The magical legend of the irapuru bird born in the amazon rainforest

Uirapurú, legend of the Amazon

Surrealism, as art that expresses what happens in the unconscious, in dreams and drives, already existed in Latin America before it developed as an artistic movement in Europe. It was part of life itself, of legends and mythologies. When André Breton's surrealism arrived as a modern movement, art in Brazilian cities was more interested in the national. But there were exceptional cases in relation to the oneiric, to psychoanalysis and to the experience of the hallucinatory and the magical. Key literary works by modern writers such as Raul Bopp's Cobra Norato (1931) and Macunaíma (1928); Mário de Andrade's fantastic and magical realism novels; or the painting The Lake, by Tarsila do Amaral, mixed Freudian concepts with the Candomblé cult and the occult in the heart of the Amazon.

Brazilian Maria Martins was interested in studying and revaluing anthropology, local culture, religious cults such as Macumba and rituals, and the ethnicity of her country. In her sculptural works, she incorporated surrealistic elements, explored the sensuality and eroticism of the female body and, at the same time, developing the metamorphosis of the sinuous and monstrous forms of nature, legends and goddesses of the mythologies of the Amazon. One of the sculptures by Maria Martins included in the exhibition Anthropophagy and Modernity. Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection is Uirapurú, a bronze from around 1945.

We share the two Amazon legends about Uirapurú. One version goes like this:

Legend has it that a beautiful Indian, was disputed by all the young women of the tribe, was killed by his rival.
But, as if by enchantment, his body disappeared transformed into an invisible bird....
From that day on, passionate and sad, the Indians heard a wonderful song that filled the jungle with harmony, but flew away when they chased it.
It was the beautiful Indian they had lost forever, bewitched in a bird with the most melodious voice in the jungle, it was the Uirapurú.
Its song is pure and delicate like that of a flute.
The Amazon jungle is silent in reverence to the master of the birds. And the Indians are thrilled to hear it.
Very few have the opportunity to hear the small bird that only sings for a few minutes, at dawn and dusk, during the 15 days a year it takes to build its nest.
At the sound of its song, men and women rush to make requests, confident that they will be quickly attended to.
Many seek its feathers and even pieces of nest, to which they attribute magical powers.
They believe that one of their feathers gives men luck in love and business... and a piece of their nest guarantees women the passion and fidelity of their loved one forever.