Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

THE CONTEXT OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC 49
Figure 2.4 Liveta, preliminary phase of n’golo. Drawing by A.Neves e Souza, 1965, from…Da minha África e do
Brasil que eu vi…(Luanda: n.p., n.d.). Courtesy of the National Library, Lisbon.
the leaps and battles of the zebra; the blow with the feet while the hands are touching the ground is
certainly reminiscent of the zebra’s kick. 89
While in Brazil, Neves e Souza visited the capoeira academy of Mestre Pastinha and probably explained his
theory to the doyen of the Angola style. He also maintained a correspondence with the Brazilian folklorist
Câmara Cascudo. The latter relied almost exclusively on the information provided by Neves and Souza in
his more detailed account of n’golo. Cascudo plainly endorsed the hypothesis that n’golo was the ancestor of
capoeira. 90 Quoting Neves e Souza, he explained that n’golo, a ‘zebra dance’ was ‘typical for the people in
Southern Angola’, which share similar customs and live mainly from cattle raising. He reported that the
Angolan artist saw it among the Mulondo and the Mucope, and believed it was also practised by the
Muxilengue and the Muhumbé. According to Neves e Souza it was danced during the Efundula, a festival
that celebrated the passage of girls into adulthood, when they were allowed to marry and procreate. The
young man who won the n’golo had the right to choose his bride among the recently initiated girls—
without having to pay the dowry. The n’golo is initiated with an open-hand fight called liveta, whose goal is
to eliminate the weakest players. The corresponding drawings by Neves e Sousa (see Figure 2.4) resembles
a chamada in contemporary capoeira Angola. Cascudo also mentions that the liveta is followed by a dance,
‘the C’hankula, which did not come to Brazil’. 91 Neves e Souza suggested that n’golo was taken to Brazil
via the slave port of Benguela, and commented on the transformation of the social context:
The slaves of the Southern tribes who went there [to Brazil] through the trading post of Benguela took
along their tradition to fight with the feet. With time, what was initially a tribal tradition was