Case file · Folklore / legend
The papa-figo, the liver eater
In Pernambuco, Paraíba and Bahia, children were warned of the papa-figo, a ragged old man who kidnapped children to eat their liver as a cure for his own disease. The tale is placed in the early 20th century.
1900 CE · -8.06, -34.92 · status: legend
The account
The name is a corruption of 'papa-fígado'. Folklorists link it to fear of leprosy, then widespread, and to old European beliefs that human organs could cure illness. Gilberto Freyre's 'Assombrações do Recife Velho' shows how such terrors filled the city's oral culture.
The sceptical view
A bogeyman story; no kidnapping case behind it has been documented.