The folksong “Papagaio Verde” (Green Parrot) is one of the oldest and most widely known Portuguese cantigas — stanzas of verse sung to traditional melodies — that spread from Indo-Portuguese communities to South and Southeast Asia. Sung from Diu to Macao, the papagaio verde is a popular and agile motif: it flies in from afar to teach maxims, play the rogue, criticize or insult, sing to a lover, or beat its wings and sing dance tunes. Variants of quatrains on the theme of the green parrot sung in Creole Portuguese have been collected throughout Luso-Asian communities by linguists, folklorists and ethnographers, and remain part of folk traditions performed in Daman, Malacca and Macao.

Parrots — birds of the order Psittaciformes found in Portugal and throughout the tropical and semi-tropical lands contacted by the Portuguese voyages — appear as a motif in early Portuguese folk verse and folksong. Popular seven-syllable quatrains or cantigas, collected in the field by ethnographer Jose Leite de Vasconcellos (1858–1941), invoke birds with green feathers, or green parrots, for their intelligence, playful social skills, ability to imitate the human voice and long, direct flight. In the nineteenth century, it was common to give a parrot as a gift. Brazilian statesman Joaquim Nabuco (1849–1910) favoured the English politician Charles Herbert Allen (1824–1904) with two parrots, and the recipient wrote in appreciation on 9 February 1900: