Euclides da Cunha interpreted the Canudos war (1896-7) on the basis of oral sources to establish the messianic character of the movement. He relied on folk poems and apocalyptic prophecies, that he attributed to Antônio Conselheiro, in order to create, in Os sertões (Rebellion in the backlands), a gloomy portrait of the leader of the community. Conselheiro's sermons, collected in two manuscript volumes to which Euclides da Cunha did not have access, reveal a religious leader very different from the mystical fanatic presented in Os sertões. These sermons indicate that the leader of Canudos was a learned backlander, capable of expressing his political and religious views, that were related to a traditional Catholicism common among the clergymen of the 19th-century.
Euclides da Cunha; Antônio Conselheiro; Canudos war; messianism