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

Overview

D’Orbigny opens the Yurakaré myth sequence with a being named Sararuma or Aima Suné setting the countryside on fire. Trees and living creatures perish, except for a man who has prepared a deep underground refuge with food. The survivor tests the fire by extending a long stick outside. It comes back burning twice and cold the third time, but he still waits four days before emerging into a devastated landscape. This is a narrated destruction in the earlier witness, not simply a prophecy of a future event.

Sararuma then arrives from distant lands dressed entirely in red. Acknowledging responsibility for the disaster, he expresses compassion for the survivor and gives him seeds of plants necessary for human life. The man is told to sow them, and a magnificent wood appears immediately. Destruction and renewed fertility are thus actions of the same figure in this account. The subsequent narrative supplies the survivor with a wife without explaining her arrival; their daughter becomes Ulé’s partner and the mother of Tiri. Sararuma is not said to be her father or to transform into either later figure.

The modern DOBES Yurakaré project describes Aymashunñe as a fiery immortal whose periodic journeys bring world-burning. It distinguishes versions that embed this destruction within Tiri’s story from separate tellings. Fear of another destruction accompanies hope that Tiri may return for those left behind. This modern synthesis is compared with the earlier Aima Suné witness without treating their spellings or narrative arrangements as uniform across all communities.

Burns the inhabited worldAppears dressed in red in d’OrbignyGives restorative seeds to a survivorModern accounts retain recurrent destruction
01

Origins & earliest records

Alcide d’Orbigny, Voyage dans l’Amérique méridionale,III.1 (1844),209–210, with closing reference215. The chapter records1832 travels. Its199 note credits Father Lacueva for much regional information but does not identify an individual narrator of this episode.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete historical myth sequence209–215 and199 provenance note read;1844 title verified in the original scan. DOBES People & Culture cosmology section provides a separately attributed modern comparison; its project team includes Yurakaré transcription and translation work. Neither source is verification of a literal world fire.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Voyage dans l’Amérique méridionale, tomeIII, première partie: Partie historique

    Alcide d’Orbigny · 1844

    Complete myth sequence209–215, with regional provenance note199. Travels framed as1832; title1844 verified in original image. Lacueva credit concerns much of the regional description, not an individually attributed performance of each episode.

  2. 02

    Yurakaré: People & Culture

    DOBES Yurakaré documentation project

    Undated project synthesis, complete cosmology section read; Aymashunñe comparison. Page describes variation and changing religious practices.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

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

  1. Primary textSmithsonian Libraries / Internet Archive: d’Orbigny1844 originalResearch access: 2026-10-05
  2. Research projectDOBES: Yurakaré People & CultureResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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

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