tupana

Updated: July 13, 2025

The Tupi language, at least as taught by the old Jesuits, has a word Tupana signifying God. Vicente sometimes used this word, but he showed by his expressions that he did not attach the idea of a Creator to it. He seemed to think it meant some deity or visible image which the whites worshipped in the churches he had seen in the villages.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons