“Hey! Diamante! Dianho! Get up, there! Straight ahead, you damned burro, you!” Leading the procession, with tinkling bells and showy breast-trappings, came the burro that best knew the road, the “little mother of the troop.” The colonels made a point of decking out these “little mothers” as an emblem of their wealth and power. “Whoa, Piranha! Get up, Borboleta! The Devil’s in that mule—” And so their long whips would crack in the air and on the ground as the animals with their sure, slow pace stirred up the mud of the street. From a doorway some acquaintance would call out the most overworked gibe that the town knew: “How goes it, wife of a donkey-driver?” “I’m on my way to see your mother right now.” Now and then herds of lowing oxen would come in from the backlands and would either remain in Tabocas to be sold for slaughter or continue on to Ilhéos.
