saruã

• saruá

Inherited from Old Tupi sarûaba (“hindrance”).

• IPA^(key): /saruˈã/, [sa.ɾuˈã]
• Rhymes: -ã
• Hyphenation: sa‧ru‧ã

saruã (uncountable) (folklore)

1. taboo, specifically some prohibited practice that could enrage supernatural beings and cause natural disasters, bring diseases and other such harm to the people involved
   • a. 1926, “Apisáimaetá [The disobedients]” (chapter XV), in Antonio Brandão de Amorim, editor, compiled by Maximiano José Roberto, Lendas em Nheêngatú e em Portuguez (overall work in Portuguese), Manaus; published in Revista do Instituto Historico e Geographico Brasileiro, volume 154, number 100, Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1928, page 281, lines 1–6:

     Aikué paa iepé mendasara Matapi Kaxiuerupé oreku uá musapŷre taŷra kunhãmuku! / Aetá paia omungetá paa ara pukusaua ntyo arama aetá omunhan maanungara puxy, aetá ntyo osendu. / Iepé hy, paa, upanhe mira osendu: têke! otyapu paraná pýpé, iepéresé aetá okuau aé Mboiasu. / Kunhãmukuetá paia iepéresé onheen aetá xupé: / Teinhé pemunhan saruá, kurumu Mboiasu ombaú andé. / Kunhãmukuetá ntyo osendu, koema pyranga yrumo pan aetá ou oiasuka.

     There was, they say, at the Matapi Waterfall, a married man with three young daughters. Every day, they say, he advised them to not make any bad thing, but they didn't listen. One day, they say, everyone heard a “têke” noise in the river; they knew immediately it was the Big Snake. The girls' father told them right after: “Don't you make ‘saruã’ or the Big Snake is going to eat us.” The girls didn't care and, at night, they went to take a bath.

   • [2015, Marivelton Barroso Baré, “Kurumimwasú”, in Marina Herrero, Ulysses Fernandes, editors, Baré: povo do rio, 2nd edition (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Edições Sesc, →ISBN, unnumbered page:

     Os encantados são uma crença respeitada entre os povos baré. Citamos sempre o Curupira, mãe da mata e da natureza, que não deixa desrespeitar a natureza, no sentido de fazer coisas indevidas, que não agradem a natureza, por exemplo, deixar queimar um peixe sendo assado, provoca trovoadas, ventanias, temporal, o que nós chamamos de saruã.

     The “enchanted ones” are a respected belief among the Baré peoples. We always mention Curupira, the mother of forest and nature, who doesn't let [others] disrespect the nature, in the sense of doing undue things that don't please it, as, for example, letting a grilled fish burn, [which] causes thunderstorms, windstorms, downpour; what we call “saruã”.]

2. (archaic) evil eye (wicked look believed to be able to cause bad luck or injury)

saruã (folklore)

1. taboo; of a practice that could cause the “saruã”
2. having being affected by the “saruã”

• → Brazilian Portuguese: saruá

• Marcel Twardowsky Avila (2021) “saruã”, in Proposta de dicionário nheengatu-português [Nheengatu–Portuguese dictionary proposal] (in Portuguese), São Paulo: USP, →DOI, page 681