The Social Dimension of Honor

Up to this point, we have considered the values that constitute personal pride: the indi­vidual honor of different social categories. Keeping in mind that honor straddles the two domains—individual psyches (self-image) and social interaction (the system of con­duct)—it is now possible to look at the specifically social dimension of honor and the way it functions as a code of conduct regulating the network of social relations and guar­antees group coherence.

“Group coherence” by no means implies that the vila’s residents live in happy har­mony nor that they share all the same values. On the contrary, we found there clear divi­sions along the lines of morality. For example, while certain people would never engage in theft, the moment a policeman enters the area, looking for one of the local macon- heiros, a web of complicity springs up among nearly all members of the community. Al­though different individuals may have different values, the social isolation imposed from without as well as the need for daily exchanges within the vila obliges people to recog­nize a code of interaction permitting the unraveling of everyday activities.

The importance of physical clout

Women as well as men brag about their physical prowess and take apparent glee in re­counting exploits in vivid detail. For example, one woman gloats about having battered another: “I may be little, but you better not mess with me.” And some may even brag about winning out over men: for example, to explain why she keeps an iron bar behind the counter, Dora (wife of the local merchant), describes how the last customer to make a pass at her ended up with a badly broken arm. An ex-prostitute, barely twenty, proudly describes how she wielded a razor to slash a client’s face when he tried to force her to do more than she had agreed on. Stories on such themes are told and retold in the gossip cir­cles.

In the vila, because of physical proximity as well as patterns of intense sociability, spectators are ever-present, but they hardly ever interfere in a fight. A storekeeper who let the retreating loser of a rather rough fistfight take refuge in his shop was severely criticized by his neighbors: “We won't go there anymore to buy our groceries!” When a group of men, sharing an afternoon beer in front of a tiny corner bar, discover that the screams they heard on the previous night came from a local youth, roughed up by his cronies during a neighborhood dance, they shrug : “Who in his right mind would go out to investigate what was happening? Anyhow, if he didn't want to get beat up, he should have stayed home. Nobody made him go to the dance.”

Manifestly, violence is among the socially acceptable manners to resolve conflicts. However, the fact that we underline physical force as an important element in the vila's social organization by no means implies that we are dealing with a “less civilized” or “more natural” form of social life. There exist specific cultural limits to the exercise of violence and those who break these limits suffer severe sanctions. Murder, as far as I could see, is never approved of.

According to the norm, children and pregnant women are definitely off limits. The respect for this taboo marks the limits between the vila's young bandits and outside ag­gressors who respect no limits. People are quick to remind you, “The police don't respect anyone—not even babies and pregnant women!” Of course, it happens that parents (par­ticularly the mother) administer a heavy-handed beating to their child. Such episodes rep­resent the rare occasions on which neighbors (particularly those who are family relations) will interfere—particularly if it appears that the father or mother is getting carried away. A wife who wants to leave her husband will receive general encouragement if she can persuade people he's battered her during a pregnancy. On the other hand, if she isn't pregnant, she will probably be considered capable of defending herself.

The importance of physical violence in daily life gives a distinct advantage to the maconheiros over other members of the community, and to the men over other members of their household.

The neutralization of physical force

Whereas the maconheiros may be useful as protection against outside aggressors, they represent a threat that must be controlled within the community. Early on in the project, I discovered that vila dwellers were divided into two sorts: those who lived in fear and continually complained of the “dangerous elements” in the neighborhood, and those who had no complaints. The latter felt “respected.” The former did not, and with cause, for they suffered near-daily aggressions: a child sent out to buy bread would be accosted and “lose” his money, a chicken coop would be found empty, a door forced open and the gas bottle stolen. One woman even had her roof carried off while she slept. Although the po­lice might eventually be summoned to settle a conjugal spat, no one would think of call­ing them in for defense against the maconheiros.

Respeito, the native term closest to “honor,” normally appeared in the form of a tran­sitive verb, to describe the manner a person treated another, but rarely mutually. In 90 percent of the cases registered in my field notes, the subject of the verb clearly had supe­rior status and “to respect” an inferior meant not cashing in on this advantage.

So, how is it exactly that a vila resident can guarantee respect?

To answer this question, we should take a look at the vila's leading personalities, men whom the maconheiros are supposed to respect. Mikika, an authoritarian father of twelve, including several adult boys, is the owner of a small bar. Atanajildo is the owner of the most prosperous general store in the vila. Also, as a junkyard owner, he is the vila's biggest employer. Joao, a night watchman who hopes to be president of the new resident association, struts up and down the main road with a revolver tucked ostenta­tiously in his belt. They are all heads of relatively stable households, in possession of several of the conventional marks of prestige.

One would never say that these important men are respected; rather, “they demand respect.” In this case, the respectful attitude of the maconheiros implies more than a sim­ple abstention of the use of violence; if the process stopped there, nothing would guaran­tee cohesion of the social fabric. The element that creates an active bond between the maconheiros and the vila's leaders is well known to the less powerful residents for it is what they themselves give in exchange for the maconheiros respect: homage. One pays homage to the local leaders by accepting them as mediators between the vila and munici­pal authorities, by responding to their plea for community works (flattening the road, digging a sewer); Atanajildo's prestige was, for example, considerably increased when he agreed to dig the foundations of a new community center. Paying homage to the maconheiros involves a bit more subtlety.

In order to study this aspect of the social code, it would be useful to compare two families that, despite the two heads' similar status (as salaried workers), have completely different relationships with the group of maconheiros. Seu Jorge was attacked in broad daylight as he returned home, with his wife on his arm, after receiving his week's pay. This was but one of the many episodes of harassment his family underwent at the hands of the maconheiros. Seu Elpidio, on the contrary, can arrive drunk at two in the morning, with his paycheck practically falling from his pocket, and not a soul touches him.

Here we come to a major observation: vila residents' interactions are regulated by a code of honor in which physical violence and homage are the principal moneys of ex­change. Seu Elpidio and the members of his family, like other vila residents who want to live in peace, curry the favor of the maconheiros. One may do this by offering small gifts or services. An older resident tells of a time when the maconheiros would knock on peo­ple's doors in the middle of the night demanding money, but nowadays they request only small services: a drink of water, a plate of food, cigarettes. The repercussions of these lit­tle offerings are sized up by local families and most try to integrate themselves into the “circuit of exchange” as soon as possible.

Are these acts of extortion, pure and simple? The situation is not all that simple, for what the maconheiros really appear to be after, more than little favors, is public recogni­tion, the validation of a positive self-image. First of all, people do refuse their requests. One old lady shows me where she hid her cigarettes after the boys came by for the fourth time asking for a smoke: “I just told them I was out of them.” An old man who doesn't want to lend them his horse simply claims the nag is lame. It is the spirit of the gift (or refusal) that counts. Begrudged offerings bring no benefits whatsoever. Seu Elpidio's wife, when she described how she helped the “poor boys,” would always emphasize her non-material gifts. “I give them advice. Some of them claim I do more for them than their own mothers.” In all the households which participate in these exchanges, I would regularly hear praises of the local youth: “So and so is a fine person, generous, hard­working.” The ultimate importance of all these gestures is summed up by Solange when she states: “I get along well with the maconheiros. I have no quarrel with them and I don't put on airs as do some people around here.”

In fact, the symbolic value of homage is worth more than many a material gift. The young people, contrary to the leading personalities, enjoy no conventional marks of pres­tige. Feeling vulnerable, they endeavor to raise their status according to other criteria. What they can offer as their contribution to the circuit of exchange is personal protection. “No one dares touch a hair on the head of Seu Elpidio's girls,” brags one young man, “because they know they'd have me to answer to.” This sort of relation contributes to the positive self-image of the maconheiros. Ironically, it is exactly the constant threat of vio­lence, associated with the young men, that makes their protection—their respect—so valuable.

But the supreme homage that anyone can pay these youth, the ultimate proof of their acceptance, is to permit them access to the girls in the family. Thus, Seu Elpidio's three girls, aged fifteen, twelve, and nine, were in more or less permanent contact with the maconheiros. If no romance blossomed between them, it is probably because the girls considered the fellows more as brothers than as lovers. However, Solange, Elpldio's daughter by a previous marriage, who had lived in the vila for a year and a half with her husband and their children, left her husband shortly before the end of my field research to live with a maconheiro she had met in her father's house. On the other hand, it is sig­nificant that Seu Jorge, victim of constant harassment, keeps his twelve-year-old daugh­ter practically under lock and key at home. A serious sixth-grader (practically the most advanced student in the vila), she never participates in the street-side circles of sociabil­ity; nor do the maconheiros cross her doorstep. Another woman, a single mother whose teenage daughter was highly educated, a high school student, left the neighborhood within a year, explaining her departure thus: “It's impossible to give a daughter a decent upbringing in such a place.”

In their demand for recognition, the young men will not tolerate being ignored as po­tential husbands. Couples whose children are still very young can enter into the exchange circuit, making symbolic offerings to the gang, without compromising their own upward aspirations. However, families with adolescent girls are obliged to let them circulate in the local “marriage market” lest they want to offend the available bachelors. Since this sort of participation, together with the possibility of creating family ties with a macon­heiro, put their projects for upward mobility in risk, many couples prefer to leave the vila rather than to capitulate to its “code.”