Epépim and his star-transformed brothers

Overview

Three brothers live in separate households: one is married, while the other two live away from him. Of the unmarried pair, the story calls one handsome and the other ugly; the handsome brother seeks a way to kill the other. He prepares a pointed stake and invites his victim to gather urucu for painting their bodies. When the victim climbs the tree and straddles a branch, the waiting brother strikes from below. The victim dies and falls; the killer cuts off his legs and leaves the body.

The married brother’s wife visits and asks after the missing man. Told that he is out walking, she goes into the woodland and discovers his body behind the house. The next passage has a brother arrive and dispose of the severed legs in the river, where they become surubim fish. The corpse remains on earth, but the victim’s soul rises into the sky and becomes Epépim, represented with a body in the middle and legs on either side. Both the celestial limbs and the fish transformation remain in the account; the text supplies no physical reassembly or resurrection.

The murderer becomes Caiuanon, identified in the notes with Venus, while the married brother becomes Itenhen, identified with Sirius. Both remain facing the slain brother, and the final Portuguese rendering presents their perpetual watching as punishment. This conclusion groups both surviving brothers in the penalty even though the preceding action explicitly assigns the murder to one; it supplies no separate explanation of the married brother’s culpability. The heading equates Epépim with Orion or the Three Magi, while a comparative footnote retells Greek Orion material. That comparison is Rodrigues’s editorial addition, not evidence that the brothers are Greek heroes.

Origins & earliest records

João Barbosa Rodrigues, Poranduba amazonense (1890), third part, VII Epépim,227–230. Original headings use Makuchys and Rio Branco; no personal teller name appears.

Records & interpretation

Complete interlinear Portuguese glosses, separate Portuguese rendering and notes inspected in original pages. Closing note230 describes an elderly Indigenous informant without Portuguese and locates these traditions among Makuchys of the Branco and Mahu, without naming him.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Poranduba amazonense, ou Kochiyma-uara porandub

   João Barbosa Rodrigues · 1890

   VII Epépim,227–230. Complete original-page reading and contextual closing note230; individual telling date unspecified.

Family, evolution & connections

Epépim’s three brothers — Rodrigues’s Rio Branco account

Complete VII interlinear glosses, Portuguese rendering and notes, pp. 227–230.

Explicit opening brotherhood and one designated married brother. Sibling grouping, not a parent node. Names are final celestial identities, not invented birth names. Birth order, parents and children are unstated. Only one brother is explicitly the killer; collective closing punishment is not additional evidence of a second killing. The collector’s Greek Orion footnote is commentary, not shared parentage.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textUFPE: Barbosa Rodrigues1890 original scanResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.