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 (cf. ). 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 was one-legged. There is also a myth which casts the Moon and Saci the
curassow () bird as former siblings in
incestuous love before their transformations, which would explain such names as Jaci-Taperê (, "ruin or abandoned house of the moon"). 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.
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 who was the supreme mother of all vegetation as well as being a lunar goddess. 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 "
goblin", 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. 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. It has been argued by Queiroz that Saci's sulfur smell, devilishness, thievery, sorcery, etc., are things that the "rural dominant class" among the
Paulistas had ascribed black laboring population, while the common rural folk were free of such bigotry.
Monteiro Lobato was not the inventor of the sulfur legend, having only collected it from readers. But Monteiro Lobato's children's book (1921) made Saci familiar to the urban populace, as a heroic figure black color, nevertheless retained the negative stigma of the sulfuric smell and capturability, resulting the modern media subsequently censuring and downplaying those aspects (thus "taming" the Saci from the wild) . == Parallel ==