After dinner, I carry my red armchair to the circle of neighbours sitting by the railings to catch the faintest breeze from the River Tocantins. Dos Reis, notebook open in his lap and pen poised, studies Zequinha’s fingers, improvising chords on his guitar. They inch identical steel-frame armchairs closer to one another, greeting me with broad smiles. ‘You just missed the boiúna (black snake), Dan,’ Zequinha recalls. ‘Fifty metres long! The whole community gathered as the snake passed!’ I scrutinize the circle of artists. Does everyone here see the mythical as real?
Reinaldo smiles his welcome while humming the new refrain. Antônio, blinded from toxic froth produced by the nearby Tucuruí dam, smiles and edges towards Carolzinha, Zequinha’s teenage granddaughter, straightened hair scooped into a fountain above her all but shaven head. She cradles her new niece into the hollow of her neck to complete the sideways shift of chairs, and I enter the circle of five Afro-indigenous generations. Animated circles of Cabelo Seco’s ‘community university of the rivers’ line the boardwalk towards old Marabá.
