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by E DWA R D L .

B RO U G H
eluna@ele-mental.org

LU N A

CAP O E I RA

C I R C L I N G I N T H E WH E E L O F L I F E
(kah-PWEH-dah) is an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines aspects of ritual,
dance, street ghting, acrobatics, music, cunning, and playfulness. The practice has been
deeply inuenced by the African experience in Brazil, dating back at least to the 18th-century
colonial era, and perhaps far earlier. However, because it has largely been passed down from one
practitioner to another, few outsiders have had access to the secrets of capoeira until relatively
recently. As a result, its history is riddled with complexities and contradictions that are only just
beginning to be unraveled. This article should therefore be read as a preliminary, and evolving
effort to bring together the hard facts of historical research with the oraland bodilyhistory
of capoeira, as learned through the authors own research and training in the form.1
CAPOEIRA

AFRICAN ORIGINS

The ngolo, or dance of the zebras


(Neves e Souza, c. 1960s)

An important precedent for capoeira may be found in a little-known tradition of African danceghting. Dance-ghting is still practiced by some isolated Bantu-language communities
in West Central Africa, ranging from the southern highlands of Angola, north to the river
Congo. In traditional African societies throughout this region (and indeed, much of Africa), it
is common for rites of passage, celebrations, religious rituals, and even military training to be
weaved into community life through music, storytelling, and movement.
In extreme southwestern Angola, one group of people (ethnographically categorized as
N
Nyaneka-Humbe
, or informally as Bangala) perform a kind of two-person challenge dance
called the engolo.2 Often cited by capoeira practitioners as a likely antecedent of capoeira, the
engolo is still performed as part of formal initiation or marriage ceremonies. It may have also
been used in the training of warriors, or as an informal, playful way to keep the reexes sharp.
Inspired by the ghting style of zebras, the engolo (and similar forms throughout the area)
consists mostly of kicks, sweeps, and headbutts meant to humiliate, but generally not disable,
an opponent. The lack of hand strikes may partially be explained by a proverb in Kikongo (a
nearby Congolese language) that says that hands are to build, feet are to destroy.3 This kind
of foot-ghting tradition, transplanted to the Americas along with many other African cultural
practices, may have eventually became known in Brazil as the jogo de capoeira. To understand
how it came to be that so many Africans were taken to Brazil, however, we must investigate the
early years of Brazils colonial history.

BAN T U
REG I O N

v 1.1, 13 March 2005

THE BRAZILIAN CONTEXT

Upon the rather uneventful landing of a Portuguese eet on the Northeast coast of Brazil in
1500, the vast country (equal in size to the lower 48 United States) did not seem to offer the
seafarers any obvious riches or civilizations to spoil. The local Tupi peoples, hunter-gatherers
who engaged in constant warfare against their neighbors (including ritual cannibalism), did
not possess gold or build impressive cities, such as those the Spanish would soon topple in
Mexico and Peru. The Tupi did, however, possess an encyclopedic knowledge of their own
land (which they called Pindorama, or Land of the Palm Trees), enabling them to help the
Portuguese harvest a tree that produced a valuable red textile dye. This wood, called pau brazil,
would eventually give the country its name. Nevertheless, even with such a lucrative trade
in dyewood, the Portuguese lacked the resources and desire to colonize the country, so they
focused their efforts on continuing their growing monopoly over the African slave trade, and
trading routes to the Far East.
With ambitious Portuguese navigators leading the way throughout the late 1400s, trade
routes from Europe to Asia and the New World opened a new kind of global economy. The
introduction of exotic new concoctions such as tea, coffee, and cocoa in Europe also created
an unforeseen need for sugar to sweeten these usually bitter drinks. Sugarcane did not grow
well in the European climate, however, so the Portuguese established plantations (or engenhos)
engenhos
on the African islands of So Tom and Prncipe. When these proved wildly successful, the
Portuguese turned their attention to the new Brazilian captaincies of Pernambuco and Bahia
de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints) in the mid 1500s, quickly transforming them into
massive sugar producing areas whose rich massap soil became the lifeblood of the worlds sugar
growing trade.

Working on the sugar mill


(Hercules Florence, Brazil, c. 1830s)

At rst, the native Tupis were rounded up to work these plantations, but they either resisted
ercely, ed to the interior, or succumbed to European diseases for which they had no resistance.
Jesuit missionaries also came into protect the natives, who they believed were in desperate
need of salvation. As a result, the Portuguese began to depend more on African slaves. Despite
being heathens, many Africans were familiar with various agricultural practices, and had
already proven their endurance under the difcult conditions of sugarcane production. Africans
also engaged in a complex form of bonded servitude that was deeply embedded into the fabric
of African life. Under this diverse system, slaves were usually guaranteed certain rights and
privileges as human beings. However, by the late 1500s, as the demand for sugar began to
grow exponentially, the Portuguese, along with other opportunistic Europeans and Africans,
began to transform this institution into a gruesome, wholesale trafc of human beings. Over
the course of four centuries, as many as 5 million Africans were transported to Brazilsome
40% of all the Africans taken to the Americas (in contrast, North America received only about
5%).4
AFRICANS IN BRAZIL

Slave quarters
(detail from Rugendas, Brazil, c. 1830s)

Under the harsh conditions of capture in Africa (where slaves were usually branded with
the mark of the slave raider who captured them), on the horridly overcrowded slave ships
(nicknamed tumbeiros,
tumbeiros or tomb ships), or under the subsequent seasoning process in Brazil,
up to half of these people lost their lives. On the putrid slave ships, many Africans believed
they had been captured for use as food by the Europeans, so they often attempted to throw
themselves overboard. Untold numbers also died from malnutrition, and diseases such as
smallpox and dysentery. Those who survived the middle passage usually found themselves
at the dismal slave trading centers along the Brazilian coastline: from Marano in the north,
down to Pernambuco, Salvador (Bahia), and Rio de Janeiro in the south. Here, slaves were
cleaned up, processed, displayed, and sold like cattle. What little comfort newly arrived
Africans may have found in the similarity between the climate and terrain of Brazil and their
African homelands5 was quickly tempered by the inescapable and hostile reality of slave life.
In Brazil, a slaves useful work life averaged just seven years, so there was little reason for slave
owners to provide much in the way of shelter, clothing, proper food, or health care. Unlike
the United States, where slaves were considered valuable property, slaves were a replaceable
commodity in Brazil.
Yet these Africans were not just an undifferentiated mass of people. Each pea (or piece,
as the Portuguese called their human cargo) was torn from an ethnic/tribal group that had its
own history, language, customs, religious beliefs, games, and methods for making war. The
African presence in Brazil has thus been greatly inuenced by the historical cycles of the slave
trade, which spanned over 300 years (c. 15201850). Portuguese traders often took advantage
of a certain tribes afnity for agriculture, or another groups sophistication in metallurgy, for
example. Slaves were thus employed in a wide variety of occupations in Brazil, as agricultural
laborers (on sugar, coffee, cotton, and manioc plantations), domestic servants, artisans, barbers,
miners, and even bounty hunters (capites de mato, or bush captains) charged with hunting
down runaway slaves.
In the hunt for slaves in Africa, early slave traders concentrated on the peoples of the extreme
West African coast (Upper Guinea), who had proven themselves to be civilized and adaptable
to various work situations. In the 1600s, the need for sheer numbers of slaves to work the
sugarcane engenhos led the Portuguese to the populous region of West Central Africa, known
as Kongo and Angola, where the Portuguese took advantage of instability in the legendary
kingdom of the Kongo to capture thousands. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries (and
even into the 19th), the Angolan ports of Luanda and Benguela were the primary ports of exit
for slaves taken from this vast region. These Bantu-speaking peoples (primarily pastoralists,
semi-nomadic cattle herders, and farmers ranging from as far north as the Congo, to as far east
as Mozambique) became the most important African inuence in Brazil.
As slave raiding routes began to encroach upon more isolated territories of the Angolan
highlands, including those where dance-ghting was practiced, they probably encountered
warriors of the engolo and other ghting forms. The Portuguese must have also recognized
the prowess of such warrior groups such as the Jaga, who had afliated with the extraordinary
Queen Nzinga (15821663) to resist Portuguese advances into Angola in a 40 year guerrilla
war. Slave raiders also had to contend with a new political entity in Angola, the imbangala,

which were radical militarized communities in a constant state of readiness (later inspiring the
runaway slave communities of Brazil, known as mocambos or quilombos).
quilombos By 1770, even as the
Angolan trade continued unabated, a last cycle of slaves were drawn from the Bight of Benin
(or present-day Nigeria and Benin). The well educated Yoruba (known in Brazil as the Ngo)
brought their own language, martial arts (such as stick-ghting and wrestling), and a complex
religion of orix worship to Brazil, widely known by the 1800s as umbanda or candombl.
candombl 7
AFRICAN CONTINUITIES

The constant need for new laborers throughout from the 16th to the 19th centuries ensured
a steady stream of Africans headed to Brazil. As new arrivals (called boais
boais) brought their own
customs and beliefs with them, these often mingled with those already present in (or adapted to)
the Brazilian context. Large numbers of displaced Africans thus managed to maintain certain
aspects of their own traditions in spite of the sad conditions of slavery, and the dominance of
Portuguese language, political institutions, and Roman Catholicism. African customs were also
inuenced by Amerindian culture, especially in the use of local medicinal plants.
While this resulted in the creolization and evolution of many African traditions, many of
theseexpressed in food, dress, religious practices, movement, words, and attitudeshave not
lost their African character, even to the present day. A few (including, arguably, dance-ghting)
have even been passed on with little alteration.6 This was made possible by the vibrancy of
African oral culture, and by the tendency of Africans to organize or identify themselves by
ethnic groups. In Brazil, prominent nations (or naes
naes) such as Angola (Bantu), Ngo (Yoruba),
Gege, Ijex, and Mal (Islamicized Africans), as well as other organizations such as work groups
(cantos),
cantos), lay fraternities (irmanidades
cantos
irmanidades), and a number of secret African societies worked to
preserve African traditions (possibly including the engolo
engolo), and to help their fellow Africans
in matters of spirituality, health, and the assertion of legal rights (such as holding slaveowners
accountable for poor treatment, and the right of slaves to buy back their own freedom).
Portrait of Salvador
(detail from Rugendas, c. 1820s)

P RO B L E M S A N D PA R A L L E L S

Unfortunately, it is still not known exactly when or how the practice of African dance-ghting
arrived in Brazil, or how it may have developed under the conditions of slavery. Research into
this important question is complicated by the fact that, throughout the 400-year span of the
African slave trade, details about African culture (and its games/dances/ghting forms) were
often poorly documented, and when they were, they were almost always from a Eurocentric
viewpoint. It is also worth remembering that throughout those many years, African cultures
continued to change dynamically, either for their own internal reasons, or in response to the
slave trade. So we cannot simply speak of a static Africa that remained unchanged for over
three centuries. Because of this complex picture, and the scarcity of cultural accounts on
Brazilian slavery, it may be impossible to determine how a practice like the engolo became
known as capoeira, or if a single moment marks the beginning of capoeira in Brazil.
The existence of other dance-ghting forms throughout the Americas offer an intriguing parallel
area of research that has just begun to be examined. The ladja or danmy of Martinique, the
broma of Venezuela, the man of Cuba, and the secretive knocking and kicking of the Southern
United States (all areas of heavy Bantu concentration) seem to share capoeiras emphasis on
leg techniques and the use of headbutts.7 Perhaps African dance-ghting was spread from
place to place by freed blacks who traveled widely as merchants and mariners throughout the
18th and 19th centuries. Or, perhaps it arose in different places out of similar conditions or
where various Bantu forms were creolized. It has even been suggested that dance-ghting
was developed in Brazil and introduced back to Africa itself, further complicating any attempt
to differentiate older traditions from newer practices. In either case, it is clear that what is left
of the tradition in Africa itself sadly appears to be dying out, as Angola and the Democratic
Republic of Congo have been ravaged by years of warfare and mass migration.
R E S I S TA N C E

If current research sees the emergence of capoeira as a kind of reframing of African danceghting traditions under the repressive conditions of slavery in Brazil, there is ample evidence
of other forms that evolved in a similar manner. The batuque,
batuque a generic name for a variety
of competitive Kongolese/Angolan circle dances transplanted to Brazil, was performed in
the plantation slave barracks (or senzalas
senzalas) during rest days or celebration, with long sessions
of all-night drumming, chanting, and dancing. These types of dances later gave rise to

the famous samba. Many slave owners, eager to ensure the loyalty of their subjects, often
permitted these mysterious and pagan expressions of African culture to take place. Danceghting practitioners may have taken advantage of this, hiding their foot-ghting arts as mere
amusements embedded in the competitive atmosphere of the batuque
batuque. In this context, danceghting was likely used as a mock style of combat that could allow slaves to resolve inter-tribal
conicts through a seemingly innocent game. This game also commented ironically on
the master/slave relationship by temporarily inverting the established order (through the use
of upside down movements that mocked the upright Europeans, and possibly symbolized a
connection to the underworld), while allowing Africans to reassert their humanity in ways that
capoeira continues to serve Afro-Brazilians (and indeed, all capoeira students) today.
The batuque
(Debret, Brazil, c. 1830s)

Zumbi dos Palmares, as depicted in Quilombo


(Diegues, 1984)

Reecting this image of slaves performing their dances on the senzalas,


senzalas capoeira is often described
in the oral history as a ght hidden as a dance. Unable to practice their martial art openly,
they hid the violent movements of capoeira as a dance, performed right under the noses of
the slave owners. This kind of passive resistance was common among slaves, who might
react to a slaveowners poor treatment by organizing work slowdowns or deliberately breaking
equipment. Individual slaves could also resist by taking orders too literally, manipulating
cultural or linguistic differences, or even drinking heavily to impair the quality of their work.
In addition to the usual forms of punishment (whippings, beatings, connement in chains,
loss of privileges) rebellious slaves were sometimes put against each other in public prize ghts,
in which it seems likely that capoeira may have been used.
Slaves also reacted to the misery of plantation life by running away and forming their own
temporary communities. Enclaves known as mocambos or quilombos (which were modeled after
the Angolan military communities, also called kilombos)
kilombos were usually parasitic shantytowns
or dugouts on the fringes of populated areas. On one famous occasion, however, a cluster
of these grew to contain as much as one sixth of the population of Brazil. From about 1620
until its destruction in 1695, the Quilombo dos Palmares (located south of Recife) plagued
the Portuguese and Dutch, surviving a number of raids and growing to an enormous size,
populated by Africans, natives, creoles, and even some Europeans. Its last leader, Zumbi, was
betrayed and killed, but even today Zumbi and Palmares are celebrated for their important role
as symbols of African resistance to Portuguese domination. Zumbi is also portrayed as having
been a capoeira practitioner, but it is not known if or how dance-ghting was used for military
training, or whether it was merely one of many strategies available to rebel communities. Nor is
it known whether capoeira was used in the dozens of slave rebellions that occurred throughout
the slavery period in Brazil, including a number of famous revolts in early 1800s Bahia.
E T Y M O LO G Y O F C A P O E I R A

The origins of the very word capoeira are likewise difcult to determine. The most popular
suggestion derives it from ca-puera, a native Amerindian Tupi word that refers to a burnt
scrubland where escaped slaves often took refuge. Another possibility is the Portuguese
capoeira, meaning chicken cage or coop, connecting dance-ghting with cockghting. A more
recent suggestion is the African Kikongo word kipura (among other Bantu derivatives) which
is likewise associated with the uttering movements of roosters. Of the three main linguistic
inuences on Brazilian Portuguese (native, Portuguese, and African), however, the African
contribution haslike capoeira and its origins in practices like the engolo
engolobeen almost
completely neglected until recently. Further research is therefore likely to enrich this etymology
with further African possibilities.
THE URBAN CONTEXT

Jogo de capoeira, ou dance de la guerre


(Rugendas, Rio de Janeiro, c. 1820s)

W
Whatever
the nature of the arrival and development of Angolan/Kongolese foot-ghting
traditions, the rst written citations of capoeira occur in the police records and tourist accounts
of Brazils main coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Recife in the early 1800s. On the
narrow streets of these heavily urbanized areas, where newly arrived Africans, acculturated AfroBrazilian mulattoes, and poor European immigrants mingled, authorities recorded the arrests
of hundreds of capoeiras
capoeirascapoeira playerswho engaged in the bloody war dance known
as capoeiragem, or the practice of capoeira. Later, especially in Rio, these streetwise rogues (or
malandros) organized themselves into vicious gangs (or maltas
malandros
maltas) that alternately terrorized and
protected communities and politicians. In addition to this violent and spontaneous street
ghting form, a more secretive tradition of African dance-ghting may have also preserved (as
implied by the secrecy surrounding its 19th and 20th century descendant, capoeira angola
angola).

Many capoeiras also worked seasonally as shermen, stevedores, and sailorsoccupations


with many hours of downtime, during which capoeira also came to be known by the ironic
euphemism of vadiao (or doing nothing in particular).
Given this diverse picture, and the increased internal trading of slaves to other parts of Brazil in
the second half of the 19th century, it would appear that a practice once performed in Africa by
a relatively small number of people became widely dispersed throughout Brazil under a wide
range of circumstances (urban and rural) by Africans, freed blacks (negros
negros de ganho
ganho), mulattoes,
creoles, and a smaller number of European immigrants.
REPRESSION

Taking lashes on the pelourinho, or whipping post


(Debret, Brazil, c. 1820s)

Salvador, Bahia - the former Brazilian capital


(c. 1850s)

In the earlier days of Brazilian slavery, as has already been noted, black people were often
allowed to practice many of their own traditions, as long as they appeared to work hard and
paid their supercial devotions to Catholicism. However, by the early 1800s, the number of
slave rebellions, as well as a growingand very racistperception of African culture as being
primitive or degraded, led to a harsh persecution of all things African. Capoeira, along with
the secretive religion of candombl (to which capoeira is intricately linked), was singled out as
a particular threat to the peace, and was punishable by public whipping. When a number of
local statutes failed to wipe out the form, the new Republic of Brazil outlawed capoeiragem
nationwide in 1890, only two years after the abolition of slavery (the last country in the
Western Hemisphere to do so).
Despite its harsh repression, capoeira maintained an uneasy relationship with the state
throughout period or repression and national prohibition (c.1820c.1930). Sometimes, to
avoid punishment, practitioners were drafted to serve in the military as soldiers or laborers.
During the war with Paraguay in the 1860s, for example, a number of capoeiras (many from
Bahia) distinguished themselves by their effectiveness as front-line warriors. At other times, the
capoeiras were informally enlisted to help put down domestic disturbances. In popular culture,
a whole literature romanticizing the dangerous lifestyle of the well-dressed malandro gure also
arose, even as the real-life counterparts of these ctional scoundrels were being punished and
imprisoned for practicing their art.
By the early 1900s, the authorities nearly succeeded in eliminating capoeira altogether. In Rio,
where capoeira had been heavily inuenced by the new underclass of poor Europeans (including
the notorious Portuguese knife-wielding fadistas),
fadistas 8 capoeira had also degenerated into all-out
gang warfare (armed with machetes, razors, and clubs). Such violence gave the authorities an
excuse to wipe out the maltas without mercy, and as a result, Rios capoeira carioca was all but
lost. It only survived as a cutthroat ghting form in a few seedy favelas (slums), and as a
combative form taught in a few military academies with no ritual or music.9 Meanwhile, in
the far northern city of Recife, tough capoeiras were known as moleques de banda (band brats)
who performed, sometimes with colorful umbrellas, as part of battling street processions. After
the police began to repress these displays, some capoeira-like movements were recongured
into a dance known as the frevo. It was only in the old colonial capital of Salvador, Bahia (and
the surrounding recncavo of the Bay of All Saints), that capoeira managed to survive as a
streetwise game-dance-ght symbolizing the subterfuge and resistance necessary for everyday
survival. Taking on the more deliberate appearance of a dance through the use of drums,
tambourines, and an ancient Bantu bow instrument called the berimbau, Bahian capoeira was
also perhaps the closest living representation of the African dance-ght tradition.
T WO M A S T E R S

Throughout the nationwide period of prohibition, many informal, streetwise mestres (masters)
of capoeira remained active in Bahia. Among these were two remarkable men who fought for
the recognition of the form. Both were said to have been taught the tradition by Africans, and
it is largely because of their efforts that the secret movements and mythologies of capoeira were
nally revealed to the world.

Mestre Bimba - showing his meia lua de frente


(c. 1950s)

Mestre Bimba (c. 18991974), originally a much-feared mestre of traditional capoeira,


decided to clean up what he saw as a folkloric and ineffective ghting form. By the early
30s, he had created his own, stripped-down version of capoeira, initially called luta regional
baiana (or regional ght of Bahia) to avoid the illegal word, capoeira. Under the guidance
and inuence of several of his students (including the doctor and jujitsu enthusiast Cisnando

Mestre Pastinha - waiting for the next move


(c. 1950s)

Trara and Naj, playing the money game


(Barraco
Barraco do Mestre Waldemar
Waldemar, Bahia, 1954)

Lima), he eliminated many of the ritual functions of capoeira, brought the practice indoors,
and introduced a number of pedagogical innovations. These included formalized sequences
of movements, uniforms, and specic rites of passage for his students (such as baptisms and
graduations). In short, Bimba modernized capoeira. Thanks to his efforts, which included
performances for government ofcials of the Getlio Vargas dictatorship, Bimbas capoeira
(later known only as regional
regional) came to be seen as a legitimate, and uniquely Brazilian cultural
form worthy of preservation. Regional was also well suited for the nationalistic propaganda of
Vargas New State (Estado
Estado Novo
Novo), which proposed the rosy but ctitious notion of a raceless,
egalitarian Brazil made up of equal parts European, Indian, and African cultures. Under Bimba,
capoeira regional also became Brazils second national sport (after football soccer), appealing
to lighter-skinned and middle class Brazilians, and proving itself to be a devastating ghting
form that could equal (and often defeat) other martial arts in challenge matches. It was also
Bimbas regional that was eventually seen and spread all throughout Brazil.
In the meantime, the traditional capoeira of all other mestres continued as an informal, streetsmart, and playful form deeply connected to Afro-Brazilian culture. To distinguish it from the
growing style of regional
regional, as well as to acknowledge its Bantu origins in practices such as the
engolo, it became better known as capoeira angola. Among its many mestres
mestressuch as Daniel
Noronha, Mar, Waldemar, Cobrinha Verde, Joo de Bodeiro, and Canjiquinhathe gentle
and philosophical Mestre Pastinha (18891981) was the best known. His academy, established
in the 1940s as the Centro Esportiva de Capoeira Angola (CECA), was an important focal
point for capoeira angola, and Bahian culture in general (world-renowned author Jorge Amado
was a frequent visitor). It is largely thanks to the elder Pastinha, and the angoleiros who passed
through his doors, that many of the traditions of capoeira angola were preserved and passed
on. Another angoleiro worth noting here was Mestre Waldemar (19161990), whose outdoor
pavilion in the neighborhood of Liberdade hosted many legendary capoeira rodas (circles),
and who provided the world with its rst painted berimbaus.
T H E C O N T E M P O R A RY S C E N E

In Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s, a group of young capoeira enthusiasts (many of them originally
from Bahia) formed the Grupo Senzala, creating a highly stylized version of Mestre Bimbas
luta regional that was inspired by Rios own underground tradition of capoeira, as well as other
martial arts and gymnastic practices. Apart from the inuence of some of Mestre Bimbas most
respected graduates in Bahia, such as Mestres Acordeon, Itapoan, and Dr. Angelo Decnio, the
so-called Senzala style (and its offshoots, such as Abad-Capoeira and Omulu), has remained
the primary force in the modernization, globalization, and homogenization of capoeira.10

Postcard showing capoeira regional


(Salvador, Bahia)

Mestre Moraes Grupo Capoeira Angola Pelourinho


(Forte do Santo Antnio, Bahia, Brazil)

This contemporary style, which introduced belt ranking systems and military-style training
methods (echoing the move of Rios capoeira from the streets to military academies), is also the
most public face of capoeira: as seen in Hollywood lms (such as Only the Strong and Oceans
Twelve), commercials, dance performances (such as Jelon Vieiras famous DanceBrazil), and
Twelve
video game characters (such as Tekkens Eddy Gordo). Some argue that its extreme popularity
and stylizationemphasizing fast games, ghting techniques, standardized movements, and
powerful, airborne acrobaticshas also sacriced the deeper Afro-Bahian roots of capoeira,
where, by contrast, capoeira is still understood as a playful, ritualistic, and somewhat secretive
pastime that is highly personal and idiosyncratic.
Indeed, thanks to the rise of the Grupo Senzalas competitive style of demonstration capoeira,
the older and more folkloric style of capoeira angola was nearly lost. Pastinhas academy was
closed in the early 1970s due to some governmental double-dealing, but the informal teaching
methods of many of the old mestres themselveswho taught only a handful of students at
a time, without structured lessonswere also partially to blame. By the early 1980s, angola
was slowly revived by Pastinhas students; rst, by Mestre Joo Pequeno, and later, Mestres
Joo Grande, Boca Rica, Bola Sete, and Curi. Mestre Moraes, a follower of the two Joos,
established the Grupo Capoeira Angola Pelourinho (GCAP) in 1980, teaching a more stylized
and politicized form of capoeira angola that has become a meeting point for black consciousness
and activism. At the same time, other mestres (including Bahias Mestre Neco, Mestre Lua de
Bob, and the authors own Mestre Caboquinho) have followed or revived other lineages of
capoeira angola that can trace their heritage back to Bahias old street rodas
rodas, and far beyond.
Ironically, even Mestre Bimbas modern luta regional baiana has also been resuscitated by his
son Nenl, who is among the very few to strictly adhere to its original teachings.

C A P O E I R A : A C O N T E S T E D A RT

As this article has already made clear


clear, capoeira has been adapted to local conditions throughout
its history: from its origins in African challenge dances, to the senzala slave quarters, the
transitory quilombo communities, the rough favelas of Rio, the colorful parades of Recife,
the cobblestone ladeiras of Salvador, and now a worldwide network of capoeira academies.
The main distinctions between todays capoeira are between the more-or-less traditionalist
angola, the historical luta regional (practiced by very few) and the contemporary hybrid of
regional (which has often tried to reintegrate movements from angola).
angola Other examplesall
heavily inuenced by contemporary capoeira
capoeirainclude choreographed show capoeira,
tournament-style sport capoeira, and the informal capoeira played on the beaches and streets
(capoeira
capoeira da rua
rua). A few individuals have even created their own brand of capoeira (such as
Mestre Suassunas capoeira miudinha, or small capoeira).

Eddy Gordo from Tekken 3 ghting game


(Namco, 1996)

DanceBrazil
(Lois Greeneld, 1996)

Staging the ginga at Mestre Acordeons academy


(Berkeley, CA, c, 1999)

All these styles of Brazilian capoeira (not to mention the cognates found elsewhere in the
Americas) may indeed represent different manifestations, reframings, or revivals of
African dance-ghting traditions. However, because of this, capoeira is often framed to suit a
particular point of view: groups that emphasize the ghting aspect of capoeira may point to
the effectiveness of Rios maltas or Bimbas prize-ghting days; Brazilian nationalists may insist
on the forms origin in multicultural Brazil; Afro-centrists may emphasize its pure African
roots; those who create their own style may seek justication in the example of Bimbas luta
regional, and so on. T
regional
To be sure, many traditions of capoeira have been lost, rediscovered, and
reinvented throughout the years, especially in the 20th century. Even since the 1960s, the
Grupo Senzalas aggressive stylization of regional
regional, and later, the bringing of angola under the
roof of the academy, have irrevocably changed the practice and appearance of capoeira. Given
all these changes, some have wondered if it is possible, or even relevant, to claim an authentic
style or tradition of capoeira.
Many of the practitioners of the contemporary style of capoeira therefore justify the modern
and innovative aspects of capoeira, and promote capoeira as a powerful sport worthy of
Olympic contention. Traditional capoeira, meanwhile, is seen as a valuable, but rather quaint
and folkloric form that has seen better days. Often, in the genuine belief that the traditional
and the modern ought to be brought together into a single, unied practice of capoeira (a
capoeira uma s, or capoeira is only one), contemporary practitioners train in both styles,
one played low and slow, the other fast and furious, in order to master a complete art.
However, these tendencieswhich dominate the worldwide practice of capoeiraare based
on arrogant assumptions that are strongly refuted by traditionalists. Angoleiros point to a
genuine continuity of tradition that can be traced directly to late 1800s Bahia, and indirectly
hundreds of years earlier, to the experiences of Africans under slavery and the challenge dances
of Africa itself. While few would argue that some of its supercial aspects have evolved and/or
changed (such as the standardization of its teaching methods), angoleiros nonetheless believe
that their tradition represents a core of philosophical and bodily practices that havew survived
for hundreds of years relatively intact. Meanwhile, the Senzala style is just a ashy 1960s
reinterpretation of Bimbas regional
regional, which itself broke completely from the capoeira of its day.
As such, it has little connection to its own traditions, and even less connection to the precious,
living traditions of capoeira angola, of which it has only a supercial understanding
The passage of secrets in candombl offers another way to understand this issue. In the orix
traditionstronger in Bahia than in Africa itselfthere are candombl houses that are
welcoming to tourists and journalists, but there are many houses that are closed off to outsiders.
Likewise, capoeira has its visible aspects, as well as secret aspects which are only accessible
to the holders of tradition. The awe-inspiring movements and exaggerated games so often seen
in the contemporary style may therefore be properly understood as merely the most visible
aspect of a practice that continues to maintain many secrets and contradictions.
T H E RO L E O F WO M E N I N C A P O E I R A

Candombl
mbl priestress
during ceremony calling the orixs

Although a few women are mentioned in lists of old capoeira mestres (including Palmeirona,
Maria Cachoeira, and Maria P no Mato11), little is known about the historical role of women
in this traditionally male art. The participation of women may have simply been constrained
by the clearer distinction between gender roles in Brazilian society, or by issues of fashion (as it
is difcult to properly execute capoeira movements in the owing white dresses of the baianas).
baianas

On the other hand, women have always dominated the highest positions as priestesses in the
religion of candombl
candombl, and most self-respecting Brazilians make offerings to the sea goddess
Iemanj, one of the most powerful orixs in the candombl pantheon.

Contra-Mestre Rapidinha of T.A.B.C.A.T.


One day before giving birth (2005)

Yet even as there remains a stigma against capoeira in Brazilian culture itself, women have
recently become more and more involved in the practice (especially outside of Brazil). Several
remarkable women have even gained higher titles in both angola and the newer styles. Among
Bahian angoleiras
angoleiras, Mestra Jararaca (graduated by Curi) is the best known, along with her sister
Professora Ritinha (of Joo Pequeno). In the U.S., angoleiro Mestre Caboquinho has graduated
two contra (or half ) mestres
mestres, named Biriba and Rapidinha. Among representatives of regional/
regional
contemporary capoeira, Mestre Acordeon has graduated the rst non-Brazilian mestra, Suelly,
while Abads famous Mestre Camisa (formerly of Senzala) has graduated the Brazilian-born
mestrandas Edna Lima (New York City) and Cigarra (San Francisco).
C O N C LU S I O N

Regardless of its external appearances (such as gender, race, or style), the future practice of
capoeiraas a cunning game, a ritualized combat, a show for tourists, or a tournament-style
martial artis now in the hands of Brazilians and non-Brazilians, traditionalists and modernists,
women and men alike. At its best, it is hoped that capoeira may remain a deeply ambivalent
game that allows its practitioners to play through lifes dilemmas and contradictions with
a smile on the face. And so, it is with this diversity of voicescontemporary, traditional,
competitive, and streetwisethat capoeira is poised to survive for centuries to come.
N OT E S
1.
The author has been a student of Mestre Caboquinho of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil since 2002.
2.
Desch-Obi (2001) is my primary source regarding the engolo and dance-ghting, but spelled as ngolo, it has
been cited by Cascudo (1967), Mestre Pastinha, the GCAP organization, and Mestre Caboquinho.
3.
This proverb is cited by Dawson (1993) as being relayed to him by noted Kongolese scholar K. Kia Bunseki
Fu-Kiau.
4.
Statistics on the African slave trade are notoriously difcult to pin down, however Alistair Boddy-Evans
article (http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa080601a.htm) provides reasonable estimates.
5.
Robert A. Voeks (1997, p. 832) has done a vivid analysis and comparison between the African and
Brazilian coastlines.
6.
Pierre Verger has written extensively on the African presence in Brazil, as well as the cycles of the slave trade,
and specic African traditions that were brought to Brazil.
7.
Of these forms, only ladja has been well documented (Dunham, 1939). Desch-Obi (2001) has discussed
knocking and kicking somewhat thoroughly, but it remains very secretive. The others are either extinct,
sketchy, or remain part of folk traditions yet to be researched.
8.
On the Portuguese contributions to capoeira in the late 1800s, see Soares (1994).
9.
A manual written anonymously by an ofcer at one of these academies was published in Rio in 1906.
10.
See Nestor Capoeira (2002, pp. 212219) for an excellent account of the Grupo Senzala, mostly from
within.
11.
These and a few other women are listed in Mestre Bola Sete (1989, p. 27).
MORE SELECTED READING
Browning, Barbara. Headspin. Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1995.
Capoeira Ginga Ngo. France: <http://www.ginganago.com/>.
Capoeira, Nestor. Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game
Dance-Fight-Game. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2002.
Desch-Obi, Thomas J. Engolo: Combat Traditions in African and African Diaspora History. Ph. D. Thesis UCLA,
2000. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001.
Downey, Greg. Incorporating Capoeira: Phenomenology of a Movement Discpline. Doctoral dissertation, U of
Chicago, 1998.
Karasch, Mary C. Slave life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850
1808-1850. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1987.
Lewis, J. Lowell. Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992.
Rego, Waldeloir. Capoeira Angola: Ensaio Scio-etnogrco. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Itapu, 1968.
Sweet, James H. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770
1441-1770. Chapel
Hill, NC: U of North Carolina P, 2003.
Thompson, Robert Farris. Black martial arts of the Caribbean. Review of Latin Literature and Arts. n37. 1987.

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