Sertanejo’s cosmology

commentary on the film Sob ditame de rude Almajesto (sinais de chuva), by Olney São Paulo

Abstract

In 1976, Olney São Paulo returns to his hometown of Riachão do Jacuípe to film, on his brother’s farm, what is perhaps his most personal documentary. Unlike his other documentary works, that use an off-screen narrator who knows and teaches everything to the spectator, this film follows a narration being done by the characters themselves, country people who describe their own resources on how to predict the rainy season throughout the year. This dialogue is held in a circle in which more than one character discus among themselves their methods. This short film is inspired by a chronicle by Eurico Alves Boaventura, published years earlier by Olney São Paulo when the latter was editor of Sertão. But it brings differences, especially in its differentiating take on who should be the narrator. In this article, I seek to interpret the development of the Sertão peoples thought based on their observations and techniques for predicting rain and how these learned signs point to a unification of the cosmological whole. The Sertão philosophy described by Olney São Paulo’s Almajesto shows the correlations between the great events of the cosmos (the movement of the moon and the stars) with the small transformations here on earth (the creation of wings by ants and termites, the creations of flowers by mandacaru).