The mirror., 1920-01-15

cipleS, were more truly the cOpylStS OF no
man civilization than any other European
stock, and the Romans were famous for
their slight attention to the home. Yet Por-
tugal has been ever land of homes and her
new world Brazilian daughter has inherited
her instinct. 1t is a land placing great en-
phasis on family life.
There is always danger, in writing of
a subject like Brazilian home life, for the
narrator to overgeneralize. Home and fam
lily life is, like the civilization generally di-
verse, and it is necessary to decline the stra-
tum of life one is talking about if an attempt
is made to find universe characteristics.
There is the home of the seringuero or rub
Der gatherer in the lonely fastness of the Anna
zon wilderness, and the tepee of the still
savage Indian of the forest jungle. The
fisher folk, a considerable clan scattered
along the Brazilian coast from the extreme
north to the Argentine boundary, have a
life distinctive, bringing their hauls of fish
ashore in frail looking boats and in light
hearted talk and song sit about their rude
huts at twilight to sup on bit of farina, a
drop of native whiskey and some of the Bra
lillian dried beef-to the accompaniment of
the violao.
Should one be just to the many sided
home and social life of this gigantic country,
he must needs write also of the occupations
of the gaucho, or Brazilian cowboy, living
his daring and picturesque existence apart on
the southern interior plains; then there is
the important section of Brazilian society
best seen in its original home in the state of
Minas-the fazendeiro, or caipira, as he is
sometimes called, the country magnate whose
wealth is his proud plantations, and who
lives also more or less isolated with his fam
lily, constituting his own kingdom indepen-
dent and free and hospitable as was any of
our old southland planters, orany medival
baronial lord 1t is this land holders class
that makes strong appeal to young and old
Brazil alike.
This king of the land and horses and
wide distances fascinates and calls forth
something inherent in the Brazilian charac-
ter. This country is first of all an agricul-
tural domain of colossal area, and the fazen-
deiro still holds in his hand the nations key.
Of him one has said: Such authority as
he knows has vanished perhaps from the
greater part of the world, but in Brazil it
rules unquestioned, forming powerful bond
between the soil and its owner.
"In his powerful solitude the land
owner indulges in his love of intellectual
culture, he inclines toward philosophy; he
possesses certain natural eloquence. This
Brazilian aristocracy enjoys political as well
as social power. They form the structure,
the framework of all party politics; they are
its strength, its very life; it is they who
govern and administer Brazil"
One is confronted here with the rem
nants of feudal oligarchy, with the culture
and refinement belonging to it in the middle
ages of Europe, but with the striking differ
ence that this older and influential Brazilian
social order is being voluntarily changed and
mixed with complex variety of mass popu-
lation, slowly but surely forming demo-
cratic society, in which the spirit of republi-
canism and equality is stronger than the
spirit of the national religion.
Any concrete description of a home of
the better class is biography of the life and
characteristics of the Brazilian woman-the
wife and mother. Domestic existence is
peculiarly her sphere of action and influence,
and from this throne of home life she rules,
and also shines.
Brazilian women are not only nice to
look at and intelligent conversationalists;
they are furthermore "the mothers of men,"
1t is land of large families, eight and ten
children being no exceptional thing in Bra
lillian home The upbringing of children is
not attended with any superAuous modern
fads, and eugenics, twilight sleep, birth con-
troll, together with other reforms of our
northern efficiency" civilization, are as yet
unknown.
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