Museu Histórico Nacional

This guide to the Museu Historico Nacional in Rio centers on a painted tree trunk in a glass case and the Kuarup, an annual mourning ceremony among Upper Xingu peoples timed to a full moon in May. You'll hear how logs carried from the forest are marked to stand in for a shaman, hunter, warrior or leader, and how women offer fruit and grief before men dance around the fire as a shaman calls on the sky spirit Tupa. The guide follows the ceremony from dusk through its closing songs at dawn.