Paraíba and Pernambuco: the Stones of our Kingdom

Campina Grande, Paraíba - We’re neighboring and rival states, though the rivalry is a bit promiscuous, half mixed with fondness, like that of brothers of about the same age. Pernambucans consider their state more important than Paraíba, certainly because it is bigger, but the truth is that Pernambuco’s higher profile is not due to its size, but rather to the aura of Recife, a metropolis that alone has a population half that of our state and which counts among the Northeast’s three “real” capitals (together with Salvador and Fortaleza).

Beyond that, I always thought of the two as a single state because of the vast homogeneity in their geographies, topographies, economies and cultures. Look at the map, my dear reader. In my view there is a clear continuum between the two forested regions (“zonas-da-mata”); between the two halves of the Cariris territory, in the central part of both states; and between the expansive backlands, principally in the section where Paraíba is cut-off to the west, yielding to Ceará – an area that, following the logic of both geography and history, could have just as easily ended up as part of either Paraíba or Pernambuco.

Years and years of hanging out with ”cordelistas” and ”repentistas” have reinforced my sense of cultural unity between the two states. When the day comes that a revolution forces Brazil to redraw its domestic borders, I will make a motion in Congress proposing the annexation by Paraíba of that territorial triangle that begins in Serra Talhada, moves upwards in the direction of Triunfo, extending through Tabira to São José do Egito and returning southwards to Sertânia, the burial place (tip your hats, dear readers) of my grandfather on my mother’s side, good old Pedro Quirino. This is all “Cantador” territory, the hotbed of repente; to be honest, it is an independent territory that has nothing or next to nothing to do with Recife or João Pessoa.

This all reminds me of the cover of Ariano Suassuna’s “Romance da Pedra do Reino” (4th edition, 1976) where Eugênio Hirsch, one of our leading book cover designers, portrayed the image of the two Towers of Stone that are the focus of Dom Pedro Dinis Quaderna’s dream of grandeur. The Stones are located in São José do Belmonte, along the border that separates Pernambuco and Paraíba; one of them is slightly larger than the other, just as the landmass of Pernambuco is slightly larger than ours. The two Stones offer a visual metaphor of the two states, united like “double bananas” in a single peel, and, as Eugênio Hirsch brilliantly implies, like two fingers, the index and middle fingers, raised as if to give blessing. Recently reissued by the publishing house José Olympio, “Romance da Pedra do Reino” reveals this deeply symbolic territory, divided by the conventions of politics and cartography, but which to this day has lost neither its unity of spirit nor its distinct self-image.

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