Irredentos

This is the Sertão (Backlands), Brazil’s Northeast. This is a holy and sun-scorched land. Jesus is buried here, or so some believe. For three centuries Brazil’s devout Sertanejos (Backlanders) have relied on pilgrimages to sacred sites deep in this inhospitable land to expiate their sins, exchange information, and acquire amulets, figures of saints, religious icons, that will protect them until the next gathering. It’s primarily with prayers for redemption in the form of life- giving rain, which must fall from Heaven, that these journeys continue. Reddish earth rolls out endlessly, mile after mile, in a desperate attempt to catch the horizon in the too removed, Atlantic east. An insufferable sun hangs heavily and bored in its cobalt cape of sky. In the distance, a convoy of rented farm trucks packed with thousands of penitents kicks up a serpentine cloud of dust that rises and then dissipates over the land. In the dry air there is a jingling of chimes and a clicking of rosaries, a shuffling of processions, and, with eyes heavenward, a ceaseless chanting of invocations.