Sertão
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The sertão (Portuguese pronunciation: [seʁˈtɐ̃w], plural sertões) is the "hinterland" or "backcountry" of Brazil. The word refers both to one of the four sub-regions of the Northeast Region of Brazil or the hinterlands of the country in general (similar to the specific association of "outback" with Australia in English).[1][2] Northeast Brazil is largely covered in a scrubby upland forest called caatingas, from the Tupi language, meaning white forest, since leaves fall during dry season, donning all vegetation, mainly bushes and small trees, now reduced to bare branches and trunks, in its characteristic very light grayish, or off-white, hues.[3] Its borders are not precise. Due to lengthy and unpredictable droughts it is an economically poor region that is well known in Brazilian culture, with a rich history and folklore. The sertão is also detailed within the famous book of Brazilian literature Os Sertões (The Backlands), which was written by the Brazilian author Euclides da Cunha.[4]
Originally the term referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia and South America that
Geographically, the sertão consists mainly of low uplands that form part of the
Two major rivers cross the sertão, the Jaguaribe and further east the Piranhas, and to the south, the larger São Francisco River is in part in the sertão. Smaller rivers dry up at the end of the rainy season.
The term sertão is also used in Portuguese to refer to the Brazilian hinterland in general, regardless of region. It is this sense that corresponds to sertão music,
Etymology
There are a number of hypotheses about the origin of the word Sertão, most of which place its appearance during the
The hypothesis of a corruption of "desertão" is challenged on the basis of phonetics, which reaffirms the impossibility of sertão being a corruption of the Latin desertanu due to the inversion that this path would mean from the point of view of the law of least effort, implying a sonorization of the occlusive as opposed to deafening, which would be the most natural progression.[6]
The immortal of the Brazilian Academy of Letters Gustavo Barroso also rejected this hypothesis and argued that the origin of the word was in the term muchitum, from the Mbunda language of Angola, which means "place in the interior". The term would have been adopted by the Portuguese colonizers in the form of "mulcetão", later reduced to "celtão" and "certão", and then spread throughout the Lusitanian overseas empire during the first centuries of its expansion.[7]
It is also possible that, on the contrary, the Angolan term arose from contact with the Portuguese, given that the town of Sertã, in Portuguese lands, dates back to long before the time of the great navigations. According to local legend, the town was founded in 74 BC by the Roman general Quintus Sertorius under the name "Sertaga", corrupted to "Sartão". On one occasion when enemy troops attacked the settlement, a woman defended herself from the soldiers with a large sertãa, a square frying pan, saving the village. The popularization of the legend and its phonetic similarity to the name of the place would have meant that this word was also used, by extension, to characterize the surroundings of this settlement, one of the most inland lands in the continental Portuguese territory, and later became a synonym for inland lands throughout the nascent Portuguese empire.[8]
Climate and vegetation
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Because the sertão lies just south of the equator, temperatures are nearly uniform throughout the year and are typically tropical, often extremely hot in the west.
However, the sertão is distinctive in its low rainfall compared to other areas of Brazil. Because of the relatively cool temperatures in the
Although annual rainfall averages between 500 millimetres (20 in) and 800 millimetres (31 in) over most of the sertão[
In its natural state, the sertão was covered by a distinctive scrubby
Parts of the sertão are recognized as a biodiversity hot-spot because of its unique flora.[further explanation needed]
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Sertão in the Grande Sertão Veredas National Park
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Rainbow at Brazilian Sertão (desert). Cícero Dantas, Bahia, Brazil.
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The Sertão (desert) of Brazil
See also
- Agreste
- Brazil Socio-Geographic Division
- Brazilian literature
- Caatinga
- Drought
- History of Brazil
- Os Sertões, a classic book about the sertão.
- Tieta do Agreste, a Brazilian novel and film
References
- ^ "Sertão | Drylands, Semi-Arid, Savannas | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2024-03-10. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
- ^ Vivejar (2017-01-26). "Travel experiences you should get to know in the Brazilian backwoods". Vivejar. Archived from the original on April 21, 2024. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
- ^ "Caatinga: 100% brazilian biome". neoenergia.com. Archived from the original on September 23, 2023. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
- ISSN 2222-4270.
- ^ "Delimitação do Semiárido" [Delimitation of the Semiarid] (PDF). antigo.sudene.gov.br (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2021.
- ISSN 2317-8086.
- ISSN 2317-8086.
- ISSN 2317-8086.
- ^ Wernstadt, Frederick L.; World Climatic Data; published 1972 by Climatic Data Press; p. 102.
Sources
Nonfiction
- Michael H. Glantz; Currents of Change: El Niño's Impact on Climate and Society; published 1996 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57659-8.
- Michael H. Glantz (ed.); Drought Follows The Plow: Cultivating Marginal Areas; published 1994 by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44252-4.
- Fagan, Brian; Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilizations; published 2000 by Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-01121-7.
- Nicholas G. Arons; Waiting for Rain: The Politics and Poetry of Drought in Northeast Brazil; published 2004 by University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-2433-5.
- Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands (Os Sertões), 1902
Fiction
- Vidas Secas("Barren Lives"), novel