Mythic Origins: Caramuru and the Founding of Brazil

The story of Diogo Alvares or "Caramuru," one of Brazil's first white inhabitants, is a recurring theme in Brazilian historiography, literature, and imagination. Probably from the town of Viana do Castelo in Minho, Portugal, ¹ it is suspected that Diogo Alvares arrived in a wrecked ship at the beginning of Portuguese colonization. ² He resided in Bahia for many years (between three and six decades), in sporadic contact with the Portuguese. During this period Diogo Alvares may have maintained relations with French corsairs who were on the Brazilian coast. He learned the languages and customs of the Indians and participated in local wars. According to some sources, he earned the respect of Indian chiefs, ³ and evidence shows that he had children with either the "many indigenous women" attributed to him by certain chroniclers, or with Paraguaçu, the daughter of a great warrior and the Tupinambá chief in Bahia. ⁴

The narratives about Caramuru analyzed in this article illustrate how each story interweaves history and fiction. Regardless of the proportion, they all locate the Caramuru episode within the history of the Portuguese colonization of Brazil; what varies is the timing of the episode. My principal argument is that narratives about Caramuru can be considered to be Brazil's myth of origin. The myth of Caramuru dramatizes some of the most fundamental historic and symbolic experiences of Brazil and Portugal.

In order to contextualize the story of Caramuru, let me present the characteristic features of myths of origins. Myths "dramatize the world vision in a constellation of powerful metaphors" by expressing the fundamental experiences of a specific human group. ⁵ They represent one of the possible ways for a community to reveal and share emotions, hopes, fears, and collective dreams, to delineate and resolve conflicts, to transmit and reelaborate experiences; consequently, myths exhibit an intimate relationship with the sacred. Myths group fundamental elements called "archetypes," with which the majority of a group identifies. ⁶

Myths, like dreams, have a distinctive structure. They do not follow reason; instead, they symbolize a large number of events and emotions in a single scene, generally allowing for several versions. ⁷ Myths are transformed more slowly than societies for three main reasons: (1) they revolve around few crystallized elements; (2) they operate on the symbolic level, diffused but protected from changes on the material level; and (3) they rearrange their internal elements, adapting them to new situations without losing their essential attributes. No person, group, or nation creates a myth based solely on the desire to do so. In order to exist, a myth must correspond to profound social needs.

Often times myths are socially constructed because they represent a potential source of power. Many myths are consciously reinforced, attenuated, propagated, "aged," or embellished because they benefit a particular social grouping, government, or nation. A group that identifies or is identified with a positive myth transfers the symbolic authority conferred by the myth and this determines who will or will not share this identity.

Sometimes a myth transforms the birth of a group or nation through metaphor: "The myths of origin of the nation, in the original meaning of the term, are the result of its application to the collective, by an analogic extension of the biological process of the birth of an individual. . . . A child's birth biologically supposes the existence of a mother, the act of a father (but not always his recognition) and generally the union of the parent couple. . . . The third case of the trope concerns the history of a symbolic parent couple that engenders a people. This creates for itself a double inhabitable space, in a concrete form (a territory) and in a symbolic form (a culture). This combination of lands and traditions is called parents' heritage or patria." ⁸

In Brazil's myth of origin, Caramuru and Paraguaçu represent the symbolic parent couple; this...