Oswald de Andrade`s "Cannibalist Manifesto"

OSWALD DE ANDRADE'S
"CANNIBALISTMANIFESTO"
LESUEBARY
Introduction
Oswald
de Andrade's
"Manifesto
in
the
Revista
first
number
of
de
(MA) originally
appeared
Antrop?fago"
review
Paulo
cultural
directed
Alc?ntara
Machado
the
S?o
by
Antropofagia,
other important avant-garde declarations
1928. While
and Raul Bopp, inMay,
are interesting as literary documents
of the period (e.g. Mario de Andrade's
to his 1921 collection
of poetry Paulic?ia
"Prefacio
Interessant?ssimo"
and the programmatic
editorial of the May
Desvairada,
15, 1992 issue of
was
an
that
immediate
the avant-garde
result of the
Klaxon,
magazine
held in S?o Paulo in February of that year, theMA
"Semana de Arte Moderna"
has retained more immediate scholarly and even popular interest as a cultural,
as well as a purely
in the last
The MA has, especially
literary manifesto.
cited in Brazil as a paradigm for the creation of a
twenty years, been widely
The
Brazilian
modernist
poet
modern
and cosmopolitan,
but still authentically national culture.
In the earlier (1924) "Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brasil"
["Manifesto of
an "export-quality"
Brazilwood
Poetry"], Oswald had announced
poetry that
in Brazilian
would not copy imported esthetic models
but find its material
life. Brazilwood
history, popular culture, and everyday
poetry will provide,
of
to neutralize
Oswald
native
says here, "[t]he counter-weight
originality
academic conformity"
the
notions
of poetry
(1986: 187). Opposing
avant-garde
as "invention" and "surprise" to the erudite, imitative art he associates with the
Oswald unites the search for
(1822-1889),
colony and the Brazilian Empire
national identity with the modernist
esthetic project.
In this schema, Brazilian
cultural production
becomes
both native and
Brazil's
"wild wilderness,"
far from generating
second-rate
cosmopolitan.
copies of Continental models, will give rise to an "agile and candid" modern
cultural
poetry. Brazilwood
poetry thus offers a solution for Brazil's perceived
new
at
same
and
the
time
life
into
the
international
cultural
inferiority,
injects
arena.
The playful, polemical
in the MA is a radicalization
theory of cultural "cannibalism" Oswald develops
of these ideas. The MA challenges
the dualities
and
which had
civilization/barbarism,
original/derivative,
modern/primitive,
informed the construction
of Brazilian culture since the days of the colony. In
the MA, Oswald
the colonizer's
of
subversively
appropriates
inscription
as a savage territory which, once civilized, would be a necessarily
America
The use of the cannibal metaphor
the
copy of Europe.
muddy
permits
Brazilian subject to forge his specular colonial identity into an autonomous
and
to dependent,
national
culture. Oswald's
(as opposed
original
derivative)
a cannibalization,
not of Rousseau's
idealized
anthropophagist?himself
Latin American
36
Literary Review
avowed
and active cannibal,?neither
savage but of Montaigne's
apes nor
but
"devours"
its
and
incor
culture,
it, adapting
rejects European
strengths
them
the
self.1
into
native
porating
are central
texts in the continuing
The two manifestos
creation of
to reveal
with
much
Brazilian national culture and as controversial
writings
an
about the structure of colonialist
thought and the problems of constituting
context.
identity in the post-colonial
to read and to translate because
The MA is difficult
it is built on a series
to Brazilian
references
and to sometimes
of joking and punning
history
obscure informing works. The annotated translation I present here is intended
as well as to make
to clarify these references,
to
this important text available
an English-speaking
audience.
I would direct first-time readers of Oswald especially
to Benedito Nunes'
ao
alcance
de
Haroldo
de
"Urna po?tica
todos,"
essay "Antropofagia
Campos'
e cosmopolitismo.
da radicalidade,"
and Jorge Schwartz' Vanguarda
The
but
Randal
is
much
Johnson
sparser,
English-language
bibliography
provides
an informative
in "Tupy or not Tupy: Cannibalism
introduction
and
in Contemporary
and Culture." Haroldo
Brazilian Literature
Nationalism
de
Europe Under the Sign of Devoration,"
Campos' "The Rule of Anthropophagy:
Two Cubists: William
Richard Morse's
Carlos Williams
and
"Triangulating
Oswald
de Andrade,"
and Kenneth David
Jackson's
Prose in
"Vanguardist
as introductions
to Oswald,
are
Oswald
de Andrade,"
though not written
to the general reader as well as useful to the scholar. Johnson's three
accessible
as
articles, as well as Neil Larsen's
"Eating the Torn Halves: Modernism
in the period and to
Cultura Brasileira"
will be of interest both to specialists
in problematizing
scholars
interested
discussions
of national
and cultural
context.
identity in the post-colonial
Louisiana
State University
NOTES
1 Other
are Picabia's
to this manifesto
"Manifeste
key precedents
Cannibale"
Paris, March
1920, 7) and the avant-garde Parisian
(Dadaphone,
review Cannibale
1920). See Benedito Nunes,
(April-May
"Anthropophagisme
et surr?alisme," Surr?alisme
de Montr?al,
(Montr?al: Universit?
p?riph?rique
1984) 159-79, esp. 164-65.
WORKS CITED
2 vols. S?o
de. Paulic?ia
Desvairade.
Poes?as
Andrade, Mario
completas.
Paulo: Livraria Martins Editora, (1980). I: 13-32.
de. "Le manifeste
Trans. Benedito Nunes.
Andrade, Oswald
antropophage."
Ed. Luis de Moura
Surr?alisme
Sobral. Montreal:
P?riph?rique.
Universit?
de Montr?al,
(1984).
-.
"Manifesto of Pau-Brasil
Poetry." Trans. Stella M. de S? Rego. Latin
American Literary Review XIV: 27 (January-June,
1986): 184-87.
Oswald
-.
"Cannibalist Manifesto"
de Andrade's
Obras
completas.
37
11 vols. Rio de Janeiro: Civiliza??o
Brasileira,
(1971
1979).
Boaventura,
Maria
Eugenia.
A vanguarda
antropof?gica.
S?o Paulo: ?tica,
(1985).
-.,
-.
-.
-.
-.
-.
-.
do Departamento
ed. Remate
de Males
de Teoria
(Revista
de Estudos da Linguagem,
Universidade
Estadual de
Literaria/Instituto
6 (1986). Special issue on Oswald de Andrade.
Campinas)
os antrop?fagos."
de.
re-vistas:
"Revistas
Poes?a,
Augusto
Campos,
S?o Paulo: Cortez & Mor?es,
(1978). 107-24.
antipoesia,
antropofagia.
di?logo e diferen?a na cultura
Campos, Haroldo de. "Da raz?o antropof?gica:
Mario
44
Boletim
Biblioteca
de Andrade
brasileira."
Bibliogr?fico
(1983): 107-25.
"Urna po?tica
Poes?as
Reunidas.
da radicalidade."
de
By Oswald
11 vols. Rio de Janeiro:
7 of Obras
Andrade.
Vol.
completas.
Brasileira,
(1979). 9-62.
Civiliza??o
"The Rule of Anthropophagy:
Europe Under the Sign of Devoration."
Latin American Literary Review XTV: 27 (January-June,
1986): 42-60.
de Oswald de Andrade.
Chalmers, Vera. 3 linhas 4 verdades. O jornalismo
S?o Paulo: Duas Cidades,
(1976).
Lucia. Totens e tabus da modernidade
brasileira.
Rio de Janeiro:
Helena,
(1985).
Tempo Brasileiro,
na literatura brasileira: Oswald
Jackson, Kenneth David. A prosa vanguardista
de Andrade.
S?o Paulo: Perspectiva,
(1978).
in Oswald
Prose
de Andrade."
Diss. University
of
"Vanguardist
Wisconsin,
(1972).
in Brazil,
Johnson, Randal.
"Literature, Culture and Authoritarianism
(1930
Latin
179.
American
1945)." Working
Papers
Program, Woodrow
Wilson
International Center for Scholars. Washington,
D.C., (1989).
Texas Papers on Latin America, no.
"Rereading Brazilian Modernism."
at
Institute
of Latin American
89-04.
of Texas
Studies, University
Austin,
(1989).
or not Tupy: Cannibalism
in Contemporary
and Nationalism
"Tupy
Brazilian Literature and Culture." On Modern Latin American Fiction.
Ed. John King. New York: The Noonday
Press, (1989). 41-59.
as Cultura Brasileira:
"Modernism
Larsen, Neil.
Eating the 'Torn Halves'."
A Materialist
Modernism
and Hegemony:
Critique
of Aesthetic
of Minnesota
Press, (1990). 72-97.
Agencies. Minneapolis:
University
Carlos Williams
and
Morse, Richard.
"Triangulating Two Cubists: William
Oswald
de Andrade."
Latin
American
Review
XIV:
27
Literary
1986): 175-83.
(January-June,
ao alcance de todos." In Oswald de Andrade,
Nunes, Benedito.
"Antropofagia
e as Utopias. By Oswald de Andrade. Vol.
Do Pau-Brasil
? Antropofagia
6 of Obras
11
vols.
Rio de Janeiro: Civiliza??o
Brasileira,
completas.
(1976). xi-liii.
Oswald can?bal S?o Paulo: Perspectiva,
(1979).
e cosmopolitismo
na d?cada de 20: Oliverio
Schwartz,
Jorge. Vanguarda
Girondo e Oswald de Andrade. S?o Paulo: Perspectiva,
(1983).
Schwarz, Roberto. Que horas s?o? S?o Paulo: Companhia das Letras, (1987).
"CANNIBALISTMANIFESTO"1
BY
OSWALD DE ANDRADE
TRANSLATED BY LESLIE BARY
Cannibalism
alone unites
us. Socially.
*
*
Economically.
Philosophically.
*
The world's
of all individualism,
single law. Disguised
expression
collectivisms.
Of all religions. Of all peace treaties.
*
*
of all
*
Tupi or not tupi, that is the question.2
*
Down
with
every catechism.
*
And
*
I am only
concerned
with what
*
down with
*
the Gracchi's
mother.3
*
is not mine.
Law
of Man.
Law
of
the
cannibal.
*
*
*
We're
tired of all the suspicious Catholic husbands
of Woman
starring roles. Freud put an end to the mystery
of printed psychology.
*
*
who've been given
and to other horrors
*
What clashed with the truth was clothing,
that raincoat placed between
the inner and outer worlds. The reaction against the dressed man. American
movies will inform us.
*
*
*
Children
of the sun, mother
of the living. Discovered
and loved
of saudade,4 by the immigrants, by slaves
ferociously with all the hypocrisy
and by the touristes. In the land of the Great Snake.5
*
*
*
Oswald
de Andrade's
39
"Cannibalist Manifesto"
of old plants.
It was because we never had grammars, nor collections
And we never knew what urban, suburban, frontier and continental were. Lazy
in the mapamundi
of Brazil.6
a religious rhythmics.7
A participatory
consciousness,
*
Down with all
existence of life. And
the importers
the pre-logical
*
*
*
of canned
mentality
*
consciousness.
The palpable
to study.8
for Mr. L?vy-Bruhl
*
The
We want the Carib Revolution.
Greater than the French Revolution.
of all productive
revolts for the progress of humanity. Without
unification
us,
even
its
the
of
wouldn't
have
of
declaration
man.9
meager
rights
Europe
The Golden Age heralded by America.
The Golden Age. And all the
girls.
*
*
*
Heritage. Contact with the Carib side of Brazil. O? Villegaignon
print
to
From the French Revolution
terre.10 Montaigne.
Natural man. Rousseau.
to the Bolshevik
to the Surrealist Revolution
and
Romanticism,
Revolution,
technicized barbarian.11 We push onward.
Keyserling's
*
*
*
We were never catechized. We
live by a somnambulistic
Christ to be born in Bahia. Or in Bel?m do Para.12
*
But we never permitted
*
law. We made
*
the birth of logic among us.
*
*
*
a
Down
with
Father Vieira.13
Author
of our first loan, to make
The illiterate king had told him: put that on paper, but without a
commission.
lot of lip. The loan was made. Brazilian
sugar was signed away. Vieira left the
us
in
the lip.
money
Portugal and brought
*
The
spirit
Need
morphism.
meridian
against
*
*
a spirit without
a body. Anthropo
to conceive
refuses
our equilibrium,
for the cannibalistic
vaccine. To maintain
And
outside
religions.14
against
inquisitions.
Latin American
40
*
can attend only
We
*
*
*
the codification
of vengeance.
Science,
justice,
The permanent
Cannibalism.
transformation
of
We
already had
of Magic.
codification
Tabu into a totem.15
*
forgetting
*
to the orecular world.
*
Down
Cadaverized.
the system.
Literary Review
*
the
the
*
the reversible
and against
with
ideas.
world,
objectified
The stop of thought that is dynamic. The individual as victim of
Source of classical
the
injustices. Of romantic
injustices. And
of inner conquests.
Routes.
Routes.
The Carib
Routes.
Routes.
Routes.
Routes.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Routes.16
instinct.
Death
From the equation
and life of all hypotheses.
"Self, part of the
to the axiom "Cosmos, part of the Self." Subsistence.
Cosmos"
Experience.
Cannibalism.
*
Down
with
the vegetable
elites.
*
*
In communication
*
*
with
the soil.
*
were never catechized. What we really made was Carnaval.
The
as senator of the Empire. Making
dressed
believe
he's Pitt.17 Or
in Alencar's
sentiments.
operas,18 full of worthy Portuguese
performing
We
Indian
*
We
Golden
already
Age.
*
We
had Communism.
*
*
already
*
*
had Surrealist
language.
The
Oswald
de Andrade's
41
"Cannibalist Manifesto"
Catiti Catiti
Imara Noti?
Noti? Imara
Ipej?.19
*
*
*
and allocation of tangible goods,
and life. We had the description
Magic
and
moral goods, and royal goods.20 And we knew how to transpose mystery
death with the help of a few grammatical
forms.
*
*
*
I asked a man what the Law was. He answered that it was the guarantee
ate him.
of the exercise of possibility.
That man was named Galli Mathias.211
*
have
*
*
is there no determinism.
Only where there ismystery
to do with us?
*
*
But what
does
*
Down with
the histories
of Man
that begin at Cape Finisterre.
undated world. Unrubrified. Without Napoleon. Without Caesar.
*
The
machinery.
determination
And blood
of progress
transfusers.
*
Down
with
the antagonistic
Down
*
with the truth of missionary
the Viscount
of Cairu:22?It's
*
and television
sets. Only
*
sublimations.
*
cannibal,
*
Brought
here
in caravels.
*
peoples, defined by the sagacity
a lie told again and again.
*
The
*
by catalogues
*
that
of a
*
But those who came here weren't crusaders. They were fugitives from a
we are eating, because we are strong and vindictive
civilization
like the
Jabuti.23
*
*
*
42
Latin American
of the Uncreated
If God is the consciousness
of the living.24 Jaci is the mother of plants.25
mother
*
which
*
Literary Review
Guaraci
Universe,
is the
*
But we had divination. We had Politics,
We never had speculation.
is the science of distribution. And a social system in harmony with the
planet.
*
*
*
The flight from tedious states. Against
The migrations.
tedium.
and speculative
the Conservatories
urban
scleroses.
Against
*
James
From William
into a totem. Cannibalism.
and Voronoff.26
*
The
*
*
and the creation
paterfamilias
of things + lack of imagination
ignorance
curious offspring.
*
*
*
The
transfiguration
of the Taboo
*
of the Stork: Real
of the Morality
+ sense of authority in the face of
*
One must depart from a profound atheism in order to arrive at the idea of
God. But the Carib didn't need to. Because he had Guaraci.
*
The created object
dreams. What do we have
the Portuguese
*
reacts like the Fallen
to do with that?
*
Before
*
*
discovered
Angels.
Moses
day
had discovered
hap
Next,
*
Brazil,
Brazil
piness.
*
*
*
Indian. The Indian son of Mary,
the torch-bearing
Down with
and
the
Medici
of
of
Catherine
godson of Dom Antonio de Mariz.27
stepson
the
de Andrade's
Oswald
43
"Cannibalist Manifesto"
Joy is the proof of nines.
*
In the matriarchy
*
*
*
of Pindorama.28
*
Down
*
with Memory
as a source
of custom.
The
renewal
of personal
experience.
*
*
*
are concretists.
in public
Ideas take charge, react, and burn people
means
routes.
of
Believe
Let's
and
other
rid
of
ideas
squares.
get
paralyses. By
in sextants and in stars.
in signs; believe
We
*
Down
with
Goethe,
*
the Gracchi's
*
mother,
and the court of Dom
Jo?o
VI.29
*
*
*
*
*
*
Joy is the proof by nines.
The struggle
between
what we might
call the Uncreated
and the
Creation?illustrated
contradiction
between Man and his
by the permanent
Taboo. Everyday
love and the capitalist way of life. Cannibalism.
Absorption
of the sacred enemy. To transform him into a totem. The human adventure.
The earthly goal. Even so, only the pure elites managed
to realize carnal
of life and avoids
cannibalism, which carries within itself the highest meaning
all the ills identified by Freud?catechist
ills. What result is not a sublimation
of the sexual instinct. It is the thermometrical
scale of the cannibal instinct.
Carnal at first, this instinct becomes
creates friendship. When
and
it
elective,
is affective,
it creates love. When
it is speculative,
it creates science. It takes
detours
and moves
around. At times it is degraded.
Low
cannibalism,
with
the
sins
of
usury, calumny, murder. We
agglomerated
catechism?envy,
are acting against
this plague of a supposedly
cultured and Christianized
peoples.
Cannibals.
*
*
*
Down with Anchieta
singing of the eleven thousand virgins of Heaven,30
in the land of Iracema31?the
founder of S?o Paulo.32
patriarch Jo?o Ramalho,
44
Latin American
*
*
Literary Review
*
has not yet been proclaimed. An expression
Our independence
typical of
Jo?o VI: "My son, put this crown on your head, before some adventurer
the dynasty. We must still expel the Bragantine
puts it on his!"33 We expelled
the
decrees
and
the
of Maria da Fonte.35
snuff-box
spirit,34
Dom
*
*
*
Down
the dressed
and oppressive
with
social reality registered
without
Freud?reality
complexes, without madness, without prostitutions
in the matriarchy
without penitentiaries,
of Pindorama.
by
and
OSWALD DE ANDRADE
In Piratininga,
in the 374th
Year of the Swallowing
of
Sardinha.36
Bishop
Louisiana
State University
NOTES
1Translation
of Oswald de Andrade's
"Manifesto Antrop?fago,"
Revista
1:1 (S?? Paulo, May
de Antropofagia
1928). I want to thank Margaret Abel
Alo?sio Gomes Barbosa,
Jos? Niraldo de Farias,
Quintero, Wilton Azevedo,
Dalila Machado,
Sonia Ramos,
at Latin
and Lisa Fedorka-Carhuaslla
on earlier versions of
American
Literary Review, who read and commented
this translation.
2 In
in original. Tupi is the popular, generic name for the Native
English
of Brazil and also for their language, nheengatu.
Americans
3A student of Greek and Latin
is said to have been
literature, Cornelia
to her sons. In the Manifesto
she is
virtuous, austere, and extremely devoted
the bad mother who (in contrast to the mother-goddesses
Jaci and Guaraci)
brings her children up as subjects of a "civilized" culture.
4 Saudade
or yearning,
is a sentiment
homesickness,
nostalgia,
traditionally associated with the Portuguese national character.
5 In his annotated French translation of the
Benedito Nunes
Manifesto,
points out that the sun is a maternal diety here. As Nunes points out as well,
The "Great Snake" (Cobra Grande)
is a water spirit in Amazonian mythology,
and is the theme of Raul Bopp's poem Cobra Norato
(1928). See Oswald de
trans. Nunes,
"Le manifeste
Surr?alisme
Andrade,
p?ri
anthropophage,"
ed. Luis de Moura Sobral (Montr?al: Universit?
de Montr?al,
1984)
ph?rique,
180-192, esp. 181, n. 3.
6Nunes
an analogy between
"Oswald establishes
the absence of
writes,
a split between Nature and Culture
the
absence
of
and
grammatical
discipline
so close to nature,
did not need to
[in Brazil].
[As they were]
[Brazilians]
of old plants) as Rousseau
and Goethe
did" ("Le
gather herbs (collections
n.
manifeste
"Old
also
182,
4).
(velhos
veget?is)
anthropophage"
plants"
seems to allude to the entrenched,
attitude of the Brazilian
inactive, vegetative
literary and cultural establishment Oswald wants to displace.
Oswald
de Andrade's
"Cannibalist Manifesto"
45
7References
on the structure of "primitive"
to the work of L?vy-Bruhl
n.
8.
See
below,
thought.
8 Lucien
and ethnologist
French philosopher
(1857-1939).
L?vy-Bruhl,
are Les fonctions
les soci?t?s
dans
mentales
his publications
Among
(1927), and La mythologie
primitive
inf?rieures (1910), La mentalit? primitive
to L?vy-Bruhl,
is not a
The
according
(1935).
"primitive" mentality,
different structure
of the "civilized" one, but rather a completely
deformation
and pre-logical.
collective
of thought. The primitive mind ismystical,
9Neil Larsen writes, "The Manifesto
itself plays ironically on the 'theory'
discourse of natural right, leading from Locke through
that the Enlightenment
to the Declaration
and the
and ultimately
Rousseau
of the Rights of Man
in
as
"noble
has
its
Revolution
such,
savage,"
Montaigne's
origins
Bourgeois
of the
based on the first reports from Brazil of 'cannibalism' among members
and
Modernism
tribal
Hegemony
aggregate.
(Minneapolis:
Tupinamba
of Minnesota
Press, 1990) 80.
University
"o? Villegaignon
10InMontaigne's
essay "Des cannibales,"
print terre" is
in Brazil). Montaigne
France
Antarctic
argues in this
(the French mission
than many
"civilized"
is far less barbaric
that ritual cannibalism
essay
customs.
European
11Count Herman
traveller and
world
German philosopher,
Keyserling,
ideas that the
the (Spenglerian)
His works propose
Orientalist,
(1880-1946).
and that Latin
with Eastern philosophy
world must be compenetrated
Western
informs us
America will rise as a world power while Europe declines. Nunes
"visit to S?o Paulo in 1929 was welcomed
whose
that Keyserling,
by the
in his book
set forth the idea of technical barbarism
Revista de antropofagia,
et surr?alisme," Surr?alisme
Die neuentstehende
Welt" ("Anthropophagisme
de Montr?al,
ed. Luis de Moura
Sobral, Montr?al: Universit?
p?riph?rique,
inverts Keyserling's
idea that a
159-79, esp. 173, n. 15). Oswald
(1984),
In Oswald's
is the sign of the modern world.
"technical barbarism"
soulless
utopia, primitive man enjoys the fruits of modernization.
12The Brazilian
(state of Para). Christ is
city of Bel?m, or Bethlehem
in Oswald's
to the New World
thus not brought
text, but born in His own
Bethlehem.
in the
Jesuit instrumental
13Antonio Vieira
(1608-97),
Portuguese
of Brazil. He came to be known as "the Judas of Brazil." In the
colonization
a
over Pernambuco,
war between
Vieira negotiated
and Holland
Portugal
so
was
to
that
Pernambuco
Holland
which
Portugal
peace treaty by
given
to end the war (with money made in Brazil). A
would not have to pay Holland
is associated with formal, elegant rhetoric?a
noted orator and writer, Vieira
to
the
idiom Oswald
is forging for Brazil.
directly
language
poetic
opposed
the strongest of all emblems
of
Nunes writes
"is for Oswald
that Vieira
to
1649 proposition
Brazilian
refers to Vieira's
intellectual
culture....Oswald
to exploit the sugar produced
in the state of Maranh?o"
organize a company
183, n. 11).
("Le manifeste
anthropophage"
are religions of salvation.
to
"meridian"
Nunes,
religions
14According
ao Alcance
in Oswald
de Todos,"
de Andrade, Do Pau
See "Antropofagia
Brasil ? Antropofagia e as Utopias (1972); Rio de Janeiro: Civiliza??o
as a dividing
line seems, in the context of
Brasileira,
(1978) xxxi. Meridian
to connote
and so on,
theManifesto,
the divisions
native/foreign,
body/soul,
which Oswald
is attempting to dismantle.
15In Totem and Taboo (1913, tr. 1918), Freud argues that the shift from
and religion consolidated
"totemistic" to "taboo" systems of morality
paternal
as
cornerstone
culture.
of the taboo system are
of
the
Subjects
authority
46 Latin American
Literary Review
"civilized" because
advocacy
they have internalized the paternal rule. Oswald's
a rejection of patriarchy
and the
of totemistic
cannibalism,
then, constitutes
"fathers." See also Nunes' more detailed expla
culture of the (Portuguese)
et surr?alisme,"
169-70.
nation in "Anthropophagisme
can also signify ships'
16The original roteiros (from rotear, to navigate)
can thus be construed here as referring
logbooks or pilots' directions. Oswald
to a rediscovery
of America.
statesman
in the
British
influential
17William
Pitt,
(1759-1806),
formation of colonial policy for India.
Brazilian writer and conservative
18Jos? de Alencar,
(1829
politician,
(1857) was turned into an opera, with
77). His Indianist novel O Guarani
music by Carlos Gomes
(1836-96), which opened in the Teatro Scala, Milan,
2 December
1870. Nunes points out that "Peri, the hero of O Guarani,
[has]
lords" ("Le manifeste
the great Portuguese
civilized
manners,
imitating
186, n. 18).
anthropophage"
a Portuguese
19In a footnote, Oswald
translation of this Tupi
provides
of me into [the man
text, running "New moon, oh new moon, blow memories
an
the source of this text as O Selvagem,
I want]."
The note gives
and anthropologist
the politician
work by Couto Magalh?es,
anthropological
(1836-98). Nunes quotes Couto de Magalh?es'
complete translation of the Tupi
text: "L?a Nova, ? lua Nova!
de mim; eisme aqui,
assoprai em...lembran?as
estou em vossa presen?a;
fazei com que eu t?o somente ocupe seu cora?ao."
of me into...; I stand here before
[New moon, oh new moon! Blow memories
186, n.
you; let me and no other fill his heart. "Le manifeste
anthropophage"
19].
dos bens
20The original here reads "dos bens f?sicos, dos bens mor?is,
terms
with
for
various
kinds
of
is
Oswald
property,
legal
dign?rios."
playing
so as to ridicule
and show that they are
institutions
"civilized" European
to Brazilian culture. Bens f?sicos are probably the land and natural
superfluous
resources
the native culture. Bens dign?rios,
and bens mor?is
of Brazil,
culture
property granted by the king, suggests both the aspects of Brazilian
held in common with Portugal and also property "granted" by the Portuguese
king that was in fact originally Brazilian.
or nonsense.
is a pun on galimatias,
21"Galli Mathias"
Brazilian
of Cairu
Viscount
22Jos? de Silva Lisboa,
(1756-1835),
court
in
Rio
de
VI
Dom
Jo?o
his
Janeiro
established
After
(1808) in
politician.
the Viscount
of Cairu convinced
invasion of Portugal,
the wake of Napoleon's
him to open Brazilian ports to "all nations friendly to Portugal."
23Tortoise of northern Brazil; in the popular culture of the Indians, he is
a trickster figure. The jabuti is astute, active, comical, and combative.
24Tupi sun goddess, mother of all men.
25Tupi moon goddess, creator of plants.
is the author of
26William
James, American
(1842-1910),
philosopher
Varieties
The
Experience
(1890),
of
Religious
Principles
of Psychology
Russian-born
Universe
(1909). Serge Voronoff,
(1902), and A Pluralistic
sur la vieillesse
et la
is the author of Etude
(1866-1951),
biologist
par la greffe (1926) and La conqu?te de la vie (1928), a
rajeunissement
method
of rejuvenation by the grafting of genital glands. James' demystifying
to the catachesis
Oswald
rejects,
interpretation of religion can be contrasted
s interest in grafting, as well as the return to youth and defiance
and Voronoff
that "one could
of death, has affinities with Oswald's
project. Nunes writes
the
to represent a biological
towards which
consider
[Voronoff]
pragmatism,
Oswald
de Andrade's
"Cannibalist Manifesto"
47
leans" ("Le manifeste
188-89, n.
Manifesto
Anthropophagy
anthropophage"
26).
that this is a "[s]uperimposition
27Nunes writes
of three images: that of
the sculpted Indians of the chandeliers of certain Baroque churches, that of the
Indian Paraguassu, who went to France in the 16th century, accompanied
by
her husband,
the Portuguese
and [that of] D[om]
Correia,
Diogo Alvares
Antonio de Mariz,
the noble rural lord, father of Ceci, with whom Peri falls in
love, in O Guarani.
Paraguassu was baptized as Saint-Malo. A false version
made Catherine
of Medici
the
[of the story], spread through schoolbooks,
189-90, n. 28).
godmother of this native" ("Le manifeste
anthropophage"
^Pindorama
is the name of Brazil in the Tupi language. It may mean
"country or region of palm trees."
29Dom Jo?o VI, King of Portugal (reigned 1816-26). As Prince Regent,
he fled
the Napoleonic
invasion
of Portugal
and installed
the
(1807)
court in Rio de Janeiro (1808-21).
He made Brazil a kingdom
Portuguese
and was Brazil's
last colonial monarch
(1815), equal in status to Portugal,
before independence
(1822).
30Father Anchieta,
Jesuit missionary
(1534-97),
among Indians; known
as "The Apostle
of Brazil" and generally
to be the first Brazilian
considered
writer. He helped found S?o Paulo in 1554, after founding a Jesuit school at
is the author of a long Latin poem to the
(S?o Vicente). Anchieta
Piratininga
and committed
to memory while a captive
Virgin Mary, which he composed
of the Indians, and a dramatic poem in Portuguese
about the arrival of a relic
of the Eleven
Thousand
of St. Ursula,
Virgins
(legendary
companions
at Cologne
in the early 4th century, after whom
the Virgin Islands
martyred
are named)
in Brazil. Anchieta
thus embodies
the catachesis,
importation of
culture, and inscription of Brazil as colony that Oswald rejects.
31Indian heroine inAlencar's novel of the same name (1865).
was one of the first Portuguese
32Jo?o Ramalho
colonizers
of Brazil.
off the coast near S?o Paulo in 1512, he made friends with the
Shipwrecked
Tamoia Indians, married
the daughter of a chief, had many children by her and
other Tamoias,
and created a small empire. He founded what is now Santo
Andr? and also the village
of Piratininga.
He was opposed
to the Jesuits'
of S?o Paulo,
and organized
the Indians' resistance
founding
against the
missionaries.
33Dom Jo?o VI's son, Dom Pedro I, became Emperor of Brazil when
to tradition Dom Jo?o, already
Independence was declared in 1822. According
sensing that Brazil would separate itself from Portugal, had given Dom Pedro
the directions Oswald quotes here before returning to Lisbon in 1821.
34The Portuguese kings of the period were of the Bragan?a dynasty.
35The legendary figure Maria da Fonte became the symbol of a popular
in the Minho
rebellion
to finance
taxation
the
(1846)
against
higher
improvement of roads and reforms in public health. The uprising strengthened
conservative
forces in Portugal, associated with absolution and colonialism.
In
the context
of the MA, Maria
da Fonte
is an emblem
of allegiance
to
tradition and a patriarchal woman, parallel to the Gracchi's mother
Portuguese
and opposed to Jaci and Guaraci.
36Sardinha was Bishop of Bahia from 1552 to 1556, when he was killed
and apparently eaten by the Caltis Indians, into whose hands he fell when the
sank in the S?o Francisco River.
ship that was taking him back to Lisbon
Sardinha had favored punishing Portuguese
settlers who, enraged at the Jesuits'
to the enslavement
of Indians, attacked the school at Piratininga
in
opposition
1554.