"Guerreiros do Sol": see what is real or fiction, according to the writer

About to reach the grand finale of the plot, the soap opera "Guerreiros do Sol", inspired by the real story of Lampião and Maria Bonita, left the public ecstatic with the scenes of extreme violence experienced by the protagonists Josué (Thomás Aquino) and Rosa (Isadora Cruz). The plot is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Frederico Pernambucano de Mello, published in 1985, which tells the story of the cangaceiros who had their peak in the early 1930s, in the Brazilian backlands. But what is truth and what is fiction in the story told on Globoplay?

CNN invited writer Wagner G. Barreira, author of the book "Lampião e Maria Bonita, uma História de amor e balas" (Editora Planeta, 2018), to answer some pertinent questions about the story of Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, better known as Lampião, and Maria de Déa, nicknamed Maria Bonita, and the social context they lived in at that time. The journalist and writer explains that his work is a "collective fiction", a concept created by the philosopher Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

"Lampião's story is a collective fiction, told for almost a century by narrators and protagonists of the events that, at times, shape History to their needs, convictions and ambitions, by authors who take sides or simply expose fiction. There is everything in the narratives, an arc that goes from the country hero who fought inequalities, through the businessman who transformed cangaço into fear and a way of life and reaches the bloodthirsty killer, the criminal without scruples. These are fair and possible ways of dealing with a complex subject like Lampião, who was all of that - and something much more", he describes.

"Guerreiros do Sol", written by George Moura and Sergio Goldenberg, changes the names of all the characters in the real story, which makes it difficult to research the reality of the facts in an internet search. In addition to Josué and Rosa, other characters had different names in reality, such as Otília (Alice Carvalho), who was Mariquinha (she was Lampião's sister), Arduíno (Irandhir Santos), who was called Antonio (but was not a traitor), Miguel Ignácio (Alexandre Nero), in real life was Sinhô Pereira (and did not die, but left the bandit), Gasolina (Ênio Cavalcante) was Zé Baiano, Cheiroso (Rodrigo Garcia) was called Dadá and even the photographer Almir (Kaysar Dadour) actually existed, a Lebanese called Benjamin Abraão Calil Boto, secretary of Father Cícero.

In fact, speaking of the parish priest who is highly respected in the Northeast to this day, he is represented in the soap opera as Father Bida (Rodrigo Lélis), Josué's younger brother, but Father Cícero and Lampião were not related in any way, despite knowing each other.

See the questions and answers about what is truth and what is fiction in "Guerreiros do Sol":
1) Josué and three brothers decide to join the gang of Miguel Inácio, Josué's predecessor cangaceiro, after the murder of their father. Did Lampião have a predecessor? Who was he? Is that how he joined the cangaço?
Lampião had several predecessors. Cangaço as a social phenomenon in the northeastern backlands has roots in the colonial past. The organization into armed, uniformed and nomadic bands dates back to the end of the 19th century. Among Lampião's "predecessors" stands out Jesuíno Brilhante, who worked between 1870 and 1879, coming from a family of farmers. Many of the myths associated with Lampião, in fact, were born from the actions of Jesuíno, considered fair and who acted in defense of the poorest. Lampião joined the band of Sinhô Pereira, a descendant of Barão de Pajeú, in the Serra Talhada region. The pre-Lampionic cangaço is associated with land disputes between family clans. When Sinhô abandoned the cangaço, at the request of Padre Cícero, he handed over command of the gang to Lampião, in the early years of the 1920s. As a child, Virgulino played the role of the brigand Antonio Silvino, known as Rifle de Ouro. She never forgave him for turning himself in to the police in 1914.

2) Josué falls in love with Rosa, who he met at a forró, randomly. Is this how Lampião and Maria Bonita know each other?
No, definitely. Maria was one of the daughters of Zé de Felipe, a "coiteiro" - small farmers who gave shelter to the cangaceiros. Lampião met her on one of the several visits he made to his father's farm (who, at first, was against romance). What is known is that one of Lampião's lieutenants and compadres, Luís Pedro, met Maria and told his boss that he had found a woman "as beautiful as a lover who, despite not having seen you in person, likes you". Lampião said nothing: "Compadre, I'm obsessed with these lovers."

Faced with Luís Pedro's insistence, the cangaceiro capitulated: "Well, next week I'll look at that peahen's face." Legend has it that Lampião immediately fell in love with Maria and asked her to embroider some silk scarves, which he would collect some time later.

Unlike the soap opera, in which Josué meets his beloved before becoming a bandit, what attracted Maria was precisely Lampião's fame, feared and respected throughout the north of Bahia.

Josué (Thomás Aquino) and Rosa (Isadora Cruz) represent Lampião and Maria Bonita in "Guerreiros do Sol" - Reproduction/Globoplay and Ricardo Albuquerque/Sociedade do Cangaço
3) One of the key points in the soap opera's story is the betrayal of Arduíno, one of Josué's brothers, and leader of the Cangaço Combat Force. Did this traitor brother really exist?
No, there never was a traitor brother in the Ferreira family. Two of Lampião's brothers joined him in the cangaço after their father's death: Antonio, who was older, and Livino, younger than Virgulino. Some time after his parents' death, Lampião sent his family to Ceará, where they lived under the care of Father Cícero in Juazeiro do Norte. He never had a brother who was a priest.

4) Josué's mother has a psychotic break and is supported by her priest son, called Bida. Who was Lampião's mother?
Lampião's mother was called Maria Lopes and she had heart problems, not psychological ones. She died shortly before the murder of her husband, José Ferreira, by the police. The couple was on their way to the Alagoas city of Mata Grande when Maria fainted. José went to the city in search of provisions and left it with acquaintances on the Engenho farm. She was talking, squatting, when she began to feel ill and died of a heart attack at the age of 47.

5) Otília, Rosa's sister, also joins the bandit. Did Maria Bonita have a sister, who was her great friend?
Maria had 11 brothers and sisters, something common in the northeastern backlands of the time. But the one who accompanied her when she decided to join Lampião's gang was her sister-in-law, her husband's sister, called Mariquinha (who also abandoned her husband).

6) Joshua hosted a party and gave money to the people, a kind of Robin Hood. Did Lampião win over the people with this same path?
Lampião imposed himself mainly through terror, but he gained the respect of the country people for his courage, something greatly admired in the region. He was also known for being a man of his word and having a keen sense of justice. Unlike the protagonist of the soap opera, he had a reputation for being a pushover, and distributed coins and short money from his boots. Parties became common when Lampião established himself in Bahia. He helped Lampião to reinforce the gang with new bandits and, after Maria Bonita, to find women who decided to join the gang. A parenthesis here: Maria Bonita and Mariquinha are exceptions, most of the women in Lampião's gang were kidnapped. Dada, Corisco's companion, was kidnapped and raped by him when she was 13.

7) The cangaceiros in the soap opera are very "neat" and Josué makes sure their uniform is well aligned. Was Lampião also a vain man to that point?
The cangaceiro uniform, which writer and researcher Frederico Pernambucano de Mello compares to samurai costumes and medieval armor in terms of usefulness and beauty, derives from the cowboys' leather clothing. Lampião himself allowed himself to be filmed using a Singer sewing machine and, in his youth, he was famous for his careful work in leather. Lampião was very vain, and part of the cangaço's aesthetics, such as the use of rings, chains and accessories, is due to him. There is an episode in which the gang invades the city of Custódia (PE) and Lampião orders some clothes from a tailor (and paid for them), for himself and his lieutenants, as long as they are ready on the same day. The tailor, of course, delivered the job.

The cangaceiros' clothes weren't just khaki. During the band's Bahian phase, they wore a bluish uniform. When he met with Father Cícero in 1926 and became captain of the patriotic battalions that fought the Prestes Column, he received from the Brazilian government, in addition to his rank, rifles and uniforms from the Brazilian Army (and a sum of money).

The embroidered bornals (denim bags), stars and other medieval symbols that appeared on hats, coins placed in weapon belts were Dadá's creations, at the time the gang took refuge in Raso da Catarina, always with Lampião's approval. Another element of vanity, invisible to the eye, was perfume, even used on horses. The problem is that perfumes, when mixed with the sweat of the cangaceiros, gave rise to a catinga that was perceived from a distance.

8) Josué also liked to see his face printed in the newspapers and demanded that the cangaceiros be in the photo. On several occasions, he sends for a journalist and a photographer to give interviews. Did Lampião want to be famous?
Yes, Lampião's most famous interview was with the doctor Octacílio Macedo, published in O Ceará, in 1926, during his visit to Juazeiro do Norte. Macedo describes him as calm and decisive, weighing his words carefully. Lampião described himself as a businessman: "If you are in a business and you get along well with it, would you ever think about abandoning it? That's exactly my case." And he complained that his expenses were "huge". In Juazeiro, he met a curious character, the Lebanese Benjamin Abraão Calil Boto, secretary of Father Cícero. Ten years later, Benjamin Abraão, equipped with a camcorder, met with the gang of Lampião and Maria Bonita in Bahia and made a short documentary, which was not shown by order of the Department of Press and Propaganda of Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo. The head of the DIP, Lourival Fontes, banned the work for "attacking the credits of Brazilianness". But Boto published a series of reports about the bandit in Diário de Pernambuco. Lampião collected articles about himself and it was a very rare case of a character who was able to read his own biography during his lifetime, written and published by Ranulfo Prata from Sergipe in 1934.

9) Josué calls himself "governor of the backlands". Lampião too?
Lampião was the "governor of the backlands" in the flesh. In November 1926, Lampião won his greatest battle and displayed his military genius in the battle of Serra Grande. He organized his troops soldier by soldier on the mountain walls and crushed a force that brought together six police commanders and more than 300 men, four times more than the bandit's forces. One of the soldiers, Arlindo Rocha, refused to interrupt the march for lunch. "Today I want to eat candy," he said. His wish was granted shortly after, he was shot that shattered his jaw and earned the nickname Silver Chin. It was a massacre, soldiers appeared unarmed and half-naked in villages dozens of kilometers away, totally disoriented. Days later, Lampião delivered a letter along with a freed hostage, addressed to the governor of Pernambuco Julio de Melo, with a proposal to "put an end to the fights once and for all", in his terms: "I, Governor of Sertão, will govern this area here, in its entirety, up to the ends of the tracks in Rio Branco. And the gentleman on your side, governs from Rio Branco to the crash of the sea. That's right. Everyone stays on his own."

Lampião and his band of cangaceiros - GESP
10) Josué had confidential contacts with people in politics, such as senators or deputies. Did Lampião have these contacts with politicians?
To give one example, Lampião was a personal friend of Erônides Carvalho, army doctor captain and son of farmer Antônio Caixeiro. At the first meeting, Carvalho offered the bandit a thermos and imported cheese, luxuries in the backlands. With the Revolution of 1930, the young captain became governor and later intervener in Sergipe. State troops never attacked Lampião, who received boxes of White Horse whiskey and Fleurs d'Amour perfume, his favorite, from the governor.

11) Rosa was married out of convenience to a farmer, before joining Josué. What was Maria Bonita's life like before Lampião?
Maria Bonita, at the time Maria de Déa, her mother's name, had an arranged marriage with her cousin Zé de Neném, a shoemaker by profession, bohemian and womanizer. The marriage was in crisis and, after every fight, Maria returned to her parents' farm. That's how she met Lampião. There are reports that, in a previous separation, she had become involved with a young farmer and political leader in the region of Paulo Afonso (BA) called José Maria de Carvalho. The friendship between the two remained until after his union with Lampião.

12) One of the women accompanying the gang had been kidnapped, Adelzira, and wanted to escape from there. It is dominated by one of the bandits called Gasolina. This woman's name in real life was Lídia, known for her beauty, who was dominated by the bandit Zé Baiano, who beat her to death because she had betrayed him. Do you confirm this story?
I don't know if there is a correspondence with Lídia, companion of the bandit Zé Baiano, famous for branding women with irons. Lídia was considered the most beautiful cangaceira and had an affair with one of the boys in the gang, the bandit Bem-Te-Vi. The affair would have lasted two or three years. Lídia, courageously, confirmed the betrayal. Zé Baiano tied his companion to a tree trunk for a whole night and beat her to death with sticks in the arms, legs and head the next morning. Then he buried her in a shallow grave and wept over the tomb.

13) Still on Adelzira's story, Gasolina complained to Josué about the betrayal and the governor of the backlands demanded that he release her "because women are not mistreated in the gang". Did Lampião have this respect, in some way, for women?
Lídia was denounced by a bandit, who allegedly asked for sex in exchange for silence. She denied it and was reported to Zé Baiano. Lampião ordered the snitch to be killed. The gang did not mistreat women, but there are reports of abuse of police officers' wives. As I said, Zé Baiano branded women and did so in front of Lampião.

14) Rosa really wants to get out of the gangaço life and insists to Josué that they flee across the world to have peace. Did Lampião have plans to leave the cangaço at some point?
There are those who argue that yes, Lampião and Maria Bonita had plans to abandon the cangaço and move to Minas Gerais. This story needs confirmation. The hypothesis about leaving the cangaço is discussed in the book Apagando o Lampião, by Frederico Pernambucano de Mello.

15) Josué's death happens in the morning, after everyone has spent the night at a big "farewell party for Josué", who will leave the bandit and live life with Rosa and his daughter, Maria. Does Maria Bonita survive the massacre? How does Maria Bonita's daughter survive, since at the time she was only five years old?
Here, as the song says, the story lacks accuracy. There was no party in Angico on the eve of the deaths of Lampião, Maria Bonita and nine other cangaceiros. They were all beheaded and the heads went from city to city until the capital of Alagoas. The couple had a daughter, Expedita, born on September 13, 1932, who was handed over as a newborn to the cowboy Severo Mamede and his wife, Aurora. Six years, therefore, before the deaths in Angico.

16) Who did Lampião and Maria Bonita's daughter end up with? How did she survive the bandit?
She spent her childhood with the cowboy Mamede's family, far from the gangaço. He received occasional visits from his biological parents and said he was afraid of Lampião. At the age of eight, her whereabouts were discovered and she began to live with her uncle, João Ferreira, the only man in the family who did not join the bandit. He married in 1947 and had four children. Expedita only discovered the truth about her parents in 1969 when she was invited to the launch of a book in São Paulo and only added the surname Ferreira to the documents in 2016.

Heads of cangaceiros exposed in the soap opera "Guerreiros do Sol" and in real life - Reproduction/Globoplay and Reproduction/'Ciclo do Cangaço: Memórias da Bahia', by José Castro
Alinne Moraes comments on romance and lesbian sex in "Guerreiros do Sol"

Source: CNN