Rop

In the Eastern Timbira fire myth the jaguar, Rop, is the original master of fire, the one being who owns a hearth and eats its meat roasted while humankind still eats raw. Finding a boy stranded on a cliff-face where he had climbed after macaw fledglings and then been abandoned, the jaguar carries him home on its back, treats him as an adopted son, and feeds him cooked food; the jaguar's wife is hostile and menacing in most tellings. When the boy flees with a burning log, the first fire passes to the Canela, and the jaguar is left thereafter to eat its prey raw. Sources present the jaguar with a certain ambivalent generosity, benefactor and danger at once, in keeping with its wider place in Timbira thought.

Domains

• fire
• beasts

Powers

• owns the first fire
• adopts the boy stranded on the cliff

Epithets

• Rop — the Jaguar, owner of fireCrocker 1990, The Canela (Eastern Timbira) I. (secondary)

Relations

• companion: The Fire-Bringer BoyThe jaguar adopts and feeds the stranded boy who later carries off its fire.Nimuendaju 1946, The Eastern Timbira, 'Mythology' (origin of fire). (primary)

Sources

• The Jaguar (Rop) was the original owner of fire; from its hearth humankind obtained the first cooking-fire.: Nimuendaju 1946, The Eastern Timbira, 'Mythology' (origin of fire). (primary); Crocker 1990, The Canela (Eastern Timbira) I. (secondary)