Forest mythology

After binging at an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, I went to central Belém’s largest park, the Bosque Rodrigues Alves. The park is a fragment of rainforest that was set aside in the late 1800’s when Belém’s political leadership was trying to create a Paris of the tropics, complete with its own Bois Boulogne.* The fragment is definitely a fragment – the park only covers about two city blocks – but has nice trails and is a good place to enjoy an afternoon if you can tune out bratty children. The most interesting things in the park were the two statues depicting creatures from Amazon Indian mythology.

The iara is basically a Siren of the rainforest: beautiful woman, irresistible voice, hangs out by waterfalls and lures Indians to their death. This one was perched by a little lake on which children take canoe rides:

Iara

The curupira is a little more imaginative. This forest creature can become invisible and has feet that point backwards. I’m not sure how much of this is re-envisioned environmental mumbo jumbo, but the plaque said the curupira protects regular forest dwellers so long as they only hunt for food and use forest resources for what they need. If the Indian uses the forest in an unsustainable manner, the curupira becomes his enemy and can make him get lost in the forest, always coming back to the starting point.

Curupira

I wonder what the curupiras are doing about the topic raised in this article in today’s “New York Times.” The article is about illegal logging in the Amazon, and all of the places mentioned are in the state of Pará. One thing I’m working on at my internship is alternative sanctions to environmental crimes since the penalties established in the laws don’t work. With the drought in the Amazon and the dry season just beginning, this is certain to be a very bad year for logging and forest fires.

Get busy, little curupiras.


*This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. For most of the 1800’s, Brazil had a monopoly on the production of rubber, which was in great demand during the Industrial Revolution. Because of the rubber trade, Belém and Manaus became fabulously wealthy.