PROJECTS: The Myth of Silence: boto_20-20190708amazonboto0009

PARA, BRAZIL. Monday, July 8, 2019 -
The Amazon ribeirinhos (river people) in Brazil believe that some river dolphins are enchanted beings with free will and supernatural powers. The Legend of the Boto, dolphin in Portuguese, tells the story of a charming young man who seduces girls and women at dances and parties then impregnates them along the riverbank. Before dawn, he plunges into the Amazonian water transforming back into a river dolphin, and never to return.
However, the folklore of their nocturnal human transformation "has been used to cover up adultery… and sexual misconduct", says Gabriel Melo Alves dos Santos, a doctoral student at Brazil’s Federal University of Para. These beliefs influence the behaviors of the ribeirinhos and hide generations of violence against girls and women practiced along the Amazonian riverbanks. "A lot of unwanted pregnancies in the Amazon are blamed on the boto," says Vanessa Mintzer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, Gainesville. The myth reinforces the portrait of a woman whose sexuality serves to satisfy the desire of this man-boto, who is revered among the riverside communities.
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