The Amazon’s Curupira · The One with Backward Feet

In Amazonian legend the Curupira is a guardian of the forest: short, with bark-like skin, red hair and feet turned backwards. Its footprints point the opposite way, and anyone who follows them walks deeper and deeper in.

It punishes those who cut trees wantonly, kill young animals or waste what they take from the forest; at night it whistles and leads hunters into stands of trees with no way out.

The hunters’ rules are therefore practical: take only what you need, and leave something behind before you go in.

Folklore / Amazon · Brazil / Time immemorial