Case file · Folklore / legend
Bates and the noises of the Curupira
On forest walks near Belém soon after he arrived in 1848, the naturalist Henry Walter Bates noted that local people blamed every unexplained forest noise on the Curupira, the wild man or spirit of the forest.
1848 CE · -1.38, -48.35 · status: account
The account
His young guide refused to go into the forest alone and made a ring of plaited palm leaf to hang on the path as a charm. Bates recorded that some described the Curupira as shaggy and tree-dwelling, others as cloven-footed and red-faced.
The sceptical view
Bates himself thought the sounds came from falling branches and animals.