Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

66 THE CONTEXT OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC
Paulo. Even though not always described in detail, evidence suggests that each region had its specific
variant, which differed from others with respect to musical instruments, fighting techniques and rituals. It is
thus correct to consider nineteenth-century capoeira, similar to batuque, not as a precisely delimited genre
but rather as a generic term used for a wide range of practices associating percussive music with fighting
contests or mock combat. Each regional variant was shaped by specific African inputs (which changed over
time according to the trends of the slave trade) and the particular local context.
The now extinct batuque represents a further manifestation that associated dance and wrestling
techniques. This was different from the general dance in a circle examined above. The term batuque also
stood for a contest accompanied by similar instruments to those used in samba or capoeira: drums,
tambourines, berimbaus and other instruments of percussion. The contest started when a man in the middle
challenged another from the circle around him to play. Once someone had accepted the challenge, they
faced each other, moving according to the rhythm of the orchestra and the hand clapping of the audience.
Then the other stood firm whilst the challenger tried to make him fall by using a range of techniques aimed
to unbalance: rapa, baú, banda lisa, encruzilhada. Batuque and its many regional variants (known as
pernada, bate-coxa, samba duro, batuque-boi) were popular in many coastal regions of Brazil. Peculiar to
batuque were techniques such as the clashing of the upper legs (baú), and leg wrapping techniques (perhaps
similar to Igbo wrestling). As in so many combat games of the Black Atlantic, batuque existed in various
modalities. In more antagonistic contests participants always sought victory, and these usually ending with a
clear winner, or in a draw. But batuques held during carnival usually put more emphasis on the dance.
Unfortunately the earliest descriptions of batuque only date from the first half of the twentieth century,
when a process of reciprocal influence with capoeira was well under its way. Innovators such as
Burlamaqui in Rio de Janeiro and by M.Bimba, creator of the ‘Regional’ capoeira style adopted many
batuque techniques (see Chapter 5). For that reason probably some observers interpreted batuque as a
‘modality’ (Câmara Cascudo) or a ‘variation’ (Édison Carneiro) of capoeira, not as an entirely independent
art. In fact it was more what Carneiro called a ‘complementary activity’. In similar ways to the stick fighting
dance maculêlê, which is used today as a warming-up exercise or as an additional resource for capoeira
shows, batuque was gradually absorbed by the capoeira. Carneiro observed in the 1930s that the negros de
Angola were the champions of batuque, and that one of the most well-known among them was called
Angolinha (‘little Angola’). 152 Clearly batuque was a combat game of predominantly Angolan origins. Yet
despite similar orchestra and social context, it used quite different techniques from capoeira. Its existence in
different modalities and locations clearly attests to both the strength and the heterogeneity of Central
African pugilistic traditions, which were maintained and developed in Brazil. These were never limited to a
single foot and head fighting form as some defenders of the n’golo thesis seem to believe.
The relationship between batuque, samba, capoeira and candomblé exemplifies the process of horizontal
circulation and reciprocal borrowing that occurred between different, but related manifestations of slave
culture in Brazil. Instruments, rhythms and entire songs were taken and adopted for other purposes. 153 The
relationship between these dances, religion and capoeira also is entirely different from the way combat
games were embedded into wider social and ritual practices in Africa. The close association between music
bow (berimbau) and combat game in Bahian capoeira illustrates to what extent capoeira is more than a simple
derivation of a single African practice. The music bow has never been associated with combat or even with
religious rituals in Africa. 154 To place the berimbau at the heart of capoeira was clearly a New World
invention—and a fairly recent one as we are going to see when examining the formation of capoeira in Rio
de Janeiro and Bahia.