Son of Manuel Gomes da Silva and Firmina Cleto, Cristino Gomes da Silva Cleto – later known as Corisco - was born in 1907, in the town of Matinha de Água Branca, in the State of Alagoas. As the years passed, he became as handsome as a movie star: he was well-built, had broad shoulders, fair skin and long blond hair. Besides these attributes, he was endowed with great physical strength and extraordinary courage. In the August of 1926, he joined Lampião’s band, receiving the nickname Diabo Louro – Blond Devil.
Corisco kidnapped Sérgia Ribeiro da Silva – whose nickname was Dadá – when she was only thirteen years old. He forced her onto his horse’s saddle and fled to the caatinga. Dadá was brown-skinned, had black hair and was 1.70m tall. When she was brutally deflowered by the Blond Devil, the teenager suffered a haemorrhage that was so intense she almost died. Over time, however, Corisco became more delicate, and the hatred felt by her was first transformed into sympathy and then into immense love.
Just as he trained her in the use of various weapons, Corisco taught Dadá to read, write and count. Because of her great courage, she was so admired by the bandits that certain band leaders emphasised: “Dadá is worth more than many cangaceiros!” She had seven children with the Blond Devil, but only three survived.
From 1921 to 1934, Lampião divided his group into several subgroups, which were headed by Corisco, Moita Brava, Português, Moreno, Labareda, Baiano, José Sereno and Mariano. For the king of cangaço, however, Corisco’s was always the most important band of all. In addition to being comrades, the two were still great friends.
On one occasion concerning the defence of male honour, the Blond Devil adopted a position that, many years later, became well known in the country: it concerned the end of the loving relationship between Cristina and Português. She had betrayed him with a member of Corisco’s gang – the cangaceiro Gitirana – and Português had hired Catingueira to “cleanse his tainted honour”.
When Catingueira arrived at Corisco’s camp, he soon called Gitirana for a private conversation. At that moment, Maria Bonita and Lampião were in the same camp and, by chance, approached them. Maria Bonita stepped forward, suggesting to Catingueira that the person to be eliminated should be Cristina (the real culprit, according to her) and not Gitirana. Then Corisco replied, “She gave what was hers! Nobody has anything to do with it!” Unhappy with the answer, Maria Bonita continued defending the male counterpart: “Yes, but Português will be demoralised!” Already impatient with this confrontation, the Blond Devil ended the argument:
"He takes care of his wife! I take care of my boy!"
Since that day, these words have become famous and this expression has been used up to the present, even by many Brazilian politicians. To paraphrase Corisco, the parliamentarians usually say: Take care of what is yours because, I take care of what is mine!
In relation to that amorous outcome, Lampião gave full support to Corisco. Cristina remained with the band, hidden for a few months. However, as was to be expected, she was killed when she went to her relatives’ house, since Português had hired other cangaceiros to kill her. In this sense, there was no doubt: female adultery was not tolerated in the Northeast.
Lampião and his comrades resisted almost twenty years, fighting with civilians that persecuted them and with the volantes [paramilitary police] from several States. During this time, cangaceiros attacked properties, attacked villages, towns and cities, stole, pillaged, tortured and killed their opponents, and had to live with intense gunfights and ambushes to escape the police. In this context, an important event forever changed the history of cangaço.
It was in the early hours of 28 July 1938, and the cangaceiros were sleeping in their tents. They were camped on Angicos farm, in Sergipe’s semi-arid region. Suddenly, the volante soldiers appeared, carrying portable machine guns. They came in very softly and attacked the band. It was a true massacre! Of the thirty-four people present, eleven were beheaded there (Lampião and Maria Bonita, among them). The remaining survivors either fled or surrendered to the police. During the slaughter, Corisco and Dadá were very far away, on the Emendada farm in Alagoas.
Five days after the incident, Corisco raided the house of José Ventura Domingos (a farmer who had become friends with the cangaceiros) and, thinking that he was taken out revenge on the culprit, as he was induced by João Almeida Santos (commonly called Joça Bernardo), the true traitor, he followed The Law of Talion “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and murdered the owner of the house, his wife and children. At the request of Dadá, the Blond Devil left a woman who suckled a baby and her three small children alive, justifying it by saying “someone has to live to tell the story”. After the slaughter, he dismembered the corpses, placed their heads in a burlap sack, and with the following words sent them to Lieutenant João Bezerra:
"Make a fry-up with these heads. I killed two women to avenge the death of two women who were murdered in Angico."
In October 1939, during a hard fight against three volantes at the Lagoa da Serra farm in Sergipe, Corisco was injured and never recovered: his right hand was paralysed and his left arm was stunted. From that day on, Dadá became the first (and only) woman in cangaço to use a rifle.
Regarding the Blond Devil, one important aspect needs to be emphasised: what extra he had in terms of beauty he lacked in diplomacy and the ability to command. He was cruel and brutal, and the colonels – among whom were the main arms suppliers for Lampião – did not view him highly, nor did they trust him. All this also contributed to the weakening of banditry. How could they continue the fight without the support of the colonels? Given the context, cangaço only managed to last another two years.
In May 1940, Corisco broke up his band. With only Dadá and Rio Branco and his wife, he set out for southern Bahia, in search of a safe haven. He then began a long journey through the semi-arid region. To avoid being recognised, he dressed as a cowboy, cut off his long blond hair, got rid of his hat and his clothes, and with all the gold he had collected all those years, he planned to have a different life.
In the meantime, the courts were offering an amnesty to those bandits who willingly surrendered. If this measure represented the chance to abandon the life of the crime definitively for some, for others (Corisco, for example) it was unacceptable.
On 5 May 1940, finally, in the region of Brotas de Macaúbas, in Bahia, a volante surrounded what remained of the group and Corisco was hit in the belly by a machine-gun blast. With his guts showing, he survived only for ten hours. In that same conflict, Dadá was hit in the leg and, despite undergoing several surgeries, had to have her right leg amputated. On the final confrontation, she stated that the police were determined to rob and kill them, that her companion was disabled and had no chance to defend himself.
Corisco was buried in Jeremoabo, Bahia. Days later, the grave was raided, the body exhumed, and his head and right arm cut off. What is the reason for such barbarism? At the time, it was alleged that scientists needed to study the remains of the cangaceiro. In this sense, these were measured, weighed, studied, but no physical or mental deformity was discovered. Hence, the remains were exposed to public visitation for more than thirty years at the Nina Rodrigues Museum in Bahia, alongside the heads of Lampião, Maria Bonita and other members of the band.
It is worth noting that, even with one leg amputated, Dadá married a house painter of Jeremoabo and lived with him for more than half a century. She died in February 1994.
For years, the economist Silvio Bulhões – son of Corisco and Dadá – worked very hard with government authorities, requesting that the macabre public exhibition be closed down and that the exposed parts of his father (as well as those of the other members of the gang ) could be buried with dignity. An important step occurred with Bill No. 2,867, on 24 May 1965, establishing an end point for the exposition. But, in spite of the existence of the Project, the burial still took several years to materialise, taking place on 6 February 1969.
It should be noted that, one year before that Bill came about, director and filmmaker Glauber Rocha would compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival with the film Black God, White Devil (with soundtrack by Sérgio Ricardo) in the May of 1964. During the screening of the film, the audience watched an unforgettable duel between Corisco (who played the role of the devil himself) and the sinister figure of Antônio das Mortes, the professional killer in charge of eliminating him. In one of the anthological scenes, that of the final persecution, the audience listened to Antônio das Mortes shout: "Surrender, Corisco!” And, struggling with all his strength, the cangaceiro replied that he would only give himself up in another life. In the film, persecutor and persecuted face each other by singing the following song:
Antônio das Mortes: Se entrega, Corisco!
Corisco: Eu não me entrego, não,
Eu não sou passarinho,
Prá viver lá na prisão,
Antônio das Mortes: Se entrega, Corisco!
Corisco: Eu não me entrego, não,
Não me entrego ao tenente,
Não me entrego ao capitão,
Eu me entrego só na morte,
De parabelo na mão!
Antônio das Mortes: Surrender, Corisco!
Corisco: I won’t surrender, no,
I’m not a little bird,
To live there in prison,
Antônio das Mortes: Surrender, Corisco!
Corisco: I won’t surrender, no,
I won’t surrender to the lieutenant,
I won’t surrender to the captain,
I surrender myself only to death,
With a parabellum in hand!
Before the public, Glauber Rocha was able to cement the myth of Corisco as an extremely indomitable man and one of immense determination. Anyone who knows the historical facts, however, knows that in the final conflict, when he was mortally shot by the bullets, the Blond Devil – who had long been an invalid and could not attack anyone – only shouted:
"Greater are the powers of God!"
Recife, 17 April 2006.
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how to quote this text
VAINSENCHER, Semira Adler. Corisco (Cristino Gomes da Silva Cleto). In: Pesquisa Escolar. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2006. Available at:https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/artigo/corisco/. Accessed: month day year. (Exemple.: Aug. 6, 2023.)