YMMV / Brazilian Folklore

• Audience-Coloring Adaptation: While the Cuca or Coca has had many different portrayals across the Iberian Peninsula (such as having a luminous pumpkin for a head or being a dragon) and overall has always had an undefined appearance, in Brazil she was normally said to be an old black hag. However, with Monteiro Lobato’s book O Saci from Sítio do Picapau Amarelo and the subsequent TV adaptations, Cuca has been immortalized as a blonde witch with an alligator head ^note  It is possible that Monteiro Lobato was inspired by her portrayal in the north of Portugal, where she is often shown as a dragon fighting Saint George on a play in pop culture, especially since she was promoted to be the Big Bad in the TV series. To this day, many works and illustrations independent of the book series portray her in that way.
• Common Knowledge:
  • A famous origin story for Iara says she was an indigenous warrior who was envied by her brothers, who tried to kill her in her sleep. She killed them in self-defense, but was sentenced to drown in the river by the the leader, where she was saved by the fishes and became a mermaid. The legend got famous across the internet thanks to its empowering messages, but, however, there aren’t any sources proving this is a real documented version. Moreover, the myth of Iara was never solely an Indigenous legend in the first place, only coming to be heard of after Portuguese colonization.
  • There’s been a belief that the Jasy Jaterê, the indigenous legend that had inspired the myth of the Saci-Pererê, was portrayed as a young child with a monkey tail. While Jasy did exist as part of Tupi-Guarani Mythology (and is still part of Paraguayan and Argentine folklore), there were never any sources saying he has a monkey tail. The confusion most likely came from a description error.
  • One illustration pattern has been portraying the Brazilian werewolf as a Maned Wolf, as a way of facing foreign Hollywood and European influences and praising national culture. However, there aren’t any versions portraying the werewolf as such, since Maned Wolves are normally pretty solitary and shy animals who, at worst, eat farm chickens. The traditional Brazilian werewolf, coming from the Iberian version of the creature, actually has little to do with wolves, both the Maned and the European ones, and much more to do with rural animals like dogs and pigs, and occasionally mixes between them (more rarely, some old versions even had donkeys). Similarly, it also is invulnerable to silver bullets and transforms on Fridays instead of full moon nights.
• Newer Than They Think:
  • A couple of characteristics associated with the Saci nowadays — such as they becoming mushrooms after dying — came from Monteiro Lobato's 1921 book O Saci, as his previous research about different versions of the myth across the country didn't include those. Other aspects, while already existing and common across folklore, were codified by the version of the book, making what were many different versions of the same creature (there were a few Sacis with two legs, with horns, with a goat foot etc.) one single identifiable and unique character.
  • Iara is actually presumed to have come from a conflation of European beliefs of mermaids with Indigenous beliefs instead of Indigenous culture alone, as her first stories were only registered centuries after the start of colonization (in contrast to the Curupira and Boitatá, for example, who were registered by the priest José de Anchieta in 1560, only sixty years after Portugal's arrival). Native people did have a similar being called Ipupiara, this one mentioned in Anchieta's letter, that might have had some influence in the river mermaid — however, they were more bestial than Iara, being covered in fur and possessing whiskers, more akin to sea-lions than fish. They used brute force instead of seduction to attack humans, turning over their boats so they could eat their noses, eyes, fingers and genitalia.
  • Boitatá is said to have come from a normal snake that, after surviving an enormous flood, adquired a taste for eating the eyes of the animal corpses left when the water subsided. The snake consumed so many eyes that the sparkle of light left in each one accumulated inside of it, making the serpent burst into flames. However, this version actually goes back only to 1913 with the writer from Rio Grande do Sul Simão Lopes Neto, who dedicated his works to study the culture from his region. While this flood version got so famous it was eventually incorporated into popular culture with time, the Boitatá myth on itself is much older than Lopes Neto's tale, being one of the very first myths ever documented in the country's History, right in the 16th century by José de Anchieta, in which it is described as baetatá. It's origins were not set in stone, as some post-colonial versions used to say they were the errant ghosts of non-Christians, for example. Furthermore, its status as a protector of the forest and punisher of arsonists also is a more recent association.
• Nightmare Fuel: Several oral stories are frightening, both as a way to scare children and for adults. Behave badly and the Cuca (an alligator-headed witch), the Papa-Figo and others come to get you. Poach on the wrong forest/river and Caipora/Curupira/Boitatá or some other comes to whip you, make you go crazy, turn you into an animal to be hunted by your own fellow men or kill you. Then there are stories such as the vengeful ghost of a blonde girl who haunts schools' bathrooms, and a creepy clown who kills those who refuse to give it a smile. Oh, and two different tales of disembodied heads that roam around the night scaring people. Not to mention the Corpo Seco, the zombie of an evil man rejected by both Heaven and Hell who haunts the living. And a giant-headed river being that kills and eats girls named Maria to lift its own curse.
• Squick: Several stories say the Lobisomem/Werewolf eats, among other things, chicken feces and manure. It is no wonder they throw up a lot and have health issues once they return to human form.
• Values Dissonance: As it is expected from a reflection of the country’s centuries of history, a few myths bring overtones that don’t resonate well with modern and urbanized audiences and may carry bigoted and patriarchalist connotations.
  • The Headless Mule is a woman who gets cursed to become a hellish beast for having intercourse with a priest. Despite both being equally participant in the transgression, however, the priest rarely receives any punishment at all in most myths, and even when he does, most of the blame still falls on the woman, seen as a promiscuous and seductive being in need to be tamed.
  • The Ataíde, a monster from the mangroves from Pará with a giant phallus, is portrayed as a black man in a few versions with racist overtones and violated hunters who disrespect the reproduction cycle of crabs.
  • Overall, some punishments may seem disproportionate and unnecessary. Disrespecting some of the popular traditions of the Lent, disobeying your parents or godparents, etc., for example, could give someone goat feet or a donkey’s tail.
• Values Resonance: Despite the above, some myths also have several tones that were relevant then and are still important to this day:
  • The Little Black Boy of the Pasture is a folktale emblematic of the process of abolition of slavery, and portrays the titular character as completely innocent, saint, deserving of freedom and protected by Our Lady Mary herself, and the slaveowner as nothing but vile, cruel and pathetic.
  • Despite being often seen as a nuisance, the Saci actually also has overtones of freedom and liberty of black people. The red cap was seen as a symbol of freedom after The French Revolution, and a version says the Saci was originally a chained slave who preferred to cut his own leg off and achieve liberty than living in abuse.
  • Many creatures, such as the seven-piglet sow and the Gold Mother, attack and punish abusive and absent husbands who cheat on their wives.