The Amazon river’s tidal bore, pororoca is assumed to mean something like “great roar” in the Tupi language.
An igarapé is a small, often narrow waterway or stream found in the Amazon rainforest.
João Moreira Salles, Arrabalde: Em Busca da Amazônia (Companhia das Letras, 2022), 15. My translation.
The Schelling Reader, ed. Daniel Whistler and Benjamin Berger (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020), 60.
F. W. J. Schelling, The Ages of the World, trans. Frederick de Wolf Bolman (Columbia University Press, 1942), 13.
Euclides da Cunha, “Correspondência ativa de 1905” →. My translation.
Euclides da Cunha, À Margem da História (Editora Lello Brasileira S.A., 1967), 12. My translation.
Da Cunha, À Margem da História, 18.
Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Indiana University Press, 1984), 25.
Da Cunha, “Correspondência ativa de 1905.”
“Ratanabã” is the name given to an apocryphal hidden city in the Brazilian Amazon that is alleged to be 450 million years old.
Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert, The Falling Sky, trans. Nicholas Elliott and Alison Dundy (Belknap Press, 2013), 440.
Kopenawa and Albert, Falling Sky, 375.
Carlos Fausto, Art Effects: Image, Agency, and Ritual in Amazonia (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), 33.
Kopenawa and Albert, Falling Sky, 76.
Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (W. W. Norton & Company, 2005), 76.
Mario de Andrade, O Turista Aprendiz (IPHAN, 2015), 68. My translation.
The word “theater” comes from the Greek word “theatron” (θέατρον), which means “a place for viewing.” This derives from the verb “theaomai” (θεάομαι), meaning “to see” or “to watch.”
De Andrade, O Turista Aprendiz, 97. My translation.
The “cows of Parintins” refers to the two characters at the center of Parintins’s annual Boi Bumbá festival: “Boi Garantido” (“Guaranteed Cow,” which is made out of white fabric and has a red heart on its forehead) and “Boi Caprichoso” (“Caprice Cow,” made out of black fabric, with a blue star on its forehead). Each cow represents a distinct theme, and they compete with each other in displays of music, dance, and theater. The festival celebrates local culture and folklore, attracting many visitors. Parintins’s economy is largely dependent on the festival, and the entire city dons the colors of the two cows (red and blue). Crosswalks, bank facades, soda cans—and everything on the island turns blue and red.
Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share, vol. 2 and 3, trans. Robert Hurley (Zone Books, 1991), 198.
Eduardo Góes Neves, Sob os Tempos do Equinócio: Oito Mil Anos de História na Amazônia Central (Ubu, 2022), 189. My translation.
Richard Wagner, The Art-Work of the Future and Other Works, trans. W. Ashton Ellis (Bison Books, 1993), 94.
Wagner, Art-Work of the Future, 70.
Wagner, Art-Work of the Future, 85.
The stadium is popularly called “Bumbódromo” and is shaped like a cow’s head. It is lined with grandstands and sections of boxes divided into two sides, corresponding to the supporters of the Boi Caprichoso (who wear blue) and the Boi Garantido (who wear red). Half of the tickets to the three-day of festival are given away for free, leading to long lines, which some people wait in for days under the hot sun. Each cow performs for two hours, followed by the other cow, and so on. During the rival cow’s performance, supporters on the opposing side must remain silent, while during their own cow’s performance, they are expected to actively participate.
Homi K. Bhaba, The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994), 85.
Bhaba, Location of Culture, 88.
Also known as “annatto,” the urucum plant is native to tropical regions of the Americas. Its seeds are used to produce a natural red dye.
Karl Marx, Capital: Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1, trans. Paul Reitter (Princeton University Press, 2024), 153.
At the festival the Boi Caprichoso is lifted up by a Terex Demag AC 500 crane, whose boom can reach a height of 110 meters—although the Caprichoso float is only lifted to a maximum height of forty meters.
In his own words: “Art is thus the art of extracting the Beautiful from its concrete incarnation, from this other thing, which is also beautiful and of preserving it in its purity.” Alexandre Kojève, Kandinsky: Incarnating Beauty (David Zwirner Books, 2022), 28.
Kojève, Kandinsky, 28.
Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Cornell University Press, 1980), 158.
Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, 162.
At the Parintins festival, a cunhã poranga is a female character or type that represents the feminine strength in Indigenous rituals and legends of Amazonian culture. In her dance, she transforms into one of the animals of the forest.
Déborah Danowski and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, “Is There Any World to Come?” e-flux journal, no. 65 (May 2015) →.
Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker (Global Grey, 2023), 39.
Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Clarendon Press, 1998), 148.
The uirapuru is a mythical bird in Brazilian folklore, particularly among Amazonian Indigenous cultures. It is often associated with beauty, music, and nature. Those who see it are allegedly granted a wish. It can also refer to the actual bird species Cyphorhinus arada, known for its melodious song.
