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Overview
Rodrigues places Tamaquaré in two short animal tales with different river attributions. In “A cantiga do Anú,” from the Rio Solimões, the anú coroca bird calls his reptile brother-in-law after a grasshopper escapes into deep water. The bird describes the lost object as a turtle he has shot that carried away his arrow, and asks Tamaquaré to dive. The reptile finds the grasshopper, eats it and surfaces to report that he found no arrow. Anú accepts that the arrow is lost. The collector connects the bird’s call with this summons to retrieve an arrow; the narrative never supplies an actual turtle or a recovered weapon.
The Rio Negro dialogue “O Tamaquaré e o fim do mundo” concerns the reptile’s succession of proposed refuges. Told that the world will burn, Tamaquaré suggests jumping into the river, entering a hole in the ground and climbing a tree. Each refuge is rejected: the river will boil, the earth catch fire and the tree burn. With nowhere left to flee, he cries that he will die. The dialogue ends with that cry, without staging the fire’s arrival or a subsequent escape.
Rodrigues tentatively identifies the reptile as Enyalius laticeps and interprets its answers as displaying movement through water, land and trees. That is an editorial zoological identification, not evidence that an actual lizard predicts an apocalypse. The first tale explicitly makes the two animals brothers-in-law but does not identify the marriage producing that relationship. The second does not name Tamaquaré’s interlocutor or repeat the kinship.
Origins & earliest records
João Barbosa Rodrigues, Poranduba amazonense (1890), animal tales I–II, pp.147–150: Rio Solimões and Rio Negro respectively. Individual tellers and collection dates are not supplied in these headings.
Records & interpretation
Complete printed147–150 read from the original scan: tale I includes interlinear Portuguese glosses, a separate Portuguese rendering and notes; tale II has interlinear glosses and the collector’s explanatory note, with no separate prose translation.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Poranduba amazonense, ou Kochiyma-uara porandub
Complete animal tales I–II, A cantiga do Anú (Rio Solimões),147–148, and O Tamaquaré e o fim do mundo (Rio Negro),149–150, including the collector’s notes.
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.
- 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.