Sertanejo alphabet

Ariano Suassuna conceived the sertanejo alphabet from the designs on cattle branding irons and presented it in his album-book Ferros do Cariri - Uma Heráldica Sertaneja, published in 1974. Branding cattle as a form of identifying the ownership of an animal is an ancestral practice and dates back to the Egyptians.

In Brazil, the procedure has existed since cattle breeding became more widespread. The instrument used to brand cattle is a fire-heated rod applied on the hide of the animal. The most remarkable feature of this system is the hereditary character of these brands. When the son of an owner starts breeding his own livestock, he begins with his father’s brand and to this he adds or subtracts some mark that will differentiate it and identify it as being his own. As the initial brand was a relatively simple sign, the marks that were aggregated to it were added at the beginning or at the end of the symbol, but always connected to the main sign.

Ariano Suassuna began using this popular heraldry and the Sertanejo Alphabet to further intensify the relationship of his literary works with his pictorial universe. The iron, a sign of ownership, becomes a mark of authorship, in an act of deep identification between the author and his work.