Sapucaia-Roca¹ is a small settlement on the Madeira’s river banks².   

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Down below the place where the settlement is established, the indigenous says once existed another settlement in there, much larger than this one, and that one day it disappeared from the surface of the earth, burying itself in the depths of the river.  

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That’s because the Muras³ - the people who used to dwelt there- were used to have a disorderly and wicked life, and in the feasts, which in Tupana’s⁴ honor they celebrated, dancing such lascivious dances and singing such impure songs that made the Angaturamas⁵, the protective spirits, who looked over them, cry out of pain. 

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Many times, the elderly and inspired pajés⁶, cognizant of Tupana’s secrets, had warned them about the terrible punishment that threatened them if they did not stop with the practice of such criminal abominations.

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However, the Muras were blind and deaf; they did not see nor hear them. 

 

But, one day, in the middle of the feasts and the dances, and when the most seethed the orgy, a sudden earth-shaking and in the voracity of the water, which was rising, the settlement has disappeared.    

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The highest place of the river bank, that can still be seen until these days, attest to the depth of the abyss where the settlement and the reprobates were swamped… 

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Then, many years later, the current population began to emerge, which still cannot reach the level of luster of the one which had been submerged.  

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The Muras again resided in there, but soon, through the darkness of the night, they began to hear, dominated by the fear, as the audible chant of the roosters, that unrelenting rose from the bottom of the waters.  

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Consulted the pajés, seeking the secrets of fate, they had declared that such singing of the roosters, heard in the dead of night, came from those same Angaturamas, which once lamented the miserable luck of the swamped settlement, and that always the protectors of the progeny of the Muras, had served themselves of the awaken singing of the submerged sapucaia-roca roosters, so that they can remember the tremendous punishment, which the elders went through and moving away the new generation from the dangers of having the same ending.  

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This is the fact that gave origin to the name of the settlement: Sapucaia-roca*

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1. Sapucaia-Roca: “Sapucaia-Roca” or “Sapucaia-Oroca” in history context means “chicken coop”, but “sapucaia” may also have as meaning a type of Brazilian Myrtaceae trees (shrub plants with flowers) and also its fruit, this kind of plant also have glands producers of aromatic oils. The legend may have been created by missionaries as a moralist fable, aiming at the catechism process. There are in the legend elements from  Atlantis and possibly also from Eldorado or Paitíti. 

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2. Rio Madeira: It is a river from the Amazonas River’s watershed that baths the states of Rondônia and Amazonas, with a length of approximately 3315km (2.060 mi.), being the 17th largest in the world by extension.  

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3. Muras: The Muras is a Brazilian indigenous group which inhabits the central and east of the Amazonas region. They have wide participation in the colonial Brazilian history, where it was documented that they were people with a skittish personality and a spirit of resistance before the Portugueses domain.  They had been attacked three times in successive and bloody "punitive expeditions", eventually generated contamination by diseases as measles and smallpox, but in 1786 a “peace treaty” was set. 

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4. Tupana: Normally called “Tupã”, is considered a powerful, fearless and ruthless god. Is represented in artistic demonstrations as a superhero, a strong man, who manipulates thunderbolts, the god of the thunder. But this figure of Tupã that is presented in Brazilian folklore is a catholic creation, according to Luís da Câmara Cascudo (1898-1986) in the book “Dicionário do Folclore Brasileiro” (“Dictionary of Brazilian Folklore”). Tupã was created by Europeans to sell the idea of a god that created all and everything, used to compare with the God of the Christians to help in the indigenous catechism process, and such image was marked in the history.  According to Cascudo, there is no evidence of a Tupã existence, this omnipotent and omnipresent being, before the Portugueses arrived, such an image was not common for the Tupis. According to the folklorist Ermanno Stradelli (1852-1926), Tupã is, in fact, Tupana, the mother of the thunder “unknown entity that thunders and shows its fearsomeness imposed through the thunder, that slaughters as the colossus oh the forest was made of straw and takes lives of the creatures leaving their remains charred”. In Tupi culture, everything inanimate or not has a mother, mother is who generate, who take care, protect its son along the development process. In other words, Tupana is nothing more than the mother of thunder, having the same considerations as other mothers in the indigenous culture.  

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5. Angaturamas: Recognized by the indigenous people Mura as protective spirit. But has also the meaning of that one who practices the good things, is generous, welcoming, protective. (Gaturama) 

Good omen, good presage.

Angaturama from tupi-guarani: “angatu”= good spirit + “rama”= what it will be (future).

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6. Pajés: indigenous people responsible for performing and conducting healing rituals, in a ritualization the pajé has the authority to invoke and control the spirits, having, with this, healing powers, healer. A shaman. Comes from the tupi pa’ye.