He only whistled, he didn’t sing. But Percília knew everything, but she didn’t teach anyone. But I can say the names of those “called”: there was one called Manacá, there was another called Pakaconchinawa. I don’t remember the others’ names. Sometimes I would sing like that, Percília would say: “Look, you’re messing with those who are quiet… because, if you keep singing like that, he’ll come and whip you… you’ll get sick and you don’t know why.”
In fact, I had a niece, a niece like that, because she was the stepdaughter of Chico Granjeiro’s brother, my husband. She learned to sing Maraximbé. She was always joking: “Vou chamar Maraximbé, pra ele vir tomar café”. Every day she was singing this, “Olha, tu toma cuidado”. When it was one day, she started having a toothache. This girl cried night and day. Then, I said to her: “Go to Alto Santo for Padrinho Irineu to pray for the tooth, he prays and it passes.” She went. When she got there, he said, “I will teach you a medicine. Every day you call Maraximbé for coffee.” She said: “Who told him? Who, aunt?” “Are you thinking that he doesn’t listen to what you do?” Messing with divine things, he sees it all the time. She was all suspicious.
I don’t even know what disease it was. Like macumba they made for him, but I don’t know if macumba exists. But, from what people say, it was persecution, he was brave at home, beating the boys, it was with his mother shouting. He didn’t want to eat, he didn’t sleep. He told everyone to leave, then called everyone back home. He went out, then his friends there said it was good to travel to Santarém. The people there work with these things, they were selling everything they had to go traveling. There he met Zé das Neves, who was a good friend of godfather Irineu. People said he was his second person. He had a bakery and Dad always went there to talk to him, buy bread, buy something to take home. Then he told him how he was, that he was going to travel. Then he said: “Seu Antônio, I have a friend who, if you go there and talk to him, is capable of curing him. If you travel, you will end up with everything you have and your family will stay there. If you want to go there, I’ll take you there.” Then, he said he wanted to. Then, he went there. Just by talking to him, he already felt the improvement, he felt calm and everything. Then he scheduled another day for him to go, for him to do the work, a Wednesday. There, he went. I didn’t go, and I can’t even say what it was like. I know he took the daime. When he got home he was fine, good. He didn’t sleep. It’s been a while since he was like that, I don’t remember. I don’t know how much time has passed. As time passed, he got better. Then, he never left Mestre Irineu again and took us there.
We had been there for a year when the maraca appeared. He said he received an order from the Queen that people were to dance and play the maraca. There was one night when everything was there, and he called everyone to do a ballet and maraca rehearsal. He was the only one who had a maraca. He had one made for him. Then, the women all smoked and there was a can where they put the tobacco inside to make a cigarette or pipe. They vacated the can and put some kernels of corn or beans inside, or something like that that would make a mess and kept shaking. I still remember that. He laughed so much that people couldn’t get it right. He was singing, there with his godmother Raimunda, and people were banging the can, and people were making mistakes. He hit each other, some went forward, others went back, and he kept laughing and started all over again. Percília was supposed to teach. He had already taught Percília. She then began to help give instruction to the others. It was funny, he taught calmly, with that joy, always smiling, when someone made a mistake, he would laugh and tell them to soften their body: “Your legs are stiff, everything is stiff”. Everyone laughed and he called to start again. It went on until everyone learned.
The uniform was different from today’s. It was a navy blue tunic and a white tunic. Then he ordered a change, the navy blue tunic with the white pants and the blue pants with the white tunic, with a collar and a pocket in the front. The women’s had a sailor’s collar, a scarf and a twist cord with two legs, one green and the other yellow, placed under the collar and brought to the side of the waist, there was a black belt, the belt and the end of the The twist tied the skirt to the side, the skirt was not pleated. There was a name called fish tail, in the surrounding bar. If the uniform was white, it would have three white stripes. The sleeve was long and also had three stripes, the same as the hem of the skirt, just like the one on the sleeve. Now I can’t remember what the waist cloth looked like. I think it was full of pleats, like this, very small, with a flap attached to the skirt to form the waist.
I remember everything, Dona Raimunda was a very nice person. If she wanted to do a job, he would send her, she would do it for him. Healing work for sick people, I could take them to his house, send her with the team to help and she would do the work there.
I was a child, when I heard them talking, she received a hymn. She put it on Cruzeiro and stayed. The hymn is called: “Eu convido os meus irmãos”. But, she received it like this, he sang to her, telling her, she didn’t want it, he put it on Cruzeiro. Sometimes, you receive the hymn in the miração, but she received the hymn dreaming.
Dreams, sometimes, for those who take daime are a true dream, which is not even a miração. What we didn’t see by aiming and drinking daime, sometimes comes in dreams. There are things that if you look at them, you can’t stand them. And in dreams maybe it’s cooler, at least I think so. I still have it in my memory today. It’s like seeing her singing this hymn. This hymn, every time I’m singing it, it’s just like I’m watching her, the way she sings it, she sings it so beautifully. I haven’t seen anyone sing like she did, her voice was very soft, really beautiful.
My father worked a lot, hammering, buying goods for the market, he bought them and took them to sell at the market. They say he was carrying a very heavy bag of fertilizer, and then he felt his chest twisting. Before that, he had already been gored by a hornless ox. He was passing close to the ox that was tied, but the rope was too long. He thought the ox wouldn’t mess with him. But, when he passed the ox, all he felt was the blow on his back, and then he fell. The disease started from there. He started with pain in his chest and back, but there was no doctor to know what happened. Then he only took homemade medicine and daime. He went without working, without being able to work, and from that he left.