Day 27: Prehistoric Cave Paintings

Day 27: Prehistoric Cave Paintings

This was our last day in the sertao, and we went out with a bang. 

To begin with we all packed our things and were ready to head out.

Our first stop of the day was a church/arts and crafts room. Here, Diaconia helped teenagers develop the art of bracelet and craft making by using natural resources, such as seeds and beans. The teenagers then sell their crafts. This is both a way of making money, and a way of keeping kids out of trouble.

The reason why their business is run out of a church is because the young boy who helped implement this craft making business for the teenagers, is also the same boy who asked a preacher to travel once a month to a town in the middle of nowhere so that people could worship. Right now they are in the middle of collecting funds in order to build a proper place of worship.

Our friend Carbonel thought it would be a good idea to graffiti a positive message on their building in order to give the children hopes that what they are doing is worth it. Of course I bought a few things, I am not really into jewelry but I will give it to some of my friends when I come back.

After being there for about an hour, we got back on the bus and made our way deeper into the heart of nothingness. We travelled for almost 2 hours up a mountain. When we finally got to where we needed to go, we were informed that we would be walking for over an hour and a half to look at prehistoric cave paintings higher up on the mountain.

Thus our journey began. First we had to ask permission from a man named Fabio. He did not own the land, but he was the keeper of it. Vanessa went in first, and when he said yes, the rest of us followed suit. He began to shake, and he was nervous. You could see the fear in his eyes. At first I thought it was because we had big American white guys with us, but it was because he had never seen so many people at the same time in his life, and it scared him, there were only 25 of us. These people are so high in the mountains, and so secluded from each other that even a group of 25 seems like a lot of people.

After he got over his initial shock, we made our way through the fields. There were many cows and bulls, but a young boy named Douglas helped steer the bulls away from us. It was funny to see that we needed an 11 year old boy to protect us.

Eventually we started climbing. Of course, if anyone knows me, they know I am deathly scared of heights. Many times, I will take the elevator if I am on a high floor and need to go to a lower one because of the idea of falling off a set of stairs is terrifying to me. I was hyper ventilating for a bit.

Some of the boys in my group were really sweet and helped me go up the mountain by holding my hand, other side I would have probably just sat down and not gone up.

However, I am extremely happy that I did. We got to see some cave paintings that are so secluded that I am sure I will never find someone else in the world that has seen those exact cave paintings, outside of the group, in my entire life. There were depicting of people, animals, there were tallies, I am assuming it is some sort of calculation. Our guide, although a very simple uneducated man, said that the paintings are 12,000 years old, I would venture to say that they are older than that.

The cave paintings in France Lascaux are 17,000 years old, and they are far more advanced in technique than the ones we saw in Brazil, however I would need a lot of science to back up this hunch and I have no idea how to do that.

It was kind of frightening to image that there is this wonderful art in the middle of the desert in Brazil, and the government has not bought the land and made it into a national park. If there were prehistoric paintings found anywhere in the United States, they would seized immediately.

The way down from the mountain was a lot easier and quicker, because I knew I was going down to the floor, and wouldn’t be up on a high mountain much longer.

When we reached the bottom, Vanessa gave Fabio 50 reais, it is like 23 dollars. Fabio started to tear up. He had never had so much money in his hand at once. He was so grateful for the money we gave him. he said that we are welcomed to back anytime we want, and that next time he will have the path cleared for us and that there will be no wasps nets.

It was really touching for me to see how happy he was after we left. He seemed to have some sort of handicap but he certainly made a difference in my life by allowing me, an aspiring art historian, to see amazing art.

Later that night we were on our way home. It was an exhausting and yet wonderful trip and I am extremely grateful that I was able to be a part of the experience.