The legend of the "eye of the forest"

<strong>Die Legende des „Auge des Waldes“<strong>

There are many legends about the origin of the guarana plant, but the most famous one says that once a young couple from the people of the Satere Mawe were unable to have children.

Full of hope, this couple asked the supreme god Tupa for help, who took pity and blessed the young couple with a handsome boy. This boy was loved and valued by the whole tribe because he was cheerful, kind and had a good word for everyone.

Even the spirit of evil, Jurupari, heard of the boy's deeds and decided, jealous as he was, to kill him. He turned into a snake and as this he approached the boy whom was not afraid of the animals of the forest, because they were his friends, and in a careless moment the snake (Jurupari) bit the boy and poisoned him.

When his tribe found him, the boy was already dead. This caused the entire tribe to fall into a deep depression. Tupa, however, was full of pity for his people and appeared to the boy's mother in her dreams and ordered her to bury the boy's eyes in the forest. After she did that, a fruit emerged from the ground after a while, which resembled the human eye - henceforth it was called "Warana" - which means something like the "eyes of the forest"