Lenda da Cuca explained (Brazilian folklore)

Cuca is a personagem who assumes a great relay not national folklore, becoming quite popular without imaginary of various gerações.

One more bruxa, which in some verses assumes in the form of a jacaré, the figure has been reinvented two years ago.

Understand lenda da Cuca and its variations

Uma feminine version of "bug-papão", Cuca is known for devouring such misbehaved children. The Brazilian writer and folklorist Amadeu Amaral summed up his symbolism, unbelieving as a “fantastic entity that gets half of criancinhas”.

Raised to scare you "restless men, insones or faladores", as explained by Câmara Cascudo not Dictionary of Brazilian Folklore, it is configured as an ameaça that can assume various appearances different.

Na maior part das versões, Cuca is a bruxa very velha and wicked, with sharp claws and white hair. In other stories she is stout, very lean and tied with a jacaré head. In our stories, the figure appears as a shadow or a ghost.

Frederico Edelweiss, em

Folklore Appointees, lists some of the most common descriptions, also showing that it is a multifaceted entity:

In its form it is very vague. Here is a report that no one knows how to disbelieve; Ali, a velha whose appearance is close to the bruxa, or an imprecise ghost. It appears and some number open and date of olhos, carrying our arms, or our sack, the men who paint a bed or inverse of sleeping.

Envelope em mistérios, Cuca is um two "terrors of the night" of childish imagination. Or being mythological can also, in some variants, will transform into creatures noturnal, like corujas or butterflies, to flee or approach without any repair.

There is a myth or myth that, every thousand years, a nova Cuca would emerge from one egg, ready to be even more terrifying than its predecessors. A league as the animal world seems to have been created in a series Cidade Invisível, which associates the myth of folklore with borboletas-azuis.

Nas suas various representações, is a perigious creature full of gifts: for example, feitiços face, control or sound and até invades the sonhos alheios. This relationship as a night is established, mainly, through songs of ninar antigas that we continue to be present not everyday and intend to place as crianças to sleep:

Nana, baby
That cuca see me hit
Papai foi na roça
Mom was working

Most famous representations da lenda

As works dedicated to Brazilian folklore are always a reference to the Cuca lenda, a popular history that was passed from geração em geração, assuming different contours in various regions.

Contudo, some literary, cultural and artistic creations have contributed greatly to the propagation of myth.

Sítio do Picapau Amarelo

Sem dúvida que o writer Monteiro Lobato (1882 - 1948) was two of the most important disseminators of the lenda da Cuca, as of other figures of national folklore.

Na collection of books for crianças Site do Picapau Amarelo (1920 - 1947), a personagem emerges as one of the great viles of history. Logo of the first work, O Saci (1921), she is represented as a maleficent witch, with the face and claws of jacaré.

You are free, of great success, forms adapted for television, first for TV stations Tupi e Bandeirantes.

Later, in 1977, to Rede Globo criou seu children show Like the same thing, that I prospered on TV and conquered the interests of viewers. A series was taken up in 2001, keeping bruxa as one of the main characters of the narrative.

This version of Cuca, which has already made memes in social networks, also has a very famous music that was recorded by the singer Cássia Eller. Relembre or refrão below:

Be careful with Cuca, cuca hits you
E paste daqui e paste de la

Cuca is evil and is irritated
Cuca é zangada, watch out for her

Find out more about Monteiro Lobato e suas most important works.

Serie Cidade Invisível

A national fantasy series was created by Carlos Saldanha and launched, on Netflix, in February 2021. An absolute success on the digital platform, or entanglement appears to important figures of Brazilian folklore to the public all over the world.

Com as lendas represented num contemporary dining roomThese mythological beings have a more human facet and are vulnerable, because they are being persecuted by an unknown inimigo. Cuca is presented as Inês, a feiticeira who assumes the role of leader and tries to protect her fellow men.

Able to control the borboletas-azuis and até to transform numa, a personagem recovers the version of the shadow that turns butterfly, that was not present in folklore, embora não fosse a more conhecida. Here, a history is mixed with a myth that exists between the Brazilian people.

Second to popular belief, or why are these bubbles letting go It would be able to blind someone (or that was denied by science). No entanglement, contudo, this substance would provoke or sound or tie a temporary amnesty, due to the powers of bruxa.

Origins gives lenda and historical context

Foi during the da period colonization That a lenda da Cuca chegou ao Brazil: começou for more força in the region of São Paulo, more depois ended up leaving hair in the rest of the country.

Its origin is related to the figure of Coca, ou Santa Coca, do Portuguese folklore. Present with infantile rhymes and nursery rhymes, it also arose in religious and popular commemorations.

No Minho, for example, appeared as a dragão that São Jorge defeated, during the procissão of Corpus Christi. Or costume is still made, at the moment, in the locality of Monção:

Or nome "coca" or "coco" was used to designate a type of abóboras used as castiçais, decorated with cut-out and scary faces. Associated or half to this idea of ​​a floating head, or myth also arose non-masculine, as the figure of Coco or Farricoco.

A homem disguised or scared, the procession of dark robes and hoods parades, as a covered face, symbolizing death. Traditionally, belonging to the Algarve region, it will also take place in Brazil, mainly in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.

There are also cultural and religious manifestations, or myth that served as a warning for as gerações mais novas, being a species of mythological ameaça for guarantee or good behavior. A figure finds a parallel na Bad Cuca It gives Spanish culture, as well as elements of African and indigenous mythologies, among others.

As Luís da Câmara Cascudo explicitou, em Geography of two Brazilian Myths, these folklore tales seem synthesize influences from several different sources:

Neles summarizes African, European and Amerindian specimens. As the phantom appears that is fixed to a greater influence, do Coco, formless and demonic, da Coca, monstrous, do Cuco negro, broken and mysterious anthropophagous. For a single entity we see the materialization of three secular assumptions, with traces of our Anglo and Tupi languages.

Take the opportunity to see also:

• Lendas incríveis do Brazilian folklore
• Lenda do Boto analyzed
• Lenda do Curupira explained
• Lenda da Iara analyzed