Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

THE CAPOEIRA SCENE IN BAHIA 119
to discipline a group of upper-class students who were behaving improperly. 110 At times police tolerance of
capoeira could be negotiated and result in stylistic changes. According to Ruth Landes who attended rodas
in the 1930s, ‘dangerous’ movements were taken out, as a ‘precaution demanded by the police to obviate
harm’. 111
Therefore, just as in Rio, repression against capoeira was often ineffective in Salvador because many of
the ‘tough’ or professional capoeiras had a patron to protect them. The godfather would act as a guarantor,
or put up bail if necessary to get them out of jail and use his influence to keep them free of trouble. As Licídio
Lopes remembered in connection with the annual festival of Rio Vermelho:
There was a great number of tough guys in every neighbourhood: They started rows, distributed
blows, finished the festivals with shootings and machetes and nothing happened, they were not
arrested, nor feared the police because they were the capangas or body guards of the big politicians,
mainly in election times […] 112
For that reason the capoeira corrido: ‘Look the man I killed. To prison I will not go’ 113 might reflect not
only capoeira defiance of the authority, but also express capoeira complicity with the police.
Manuel Henrique Pereira, better known as Besouro Mangangá, is another case that illuminates the
contradictory relations of early twentieth-century capoeiras with state authorities. The name Besouro
evokes one of the most powerful legends in capoeira. He is the hero of some famous episodes, countless
versions of which circulate among capoeiristas. Interestingly enough, most of them do not take place within
a capoeira game or a roda. 114 According to all accounts spread via capoeira songs and oral history, Besouro
nurtured strong resentments against the police, and liked to humiliate officers whenever he could. In a
frequently remembered episode he confronted a whole police force on the Square of the Cross (Largo da
Cruz) in his native town of Santo Amaro in the sugar belt. Tales usually emphasize that the police force,
although superior in number, were never able to get hold of him for two reasons. First, because he was such
a tremendous fighter and second, because he enjoyed protection from a powerful mandinga. According to
some versions he was able to transform himself into an animal or a plant when he needed to escape
(‘besouro’ means ‘beetle’). Others emphasize that Besouro’s body was bullet proof thanks to a powerful
amulet. Oral history accounts also frequently depict him as a defender of the poor, challenging planters who
abused their employees. 115 To what extent those narratives are fictional is difficult to establish. Yet that a
capoeira acting like a kind of social bandit became so popular is in itself revealing, and likens him to other
famous outlaws such as Lampeão.
Liberac has recently found some documentary evidence regarding Besouro’s existence. A court case was
instructed against him in 1918, when he served as a soldier in an Infantry Battalion in Salvador. 116
Following the account of one of his victims, Besouro came to the police station of São Caetano to claim his
berimbau, which was being kept together with confiscated arms. The police officer refused, only to be
insulted by Besouro. When three policemen went outside to arrest him, he drew his sabre and, together with
three other soldiers he had brought along with him, assaulted the officers. Local residents, however,
reverted the situation by throwing stones at the soldiers. Besouro and bis men retreated, but came back later
with a troop of 30 soldiers, commanded by a sergeant. At that stage the police chief of the district arrived
and got in touch with the commander of the battalion. In the course of the subsequent trial Besouro claimed
that he was only trying to arrest the policeman, who was a deserter from his army unit. His defence was to
no avail, and he was expelled from the army as a consequence.
There are again many divergent accounts of his death, which supposedly occurred around 1924. One
popular version claims that the police officer that killed him had to use a knife made of the palm wood