A story of love and bullets

Virgulino Ferreira da Silva was born on 7 July 1897 in the city of Serra Talhada in the state of Pernambuco. His father, a cattle rancher, often repeated: ‘Be a man!’ These words are part of the harsh reality in the hinterland, which all parents convey to their children. The unyielding harshness of his environment shaped Virgulino and led him to pursue a career in crime from the age of 22.

His home was the Sertão, a desert region in the interior of Brazil. The dry steppe consists of cacti and thorny bushes, where there is often a lack of water and extreme heat. Sometimes not a drop of rain falls for years. This shrubby savannah covers northeastern Brazil. Some large landowners raise cattle, but the rest of the population lives in poverty.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the deep poverty and oppression of the population of the Sertão led to the formation of lawless gangs. These gangs raided towns, fazendas and army bases. At the same time, they showed generosity towards the poor of the Sertão. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, these poverty-stricken bandits were called cangaceiros.

Numerous legends and anecdotes revolve around the cangaço. Songs and ballads tell of famous cangaceiros. They kept their deeds and adventures alive. Films paid artistic tribute to the cangaço. The cinema showed figures like Lampião and Maria Bonita. This recognition reached national and international dimensions.

Until 1918, Virgulino tended his parents' cattle. During a family feud, the police shot his father. This tragic event forced him and his brother to flee into the Sertão. Virgulino sought solutions. He decided to seek support from Sinhô Pereira's gang and to join these roaming gangs. This decision shaped the rest of his life.

‘From this day forward, I will kill until I die,’ he swore. The code of honour of the Sertão does not consider those driven by revenge to kill as guilty. Rather, their actions are celebrated as heroic.

Virgulino Ferreira da Silva became the king of the cangaço. The poor loved him and celebrated him as the ‘Robin Hood of the Sertão’. At the same time, the rich condemned him as a bloody thief.

He later earned the nickname Lampião from the muzzle flash of the weapon he modified. His Winchester 73, which became famous in the battles with the police, fired in rapid succession and gave off the continuous glow of a lantern (Portuguese ‘Lampião’).

By 1920, he had become the leader of a group of fifty bandits whose cruelty became legendary. If their victims fulfilled their demands, there was a celebration. If not, violence and torture inevitably followed. Even during his lifetime, Lampião was a phenomenon and overcame seven bullets and the loss of his right eye.

The whistle of the song Mulher Rendeira (lacemaking) announced his raids.

The code of honour of the Sertão made Lampião a hero because he took revenge on the murderers of his father. He learned how to survive in the wilderness from his father and took the Indians as his role models. His Cangaceiros used a common footprint so as not to leave any traces. When a scoundrel died, another took his name to preserve the myth of immortality. Influential relationships with politicians and police ensured that Lampião and his companions remained untouchable for a long time.

As a climax to this monstrosity, the Brazilian government signed a contract with Lampião in 1926. In return for equipping one hundred and twenty Cangaceiros with weapons and uniforms, the República Velha (Old Republic) demanded the suppression of a socialist soldiers' revolt.

One night in July 1938, a squad of military police surrounded Lampião's Cangaço. Lampião, Maria Bonita and nine other gang members were killed. Their severed heads were preserved in brine and publicly displayed in the Museum of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Salvador da Bahia until 1969.

The last Cangaceiro, a survivor of Lampião's gang, was killed in 1940, ending the era of the Cangaceiros.

Lampião, romanticized by many as the "Robin Hood of the Sertão," was nothing less than a major criminal. Nevertheless, his homeland owes a certain degree of fame to him. You can still follow in his footsteps today. But no one needs to fear Lampião's hail of bullets anymore.

Cover version by Joan Baez

O'Cangaceiro

Cover version by Paola

Ole O'Cangaceiro