Saci () is a character in Tupi and Guarani folklore. He is a one-legged black boy, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red cap that enables him to disappear and reappear wherever he wishes (usually in the middle of a dirt devil). Considered an annoying prankster in most parts of Brazil, and a potentially dangerous and malicious creature in others, he nevertheless grants wishes to anyone who manages to trap him or steal his magic cap. Legend says that a person can trap a Saci inside a bottle when he is in the form of a dust devil (see Fig. right where he is portrayed in the center of the whirlwind).
The Saci legend is seen as a combination of native Tupi lore with African-Brazilian and European myth or superstition combined into it. Also, much of the currently told folklore about the Saci is traceable to what writer Monteiro Lobato collected and published in 1917–1918, and the children's book version he created and published in 1921.
According to present-day folklore, this genie can be captured and trapped inside a corked bottle to grant the wishes of its master, or its magic can be acquired by stealing its cap (), and the sulfuric smell about the black genie is emphasized, leading to criticism of racism.
Etymology The term derives from meaning "sick eye", or rather "evil eye". The suffixed - also derives from Tupinambá meaning "bouncy, jumpy".Teschauer, Carlos (1923) Novo vocabulário nacional s.v. : Tupi-guarani: perereg 'saltitar, andar as tontas (jump, walk in a frenzy)'. The Saci-pererê of myth originally referred to a Cuculiformes (cuckoo family) bird, more specifically the striped cuckoo.
German ethnologist Horst H. Figge, who sees extensive influence of African Umbanda religion in Brazilian culture, has argued that Saci-Cerere can be explained as deriving from Ewe language "one hand", while the form Matimpererê was even more amenable to interpretation as Ewe "without one foot".
Saci-pererê is also known variously as ; ; , etc. Eventually the name became fully Portuguesized to , later even earned surnames and called Matinta-Pereira da Silva or -da Matta.
Description The saci legend as currently known is a composite of folklore and superstition from native Amerindian, Black Brazilian, and European myth and superstition. It also appears in Sítio do Picapau Amarelo (cf. ).
One informant spoke of three subtypes, the Saci-pererê (), the stereotypical one-legged black man with red cap and pipe; Saci-trique (), bi-racial and a more benign prankster, playing tricks like tying up the tails of animals; and Saci-saçurá (), with red eyes.
Physical appearance While the Saci often takes the form of the namesake bird (cuckoo, the matiaperê) and remains unspotted. He makes whistling noises by day or night, which sounds like "Maty-taperê", while others say he sings his melancholy song (cf. on how this deceives people)
He can also appear as a one-legged young boy with red hair (lore of Pará), which has been changed to his wearing a red cap by the influence of civilization. The one-legged boy is always accompanied either by his mother, or an old woman of tapuya or black descent called tatámanha, dressed in rags (Pará).
Certain details as the smoking the clay pipe,: "cachimbo de barro" and the ability to create whirlwind and to dance and twirl inside it,: "redemoinho" were part of the folklore solicited in 1917 from the readership of São Paulo and its periphery by newspaper contributor Monteiro Lobato, subsequently published in book form in 1918. citing Monteiro Lobato (1917) O Saci-Pererê. Resultados de um inquérito
Saci has a hole in both palms of his hands. A favorite pastime of Saci is passing a lit match through these holes.
Trickster Usually an incorrigible prankster, the Saci causes no major harm, but there is no little harm that he won't do. In the barn, he sets farm animals loose, sours the milk, chases horses in the meadow and sucks their blood (in vampiric fashion), torments the chicks, tramples the hens, and spoils the eggs.According to the fictional Tio Barnabé in the children's story, , Besides drinking blood, the Saci tangles the horses' manes. This braiding of elflocks and souring of milk resembles the lore about German kobolds (cf. schrat), as Monteiro Lobato (1927) had noted.
In the kitchen, he causes soup to burn, or the bean to burn, or drops flies into the soup. If popcorn kernels are not popping properly, Saci has been interfering.
Given half a chance, he dulls or breaks the tip of the seamstress's needles, makes her thimble roll into a hole, and tangles her sewing threads. He will hides nail scissors and children's toys.
Anything turned upside-down (e.g. nail lying on the ground turned point up.), inside the house or outside on the farmstead, is blamed on the Saci.
Saci can disappear or turn invisible, but all his powers including invisibility is vested in the hat. Also in order to do his deeds unseen, the Saci can transform himself into a bird, the striped cuckoo (called Matitaperê, Matita Pereira, or saci in Brazilian Portuguese), whose melancholic song seems to come from nowhere: that is to say, the bird uses high-pitched and low-pitched calls to falsely simulate the closeness/lowness or distance/height of its perch, thus confusing travelers and making them lose the way.
He is fond of juggling embers or other small objects and letting them fall through the holes on his palms. An exceedingly nimble fellow, the lack of his right leg does not prevent him from bareback-riding a horse, and sitting cross-legged while puffing on his pipe (a feat comparable to the Headless Mule's gushing fire from the nostrils).
Punisher However, if offended, Saci is wont to murder the human by tickling or beating.: "" also quoted by ; .
Counteraction and protection As aforementioned, the Saci can raise the dust devil (dusty whirlwind) and spin-dance inside it, according to folk belief. It is believed the Saci's whirlwind can be diverted and broken up by casting a rosary of white beads or a straw cross from Palm Sunday.
The Saci prefers dryness, or is a desiccated being, and dares not cross a water stream, fearing it will lead to loss of all his powers. Thus one can escape a pursuing Saci by crossing a stream. Another way is to drop ropes full of knots. The Saci is compelled to stop and undo the knots.
One can also try to appease him by leaving behind some cachaça, or some tobacco for his pipe.
Capturing and subjugating
One can even capture him by throwing into the dust devil the beads of a rosary seed: "rosário de caiapiá" i.e. , seeds of a Dorstenia species. (or rosary made of grass or sedge), or by pouncing on it using a sieve with a cross-shape on it. (see Voltolino's painting on right).
The captured Saci can be imprisoned inside a bottle, and be forced to grant wishes in exchange for freedom, just like Aladdin and the Magic Lamp in Arabian Nights. But this how the character Pedrinho captures the Saci (lure it inside a dark glass bottle, stoppered by a cork with a cross marked on it) in Monteiro Lobato's children's story (originally published 1921), and the understanding here is that "tales of Saci [which] abound in Brazil and .. traced in more recent history to [Monteiro Lobato's 1921 children's book]".
If one can steal the Saci's cap, this is another way one will have dominion over him, and make him do your bidding. In the children's story, Pedrinho is instructed to capture and conceal the Saci's hat (endued with all of the Saci's supernatural powers), with which it can regain its power and escape. This is also part of the general present-day folklore, where the magic power transfers to the captor who takes the Saci's cap, but there will be a "lingering odor" on that person for having touched it.
Origin theories
The Saci as it developed in the 19th century; (1983), p. 110 : "fins do século XVIII". and onward, is a composite of Tupi spirit and other layers, partly from African slave culture, and partly from European influence. It has optimistically been characterized as a sort of melting pot lore of three races by Alceu Maynard Araújo (1964); , p. 509; apud But different socio-ethnic groups had differing views; the Saci was basically considered to be African or dark-skinned, and certain negative stereotypes about the blacks as held by wealthy landowners and those in power have been reflected into the image of the Saci from those quarters of the population (cf. ).
Just as saci is also the name of a bird, the "striped cuckoo", Saci was probably originally an avian myth, as Luís da Câmara Cascudo (1976) has argued. A bird will often perch on just one standing leg, and this can easily lead to the legend that the Saci in human form was one-legged., crediting Barbosa Rodrigues for this observation. There is also a myth which casts the Moon and Saci the curassow () bird as former siblings in incestuous love before their transformations, which would explain such names as Jaci-Taperê (, "ruin or abandoned house of the moon").Gomes, Lindolfo (1965) Contos populares brasileiros. 3. ed. pp. 92-94. apud ; Gomes (2014)
However, a more anthropomorphic type of Saci (dubbed "Saci-moleque" or "Saci-imp" by Queiroz), nocturnal and shy, was introduced to Southern Brazil in the late 18th century, from further down south from the Tupi-Gurani population in Paraguay, and the Saci underwent further modification in the 19th century. The original Paraguayan Yací-Yateré has been described by Cascudo as a red duende about the size of a 7 year-old child, who stole camp fire, having no knowledge how to strike fire.; citing Cascudo (1947) Geografia p. 58, repr. , (1983), pp. 110–112. In the name Yací-Yateré, yací () indeed means "Moon" in Old Tupi.
Couto de Magalhães (1876) also held the view that although he knew Saci Cerêrê to be a red capped, small-sized tapuio like figure, lame in one foot bearing wound marks on each knee, he thought the lore was too contaminated with Christian superstition to know the genuine indigenous lore at the heart of it. Thus the exact role of the Saci Cerêrê in the stewardship of plants was unclear to him, though it must have been assigned one, being a subservient spirit to who was the supreme mother of all vegetation as well as being a lunar goddess.
There have been various origin theories emphasizing the influenced of various ethnic groups, as collated in the studies by Renato da Silva Queiroz (1995a, 1995b). A different picture from Cascudo's on the origins of Saci contended that it was based on the Brazilian-African (Bantu) myth of , a one-legged, one-eyed black boy or man, proposed by Antônio Joaquim de Souza Carneiro (1937).Souza Carneiro, Antônio Joaquim de (1937) , São Paulo: Companhia Editora Naciona, р. 253. apud But Europe also spoke of the race of the one-legged Sciapod or Monopod goes which might have been a source, since this legend goes back to Classical times, later to be prominently illustrated in printed books.Barroso, Gustavo (1923). . Rio de Janeiro: Leite Ribeiro, pp. 262–263. apud
His red cap is a trait shared by the trasgo or "goblin", and (while the red cap is common in household spirits all over Europe), the trasgo in Portuguese lore has all its supernatural powers concentrated in the cap. (children's story): ""