Saci (folklore)

Common card · No. 284900

Saci (pronounced [saˈsi]) 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...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Jean Marconi from Brasil, CC BY 2.0