Published in Germany in 1557, the book of Hans Staden about his travels to Portuguese America acquired wide circulation in Europe, with several translations. Part of its success is attributed to the fact that reporting on newly incorporated into the European knowledge region and expose the author s association with indigenous practitioners of cannibalism rituals. In 1882, the reporting of Staden had its first translation into Portuguese made by Tristao de Alencar Araripe. The IHGB member, in addition to the transposition from one language to another, (re) mean the book turning it into a scientific record can say about Brazil in its early days. The report also will have other translations into Portuguese, and (re) meaning in different times and circumstances: Albert Lofgren (IHGSP member) in 1900 and the writer Monteiro Lobato in 1925, 1927 and 1945. Each of these agents translated the book Staden in order to reach different audiences and say, through the report, his idea of history of Brazil and nation that was intended to form. Monteiro Lobato published more than once that material, giving him a lobatiana translation or a literary arrangement, adapting it also for children, using his famous characters of the Sitio do Pica Pau Amarelo (literally translated as Yellow Woodpecker Ranch) as Dona Benta and Narizinho. From the location of these publications, I tried to understand why this book of the sixteenth century take on a symbolic value for their different translators and, accordingly, identify how each assigned new meanings to the book and what are these.