REDES DE DORMIR

DE DORMIR

SHEILA OliVEIra

Ministério da Cultura apresenta:

THE SLEEPING HAMMOCK /

REDES DE DORMIR

SHEILA OliVEIra

REDES THE SLEEPING HAMMOCK /

PRODUÇÃO

DE DORMIR

PARCERIA

Instituto Seara de Cultura e Desenvolvimento APOIO CULTURAL

PATROCÍNIO

REALIAÇÃO

D’ARTISTA EDITORA “Este projeto é apoiado pela Secretaria Estadual da Cultura Lei nº 13,811 de 10 de agosto de 2006

FortaLeza, 2012 Secretaria da Cultura

Este livro ĂŠ da minha sobrinha Lara, das minhas tias Albertina e Albenir, da Ivonete Maia, da Rona Hanning, e de muitos outros.

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Sheila Oliveira

Uma Viagem de Fora pra Dentro Este livro é uma retribuição à acolhida que obtive quando retornei ao Ceará em janeiro de 2000, vinda de São Paulo, onde morei por dez anos.

Desde então quis aprofundar-me mais na cultura cearense. Com o olhar estrangeiro na minha própria terra, fui buscar os mistérios de um velho utensílio presente na casa da maioria dos cearenses e na minha também.

Decidi que faria um livro de fotografia sobre a rede de dormir. Uma viagem de fora pra dentro, seguindo o cordão umbilical, a falta de chão, uma viagem irreversível.

Nessa viagem, revivi sentimentos e imagens, o caleidoscópio da minha vida visto por dentro da rede, com todas as tramas e minúcias da minha memória de origem, que pensei estarem esquecidas em mim.

Lembrei-me das brincadeiras de balançar na rede com os meus irmãos, da minha mãe dando a mamadeira de mingau para a minha

irmã caçula no balanço da rede... Às vezes era eu quem dava a mamadeira... Imagens de redes armadas nas varandas da casa do sertão dos meus avós maternos — quando íamos passar as férias em Itapipoca — e tantas outras que borbulharam na minha cabeça quando iniciei as pesquisas sobre o tema.

E quantas outras coisas eu poderia dizer sobre este livro, quantas histórias se passaram para que ele pudesse se revelar.

Queria também que essa expedição ao universo da rede fosse relevada em texto, como um diário da viagem. Convidei a minha querida amiga jornalista Claudia Albuquerque, que aceitou de pronto o convite, e que me deixou radiante e orgulhosa por poder contar com o seu talento nessa expedição. E então fomos nós percorrer os quatro cantos do Estado do Ceará, ouvindo artistas e mestres que vivem da produção da rede de dormir, suas histórias de vida, o trabalho que dá fazer uma rede...

Neste livro estão inseridas fotografias que traduzem a poesia de um objeto visto durante o Brasil colônia como indolente e vulgar. Para mim, indolente nada! A nossa rede de dormir rende imagens.

Convido o leitor a fazer parte dessa viagem no embalo e no aconchego da rede, vista pelo olhar de cada um.

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Gilmar de Carvalho

A REDE DE DORMIR

Sheila Oliveira nos dá mais uma demonstração de talento, agilidade e pertencimento do Ceará. Depois do livro “Carnaúba a árvore que arranha” (Fortaleza, Tempo d’Imagem, 2005), no qual esquadrinha nosso território e mostra as mil utilizações dessa palmeira — nossa árvore símbolo —, ela nos convida para uma sesta, de olhos bem abertos, na insubstituível rede de dormir.

Sem maiores exageros e fugindo da construção dos estereótipos, nada parece mais cearense do que uma rede. A velha “ini” da herança indígena se incorporou tão bem aos nossos hábitos, se atualizou no contexto cearense e passou a ser um apetrecho essencial, quando se está cansado, se dorme, se faz amor, se nasce, se viaja e de muitos quando fazem a última travessia.

A rede cumpre esse roteiro e tem muitos usos. É presente no litoral, no sertão e nas serras; nas casas de taipa e nas moradas dos ricos; na zona rural e nas torres de apartamentos. Ela é ubíqua, onipresente e se traveste de utilitária e decorativa; é item de colecionador, nas lojas de decoração, tecelagem e “design” e peça do mostruário dos “galegos”, que vendem de porta a porta, com suas cadernetas de anotações e parcelas que escondem o juro alto e a suprem a falta de crédito do comprador.

Sheila abre um baú e retira redes, de vários tipos e procedências, feitas das mais diversas técnicas, e nos convida para, a partir daí, pensarmos quem somos, o que queremos e como vivemos neste mundo de tantos apelos, inclusive de globalização do mercado, de padronização dos hábitos e da vergonha, muitas vezes, de assumirmos quem somos.

A rede de dormir da Sheila pode estar guardada em um baú recoberto de couro e bordado por tachas de metal. Também pode estar no móvel projetado pelo “designer” da moda; no guarda-roupa de aglomerado industrial, que não resiste à umidade mais forte; na mala da doméstica que veio do interior. Todas essas alternativas exibem um dos poucos itens que pode estar nas bagagens de todos nós, indistintamente: a rede de dormir.

Sheila foi fundo nesse registro. O tempo dela não é o do fotojornalismo, no qual o que conta é a rapidez do registro. Ela amadurece as ideias e o faz sem pressas e sem pressões. O tempo de Sheila é o tempo ritual, não passa pelo estresse dos calendários e não se mede a partir da eficácia capitalista, mas pelos afetos, pela certeza de ter captado o instante certo, de ter feito o registro que é documento e arte.

A sedução vem desse comprometimento com o real, dessa interferência no meio da cena e de que (quase) todos amam uma rede de dormir, ainda que alguns possam ter pudor de confessá-lo, pois não ficaria bem diante de tantas ofertas que os “descolados” recebem do mundo contemporâneo e do desejo de mostrar a sintonia com o cosmopolitismo, que nunca vai poder abrir mão dos localismos.

A rede da Sheila não seria ilustração para uma peça publicitária.

Ela tira partido da sinceridade, do enfrentamento da realidade e nada aqui é edulcorado para vender ou para mostrar, de forma sedutora, uma rede de dormir.

Não recorre àquele “maneirismo” tão característico desse discurso, com determinados enquadramentos, uso de lentes, de filtros, com o pastiche de uma sintaxe pobre e previsível. Ela vai além.

A rede de Sheila é artesanal, feita em teares manuais, como os de Carquejo (Mucambo), mas pode ser montada a partir do brim industrial, tão resistente e acolhedor, que pode ganhar bordados à máquina.

Feita em almofadas, com cento e vinte pares de bilros, como a da Dona Zefinha, de Potengi, que junta as duas pontas da tradição: a rede indígena ganha o suporte da renda que teria sido introduzida aqui pelo colonizador português, ainda no tempo da catequese jesuítica.

A rede passa pelos retalhos, pelo fuxico, pelos fios de nylon (como as redes de pescar), pelos tecidos sintéticos, pela linha e agulhas de crochê e também aciona as pequenas oficinas de Jaguaruana, a nossa “capital” das redes de dormir, que movimentam a economia e a cultura dessa cidade do Vale do Jaguaribe.

A rede de Sheila é única e múltipla, assume várias caras e será sempre acolhedora, será sempre útero, receberá sempre nossos corpos cansados das guerras cotidianas. A rede nos dá, também e principalmente, a possibilidade do devaneio.

Bastam dois armadores e está montado o cenário onde a rede pontificará como a estrela. Ou os armadores são dispensáveis, quando improvisamos galhos de árvores para engancharmos os punhos ou quando o caminhoneiro improvisa sua rede na carroceria e leva a vida na estrada, ao sabor dos ventos, nem sempre favoráveis.

Sheila (re)faz com a câmera o percurso do artesão ou do pequeno fabricante de rede. Ela nos convida para mergulhar na tradição indígena e relembrar a importância do algodão nativo, enrolado em forma de “ninbós”, moeda de troca para as transações dos primeiros donos da terra.

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A roca manual tecia o fio que depois ia para os teares e assim se faziam as redes. Curioso como o corpo todo se move, se torna máquina e é exigido, dos pés à cabeça, nesse processo, sem deixar de falar nas mãos. Vale o espetáculo da fabricação, que valoriza o deitar, o usufruir, o balanço tímido, com o pé tocando a parede ou a brincadeira infantil que faz da rede um picadeiro.

Os Tremembé são fiadores dessa herança, e a rede de travessa que eles fazem, com bastidores ou grades na parede, é solidária, por envolver muita gente, e faz do ato de tecer um mutirão e um jogo prazeroso.

José de Alencar, em “Iracema – Lenda do Ceará” (1865), nosso mito fundante, coloca a rede em uma série de passagens. Ela é o ninho de amor, o lugar do descanso do guerreiro, o berço da criança e tem varandas de penas de pássaros. Só não existe a rede mortuária porque eram modelados os “camocins”, urnas de barro onde eram guardados os restos mortais dos nossos ancestrais, para serem sepultados.

A rede também está presente no chamado “romance social” do Nordeste, na bagagem do retirante das secas, na casa do roceiro que planta na terra dos outros e na peregrinação dos cangaceiros. Ela é referência na música popular, presença nos provérbios e expressões populares e foi protagonista de um livro de Luís da Câmara Cascudo (1959) e de um documentário (perdido?) de João Maria de Siqueira, nos anos 1960.

O que importa é mostrar a rede como apetrecho de todos os instantes, e que não se pode viver sem ela. Com ou sem varandas, de fios crus ou tingidos com cores fortes, feita com palha da carnaúba (que chamamos, equivocadamente, de tucum), de cordas trançadas de embira, cada qual tem a rede que pode ou que quer. Isso vale para punhos, mamucabas, tecidos (três panos?) e varandas.

Sheila abre o baú e nos convida para essa viagem. Urde essa trama de histórias que se enredam, visualmente, fala da rede, fala do Ceará, fala de todos nós. Trabalha as fotos como o artesão ou o artífice trabalha os fios que compõem o tecido. Só que esse baú recende a ervas, tem cheiro de folhas, não o cheiro clássico do guardado, mais próximo do bolor, do que está em desuso, abandonado nos porões da memória.

A rede da Sheila é algo que se incorpora às nossas vidas, como uma companheira de viagem e dela não podemos prescindir facilmente.

A menina acalanta a boneca que está na rede. O casal namora no doce embalo da rede. Quem tem preguiça (Macunaíma) fica na rede.

Os romeiros penduram as redes. Só para cochilar um pouco, nada melhor que uma rede. Que tal uma rede numa varanda de frente para o mar ou aberta para o sertão?

O balanço é uma forma de ocupação de espaço e um modo de prescindir do ventilador. A rede tem essa adequação de verdade ao clima, à cultura e à civilização cearense.

Esse é outro ponto a ser levantado, o da coerência entre visão de mundo e opção estética, entre o tema e o resultado final. Sheila não é apenas coerente, mas corajosa, quando enfrenta o clichê da hospitalidade e o faz sem dar muita importância ao tal viés ideológico. Ela se aproxima da rede como artista (fotógrafa) e como gente, como amante de uma rede, como alguém que assume essa condição e não se envergonha do que faz na vida e do que capta e registra com sua câmera.

O convite é para que embarquemos nessa aventura, de preferência deitados em uma rede que nos acolha, nos abrace e nos deixe felizes de saber que tem quem faça da rede um objeto de fruição estética, como Sheila Oliveira fez nesse livro referencial.

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ClAudia albuquerque

Começando a embalar...

Um puzzle, um origami, um jogo de dobras e labirintos. Balé de minúcias urdidas em galpões abafados, fábricas barulhentas, fundos de quintais com teares improvisados. A rede de dormir adquiriu novos significados e desdobramentos imprevistos assim que peguei a estrada com a fotógrafa Sheila Oliveira, em busca dos artesãos e operários desse antigo jeito de sonhar.

Nos sacolejantes caminhos do interior cearense, entre estradas vicinais e rodovias de fluxo intenso, o dicionário se abriu como um dia de sol, iluminando mistérios ocultos do velho utensílio de embalar, legado indígena transformado por mãos portuguesas e afinado em perfeito acorde nordestino. Antes sinônimo de descanso, delícia, deleite, a rede adquiriu novos significados a partir desta viagem fundamental.

Conjunto de montar, organismo vivo, exercício do pormenor.

E, também, história de vida. Em Jaguaruana, Beberibe, Icapuí, Santana do Cariri, Aiuaba, Várzea Alegre, Potengi, Irauçuba, São Gonçalo, Itarema, Fortaleza: tantas mãos envolvidas, tantas heranças, miudezas, arremates! E quantos verbetes no caminho empoeirado: urdição, rastelamento, tecelagem, emenda, lançadeira, espula, bobina, cartela, trancelim, empunhamento...

— Se soubesse o trabalho que dá fazer uma rede, a pessoa valorizaria mais — bordejam os artesãos enfadados, alguns deles ainda usuários do tear manual. Em Jaguaruana, primeira parada do roteiro, o sereno Zé da Paz se dispôs a montar, peça por peça, diante de nossos olhos atentos, um tosco e valente batelão que ele usa há décadas para tecer suas redes, simples como a vida que leva. Mas simples não é a palavra certa.

Uma rede, assim como a vida vista por dentro, é cheia de complexidades. Tem franja, bainha, trança, grade, mamucaba, e, às vezes, varanda, bordado, renda, delicadezas, aplicações, firulas. Existem redes de todos os tipos, materiais e tamanhos. E em todas elas, mesmo quando o tear é mecânico, a maior parte das etapas é manual. Pois ainda hoje não inventaram uma máquina que faça um punho seguro.

Também as amarras da trança ou da grade são todas “na mão”, assim como o emendamento de fios.

Convidamos o leitor a empreender conosco essa excursão pelo embalo da rede, num trajeto planejado a partir de conversas, leituras e pesquisas em diversas fontes. Para tornar o texto mais fluido, as descobertas feitas foram costuradas num diário da viagem, com seus avanços, estações e paradas.

TRAJETO JAGUARUANA “Tece, tece batelão Urde, urde urdidor Trança a trança trançadeira Põe mamucaba com amor Põe varanda e carel Que a rede será no céu Leito pra nosso Senhor!”

(Cordel de Dodó Figueiredo, poeta de Jaguaruana)

Sítio Dió, Jaguaruana, 10 de outubro de 2011.

Um caminho de carnaúbas marca a entrada da cidade cearense mais

conhecida pela produção de redes. Missão importantíssima era encontrar Dona Biró, uma das pioneiras da região na arte da tecelagem, e também uma das últimas remanescentes da rede manual.

Tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec. O som hipnótico do batelão, repetido em célere cadência, madeira com madeira, pés e mãos em movimento, tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec-tec. Nascida Francisca Ferreira da Silva, Dona Biró teve sete filhos. Um deles é Francisco Gilberto, que está trabalhando desde as 5 horas da manhã no tear à esquerda. Como todo artesão de rede, ele é madrugador.

O irmão João Batista labuta no outro batelão, tecendo velozmente um pano azul e branco. Os dois pés se alternam nos pedais.

A mão direita puxa o chicote, que faz a lançadeira ir e vir, “atravessando” a urdidura de fios para compor a trama. Eles fazem a rede popular (modelo básico, sem varanda) e a tijubana (quadriculada nas cores azul e branca).

Cinco pessoas se revezam no processo, que é 100% manual: urdição, alvejamento, tingimento, tecelagem, empunhamento, acabamento... A fabriqueta verde funciona colada à casa laranja da matriarca. Uma das filhas, Lúcia Helena, faz mamucaba. A outra, Maria do Carmo, puxa as cordas. “Ninguém se aposenta com rede, só com agricultura”, diz a moça, reticente.

Eles trabalham num silêncio entrecortado por comentários triviais, tendo ao fundo o tec-tec-tec insistente. Nos “meses bons” vendem entre 200 e 250 redes. A rede popular, muito simples e barata, sai direto das mãos hábeis da família para os mercados da capital.

Despedimo-nos sem ter visto Dona Biró, que tinha consulta médica.

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11h da manhã, caminhada na cidade.

Em Jaguaruana, para encontrar quem faz rede, basta seguir o som.

Sem a suavidade do batelão de pau, o tear mecânico invade os ouvidos dos que passam pelas ruas. O som é “cheio”, insistente e pode ser estressante. Não para Francisco de Carvalho, o Dudu, 20 anos, desde os “10 ou 11” na labuta. Fone no ouvido, ele maneja um tear Andrighetti, cujo verde esvanecido lembra um gramado castigado pelo uso.

Ao lado de Dudu está Francisco José, seu irmão, suando em bicas nesta manhã ensolarada. Encontramos os dois no galpão da família, na Rua José Cláudio de Melo — que o povo chama de rua da Cohab e que décadas passadas foi invadida pelas águas do Jaguaribe, na grande enchente de 1989.

Dudu faz 20 redes por dia. Em meia hora “tece um pano”. A peça sai da fábrica acanhada para receber o acabamento em outros locais.

Nos municípios produtores de redes, muitas mulheres vivem desses detalhes que fazem toda a diferença: a varanda, a mamucaba, os punhos, os bordados.

Na casa ao lado, Dona Lúcia faz “cabeça de rede” — aquelas argolinhas que “amarram” os punhos. O negócio se distribui geograficamente. Localidades como São José do Lagamar, Lagoa Vermelha, Córrego do Machado e Jiqui, em Jaguaruana, são famosas pelas varandas.

Parada para descanso: anatomia da rede.

Uma pausa para o almoço e um papo com Dodó Figueiredo, professor e cordelista, que recita sua arte. “Eu moro numa cidade/ De gente boa, bacana/ Onde sua padroeira/ É a Senhora Santana./ E a rede de dor-

mir/ É a riqueza daqui/ Falo de Jaguaruana”. Depois da apresentação, o complemento: “O batelão faz barulho/ Um barulho infernal/ A espula vai e vem/ Fazendo seu ritual/ Mas no final vamos ter/ Coisa linda de se ver/ Resultado magistral”.

Como um corpo humano cheio de segredos, uma rede tem membros e artérias. Isso é noção que adquirimos rápido, nas tardes sonolentas da infância. O que só descobrimos ao penetrar no mundo dos artesãos é que cada pedaço desse corpo tem uma ciência muito própria.

E na hora da feitura, os procedimentos são específicos e exatos.

A mamucaba, por exemplo, é aquela faixa de tecido localizada entre o corpo da rede e os punhos, cruzando os cordões em sentido transversal. Ela serve para reforçar a segurança da peça, como os ligamentos que circundam as articulações, dando estabilidade ao movimento. Existem artesãs especializadas em mamucabas, e o valor da rede aumenta conforme for o número delas.

A fabricação segue diferentes ritmos. A primeira fase exige força e resistência: alvejamento, tingimento e tecelagem. A segunda parte demanda paciência e maestria. São os detalhes, as miudezas e os acabamentos dos quais geralmente se ocupam as mulheres, em horas e horas de peleja e repetição.

Muitas delas fazem apenas a varanda, este membro colado ao corpo por puro amor à arte, sem outra função senão a de encantar.

Diferentemente do punho, órgão fundamental para o funcionamento do leito móvel. Para fazê-lo, há que usar o “banco de empunhar”, um tosco instrumento de madeira com uma haste horizontal e dois pinos verticais, pelos quais passam os cordões.

Os punhos se unem ao corpo da rede por meio das argolas. Ao fim dos punhos repousa o caré, ou carel, derradeiro pedaço desse tronco mutante, a cabeça a ser enfiada no anzol do armador. Algumas redes têm grade, outras têm trança. Ambas abarcam o conjunto formado por cabrestilhos e mamucabas, na parte inferior do punho e antes de chegar ao “pano”. Há exemplares com varandas que têm orlas decorativas — são as franjas.

Descansando se aprende.

Ainda no dia 10, depois do almoço.

— Sou dos pequenos, mas tive a inteligência de montar essa lojinha.

Hoje quase todo mundo tem uma, mas fabricante grande aqui é meia dúzia. A maioria é fundo de quintal — calcula o produtor Luciano Moreira, que mantém 12 teares mecânicos em sua tecelagem. “Um tear desse daqui passa 120 fios por minuto. Tramando. Mas já tem tear que pega 600 ou 700 fios por minuto.”

Cartilha básica do percurso. O tecido é um entrelaçamento de fios horizontais e verticais. Os horizontais – ou seja, dispostos no sentido transversal, na largura do tear – são os fios da trama. Já os verticais — ou colocados em sentido longitudinal, no comprimento — são os de urdume. É o cruzamento ordenado desses grupos que forma a superfície macia em que mais tarde nos deitaremos. Para promover o feliz casamento, os teares contam com dispositivos como a lançadeira, onde se instala a espula.

Ela é a peça que faz correr os fios da trama entre os fios da urdidura, como um mensageiro veloz de dois exércitos. No tear mecânico de

Luciano é possível fazer essa corrida acontecer 120 vezes por minuto.

Porém, como ele explica, há teares em que a maratona se dá seis vezes mais rápido, turbinando a produtividade. São as variações dos passos da trama e do urdume que formam os diferentes padrões.

— Eu comecei tecendo em tear de pau. Sempre fui meio buliçoso.

Aprendi nas quatro pisadeiras, você passa o dia “andando” e fazendo vários desenhos, uma casa de abelha, um olho de peixe, uma dama, um bucho de boi, uma sianinha, uma costela... Só mudando os pés, pisando” — lembra o produtor, que lastima a entrada dos chineses no mercado das redes.

O que é bom faz sonhar.

A primeira menção à rede em língua portuguesa foi feita em 1500 por Pero Vaz de Caminha, na sua famosa carta a El-Rei D. Manuel. Era uma segunda-feira, dia 27 de abril, quando os portugueses visitaram pela primeira vez uma povoação indígena de nove ou dez casas – “tão comprida cada uma como esta nau capitânia”. As habitações eram cobertas de palha, com portas pequenas, acolhendo cada qual 30 ou 40 índios. “Tinham dentro muitos esteios; e, de esteio, a esteio uma rede atada pelos cabos, alta, em que dormiam, e, debaixo, para se aquentarem, faziam seus fogos.”

O escrivão da Armada apelidou de “rede” aquele leito atado pelos cabos, devido à semelhança com o apetrecho de pesca, que os portugueses tão bem conheciam. Os habitantes da terra, porém, referiam-se a ele como “ini” — fios torcidos de algodão, amarrados de modo a acolher o corpo, protegendo-o dos insetos rastejadores.

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manual warping device– a tool in extinction - which consists of a set formed by two vertical and parallel pieces, garnished of 24 nails or hooks, on which the set of threads are arranged in an up- down direction.

To warp, Jesualdo walks or better saying, wanders.

Taking and bringing these threads, which are hooked to the pins, coming and going around the warping device, walking 30 km daily.

He is 50 years old and only works with that, in a room inside a house which is near Luciano’s store.

Today there are mechanic warpers already. Luciano Moreira has one: “My machine does the service that one person does walking. It was necessary. You don’t find young people who want to warp. There are only the elder and they can’t take it anymore. Long ago, in a warping you would make 60 hammocks, 70 hammocks… Today, with this little warper here I make 147 blankets”, says Luciano, who still uses the services of Louro, the walker.

October 11th, 6h30 in the morning, back to Dona Biró We came back hoping to have a chance to talk to the matriarch. It is early morning and Aluísio, who is married to Lúcia, one of Biró’s daughters is already twisting the threads stretched at length to make the strings for the scale lines. “Before, I would get very tired, because I walk too much doing this work. It is ten laps for each twine”, he says, who stretches the “legs” of the thread in a distance of 30 meters to get the twines ready for the scale lines. It is necessary that they stay really stretched so that they can be twisted later, gaining resistance.

Inside the factory-room, Francisco Ivo fills the bobbin in a mechanic weaver’s spindle. The manual one is still used. Around there, Célia Maria, a cousin of the family makes mamucabas, which she sells to the local producers, like Padé. She holds the comb and puts her feet on the warp threads, warping the mamucaba in the air. She can make six in one day.

Differently from Dona Biró, the majority of the local producers buy the thread already dyed. For our deception there was not a conversation that would make Biró to be on our side. She had already received a filming crew on the previous day and was exhausted. Exhausted and distrustful. She didn’t want any photos or any chat. Besides our appeals, arguments and requests, she showed the visitors

out with a bitter complaint: This art is very good, but nobody retires from it.

Afterwards they keep taking pictures of us and these shootings go to Brasília. I don’t want any pictures!

Walking through street One Groups of women make fringe, hem and hammocks heads on the sidewalks and on the patios of the houses, from which the doors are always open. All of them learned with their mothers and grandmothers.

Working on a joyous hammock with red, yellow and blue stripes, Rita de Cássia makes a simple fringe, giving alternated knots on the twines. The pair comes out for R$ 1,50.

Beside her, her friend Graça makes the hem so fast that “nobody sees my hands”, she likes to emphasize. The neighbor, Aldeísa, finishes ten pairs per day. On the same street, Lúcia Helena and Camila Janaína, mother and daughter, work hard on more elaborated fringes, of crochet, a delicate work that demands at least one week to be finished. They charge R$ 50,00 a pair. A parked motorcycle and a sleeping cat decorate the room of the crochet makers, next to the factory of the noisy looms.

Jureminha Ranch We were introduced to Francisco Marcos de Abreu Oliveira, a.k.a. Marquinhos, who happily accepts to take us to the domestic hammock production that his family keeps at Jureminha Ranch, not very far from the county’s center. We arrived just on time to see the threads dyed in blue drying in the sun. Dona Angelúcia, the mother, makes mamucaba and seu Dedé, the father, works on pulling the twines for the scale lines. There are five children. Marquinhos is the responsible one for the carel.

When I was a boy, I used to help my mother to galloon. When I was a young man, I learned to weave on the wooden loom. I don’t know how to do anything on the electric one. It is only for whom has a better head – seu Dedé smiles, with a countryside congeniality and a strong health. At Jureminha Ranch there are five electric looms, and the workers make all the procedure of the hammock, from the grade to the galloon.

Lagoa Vermelha With Marquinhos in the car, we set off to Lagoa Ver-

melha, a place in Jaguaruana where Francinelda Nélia Araújo lives, one of the many women who make grades for the hammocks. She is twisting the twines, already tied to the piece that is going to receive the crossbar.

A lot of work for little pay! – summarizes, while setting the twines on the left arm and with the help of the right hand makes the movement of rolling. In Lagoa Vermelha, the women work mainly on hammocks.

We crossed a part of the Jaguaribe River, which is quite low. “It only takes two rains for the access to become restrict for motorcycles”, says Marquinhos.

“It rains until June or July, afterwards it is rare”. We could see caju trees, oiticica trees, an enormous rice plantation from which we could spot herons and species of lapwing. The space is also disputed by goats, where the tamarind falls from the trees of thick trunk and delicate leaves.

Córrego do Machado Near Lagoa Vermelha there is Córrego do Machado (Machado’s stream), where the houses have the hammocks’ fringes and mamucabas on the porches. Some of these pieces sway solitary to the wind of October; others have women around, finishing the work on their feet.

Elineuda de Almeida is one of these artisans.

She is a beautiful brunette that lives with her husband and daughters in an impeccable clean and ventilated house. Saints on the walls, a radio on, smell of food perfuming the hallway, Elineuda says that she doesn’t want another life. For her, the hammock is a way of living, besides the difficulties.

On the way back, thin braids of mother and son Going back we found the Indústria de Redes Mãe e Filho (Mãe e Filho Hammocks Factory), a warehouse with 49 galloon machines, the machines that make the thin braid, which are the twines used to compose the scale lines of the hammocks. Each work table has five or six heads that spin in perfect synch, forming twines from the intertwining of the threads.

This is one piece of the puzzle of hammocks.

Maria Helenilda Oliveira, a.k.a. Dida, takes care of the business with her son, Daniel. The small home factory is always in constant activity and provides material for the local producers. It runs in the house of the family, protected by the algodão-do-Pará tree, cajarana tree and caju tree. As in many other houses

of the region, a high parabolic antenna keeps the inhabitants tuned with the world.

October 12th, 7h in the morning, creative production A device made with a bicycle tire, nails and a calculator is the “brain” of the mechanic warper improvised

by Francinês Lásaro, a.k.a. Né. He confirms what the others had already said: the manual warping workforce is disappearing. “People don’t want to walk anymore”. Because of this the local producers create their own mechanic warpers.

At the family factory, typically in the backyard, Né also improvised a fan which is attached to the loom in which he works. He spends all day weaving, but knows how to make everything, from inventions to repairs. His loom has written phrases, like trucks have: “Don’t envy me, I’m not rich I only work” and “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want”. Full of young energy and strength, Né does not complain.

One of these days, I watched a movie with Angelina Jolie in which showed a loom and people weaving. I was so proud and thought: I know how to do that! – he laughs.

Last stop: Zé da Paz Our last visit in Jaguaruana was also the most unforgettable. In a little and long house, with an algodão-do-Pará tree in front of it, we found José da Paz Silva, a.k.a. Zé da Paz; married for 30 years to Maria Ivonete; eight kids, seven of them are dedicated to hammocks. He is a thin, grizzled, elegant man. He speaks in a sweet manner, never learned how to read and loves birds.

Here we make everything. I get the thread and send it for warping because I don’t have a warper, but I know how to weave, to seam, fill the bobbin…

I even make the twines manually. The final touch is all done here at home.

With the manual loom he manufactures four or five hammocks per day. It is a popular, light, model without fringe, sold for R$ 20,00 in the market. The productivity is small and the profits, reduced. Zé da Paz’ math is simple: he doesn’t dye it at home because he doesn’t have the equipment necessary. If he buys the equipment, there is not going to be enough left for the thread. As simple as that.

I learned with my mother, who learned with her

grandmother. My mother’s little loom is not even made anymore. It was four little sticks stuck into the ground, really straight. I dedicated my life to the loom.

In the winter, I would go to agriculture, but later I’d come back to my little loom! Do you guys have time?

His intention was to know if he could set up his work tool. Of course! He goes tying this contraption and telling his tales. The base is made out of aroeira (peppertree), but there is also pau-branco and freijó trees (“kinds of wood that gives some big and frightful sticks”). He shows it saying, with each one of the threads of the wire suspended between two bars of the loom, where the threads of the warping go through.

There are 1,200 little legs, depending on the hammock, for me to put them into each little wire like this one. One over here another one over there, the whole time. This over here is hard work – Zé da Paz gives details.

Even in bigger factories, the seaming process is a step that is 100% manual. It is the process of connecting the threads that come from different rolls: the roll that just finished being used with the one that is put next in the loom, conceiving the “link” from weaving to form a new layer of intertwined threads. The process is made by us – in average 1,300, given one by one.

Until last year, Zé da Paz had the spool to make the twines for the scale lines, as in Dona Biró; but today there is a galloon machine, which his son bought, “already making plans to export”. There are advantages and disadvantages. “Before, we would spend energy with nothing. This machine can be an expense for us because of the electricity use. Let’s see”.

SECOND PHASE - EAST COAST ITINERARY A way of being “The bed is stiff, still, definitive. The hammock is welcoming, comprehensive, winding, and accompanying every one of our skittishness of tiredness and the unexpected news of our rest. It moves incessantly renewed, to serve the physical request of resting. Between it and the bed there is the distance between solidarity and resignation” Words of Câmara Cascudo, who passionately defended the hammock as a product of exportation, as coffee, sugar and samba were.

More than an accessory of rest, the hammock became a way of being. It was Francisco Freire

Alemão who noticed it; he was a doctor and botanist from Rio de Janeiro, member of the Comissão Científica de Exploração (Scientific Committee of Exploration), which in the middle of the 19th century explored the countryside of Ceará on a scientific study trip. In his journal, on one random day of 1860, Freire Alemão registered: “The first thing that one does, as soon as any guest arrives: put up as many hammocks as the number of visitors: clean and more or less fancy, according to the fortune of the owner of the house.

When entering a poor man’s home though, he gets up from his hammock and offers it to his guests. To sleep, you put a little cushion, into the hammock and a blanket: the little cushion always comes with a pillow case with embroidery and laces on it and it changes according to the season. (…) The hammocks are in these lands as chairs, sofas and beds are in ours.”

From then on, the artisans perpetuated models and patterns, creating fine details onto this accessory. The search for beauty resulted in an infinity of details, which its main function is simply to “fill the eyes”. In this second phase of the trip we met some treasures, like the lace-making of Dona Vânia, and the very old techniques, as the work in tucum from Dona Lourdinha.

Labirinto of Icaupuí, October 13th, 2011 Arriving at the east coast we found the best definition for sleeping in a splendid crib: it is to lay onto a hammock stitched with luminous labirintos. It is the union of beauty with convenience, artifice that arrived from the port of Aracati with the Europeans, sprawling throughout the region.

Our first stop was at Vânia Bragas, who lives in Mutamba, a county of Icapuí, land of orange cliffs, warm waters and a fishing lobster tradition. Born and raised here she guarantees being the only one who makes hammock of labirinto lace, even though the region is prodigal in labirinteiras (lace-making workers), who work with a variety of pieces.

“Something very tangled; inextricable complication; confusion, a mess, a labyrinth”. The dictionary doesn’t hold all the meanings of the word.

Labirinto (a kind of pattern made with lace), in the hands of an artisan like Vânia is perfection. It is the art of drawing on an empty space. For that it is nec-

essary to unweave the fabric and afterwards to knit up the “holes”, forming drawings with embroideries made with a needle.

Dona Vânia creates roses, branches, flowers, fish, waves. Everything that comes to her mind. It takes three months to finish a hammock, which is sold for R$ 600,00. She learned this art when she was a little girl, observing the elder doing it. “Any little cloth would do for me. Once my mother told me off because I got one petticoat of hers. With nine years old I already knew how to make it well. This little house was built only with the money made out of the labirinto”, she smiles satisfied.

In Beberibe, beginning of the afternoon: the weight of the tucum After the meeting with the labirintos of Icapuí, we got the CE-040 highway and we went off to the Carrapicho Ranch, in the neighboring town of Beberibe. Maria de Lourdes Gomes de Almeida, a.k.a. Lourdinha, tells us on the phone that to find her we need to ask around. Everyone knows this master of hammocks of tucum, who lives in a house without number, located on a nameless street. Reference point: the red and yellow bouganvillea trees in front of it.

Lourdinha is in this job since she was 11 years old. She has five children and six grandchildren.

The youngest descendants don’t even think about continuing the art of their grandmother. The girls are used to making jokes: “This only serves for you grandma, who is from the old times”. She tells us laughing, sitting on a hammock of tucum, which takes from one to three months to be made. It depends on the fringe. The fringe increases the weight, and the weight increases the price.

The tucum is a common name for many types of palm trees, with leaves from which its fibers are extracted. In Ceará, it refers to the eye of the hay of carnaúba (Copernicia prunifera). Lourdinha buys the bundle of tucum (Astrocaryum/ Bactris) in a nearby district to make the twines, which she uses to make her hammocks. She works manually, rolling up tucum bundles with her hands and using her legs as support. From time to time, she wets the bundle with water, “so I can form the little strings”. The little strings make braids and the braids make the hammocks, with help from a grade. The result is rustic and resistant, like the hands of the artisan.

EAST COAST AND NORTH REGION ITINERARY - Curral Grande, Serrote district, November 23rd, 2011 In this new phase of the journey, we left Fortaleza at dawn before 7:30 am since we were in Curral Grande, in the Serrote district, in the São Gonçalo do Amarante County. Hidden from the mundane agitation, the little place came out of the anonymity because of its crocheteiras (crochet makers), that overcome obstacles united in an active association.

We made ourselves comfortable on the white chairs of the porch of the Associação dos Artesãos (Artisans Association) – which in truth is the house of a member, that has its open doors facing the well cared squared in which the church and the colorful rose tree in front of houses without luxury rest. A lot of wind and ease in this Wednesday morning.

The chat with Marta Mariade Souza and Norma Batista happens among the pieces of crochet that they skillfully transform into hammocks, blankets, cushions, table cloths, place mats… the beauty of the pieces is unforgettable, as well as the happy chatting of Marta and Norma: The stitching of one artisan is different from the stitching of the other.

Sometimes in the same color line, the tone changes. You have to be careful with that, because Ceart doesn’t accept it. We have done many partnerships with Ceart, Sebrae, Ematerce…

The women from here were very unoccupied.

The ones that made crochet didn’t have a way of selling it. In 2004 we set up the association. Before, there were days that I would undo the work, just to restart it again. If it wasn’t for that, I would go crazy.

Today we have pieces in Portugal, in the USA, in Italy… Our hammocks go everywhere… The youngest girls also get interested in it, mainly the ones that want to buy something, like a cellphone…

Fanciful and delicate, the hammock of crochet does not cost less than R$350,00. The artisans say that this work demands concentration, because it is necessary to count the stitches. After one morning of talking and taking pictures, we left Marta, Norma and Neucila – who arrived last – working in silence.

In the land of the Tremembé In Itarema – land of the Tremembé, of the moving dunes and of the white sand – we met the pajé (sha-

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man) Luís Manuel do Nascimento, a.k.a. Luís Caboclo, Mestre da Cultura (Culture Master) since 2008, and his wife Astrogilda, who makes rede de grade (mesh hammock). In this type of hammock – also known as rede de travessa (crossbar hammock)– the threads are set up and tensed in a wooden grid, from which they are sewed, transforming itself in soft, fresh and colorful pieces.

Talkative and welcoming, the pajé (shaman) doesn’t know how to read, but gives classes in the Curso de Magistério Indígena Tremembé Superior – MITS (Tremembé Indigenous Teaching Course). “I’m talking about the spiritual side”, he explains, who considers the Aracati-Mirim River “the father of the tribe” and laments the deforestation around (“now it is only coconut trees”). Like Itapipoca and Acaraú, Itarema is a county of intense indigenous heritage, with tense moments sometimes between the first owners of the land and the “white” proprietaries.

The Tremembé live near the coast, overall in the district of Almofala, but also in the countryside.

The pajé (shaman) Luís Caboclo and his family live on the border of Grande Almofala and Tapera, more specifically in the Varjota community, on the right bank of the Aracati-Mirim River. This area was once rich in native caju tree plantations, the land of the Indians became little by little surrounded by the coconut tree plantations of the big producers – that is why pajé complains.

In the beginning, besides the polite behavior, Astrogilda, whose real name is Raimunda Miranda de Sousa Nascimento, let escape just few words.

She knows how to warp and weave since she was as teenager, but learned to make hammocks during her adulthood. She says that she is tired, even though she likes to live in the community. “I am proud of being an Indian”. She gave birth to 17 children, from which 13 survived.

The afternoon moves on. When we give our farewell, an already smiley Astrogilda promises to set up the grade so that we can see the process of production on the following day, early in the morning.

Birds rest at the headquarters This is the hammock in which two go in and three come out! – laugh the women that hold the piece for the pictures. It is a crude canvas hammock beautifully colorful by the flower drawings. It fits a couple

and it is perfect to get intimate – that is the reason for the numerical joke.

On a ventilated street of Itarema, with the noise of children and neighbors on the sidewalk, works the Conselho dos Artesãos do Município de Itarema – CAMI (Council of the Artisans of Itarema County).

Here the associates make many types of hammocks, like the ones of crossbars, the ones of canvas with a crochet head, the ones of sol a sol embroidered or painted. Displayed in the front room, they enhance the vision of who passes by, like the resting birds.

Back to the village, November 24th, 2011 Seven o’clock sharp in the morning at Astrogilda’s house. She appears with wet hair, a green skirt and a pink-blue blouse. The group that helps her is composed of very young girls, all of them between 12 and 14 years old. Two of them start to warp, arranging the threads on the grade. Well synchronized, one puts and the other pulls. They don’t say a word. Astrogilda supervises the rhythm.

After the warp is made, it is sewed to the grade.

You put a little wood plate and start making the rows with the bobbin. To get everything ready, place it, weave, warp, make mamucaba, pull the scale lines and make the fringe we take 12 days. I sell it for R$ 100,00, but this is not certain to happen– explains the supervisor, that never slept on a bed in her whole life.

In Irauçuba, on the same day, fish and flowers After the talk with theTremembé, we crossed the mountains of Itapipoca and Itapajé to arrive in Irauçuba, one of the driest counties of the State that shares with Jaguaruana the fame of land of hammocks. There, Francisca Monte Fernandes de Sousa, a.k.a. Dona Corina, is a local reference, excellent in embroideries and paintings of hammocks of sol a sol (“from sun to sun”).

When she was a child, she saw her mother and her grandmother harvesting the cotton boll to unweave, weave on the spindle, to make the twine… “It was hard work, it didn’t interest me”, remembers Corina. Today she receives the canvas and “makes the rest”.Colorful fish and exuberant flowers pop out of the hammocks’ bodies.

This work is very disseminated in Irauçuba, where every year there is the Fest Rede (Hammock Fest), a big fair that gathers producers and artisans

of the North zone and Vale do Curu. After exhibiting her large stock, Dona Corina says good-bye stating that she doesn’t intend to leave this work. “I’ve been an elementary schoolteacher, but never left the hammocks. I’ve taught many people how to do what I do. I bought my house with the money from this work. My husband complains, but I’m not leaving it”.

Dust and surprise in Juá The district of Juá has nearly 2.500 inhabitants, according to the Census of 2010. From Irauçuba there, the route is done through a dirt road with 20 km of a lot of rock and dust. Throughout the way we could see loam houses in the middle of the creeping vegetation of the caatinga (typical Brazilian region covered with brushwood). The residents say that the name of the district is Juá because of the juazeiro trees (Ziziphus joazeiro Mart.; Rhamnaceae) that abounded the region before the construction of the village.

A little village, but full of surprises, as the rabequeiro (a fiddle player) Silvino Veras D’Ávila, a.k.a. mestre Vino, a local celebrity; 95 years old, 77 of them dedicated to the caboclo violin (fiddle). With 21 “official” children, Silvion is Mestre da Cultura (Culture Master) since 2007. “I would go into the forests, get some sticks and make the fiddles. There were a lot of players of this instrument over here, but nobody taught me. “It is innate”, the master smiles, blind today but still lucid.

On the first day, walking around the little location, we found many women that do the same work as Dona Corina, making the “sol a sol” hammocks even more beautiful, with flowers embroidery, and paintings. On a rocky street, some artisans concentrated themselves into fringes of crochet. Only the motorcycle-taxis and the fiddle of mestre Vino broke the silence of Juá in a Thursday afternoon.

Friday, hammocks’ consortium Rosemeire, Mimosa and Rosa are names mentioned by the residents of Juá as great artisans of hammocks.

Rosemeire, who also is a manicure, embroiderer and assistant, shows a cedar-green hammock, a type of fabric cheaper than the Santista canvas and more expensive than the São José – important differences in the hammock world. The pieces are magnificent.

Cristovina Almeida Vasconcelos makes hammocks of cedar and São José with fringes of

crochet. Creative, she usually sets up hammocks consortiums. In the occasion of our talk, the pieces were R$140,00. The consortium works like this: a group of seven people get together, each one pays R$ 20,00 per month, during seven months. Every month one hammock comes out and every month there is a draw. “It is good for me and for the clients”, the teacher who works with hammocks and after retired comments.

CARIRI AND INHAMUS ITINERARY Bobbin of Santana, March 13th, 2012 Santana do Cariri is a quiet county of less than 18 thousand inhabitants, known for its paleontological treasures and a past of bloody fights. In the first decades of the 20th century, one of the local political leaders was Coronel Felinto da Cruz Neves, who was murdered in a public square in the beginning of his sixth mandate as a mayor. With his death, his wife Generosa, took over the position becoming the first woman to be a mayor in Ceará.

Today Felinto’s and Generosa’s mansion, in a neoclassic style, is a cultural center. It is there that the women of the Projeto Bilro (Bobbin Project), specialists in hammocks with bobbin lace work. Toilza works in the rural regions, Maria Ivânia is a Correios (post office) caretaker, Cremilda and Joana D’Arc dedicate themselves to their children – but in Felinto’s and Generosa’s mansion they are talented artists.

Because the bobbin lace demands patience and tenacity, the work is done in a great cushion, on which you put a card with little holes, containing a drawing of lace to be worked on. On these holes the rendeira (lacemaker) pieces the pins or thorns of mandacaru (Cereus jamacaru), which are going to indicate the paths to be followed by the threads, moving them according to the progression of the work. The threads “run” through the cushion under the command of the bobbins, little rods of wood from the catole coconut tree (Attalea humilis) on the tip that the artisan manipulates with extreme skill.

The hammock all covered in lace requires from four to five months of work and does not cost less than R$ 600,00. Luiza Lacerda, project coordinator, explains that it was her mother, Cezarina, who already passed away, who taught many ladies of the region, and the hammocks that they made ended up being named with the name of the teach-

er. They are the Cezarina hammocks, synonym of beauty, work and union.

From Potengi to California Nearly 40 kilometers separate Santana do Cariri from the county of Potengi. The green valleys of Cariri accompany us along the journey. To find the house of Josefa Pereira de Araújo, a.k.a. Dona Zefinha, only take the “entrance of the Brejo (marsh)”. It is a little house of green facade, with stone floor, that grows into the backyard, where a wood stove bakes “till eight cakes”. We talked in a covered area, before the gate decorated by a hog plum’s tree (Spondias mombin) and a sleepy stray dog.

Born in Juazeiro; with 14 children (10 alive), a dazzling life that included the discovery of the real parents at 46 years old, Zefinha hides under her delicate appearance, many years of hard work as a farmer, a cook and a woodworker. The bobbin lace, that she makes with perfection – on a cushion of 90 centimeters of width and using 270 or more pairs of bobbin - , started when she was a girl.

I started with eight, nine years old, making mamucaba, all of it on the bobbin. I helped my mother, but to truly learn I only learn by myself. Today I take two months to make the whole hammock on the bobbin. I only work two or three hours per day, but I’ve already slept on top of the cushion, under the candle light. I already made hammocks even to California. There are people that don’t believe, but I have the card of the woman thanking me – she tells us with satisfaction, while serving the freshest and hottest coffee of our journey.

Stars in Aiuaba, March 14th, 2012 We spent two hours on the road from Juazeiro, where we had spent the night, to Aiuaba, where we met Maria, Socorro and Zulmira. They live in the community of Barra, 28 km of the center, a good half hour on a passible road. On the hot inland of Inhamus, the place is quite hidden, but the masteries of the women that make the embroidery with embroidery star stitch attract visitors and buyers.

Zulmira Bezerra Pereira is on this job since 1989. She stretched out a white hammock with embroidery star stitch forming pinkish and blue flowers. Each star stitch is a star with nine legs, and the “cloth doesn’t have an inside part, it is beautiful

on both sides”. A constellation of stars shine in the community of Barra, where many women dedicate themselves to the manual works, which became an important source of income since the 90s.

Retreating in VárzeaAlegre, March 15th, 2012 The name is Merandolina Costa Pereira, but you can call her Merenda. In Umari dos Costas, in Várzea Alegre, she is popular and everybody knows her hammocks. As a good inlander, she keeps on a corner of the living-room photo-paintings of the family, images of saints and a calendar of the Pope Bento XVI. Around us, the green Chapada do Araripe, splendorous.

The production is slow and individual. “I make the skein, dye it, put under the shade to dry…”, enumerates the artisans, who keeps her loom in one of the rooms. “But I don’t always weave, only when everything goes according to plan and somebody places an order”. The warper is in the backyard, under a cajarana tree (Spondias cytherea), and the spindle stays in the living room. When she uses the crochet line, she makes the work with a very closed stitch. It takes days to weave a hammock “of three cloths”, that is sewed by hand. She also prepares fringes of puçá (cotton edge which is used to decorate the hammock)– first on the bobbin, then on the grid.

To get to this special woman, there are two reference points: the cross before the road of Granjeiro and the watertank at the entrance of Umari dos Costas. Dona Merenda seems to live hidden in a world of silence, with a wood stove in the kitchen and a backyard full of chickens, guavas, urucum (Bixa orellana), pumpkin, orange, cotton… The cotton, by the way, she harvests it to use on the hammocks. Before we leave, she brings a sac full of guavas – the best and the ripest of her backyard.

Mocotó Ranch, March 15th, 2011 The work developed in the Mocotó Ranch, in Várzea Alegre, already got headlines in newspapers, magazines and news websites. In the warehouse kept by the Associação Comunitária (Community Association) hammocks that end hunger, illiteracy and children’s mortality in the area are elaborated and produced. In the beginning of everything, three sisters: Rosinha, Ceilda and Cileide (who passed away on February 29th, 2011). When we found Rosinha and Ceilda, they were still shaken with the recent death

of their sister Cileide, but accepted talking to us and didn’t have any hurry to end the lecture. Rosinha is Maria Miguel de Oliveira and Ceilda is Francisca Reinaldo de Oliveira. “Várzea Alegre is the land of contrast, people put an official name on their children, but call them by a nickname”, provoke the sisters.

They are handicapped since they were children, with atrophy in the lower and upper limbs. Rosinha and Cileide were born in a poor family of 16 siblings.

They learned the manual works with their stepmother, but their self-steem was raised by their father, a man of vision and a sensitive farmer.

It was him who insisted on the alphabetization of the girls, bringing a teacher to the ranch, since they couldn’t go to the center of the county. In the beginning, the teacher was paid with the money earned from the farms, but later “the county signed her work card”. It was the father who donated a piece of land that today lodges the warehouse of the Associação de Mocotó (Association of Mocotó), which works beside the old family’s house.

The official foundation of the entity happened on May 30th, 1989, but the group had already been together for 11 years. Today there is enough machinery and important support from various governmental instances. “We are proud to say that today we receive municipal, state and national aid”, the sisters comment, who are always aware.

Periodically they bring a designer to propose new models of hammocks. “If it wasn’t for that, we would be left behind”, intervenes Ceilda. Innovate what is old is what we do with the details. A different fringe, a bolder combination of colors, a poetic phrase written on the body of the hammock, embroidery that reminds the master Espedito Seleiro. There are also fringes with dragonflies and hammocks’ bodies with soldadinhos-do-araripe (kind of bird) embroidered in cross-stitch.

These little tireless ones alternate themselves in planning, administration, confection, selling and publicizing the linen products. Today the Associação (Association) has a company, the IniRede de Dormir. Rosinha already traveled all over Brazil – Cuiabá, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília, many cities of Ceará – giving lectures in big companies and showing that, with a little money, it is possible to develop big projects, “if you know how to do it, and if you do it with honesty”.

GLOSSARY

banco de empunhar: (racking seizing making bench):a crude wooden tool with a horizontal rod and two vertical pins, through which the threads go. See “empunhamento”/”punho”. caatinga: typical Brazilian region covered with brushwood. caré/carel: “a hindmost part of this mutant torso, or more specifically: the head to be put into the hook of the hammock” cf. text. carnaúba: Copernicia prunifera. cordel: cordelista’s art. cordelista: typically regional storyteller in rimes; the author of cheap literature sold in street markets. crocheteiras: crochet makers. empunhamento: act of putting a racking seizing on the head of the hammock. The racking seizing keep the hammocks suspended on the hooks. grades: cloth panels. labirinteiras: typical kind of lace-making workers. labirintos: a kind of pattern made with lace; typical kind of lace-making. mandacaru: Cereus jamacaru mamucaba: woven strips, “for example, is that strip of fabric located between the body/bed of the hammock and the eyes, crossing the threads in a transversal way” cf. text. pajé: shaman. pisadeiras: pedals. puçá: cotton edge which is used to decorate the hammocks. punho: racking seizing. puxamento: work on pulling something. rede de grade: mesh hammock. rede de travessa: crossbar hammock. rendeira: laceworker. soldadinhos-do-araripe: a kind of Bird exclusive from Chapada do Araripe (Araripe plateau); hillsides of Ceará. tucum: Astrocaryum/ Bactris; “a common name for many types of palm trees, with leaves from which its fibers are extracted”.cf. text. urucum: Bixa orellana.

Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação O 48 r Oliveira, Sheila Redes de dormir. / Sheila Oliveira .- Fortaleza: D’ Artista Editora, 2012. ___ p.: ilust.

Isbn: 978-85-66021-00-4

1. Redes de dormir - Fotos 2. Cultura do Nordeste I. Título

CDD: 910

neste livro foi utilizada a tipologia STAINLESS CONDENSEND. papel COUCHÊ FOSCO 170 g/m2 e pólen soft 80 g/m2. impressão gráfica santa marta.

PRODUÇÃO

PARCERIA

Instituto Seara de Cultura e Desenvolvimento APOIO CULTURAL

“Este projeto é apoiado pela Secretaria Estadual da Cultura Lei nº 13,811 de 10 de agosto de 2006

PATROCÍNIO

Secretaria da Cultura

REALIAÇÃO

REDES DE DORMIR | 127

ISBN 978-85-66021-00-4