Abstract: A description of a Brazilians view of the character known as Saci-pererê. He is a one-legged short creature with dark skin who smokes a pipe and wears a red hat. He is the Brazilian prankster who is said to cause chaos when he teleports in and out. One of the key iterations told is his red cap is said to have a bad scent with doesn’t fair well. Other aspects that were mentioned about the trickster is his willingness to cause little harm to day to day life such as teasing dogs, releasing farm animals and cursing essential items such as chicken eggs to prevent them from hatching.
Background: MC is a Brazilian currently living in Florida and is a student at the University of Southern California. She’s an advocate for Brazilian culture and expresses it by speaking highly of their myths and legends and even partaking in the semi-religious activities such as wearing bracelets with powers to grant wishes to the wearer. She describes one of the few stories heard from parents when she was younger and details it below.
The legend
P: So tell me a legend that’s been with you to this day
MC: Ok so there is this character that I remember known as Saci and he was like a mischievous little guy who always wore a red had only one leg which I thought was so weird. He also had this red hat which when he wore it allowed him to disappear and then reappear and the thing was every time he did this, he caused a small tornado to appear like a dust devil I guess.
P: So he’s like brazils version of the Norse god Loki?
MC: Yeah exactly he’s like the Loki in the marvel movies except he bothers all of the locals and enjoys it too. Like what I heard is he tends to mess with your crops and stuff and ruin your day so people try to catch him and contain him to keep him from annoying the hell out of you
Interpretation:
My understanding of this character really came down to the parallel between Loki and Saci. It seems like he was a character commonly referred to when things went wrong in brazil such as MC made the comment that there was a phrase people said where it went like, “Saci must’ve been here again.” He seems like a great example of a Brazilian Oikotype seen this type of personality has been interpreted into other cultures like Norse Mythology or the Brazilian version of a Leprechaun. It was also mentioned that the story of this character was told by slaves and adapted in a way to scare both the children and fellows members. It seems like this character was a great influence on the culture as a way to explain certain phenomena which they had no explanation for so Saci was a great answer to the question of who released my animals or why there are small tornados across the land.