XI. The baby of an Índia named Simone

Brazil, let the star-spangled banner
thou showest forth
be the symbol of eternal love,
and let the laurel-green of thy pennant proclaim
'Peace in the future and glory in the past.'

-- Brazilian National Anthem

Simone is a young Kulina woman from the village of Maranawa on the Purus River.  She appears to be no more than 16 years old.  Her menino (little one), Duró, has been ill for several months.  He’s got a fever, doesn’t want to nurse and lies in a small hamack in a maloca that the family shares with 18 other families.

Simone is sad and worried.  She has already talked with the pajé (witch doctor) to tirar o dori (cure) the baby, but he is not getting better.  She decides, therefore, to go down the river to Sena Madureira to look for help.  She wraps the baby in a large blanket and speaking in Kulina tells her mother: “I’m going to Sena.”

The older india does not ask any questions because she too is worried about Duró and already knows: her daughter will ask the help of Father Paolino who two months ago had passed down the river on a desobriga (mission trip).  The young índia makes haste.  She collects together some fruit, because the trip is going to be long, and heads to the river.

It’s a cool morning, the sun still hasn’t risen over the tops of the trees and she has gone down the river without difficulty and without taking her eyes off of her Duró who seems to be resting more calmly now.  Lying on the floor of the boat, he freed himself from the blanket that covered him with his arms and legs fully stretched out.  “It’s a good sign,” thinks Simone, “the fever, must be passing.”

Sena Madureira.  Simone used to enjoy watching the life of the city, but her thoughts were confused.  She was always afraid that something would happen to her and that she would not be able to return to her village.  It’s been some time since she’s been to Sena and nothing has changed.  Everything was as she remembered, all the way to Fr. Paolino who lives in the house by the church, where he patiently tends to uma pá (a number of) people.

When it came her turn, Fr. Paulino asked her, “So what do you need this time Simone?”  And she was taken aback that he remembered her name because she only met him once before.  Simone recounted to him everything, and he listened to her attentively, observing the baby.  He asked if he had intestino solto (an empty stomach).  He had.  So the father got up, deu a volta (went over) to a table covered with papers, took the mãozinha (little hand) of Duró, looked carefully at his little body and then placed his hand on the indiozinho (the little Indian) and said: “He’s also dehydrated but he’ll get better.  Make a soro (serum) with coconut water and then a chá (tea) from folhinha da goiaba (goiaba leaves).  Slowly feed him with these, day and night.”

Then he kissed the little baby’s head) and that was all.

That same afternoon, Simone went up the river in an old regatão (boat).  Even during her trip, she was already giving Duró the serum and the chá.  A day passed and another, and the menino was fine.


Medicine from the Forest

Over the centuries, the indigenous peoples have accumulated a great knowledge of the curative properties of plants, and the Amazonians that arrived afterwards have learned from them.

Mothers prepare potions from barks, fruit and vegetable peals, and leaves to treat the most common ailments.  For each illness, there’s a different chá (tea).  When one is unsuccessful, the indigenous people go to the pajé.  When the pajé also can not resolve the problem, if they can (and they have the time), they go looking for help futher away.

In 1950, nine Italian friars from the Order of the Servants of Mary arrived in Brazil, among them Fr. Paolino Baldassari.  They went quickly up to Acre where the Order had already operated a Mission since 1920.  They all fell in love with the Forest and all its problems.  Except for a rare visit home, none of them returned to Italy.

One of the jobs of Fr. Paolino is to do desobrigas – voyages up the rivers and igarapés (swamps) to visit every village, every house baptizing, marrying, listening to the queixas (problems/complaints), resolving disputes, and teaching the value of prayer.  In his work, he became interested in the chás (teas) with curative properties and realized that he was in the position to learn a great deal from a widely dispersed amount of people.  Some chás were known by some but not by others.  Some ailments were treated with a particular chá by some and by other chás by others.  Some knew how to cure certain ailments while others felt impotent and resigned themselves to watching a criança (child), or an adult be defeated by a doença and die.

Fr. Paolino collected all the information that he could – from books, from seringueiros (rubber tappers), from silvícolas (forest dwellers) and from people from the cities – and used them during his desobriga trip, when the people found that the cures that they knew had failed them.

When not going desobriga trips, Fr. Paolino stays in Sena Madureira looking after the other social projects of the Order including, schools, hospitals, treatment centers for those suffering from drug dependencies, but word of his knowledge of chás with curative properties has spread and is now sought by both townspeople and those living further away.

Now, when he is in Sena, every morning he is visited by about 80 people who he directs on basis of his personal experience and to whom he gives chás which are almost always already prepared and in quantities sufficient for all.

The recipes are surprisingly simple and besides coming from the barks of particular trees, may include mel (honey), banha de capivara (grease from a Brazilian groundhog), coco (coconut), pimenta (pepper), and leaves from certain plants – some of which have very rather evocative names, such a as amor crescido (mature love), catinga de mulata (the scent of a mulato woman), capim santo (sacred grass).

In 2001, the Government of Acre decided to sponsor the publication of the book called “Medicina da Floresta” (Medicine from the Forest), a collection of recipes of Fr. Paolino.  “All the plants mentioned in the book, exist in our area.  But so that they can continue to exist, we need to protect them,” warns Sister Adriana Closs in the forward.

Yes, we need to protect them.  We need to protect the plants, the forests, the rivers, the fish, the birds and the animals the make up the Amazon – all of which are threatened by extinction.