Caipora

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File:Caipora.jpg
Caipora riding a "forest hog" (Script error: No such module "Lang".) or peccary

Caipora (Script error: No such module "IPA".) or Caapora (KaaporaTemplate:Sfnp) is a forest spirit or humanoid and guardian of wildlife or game in Brazilian folklore.

The word "Caipora" comes from Tupi and means "inhabitant of the forest", and perhaps may be traced to Kaagere (also meaning "forest dweller", and an alias of anhanga) of the Tupi-Guaraní mythology, but this is far from definite.

Caipora is variously represented as a dark-skinned, small Native American girl (caboclinha) or boy (Script error: No such module "Lang".), a dwarf or large-sized hairy humanoid or beast. It is often said to ride an animal such as the peccary, and armed with a stick or whip made of certain plants. It takes bribes of tobacco and alcohol, and sometimes also has a pipe.

Its description varies greatly depending on the region or source. It is sometimes confused with Curupira, which is another mythological creature who protects the forest, but it is also amenable to comparison with other mythical creatures (Saci, Pé de garrafa) with which it may share certain traits.

Nomenclature

Luís da Câmara Cascudo contended that Caapora (Caapóra[1]) is the masculine and Caipora (Caipóra[2]) is the feminine form (thus preceded by feminine definite article: "A Caipora" ), the gender changed by vowel shift from a to i.[3] Or, Caipora is the vulgarized spelling,Template:Sfnp while Kaapora is the localized name used in the states of Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba and Ceará, etc., according to João Barbosa Rodrigues.Template:Sfnp

Other alternate forms are Cahapora or Cahipora.Template:Sfnp

In Bahia, the being is female, and her name is corrupted to Script error: No such module "Lang". due to assimilation with Script error: No such module "Lang"., the lady of the forest, and Script error: No such module "Lang"., meaning "fence, etc.",Template:Sfnp[4] but this term is generally recognized as having other meanings: "caiçaras" refer to coastal-dwelling people, derived from caiçara, referring to branches used by fishermen to trap fish.[5]Template:Refn (See further description of Kaiçara, below).

Etymology

The terms Script error: No such module "Lang". and Script error: No such module "Lang". (syn. anhanga) both mean "forest dweller", containing the stem Script error: No such module "Lang". "forest" in Tupi.Template:SfnpTemplate:Refn[6][7]

Alternative etymologies are that Caiporo may descend from Script error: No such module "Lang". meaning "one who carries fire" or "one who burns"; or possibly from Script error: No such module "Lang". "one who is shy" or "one who runs away", according to the gloss by Teodoro Fernandes Sampaio (1928).[8]

Figurative use

The term Caipora is figuratively applied to persons whose presence or intervention is considered to be of bad influence,Template:Refn and sometimes also applied to persons who is going through tough times, with bad luck and unhappiness.Template:Refn Note that according to the natives, the Caapora is so powerful that the Indian who has encountered it becomes unsuccessful at every step,Template:Refn that is to say, a hunter or fisherman who encountered it could be afflicted with ill-lucked caipórismo for the rest of his life.[1]Template:Refn

The word "Caipora" has also been used to describe the slaves who had escaped into the forests.[9]

Description

The lore specifically about the Caapora/Caipora are not attested by the Jesuits,[3] and cannot be classed as a piece of native Tupi-Guarani myth known from the missionary era, unless the aforementioned identity with the Kaagere/Anhanga can be ascertained, but Casudo considers the original ancestry of the Caapora to be obscure.[3]

Nevertheless, the lore is ubiquitous all over Brazil, said to inhabit not only the Amazon rainforest but "the hills of Rio Grande do Sul or the fields of Santa Catarina and Minas Gerais" in the south.[3]

Dwarf or giant, boy or girl

The Caapora is described as dwarf-sized being, looking like an indigenous human,Template:Refn and dark-skinned.[10] Sometimes described as a large-headed child and other times as an enchanted Script error: No such module "Lang". (diminutive female form of caboclo, i.e., indigenous girl-child[11]),Template:Refn or enchanted Script error: No such module "Lang". (boy)Template:Refn though still considered a "dark, robust, hairy, agile" girl/boy at that.[10] The girl form may be naked or be wearing a tanga/thong (or loincloth[12]).[13] Cascudo believes there is relative consensus that Caapora is a dwarf figure.[14]

However, by a number of commentators, the Caapora is considered a giant, e.g., "a large man covered in black hair" by José Vieira Couto de Magalhães, and by others.Template:Sfnp[14]Template:Efn João Simões Lopes Neto (1913) described it as a hairy giant man.[1]Template:Sfnp Couto de Magalhães also records a Nheengatu (Tupi) tale about the Jabuti (tortoise) and the giant Caapora".Template:Sfnp[14][13] Additionally Juan Bautista Ambrosetti (1917) also recorded that the "Caá-Porá" was considered a hairy giant with shaggy hair in the state of Paraná. This Caá-Porá would eat raw the animals downed by hunters but left undiscovered.Template:Sfnp Cornélio Pires (1921) described the caipora as a Script error: No such module "Lang". (var. of cabocloTemplate:Refn) and a "big, fat guy, hairy as a beast, bearded, short-headed, with a flat snub nose, thick lips and a full face".Template:Refn

The Caapora of Ceará is bristly-headed, but not hairy-bodied, with sharp teeth like the howler monkey, and (glowing redTemplate:Refn) eyes like embers.[15] Elsewhere in the Northeast Region, it rides a deer or even a rabbit[16] (suggesting a small size).

Bahia's Kaiçara is dark-skinned, that is, "a small cabocla, almost black",[17][12] whereas in Ilhéus, Bahia, they know her as Kaapora and describe her as a "young Script error: No such module "Lang"., fair-skinned and beautiful".[18] Furthermore, in one Bahia tale, the Caipora is an "old black man",Template:Sfnp who after receiving tobacco, aids a man lost in the woods by using a freshly cut stick (vara) to magically transport him back home.[19] In a second Bahia tale, the Caipora was a hairy little boy, and only one side of whom could be seen, black as a devil.[20][21]

Habitat, mounting animals, herd, dog

He dwells in the (hollows of) rotting trees, according to an ethnic Timbira informant.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn Some say he dwells with, the so-called "forest hog" (Script error: No such module "Lang".) or peccary. He also famously mounts these creatures for his rides. The "forest hog " may be either the creature known in Portuguese as queixada (white-lipped peccary) or caititu (collared peccary).[14] He may also ride a tapir,Template:RefnTemplate:Refn or porcupine,[22] or other creatures.

Caipora rides his pig or peccary while holding a stick, and waves them around to cause them to flee (so as to spoil the hunt for undeserving hunters),Template:Refn or just to drive his animal, as with a riding crop.[23]Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

In the Northeast he is said to carry a whip of the spiny vine (Template:Langx, a Smilax sp.[13]Template:Refn)[15][21] and by transforming into any beast he wishes, lures the dogs into the woods, then whips them,[16] riding a deer or rabbit.[16]

The Caipora's weapon may be described as simply a "thorny vine" or "spiny liana" (Template:Langx),Template:Sfnp and may be made from various plants, such as the japecanga, nettle, nettlespurge,Template:Efn or favela (Cnidoscolus quercifolius).[21] In some states, she is said to use the thorny liana vine to punish to death an ex-lover who has gone off to marry another girl (cf.Template:Section link).Template:Refn

Some say the Caapora controls a massive herd of caititu peccaries, riding the largest of them,Template:RefnTemplate:Refn or that he rides the last pig at the rearguard of the whole herd.[24] In a Bahia tale, the boy-Caipora rides a lean, bony pig out of the pack.[20] Some state he is surrounded by all kinds of beasts, not only peccaries, deer, but even serpents and insects.[25] He allegedly uses fireflies to act as his scouts.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

Protector of wild game

The Caipora is lord and protector of small game (the lesser-sized animals that are hunted),[26] but she does not have dominion over feathered game (birds).[27]

Formerly it was considered to be easily bribed with tobacco[15] and cachaça liquor to bestow a bountiful catch.[14] The caboclinha is even said to encircle passers-by at night, demanding tobacco for her pipe (Script error: No such module "Lang".).[22] In its female aspect, the Caipora is compared to Diana the huntress-goddess of Roman myth, as Caipora may assist or hinder the hunt depending on the state of grace of the hunter. If displeased with the hunter, she will club the hunting dogs with an invisible weapon.Template:SfnpTemplate:Refn Cascudo writes that she also loves unflavored porridge (Template:Langx) without salt or sugar, and she especially hates peppercorn, so that she will refuse the peppered gruel, and beat the person under her grace.[27]

The Caipora is very vengeful of hunters who do not respect the rules of "fair-play" when hunting.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". The Caipora particularly frowns upon the hunting of pregnant females and those with their young.[21] It is said that the caipora scares away prey[21] (make them disappear so none to be found to huntTemplate:Refn), set traps,[28] or makes hunters lose their way in the jungle by disorients the hunters with simulated animal noises,[25] or by leaving fake tracks.[28]Template:Refn

According to a popular belief, its activity intensifies on those days in which hunting is not supposed to take place, therefore on Fridays,Template:Refn (or moonlit Fridays[21]) it is a taboo to hunt, and Sundays and the religious days, it is forbidden[29][28] or limited to hunts of precise nature.[21] Thus Caipora lays in wait among the ferns on Fridays, and causes the hunt to fail: all the game disappears, and even worse, the hunter's shot will hit a companion or a dog.Template:Refn In one collected anecdote (Guarabira, Paraíba), a man who went hunting on a Friday found no game, except a dove (Template:Langx, Leptotila genus), and though he shot its crop and its innards fell out, the bird revived and flew away.[27]

While religious belief prohibits the hunt on a Friday, Sunday, or holidays, there is a possibility one could bribe the protector of the forest out of punishment by bribing him with Template:Illm. The hunter should go to a trunk of a tree, make the offering, preferably before the hunt on a Thursday night, and say "Here you go, Caipora, [now] let me go away (Script error: No such module "Lang".)". However, this bribe is not failproof.[29][30]

As in the foregoing example (dove), it is said that the Caipora even has the power to resurrect creatures[28]Template:Refn by various means, "at the touch of pig's snout (see example below),Template:Efn his stinger-goad (see example below), Smilax (greenbriar) branch, or by verbal command".Template:Refn

In the aforementioned Caipora as a hairy black boy, who was half invisible and rode a thin pig (tale 2 from Bahia), a hunter shoots several pig with a rifle, but the Caipora arrives holding a "stinger" (Script error: No such module "Lang"., or rather his sting-tipped goad[21]). When the Caipora strikes the downed pigs, they all revive, but the sting breaks off when he overdoes his battering of the last, largest pig. The Caipora then turns up in disguise at the blacksmith's tent to have the sting on the goad repaired.[20]

Another manner in which the Caapora is described as dispensing its boon of hunting is that in exchange for the offering of tobacco, booze (cachaça), or baize (Template:Langx, coarse woolen material), it would allow so-many wild pigs, or pigs from its own herd to be shot by the blessed hunter. If the hunter is without blessing, his bullets will be useless because any pig shot dead will revive at the touch of the snout of the Caapora's riding pig.Template:Refn

As terror

After an encounter with the caipora, a person is overtaken with the dread of terror.Template:Refn More sinister characterizations accuse him of luring children into his dwelling in a rotten tree.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn The Caá-Porá is even alleged to carry a pipe made from human skull and tibia, and is supposed to devour humans by sucking on them, leaving the intestines scattered.Template:Sfnp

The Caipora is merely a ghost that transforms into a pig or dog in regions of Argentina and Uruguay according to Cascudo,[4] such a being is described by Juan Bautista Ambrosetti, who remarks that as the shapeshifting specter, the appellation changes from Caá-Porá to just "Porá" denoting a type of ghost. He adds that it breathes fire to scare the animals away.Template:Sfnp

Love relationships

And "in the forests of Pará, Amazonas and Acre, the modern-day Caipora allegedly engages in romantic commerce with humans, but demands absolute fidelity".Template:Refn Recorded lore from the state of São Paolo also alleges the hairy Caapora chases after unmarried girls who are out alone at night.[24]

Comparative analysis

Cascudo, who considered Caipora to be feminine, as aforementioned,[3] further wrote "Curupiras and Caaporas merged into Caipora, or rather, into the Caipora that the inhabitants of Acre describe, as do the people of the Northeast, as a small, dark, robust, hairy, agile Script error: No such module "Lang". (female child caboclo[11]), with her hair covering her sex, hunting whoever gives her tobacco and having extremely jealous love[-relationships]".[10] Later literature has ascribed the dark-skinned Caapora with red hair, in common with the Curupira.[31][28]

The Caapora and Curupira are to an extent mutually substitutable, and what is told about the one in some region will hold true for the other according to tradition elsewhere[32] or according to a variant source. Just as the Caipora rides the peccary and swings his stick,[33] Curupira is known to mount a porco-do-mato (peccary) and carry a "thick piece of wood".[34]

Cascudo also noted it may be ascribed as having double right feet like some Curupira, or be one-legged like the Saci (or unipedal womanTemplate:Refn), and also be considered either two-eyed or one-eyed (like the Arimaspi, Scythian race dwelling near gold-guarding griffins).[3] Caapora is not known to be a guardian of vegetation, in contrast to the Curupira, but Caapora was the lord of smaller game.[26] Besides being one-eyed, the Caipora has been ascribed a round foot, like the Pé de garrafa ("bottle-foot").Template:Refn

In the state of Sergipe, Caipora is alleged to kill people by tickling, which is characteristic of the Saci.[4] Caipora may be a tobacco-loving girl carrying a pipe[22] (or a hairy man,Template:Sfnp or a hairy beast with one[35]), just as the Saci is commonly depicted as holding a pipe.[32]

Casucudo floated the possiblilty that Caapoora/Caipora might possibly traced to the lore of the Kaagere (var. Kaagerre, Kaagire or Kaigerre), anhanga (French transliteration: AgnanTemplate:Efn), recorded by André Thevet in the 16th century. The description suggests that the indigenous tribes believed the kaagere/anhanga that come at night to do evil-doing could be warded off using fire.[36] The poet Antônio Gonçalves Dias (1867) was convinced Caapora and Kaagere were identical, as they were of the same "forest-dweller" meaning etymologically.Template:Refn

Casucudo observed that the Chilean analogue of the Caipora might be the Anchimallén of Mapuche lore. The Anchimallén too was a protector of animals, also accepted offerings (though of blood), and dealt out misfortune and heralded bad news.[37] An Argentine analogue might be the yastay or llastay (though this yastay may also count as part of Chilean mythology), who is depicted as a frostburned short fat man, and protector especially of the herds of camelids such as the guanaco and vicuña. He also has a black dog as constant companion.[37]

Pop culture references

In the children's TV series Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum, Caipora is a regular character.[38] In this version is characterized as a female creature with a big red fur and a black mask. She has the ability to teleport when hear whistles and sometimes demonstrates wild aspects.

In the 2001 TV adaptation of Sítio do Picapau Amarelo the character was introduced between the last two seasons as a regular character.

In Harry Potter, the Caipora protect the magical school Castelobruxo in Brazil. They are described as small, furry, and extremely mischievous.[39]

Artes do Caipora em Cordel, an illustrated children's book written by the poet and folklorist Template:Illm and illustrated by Luciano Tasso, was published in 2013. The story accounts as a hunter who disobeys his father by going to hunt on a holy day; he finds the Caipora, who resuscitates all the animals that he slaughtered.

In Legend Quest: Masters of Myth, the Caipora makes an appearance on the episode of the same name.

See also

Explanatory notes

Template:Notelist

References

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  1. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  4. ↑ a b c Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". Cf. Sampaio (1901) "Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".". O tupí na geographia nacional: memoria lida no Instituto historico e geographico de S. Paulo.
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ a b c Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  11. ↑ a b Template:Harvp Diccionario. s.v. Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
  12. ↑ a b Cascudo "Caipora" in Dicionário do folclore brasileiro, partially quoted by Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ a b c d e Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  15. ↑ a b c Lore of Ceará according to Template:Harvp
  16. ↑ a b c Lore of Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba according to Template:Harvp
  17. ↑ Template:Harvp: "Script error: No such module "Lang".".
  18. ↑ Template:Harvp"Script error: No such module "Lang".", requoted by Template:Harvp
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters"., p. 81
  20. ↑ a b c Template:Harvp, §Contos e Fabulas Populares da Bahia. (Collected by João da Silva Campos) XLV. O caiora (II), pp. 241–243
  21. ↑ a b c d e f g h Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  22. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". citing Baptista Caetano
  23. ↑ Template:Harvp: "always riding a large pig... and occasionally giving a shout to drive [the animal with] the rod(Script error: No such module "Lang".)"
  24. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ a b Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  27. ↑ a b c Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  28. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  35. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  36. ↑ Thevet (unpublished) apud Métraux, Alfred (1928) Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters"., pp. 63–64, quoted in French by Template:Harvp
  37. ↑ a b Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp
  38. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  39. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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Bibliography

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    • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Script error: No such module "URL".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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