# Jurupari

Jurupari or Iurupari (Nhengatu: Juruparý) in the Tupian mythology is a mythical hero or god known to indigenous tribes of Brazil and Colombia, by indigenous peoples of the Tupi-Guarani, Tucano and Arawak linguistic families. This legend intervenes in some important traditions such as the laws of Jurupari — or the laws of the Sun (Guaraci, his father) —, the ritual of Jurupari, and within this, the flutes and masks of Jurupari.

## The Legend of Jurupari

The Legend of Jurupari is an Amazonian founding mythical tale that is known from the transcription made from the version told at the end of the 19th century by the Brazilian indigenous Maximiano José Roberto and translated into Italian by Count Ermanno Stradelli. It is one of the great pre-Columbian texts that have survived along with the Popol Vuh.
The legend of Jurupari was common knowledge in the tribes of the Colombian-Brazilian Amazon, especially in the Vaupés River basin, having been transmitted orally.
At the end of the 19th century, Maximiano José Roberto wrote a version in the Nheengatu language with Latin characters. This version was lost and only the Italian version of the text by Ermanno Stradelli, published in the bulletin of the Italian Geographical Society in 1890 under the title Leggenda dell’ Jurupary, survived.

### Summary of the legend
#### Birth of Ceucy

An epidemic struck the men and only a few old men and a pajé (or shaman) survived. To resolve what could be the end of the race, the women gathered at Lake Muypa, where the star-goddess Ceucy (the name given to the Pleiades) used to bathe. The women had not come to any solution when Ceucy came to bathe. At that moment the old pajé, who was present even though the women had not noticed, reprimanded them for having disobeyed his prohibition of approaching the lake. As a consequence, Ceucy would no longer bathe there and from then on women could not participate in important matters. The pajé then impregnated all the women. Ten moons later all the women gave birth at the same time and among the newborns a girl stood out for her beauty who was called Ceucy, because she was as beautiful as the Ceucy of the sky.

#### Birth of Jurupari

When she reached the age of first love, Ceucy, still pure, was tempted to eat the mapati or pihycan fruit (presumably the piquia, a nut from the Amazon region). She easily found some and the fruit juices fertilized her. She tried to hide her condition, but eventually it was impossible and she confessed the story of the mapati/pihycan. When the child was born he resembled the Sun because of his great beauty. The Tenuiana (inhabitants of the Tenui Mountains) proclaimed him their tuixaua, their chief, and called him Jurupari, which means "the one who covers the mouth", because men would keep the secrets of his cult.
In addition to Jurupari/Iurupari, the civilizing hero and Son of the Sun is also known as Izí ("the one who originated from the fruit"), Bocan ("Bad Heart" [for those who do not follow his law]) and Maasanqueró.

#### Disappearance of Jurupari

One moon after Jurupari was born, the people decided to give him the chief's insignia, but the itá-tuixaua, the "chief's stone", was missing, so they had to go to the Moon Hook Mountain Range to get it back. But the women divided the tribe into two groups: some said that everyone should go for the stone, others that only the men should go because the women could not touch it. They argued over a moon until they realized that Jurupari had disappeared.
The women blamed the old men and threatened to give them "the torture of the fishes," a torture that consisted of tying the body in the water, leaving the head out, and wounding them so that the fish, attracted by the taste of blood, would come and devour them. They even went so far as to tie up the men so that they could not escape.
During the night, they heard Jurupari's cry coming from the mapati/pihycan tree. When they reached it, everything was silent. The second night the cry was repeated and they searched among the branches of the mapati/pihycan but found nothing. The third night they surrounded the tree but began to hear the cry among themselves, without being able to discover its origin. The cry was so terrifying that they decided not to search for Jurupari again.
Although the crying did not stop, everyone forgot about Jurupari except Ceucy, who, secluded on the top of a mountain, cried for her son's absence until she fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. Three nights passed like this. One morning, when she woke up, she realized that there was no milk in her breasts. She tried to stay awake to see who was nursing, but she was overcome by sleep and the next day she woke up without milk.
Two years passed and the crying was replaced by laughter, singing and screams of a child playing with unknown beings. Jurupari grew strong, although invisible, while Ceucy grew old quickly, heartbroken without knowing anything about her son.

#### The return of Jurupari

Fifteen years later, on a moonlit night when the celestial Ceucy came to bathe in the lake, Jurupari reappeared in the village holding the hand of his mother, the earthly Ceucy. He was a young man as beautiful as the Sun, his father. The Tenuiana rushed to give him the chief's ornaments even though the itá-tuixaua was still missing.
* He comes to replace the chaotic, matriarchal laws with the laws of the Sun, which are essentially patriarchal and orderly;
* He also brings a set of rites, songs and myths about his ancestors;
* He visits different tribes to instruct them on the new laws, and in each tribe he faces resistance from the women;
* Among his own disciples there are some traitors and others faithful to him;
* He finds love in a woman named Carumá;
* At the end of the story he travels to the East to look for a woman worthy of the Sun.

## Colombian legend

A version of the Yuruparí legend found in the Orinoquía and the Colombian Amazon areas has been discussed by Javier Ocampo López, who calls him the "civilizing god of Vaupés". Yuruparí is described as the deity of male dominance and adversary to the Amazon women. His cult sanctifies the holy flute, symbolic of the bones and the voice of the deity.
During a party, Yuruparí was made drunk by the women and burned to ashes in a bonfire. His ashes turned into the first pachuba palm (Wettinia drudei), from which sacred flutes with the voice of Yuruparí could be made. However, during his death, the women stole back all the power-invested flutes from the men, and regained their matriarchy. Yuruparí came back to life, confiscating all the plants the women had stolen, and punished them. Yuruparí in death had also engendered the wild yuca plant, from which chicha is made, and this beverage is taken to be the deity's blood.

## The Christian Devil

At the time of the arrival of the first Europeans in Brazil (16th century), Jurupari was the most widespread cult. In order to combat it, Catholic missionaries began to associate Jurupari with the Christian devil in order to discourage his worship among the natives.

### Dream demon

In another well-known legend, Jurupari is actually the god of darkness and evil, who would visit the Indians in their dreams, frightening them with nightmares and omens of horrible dangers, but preventing his victims from screaming — which sometimes caused them to suffocate. The Jesuits encouraged this version of the legend, some even saying that they were the ones who created it, and it was then accepted by the Indians, eager for an explanation as to why they had nightmares. For Câmara Cascudo, this conception of a "nightmare" creature is an amalgam of European and African legends, invented by wet nurses to control the behavior of children.

## The Jurupari ritual

The Jurupari ritual is basically a male initiation ritual, in which boys between 12 and 15 years old (the initiates) and the initiating pajé participate.
Women are not allowed to enter the ritual for the most part. During this celebration flutes and trumpets are used, which produce the roars of the ancestral Anaconda and Jaguar; they are made with paxiúba trunk, an Amazonian palm tree that produces a full and low sound. There are also the Jurupari masks, woven from monkey and women's hair and palm leaves. After this event, the initiates are ready to marry and carry out all the activities of an adult man, such as hunting, fishing and participating in the decisions of the village. In addition to being a coming of age ceremony, it is also a ritual of thanking nature for the abundance of fishing.
According to the description by Sílvia Maria S. Carvalho of what she calls the "Religion of Jurupari", in the Amazon region of the upper Rio Negro, this comprises a secret male cult, revealed to initiates mainly in the second initiation: its rites include flagellations, use of tobacco and coca, hallucinogens such as yagé (caapi), and, further west, also paricá.