by Natalia Essigmann
Saci-Pererê: Brazil’s Trickster
I walked along the railroad on a sunny afternoon.
The forest not too far away seemed much better than my room.
As I got closer,
I couldn’t help but see
The vibrant pop of color amidst all that green.
I wondered what that red was:
Perhaps an apple?
Or maybe blood?!
A sudden gust of wind began,
Oh what a sight to see!
A playful boy now in front of me,
“Perhaps a favor, my fair lady?”
Saci-Pererê is a Black folklore character who is known all over Brazil. Just like the Cuca, he became popular on the show, O Sítio do Picapau Amarelo by Monteiro Lobato, around the 1920s (Faria, 2020). I am personally very familiar with this character since I often watched the early 2000s remake of the show as a child. His signature characteristics include hopping on his one leg, wearing a red hoodie, smoking a pipe, traveling in a dust devil (i.e., mini hurricane), and having a boylike personality (Faria, 2020; Myth / Brazilian Folklore, n.d.). Depending on where you are in Brazil, Saci-Pererê can be depicted as a boy or an elderly man. He is known to ask people for things, especially tobacco, and his immature personality comes into play when he “seeks revenge” if he does not get what he wants. Saci-Pererê can pull several harmless tricks including stealing tobacco and/or cattle, hiding objects, breaking kitchen dishes, and scaring travelers (Faria, 2020; Myth / Brazilian Folklore, n.d.). Ironically, however, Saci-Pererê is also seen as a source of luck. It is thought that Saci-Pererê has genie-like powers, and that if you catch one, he will grant you a wish. Some also believe that stealing his red hoodie will make you rich (Faria, 2020), while others claim that stealing the red hoodie gives you full control over the Saci-Pererê’s powers until he takes the hoodie back (Myth / Brazilian Folklore, n.d.)
Although Saci-Pererê is a comical and harmless folklore character in Brazil, his history is actually pretty dark. It is thought that Saci-Pererê’s story stems from the time of slavery in Brazil during the Portuguese Empire from 1550 to 1888 (Faria, 2020; Rudy, 2019). At that time, African slaves had the cultural custom of smoking pipes made with herbs, which relates to the signature pipe that Saci-Pererê always carries. They were also often stereotyped as trouble-makers, which may explain why Saci-Pererê is a trickster. A related theory is that Saci-Pererê is a Brazilian “remake” of Aroni, a figure from the Yoruba religion practiced in West Africa. Aroni has only one leg (Fernandez, n.d.) and is known to carry a pipe (Faria, 2020), just like Saci-Pererê. Importantly, Brazilian African slaves mixed their own religions, including Yoruba, with Catholicism and created the Candomblé religion (Rudy, 2019). Considering that Aroni is from Yoruba, and Yoruba became a part of Brazilian African culture with the rise of Candomblé, the theory that Saci-Pererê is inspired by Aroni is plausible.
The following is a translated statement made by my grandmother, a Brazilian raised in the 1950s and 1960s:
When I was a child, I lived in a rural village that only had trees and grass, including eucalyptus trees. After several years, I moved closer to the city; then years later, I moved back to the same street in the rural village. One day, I went to the railroad in the village to take a train, which had a forest near it. When I walked by the forest, and your uncle can attest to this because he was there, your uncle and I looked at the forest at the same time, then we looked at each other.
I told him, “are you seeing what I am seeing?”
He replied, “I am.”
I asked, “what are you seeing?”
He said, “the Saci.”
We saw a Black man with one leg sitting on top of a tree wearing a red hoodie and red shorts. I am not going to say that he had a pipe in his mouth because I do not remember, but he was sitting on top of a tree, and it was not a hallucination because your uncle and I saw him at the same time. After that, I became a bit scared. Your uncle and I quickly walked away and did not turn back.
Here is a YouTube video showing the Saci-Pererê as depicted in the 2006 remake of O Sítio do Picapau Amarelo:
References
Faria, D. (2020). RACISM & FOLKLORE: MEET SACI-PERERÊ, THE BRAZILIAN FOLKLORE SUPERSTAR. Folklore Thursday. https://folklorethursday.com/myths/meet-saci-perere-the-brazilian-folklore-superstar/.
Fernandez, N. C. (n.d.). Did you know these 3 forgotten Orishas of the Yoruba Pantheon? Ashé. https://ashepamicuba.com/en/olosa-aroni-y-oloza/#:~:text=Aroni%20is%20the%20Orisha%20who%20knows%20the%20secrets,leg%20to%20put%20the%20religious%20to%20the%20test
Myth / Brazilian Folklore. TV Tropes. (n.d.). https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Myth/BrazilianFolklore
Rudy, L. J. (2019). What Is Candomblé? Beliefs and History: A Religion Developed by Enslaved Africans. Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/candomble-4692500#:~:text=The%20Yoruba%20people%20practice%20a%20polytheistic%20religion%2C%20and,of%20Candombl%C3%A9%20are%20descendants%20of%20enslaved%20Yoruba%20people
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