Invisible Visible Beings: Amazonian Oral Tradition in Histórias de Curupira, by Paulo Maués Corrêa

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a bibliographic research on the invisible visible beings (Loureiro, 2015) that inhabit the Amazon rainforest. All of this is based on the work Histórias de Curupira by Paulo Maués Corrêa (2018), which offers us a collection of ten (10) legendary tales about Curupira, a forest spirit that continues to be one of the most representative figures in the national collective imagination, especially in the Amazonian context, despite being demonized by the European colonizer shortly after arriving in what he referred to as the New World. In this context, we also aim to continue contributing to the de-demonization of our myths through our practice as teachers of Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE). We take into account that learning a foreign language transcends grammar and textbooks, which is why we base our approach on the theoretical contributions of authors such as Krenak (2020, 2022), Colombres (2016, 2017), Loureiro (2015), Magán (2010), Vaz Filho and Carvalho (2013), Magalhães (1975), Eliade (1961), among others. The research highlights the importance of Curupira in the daily life of rural, river, and forest peoples, revealing that, unlike the European colonizer, the inhabitants of the Amazon do not hesitate to speak of the Curupira, whether as a mother or father of the forest, categorizing it as a protector of the forest and distancing it from the colonizer’s dogmatic perspective, who viewed it as a demon and expressed disdain for our myths.