I don´t know how many of you are aware of this, but yesterday we celebrated the Saci, the one legged, Afro-descendant, mischievous figure, our response to Halloween. For the time being it´s just a bill proposal, still under consideration by our parliamentarians, and largely ignored by the population.
The fact is that Halloween is becoming one of those foreign cultural practices encouraged by language schools (that includes their decorations during this time of the year) that I find most annoying. So, when I heard a knock on my door and two beautiful girls dressed in their gowns saying "trick or treat" I was shocked. I knew young generations are being indoctrinated to accept acritically all forms of cultural import, but that was too much. So, I told them I had no sweets to give away and reassured them this is Brazil. I dind´t mention the Saci, though.
Later on, I regretted being so mean, but well, how would you react if someone knocked on your door like that?
If someone knocked on my door asking for something on the British Boxing Day, Dec 26th for example, I would probably feel the same as you. What? We don't celebrate that here; what are you doing?
ReplyDeleteHalloween being celebrated all over the world as an "U.S. import" has become more and more common, although it definitely does not have the same meaning as it does to people here. Especially given that there is no fall or smell of pumpkins for those kids trick or treating in Brazil:)
I do think it's strange for children to start trick or treating in other cultures unless they are sure that it is accepted by the homes of the people they are visiting. And that there will actually be treats there for them!:)
But then again holidays can migrate. There are places that celebrate Mardi Gras and Carnaval in North America too, even though these aren't traditional holidays for us (except maybe in New Orleans:))
I always heard about Saci when I was in Londrina but I never saw any commemoration or celebrations for him. Did I miss something?
If you missed anything we are missing too, cause there is no reason for a holiday like that, in my opinion, here in Brazil. I've never heard anything about this before, only studied in school when we were taught about the folklore. It sounds weird for me and senseless.
ReplyDeleteHere is a brief explanation about what is this mysterious creature.
ReplyDeleteRegarded as a playful figure who has fun with the animals and people, doing little tricks that create difficulties at home and scaring night travelers with their haunting whistles quite impossible to be acurate or localized. So that makes braided hair of animals after leaving them tired with raids, does the cooks burn the food in the kitchen, makes the travelers get lost on the road. The mith exists at least since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
So the Saci is a young black man with one leg carring a hood over his head that gives him magical powers.
ReplyDeleteHey!
ReplyDeleteSo as you know, here we have Halloween. Along with that tradition some people chose to carve pumpkins, called 'Jack O Lanterns'. I actually read about this around the time we had Halloween here which is October 31st. The Jack O Lantern story is about this guy who's greedy about his money & doesn't share anything. Well with him being that, when he died neither heaven or hell wanted his soul. So he roamed the Earth walking with a lantern!