A Sandália de Lampião

I inherited a profession from my father And my father was a cowboy and a saddler, he liked to. . .

saddle at night Once he was finishing a saddle to catch the cattle next day Then a young man appeared: "Raimundo, I want you to make a. . .

sandal like this one here, something like this. . .

" Before he payed he said: "No, this is not for me. This is for Colonel Virgulino" My father suddenly became afraid of him. The first sandal that Lampião wore.

. . it was just from here to here.

. . Imagine that this is his foot.

. . it was called 'cobertão' In the time of Lampião, there were many 'cangaceiros' f the police arrived to investigate, they would bring a person called crawly but if Lampião was wearing this squared sandal the man would never know if he had gone to Assaré or to Crato because the front as the back had the same shape t was meant to mislead.

"The Sandal of Lampiao" Hey my people, we are here playing and then this bull arrives nobody knows who owns the animal let's call the bull's owner to resolve the situation This place here, Nova Olinda it was a farm This is the story I know And here was the cattle's passage coming from the backwoods of Inhamuns going to Crato It passed from there to here When I arrived here in Nova Olinda it was full of farmers and full of cattle, everybody used to raise cattle, then it start diminishing and I think today it's over There was a dreadful amount of cattle, there was many muleteer, there was many Gypsies, here was full of these things. I already told you that the father's home is the son's school When the father is a driver almost all the sons become drivers when he is a cowboy almost all the sons become cowboys. My father was a cowboy, my grandfather was a cowboy, my great grandfather was a cowboy.

Cow boy and saddler So I guess when I die, my boy's will continue, they are bonded here with me. And they know how to make, right? The good thing about this tiny workshop you're seeing here is that we can do all kinds of leather products.

. . that exist in Brazil.

. . we already did.

If you arrive with a gibbon for us to make, we can make it. If you say no, disjoint this gibbon and then make a jacket, I also make it. Then you arrive in a workshop or factory out there and if you do ask them to make a shoe they can make the shoe but if you ask them to make other cowboy utensils, a gibbon, a leather hat.

. . they don’t know, right?

And here we can make it. Hey Zuca. Hi man Why you don’t go to Nova Olinda?

We are obliged to come here to see you Why don't you go there? Time is short. .

. How are you, good? How is everything, fine?

You’re still growing up, boy! How are you doing Zuquinha, it’s all right? This is the cowboy's saddle?

Yes. Who is the cowboy: it’s him or it’s you? It's me.

You both, right? Yeah, both. Ok!

Nice, very well. . .

So, do you still catch the cattle? No. Not even cooked?

Not even cooked, I don’t like beef what I like is pork and chicken. Is it? Yes.

. . Well, as for me everything is good: pig, chicken, goat.

. . Yes.

. . When someone has the cowboy's blood, he really likes to be clothed as a cowboy.

And if you make an ugly clothe, scrapped, badly made, the other cowboy will notice. I don't run after the cattle because the first time I went running after an ox I fell off the horse and never wanted to do it anymore then I said: now I'll make the equipment for those who want to be cowboy I don’t want to be. The head goes here, very close to the ear of the animal The leg you do like this, here, here, every way, boot back, boot to the front and the head here to defend from the branches, near the neck of the donkey where the animal puts the head we follow it If it goes lower, we also do so, when it raises up a little bit we also raise it And so on until you catch the bull.

When the cowboy is obstinated to catch the ox he runs during the day, runs during the night, in order to catch it, isn’t like this? But well, it’s fraught with danger, Hail Mary! There are so many sharp end branches that comes in our face, all over the body, isn’t it?

The horse falls with us inside holes Like me, I broke this leg, broke this collarbone. . .

Everything happens with the cowboy If a pointy stick comes and hit his head the hat is used to defend it. The gibbon has this chest guard here as he runs lowered on the horse if a dangerous branch comes and hit his chest here it will hit the chest guard, and won’t hurt anything of his body When I was a Cowboy was good. When I started was good, I was young Now you're only telling us the stories Yeah!

I had a lot of stamina and good eyesight, because now I'm almost blind. . .

So that the difference. . .

and also the cattle raising decreased, isn't it Zuca? Yes, it decreased, yeah. Today there are no more cowboys, the cowboys are all.

. . Using motorcycle, yes, using cap and motorcycle.

. . and the farming is also on the pasture with planted grass.

It's true, the cowboys no longer catch the ox. At first, every man had a beautiful horse. Strong, beautiful and good horse, isn’t it?

But today is like this. . .

Assaré was a place where we used to sell every leather product we brought We were selling everything because those who didn’t have a leather hat were not considered from Assaré When the cowboys, the gypsies and troopers decreased in the region the sales dropped a lot. How could I sell a lockup, a gibbon, a leather hat? We had no one to sell it to.

The proof is here: everyone is using motorcycle. And who will buy a gibbon to ride a motorcycle? Or a leather hat to ride.

. . No one.

“The sandal she wears is Tamico. . .

It is the sandal he has. It's all a matter of quality, in fact we use Tamico Sandals too. Tamico Sandals now have new insole, fragranced, non-slip, does not break, does not shrink and never deforms”.

With the market rising on a national scale, the craftsmenship survival today is precarious. Undermined by the transport improvement, by the integration of marginal consumers to the mercantile economy and the penetration of industrialized article from the south and coast the craftsmen refuge themselves in improvised workshops. The embroidery on the sandal is like a fingerprint.

Each craftsman has its embroidery. Why? Because it takes about a year, a year and a half to get a craftsman embroidering properly, professionally.

Today we don’t have embroidery on it, we took out the embroidery. But it’s the demand’s fault. Why we took it out?

To produce faster. To teach this embroidery technique to someone would take a very long time It would be very expensive So we took some productive steps. We had to.

We started. . .

by necessity, understand? Because we don't have a history on working with leather in our family. .

. This didn’t come from many generations as several of craftsmen came. .

. Yes, from grandfather, great-grandfather. .

. great great grandfather. .

. We started by necessity. It is handcraft but a scheduled handcraft.

It is a craft with more technique. And it's complicated. We're doing an industrial craft.

But there was a time here in Nova Olinda I thought the leather would end Because people were buying only rubber or plastic sandals. . .

I thought: 'the leather will end in nothing' It was at the same time my father passed away and I am the oldest in his family. . .

I had to hold it There's this saying that the elders say around here. . .

It says that. . .

“Is the pain that teaches you to groan”. Have you heard that before? As I really needed to sell, I had to pull out my ideas That's when I thought: “I'll look for a style for myself, a style of my own and I will continue If it doesn’t sell well, then I'll have to stop” When Alemberg arrived in the region to develop the Casa Grande project He passed by running, as he is always running, and then he saw me working and told me: "Espedito, you dare to make a sandal in the same model as Lampião wore?

" I thought a bit and I said: “I dare” Then he said: “So, I want you to make it” That's when I remembered the old models that my father used to use And I found a crumpled template It was too old but I could understand a few things. . .

Then I completed it. . .

and made the sandal. Then I gave it to Alemberg. He wore it and began to walk.

He walks all over, right? And he showed it everywhere. Wherever he arrived he made sure to show the sandal.

Then people became interested, and the orders started to come from everywhere for me to do the same. The first time I saw Espedito’s work was at a rodeo in Nova Olinda By that time he was doing gibbon and some utensils, as harness for cattle But he wasn’t producing these sandals yet Then he made one for me We kept the same gray detail, it was gray here And we brought over here the details of the gibbon. The only difference between this sandal and the sandal that Lampião wore Is that his sandal had a square sole.

When he left his traces in the ground no one knew if he was going or coming With Espedito is the same: nobody knows whether he goes forward or backward. He is in transit between modernity and tradition. The power.

. . of enchantment of Espedito 's work is in joining all these cultures.

He connected the cowboy to the 'cangaceiro'. Then he picked up the art of the cowboy and brought together with the art of the 'cangaço'. When he begins to change his products.

. . change product in quotes, because he keeps doing gibbon, he continues to make saddle.

. . But when he broaden his repertoire, he then recycles himself, he reemerges The new Espedito is the old Espedito, do you understand?

I'll tell you the secret right now because you want to know. I had a. .

. tightness inside me. I looked to the sky and say: “My god, no one will notice me?

Because I can do many things, I am aware that I can do leather goods that no one ever did”. I had it inside. At last, people appeared filming, taking photo, recording and showing to the whole world.

Today I'm relieved. Let me see if I find a hat here. .

. I left it there. .

. Where's the cowboy hat that was here, Wellington? Okay, that's it.

Please, tell Francisca. . .

No, I can take it. Let's go. This is the beach we see on television.

. . The Ipanema beach.

The water is salty. But if this water is treated, can we drink it? If the water is treated will it become good?

The fish should be salty, as the water. . .

It’s a cold breeze that comes like this. . .

I never thought about leaving there. . .

my Nova Olinda You see, I come here in a invitation like this. . .

but I come because I really have to I couldn't lose the chance to know other things besides Nova Olinda. . .

No, I have to come. But what I find is truly good is to be at home working. .

. Because that's where I started and that's where I want to end.