat the indians
to make Portuguese settlers cross with indians defeated
forging a new race
to fight malaria and the worms.
To conquer the bounds devastated by the force of the unstable river.
Parintins, Itaquatiara
Manacapuru, Cacau Pireira
Foreign names that house people prisoners of the great distant unknown.
Great distances far too large for only 800 thousand people
who still live on the most rude agriculture
on fishing, on diluted indigenous crafts
with just an unconscious will to survive.
Population in need of human culture
housing, health.
For although it is called the accursed region
the Amazon reacts through all those
who were stunned by the disengagement of her richness with her time.
From all those who have learned to love the real Amazon, without ghosts
The forgotten Amazon, but still alive like the transforming power of her river.
For your many riches
for your many rivers
your black meanders in the jungle.
For your universe that your man is facing to conquer in order to feed from it
to live from it
and only to your man should belong.
For all this Amazon
you are the cornerstone and symbol of a new world.