Origin
Bacurau’s family origin
Portuguese descendant João Monteiro Nunes was attracted by the news on the sales of rubber and arrived in Manicoré, Amazonas state, using one of the many boats which crossed the rivers in the Amazon forest. He arrived in town very much interested in opening a business, that would likely leave from the Brazilian southeastern region.
He opened a bakery, and besides his private business he would serve at the local police station. It is likely he had been a lawyer.
João Nunes got married, but became a widower with two little kids to take care, Janarí and Maria Neide. Later on he married Elvira Vieira, a daughter of an Public Attorney. In the second marriage, he increased his assets and had with some local power – a traditional family.
The couple had five children – Raimundo Silvestre, José Lázaro, Maria Lúcia, Terezinha and Pedro – when on December 9th, 1939, Francisco Augusto Vieira Nunes was born, the future Bacurau. Soon after he was born, Ada do Carmo, Maria das Graças and Raimundo Nonato came along as well. Augusto, as he was called before they knew him as Bacurau, had ten brothers and sisters in all.
Hansen’s disease in the family
Augusto’s childhood was healthy and regular until he was five years old. He would play in the street, as any other regular boy, and his home was filled with friends and family.
In 1945, when he was six, little Augusto started showing the symptoms of Hansen’s disease. Most of the time it is difficult to precise when the infection occurs for there is a long period of incubation. But it is true that a low immune system is a basic factor for acquiring Hansen’s disease. Given the precarious healthcare systems in the Amazon region at the time, and that Manicoré had little sanitation infrastructure, we can speculate that everyine in town was more vulnerable to diseases, especially children. Augusto must have had frequent contact with someone infected and he contracted the bacillus.
This is how the drama started in the family. His left hand was swolen and showed virchowian Hansen’s disease – the most serious form of the disease, because it is contagious and presents several visible signs, such as swelling, blisters and wounds. The disease tore the family apart.
Looking for therapy and school
Augusto’s older brothers had already finished elementary school and started their lives, but the younger brothers suffered for they had a brother with Hansen’s disease. Aside from the difficulty of finding the proper therapy for their son, his parents could not enroll him in any school. Teachers and principals would not accept a boy who could infect the class.
Without being able to go to school, he had to study at home with the thelp of his brothers and sisters. His siter Maria das Graças would take exercises home to do with her brother and so he learned how to read and write. He did not do much but study. He would spend hours alone, reflecting and studying.
Exclusion and family drama
Manicoré, was a small town and the inhabitants were terrified with Hansen’s disease. At the time there was the “government speedboat” who would recollect the sick and take them to isolation. It was usually a canoe tied to boat, and in it the people with Hansen’s disease, tuberculosis or other evil were taken to the colony hospital in Manaus.
Between 1946 and 1947, some residents denounced Augusto’s disease to the health clinic. Days after the denunciation, a health police team knocked at his door and his father, in desperation, feared they would take his child to Manaus, hugged him, took a kitchen knife and shouted: “you will only take my son if he is dead!”. The intimidated officers did nothing.
Soon after the first try to take Augusto away, police officers learned João Nunes had traveled to Porto Velho. This time they were brutal and ruthless. They broke into the house, and with the descriptions they had they took Pedro by mistake, Augusto’s brother. In order to be quick, they took the first child they saw with the festures described to them. Pedro was never seen again.
Trauma in Porto Velho
With no alternatives, Augusto’s parents decided to take him for therapy in Porto Velho, Rondônia state. He traveled with his mother and grandmother, whereas his father kept on working at the station to support the whole family.
When he arrived in the city, little Augusto had another experience that marked him forever. He was enrolled in school and, on his first day, he was calmly listening to the explanations of the teacher up to the moment he was invited to come to the blackboard and solve an exercise. He raised his swolen hand for the chalk and his disease was exposed. The students did not notice a thing, but the teacher took the case to the principal, who was surprised to see how that boy got enrolled if he were “like that”.
As if it weren’t enough, he was taken from school to the hospital in an ambulance. When the doctor diagnosed his disease he also demanded for him to be taken out of school. They not only expelled Augusto, but left him at the door of the hospital, without even taking him home.
After all these events he was depressed and lonely, and he dreamed of being treated with respect: “many people want to be different and I wanted to be normal”. He would spend hours meditating and alone. He would alternate his reflections with his family and very rare walks outside.
Harsh times
In the period when Augusto was treated in Porto Velho, his father was gradually losing his customers at the bakery. Several neighbors avoided the sidewalks of their house with fear of contamination. The bakery closed.
Some time after his bakruptcy, João was fired for having disclosed his political convictions against the ruling government of Getulio Vargas and for having a son with Hansen’s disease. In 1951, both factors were responsible for his harassment.
From that year on, hunger, fear and sadness marked João, Elvira and their children. He was unemployed and he supported his family with part-time jobs. Elvira started to do the laundry for people and Augusto, who had returned to Manicoré, a little over ten years old, went fishing for fun and for bringing what to eat home.
At the same time the family still had to cope with the loss of three family members. Maria Lucia, at the age of four, Terezinha de Jesus, six and Maria Eliza, still a baby, all died from lack of food and proper medical therapy.
João tried not to wilt and worked hard moaning lawns in town and helping arrivals at the port. These physical efforts, at sixty years of age, under the sun and the rain, with poor eating, have led to his death in an afternoon in 1952.
The Nunes family was even more helpless and suffering all kinds of prejudice. The city mayor and health clinic doctor imposed on Augusto: he was prohibited to leave home. If he did, Elvira would go to jail. They nailed a large sign in front of his house with the word ETERNITET, meaning that the home was condemned forever.
Elvira went back to Porto Velho seek help with a cousin. But he did not earn a lot and supported a family with 8 children. Family relatives demanded the hospitalization of adolescent Augusto.
In 1953, at the age of thirteen, he followed on for his confinement. He would have to live on his own in the Porto Velho colony.
│ the life in colonies │ engagement and struggle │ the departure │
Text adapted from the book Bacurau – Uma vida, uma historia by Daniel Klein, 2005