He wears a white hat, white suit, white shoes. He’s tall and sleek and suave, his face chiselled and handsome. At the full-moon party along the banks of the Amazon river in Manaus, Brazil, he ogles his prospects. There’s carimbó drums. There’s loose, sensual dancing. And as the night turns blurry with cachaça, there’s the man in the white suit, slipping away with the most beautiful girl in the village, Daniela. On the banks of the river, under a palm tree bursting with açai fruit, they kiss, paw, grope. Clothes are peeled out of. But he never takes off his hat. Afterwards, there’s a long goodbye, kisses, devouring eyes, the caressing of hands that don’t want to let go of each other. When they finally do, she heads back to her cottage and he steps into the river, morphs back into a dolphin, and swims away.
The Amazon river dolphin, or boto, can grow to about 9ft long, with humps on their backs in place of dorsal fins. Their pink hue, found mostly in males, is thought to be caused by the injuries and scarring they sustain in roughhousing and fights with each other. The brighter their pink, the more likely they are to sire calves. Males show off for females by picking up floating plants or pieces of wood with their long beaks, sometimes twirling their chosen object in circles and smacking it on the water’s surface.
Less athletic than most other dolphins, botos do not make spectacular leaps or dives, but instead spend much of their time probing the murky river bottoms for mud-loving fish and crustaceans. They have small eyes but exquisite sonar, or echolocation, producing low-frequency clicks and using the echoes to help them navigate obstacles in the water and find prey. The boto’s brain capacity is 40 percent larger than that of a human. They’re known to be smart, curious, playful.
“They’ll swim right up to you, rub against you, look you in the eye, and beg for your attention,” said the identical twins Maria Helena and Maria Eduarda.
We spoke with the twins at the river’s edge. When they looked into each other’s eyes it was as if they were looking into a mirror. The surface of the glassy water reflected their images as well, creating a hall of mirrors effect. They told us the story of Josué, their pet pink dolphin. One day their mother was fishing in front of their home on the riverbank when she encountered a calf that appeared to be injured or lame. She threw a fish. The calf devoured it. The next morning the calf returned. So began a daily ritual. Mum soon passed feeding duties on to her young daughters and a bond was forged.
Here in the Amazon, we try to show the outside world a reality. The true reality, not an invented reality
“At first we were afraid of the boto. People would warn us, ‘Don’t touch him, he’s going to catch you and take you to the bottom of the river.’ But we pet him, played with him, swam with him. Like a dog, but in the water,” explained the girls. When Josué reached adulthood, he disappeared for a long spell, but eventually returned, this time with a family. “He comes back every once in a while,” they said.
On the banks of the Amazon, surrounded by thick jungle and a sky that turns a thematic pink-purple at sunset, it all feels straight out of the pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Brazil’s great magic realist Jorge Amado.
But there’s a flipside to the boto stories. When European colonists arrived in South America in the 16th century, they inflicted brutal subjugation. Many indigenous women were raped—and thus impregnated. The resulting children were said to have been sired by the mythical boto-men. It was a story that served the perpetrators, the survivors, and perhaps the children, too. And the white suits and hats associated with botos? White skin = white suits.
The boto myth became a convenient scapegoat and alibi. Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries on the planet for women. According to a 2022 study on gender violence conducted by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, around 7.4 million Brazilian women suffered some type of physical violence. This represents 14 women assaulted per minute. The data on sexual violence is worse: 180 rapes per day. Among the victims, 54 percent were less than 13 years old.
Poverty is high among ribeirinhos (people who live along the Amazon), and young women get lured into prostitution. If a sex worker gets pregnant from one of her johns – blame it on the boto. The same goes for rape and incest. There are allegedly birth certificates that list the father as “o boto”.
Fishermen have a complicated relationship with the animal. Botos have been known to lead boats to areas rich with fish. They also have a reputation for luring navigators to dangerous waters and sinking their boats. To catch, kill, or eat a boto has long been considered bad luck, and for centuries the boto myths have served to protect the species. But that’s changing. Botos are used as bait to catch piracatinga, which command a high price on the fish market.
The boto population is diminishing. For decades it was a data-deficient species that researchers thought was relatively stable, but in 2018 the boto was classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The leading cause of death for botos? Fishing nets.
And the boto myths are diminishing, too. Today, nearly every ribeirinho home has a television, and the Gen Z-ers all have smartphones. They’re familiar with the terms “female empowerment” and “Me Too”. There are support groups. Daughters of the Dolphin, Never Again, formed in 2016, conduct workshops in schools and rural communities on how to recognise abuse.
On the riverbank, Maria Helena and Maria Eduarda kick off their sandals and slip into the cappuccino-coloured water. They whistle, make squeaking sounds. On cue a boto arrives. It swims up to the twins, brushes against them, rolls onto its belly. It’s mottled pink-grey flesh is scuffed, scarred. You can almost see it slamming up against its fellow boto. The girls scratch and tickle. The boto swipes its head from side to side, like windshield wipers. Soon a second boto swims up, and then a third. They want to play, to be touched. And the way they look at you, drink you in with their eyes – it’s almost human.
“Here in the Amazon, we try to show the outside world a reality. The true reality, not an invented reality,” explained the twins.
They went on to say that grew up in a culture is rich in folklore, and they are grateful for that, but that they don’t believe in the boto myth. “It created a bad reputation for the boto. And it is an animal that has its own defences – but is also defenceless. There are people who have done evil to the botos because of this fake story.”
Still, the old myths endure. One ribeirinho we spoke to said that the botos are not only handsome, but excellent dancers. “The white suit is too obvious, that’s an old story. But you can always pick them out by the way they move – fluid, like the water.”
She told us she has a cousin who was fathered by a boto. She added that a boto is never without his hat.
“If you try to take his hat he’ll run back to the water. Why? Because under his hat is his blowhole.”
