Memory and myth of Belo Monte/Canudos – Antônio Fernando de Araújo Sá’s (UFS) review of the book “O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana”, by Pedro Lima Vasconcelos
Abstract: O leite, cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana, by Pedro Lima Vasconcellos, critiques Euclides da Cunha’s interpretation of Canudos, debunking the notion of millenarianism and apocalypse associated with Belo Monte. The work revisits the social and religious experience of Canudos, highlighting its complexity and challenging simplistic views. However, it tends to be too critical of Euclides da Cunha.
Keywords: Antônio Conselheiro, Euclides da Cunha, and Canudos.
In August of last year, Editora da UFAL launched 100 new books in just one week. Among the new books was O leite, cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antonio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana (Milk, couscous and the sky: Antonio Conselheiro’s Belo Monte and the Euclidean fallacy) by Pedro Lima Vasconcellos, which aimed to identify and critique errors in Euclides da Cunha’s reasoning in his interpretation of the causes and consequences of the “Canudos” phenomenon. The book is part of a body of historiographical work which, in recent decades, has broadened the possibilities of understanding the social experience of Belo Monte/Canudos beyond categories of analysis such as messianism and millenarianism. These categories fail to account for the religiosity exercised there. In fact, there is an association between the two, which confuses rather than explains the religious experience of the Councillors.
Pedro Lima Vasconcelos has received training and conducted research in the fields of philosophy, theology, history, and the science of religions. He currently teaches in the History postgraduate program at the Federal University of Alagoas. Authors such as Vasconcelos have made a significant contribution to the review of the trajectory of Antônio Conselheiro and the examination of the daily life of the city. This can be observed in the books on the Capuchin mission in the city of Conselheiro (2014) and the monumental work on Antônio Conselheiro by himself (2017), which was organized by the author and includes valuable scholarly notes on the manuscript of the leader of Belo Monte.
During a visit to the Instituto Popular Memorial de Canudos, an important site of memory in the present-day town of Canudos (BA), I encountered his most recent publication on Belo Monte and the “Euclidean fallacy.” In this work, he offers a radical critique of Euclides da Cunha’s invention of a supposed millenarianism as a category of explanation for this socio-religious experience.
In the initial section of the book, the author dismantles Euclid’s millenarian and apocalyptic argument about the mentality of Belo Monte, as Antônio Conselheiro called it, rather than Canudos. In addition to Os Sertões, the author analyzes the articles and reports he wrote, unraveling the influence of Victor Hugo (Ninety-Three, 1874) in the articles he wrote for the Estado de São Paulo, entitled “A nossa Vendeia.” He treats the city of Conselheiro as the fruit of “empire propagandists” on the ignorant and naive people of the sertão.
In this way, there was an association between the French “chouan” and the “fanatical tabaréu” due to the heroism of both. Initially, the imagery of the French Revolution helped construct the articles; however, in Os Sertões, the work of Ernst Renan will define his reading of the council community, especially Marcus Aurelius and the End of the Old World (1899). In the context of evolutionary thought, Euclid’s magnum opus would identify Antônio Conselheiro with Montano of Phrygia, characterizing them as extravagant millenarianists. This interpretation would subsequently influence later works, such as those by Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz and Robert Levine, without sufficient critical examination. The author acknowledges the error in associating Belo Monte with millenarianism, noting that this thesis has not been proven with documents. Nevertheless, the Euclidean invention of a millenarian Belo Monte persists to this day (p. 52).
With communitarianism as its economic base, the city offered a social alternative for the underprivileged of the sertões, serving as a “land of promise,” alluding to the story of the people of Israel leaving Egypt. The image of the “river of milk” and “ravines of couscous” also resonated with the original peoples of the region, including the Kiriri and the Kaimbé, who sought the “land without evil.”
In contrast to the “barbaric and chilling oratory” of a “bronco gnostic,” which Euclides da Cunha constructed about Antônio Conselheiro, the scholar demonstrates that his preaching was constructed by an “intricate intertextual web,” based on biblical passages, the narrative Compendium of the Pilgrim of America, by Nuno Marques Pereira, and the Abbreviated Mission, by Father Manoel José Gonçalves (p. 82).
It is important to note that his religious practice was also influenced by Father Ibiapina, who, along with Antônio Conselheiro and Father Cícero, constituted the triad of the most prominent religious leaders in the Northeast during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. As João Montenegro (1984, p. 33) observed, Conselheiro’s influence on the works of João Montenegro rests on a pastoral model anchored in the associative spirit of the mutirão, which, unlike the traditional missionary style, achieved practical results for the life of the sertanejo community. Thus, in religious practice, the “material” would never be separated from the “spiritual.”
Conselheiro’s eschatology, therefore, integrated the tenets of Catholic doctrine with “data from historical reality,” as Belo Monte, whether in the distinctive ways it structured daily life or in its defense of its right to persist as a popular backlands phenomenon, opened up efficacious pathways to the long-awaited salvation in the afterlife.
For the author, Conselheiro’s eschatological perspective provided a rationale for salvation for those who died in the struggle. Euclides asserts that this eschatological appeal cannot be fully understood without reference to the writings of the leader and his daily advice (p. 87, 89).
In the Villa of Itabaiana, Antônio Conselheiro is depicted in the illustration of “Joel” for the cordel with the same title, written by Robério Santos | Image: Facebook
By deconstructing the Euclidean theses of millenarian and apocalyptic religious foundations, O leite, cuscuz e o céu brings readers up to date with academic discussions of recent decades, such as José Maria de Oliveira Silva’s doctoral thesis in History (USP/1996), which unfortunately remains unpublished in book form. His conclusions reiterate the need to understand Belo Monte both from its particular religious dimension and from social experience, which I share.
The author achieves his stated objective. However, he is somewhat heavy-handed in his treatment of Euclid’s work, both in the epigraph by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva about the lies of the writer from Cantagalo and in some passages, such as his “poisonous and mistaken pen” (p. 94). In addition, the work constitutes a valuable contribution to the study of the religiosity of the city of Conselheiro, which has yet to engage with the Afro-indigenous presence in the social composition and, consequently, in everyday religious practices.
References
MONTENEGRO, João Alfredo de S. Ibiapina e a história regional do Nordeste. In: DESROCHERS, Georgette & HOONAERT, Eduardo (orgs.). Padre Ibiapina e a Igreja dos Pobres. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1984.
SILVA, José Maria de Oliveira. Rever Canudos: Historicidade e Religiosidade Popular 1940–19955). São Paulo, 1996. Tese (Doutorado em História) – Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, Universidade de São Paulo.
Summary of O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana
Introdução
I. A um passo do paraíso
1. Á espera do Milênio
2. A antessala do Reino
3. Belo Monte e o Milenarismo: equívocos
II. Uma Terra de promessas
4. Um dia após Maceté
5. Administrando a escassez
6. Refazendo a saga dos hebreus
III. Notas “para a Salvação dos Homens”
Conclusão
Referências
Reviewer
Antônio Fernando de Araújo holds a PhD in History from the Universidade de Brasília (UnB), is a professor in the History Department and Master’s in History at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe and editor of Ponta de Lança – Revista Eletrônica de História, Memória & Cultura. He has published, among other titles, Rio Sem História? Leituras sobre o Rio São Francisco (2018) e Entre sertões e representações: ensaios e estudos (2021). ID LATTES: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4761668150681726; ID ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6496-4456; E-mail: fernandosa1965@gmail.com.
To cite this review
VASCONCELLOS, Pedro Lima. O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana. Maceió: EDUFAL, 2023. Review of: SÁ, Antônio Fernando de Araújo. Memória e mito de Belo Monte/Canudos. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.16, Mar /Apr, 2024. Available at <Memory and myth of Belo Monte/Canudos – Antônio Fernando de Araújo Sá’s (UFS) review on the book “O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana”, by Pedro Lima Vasconcelos – Crítica Historiografica (criticahistoriografica.com.br)>.
Memory and myth of Belo Monte/Canudos – Antônio Fernando de Araújo Sá’s (UFS) review of the book “O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana”, by Pedro Lima Vasconcelos
Abstract: O leite, cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana, by Pedro Lima Vasconcellos, critiques Euclides da Cunha’s interpretation of Canudos, debunking the notion of millenarianism and apocalypse associated with Belo Monte. The work revisits the social and religious experience of Canudos, highlighting its complexity and challenging simplistic views. However, it tends to be too critical of Euclides da Cunha.
Keywords: Antônio Conselheiro, Euclides da Cunha, and Canudos.
In August of last year, Editora da UFAL launched 100 new books in just one week. Among the new books was O leite, cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antonio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana (Milk, couscous and the sky: Antonio Conselheiro’s Belo Monte and the Euclidean fallacy) by Pedro Lima Vasconcellos, which aimed to identify and critique errors in Euclides da Cunha’s reasoning in his interpretation of the causes and consequences of the “Canudos” phenomenon. The book is part of a body of historiographical work which, in recent decades, has broadened the possibilities of understanding the social experience of Belo Monte/Canudos beyond categories of analysis such as messianism and millenarianism. These categories fail to account for the religiosity exercised there. In fact, there is an association between the two, which confuses rather than explains the religious experience of the Councillors.
Pedro Lima Vasconcelos has received training and conducted research in the fields of philosophy, theology, history, and the science of religions. He currently teaches in the History postgraduate program at the Federal University of Alagoas. Authors such as Vasconcelos have made a significant contribution to the review of the trajectory of Antônio Conselheiro and the examination of the daily life of the city. This can be observed in the books on the Capuchin mission in the city of Conselheiro (2014) and the monumental work on Antônio Conselheiro by himself (2017), which was organized by the author and includes valuable scholarly notes on the manuscript of the leader of Belo Monte.
During a visit to the Instituto Popular Memorial de Canudos, an important site of memory in the present-day town of Canudos (BA), I encountered his most recent publication on Belo Monte and the “Euclidean fallacy.” In this work, he offers a radical critique of Euclides da Cunha’s invention of a supposed millenarianism as a category of explanation for this socio-religious experience.
In the initial section of the book, the author dismantles Euclid’s millenarian and apocalyptic argument about the mentality of Belo Monte, as Antônio Conselheiro called it, rather than Canudos. In addition to Os Sertões, the author analyzes the articles and reports he wrote, unraveling the influence of Victor Hugo (Ninety-Three, 1874) in the articles he wrote for the Estado de São Paulo, entitled “A nossa Vendeia.” He treats the city of Conselheiro as the fruit of “empire propagandists” on the ignorant and naive people of the sertão.
In this way, there was an association between the French “chouan” and the “fanatical tabaréu” due to the heroism of both. Initially, the imagery of the French Revolution helped construct the articles; however, in Os Sertões, the work of Ernst Renan will define his reading of the council community, especially Marcus Aurelius and the End of the Old World (1899). In the context of evolutionary thought, Euclid’s magnum opus would identify Antônio Conselheiro with Montano of Phrygia, characterizing them as extravagant millenarianists. This interpretation would subsequently influence later works, such as those by Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz and Robert Levine, without sufficient critical examination. The author acknowledges the error in associating Belo Monte with millenarianism, noting that this thesis has not been proven with documents. Nevertheless, the Euclidean invention of a millenarian Belo Monte persists to this day (p. 52).
With communitarianism as its economic base, the city offered a social alternative for the underprivileged of the sertões, serving as a “land of promise,” alluding to the story of the people of Israel leaving Egypt. The image of the “river of milk” and “ravines of couscous” also resonated with the original peoples of the region, including the Kiriri and the Kaimbé, who sought the “land without evil.”
In contrast to the “barbaric and chilling oratory” of a “bronco gnostic,” which Euclides da Cunha constructed about Antônio Conselheiro, the scholar demonstrates that his preaching was constructed by an “intricate intertextual web,” based on biblical passages, the narrative Compendium of the Pilgrim of America, by Nuno Marques Pereira, and the Abbreviated Mission, by Father Manoel José Gonçalves (p. 82).
It is important to note that his religious practice was also influenced by Father Ibiapina, who, along with Antônio Conselheiro and Father Cícero, constituted the triad of the most prominent religious leaders in the Northeast during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. As João Montenegro (1984, p. 33) observed, Conselheiro’s influence on the works of João Montenegro rests on a pastoral model anchored in the associative spirit of the mutirão, which, unlike the traditional missionary style, achieved practical results for the life of the sertanejo community. Thus, in religious practice, the “material” would never be separated from the “spiritual.”
Conselheiro’s eschatology, therefore, integrated the tenets of Catholic doctrine with “data from historical reality,” as Belo Monte, whether in the distinctive ways it structured daily life or in its defense of its right to persist as a popular backlands phenomenon, opened up efficacious pathways to the long-awaited salvation in the afterlife.
For the author, Conselheiro’s eschatological perspective provided a rationale for salvation for those who died in the struggle. Euclides asserts that this eschatological appeal cannot be fully understood without reference to the writings of the leader and his daily advice (p. 87, 89).
In the Villa of Itabaiana, Antônio Conselheiro is depicted in the illustration of “Joel” for the cordel with the same title, written by Robério Santos | Image: Facebook
By deconstructing the Euclidean theses of millenarian and apocalyptic religious foundations, O leite, cuscuz e o céu brings readers up to date with academic discussions of recent decades, such as José Maria de Oliveira Silva’s doctoral thesis in History (USP/1996), which unfortunately remains unpublished in book form. His conclusions reiterate the need to understand Belo Monte both from its particular religious dimension and from social experience, which I share.
The author achieves his stated objective. However, he is somewhat heavy-handed in his treatment of Euclid’s work, both in the epigraph by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva about the lies of the writer from Cantagalo and in some passages, such as his “poisonous and mistaken pen” (p. 94). In addition, the work constitutes a valuable contribution to the study of the religiosity of the city of Conselheiro, which has yet to engage with the Afro-indigenous presence in the social composition and, consequently, in everyday religious practices.
References
MONTENEGRO, João Alfredo de S. Ibiapina e a história regional do Nordeste. In: DESROCHERS, Georgette & HOONAERT, Eduardo (orgs.). Padre Ibiapina e a Igreja dos Pobres. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1984.
SILVA, José Maria de Oliveira. Rever Canudos: Historicidade e Religiosidade Popular 1940–19955). São Paulo, 1996. Tese (Doutorado em História) – Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, Universidade de São Paulo.
Summary of O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana
Introdução
I. A um passo do paraíso
1. Á espera do Milênio
2. A antessala do Reino
3. Belo Monte e o Milenarismo: equívocos
II. Uma Terra de promessas
4. Um dia após Maceté
5. Administrando a escassez
6. Refazendo a saga dos hebreus
III. Notas “para a Salvação dos Homens”
Conclusão
Referências
Reviewer
Antônio Fernando de Araújo holds a PhD in History from the Universidade de Brasília (UnB), is a professor in the History Department and Master’s in History at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe and editor of Ponta de Lança – Revista Eletrônica de História, Memória & Cultura. He has published, among other titles, Rio Sem História? Leituras sobre o Rio São Francisco (2018) e Entre sertões e representações: ensaios e estudos (2021). ID LATTES: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4761668150681726; ID ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6496-4456; E-mail: fernandosa1965@gmail.com.
To cite this review
VASCONCELLOS, Pedro Lima. O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana. Maceió: EDUFAL, 2023. Review of: SÁ, Antônio Fernando de Araújo. Memória e mito de Belo Monte/Canudos. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.16, Mar /Apr, 2024. Available at <Memory and myth of Belo Monte/Canudos – Antônio Fernando de Araújo Sá’s (UFS) review on the book “O leite, o cuscuz e o céu: o Belo Monte de Antônio Conselheiro e a falácia euclidiana”, by Pedro Lima Vasconcelos – Crítica Historiografica (criticahistoriografica.com.br)>.
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Pedro Lima Vasconcelos has received training and conducted research in the fields of philosophy, theology, history, and the science of religions. He currently teaches in the History postgraduate program at the Federal University of Alagoas. Authors such as Vasconcelos have made a significant contribution to the review of the trajectory of Antônio Conselheiro and the examination of the daily life of the city. This can be observed in the books on the Capuchin mission in the city of Conselheiro (2014) and the monumental work on Antônio Conselheiro by himself (2017), which was organized by the author and includes valuable scholarly notes on the manuscript of the leader of Belo Monte.
Antônio Fernando de Araújo holds a PhD in History from the Universidade de Brasília (UnB), is a professor in the History Department and Master’s in History at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe and editor of Ponta de Lança – Revista Eletrônica de História, Memória & Cultura. He has published, among other titles, Rio Sem História? Leituras sobre o Rio São Francisco (2018) e Entre sertões e representações: ensaios e estudos (2021). ID LATTES: http://lattes.cnpq.br/4761668150681726; ID ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6496-4456; E-mail: fernandosa1965@gmail.com.
