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

Overview

The Rio Negro account gives an old urubu four married children, with partners named as lizard, owl, duck and small dove. Its heading and ensuing dialogue describe daughters and their husbands, although the opening Portuguese sentence uses filhos. The mother-in-law asks the daughters to have their partners clear a field. She favours the lizard and owl because they leave at dawn and return at midday; she despises the duck and dove because they set out later and return sooner.

The apparent industriousness is deceptive. The lizard sleeps in a hole and the owl on a tree, without cutting even one tree for the field. The duck and dove discover them and tell their wives. They themselves finish the clearing, allow it to dry, and collect food for their mother-in-law. Their grievance has already prompted a declaration of revenge, so the later invitation to help burn the field is part of that narrative progression rather than an unexplained accidental fire.

The parents are directed to a large tree in the middle of the clearing while the younger party works around the edges. Fire surrounds them. The mother calls to her daughter, denies hostility and asks not to be destroyed. She climbs the tree, but the heat reaches her before the flames do. The ending says both old parents fall burned and disappear. It supplies no subsequent escape, restoration or transformation into another species. The fates of the other household members are not completed beyond their participation in the episode.

Rodrigues’s note compares the mistreated workers and clearing episode to the Maya hero-twin cycle; it does not establish a shared identity for these characters. This urubu family is also distinct from the royal-vulture marriage accounts recorded elsewhere in South America. Similar animal names and in-law themes provide grounds for comparison, not permission to combine households or genealogies.

Four animal marriagesFavoured lizard and owl secretly sleepDuck and dove actually clear the fieldParents trapped in burning clearing
01

Origins & earliest records

Barbosa Rodrigues1890, XIII, Urubu taira etá mena irumo,179–186, labelled Rio Negro. No individual narrator or interview date is given beside this tale.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete179–186 interlinear and Portuguese184–186, with comparative180 note. Heading/daughters dialogue versus generic opening filhos is preserved; heat-before-flames and both parents’ disappearance are explicit.

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

    XIII, Urubu taira etá mena irumo,179–186; complete story, interlinear/Portuguese renderings and accompanying notes inspected.

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 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.

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