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In a previous essay, "Locura y dolor: la elaboraci6n de la historia en Os Sertoes y La guerra delfin del mundo,"' I have tried to unhinge the metaphor(s) by which both Euclides da Cunha and Mario Vargas Llosa elaborate their understanding of history and the signification of the events of Canudos as history. In that essay I showed first that Euclides da Cunha's original metaphor-Darwin's theory of evolution-reaches its own limits as soon as the "historical" description of the Sertao is over and the narrative of the events of Canudos must begin. At that point Euclides must account for the presence of the Conselheiro as a man whose word is capable of mobilizing great masses of people into an unprecedented plan of action. Euclides, self-depicted as "the scientist," reaches quickly and most respectably into another 19th