In the middle of the last century, the most curious incidents attracted the attention of the residents of Bañados, a village located in the district of Santa Maria.
The thing was this: from time to time, in one or another estate, they began to come across a completely new mat, where the same new wicker basket - someone's invisible hands at night left these objects in such a place so that in the morning, at the beginning of the working day, they would be noticed.
Where did these items come from? Who brought them? No one could have guessed this. Truly, these were amazing events.
But there was also a flip side to the coin. At the same time, every time a knife, an ax, a hacksaw, left in the open air, disappeared, sometimes a piece of dried meat or fish or a lamb impaled on a stick...
“This is incredible,” everyone said. And since it was impossible to reveal this secret, popular imagination delighted in weaving bizarre legends around these incidents, in which the devil invariably appeared.
At first, people, mainly women, did not touch the objects found in this way, believing that all this was the machinations of the devil or that this was, at least, witchcraft, in which black slaves brought from the shores of Africa were very skilled.
But over time, having become convinced that neither mats nor baskets bring harm to anyone, and, on the contrary, bring obvious benefit, prejudice disappeared, and it came to the point that others deliberately left knives, scissors, ropes or chickens with tied legs on a tree branch or at the threshold of a house in the hope of receiving a mat or basket in exchange.
Over the years, such exchanges became the most common occurrence in that region; they lost the touch of the miraculous and turned into ordinary transactions.
One day, the slaves, who went for honey into the virgin forest, located about two kilometers from the landowner’s house, noticed that in the thicket a light cloud of white smoke was spiraling upward. They were surprised; Trying to solve this riddle, one of the blacks climbed to the top of a giant tree and, looking in the direction where the smoke was coming from, discovered a fire in the thicket of the forest, on which the black monster was frying meat.
The slave climbed down from the tree and told his companions what he had seen; It was decided to seize this black man, who was undoubtedly a fugitive.
Armed to the teeth, the slaves surrounded the stranger and, moving forward carefully, rushed at him and grabbed him, despite the stubborn resistance of their victim.
He was an ugly-built black man; His appearance was terrifying: he had a tangled mane, his face was overgrown with thick stubble, his eyes sparkled like coals. He was wearing a robe made from the skin of a coati, a predatory animal from the raccoon family, sewn with the help of vines, and something like a loincloth made from the skin of the same animal.
When this new specimen of the local fauna was brought to the estate - he was later nicknamed Uncle Coati for his attire - at first no one could question him about anything, because the unknown person did not know Portuguese.
Then the blacks born on the African coast were called to talk to Uncle Coati, and one of them finally understood him. They turned out to be fellow countrymen.
Finally, the mystery of the mats and baskets has been solved!
It was like this: a consignment of blacks intended for auction, in which the aforementioned Uncle Coati was, arrived in Rio Parde; from there he managed to escape; making his way through sertans, swamps, lost places, fighting off predatory animals, suffering from bad weather, he reached the district of Santa Maria healthy and unharmed, and there, in a virgin forest, he built himself a hut and finally rested.
Kind by nature, instinctively honest, he did not want to steal the tools or meat he needed if he did not have the spoils. He weaved mats and Kozins very well: he had been doing this for half his life in his homeland, and here he again took up this craft and worked conscientiously so that at night, secretly, he could take his work to one or another estate and exchange it for whatever he could get his hands on and that could be useful to him.
In short, the touching story of Uncle Coaty passed from mouth to mouth and in the end went around the entire neighborhood.
Everyone loved and admired him.
Uncle Coati's black head was now surrounded by a halo of glory, which rewarded the poor fellow for his bitter life. Free and confident that he would not become an object of purchase and sale, Uncle Coati began to work here and there, but he never stayed on any estate for good: he often left everything and went into the forest again: he wanted to live in the forest and hunt coatis.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru