Wilson Carneiro de Souza / Edited text from the cyber magazine Arca da União

By Eduardo Bayer*

Wilson Carneiro de Souza was born in the countryside of the old Federal Territory of Acre [which nowadays is a state], in the proximities of the Tarauacá River, in 18th of July 1920. His parents Antônio and Antônia were from Riacho do Sangue, in Ceará, and they died when Wilson and his only brother, Nelson, were just two kids, reason why the two boys had to work for their own survival since very early in life, in the lack of any relatives to assist them. It was as juvenile workers that they became rubber tappers, and of this period of difficulties they account that in the region of Gregório River they went to cut rubber trees near an Indian tribe, soon victimized by measles and whose remainders ran away from the contact with the white man, which they had the peculiarity of the older never expose their faces and only the youngsters, less recluse, would reveal to have blond hair and blue eyes, in one of the so many mysteries of the Amazon. 

Of the youth, Wilson Carneiro always remembered his care and the caprice that he had with his things, saying that in spite the hard life of a rubber tapper he always liked to present himself impeccable for celebration occasions, well dressed and wearing a good perfume. His teenager's passion would have been a woman named Violeta, but who he really ended up marrying was a beautiful cabocla named Zilda Teixeira, after showing his value working hard for her father, in the fields, which was common in the engagements tradition of the countryside. The marriage was the base for Wilson to develop in life, leaving the life of a rubber tapper to work as a "magarefe”, in other words, buying cattle (oxen and pigs) in the settlements to sell the meat in the city of Tarauacá, and after in the capital, Rio Branco, to where they moved in the 50s.

The couple raised five children: José Ribamar, Terezinha, Francisco das Chagas, Raimundo Nonato and Gecila. In Rio Branco, thanks to his extraordinary practical sense and the dealer’s skill, Wilson Carneiro used his savings from the working years' to establish himself as a prosperous dealer in the Aviário’s district, where his establishment was called "Ponto Chic". However, in 1961, his older son got seriously sick, bringing despair to his family because neither the medicine nor pretended spiritual healers managed to cure him. It was then, after many fruitless attempts, that Wilson heard from Colonel Holderness Maia, military that knew Mestre Raimundo Irineu Serra since the times of the Acre’s Territorial Guard, the advice of seeking help in the Daime spiritual work.

Wilson Carneiro had many times crossed by the Custódio Freire colony’s road, where was the Alto Santo and Mestre’s house, tolling pigs that he dealt over there, having even negotiated swine’s of the Irineu Serra’s flock, however never having knowledge of the doctrine founded and cultivated by him. It was just in 1962 that he arrived to the Center of Mental Irradiation Divine Light, bringing along his son José to be cured. What seemed impossible to be accomplished finally happened: his son obtained the cure and Wilson and Zilda, thankful, would little by little join the rows of fardados of the Queen of the Forest, bringing along his children.

Wilson Carneiro was present in 1965 when arrived in the doctrine, also in search of the cure, the Amazonian Sebastião Mota de Melo. Both were around their 40s at this time and soon they became close friends; a friendship that was extended to their families. Sebastião Mota was charismatic, vibrant and Wilson Carneiro was very fond of talking about religiosity and about life in general with him and since the beginning he trusted Sebastião’s spiritual point of view. Master Irineu, already in his 70s, oriented as the following: enabling Sebastião to be a Daime maker in the Colônia Cinco Mil where he lived (many of his neighbors and fellow workers accompanied him, since the beginning, to the sessions in Alto Santo), and delivering to Wilson Carneiro the task of dispatching the Daime (sent by the center) in the National Air mail for the spiritist works of Mr. Regino, manager of a hotel at the center of Porto Velho, in Rondônia. Together with this function was the incumbency of Wilson Carneiro to have Daime in his residence to be able to attend any fraternity member in need of a first aid center in the city of Rio Branco, since the access to Alto Santo was troublesome and many times impracticable in that time.

For the healing works Wilson Carneiro would call Ms. Clícia Cavalcante, wife of a preeminent city lawyer and being a member of the Doctrine longer than him, to render the assistance to patients singing his favorite hinário, which was the one of Maria Damião. After knowing about it, Ms. Percília, ritual’s chief at the center, corrected him saying that it was necessary to start always by Mestre Irineu’s hymns, because he was the “tree trunk” of the doctrine and it is always necessary to initiate the “climb” by the trunk and not by the foliages. This way, Wilson Carneiro started to form a book of hymns for his healing works that today it is known as of the "Line of the Arrochim", remembering that in his birthday celebrations the sung hinário in his residence was the one of Raimundo Gomes, who attended every year with his family for that spiritual service and where Arrochim was cited more than once as a healer spirit "that comes as a hummingbird". Sebastião Mota, always a guest for that celebration, would after recall in his own hinário the force of this healing hummingbird.

In July of 1971 Mestre Irineu Serra came to die, leaving in his followers the feeling of a mission to accomplish in the continuity of his spiritual works. It was, however, no understanding among the followers who saw in the obedience to the Center’s statute, lately created, a serious restriction regarding the operation administration of other places of ritual work, because even the group of Porto Velho had made its own statute, recommended by Mestre, who didn’t want his center to keep any branch.

In 1974 the center directory sought to oblige Sebastião Mota to deliver all the Daime made in the Colônia Cinco Mil to the Alto Santo headquarters, suspending with that measure the possibility that he could hold spiritual services with the drink on his account. Wilson Carneiro stood aside his best friend and they left the center with their respective families. Many other fardados, from Mestre’s Family included, disagreed of the position taken by the directory, represented in its majority by the Gomes’ family, and they helped to create in the Colônia Cinco Mil a new church, which was baptized as Eclectic Center of the Flowing Universal Light Raimundo Irineu Serra and whose foundation date was then declared as being October 6th of 1969, when a hinário in honor to Sebastião Mota’s birthday (the first danced service authorized by Master Irineu to be held in the place of his residence) took place [years before].

"Within it exists a church of which the Master spoke", was what said one of the first hymns of Sebastião Mota, and the church was risen in the Colônia Cinco Mil to be inaugurated in the celebration of Saint John the Baptist of 1975. One of the hymns of Maria Damião many decades before already declared: "Look at the house, the house of Saint John", and the doctrinaire interpretation that guided the new Center constitution was exactly that Sebastião Mota was the successor of Mestre Irineu’s leadership, for being in this life, for him, the same that John the Baptist was to his cousin Jesus Christ, only that instead of being his precursor now he would be his successor. This interpretation, a mythological one, had as its origin, without a doubt, the messianic religious culture of the northeastern native tradition of these families of Irineu Serra’s followers, who pre-existed the arrival of Wilson Carneiro and Sebastião Mota in the Doctrine. As Mestre Irineu never ratified but neither publicly condemned these doctrine referred interpretations contained in the hinários, there was in this time a followers' group who understood Raimundo Gomes (whose birthday was on June 24th, the celebration date of Saint John) as being Baptist's Reincarnation, and another group, backed in the power of the spiritual works of Sebastião Mota, who considered being him the holy pastor and prophet. Wilson Carneiro related as it was argued in that time about the subject and that he concluded, in a debate with a fardado of the old headquarters, saying:

"Then you remain with your Saint John that I’ll stay with mine".

The differences arisen in the services rites between both currents of Irineu Serra’s followers were little by little deepening from that point on. Mestre Irineu, affectionately called by his disciples as Padrinho, had worked more than half century with the Daime asking for a unified ritual and advising towards fraternity union. Being the group of Sebastião Mota separated from the old Center, this one started to be called as Padrinho Sebastião, and the leaderships under his command little by little were also this way nominated, so that Wilson Carneiro, chief of the healing works also became "Padrinho Wilson". It was the time of the arrival of new people in Acre, of distinct formation to that of the first followers but who tried to valorize the Daime as the Amazonian’s traditional culture. With the presence of these followers it was strengthened the understanding that it was fit to the new Center to guide the doctrine’s expansion to the rest of the country, especially the great urban centers, and it was interpreted the term "esplandir", neologism also from the hinário of Raimundo Gomes and that made part of the hinário of Sebastião Mota, as being the instruction to expand the charity work based in the Daime's religious ritual. "Indoctrinate the whole world without me having anything to fear", Mestre Irineu’s hinário instruction proceeded being a slogan lived by the command of the new Center that from that point on would face all the challenges.

Then Padrinho Sebastião asked for Wilson Carneiro to quit being a dealer and to join for good the community life, moving from the city to the Colônia Cinco Mil, occasion in which he gave him a good piece of land so that he could get from it the means to provide for his children and grandchildren. In this occasion Padrinho Wilson and his wife, Madrinha Zilda, who already had an adoptive daughter, Tânia Maria, brought from a trip to Canindé's Sanctuary, in Ceará, a grandchild to raise: George Washington, son of the “Chaga”, who moved from Acre to Pará some time before and there he had his family. Already in their 60s, together with Tânia and Washington, the couple preceded living from cattle near the Colônia Cinco Mil and was in their residence that Padrinho Sebastião presented for the first time his hymn "O Símbolo da Verdade” (The Symbol of Truth), dedicated to their marriage.

Padrinho Sebastião started to formalize his wish to carry his followers far away from the city, in order to build a new age of communitarian life and having the forest as the provider. It thence started the families' transfer, firstly to Seringal Rio do Ouro and after to the Purus River, where would be created the Céu do Mapiá’s village, in 1983, while the Colônia Cinco Mil was surrendered to the command of Padrinho Wilson. This way he explained how this transition took place:

It was February 15th of 1981 when I arrived [to live] in the Colônia Cinco Mil. There I stayed in the house of a farmer; in my son-in-law's house. I stayed, and when it was in the end of June he [Padrinho Sebastião] called me to take care of the church. I said: Padrinho, I do not want to be the church’s director; I am not up to the task. "But you are the chosen one and you can’t run from it". But Padrinho, I recognize that I do not have capacity of directing a spiritist center. "Learns like I did, but you can’t run: The chosen is you". Then I went to see Alfredo, who is the general commander of the Doctrine, and I said: Alfredo, Padrinho wants me to remain as the church leader and I know myself to say that I do not have capacity of directing a spiritist center. "Padrinho [Wilson], but you are the chosen one. There is no use in running away because the chosen one is you. Look, daddy took charge of the wheels, I did as well and now it is your turn". (...) then when they gave me the church’s key Alfredo offered me a hymn that says "Now you receive this gold key". It was the hymn given to me when they gave me the church’s key. But just to address that my mission is really to care for the sick; this was the mission that was left to me by Mestre. I live with the responsibility to command the church but my mission is really to care for the sick...

The CEFLURIS, Eclectic Center of the Flowing Universal Light Raimundo Irineu Serra, was re-founded in the Amazon State having as national headquarters the Céu do Mapia’s church. In 1988, attending to the need to register the religious institution, it was created in the Colônia Cinco Mil the CEFLUWCS, Eclectic Center of the Flowing Universal Light Wilson Carneiro de Souza. Padrinho Wilson became a widower two years before and he started to feel the weight of age, because he had a chronic pulmonary problem, besides the diabetes. He preferred to remain as honorary president and to start to make as successor his newest son, Raimundo Nonato, who had become a Daime maker and had his own hinário to cultivate in the Center’s command. Padrinho Wilson traveled several times in excursion by the CEFLURIS's Branches in the southeast and south of Brazil, always accompanied by his grandchild Washington, excellent guitar player and singer, and this way he continued preserving Padrinho Sebastião’s legacy. Besides being friends both Padrinhos were united in posterity, because Gecila, the youngest daughter of Wilson Carneiro ended up wedding José, son of Sebastião Mota, having three children who well represent the amalgam of these Mestre’s lineage of followers for the upcoming generations.

Wilson Carneiro, who liked to consider himself a “Mestre’s little ram*”, playing with the words to refer so much to his loyalty to the pastors that he chose to follow as to the term "carneiro”, used traditionally to nominate the bottles of five liters of wine that were reused to keep the Daime, said farewell to this world in Rio Branco, in June 26th of 1998, with seventy-seven years of age. Through his example of faith he sought to present to the ones who knew him the value so much of the conciliation and of the understanding as of the observance of the traditions rites delegated by Irineu Serra, avoiding thus both the disagreement attitudes in the religious services and the disfiguration of the work due to learning indifference. He always asked for much caprice as he knew that Mestre wanted all of his followers to have caprice in the presentation of their works and he always demonstrated in his narratives that were the life contingencies that had taught him to be "meek and a lamb".

_________________________________________________________
*ram - Carneiro in Portuguese.

Of a Daime that he had received from Mestre Irineu’s hands, to drink with his family, he kept as a relic a small bottle that we see in the photo that illustrates this article, whose content he intended to drink in his final moments, because he would say that the Daime was his life. Having died in a hospital, under allopath care, he couldn’t drink of this relic, but he surely received in such moment the same spiritual relief that so many times he provided to others in the healing works that he directed, and many are the cure cases that could be here related and were provided by the Daime in these sessions.

It is also many the happy memories of this Padrinho that we could narrate and the ones that knew him will certainly recall them to the fellow brother or sister. This homage however we are going to conclude with a narrative that Padrinho Wilson used to tell, with a little taste of eternity, of a starry night in the Colônia Cinco Mil where just he and Padrinho Sebastião remained contemplating and admiring the church for them recently-built, hovering white as a boat in the galaxy open seas, when the friend declared:

"As well as even today they Bible history tells, of that ancient people, of Noah and his ark, of the prophets, one day it will also narrate the history of this church, of this Mestre’s people and of this holy drink".

Certainly that remits us to that esoteric slogan, materialized in the painted plate and placed then about the entrance gate of the Colônia Cinco Mil, "HEI DE VERCER" (I shall win), which continued and will continue echoing in Wilson Carneiro’s House and everywhere. Viva the Holy Cross!

“It is the humming, humming bird
That my Mother gave me
To ward off illnesses
From those who are deserving

My Master is with me
For he is my love
It’s in heaven and on earth
Jesus Christ the Savior

Oh! My Juramidam
It was He who ordered me
To remember memories
Of the salvation of love

My Master is with me
Right here where I am
It’s the glory of my Father
Jesus Christ the Redeemer

I say yes, I say yes
I say yes and here I am
I don’t forget and only remember
My Master teacher”

63 – Beija-flor (Padrinho Sebastião)

***

Eduardo Bayer Neto* is a writer, video-documentary producer and forest engineer. He is also employee of the Elias Mansour Foundation, of the Acre state and idealizer of the Ayahuasca's Virtual Museum project - of which the cyber magazine Arca da União (Union Ark) is an integrant part.