Word: serra
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Sixteenth century Portuguese explorers heard rumors of unusually primitive Indians in the state of Paraná. They saw none of them, and the steep, jungle-tangled Serra dos Dourados mountains in the western part of the state deflected both settlers, missionaries and slave hunters. Nothing more was reported about the primitives until 1906, when a Czech scientist named Albert Fritsch made a field trip into the region and met some comparatively advanced Indians dragging three captives who spoke an unknown tongue. He discovered that the captives called themselves Xetsá (pronounced shee-tahss). He studied their language superficially and then...
...both settlers and scientists knew that something very strange lived in the Serra dos Dourados. In 1955 an unusual frost hit northern Parana, destroying jungle fruit and game. Starving Indians crept out of the jungle to pillage the vegetable garden of the Fazenda Santa Rosa, a backwoods farmhouse. The frightened manager sent for help from the Indian Protection Service...
What apparently happened, says Professor Loureiro, was that the small, timid Xetás were driven into the rugged Serra dos Dourados by stronger tribes. Some time during the last four centuries they must have had terrifying brushes with European frontiersmen. Their demonology is dominated by an ogre named Möul who shows in figurines as a tall, long-legged, wide-eyed person, probably a white man grown into a tribal devil. Having seen enough of Möul and his violent ways, the Xetás retired into the tangled heart of the Serra dos Dourados and managed...
Cause of the panic was the allegation that men had been feminized by eating beef of steers fattened with the aid of a female hormonal substance, stilbestrol. The Tribuna do Povo reported that husky Sebastiao de Lima Serra of Aragatuba, 500 miles north of Rio, had suffered a "veritable metamorphosis, turning into a docile, falsetto-voiced creature of strange customs." Serra blamed his plight on the hormone-treated beef. Rio's state government proclaimed: "The necessary measures will be taken to end this evil...
...title refers to the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, reputedly paved with gold, and the film begins as a Spanish expedition, led by Captain Gasper Portola (Anthony Quinn) and Lieut. José Mendoza (Richard Egan), forks horse and clatters away to find them. Friar Serra (Michael Rennie) goes along as chaplain of the band, hoping to found missions among the California Indians...