ABSTRACT
One day, when we were returning from the village where Victor grew up, he told me to leave the br-342, the highway that connects Salvador with the Bahian hinterland. Behind those hills, he said, pointing at a ridge of green hills to the left of the road, lies O Milagre de São Roque – the Miracle of Saint Rochus. It was a place where his madrinha used to take him when he was a small boy. Usually they would go there on foot, all the way from Amélia Rodrigues, to fetch holy water from a spring. Yet sometimes his madrinha – who was a mãe-de-santo – would organize a pick-up truck to take all of her initiates at once.
