Idioma:

1^st Teresina’s Fila Brasileiro Exhibition

CAFIB, in its 40 years of uninterrupted and draconian performance in favor of the Fila Brasileiro’s genetic improvement, is again expanding its frontiers, once again in the Northeast Region, where our first banners had already been laid in the Bahia and Pernambuco territories. Recently, on June 16 of this year, we began to assess the breeding stock of Piauí, toponym that, in the Tupi language, means “river of the piabas” (characin-type of fish). In the course of its history, this federation unit faced a number of controversies to define the perimeter of its territory. The lands of Piaui, until 1714, belonged to Pernambuco and Bahia. In 1715, this region was attached to the Port Authority of Maranhão, from which it broke up in 1718, to form the Port Authority of Piauí, whose first capital was the city of Oeiras. In 1821, it became a province and, in the following year, with the Declaration of Independence of Brazil, it was one the few that continued, temporarily, as a Portuguese colony, becoming independent only as of the Battle of Jenipapo, in 1823. In 1852, its capital was transferred to Teresina, denomination created from the junction of the two first names of Empress Teresa Cristina Maria de Bourbon, considered responsible for intermediating this change next to her husband, Emperor Dom Pedro II. The current state of Piauí was officially established in 1889, with the Declaration of the Republic, but the questions of borders with Maranhão and Bahia were settled only in the first decades of the 20^th century. However, with Ceará, the dispute still remains, covering an area of almost 3,000 km², on Serra do Ibiapaba, which came to be known as “Cerapió” or “Piocerá”, or also as “Gaza Strip of the Northeast”. In 1880, as a result of Dom Pedro II’s imperial decree, Ceará had ceded a section of its coast to Piauí, which needed to have access to the sea to export its cotton (considered the best in Brazil), and, in exchange, it received the area where today is the municipality of Crateús, but that border was demarcated imprecisely. Even today, the population there suffers from the ills of an outlaw land, where the police does not act and there is no investment on the part of city hall. According to 2010 IBGE survey - that does not define to whom this area belongs, alleging that it is not responsible for delimiting territory borders -, 80% of the families resident there do not count on water, roads, schools and health centers. The great attraction of this region is the “Enduro Rally Cerapió/Piocerá”, a joint initiative of the two states, which celebrated 30 years in 2017, with the participation of 600 competitors in the categories of cars, motorcycles, UTVs, quadricycles and bikes, for about 1,000 km of tracks starting in the countryside and finishing at the water front. This traditional event - that relies on strong sponsors and the presence of competitors from all over Brazil and many countries in South and North America, Europe and Asia -, beyond the fierce competition throughout rugged tracks, crossing dunes and rocky ground, is also marked by social initiatives, such as the “Rallyteca Project”, which, this year, handed out 10,000 books throughout the path and the action “With an Eye on the Track”, which carries through ophthalmological services and distributes eyeglasses to the needy.

One of the curiosities is that, of the nine Northeastern states - all bathed by the Atlantic Ocean - Teresina is the only capital located outside the coastal region, because its colonization was not started from the coast, but rather from cattle farmers who came from Bahia and went up north searching for better pastures for their cattle. In addition, of all the federal states, Piauí, squeezed between Ceará and Maranhão, is the one with the smallest sea front, with only 66 km of coast. Teresina boasts that it was the first Brazilian capital officially planned, built in a geometric layout, with symmetrically arranged streets in parallel lines, all starting from the Parnaíba River towards the Poty River. Since its central region is between these two rivers, the city was nicknamed "Mesopotamia of the Northeast”. In addition, it is usually called "Green City" - designation created by the Maranhão-born writer Coelho Neto -, due to its dense vegetation cover. Some also refer to this area as "Chapada do Corisco", because Teresina is the third city in the world in terms of incidence of lightning, or electric discharges.

Another curiosity, in this case not very nice, is the high presence, in the region, of a coleopterous (beetle) insect popularly known as potó, and some call it, also, péla-égua, or wild fire, and that in Peru, gets the sinister name of Dracula’s spider. Its scientific name is Paederus irritans and it discharges a caustic substance that causes serious lesions on people's skin, such as epidemic dermatitis and cutaneous necrosis. Many people believe that these wounds are caused by potó’s urine, while others claim they are caused by a toxin that spreads when the victim, when feeling the itching caused by the insect on the skin and under the clothes, inadvertently crushes it by scratching. During this CAFIB event, we came across the potó walking along the sidewalks and even on restaurant tables, in addition to seeing, in some participants, these terrible wounds caused by it.

In Piauí’s gastronomy, a fundamental ingredient is the sun-dried meat, usually shredded and, when accompanied by cooked rice, makes it one of the main dishes of the local cuisine, the "Maria Isabel". Other highlights of Piauí’s menu are the "Galinha à Cabidela", the "Paçoca", the "Baião de Dois", the "Sarapatel" and the "Panelada". This sector is so strong in the state, that one of its most traditional events is the "Gastronomic Festival Cabritos & Cordeiros (Young Goat and Sheep)", specialized in recipes of goat and sheep meats. The typical drink is cajuína, a non-alcoholic, clarified and sterilized drink, prepared from cashew juice and that was adopted as a cultural symbol of the city of Teresina, in addition to being considered Cultural Heritage of the State. Its typical coloration, of an amber tone, results from the caramelization of its natural sugars. The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a tree native to Brazil, and before the discovery, cashew nut was already widely used by indigenous peoples to prepare several recipes for foods and fermented beverages.

Incidentally, speaking of cashew nut, Piauí recently broke a record that previously belonged to Rio Grande do Norte, which was proud to house, in Parnamirim, in Great Natal, the largest cashew nut tree in the world, recorded in the Guinness Book (the book of records) in 1994 and which produces about 80 thousand cashew nut fruit each year, which corresponds to two and a half tons per harvest. It so happens that, in 2016, a research was concluded, having been requested by the Department of Tourism of the State (SETUR) and led by scientists of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Studies of Biological Injuries of the State University of Piauí (UESPI) - also signed by investigators from the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) -, and internationally disclosed in a seven-page article in the appraised journal “Molecular Genetics and Research”, proving that, in the city of Cajueiro da Paria, at the far North of Piauí‘s coast, a 200-year-old cashew tree, original from a single cashew nut and justifiably nicknamed “Cajueiro-Rei”, constitutes a gigantic tree that spreads its shade on an incredible area of 8,810 square meters. The potiguar city hall, in counter-attack, has already built an arbor so that the Rio Grande do Norte’s tree advances over the road and is studying the expropriation and the demolition of houses in its surroundings, aiming at opening up space for its growth. The fierce Rio Grande do Norte people argue that only when their cashew tree of Praia do Pirangido Norte stops growing (which they guarantee will not happen very soon) Piauí's competitors will be able to claim the title. Also, out of curiosity, it is worth remembering that the cashew nut is a pseudo fruit, because its juicy part is, in fact, the floral peduncle, whereas the fruit itself is constituted by the nut.

This 1^st Exhibition of the Fila Brasileiro in Teresina, promoted by CAFIB, reminded us of the beginning of our work at the end of the 1970’s. I think it is worth remembering, for the younger breeders, the summary of an often told story. At that time, the BKC (Brasil Kennel Club, then mother entity of national cynophilia, before having turned into the current CBKC - Confederação Brasileira de Cinofilia) faced the constraint to try to explain the inexplicable to the foreign judges, invited to judge its events and that they were appalled before the scandalous heterogeneity presented by the Fila Brasileiro breed on the tracks. This chaos was due to the mixed breeding brought about by some breeders who, in a disordered way, and without any scientific criterion, produced their Fila female dogs with male breeders of other breeds, mainly Mastiff, Mastino Napoletano and Great Dane, but communicated the mating as if it had been done by a Fila Brasileiro and, therefore, registered the born puppies as pure Filas, for which pedigrees were issued with deceiving genealogies. From the crossings, also disorderly, among these mixed-breeds resulted the mixed salad in which the breed had been transformed. BKC itself, then, created the so-called Improvement Commission of Fila Brasileiro – CAFIB in order to moralize this vexatious situation. It occurred that - perhaps because BKC had not realized the astounding extent that miscegenation and counterfeit pedigrees had already reached, or because it did not expect the members of the Commission to engage so strenuously in the mission to which they had been assigned - the controversy became more and more fierce. We, from CAFIB, did not stop reporting irregularities and taking action. And BKC felt powerless to resolve the issue because, at that time, the Fila Brasileiro was the most popular breed in the country, for which thousands of pedigrees were issued each year, generating a colossal income, of which that "canine notary ", obviously did not want to give up. The impasse ended with an ultimatum from the BKC, threatening to eliminate us from its roster of referees if we continued with CAFIB's actions. As a result, judges, such as Paulo Santos Cruz, Airton Campbell, Roberto Maruyama, Marília Penteado Maruyama and Américo Cardoso dos Santos Jr., were summarily expelled from Brazil Kennel Club. Francisco Peltier de Queiroz, on the other hand, who was not a judge and, therefore, could not be expelled from that select corporation, was severely punished with the granting of the outrageous title of “persona non grata”. Duly banished, we transformed the Commission into a Club, maintaining the same acronym CAFIB, and continued to perform, with the same rigor, our genetic improvement actions of the breed. Over time, our work achieved international recognition, our analyses and judgments spread to other countries in South America, in addition to North America and Europe, and CAFIB (which replaced CAFIB) and CBKC (which replaced the BKC) kept trimming their edges, evolving into a peaceful relationship. Several breeders and owners of Filas have already obtained CBKC pedigrees for their dogs from the documents issued by CAFIB. For this reason, we were very much surprised when we arrived in Teresina and noted that this old controversy, which has been overcome here in the Central-South for so many years, continues to be stormy in the Northeast. We learned then that the local Kennel Club had threatened to punish its associates who had the nerve to attend our Phenotype and Temperament Analysis, followed by the Exhibition of the dogs approved. This pretentious dictatorial attitude has evidently not been taken seriously by the breeders, in addition not to count on legal support because it hurts the right to come and go of the free citizens of this country. And so, this first event of ours in Piauí was a success, counting on the presence of 41 dogs in the Analysis.

The stage of the show was the well known Fazenda Vale do Leite, a local reference in dairy production, located in the Cacimba Velha Village, which is part of the First Route of Rural Tourism prepared by the Municipal Department of Economic Development (SEMDEC) of the City-Hall of Teresina. Among the breeders, exhibitors and bystanders, there attended participants from 10 cities belonging to four states of the federation. Piauí was represented by Teresina and Timon; Maranhão, by São Luís and Caxias; Minas Gerais, by Itanhandu and Passa Quatro; and São Paulo, by Aparecida, Descalvado, São Paulo and Vargem Grande Paulista. The show was very well organized by Léo de Souza Lima, owner of the Itapi Kennel, who had the collaboration of Gorthon Lima Moritz, from Recanto Moriá Kennel, and the clerical work under the responsibility of Denise Gavião and Mariana Campbell. The females were judged by me and the males by Luciano Gavião, who was also the veterinarian responsible for the event, having as track aids Giovani Éder de Carvalho and Mariana. For the success of the show, we also relied on the cooperation of Cíntia and Gérson Junqueira de Barros, accompanied by the experienced Juliano de Paula Dias, from the Itanhandu Kennel, who provided important assistance in the placement and reading of the chips, in addition to acting as a role model in the temperament tests.

Of the 41 specimens analyzed, 17 were rejected, being 14 of them due to a disqualifying reaction in the temperament and nervous system tests, two due to atypicality and one due to lack of teeth. Of the 24 approved, 22 participated in the Exhibition.

A novelty that greatly pleased the exhibitors and the audience was the comments presented after the judgment, an increasingly frequent practice in CAFIB shows. After each judged class, Luciano and Américo, made a brief explanation justifying the classification and the qualifications granted, which makes the judges' performance transparent and academic.

The result of the main classes was the following:

Best Male: Sagu of Itanhandu, owned by Aluísio R. Mello Filho (Realengo Kennel, from São Luís, MA)

Best Female: Aziza Fortal dos Filas, owned by Wolner Moura Santos Filho (Tabocas Kennel, from Teresina, PI)

Best Head: Sereia do Itanhandu, owned by Léo de Souza Lima and Vitor Abreu de Souza (Itapi Kennel, from Teresina, PI)

Best Temperament: Aziza Fortal dos Filas, owned by Wolner Moura Santos Filho (Tabocas Kennel, from Teresina, PI)

Best Brindle (less than 1 year): Shogum Piedras de Afilar, owned by Leo de Souza Lima and Vitor Abreu de Souza (Itapi Kennel, from Teresina, PI)

Best Brindle (over 1 year of age): Aziza Fortal dos Filas, owned by Wolner Moura Santos Filho (Tabocas Kennel, from Teresina, PI)

The complete result of this exhibition will be published soon by our Disclosure Board on the site: www.cafibbrasil.com And our next event will be the 4^th Exhibition of the Fila Brasileiro de Três Corações (MG), on August 19, 2018, to be judged by Luciano José de Almeida Gavião (Descalvado, SP) and Paulo Augusto Monteiro de Moura (Belo Horizonte, MG).