Ah, but then wasn’t I the truly silent woman?
-- Ituiba (ALMEYDITA paragraph 1)

Importance: Ituiba says this in the context of a discussion with Almeyda, but as she is often drifting in flashbacks from the past, it is as if she is speaking to her lost interlocutor, the cartographer named Rugendas. Ituiba had responded to Almeyda telling her of the silent Sudanese girl who read perfectly for Father Tollinare. Ituiba notes that silence is a virtue for women in her culture. She is also from Sudan. Female silence in Brazil, in the context of slavery, has an altogether different meaning. Almeyda was struck by Mexia's silence, taking it as noble refusal to engage with the perpetrators of injustice on their terms. Ituiba's reflective remark suggests that Rugendas was exorcised by her silence when they travelled through the interior as companions - but unequal ones - in days past.

New words for a new landscape...
-- The Dictionary Writer (ALMEYDITA paragraph 5)