Uirapuru

Uirapuru or Irapuru is the name given to a series of different birds. We have Red Uirapurus, Deer Uirapurus, White-breasted Uirapurus and a multitude of other types. However, the one that is considered the True Uirapuru has the scientific name Cyphorhinus arada; A small, brownish-gray bird with a brownish body. White streaks cross its neck and descend along its wings. The legends and narratives surrounding this bird, however, can easily overflow to all who bear its name.

Câmara Cascudo himself recounts, in his “Dictionary of Brazilian Folklore,” that he had never heard the song of the Uirapuru, and that the bird, which was usually indicated as being the famous animal, was a “tyrannus of grayish and black color.” Like a Tesourinha or a Suiriri. Could it really have been a Uirapuru?

The song of the Uirapuru

They say its song is magical. So beautiful that all the birds fall silent to listen to it. This mysterious song is only heard for 15 or 20 days a year, during its mating season, which lasts between September and October. The first recording of this vocalization was made in 1962 in Acre by the ornithologist Johan Dalgas Frisch. The recording was published on the album Voices of the Amazon, which also contained songs of other birds, vocalizations of wild pigs, giant otters, howler monkeys, and other animals.

Amulets and good luck

In the past, it was common for the prepared body of the Uirapuru to be used as an amulet. Something that, today, due to the restriction of environmental laws, has disappeared. Cascudo himself recounts having found many different birds turned into amulets, but so dirty with carajuru and cunauaru that he did not recognize them.

Carajuru or Crajiru (Arrabidaea chica) is a herb widely used in shamanic practices, especially for fumigation and for the production of a red powder. The other ingredient is the resin of the cunauaru frog, the so-called "white pitch". You can imagine the state of the amulets back then. They were kept in pockets and had different functions, according to the use for which they were prepared, but always linked to good luck. Another old custom was to bury the amulet on the threshold of the shop door to attract more customers.

Still on thresholds, Cascudo records that owl feathers, soaked in their own blood and buried in the door or gatepost, drove away ghosts and nullified witchcraft.