I.
“HAMMOCK VARIATIONS”

Habit blinds us to what our eyes see day‑in‑day‑out.
How often do we admire the common objects around us?
Do we ever dream of discovering their origins?
Cicero
De Natura Deorum, II-xxxviii

"Old Mother." That is what denizens of the Amazon call their hammocks: As in our first unremembered memories, mae velha enfolds us in comforting arms, besides protecting us from scorpions, mists, and serpents that meander along the ground. The hammock accompanies us like a bed never could through our whole existence. Born in the jungle by the shore of a river, the newborn sleeps his first sleep in the hammock as his grandfather will sleep his last. Then as is our ancient custom, we bury the dead lying down in their own hammock. We are born, we live, we love, we die in the hammock, and then our friends carry us to the boneyard in mae velha to rest up till Judgement Day.

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It is not often scholars can cite the first day a word entered a language but in 1500 on the 27th of April, a Monday, the Portuguese explorer Pero Vaz de Caminha walked along a sandy beach in Brazil. On that day he noted in his journal: "In their thatched houses the natives sleep in NETS that are attached with cords to the wooden beams above. Below always burns a small fire to keep them warm and to repel bugs and demons." He saw an Indian dozing happily in what looked like a fishing net, and so from that day the Portuguese expression for hammock is rede de dormir: "a net for sleeping."

In English, the word "hammock" came by way of Spanish conquistadors, who derived the word hommoca from the Caribs, who wove fibers of the hammok tree. The ferocious Caribs learned the craft from a people they had conquered, the inventive, but more peaceable, Arawak tribe whose own word hammock‑‑ini‑‑trans‑lates as: "bed‑threads."

And what is more peaceable than a hammock? It accompanies us from our first day to our last: it is our cradle, our nuptial bower, our sickbed, our coffin.

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On the old plantations in the lands of the North

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Sell everything, if you have to, but hold on to your hammock.
Whoever has a hammock, lies in it,
Whoever lacks it, looks for it.
You don't have to be "Super‑Swami" to levitate in a hammock.

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NEW WORLD HAMMOCK HISTORY

In 1570 Pero de Magalhaes testifies to the total absorbtion of the hammock into the life of European colonials: "Most of the beds in Brazil are hammocks, hung in the house from two cords. This custom they took from the Indians of the land."

* * * * *

In 1600, a hundred years after Pero Vaz de Caminha first slept in a hammock, Jean de Lery wrote: "Whenever we entered a village, according to the custom of the land, we sat each one of us in a hammock."

* * * * *

It is not without a moment of tenderness, as Cascudo said, that we record the intrepid Alexander Von Humboldt slept in a hammock and woke to hear the voice of a parrot in the jungle of the Orinoco. It was the year 1800. In its youth this ancient parrot had lived with the Atures tribe who had died off in the wildernss in terrorized flight from the Caribs. This parrot talked their language. His was the last voice of the extinguished Atures heard along the Orinoco.

* * * * *

During the 18th and 19th centuries conquistadors turned into the marauding born‑in‑Brazil bandeirantes, who slept in hammocks. Missionaries slept in hammocks. Plenty of adventurers starved in hammocks. Curious travelers laid down in the hammock. Devoted naturalists and dedicated hunters slept in hammocks. Teddy Roosevelt slept in a hammock, caught malaria, and had a river named after him.

* * * * *

"I have many occasions to notice that everywhere there were Indians, the Europeans have destroyed them, but first they appropriated their customs, like paddling their canoes, eating their potatoes and tomatoes, smoking their tobacco, growing their corn, and sleeping in their hammocks."
Augusto de Sainte‑Hilairez‑‑1822

MANY REASONS WHY THE HAMMOCK IS BETTER THAN THE BED

We have to fit ourselves to the grid of a bed,
but the hammock molds itself to our forms.

The bed, hardly a fellow traveler of our desires, squares off sleep;
but the hammock collaborates in the movement of our dreams.
Now the bed requires us to take its manner, fixing us to itself,
and we look for repose in a succession of positions.
But the hammock takes on our individual shape
and becomes one with our habits, answering individual form.
The bed is rigid, predetermined, and angular.
But the hammock is hospitable, comprehensive, and accomodating,
ready to meet all the whims of our fatigue
and the unforeseen containment of our tranquility.
The old mother and the young wife.

When we find our spot in a hammock, our bodies correspond with ancestors beyond memory. Gravitationally inevitable, this congruence stretches back before the Fall, as Adam only took to his bed after the expulsion from Eden.

First cousin of the fisherman's net, the hammock holds our bodies and catches our dreams. Do you suppose the spider's web was its aboriginal inspiration, sometime back in the early Paleolithic?

The hammock is suspect in realms where the clock is preeminent, that is, in most of the so‑called civilized world. The clock itself is threatened by the hammock because time disappears. Hours do not apply. It is best to think in more ample terms measured by sun and moon rather than the decimauled seconds of modern "chronometers." Afternoon, evening, night, morning are the human portions of the day‑‑any one of which can be fulfilled in the hammock. It is the true enemy of hurry and foe of mindless agitation that demands constant change of scene. Even though the hammock was born in a primeval culture, it can still soothe the rattled body of modern life by reconciling the great contraries of movement and stillness.

This invention that is so munificent to humanity asks the least in return. Think of your car.

Figure a good bed costs the cradle

a month of toil outperforms

but the hammock takes and finally

only a day's labor into a suitcase

as a chair into a couch

And what would sailors have done without hammocks? Bunks, that's what they did, until Portuguese and Spanish mariners introduced this old New World invention to India, China, and all navies European and American. The Chinese may have invented everything from the five dollar bill to fireworks, but the honor of a net for sleeping belongs to tropical America.

How few people know the real comfort of a hammock! A hammock ought to be hung from sturdy hooks about six feet from the ground and about ten feet apart, preferably slung between two shady trees. Here's a familiar enough sight and a pleasant dream: The hammock on the beach swaying with the blowing of the wind, shaded by two coconut palms.

The hammock should NOT be stretched out horizontal so it resembles the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Half the secret of a well slung hammock is to hang it curved like the sliver moon; and low so that you can touch the earth with your hand, pick up a book or a drink, and in the case of unforseen disaster, there is not far to fall. The other half of the secret is to lie at a forty‑five degee angle and your body flattens out most comfortably. If you end up in the shape of a human banana, you are not corresponding properly with the ancestors.

In the hammock the occupant can converse, sell stuff, make plans, form alliances, reconcile opposites, discourse, propose, dispose, and adjust; but it is also a loyal ally of idleness. As an enhancement of sexual play the hammock is an unpredictable but reliable force. And there's more: outright relaxing, sleeping, dozing, napping. Try playing backgammon in a hammock with a friend or relative. Or imitate some old macho “colonel" after dinner in the hammock: smoking a cigar, fanning himself, spitting on the floor, belching loud as a Sultan, picking off nits, scratching feet and balls.

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There are certain things of this world that really give a guy grief: like,

Riding an unruly burro
writing with a pen that scrapes
or digging a splinter out
with a dull knife.

taking a siesta in a house without shade
wrapped in a sheet that's too short
condemned to a ripped hammock,
slashed of its grace,
breached of its balance

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The other night I walked the beat

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What is the only real problem with a hammock?

Getting out of it.

It comes, it goes‑‑vaivem vaivem. The oscillation of the hammock‑‑that old vaivem--

annuls the forces of a bad spell.

If you don't know the knot, you're going to know the floor.

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ONE DAY OF ADVENTURES IN THE DOCUMENTARY FILM TRADE

"Momentum is magic," said Max Plank one inebriated night in dark Berlin. Anyway, the oft‑touted idea to make a film about hammocks was a reality for me again. I had shot an hour's worth of hammock vendors, hammock weavers, and hammock dwellers in 1990 and here I was three years later with 100 minutes of virgin 16mm film to expose to the equatorial sun. The hammock is colorful, folkloric, comfortable, cool, portable and an ideal subject for prolonged research. Having been two degrees South of the equator before, I had spent a lot of time just suspended in the hammock in a never‑ending effort to keep my body rested in the draining heat and humidity. Besides, I loved the sense of instant levitation available readily to the most inept beginner.

Following the leads of local friendship, my crew had ended up in the ancient fishing village of Itapua. Itapua means "big rock" but I can not say I saw even a pebble in this sea level, mud banked village near Vigia at the entrance to the outermost channel of the Amazon delta. A place of strategic importance long ago it still has fertile fishing grounds and lots of nets. We are about fifty miles south of the equator. Just out of sight over the horizen is the Island of Marajo, which lies in the mouth of the Amazon. It is bigger than Switzerland, though not nearly as tall.

Something there is about a camera loaded with 16mm color film, a wild idea, and a crew of collaboratative artists. "Rede l uck" met us at every turn. We were on our way to the house of Manoel Augosto, the curandeiro‑‑a bone setter‑a healer‑a blessing bestower. As we turned the corner I saw a boy in a yard swinging high in his hammock. I said to Cris our anthropologist‑grip, "Can we stop?" So our caravan of two cars did. She asked the family if it would be okay to film and as usual in Brazil it was more than okay. I almost always ask before I film somebody and few Brazilians refuse to gather their spirits and shine for the camera.

I chose an angle for the shot that would show the mud wall chicken house, the dirt road, and the boy who was soaring in his hammock. One end was attached to an old tree and the other to a dead tree that wobbled considerably. I told Diogenes, the cameraman, how I wanted him to start with the top of the shaking tree and tilt down to reveal the boy‑‑and then to shoot whatever else he wanted at his discretion. Radio music blared throughout the neighborhood and a clutch of neighbors viewed our machinations with mild curiosity.

"Roll'em," I say and Diogenes responds with: "Rodando" ("Rolling"). The boy in the hammock pushes off with his hand from a board on the ground with every other swing and the hammock rides an arc of about 200 degrees. His hand on the offbeat slices the air like the prow of a schooner under sail and I catch his eye and answer his smile. He soars.

A kid pulling a squeaky wood truck walks by and I redirect him into the foreground of the scene and we shoot it again. The boy in the hammock was in the kinetic heaven of speed. His tangled legs did not appear paralytic. Later in the house I saw how he inhabited the floor with a look of resignation blended with curiosity, but in his flying hammock his face shone.

While we were filming, Alan, the sound guy, spotted the boy's sister weaving a fishing net. The blue wooden house was clean and airy and basic with open windows in the front room. The girl, Rosa, had three strands of white twine tied to a window sill and she worked competently in intricate hand movements lacing and knotting and looping the strings into a sturdy net for fishing: rede de pescar.

"Hammock" in Portuguese: Rede de dormir, a net for sleeping. Rede is also used for a broadcasting network, so the visual puns on these various kinds of nets are easy to imagine‑‑though not always so easy to film. To get the shot of the enormous ten‑ story high Embratel microwave antenna we had to wait for the tide to go out, then dig post holes in the beach and find posts to set up a hammock in the forground so that we could shoot a close up of a guy (Alan) in a hammock, then open out and tilt up to reveal the looming broadcast antenna. Then a thousand birds flew into view and circled the tower.

Meanwhile we invaded the house with permission, set up the camera to get Rosa's profile framed by the window with the tropical vegetation outside. In the foreground are three ceramic chickens on a crocheted doilie and knick knacks the likes of which might be found on the shelves of a lace curtain Irish bungalow on the south side of Chicago. Family pictures are flanked by Jesus, Mary, and St. Anthony.

Rosa worked on silently as we fiddled with the machines and light meters and stuff. We filmed as she knotted and repeated. Occasionally she would let a cascade of newly knotted net fall from her hand and then she knotted more.

Across the dirt street on the corner was a prototype of the modern convenience store, or what a Seven‑Eleven was a hundred years ago. There are a few shelves with penny candy, tins of dried milk, cooking oil, flour, and sugar. A battery operated radio crackles out pop music in competition with a blaring radio on a different channnel down the block. The building itself was on classic lines: The walls were dried mud and split bamboo and the roof thatch. The proprietor just happened to be conducting business from a yellow hammock. Let's film.

I set the camera up at a dutch angle to catch two sides of the simple but impressive building. An amputee on crutches, wearing a straw hat hobbles up and plants himself at the corner of the house. Fine. Two kids jump to the window level, elbows braced on the shelf, feet dangling a foot off the ground. Fine.

It starts to rain steadily. Not fine, but we film anyway because Cris, Iracema, Maria Jose, and Marcia‑‑friends and schleppers‑‑are holding a tarp of black plastic over Diogenes who is embracing the camera as he shoots. The women look for all the world like Brazilian Karyatids. Lovely and sturdy and holding the roof up! It continues to rain. We film the proprietor in his yellow hammock selling some red sugar candies to the two kids at the window shelf‑counter. The one‑legged man is still propped up at the corner of the store. The rain pours down. Chuva. Chuva. Chuva. Cut. Let's get out of here.

Three sequences have multiplied out of the glancing sight of a boy swinging high in a hammock. Hammock luck. Before we go I hold the hand of the hammock‑boy. The proprietor of the shop offers me a gift, a copuacu, which is the size and shape of a football. The pulp is ever so sweet and tastes like, like copuacu. Rosa all the while knots, loops, and splices.

We drive along the red dirt road to the last house of the village, a blue cottage with flowers around it. A meadow of tall grass extends to the tree line horizen. "ST. BENICIO" is printed over the blue Dutch door. We enter a room that has a couple of red benches. The floor is well swept as is usual in Brazilian domiciles. A picture of Jesus hangs next to formal tinted photographs of an old couple. It is Manoel Agosoto and his wife‑‑30 years ago. Joel, our grip‑cook‑pilot‑location scout, met Manoel a year ago after he hurt his leg playing soccer. The nerves from hip to foot were inflamed and he could hardly walk. The healer put a coke bottle behind Joel's knee and then yanked his leg back. Joel nearly went through the low roof in pain. The next day his leg was better, and a week later he was playing soccer.

Manoel Agusto is a bone setter of long experience. This time Joel has a bunged up toe‑‑from soccer‑‑and I figure as long as I have traveled 10,000 kilometers, the last ten of which over a dirt, sometimes mud road, I might as well let him take a crack at my modern back. I will trust luck, and that is kind of faith I guess. So I ask Cris to let him know that I would like him to work on my back.

He finally appears walking carefully under his own steam down a narrow corridor. He is nearly blind with cloudy cataracts; his teeth are gone; his skin is several shades of brown and purple: and his nose is recently scuffed to the point of bleeding; but his voice is solid and his force palpable. He is 93, hears well, remembers everything and is quite up to the job of "representing" his art in front of a group of techno‑creatures from the big city of Belem and the boondocks of the USA.

He sits in the low slung hammock with his feet on the floor. The curandeiro is assisted by his wife. She looks her 78 years but her eyes are clear clear clear and there is still a lot of black in her long hair. He sits in his hammock and we arrange it as best we can to catch a gentle light from the cloudy sky.

Manoel says he will work on the man with the bad back first. That is me and I tell Diogenes: "Now don't film this." I sit in front of the old man and look into the wreck of his face but he emanates kindness and tells me to turn around. He puts his hands on my shoulders. I shut my eyes and keep them shut just trying to let whatever might happen happen. Floating in darkness, it seems easy to believe in his power. He starts with a blessing which is a prayer in a musical tone. I thought I was going to get a few chiropractic whacks and twists and that would be that. I can only understand some of the words fleetingly but I catch on soon enough that he has diagnosed my back problem. Someting about pedras‑‑stones‑‑blocking my path. Heavy loads, cargas on my back. I have been in his presence for three minutes and he has sized me up intuitively, though I suppose most 45 year olds would fit the profile. He calls on a batch of saints, martyrs, the Good Jesus, Mary, St. Francis and St. Anthony. and probably St. George too. A statue of that knight on horseback is nearby slaying a dragon on the table. Manoel wants them all to help me out and, given the intractable nature of my problems, a whole litany of powers is needed to undo the screwed up circuits in my lower back. (Do I hear the camera running?) His hands lay gently on my shoulder and he is still circling around with lilting words. I realize I am in the middle of a blessing of Old Testament proportions. I let it wash over me . Hearing a word here and there:

Rei Tupi King Tupi, King Tupi

Estou aqui, estou aqui I am here, I am here

Eu posso conseguir I will do what I can do

He touches my shoulder and occasionally punctuates the petitions with some forceful breathing. His rhetoric is soft and strong‑‑not the dramatic blather of TV preachers. And then I do hear to understand: From this time forward do not look back. "Nao olha atras". Look forward. The stones are no longer in your path. The road is clear. And then there is an "Amen." A silence. A harsh exhalation. I open my eyes and thank him. He smiles.

Then we film him working on Joel's gimpy toe and Diogenes frames Manoel's beat up face in a close up. He has been serious in his task but I found laughter near to the surface when I talked with him mentioning I had traveled 10,000 kilometers to meet him. He laughs easily as I say one dumb thing after another. I can see a sequence towards the end of The Hammock Variations with this ancient face filling the screen.

((A week later I find myself a thousand miles up the Araguaia River on a canoeing voyage. I am running along a sand river‑beach just for the fun of it. I am running. I had not been able to run for five years because of my back. Two years further on I can still run.))

Joel has found a baby in a hammock. The film needs a baby in a hammock to balance the old healer and as something of a follow‑up to the silouetted lovers who will open up the first montage of images that run from lovers to baby to kids to adults to ancients, all in hammocks. Well, Joel has found a baby in a hammock, so we pack our gear and ourselves into the two cars for the short ride to the baby’s palm thatched house. There is a batch of kids out front and a small pool table, that is a mesa de sinooker. We are lead to the back through a clutter and clatter of dispersing chickens and through the shadowed lean‑to kitchen at back. Everything is well swept and orderly. One little girl is fanning the charcoal fire with a woven palm fan. In the back bedroom there are four hammocks tied up in tiers and a pediment of open light at the ceiling. In a small hammock an infant in white cap is swaying, pacifier in mouth. On a bed beneath the baby lies her mother looking fairly exhausted. What are WE doing here???? The fisherman‑father has said it is okay but I ask her again and she says she agrees but she is clearly tired. What is more, the light is too dim. After some discussion we have to ask her if its all right to move the baby's hammock. Okay.

Now the light is right. The smoke from the charcoal fire has dissipated and somebody has swiped the pacifier from the baby who is black haired and content lying horizontal in the hammock. The baby does not mind our presence, seems curious even in a nine day old subtle way. The mother is at ease with it all by now. We film straw walls, filtered light, baby in a hammock, peaceful as Jesus in the stable. I ask "How old is the baby?"

"Bem nova, a really new one, eh,"

"What's his name? What's her name?"

I get a quizzical look.

"Nene." Baby. Generic baby.

Later Cris explains to me that the families around here often do not name the baby until after the fourth month. This nene seems fairly healthy, a nice spirit, I say. "It's after the first month that things go wrong."

All the above happened within 24 hours and I must at least mention the huge water buffalo with its convoluted horns pulling a cart, Esperanca‑‑"Hope," and a ride in the diesel launch Aguia (Eagle) that drove ahead dozens of trilhote‑‑a frog‑faced fish, dashing across the surface of the green water and finally Venus appearing big as a basketball in the hour before dawn, na madrugada.

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As the old geezer said to the clerk at the hotel that didn't have a spot for his hammock, "Sonny, I ain't sick enough to sleep in a bed."

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Stow the crybaby in a deep hammock.
Sleep in a torn hammock.
Wake up on the floor.
The devil chose hell over a thoughtful hammock.

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Several weeks later all 100 minutes of 16mm film was shot up. We filmed at the docks, on ships, in busy city plazas, young and old and in between, male and female did we shoot them. We shot at dawn. We shot in the dark‑‑"That shot will never work!" And it didn't.

Then I departed Para for the central highlands state of Goias where a week long canoe voyage down the Rio Araguaia was my reward for six weeks of filming, taping, and talking. I wanted to get my Portuguese river vocabulary functional and I really wanted to leave cameras behind and let my eyes focus without ulterior motives. It was a glorious trip of days floating down the wide brown river, crossing with the current (correnteza) from side to side and witnessing the hundreds of herons, dozens of small crocodiles (jacare), and eating the fish caught by my boon companions. I am too lazy to fish but my favorite Ozark bird is the King Fisher, who has a common cousin here: Martin Pescador‑‑Martin the Fisherman. Of course, each night and for several siestas I slung my hammock and dozed and dreamed and slept under southern constellations. How southern? Well there is the Southern Cross, which does not really equal its less famous but more spectacular opposite number Northern Cross, also known as Cygnus, the Swan. And just after sundown, the Big Dipper appears upside down and just over the northern horizen, with the two pointer‑stars aimed directly DOWN towards the implied Polaris, out of sight on the other side of the heavens, probably.

It was at the end of our journey that Fate confirmed my hammock researches. The village of Cochalin was on the Mato Grosso side of the river and we were at the ferry landing on the Goias side, drinking cold beer and eating freshly caught and fried fish under the straw roofed shelter. We had just packed up two canoes and four guys worth of gear onto and into a car about the size of a Nova. Compact, but at least not sub‑compact. Then there was going to be the seven hour ride back to the capital, Goiania, the first 100 kilometers on red dirt roads. The beer was cold and the fish was tasty and the shade was welcome. So we ordered another round of fish to forestall the inevitable insertion of five guys into the already overloaded car.

The ferry has just brought a canvas draped truck across the river and a short fellow hops out of the back and comes over to us. He wants to sell me a hammock. There are six stowed in my bag back in the city, ready for hand‑carried export. Still, this fellow‑‑"My name is Ignacio, from Recife"‑‑has some pretty hammocks and it is such a pleasure to be hammock‑rich and I like him, so, what the hell, and I buy two comfortable ones for a twenty dollar bill. Then I follow him back to the truck, as he wants to introduce me to his work mates. They are slotted three high and six deep in hammocks slung in the back of the truck. A golden light filters through the canvas. Smiles emanate from eighteen Nordestino hammock vendors. Now they are two days into a five day journey back home to Recife for a month off. They expect to be in Goiania tonight. Hmmm. I expect to be in Goiania tonight too.

So I ask Ignacio if his boss would give me a ride‑‑a carona‑‑to the capital. I have a brand new hammock I would like to try out. In a moment he returns with a big smile and it seems I have been accepted into the Guild of Hammock Vendors. It takes about three minutes to explain to my companions what is up and they are amazed and delighted to be rid of me.

Ignacio ties my hammock in the front on the lower level. He has rescued me from a spot more cramped than a middle airplane seat and put me in a luxurious hammock recliner with a great view plus ventilation. Directly above me is Joaozinho and swinging to my left is a bearded Francisco, who looks like a lost twin of Chuck Knapp, the engineer at the Public Radio station back home. After a bit of jostling I can stretch my feet out behind Francisco's neck.

A round of greetings all the way back to Row 6, Slot C comes my way: "Tudo bem?" And we are off down the road and the hammocks swaying with the rhythms of the red dirt road as we rumble smoothly along. I am in Hammock Heaven stretched out in the purple and white patterned hammock Ignacio sold me. These 18 hammock vendors have been on the road in the interior for three months and they have sold 2000 hammocks among them.

Zacharias, a boy of seventeen, who is younger than my son Jesse, has been doing this work for three years. He can read, but his compatriot, Fernando, can neither read nor write. We talk about five minute a day lessons. Once again I am amazed at the instant amizade, friendship that seems the rule of my Brazilian experience. They sing, we talk. I tell them the exotic story about my father who lives on an island where there are no cars and lots of ice. I ask Ignacio about his family. He has two kids back in Recife and wishes he could bring them some toys. Three months work, minus truck and rice (ie, room and board) has yielded about $350. He says his boss is a reasonable fellow, but somehow I doubt if there is a medical plan in his contract.

Now the gentle heat and road rhythmn is making me sleepy, as broad stretches of Goias pass by. For the next six hours I am in a trance. The truck is jammed but comfortable (As my mother says, "In confined spaces good manners prevent murder.") The sliver moon, looking like a silver hammock in the sky, accompanies us across the sky as we go down the road. I can bend my head outside to catch the red sunset and the brewing rainclouds that extinguished it. A yellow tarp is pulled out of a storage compartment and we are sealed inside, just before rattling rain pummels the truck. Now it seems we could be anywhere and in the dark the 18 hammocks still sway and I still dream.

We arrive at a truckstop on the outskirts of the capital and fortuitously up pull my canoeing compatriots. I relay my goods back to the cramped car, give Igancio something to get presents for his kids, plus an Andrew Jackson (a bargain fare for a sleeping compartment, yes?) to buy beers for the company. We embrace and I give my farewells to the company.

How is it that after weeks of hammock "research" and filming I should be picked up by a truckload of hammock vendors and taken in as one of their own? I laugh out loud.

Everything happens in a hammock‑‑
from before we are born,
through the arc of our life,
til they carry us to the boneyard‑‑

It all happens in a hammock.

THE POET AND THE WEAVER AND THE WEAVER AND THE POET

The weaver weaves her threads to catch our bodies

The poet turns his lines to catch our souls

It is a joy to take the hammock off the loom

It is a sorrow to string the loom anew

The weaver weaves

thread by thread

as the shuttle flies

one side to the other

thread turns on thread

one side to the other

even as the poet

forms words out of words

The weaver weaves her threads

The poet fills his lines with sound

till the poem becomes a vessel

to hold breath

inspiration by expiration.

We live out our days

line by line,

thread by thread

we weave our lives.

The weaver dreams in the hammock

she has brought forth from the loom.

She dreams of the poet dreaming in turn...

Suspended in the hammock

he floats between earth and sky

the hammock sports a lacey fringe

and hangs on hooks

between life and death

And it is best to forget all the bad

And it is best to forget all the good

A thought comes, a thought goes.

Vaivem. Vaivem.

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Author's note: Parts of this piece are re‑drawn from Luis da Camara Cascudo's fabulous book about hammocks, Rede-de-Dormir, published by the Ministerio da Educacao e Cultura Servico de Documentacao in Rio de Janeiro (1959). The translations of the prose, and especially the poetry, which Cascudo anthologized in his book, are of a free nature. Hopefully the spirit of the Portuguese carries through in this English vessel. Here is what the "Canticle of the Hammock" looks like in the original:

CANTICO EM LOUVOR DA REDE-DE-DORMIR

Nos velhos engenhos,

nos grandes sobrados

das terras do norte,

as redes bonitas

de lindas varandas

da cor do luar!...

Recordo o passado:

meu avo, homen feito,

formado em Dirieto,

lembrando o Recife

deitado na rede

de papo‑pro‑ar!

Sinhazinha, velhinha,

sentada na rede,

falando sozinha

com os olhos tao cheios

das sombras do alem.

Sinhazinha, coitada,

na rede deitada,

na rede que vai,

que vai e que vem!

Nas longas estradas,

nas doce paradas,

deitados nas redes

descansam tropeiros

das grandes jornadas,

nas arvores belas,

olhando as estrelas

perdidas no ceu!...

Nos lares humildes,

na casa dos ricos

as redes balancam

inocentes meninos.

A mae vai cantando

o filho embalando

cancoes mais suaves

lembrando essas aves

dos reinos de Deus!

A rede e tambem

caixao de defunto:

o morto dormindo

um sono gostoso

embalado na rede.

O morto, cotado,

nao teve dinheiro,

nao comprou o caixao,

e assim vai levado

embalado na rede

ate que e jogado

no fundo do chao!

Lua‑nova e uma rede

de prata, fulgindo

no ceu tao profundo!

Deus descansa na lua

que linda, flutua,

vendo as dores dos homens

sofrendo, no mundo!

R. Friere Ribeiro (Aracaju‑1957)

II.
The Hammock Variations

*************************************************
Featuring

MAX MARTINS
as

"The Poet"

************************************************

MARIA DO CARMO DE FREITAS GONCALVES
as

"The Weaver"

************************************************

Produced and Directed
by

James Bogan and Diogenes Leal

************************************************

Lua-nova e uma rede

de prata, fulgindo

No ceu tao profundo!

***

Ah, the new moon is a silver hammock

shining in our sky, suspended in the deep!

II. THE POET IN HIS HAMMMOCK

"Old Mother." That's the knickname we Brazilians give the hammock.... As in our first unremembered memories, mae velha enfolds us in comforting arms. Besides, she protects us from scorpions, mists, and serpents that meander along the ground.

III. OVERTURE

Everything happens in a hammock.

We are born, we live, we love, we die in the hammock and then our friends carry us to the boneyard in mae velha to rest up till Judgement Day.... till our friends carry us to the bone- yard in the "Old Mother" to rest up till judgement day

IV. ORIGIN OF "HAMMOCK"

A) THE POET AND HIS CABIN

On the 27th of April, 1500, an explorer named Pero Vaz de Caminha‑‑two months out from Portugal‑‑walked along a sandy beach in Brazil. Now it is not often we know the first day a word enters a language, but on that Monday he wrote:

B) A GIRL WEAVES A FISHING NET

"In their thatched huts the natives sleep in NETS." He saw an Indian dozing in what looked to him like a fishing net, and so from that day the Portuguese expression for hammock has been rede de dormir: "a net for sleeping."

V. THE WEAVER‑I

The weaver weaves her threads to catch our bodies

The poet turns his lines to catch our souls

It is a joy to take the hammock off the loom

It is a sorrow to string the loom anew.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

In English, the word "hammock" came by way of Spanish conquistadors, who derived the word hommoca from the Carib Indians who wove fibers of the hammok tree. The Caribs learned their craft from a people they had conquered, the inventive, but more peaceable Arawak tribe, whose own word for hammock‑‑ini‑‑translates as: "bed‑threads."

VI. THE POET BY THE SEA

And what is more peaceable than a hammock? It accompanies us from our first day to our last: it is our cradle, our nuptial bower, our sickbed, our coffin.

VII. YOUNG ONES

A. BABY

In the shacks by the road

‑‑in the palaces of the rich‑‑

innocent children swing in the hammock.

A mother lulls the swaying child

with songs smooth, soft, and gentle.

She imagines these songs sung

by birds in the kingdom of Heaven.

B. TWO KIDS

My father used to say, "Don't forget: The hammock is a member of our family, too."

C. THREE KIDS SINGING

Boi, boi, boi!                              Cow, cow, cow!

Boi da cara preta!               Black-faced cow!

Pega este menino                        Grab this boy

que tem medo                            that fears

de carreta!                                 your scary face!

D. THE BIG TREE

(Musical interlude)

E. BOY READING

If you don't know the knot, you're going to know the floor.

F. A GIRL STRINGS UP A HAMMOCK

We have to fit ourselves to the grid of a bed,

butthe hammock molds itself to our forms.

Thebed, hardly a fellow traveler of our desires, squares off sleep;

but the hammock collaborates in the movement of our dreams.

G. THE SOARING BOY

It comes, it goes‑‑vaivem, vaivem. The oscillation of the hammock‑‑that old vaivem‑‑annuls the forces of a bad spell.

H. MACUNAIMA

When our body finds its spot in the hammock,
we correspond with ancestors beyond memory.
Gravitationally inevitable, this ancient congruence
stretches back before the Fall,
as Adam only took to his bed after the expulsion from Eden.

VIII. THE POET AT HIS DESK

Macunaima says:

"Certain things of this world really give a guy grief: like,

               riding an unruly burro

                  writing with a pen that scrapes

                     or digging a splinter out with a dull knife.

But worst of all is to find yourself

                taking a siesta in a house without shade

                   wrapped in a sheet that's too short,

                       condemned to a ripped hammock

                  slashed of its grace

          breached of its balance"

IX. WEAVER‑II

The weaver weaves thread by thread

the shuttle flies from one side

to the other

thread turns on thread

one side to the other

even as the poet forms

words out of words

X. LITTLE LOOM

(Musical Interlude)

XI. ADULTS

A. THE SHOP

Figure a good bed costs a month of toil,

   but the hammock takes only a day's labor

                then doubles

                  as a chair

                     stretches

                         to a couch

                          rolls

                              into a suitcase

                                and finally

                                  outperforms

                                    the cradle.

B. THE BLUE HOUSE

(Musical interlude)

C. MAN ON THE BEACH

Sell everything, if you have to, but hold on to your hammock.

D. WOMAN IN THE HAMMOCK

What is the only real problem with a hammock?

Getting out of it.

E. IN THE NET SHOP

First cousin of the fisherman's net,

the hammock holds our bodies and catches our dreams.

Do you suppose the spider's web was its aboriginal inspiration‑‑

sometime back in the Paleolithic?

F. A WOMAN IN REVERIE

Whoever has a hammock, lies in it,

Whoever lacks it, looks for it.

XII. THE POET UNDER A TREE

The other night I walked the beat

pacing like a rat behind a wall

I looked and looked

for the slanted ropes

of your sweet hammock

but I couldn't find you

Last night I had a dream‑‑

Oh my God, what an impudent dream!

I dreamt us in my hammmock

and I held you in the shape of your clothes

It was you in the the shape of your clothes

XIII. THE WEAVER'S FINGER WORK‑III

The weaver weaves her threads

The poet fills his lines with sound

We live out our days line by line,

thread by thread we weave our lives.

XIV. OLD ONES

A. CLOSE UP ON A FACE OF CARE

You don't have to be "Super‑Swami" to levitate in a hammock.

B. ON A BOAT

And what would sailors have done without hammocks? Bunks, that's what they did, until Portuguese and Spanish mariners introduced this old New World invention to India, China, and all navies European and American. Now, the Chinese may have invented everything from the five dollar bill to fireworks, but the honor of a net for sleeping belongs to tropical America.

C. THE HEALER

Manoel Augusto, the Curandeiro, has worked from a hammock most of his 93 years.

He chants into trance.

His song quavers to cure.

His hands touch to heal.

Rei Tupi, Rei Tupi                            King Tupi

                                                         King Tupi

Rei Tupi, Rei Tupi                            I am here

                                                         I am here

Eu posso que conseguir                   I will do

                                                         what I can do

XV. WEAVER‑IV

On the old plantations in the lands of the north

that's where you would find pretty hammocks

with intricate fringes the color of the moon...

The weaver remembers her grandfather

stretched out in the hammock

his head turned to the past‑‑

thepale fringe floating in the wind.

This hammock sports a lacey fringe

and hangs on hooks between life and death

It is best to forget all the bad

It is best to forget all the good

A thought comes, a thought goes.

Vaivem. Vaivem..

The weaver, her work done,

dreams in the hammock

she has brought forth from the loom.

She dreams of the poet dreaming in turn.....

XVI. THE POET'S DREAM

XVII. THE POET WALKS BY THE SEA

Everything happens in a hammock‑‑

   from before we are born,

      along the arc of our life,

        til they carry us to the boneyard

               in the "Old Mother"

It all happens in a hammock.

XIII. CREDITS

******************************************************************************

THE CAST

Max Martins

Maria do Carmo de Freitas Goncalves

Alan K. Guimaraes

Cristina Cancela

Iracema Amarante

Joel Augusto Souza da Silva

Weures "Speedo" Carvalho

Diogenes Leal

Maria Souza dos Santos

Dayana Rose Souza dos Santos

Fabiola Gallo

Manoel Augusto Souza da Silva

Rosemira Moraes Beckman

Clailson de Jesus da Silva Reis

Maria Nelma Beckman

Rosenilda Pereira Mourao

Rosinha

Marcelo Figueiredo Fernandes

Felipe Figueiredo Fernandes

Camillo Martins Vianna

Evaldo "Guri" Souza Leal

Joao Anailson Silva Miranda

Sylvance C. Da Silva

Sebastiao Serafim da Silva

Francisco Iran da Silva

Marcia do Socorro Campos Moura

O. Nene

Maria Eliane dos Santos Gadelha‑‑"Nana"

Narration‑‑James Bogan

(Based on Rede-de-Dormir by Luis da Camara Cascudo)

"The Hammock Variations" arranged and performed by:

Moacyr Marchini‑‑Cavaquinho, Percussion,

Banjo, and Berimbau

Luciano Neri‑‑Guitar, Percussion

THE CREW

Cinematography‑‑Diogenes Leal

Associate Producers‑‑Alan K. Guimaraes, Kathy Corley

Editor‑‑Kathy Corley

Assistant Editors‑‑Susan Givens,Anna Bogan Monders, Keith Kuhlmann

Sound‑‑Alan K. Guimaraes

Heavy Lifters‑‑Jorane Castro, Andrea Reis, Branco Medeiros, Iracema Amarante, Joel da Silva, Cristina Cancela, Weures "Speedo" Carvalho

Burial in the Hammock by Candido Portinari

(Courtesy of the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo)

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Mary Bird                                                        The Moura Family‑‑

Jose Maria Cardoso Salles                               Maria Jose, Manoel,

Wayne Cogell                                                  Monica, Marcia, and Nana

Barbara Bloch                                                  Nilda Shavinsky

Randy Dodd                                                     Bertinho Issler

Jaime Arias                                                       Emily DiCicco

Jesse Bogan                                                     Brendan Bogan

Michael Stitsworth                                             Beverley and Roger Moeller

Gayle Waggoner Lopes                                     Sue Kellems

Robert Dyer                                                      Lais Martins

Maria Sylvia & Benedito Nunes                         Emily‑Greta Tabourin

Nazare Cristo Barbosa do Nascimento              Frank Fillo

Jorge Roberto Brito de Souza                            Michael Hicks

Vincente Martins Fonseca Neto                         Ribeiro

Musicos do Adamor                                          Les Blank

James Broughton                                               Michael Castro

Brian McCurren                                                Molly Click

Procopio Cerpinha                                            Ellen Pearce

Fred Goss                                                        Joao Merces

Danilo and Simone Fernandes                           Howard Schwartz

Nilson Oliveira                                                 Shelly Plank

Jairo Escudero                                                 Jason Kinnear

John Fulton                                                       Michael Arnegger

Nancy Murphy                                                 Fabio Magalhaes

Randy Stoll                                                       Michael McKean

Ruti do Correio                                                Mariano and Angela Haensel

Lance Haynes                                                   Henry Sauer

Bud Schlitz                                                       Gilda Chaves

Steve Lucido                                                    Chris Roider

William Yeazel                                                  Ross Haselhorst

The Lovely Students of Eco‑Educar

THANKS ALSO TO THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR SUPPORT:

University of Missouri‑Rolla

Missouri Research Board

National Association of the Partners of the Americas

W. K. Kellogg Foundation

Fellows VI

Missouri Partners of the Americas

Companheiros das Americas‑‑Para

Federal University of Para

Department of Philosophy and Liberal Arts‑UMR

UMR‑MSM Alumni Association

Museum of the Federal University of Para

Hotel Ver‑O‑Peso

Illustrated Man

Comericial Regata

The Bridget Bogan Hotel

KMNR

Full Circle Productions

Casa de Estudos Germanicos

Imperio das Redes

Associacao Brasileira de Documentaristas

The Village of Itapua

As the old geezer said to the clerk at the hotel that didn't have a spot for his hammock, "Sonny, I ain't sick enough to sleep in a bed."

III.
THE COLLABORATIVE ART
OF MAKING A POETIC DOCUMENTARY

ABSTRACT: Creative fund raising, persistence over time, and collaboration of artists are all necessary for the successful completion of a film project. When the subject is the soul of the Amazon in the image of a hammock, adventures abound both in organization and actualization.

Making a documentary film might not seem like a community project at first, but the planning, filming, and editing of The Hammock Variations was a true collaboration of artists and artisans, schleppers and producers, both in Brazil and in the United States. The story of how it came about is a long one that I will try to tell quickly. The Partners of the Americas had a hand in it from the beginning, when in 1985 they sent me down to the Amazon to teach a two week course in "American Culture," such as it is. My texts were poems by Walt Whitman, murals by Thomas Hart Benton, and films by Les Blank. I met cinematographer Diogenes Leal the first night. He was the projectionist. I also met Max Martins, he was the poet in the first row. A year later I was back in Belem on a Fulbright Fellowship teaching at the Federal University of Para and in my spare time working on the T-Shirt Cantata, a film that celebrates a unique Amazon art form and the lovely people in them. Sometime during our production of that film, Diogenes suggested that a documentary that would really go to the soul of Amazon life should feature the hammock. As it is said:

Everything happens in a hammock‑‑

from before we are born,

through the arc of our life,

til our friends carry us to the boneyard‑‑

It all happens in a hammock.

Our goal as film makers would be to show life in a hammock through the ages from infant to ancient. We would evoke the mystery of time and poetry in the swinging rhythmn of the rede de dormir, the net for sleeping.

Many independent film makers spend 90% of their time looking for money to make their films, and 10% of their time actually making the film. And that seems to me a sad percentage, especially since creative energies are sapped by too much paperwork. Actually it is the job of the producer to come up with money, but since I was both director and producer I could not elude the task of raising funds. And I had to get myself back to Brazil. Making use of momentum is a key in getting support. So in 1989 I requested travel funds from the Graduate School of the University of Missouri‑Rolla to go to Para in order to screen T-Shirt Cantata where it was shot. And to study Portuguese. And to shoot film of some Brazilians swinging in their hammocks. From another office on campus I requested money so I could bring six reels of Kodak 7292 16mm film stock with me. I already had the commitment of the Documentary Association of Para (Diogenes) to provide equipment and personnel to work on the project. The collaboration of these Brazilian artists was just the leverage I needed to get money out of the university. So based on an idea, one completed film, and the promise of equipment, I was funded for a plane ticket and an hour of film stock. This modest $1500 base was what launched a project that would eventually cost about 20,000 real dollars, plus the incalculable efforts of dozens of individuals. The first $1000 is the hardest to find, but with that in hand, this will match with that, so it doubles and doubles again the resources‑‑if the project has momentum. Plus it takes a bit of faith/chutzpah to ask for funds to support a creative endeavour because it takes longer than anyone would believe and even the director does not know if it is going to work really.

The crew in Belem of Diogenes Leal (cinematographer) and Alan Guimaraes (sound engineer) was augmented by several film students who were glad to schlepp for the experience. We worked for two short weeks to film a long hour of hammocks in 1990. At a local trade school we filmed Maria do Carmo de Freitas Goncalves intermittently over the course of a week as she wove a multi‑colored hammock on a hand loom. The owner of the great hammock emporium, O Imperio das Redes gave us the run of his store. Whereever we went the hammock world seemed to open for us.

When I returned to the United States I had an hour of film shot and no money to develop it. There was a new dean arriving at our school. I was in Good Dean Fulton's office before his computer was wired up with a SMALL request. I asked him for the money to develop the film and transfer it to video. He signed on to the project early and had an interest in it thereafter. I have found that institutional support is forthcoming if one makes good on one's promises of eventual completion of the work. It also helps to have typed requests ready to go at a moment's notice to catch money before it goes away.

There was still much more that needed to be filmed. Having an hour of footage allowed me to rough edit a couple of sequences (the weaver and the poet) so there was more to show than words and schemes. Potential funders could see what I was going after. As Max Planck said, another inebriated night in Vienna, "Momentum is magic." The hammock movie was happening and even if I did not know where the next roll of film was coming from, the project was launched and the world would provide. Also there is an axiom I am fond of quoting, "Time is an ally of art, if the artist lives long enough."

I got lucky. I was selected for participation in the Kellogg Fellows Program in International Development, which would take me back to Brazil, eventually. My Miami ‑ Sao Paulo ‑ Belo Horizonte ‑ Rio de Janeiro ‑ Belem ‑ Goiannia ‑ Miami plane ticket was useful as match in a proposal to the Missouri Research Board. In grant writing it is as the old song goes: "Them that’s got shall get / Them that don't shall lose." Resources generate resources. The Missouri Research Board was taken with the unusual subject. Their $15,000 grant would be enough money to finish the project, probably.

In 1993 I was able to return to Brazil as a member of Kellogg Fellows VI. I stayed extra time in and around Belem where I filmed another hundred minutes of hammocks. Several of my colleagues from Fellows VI had already lugged film stock and equipment there for me. The Para Partners were heavily involved with sequences, schlepping of equipment, and input of ideas. One of the student workers turned out to be an anthropologist who had a house in the boondocks where we could film. This kind of luck seems to happen when one is creating. The crew spent a week in the little fishing village of Itapua where we filmed several of the inhabitants, including the 93 year‑old curandeiro‑‑healer‑‑who worked from a hammock and fixed my back at no extra charge.

Lots of film shot does not a film make. It takes editing to turn 160 minutes of film into a 16 minute documentary. This time South came North. A Partners travel grant allowed Diogenes Leal to come to Missouri to collaborte on the editing for the month of June 1994. It was during this time that the film was really born. We worked fourteen hour days getting the images to flow smoothly. The eighty second "Overture" took the best part of a week to get the swings of fourteen shots to match. It is hard to believe just how much time it takes to edit; but a companheiro to work with turned the rigorous demands of the job into a joy.

Later on Kathy Corley, Missouri Partner and editing whiz, worked diligently with me. I thought I already had the music for the film, but the idea to use classical music recorded in Belem did not work at all. Too slow. It was a helpful delusion, however, as thinking I had the music allowed me to concentrate on other tasks. Fortunately Kathy knew a Paulista musician, Moacyr Marchini, who joined the project and over a year's time composed and recorded entrancing music on Brazilian instruments like the berimbau and the cavaquinho. I asked for a few Buddhist sambas and he said he knew what I meant. Moacyr also saved me the really ugly task of running down permissions and paying for the use of previously recorded music.

Putting a film together actually has a lot to do with community identity. Few documentaries have been shot in Belem by Belem crews. Not only were the film makers and artisans and poets in on the project from the beginning but the cooperation between North and South in meeting funding and equipment needs was crucial to the completion of the film. Resources and personnel were divided up almost 50‑50 between the USA and Brazil. It was a true collaboration. Balancing the forces so many individuals and focussing those forces into a creative unity of a work of art was a glorious nightmare of organization.

In addition to the English version, which has been completed, poets in Belem are working on a translation now so that there will be a Portuguese version sometime in the future, Lord willing. The long term task of distribution has just begun, but The Hammock Variations will swing on your television someday, se Deus quiser.

The big lesson I have learned in producing four films now is that time reveals the immaterial. A project that has life in its original inspiration can grow into a surprising reality, but it takes intuition, nerve, and lots of re‑writes.

BIOBLURB:

James Bogan is a professor of art, a poet, and a filmmaker, who has taught at the University of Missouri-Rolla since 1969. His books include an experimental anthology, Sparks of Fire: William Blake in a New Age (co-edited with Fred Goss) and Ozark Meandering, a volume of maximal poems and prose due out from Timberline Press in 1997. His poetic documentaries – Tom Benton’s Missouri, Chalk Up Another, T-Shirt Cantata, and The Hammock Variations – celebrate artists of Missouri and of the Amazon.

Professor James Bogan
Performing Arts Department
University of Missouri-Rolla
129 Castleman Hall
1870 Miner Circle
Rolla, MO 65409-0670
(573) 341-4755
Fax: (573) 341-6992
jbogan@umr.edu

I. “HAMMOCK VARIATIONS”

II. The Hammock Variations

III. THE COLLABORATIVE ART OF MAKING A POETIC DOCUMENTARY

I.
“HAMMOCK VARIATIONS”

II.
The Hammock Variations

III.
THE COLLABORATIVE ART
OF MAKING A POETIC DOCUMENTARY