Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

72 CAPOEIRAGEM IN RIO DE JANEIRO
that remains is that we do not know precisely how ‘dispersed’ or related these traditions were in Africa. It is
therefore difficult to assess to what extent slaves borrowed or re-invented capoeira.
All sources indicate that participation in capoeira reflected to a large extent the composition of the slave
and free African population. For instance, when the numbers of Benguelas further increased in the 1840s,
they also became, in the 1850s, the most numerous group among arrested capoeiras. Capoeira possibly
adopted more aspects of the cultural traditions of the ethnic groups abducted through the Benguela slave
circuit (although we have seen that there was a significant overlap with the captives traded through Luanda
under the denomination Angolas). However, all this remains highly speculative, since early nineteenthcentury
police records reveal so little about capoeira practice itself.
During the initial decades it is often referred to as a game. Police files explicitly state that individuals
were arrested for ‘playing capoeira’. This is a crucial detail, insofar as some writers have defended a martial
origin for capoeira, trying to suggest that its playful character constitutes a rather recent development. 22 If
these sources confirm that capoeira was, from the onset, a game, they also make clear it was rough, often
resulting in injuries for practitioners such as broken legs. Sometimes police officers also mention a brawl or
‘beating game’ (jogo de pancadaria), and it is not clear if they meant a particular technique or a different
practice altogether. The head butt (cabeçada) is the only bodily technique these early police records refer
to. Since we do not know how widespread the use of head butts was in pre-colonial Africa, it is, in my
opinion, difficult to attribute that practice exclusively to one ethnic group, although the massive number of
arrested capoeiras from Kongo/Angola indicates it must have been common in that macro-region. In this
period cabeçadas were regarded—at least by the authorities—as the most significant evidence for playing
capoeira. Sources also amalgamate the practice and the adepts under one single term, which has lead some
historians to believe that not every capoeira was necessarily a practitioner of the art, but could just have
been a member of a gang of capoeiras. 23 With respect to the term capoeira ‘a spatial and temporal diversity
exists, which allows the coexistence of many realities under one single concept.’ 24
Unfortunately, police sources never provide us with more detailed descriptions of the practice. Was
capoeira played in a circle? Were instruments used? Since slaves arrested for capoeira often carried
instruments with them, such as drums, violas, tambourines and bells, we can assume they did use them for
the game. 25 In face of the extreme paucity of details in police records, the Bavarian painter Johann Moritz
Rugendas (1802–1858) still provides one of the best early accounts:
The Negroes also have another war game, much more violent, the ‘jogar capoera’: two champions
charge against each other, and seek to hit with their head the chest of the opponent they want to throw
to the ground. By jumps on the side, or equally skilful parries they escape from the attack; but by
throwing themselves against each other, more or less like he-goats, they sometimes get badly hurt at
the head: therefore one sees often the jesting being displaced by fury, to the point that blows and even
knives stain the game with blood. 26
Rugendas’ classic description and his well-known engraving of capoeira resulted from his first period
residence in Brazil between March 1822 and May 1825 (see Figure 3.1). Although his engravings represent
later idealizations of earlier drafts made on the spot, 27 we have no reason to doubt he saw a drum (and not a
berimbau) during the capoeira games he attended. Rugendas’ engraving clearly indicates that opponents
used rhythmic movements similar to modern ginga before or in between the blows. Yet he does not mention
any foot kicks, cartwheels or other acrobatic movements. His description is strikingly similar to the
nineteenth-century head butt game played by black males in distant Venezuela (see Chapter 2). Are we
therefore to conclude that capoeira in at this moment was hardly more than a violent game of head butts?