# Saci (Brazilian folklore)

Saci (pronounced or) is a character in Brazilian folklore. He is a one-legged black man, 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).

## Description

There are several variants of the myth. One informant spoke of three types, the Saci-pererê (pronounced), the stereotypical one-legged black man with red cap and pipe; Saci-trique (pronounced), bi-racial and a more benign prankster, playing tricks like tying up the tails of animals; and Saci-saçurá (pronounced), with red eyes.

### Physical appearance

The saci-pererê (corrupted from Tupinambá: Maty-taperé) is simply a name in the north for their local version of the curupira, according to João Barbosa Rodrigues. While the Saci often takes the form of the namesake bird (type of cuckoo) and remains unspotted, it 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, whose whistling, during day or night, sounds like "Maty-taperê" (Pará). His cap is often depicted as having a bad smell. Most people who claimed to have stolen this cap say they can never wash the smell away.
Certain details as the smoking the clay pipe, and the ability to create whirlwind and to dance and twirl inside it, 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.
Saci has a hole in both palms of his hands. A favorite pastime of Saci is passing a lit match through these holes.

### Trickster

An incorrigible prankster, the Saci causes no major harm, but there is no little harm that he won't do. He hides children's toys, sets farm animals loose, teases dogs—and curses chicken eggs, preventing them from hatching. In the kitchen, the Saci spills salt, sours the milk, burns the bean stew, and drops flies into the soup.
If a popcorn kernel fails to pop, it is because the Saci cursed it. Given half a chance, he dulls the seamstress's needles, hides her thimbles, and tangles her sewing threads. If he sees a nail lying on the ground, he turns the point up. In short, people blame anything that goes wrong—in or outside the house—on the Saci.
Saci can disappear or becoming invisible (often with only his red cap and the red glow of his pipe still showing).
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).

### 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.
One can even capture him by throwing into the dust devil a rosary made of separately blessed beads (or beads of a certain seed), or by pouncing on it using a sieve with a cross-shape on it. (see Voltolino's painting on right). With care, the captured Saci can be coaxed to enter a dark glass bottle, where he can be imprisoned by a cork with a cross marked on it. He can also be enslaved by stealing his cap, which is the source of his power. However, depending on the treatment he gets from his master, an enslaved Saci who regains his freedom may become either a trustworthy guardian and friend, or a devious and terrible enemy.
One can escape a pursuing Saci by crossing a water stream. The Saci dares not cross, for then he loses all his powers. 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.

## Origins of the legend

The Saci as it developed in the 19th century 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) 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.
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. 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. In the name Yací-Yateré, yací indeed means "Moon" in Old Tupi.
Barbosa Rodrigues (1890) states that saci is the product of Europeans garbling the name Maty-taperé used locally for the curupira. The various spellings given were Çacy-pererê, Saperê, Sererê, Sareré, Siriri, Matim-taperê, and ultimately the fully Portuguese name Matinta-Pereira, later even given the surname da Silva or da Matta.
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 Jaci 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 myth of {{lang|kmb|Dudu Calunga}, a one-legged, one-eyed black boy or man, proposed by Antônio Joaquim de Souza Carneiro (1937). 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.
His red cap is a trait shared by the trasgo or "gobin", 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. And since the saci has also come to be regarded as exhibiting similar powers, this goblin may have been another concrete European element in the composite saci lore.
The Saci-Pererê concept shows some syncretism with Christian elements: he bolts away when faced with crosses, leaving behind a sulphurous smell – classical attributes of the devil in Christian folklore.

## In popular culture

* The character remains quite popular in present-day Brazilian urban culture, mainly due to the immensely popular children's book O Saci by Monteiro Lobato (1921). Saci also has appearances in other films and TV series adaptations of Sítio do Picapau Amarelo.
* In the 1960s, the one-legged gnome – by now "domesticated" into a prankish but inoffensive and lovable creature – was chosen by premier Brazilian cartoonist Ziraldo as the leading character of his comics magazine Turma do Pererê. This original publication, the first of its genre to feature entirely "national" characters, was short-lived, but paved the way for other Brazilian cartoonists like Angeli, Laerte, and Mauricio de Sousa.
* The character also appears in manga Akuma-kun (1963–1964) of Shigeru Mizuki.
* Tom Jobim's song "Águas de Março" mentions the Matinta Pereira, and Nei Lopes's samba song entitled "Fumo de Rolo" tells a tale of a fisherman being accosted by the saci while collecting reeds in the forest. The Saci demands some tobacco for his pipe, but the poor fellow has lost his.
* Sport Club Internacional has the figure of Saci as its mascot, owing to the club's popular roots, the red color of his clothing and the fans' hope that the team could pull tricks on their opponents. When Wason Rentería played for the club, in the 2005 and 2006 seasons, he would often celebrate his goals by doing an impersonation of Saci.
* With the purpose of countering the growing trend of adopting the Anglo-Celtic Halloween in Brazil (in Portuguese called Dia das Bruxas), the Day of the Saci was created in 2005, and it is likewise commemorated on October 31. A tongue-in-cheek Society of Saci Observers was also created.
* In the 2012 video game Max Payne 3, set mainly in São Paulo, Brazil, a trickster Saci makes a cameo as a villain in the in-game cartoon show The Adventures of Captain Baseball Bat Boy. In it Saci has his trademark pipe, red cap and shorts, and is missing his right leg. However, his skin is green.
* The Saci appears in AdventureQuest Worlds. This version has a human-like appearance, wields a spoon, and has a tornado where his legs should be while also performing wind attacks.
* The Saci appears in Invisible City (2021), played by Wesley Guimarães.
* In 2024, the indie horror game "Saci: The Cursed Hunt" by Marcos Silva reimagines Saci as a terrifying figure rooted in Brazilian folklore. Set in the Amazon rainforest, the game challenges players to survive his relentless pursuit.

## In science

A novel species of dinosauromorph, discovered in 2001 at Agudo (southern Brazil), was named Sacisaurus because the fossil skeleton was missing one leg.
The names of the Brazilian satellites SACI-1 and SACI-2 were backronyms on the character's name, as well as four retrotransposons in the DNA of the fluke Schistosoma mansoni were named Saci-1, Saci-2, Saci-3, and Perere, for their ability to jump around in the parasite's genome.
Since the Saci's one-legged physique reminds us of people with a physical disability, a social network named SACI (an acronym of Solidariedade, Apoio, Comunicação e Informação, meaning "Solidarity, Support, Communication, and Information") was created at the University of São Paulo with the purpose of stimulating these four efforts towards the social and medical rehabilitation of physically disabled people.

## As a mascot

Despite being a one-legged creature, the character is believed to be very agile and powerful, always defeating his enemies. As so, it's a mascot of some sport clubs in Brazil such as Sport Club Internacional and Social Futebol Clube.