Ye Beggininge of it Alle[]
Artist's conception of the first mass in Brazil. Officially declared by Pedro Álvarez Cabral as "totally accurate".
The great Tupã, Lord of thunder and light, descended upon the earth after his marriage with the fair Goddess, Arasy, with the intention of creating a world that would entertain Them during Their infinitude. He created all the mountains, valleys, animals, trees, rivers and lakes upon Earth, including a hill in Areguá, the exact point where He stood while doing his creation. And after He was done, He started working on his most magnificent creatures: a man and a woman.
Tupã searched upon all Earth for the materials he would need. He crafted a paste with a mixture of the finest clay, magical juice extracted from yerba mate, blood from the mighty short-tailed nighthawk, several of the most beautiful leaves of all, and a centipede. He sculpted two statues of His image from the mixture, and left them dry under the sun. And then he instilled life into them.
This is how the honourable first inhabitants of my nourishing land: the tupi-guaranis thought the world was created. And this is also how I begin this, that shall be the greatest compendium of the colossal deeds achieved by my most magnificent people. Actually, I have not begun it yet, this was merely an introduction. The beginning would be something more like:
"And this was also how Capiota thought the world was created. For Capiota was a tupi. A mighty warrior, and most attuned with the life-giving and life-taking forces of Nature. Capiota held the high ideals of living in harmony with nature highly, like most of the other peace-loving indians."
There. That would be the beginning. In fact, that is the beginning, if you didn't notice it yet.
Recently, his tribe had moved from their old camp somewhere south from there, and only this week had they finished cutting the jungle trees and burning the remains, in order to plant cassava, a most delicious vegetable that has no particular taste, as their nature-loving grandfathers had done for many ages.
Today, 22 of april of 1500, anno Domini, (although he didn't know that) Capiota was escorting a group of women from the village that had left to forage food, since the vile tupinambás were evilly raiding tupi food supplies and kidnapping tupi women themselves.
Today the weather was warmer than most, rain probably would come soon. They won't be able to cook the meat from the hunt without fire, so they better take as many fruits as they could, or they would have nothing to eat. And so they went all the way to the coast, looking for fruit. Until they saw strange square clouds on the sky.
They thought that was a sign of the gods, so they followed it until a beach, were they found a big wooden canoe far on the ocean and a few people with sandy skin that apparently were making drawings on white cloths. When the people with sandy skin saw the tupis, naked as in the day they were born, (well, except for some vines around their wrists and body painting) they said something that would sound, if said in English, something alike "Holy fricking shit!"
Capiota told the women to stay back as he carefully approached the strange sandy-skinned foreigner, that wore strange, hard and bright stuff on their chests and heads. It didn't look like stone, wood, feathers or bone, so Capiota assumed what any sensible human being would assume on the same situation. He assumed those fellows were Gods that came to visit the Land of Man, specially after seeing that some of them had strange, watery eyes.
Capiota greeted the Gods in the most formal and humble way he knew, he presented his women and offered fruits to them. The Gods took the fruits and said things in a strange Godly dialect, pointing to a big wooden cross nearby. Capiota assumed the Gods wanted him to see something, so he called the women, sat back, and watched as the Gods went about on their thing.
Then some other sandy-skinned God, wearing a weird brown skin tunic -that seemed to be too soft for any animals they knew- went to the cross and, with his back turned to the other kneeling Gods, started speaking in other Godly dialect.
"Man, how many dialects do those Gods have?" asked one of the women.
"I dunno, I just hope they don't expect to have me as a gift, they look gross," said the other woman, staring suspiciously at the bad-smelling Gods gross skin.
"Look," Capiota said, "If those Gods want you as a gift, we'll give you as a gift. Then maybe they'll kill those goddammed tupinanbás."
After some time, the weird Godly ritual was finished, and the God with the soft animal skin went to the Tupis, saying something in their weird language. Capiota assumed they wanted the girl as a gift, so he gave her. The sandy-skinned God seemed surprised, but accepted the gift gratefully, and went to the nearby woods.
"See?" Capiota said, "Now they should give us some more fertile land. I mean, they better help us, or else..."
The other Gods, envious of the one that got the girl, also went to Capiota, saying things in Godly dialect.
Capiota didn't hesitate to give the other woman to the Gods, and went to his village, to take some more.
After he came back, with all the other villagers and their women, the girls he left behind were trying to get away from the God's grasp, "Hey, get that finger outta my ass!" she said.
But, seeing the other women, the Gods stopped whatever they were doing with her, and walked towards the Tupis. After giving their women to the Gods and asking for things like more fertile land, killing tupinambás and more women, the Tupis went back to their village, happily.
After eight days, the Tupi men started to want their women back, since life didn't get any better. They came back to the beach and kindly asked the Gods to give them back, while firmly holding their bows and axes.
After it seemed the Gods didn't want to give them back, the Tupis started getting angry and yelled at them. The Gods then took their own weapons and yelled back in strange dialect.
There was a great battle, twenty Tupis were killed, but they managed to force the Gods into retreat. Seeing the strange things that the Gods used to sail through the water, Capiota yelled at them, "And you better don't come back!"
Ye Mightie Explorers[]
The Anunciação sailed from Lisbon, along the Tejo river in March 9, 1500, captained by Pedro Álvarez Cabral, great explorer that wanted to put his name in the great book of explorations of uncharted territories by sailing the exact same route as his pal, Vasco da Gama, and making beneficial commercial relations with the inferior people of the Indies.
Cabral was envious of Vasco da Gama, because he had a book all about him, so he accepted an extremely dangerous and possibly lethal secret mission given to him by the King himself. Courageously putting the lives of all the men in the thirteen ships of the fleet at risk...Crazy Portuguese explorers.
This mission was to confirm the opinion held by many influential people of the court at the time, that there was great amounts of land south of those that Columbus found, possibly an archipelago. Possibly gold-laden. The opinion was so strong that Portuguese authorities signed a treaty with the fellow superpower of Castille, extending by some degrees the imaginary meridian west of the Cape Verde islands of a previous treaty, that divided the world between the two superpowers, thus giving more of the possible lands of the New World to Portugal.
Portuguese king, Jonh II, has said, "Man, like, me and Ferdinand divided the world between us. I bet in five hundred years our kids will, like, be ruling the Earth!"
But this wasn't on Cabral's mind right now, he was too busy telling his crew that the fact they haven't seen land in days may have been because of "A slight change of course."
"A slight change of course?" the sailor asked, "We haven't seen land for, like, days!"
"Yo, I'm a captain, not a navigation expert," Cabral said, in his defence.
"Yeah, I know that, I am your navigation expert," said the sailor impatiently.
"Well then, start navigating us," Cabral concluded, before going to the wheel of the ship, making sure they were heading due west, following the currents. Thirty minutes later, the, navigation expert and some other sailors were back, with swords unsheathed.
"Captain, your evasive answers do not help us find awesome riches, either you put us in the right course or we'll take you out!" yelled the more outspoken between them.
Thinking fast, Cabral pointed to the sky and cried, "Birds! Birds! Look!"
Without bothering to look, the sailors knelt and praised the Almighty, birds were a sure sign of nearby land.
In effect, after two more weeks they spotted a mountain. Upon seeing the mountain, Cabral stopped the ship and called his men. They spent the next twenty minutes trying to find a name for that mountain. The competition was so fierce that they had to do it using straws. The winning name was "Monte Pascoal", which means "Mount of Easter", because it was a mount, and it was Easter.
Many historians agree that Cabral deciding to name the mount before even landing was the first precedent of the famous Brazilian maestry in the art of naming, that brought us such things as the "I Stay Day" and "Tooth-Remover," the symbol of the fight for liberty, but that is for later. Right now, Cabral is landing on the unexplored island (That he named "Ilha de Vera Cruz", the Island of the True Cross).
The first thing Cabral and his men did was start to map the Island, while Pero Vaz de Caminha started writing a 27 pages letter (Take that, Columbus) telling the King of Portugal just how rich this land was, rich of trees, and land, and sky, and clouds, and water, and...okay, bored now.
The Portuguese explorers proceeded with their claiming rituals, erecting a wooden cross near the coast, to claim the land for the Portuguese crown. It was then that they noticed three Indians, wearing nothing to cover their shameful parts, appearing from the nearby jungle. The Portuguese said something that would sound like, if said in English, as "Holy Frickin' shit!"
At that very moment, Pero crumpled the letter and started again, to mention the natives. The latter started to warily approach the Europeans, who noticed that the natives didn't smell as bad as their fellow people, that followed the "One month, one bath" doctrine.
Anyways, after it was established that the natives weren't blood thirsty headhunter savages, the Portuguese proceeded with their religious service, and Henrique de Coimbra, priest, started his latin mass, wearing his brown cotton tunic.
The Portuguese were more concerned with the prospects of wealth to be found on this island. They heard some Spanish guy found new land and got rich and famous. Sure, he didn't have a book all about him, Cabral thought, but he was way better than completely forgotten and be buried near a monastery in Santarém, Portugal like some nobody. Cabral smiled, knowing this kind of thing would never happen to him, now that he found this place.
The mass was finished, and the priest walked to the natives, to spread the blessings of the Lord upon the savage redskins. They said something in their savage dialect, and the man shoved one of the naked girls to the priest. He was shocked, but since he didn't want to put stress on the fragile relationship between the two great peoples, he accepted gratefully, and led the woman to the jungle.
The Portuguese were a bit surprised at this, and envious. Pero added that the Indian girls were "very gentle" on his letter, with their "very black hair, long, falling on their backs." The Portuguese, except for Cabral, with his unmeasurable hubris, as he fantasized about a future "Cabral day," like that crazy Spanish guy, and Pero, too busy working on the lyrical construction of every aspect of the letter.
The Indian guy gave the girl to him and went into the jungle, no one knew exactly why. He came back later, with a whole lot more people. Pero crumpled the letter and started again, to mention them. The people gave them their women and said crazy things on their nonsense dialect. The Portuguese just nodded and smiled.
Eight days later, the Indian guys came back, holding bows. Pero crumpled the letter and started again, to mention that. They yelled something, and hopped around, naked with their bows held high on the air. The Portuguese just stood there, dumbfounded.
The Indian pointed to the girls, pointed to themselves and pointed to their bows. The Portuguese got it, and aimed their guns at the Indians. The Indians struck back. There was a minor skirmish. No Portuguese was killed, but they decided it wasn't worth the trouble and left the lands. One ship was sent back to the king, with Pero's letter, and Cabral followed his course to the Indies, shaking his head at the crazy Indians.
Cabral did some stupid things there on the Indies, made some money, and returned to Portugal, but since nobody found any wealth in the lands he found, he died forgotten and was buried near a monastery in Santarém. Oh, and he also discovered some African Island called "Magadascar" or something, but who cares about that?