Sume

Sume (recorded in early colonial chronicles under variants such as Tume, Pay Sume, and Zume) is the paramount and most archaic civilizing hero, moral lawgiver, and agricultural demiurge in the mythology of the Tupi-Guarani linguistic stock of South America. Documented by the earliest 16th-century European chroniclers and missionaries — including Father Manuel da Nobrega in 1549, Jose de Anchieta, Hans Staden, and Gabriel Soares de Sousa —, Sume is depicted in indigenous oral tradition as a venerable, slender elder with white hair and flowing beard, dressed in long white cotton vestments. Centuries prior to European landfall, he traversed the coastal valleys and inland savannas, instructing indigenous communities in fire-making, soil preparation, the cultivation of cassava (Manihot esculenta) and maize, the mechanical extraction of lethal cyanide toxins via the woven tipiti press, and the foundational laws of communal hospitality. When contentious warrior factions refused to abandon ritual warfare and fired poisoned arrows that miraculously ricocheted in midair to strike the archers themselves, Sume departed in sorrow, walking miraculously across the surface of the Atlantic waves toward the eastern horizon, leaving petrified footprints on coastal granite outcroppings and laying the mythical foundation for the continental Peabiru Trail.

5 min read · Reviewed on September 30, 2026 · How we research

The staff, the cassava field, the footprints in the stone and the teaching

Primary sources

• Manuel da Nóbrega, Letters from Brazil (1549–1560). translation: Commemorative edition of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (1931), epistolary accounts of the legend of Sumé.
• Hans Staden, Warhaftige Historia und Beschreibung eyner Landtschafft der wilden nacketen grimmigen Menschfresser Leuthen in der Newenwelt America gelegen (1557). translation: Critical edition from Marburg (1557), oral traditions of the Tupinambá about Meire Humê.
• Gabriel Soares de Sousa, Treatise Describing Brazil in 1587. translation: Edition annotated by Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Revista do IHGB (1851).
• Friar Vicente do Salvador, History of Brazil (1500–1627). translation: Edition of the National Library (1918), Book One on the customs of the gentiles.

Studies

• Luís da Câmara Cascudo, Geografia dos Mitos Brasileiros (Cycle of the Civilizing Heroes). Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1947.
• Curt Nimuendajú, As Lendas da Criação e Destruição do Mundo como Fundamentos da Religião dos Apapocúva-Guarani. Revista do Museu Paulista / Editora Hucitec, 1914.
• Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Visão do Paraíso: Os Motivos Edênicos no Descobrimento e Colonização do Brasil. Companhia das Letras, 1959.
• Couto de Magalhães, O Selvagem: Estudos sobre as Populações Indígenas do Brasil. Typographia Reforma, 1876.