The Curupira

The curupira is a forest guardian of Brazilian folklore, said to have backward-turned feet that throw off anyone tracking it. It has become a conservation symbol, most recently the mascot of COP 30 in Belém.

An article in the Fiocruz journal História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos describes the curupira, also spelled currupira or corupira and also called caipora or caapora. The article says it may be either sex, has black skin, has one leg or two, and has hair that can burst into flame. Its feet always point backwards, so that anyone following its tracks goes the wrong way. Its home is the forest. It protects its plants and animals, bangs its axe against tree trunks and frightens hunters.

Wikipedia quotes a letter whose writer said that everyone knew of beings the Brazilians called corupira, which he called demons. He wrote that they often attacked Indigenous people in the bush, whipped, tormented and killed them, and that his fellow Brothers had seen the dead. To keep them from harm, he said, people climbed through rough country to the highest mountain and left feathers, fans and arrows there as offerings.

In the twentieth century the figure became an emblem for nature. The same Fiocruz article says the Fundação Brasileira para a Conservação da Natureza, founded in 1958, chose the curupira as its symbol, describing it as a figure of Brazilian Indigenous folklore. São Paulo state's Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais says deputy Dulce Salles Cunha Braga put forward bill 558 in 1968 to make the curupira the state's guardian of forests and wildlife, to be promoted in primary and secondary schools. She brought the bill back on 9 July 1970 as number 40.

In 2025 g1 reported that the government had picked the curupira as mascot of COP 30 in Belém. g1 describes it as a being of Brazilian folklore that protects the forests from people who cut down trees by making them lose their way.