The Laws of the Jungle and the Defense of Amazonian Forests: a Reflection on the Ancestral Pedagogy of the Curupira (Brazil)/Chullachaqui (Peru) Myth

Abstract

The struggle to defend our Amazonian forests is something that can no longer wait, since at an increasingly accelerated pace that seems unstoppable, we see our forest "going to bed standing up and waking up wounded down," according to the Indigenous peoples who still barely resist in our territory. In this sense, this article seeks to raise reflections on the pedagogical ancestry of oral tradition literature, especially based on the myth of Curupira (Brazil)/Chullachaqui (Peru) as a form of law of the jungle, and to highlight the role this enchanted creature plays in the defense of life itself on the planet. The work is guided by authors such as Krenak (2020, 2022), Loureiro (2015), Colombres (2010, 2016), Bispo dos Santos (2023), Vaz Filho and Carvalho (2023), among others. As a basis for our reflection, we emphasize the decolonial perspective of education so that we can contribute to the debates surrounding what we call pyracemic education, which is the incorporation of ancestral knowledge and wisdom into our educational praxis, at all levels and in all educational contexts.