Case file · Folklore / legend
Stradelli records the legend of Jurupari
In 1890 the Italian explorer Ermanno Stradelli published the 'Legend of Jurupari', a long origin narrative of the Rio Negro peoples about the culture hero who gave men the sacred flutes and the law.
1890 CE · -0.12, -67.08 · status: legend
The account
Stradelli based it on a text set down by Maximiano José Roberto, of Indigenous descent, from oral tradition. The rites associated with Jurupari remain central to peoples of the Uaupés and Içana.
The sceptical view
Missionaries equated Jurupari with the devil; ethnographers stress it is an ancestor and a ritual complex, not a demon.
Connections in the atlas
- Venâncio Kamiko, Baniwa prophet
- The Jurupari masks shown at Ipanoré
- The Barasana He House rites
- Reichel-Dolmatoff's Desana