Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

230 NOTES
4 J.J.Reis, Rebelião escrava no Brasil: a historia do levante dos malês (1835) (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1986),
p. 16.
5 The term Sudan is derived from an Arabic term for blackness. Arabic slave traders referred to the whole area
south of the Sahara—from where black slaves came—as Sudan.
6 Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, p. 341.
7 For the escravos de ganho in Salvador, see Reis, João José, ‘The Revolution of the “Ganhadores”: Urban
Labour, Ethnicity and the African Strike of 1857 in Bahia, Brazil.’ Journal of Latin American Studies, 29 (1997),
pp. 355–93.
8 They are reproduced in F.J.de Abreu, ‘A capoeira baiana no século XIX’, IÊ, Capoeira!, Vol. I, No. 7 (c.2000),
p. 14.
9 J.Wetherell, Brazil. Stray Notes from Bahia (Liverpool: Webb & Hunt, 1860), pp. 119–20.
10 Idem, pp. 6, 106–7 for the berimbau.
11 The Alabama, 17 March, 9 April and 12 September 1867. Both articles are reproduced in F.Abreu, ‘A capoeira
baiana’, p. 17.
12 O Alabama, 12.4.1870. I am very grateful to Hendrik Kraay for providing me with this and other precious
references from this newspaper which complements the material found by F.Abreu.
13 M.Querino, A Bahia de outrora (Salvador: Livraria Progresso, 1955), p. 74.
14 The poem was first reproduced in J.Moura, Mestre Bimba. Crônica da Capoeiragem (Salvador: author’s edition,
1991), pp. 14–15.
15 O Alabama, 17.3., 9.4. and 12.9.1867, as quoted by F.Abreu, ‘A capoeira baiana,’ p. 17.
16 Querino, A Bahia, p. 75.
17 O Alabama, 12.10.1866.
18 Figures from J.P.de Sousa, Escravidão ou morte. Os escravos brasileiros na Guerra do Paraguai (Rio de Janeiro:
Mauad/ADESA, 1996), p. 89. M.Querino claims as many as 18,725 Bahians fought in Paraguay (A Bahia,
p. 188). Oral tradition has it that slave capoeiras were already serving in a patriot battalion during the War of
Independence, but no written evidence has yet been found to confirm it (see D. Coutinho, O ABC da capoeira
angola. Os manuscritos do Mestre Noronha. Brasilia: DEFER/GDF, 1993, p. 35).
19 Querino, A Bahia, pp. 78–80.
20 Querino, A Bahia, p. 244.
21 ‘Paranaê’ probably refers to the Paraná river, which runs from Brazil into Paraguay and delimits part of the
border between both countries.
22 This traditional ladainha has many different versions. The allusion to the Paraguay War is clearly made in the
recording by M.Traira.
23 According to oral history, only at a later stage did festivities for Abolition in Santo Amaro also include a capoeira
performance. For these celebrations, also listen to Caetano Veloso, CD Noites do Norte (São Paulo: Universal
Music, c.2000), track 3: ‘13 de maio’.
24 P.Fry et al., ‘Negros e brancos no carnaval da Velha República’, in J.J.Reis (ed.), Escravidão e invenção da
liberdade (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988), p. 253; Butler, Freedom Given, pp. 175–87.
25 The best account of the repression against candomblé during the First Republic is provided by J. Braga, Na
gamela do feitiço. Repressão e resistência nos candomblés da Bahia (Salvador: EDUFBA, 1995).
26 CD A Poesia de Boca Rica. Berimbau solo Capoeira Angola (Manaus: Sonopress, 2000), track 3.
27 Capoeira in late nineteenth-century Bahia possibly had further synonyms. João do Rio relates that Bahian
migrants in Rio called it cungú or ‘playing mandinga’ (quoted in J.Moura, Capoeira-Arte & Malandragem,
Salvador: Prefeitura Municipal, 1980, p. 22).
28 Antonio Viana, Quintal de Nagô e outras crônicas (Salvador: Centro de Estudos Baianos/UFBa, 1979), p. 8.
29 C.B.Ott, Formação e evolução étnica da cidade do Salvador (o folclore Baiano) (Salvador: Tipografia Maní
Editora, 1955), pp. 153–5.
30 E.Carneiro, Negros bantos. Notas de etnografia religiosa e de folk-lore (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira,
1937), pp. 151–2.