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Sertão Brasileiro | |
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Thesertão (Portuguese pronunciation:[seʁˈtɐ̃w], pluralsertões) is the "hinterland" or "backcountry" ofBrazil.[1] The word refers both to one of the four sub-regions of theNortheast Region of Brazil or the hinterlands of the country in general (similar to the specific association of "outback" with Australia in English).[2][3] Northeast Brazil is largely covered in a scrubby upland forest calledcaatingas, from theTupi language, meaning white forest, since leaves fall during dry season, donning all vegetation, mainly bushes and small trees, now reduced to bare branches and trunks, in its characteristic very light grayish, or off-white, hues.[4] Its borders are not precise. Due to lengthy and unpredictable droughts it is an economically poor region that is well known in Brazilian culture, with a rich history and folklore. Thesertão is also detailed within the famous book of Brazilian literatureOs Sertões (The Backlands), which was written by the Brazilian authorEuclides da Cunha.[5]
Originally the term referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia and South America thatPortuguese explorers encountered. In Brazil, it referred to backlands away from the Atlantic coastal regions where the Portuguese first settled in the early sixteenth century.[1] A Brazilian historian once referred to colonial life in Brazil as a "civilization of crabs", as most settlers clung to the shoreline, with few trying to make inroads into thesertão. In modern terms, "sertão" refers to asemi-arid region innortheastern Brazil, comprising parts of the states ofAlagoas,Bahia,Pernambuco,Paraíba,Rio Grande do Norte,Ceará,Maranhão,Piauí,Sergipe, andMinas Gerais.[6]
Geographically, thesertão consists mainly of low uplands that form part of theBrazilian highlands. Most parts of thesertão are between 200 meters (660 ft) and 500 meters (1,600 ft) above sea level, with higher elevations found on the eastern edge in theBorborema Plateau, where it merges into a sub-humid region known asagreste, in theSerra da Ibiapaba in westernCeará and in the Serro do Periquito of centralPernambuco. In the north, thesertão extends to the northern coastal plains of Rio Grande do Norte state, while to the south it ends gradually in the northern part of Minas Gerais.
Two major rivers cross thesertão, theJaguaribe and further east thePiranhas, and to the south, the largerSão Francisco River is in part in thesertão. Smaller rivers dry up at the end of the rainy season.
The termsertão is also used in Portuguese to refer to the Brazilian hinterland in general, regardless of region. It is this sense that corresponds tosertão music,música sertaneja, roughly "country music". To avoid ambiguity, the region in the northeast is sometimes called thesertão nordestino, while the Brazilian hinterland may also be called thesertânia, the land ofsertões.
There are a number of hypotheses about the origin of the word Sertão, most of which place its appearance during thecolonization of Brazil by the Portuguese. The most widespread of these holds that, when they left the Brazilian coast and moved inland, the Lusitanian settlers noticed a big difference in the climate of thissemi-arid region and referred to it as "desertão" (big desert), due to its hot, dry climate. Therefore, this name would have been understood as "de sertão" (of the sertão), leaving only the word Sertão.
The hypothesis of a corruption of "desertão" is challenged on the basis ofphonetics, which reaffirms the impossibility of sertão being a corruption of the Latindesertanu due to the inversion that this path would mean from the point of view of the law of least effort, implying a sonorization of the occlusive as opposed to deafening, which would be the most natural progression.[7]
The immortal of theBrazilian Academy of LettersGustavo Barroso also rejected this hypothesis and argued that the origin of the word was in the termmuchitum, from theMbunda language ofAngola, which means "place in the interior". The term would have been adopted by the Portuguese colonizers in the form of "mulcetão", later reduced to "celtão" and "certão", and then spread throughout theLusitanian overseas empire during the first centuries of its expansion.[7]
It is also possible that, on the contrary, the Angolan term arose from contact with the Portuguese, given that the town ofSertã, in Portuguese lands, dates back to long before the time of the great navigations. According to local legend, the town was founded in74 BC by the Roman generalQuintus Sertorius under the name "Sertaga", corrupted to "Sartão". On one occasion when enemy troops attacked the settlement, a woman defended herself from the soldiers with a large sertãa, a squarefrying pan, saving the village. The popularization of the legend and its phonetic similarity to the name of the place would have meant that this word was also used, by extension, to characterize the surroundings of this settlement, one of the most inland lands in the continental Portuguese territory, and later became a synonym for inland lands throughout the nascent Portuguese empire.[7]
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Because thesertão lies just south of theequator, temperatures are nearly uniform throughout the year and are typically tropical, often extremely hot in the west.
However, thesertão is distinctive in its low rainfall compared to other areas of Brazil. Because of the relatively cool temperatures in theSouth Atlantic Ocean, theIntertropical Convergence Zone remains north of the region for most of the year, so that most of the year is very dry.
Although annual rainfall averages between 500 millimetres (20 in) and 800 millimetres (31 in) over most of thesertão[citation needed][disputed –discuss] and 1,300 millimetres (51 in) on the northern coast atFortaleza, it is confined to a short rainy season. This season extends from January to April in the west, but in the easternsertão it generally occurs from March to June. However, rainfall is extremely erratic and in some years the rains are minimal, leading to catastrophicdrought, while in others rains are extremely heavy and floods occur. This variability has caused extreme famines among subsistence farmers in the region, exacerbated by the extreme imbalance of land ownership throughout thesertão.[further explanation needed] The worst of these famines, between 1877 and 1879, was said[by whom?] to have killed over half the region's population.
In its natural state, thesertão was covered by a distinctive scrubbycaatinga vegetation, consisting generally of low thorny bushes adapted to the extreme climate. Several species of tree in the caatinga, such as thecashew, have become valuable horticultural plants. Most of thesertão vegetation is now substantially degraded as a result of centuries of cattle ranching or clearing forcotton farming.
Parts of thesertão are recognized as abiodiversity hot-spot because of its unique flora.[further explanation needed]
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