In colonial society the social extremes were better fed than the intermediate strata. "Better fed, we repeat, were the extremes of slave society: the whites of the casas granges and the Negroes of the senzalas." For this reason he holds it as natural that the slaves became the progenitors of many of the strongest and healthiest elements in the population, the athletes, the sailors, and some of the agile fighting classes who live outside the law, such as capoeiras and cabras. And he also considers diet as the major factor for explaining why the intermediate classes were the ancestors of some of the weakest and most incapable groups in present-day society. Because of their undernourished condition, these "free but miserable" persons were much more susceptible to the ravages of malaria, beriberi, syphilis, and bouba (tumor) than either the better-fed slaves or the aristocratic elements in the population. Today he holds that their descendants, "this almost useless population of cabodos and light mulattoes" are "more valuable as clinical material than as an economic force."33
32 Freyre, Casa Grande & Senzala, 33 Ibd. FUENTE: BRAZIL: PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS, Revised Edition By T. LYNN SMITH, LOUISIANA STATK UNIVERSITY 1954.
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308 PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS OF BRAZIL
In colonial society the social extremes were better fed than the intermediate strata. "Better fed, we repeat, were the extremes of slave society: the whites of the casas granges and the Negroes of the senzalas." For this reason he holds it as natural that the slaves became the progenitors of many of the strongest and healthiest elements in the population, the athletes, the sailors, and some of the agile fighting classes who live outside the law, such as capoeiras and cabras. And he also considers diet as the major factor for explaining why the intermediate classes were the ancestors of some of the weakest and most incapable groups in present-day society. Because of their undernourished condition, these "free but miserable" persons were much more susceptible to the ravages of malaria, beriberi, syphilis, and bouba (tumor) than either the better-fed slaves or the aristocratic elements in the population. Today he holds that their descendants, "this almost useless population of cabodos and light mulattoes" are "more valuable as clinical material than as an economic force."33
32 Freyre, Casa Grande & Senzala, 33 Ibd.
FUENTE: BRAZIL: PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS, Revised Edition
By T. LYNN SMITH, LOUISIANA STATK UNIVERSITY 1954.
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