A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the ... - Ele-mental

J O G O D E M A N D I N G A
—GAME OF SORCERY—
HISTORY, TRADITION, AND BODILY PRACTICE IN CAPOEIRA ANGOLA:
THE GAME-DANCE-FIGHT FROM BAHIA, BRAZIL
A Thesis
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
Master's Examination Committee:
Dr. Candace Feck, Chair
Professor Melanie Bales, Adviser
Dr. Sheila Marion, Resource Adviser
the Degree Master of Arts in the
Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Edward Luna Brough, B.A.
* * * * *
The Ohio State University
2006
Approved by
___________________________
Adviser
Graduate Program in Dance

A B S T R A C T
Capoeira is an ambiguous, ambivalent activity historically performed primar-
ily by Africans and their creole descendants in Brazil. As just one of many expres-
sions of what is now called “Afro-Brazilian” culture, capoeira embodies the di-
verse experiences of a community that has survived more than four centuries of
oppression and adversity. Closely linked to the perverse human economy of slav-
ery, as well as the ongoing economic marginalization of people of African descent
today, capoeira shines a necessary light on a long, dark history of racism, economic
exploitation, neglect, and contempt towards African culture. Capoeira is therefore
relevant not only to Afro-Brazilian studies, but also to studies of African and cre-
ole culture throughout the Americas.
In the 1800s, various local variations of capoeira, described in colonial re-
cords all over Brazil, were generally equated with disorder and criminal behavior.
With the gradual establishment of the Brazilian state and rule of law, capoeira be-
came an increasing threat to public order, paralleled by the rise of neighborhood
youth gangs. By 1890, capoeira was prohibited nationwide and its practitioners, or
capoeiras, were often severely punished. Only in the 1930s, with the support of the
ultra-nationalist Vargas dictatorship, did the practice begin its upward climb from
illegality to its eventual acceptance as an authentic expression of lower-class Brazil-
ian culture.
ii

Under such diverse and evolving historical circumstances, capoeira has been
performed as a subversive dance, an evasive form of self-defense, a strutting acro-
batic display, an urban street fighting form, a semi-competitive game, a trick, a
joke, and an idle pastime associated with street rogues and vagabonds. More re-
cently, it has been transformed into a modern, multivalent art form, synthesizing
many or all of these aspects for contemporary purposes. “Lowly” in its origins
among slaves, and “unsavory” in its history, capoeira has become perhaps the most
visible Brazilian cultural expression outside of Brazil, and arguably the most im-
portant Brazilian cultural export after the samba.
Among the many contemporary iterations of capoeira, however, the oldest
extant form—capoeira angola, from the Brazilian state of Bahia—has resisted the
reflexive modernization and streamlined pedagogy that has turned capoeira into an
international martial art or sport. Capoeira angola, despite some apparent mod-
ernizations, is still practiced as a secretive, streetwise form passed down semi-
formally from one practitioner to another in lines that can be traced directly to the
early 1900s, and indirectly hundreds of years earlier. Capoeira angola is thus posi-
tioned by its practitioners as an authentic cultural tradition rooted in local history,
communal memory, and Afro-Brazilian (or specifically, Afro-Bahian) identity.
I will begin this study by situating myself within this tradition, as a student
and apprentice teacher under Mestre (“Master Teacher”) Caboquinho of Bahia. In
Section 1, I will examine the growing field of “capoeira studies” by summarizing
relevant works of the past and present, and situating notions of history from
within the practice. I will then use these texts as a starting point to outline my own
brief history of capoeira.
iii

In Section 2, I shall turn to examine how capoeira angola is positioned as a
“tradition,” and suggest how reading the history and current iteration of the form
from an insider’s point of view allows access to perspectives that are otherwise
quite obscure.
In Section 3, I focus my attention upon the bodily practices of present-day ca-
poeira angola through an examination of the pedagogical history of the form and
present-day approaches to its passage. I end by describing and examining a few key
features of the form’s actual movements as taught to me by Mestre Caboquinho.
By weaving together objective research methods, subjective kinesthetic experi-
ence, informed speculation, observation, movement analysis, and notation to de-
scribe many of the more visible historical, philosophical, and physical aspects of
capoeira angola, it is hoped that some of the deeper, more mysterious aspects of
the game—aspects of mandinga (or “sorcery”) that have remained largely un-
spoken—may also become apparent.
iv

This work is dedicated to Edward Lionel Brough (1896–1976).
v

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
This work owes its existence to those who have kept the traditions of ca-
poeira intact, including all the mestres of capoeira who have come and gone, and
those yet to come. Above all, I would like to thank Mestre Caboquinho (José Car-
los Bispo Dantas) for allowing this research to be undertaken with his blessing, de-
spite his distrust of anything written on paper. I would also like to thank Contra-
Mestre Rapidinha (Roshani Dantas) for putting up with my long days of not un-
derstanding; Contra Mestre Biriba (Raquel Prymak) for her humor, patience, and
her warm Miami welcome to myself and my students; Dr. Candace Feck for her
unearthly patience and her enthusiastic encouragement of my line of research; Dr.
Sheila Marion for her affectionate contributions to my notation of capoeira
movement, and for her helpful stories about notating Karate katas; Professor Me-
lanie Bales, for saying “yes” and supporting my investigation of movement analy-
sis; and Vera Maletic, for her faith and encouragement.
Among my colleagues, I owe thanks to Marc Woten, for sharing his research
on breaking and other styles of African-American urban dance (and for his con-
stant support); George Payapilli, for his kindness and for kicking my bunda in
every roda I've played with him; Salia Sanou & Seydou Borou (Salia nï Seydou,
Burkina Faso/France), for inspiring me with an African aesthetic that serves the
past while speaking to the present; T.J. Desch-Obi, for his work in Africa and for
vi

encouraging my analysis of capoeira movement; Joshua Lee Monten, for introduc-
ing me to capoeira in the first place (and for offering me the opportunity to meet
Mestre Acordeon); and Marlon Barrios Solano, for his helpful suggestions on im-
provisation.
In Bahia, I owe thanks to Mestre Boca Rica (Manoel Silva), for his generosity
and gentle presence; Mestre Neco (Manoel Marcelo dos Santos), for his indefati-
gable work on behalf of capoeira angola, and for welcoming me so readily into his
universe; Mestre Bigodinho (Reinaldo Santana), for his music and laughter; Mestra
Jararaca (Valdelice Santos de Jesus) and her husband Mestre Curió (Jaime
Martínez dos Santos), for initiating me into their sorcery-filled roda; Taata N´Kese
Mutá (Jorge Barreto Santos, priest in the Mutalambô house of candomblé de an-
gola), for getting me closer to harmony; Mauro S. (of Goiânia, Brazil), for sharing
his deeply personal perspectives and musical knowledge; Professora Ritinha, for
working me like a dog; Mestre João Pequeno (João Pereira dos Santos), for his
recollections and loving presence; Mestre Zé do Lenço (José Alves), for his affec-
tion, support, and personal recollections; and Mestre Jogo de Dentro (Jorge Egídio
dos Santos), for so strongly defending Mestre Caboquinho. I also owe a special
thank you to Mestre João Grande (João Oliveira dos Santos), for his grace, humor,
and warm welcome into his NYC “house.”
Among my students, colleagues, and others, I would especially like to thank
Christopher Farris (“Bujinho”), for his comments relating capoeira to his own
African-American experiences such as “witnessing” and “the dozens”; Dana Cox
(“Boca Linda”), for her deeply personal insights and an unhinged game that taught
me a great deal; Tom Stovicek, for his thoughtful comments on parallel arguments
vii

within Tae Kwon Do; Clinton King and Eric Omohundro, for explaining tai-chi
exercises that helped me understand energy lines in capoeira angola in a much
deeper way; Laura Davis (“Avexada”), for successfully coexisting with me (I know
it isn’t always easy); Christina Providence, for her generosity; The Ohio State Uni-
versity Department of Dance, for allowing me the time to do this right (although I
often didn’t deserve it); Misty Kerns, for her unwavering support; Susan Hadley,
for throwing me into the teaching role I feel I was meant to play; Bebe Miller, for
her affection and interest; Dr. Melanie White-Dixon, for her support; Teena Custer,
for her parallel interest; John Scurry, for helping me connect some of the dots;
Brian Murphy, for keeping it real; Sita R, for explaining things; Sara Mase, for let-
ting me know; Luis Carbajal, for his administrative help; Brian Griffin (“Avô”), for
his research suggestions, fortitude, and commitment to the group; my Brazilian
friends—Luciano Oliveira (“Inspetô”), Paulo F. U. Gotardo (“Capineiro”), Nelson
Carson (“Ché Banana”), and Melissa Quinalinha (“Moça Dorada”)—for their en-
couragement, Portuguese corrections, and support; Natalie Waters for her insights;
Laura Tompkins for her perspective; Rapheal Randall for his patience; Professor J.
Ronald Green for, among many other things, turning me onto the filmmakers
Ousmane Sembene and Oscar Micheaux (it all makes sense now); Ann Bremner for
her love, funk music, and editorial advice; Shawn Hove for teaching me how to
lovingly embrace the dark side; Carol Robinson of the Center for Latin American
Studies for just making things on this planet better for everyone; Stace Rierson and
BalletMet for their support; Helen Alkire for her support; Rory Benson for the
support and the Bahian fireworks; Beatrice Ayi for her conversations on Africa;
viii

Sandra Mendes for making people samba; Chad Hall, Jeff Fouch, and Scott Lowe
for allowing me to do capoeira workshops in their classes.
For special thanks, I must also single out: my father, Thomas Robert Brough,
for his encouragement, support, and for giving me the space for me to become my-
self; my mother, Maria Teresa Luna (1939–1999), for blessing me with her passion
and my Mexican heritage; Sonya Bañales Brough, my brother-in law Victor
Bañales, and nephews Aaron and Victor Eduardo for their help and affection;
Mikey Thomas, for getting me started in the dance world; and Robert Strati, for
his art and loving advice. To all my students of past and present, I owe thanks for
their energy, interest, and attention—even when I didn’t deserve it.
I would also like to acknowledge Caetano Veloso for teaching me how to
speak Portuguese.
A final thanks to my cousin and friend, Francisco Fernández Landero Luna,
for pushing me out of the way of that car (the world works in mysterious ways, mi
primo).
ix

V I T A
23 Aug 1970 ....................................... Born · Columbus, Ohio
1995 ................................................... B.A., Photography & Cinema,
The Ohio State University
2000–2002 ........................................ Graduate Associate, Design
Wexner Center for the Arts
The Ohio State University
2002–present ...................................... Instructor, Dance Elective Program
Capoeira Angola
The Ohio State University
2002–present ...................................... Instructor/President
Tribo Afro-Bahiana de Capoeira Angola
Tradicional (T.A.B.C.A.T.), Columbus
Student Organization, Ohio State
F I E L D S O F S T U D Y
Major Field: Dance (Choreography, Improvisation, Labanotation)
Other: Capoeira, Portuguese, African and African-American Studies, Brazilian
Studies, Music, Theatre Performance
x

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Abstract ............................................................................................................... ii
Dedication ........................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................... vi
Vita ..................................................................................................................... x
Table of Contents ................................................................................................ xi
List of Illustrations .............................................................................................. xii
Page
Special Nomenclature .......................................................................................... xiii
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Mestre Caboquinho de Aruanda ................................................................ 1
Conditions and limitations of this work ..................................................... 14
Early experiences ........................................................................................ 16
Enter capoeira angola ................................................................................. 18
Enter Mestre Caboquinho .......................................................................... 20
Early difficulties ......................................................................................... 21
On book learning ....................................................................................... 23
Reading pessimism ..................................................................................... 24
The big mistake .......................................................................................... 27
Measuring my status .................................................................................. 32
My freedom to speak, and its limits ........................................................... 33
xi

Teaching ..................................................................................................... 35
The apprenticeship begins .......................................................................... 36
Training and teaching: problems and positives ........................................... 37
Recent recognition ..................................................................................... 39
Bahia, 2004: “Encontro da Nata” .............................................................. 40
Bahia, 2004: solo research .......................................................................... 41
Results ....................................................................................................... 43
Bahia, 2005 ................................................................................................ 44
An uncertain future .................................................................................... 45
Bahia não é brincadeira não (“Bahia is no joke”) ....................................... 47
The problem of status in capoeira angola ................................................... 48
Urgency of this research ............................................................................. 50
Overview ................................................................................................... 52
Early references to capoeira ........................................................................ 53
Early twentieth century literature ............................................................... 55
Rego: Capoeira Angola: ensaio sócio-etnográfico ...................................... 59
Scholarly works of the 1970s ..................................................................... 60
Growth of the field: practitioner accounts .................................................. 62
New approaches ......................................................................................... 66
Assunção: Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art ............ 75
Future pathways ......................................................................................... 77
Unanswered questions ................................................................................ 80
A neglected culture ..................................................................................... 81
Deliberate obscurity ................................................................................... 82
xii

Assessing documentary sources .................................................................. 84
Informed speculation .................................................................................. 87
The neglected source: movement ................................................................ 88
Learning to listen ....................................................................................... 91
Origins ....................................................................................................... 95
Mestre Bimba and capoeira regional ........................................................ 101
Capoeira angola and the return of Mestre Pastinha .................................... 102
The proliferation of capoeira regional ........................................................ 104
The decline and appropriation of capoeira angola ...................................... 106
The revival of capoeira angola .................................................................... 107
Mestre João Grande ................................................................................... 137
S E C T I O N 1 : H I S T O R Y
S E C T I O N 2 : T R A D I T I O N
S E C T I O N 3 : B O D I L Y P R A C T I C E
Glossary
Bibliography
xiii

xiv

L I S T O F I L L U S T R A T I O N S
—forthcoming—
xv

On the use of the term “Mestre”
S P E C I A L N O M E N C L A T U R E
The Portuguese word “Mestre” is often translated to English as “Master.” M.
Rohrig Assunção 1 has helpfully recognized that this translation presents problems.
In Portuguese, for example, a slave-owner is usually known as the Senhor (or col-
loquially, Sinhó), which in English simply means “Sir.” The term mestre is better
thought of in the sense of “master craftsman.” Thus, I will translate the term into
English as “Master teacher” or simply “teacher.”
as follows:
In the text, however, I shall prioritize the Portuguese term mestre, to be used
· mestre or mestres (lower case, italics) will refer to the Portuguese word, or
the general concept of a capoeira teacher.
· When referring to recognized capoeira teachers, I will use their full title (e.g.
“Mestre Caboquinho”) whenever possible. It is considered disrespectful to omit
this title, so I shall refrain from referring to my own teacher as simply
“Caboquinho.” 2 In context, I will also often refer to him as “the Mestre” (or occa-
sionally just “Mestre”).
1. Matthias Röhrig Assunção, Capoeira: A History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (New York, NY: Routledge,
2005) 194.
2. Outside of capoeira circles, those who know Mestre Caboquinho well often do refer to him as “Caboquinho,”
“Caboclo,” or even “Cabo.”
xvi

· When repeating the term frequently in a short span of the text, I shall ab-
breviate “Mestre” to “M”: as in, M Caboquinho, M Zé do Lenço, M Pastinha,
and so on.
On the use of the term capoeira vs. capoeira angola
I have chosen to use capoeira (no quotes or italics) as the unmarked, general-
ized term for the form, to indicate that it has begun to enter general usage in Eng-
lish. I shall likewise use capoeira to discuss the practice generally, or when discuss-
ing older iterations of the form prior to the 1900s.
The term capoeira (italics), will refer to a practitioner of the form before the
1900s, and before the widespread use of the term capoeirista.
Meanwhile, I shall write capoeira angola (lowercase, italics), to indicate that
it is a specialized form of the general practice of capoeira. Similarly, it will stay in
italics throughout this text, in order to distinguish it from capoeira as a general
concept. I have also chosen to keep capoeira angola in lower case, as is common in
some writings on social dance/music forms, e.g. samba, salsa, merengue, and so
on. 3 Here, I must also note that some teachers prefer to write Capoeira Angola
(capitalized).
Mestre Caboquinho and others also use the word capoeira to indicate the
unmarked, older practice of the form before the stylistic splits of the 1930s (i.e.,
the “original” capoeira angola). I shall avoid this usage unless it is purposeful.
3. I am aware that if I were to follow this logic, capoeira should also remain italicized. However, I want to
preserve the distinction between today’s generalized capoeira with the older use of capoeira as a practitioner
of the form.
xvii

Other notes
· Specialized words and usages will be introduced in the body of the text.
· Non-English words (capoeira angola, samba, mestre, et. al.) will always be
italicized. Readers interested in proper pronunciation will find many of these
words in the Glossary at the end of this work.
· I will usually defer to the Portuguese in this text, supplying English transla-
tions in parentheses or footnotes where appropriate. Translations are mine unless
otherwise noted.
· Instead of italics, I shall use underlines (sparingly) to provide emphasis.
xviii

P R E F A C E
F I G. 1 / T.A.B.C.A.T. roda in progress, Ann Arbor, 2004
Mestre Caboquinho (in white hat)
(Photo by author)
Mestre Caboquinho de Aruanda
Mestre Caboquinho (b. José Carlos Bispo Dantas, 1963) is a master teacher
who has spent over thirty years learning, performing, researching, and teaching the
art of capoeira angola.
Capoeira angola is just one of the many cultural forms created and passed
down by Africans and their descendants in the former colonial capital of Salvador,
Bahia, Brazil. After spending a lifetime roaming the sloping streets and back alleys
of the city, playing capoeira, performing in folklore shows for tourists, and living
from his art, the Mestre made an unexpected move to Miami in 1993. Seven years
1

of frustration there eventually landed him in the region of Detroit, Michigan,
where he has been based since the year 2000.
Although the Motor City may seem an unlikely location to try to teach an
Afro-Bahian art form, Detroit, like Salvador, is a place that has endured a great
deal of history and suffered through long periods of neglect. Both are also cities
where secretive energies of Africa are very much at work. In this sense, Detroit may
actually be the optimum city to host the deceptive and celebratory art of capoeira
angola. Yet even thousands of miles from its spiritual home, the Mestre insists on
performing capoeira angola without alteration, the same way it is performed in
Bahia, in the hopes of keeping the mysteries and traditions of his art form intact.
The very name of his organization—the Tribo Afro-Bahiana de Capoeira Angola
Tradicional, 4 or T.A.B.C.A.T.—reinforces these important links to Bahia, and to
tradition.
This thesis will look at how the Mestre prepares his students to play the game
of capoeira angola, and to live up to the responsibility of upholding the traditions
of the form. In the course of this investigation, it is hoped that some important as-
pects of the history, traditions, bodily practice, music, rituals, philosophy, and per-
haps even a little bit of mandinga (“sorcery”) of the game may be revealed.
4. Translated as “The Afro-Bahian Tribe of Traditional Capoeira Angola.”
2

I N T R O D U C T I O N
Now and then: continuity in capoeira angola
To begin to understand what Mestre Caboquinho means by “tradition,” I will
now provide a composite description of the first five to ten minutes of a typical ca-
poeira angola performance—called a roda (“wheel” or “circle”)—conducted under
his guidance 5 :
Eight musicians sit side-by-side on long wooden benches with their
backs to the wall. At one end, a musician sits behind a conga-like barrel drum
known as the atabaque, followed by another musician who grasps a double
bell called the agogô, and a third musician who braces a bamboo scratcher
called a reco-reco under the armpit. The next two musicians hold pandeiros,
or Brazilian tambourines, followed by three musicians with long, one-stringed
musical bows, called berimbaus. The last and largest berimbau is held by the
leader of the proceedings: Mestre (“Teacher”) Caboquinho. A half-circle of
performers and sits in front of the musicians, completing the “arena” of ca-
poeira, or roda. Behind them, an audience sits or stands, waiting expectantly.
Mestre Caboquinho gathers himself and calls attention by tapping the
berimbau's large gourd with a thin, hand-held stick. When the crowd settles,
he plays a slow, deliberate rhythm, dragging out the two notes of his instrument
before settling into a recognizable pattern that is soon joined by the
other two berimbaus. Once their pattern is also clear, the two pandeiros join
with a simple hit-slap-hit that complements the other rhythms.
5. This description is taken largely from my experience attending, performing, or hosting dozens of such
events, primarily at Mestre Caboquinho’s center in Detroit, in Bahia, and my own base in Columbus, Ohio.
1

The Mestre, satisfied with this five-instrument opening, gives a long cry
of “Iê!” that fills the air. He starts to sing a ladainha, or an incantory song
that may be story, warning, or lament. This one is an ironic story:
“A mulher pra ser bonita, não precisa se pintar
O homem pra ser valente, não precisa matar
A força que a mulher tem
O homem nunca mantém
Com a força de parir
E lavai vintém
O homem dedo cortado
Ele diz não vou trabalhar, camará…”
(”A woman, to be pretty, need not paint herself
A man, to be brave, need not be a killer
The strength that a woman has
A man can not maintain
With the strength to give birth
And to raise the coins
A man with a cut on his finger
Will say, ‘I can’t work,’ my friend…”)
The Mestre’s ladainha ends with the call of “camaradinha” (or “my little
friend”), after which he begins a series of shorter cries, called chulas, in the
following form:
“Iê, viva meu Deus!”
(“Yea, long live my Lord!”)
With the first of these cries, the last three musicians—playing the scratcher,
double bell, and barrel drum—finally begin to play, and all the players answer
with a resounding chorus, adding camará (”my friend”):
CHORUS: “Iê, viva meu Deus, camará!”
(“Yea, long live my Lord, my friend!”)
MESTRE: “Iê viva meu Mestre”
(“Yea, long live my teacher!”)
CHORUS: “Iê, viva meu Mestre, camará”
(“Yea, long live my teacher, my friend!”)
MESTRE: “Iê, quem me ensinou”
2

(“Yea, the one who taught me!”)
CHORUS: “Iê, quem me ensinou, camará”
(“Yea, the one who taught me, my friend!”)
MESTRE: “Iê, a vadiar”
(“Yea, to ‘hang out’”)
CHORUS: “Iê, a vadiar, camará”
(”Yea, to ‘hang out, my friend’)
MESTRE: “Iê, de angola”
(“Yea, like angola”)
CHORUS: “Iê, de angola, camará”
(“Yea, like angola, my friend!”)
MESTRE: “Iê, chegou a hora”
(“Yea, the time has arrived”)
CHORUS: “Iê, chegou a hora, camará”
(“Yea, the time has arrived, my friend!”)
Only now can the games begin. The Mestre lowers the berimbau to
“point” to two players who are sitting expectantly around the perimeter of
the circle. The first player is a smallish woman whose capoeira nickname is
“Boca Limpa” (”Clean Mouth”), ironically named from her habit of using
palavrões, or “dirty words.” The second is a brown-skinned man known as
“Bruto,” whose capoeira nickname comes from the Portuguese-language ver-
sion of Popeye’s arch-enemy Bluto, who he is said to resemble. 6
After being called, they both get up carefully and follow a counter-
clockwise circle, gesturing to the observers and musicians as if thanking them.
They settle into a deep squat facing each other at the foot of the Mestre's
berimbau. The Mestre then begins a corrido song to set the tone:
“Ave Maria meu Deus
Nunca vi casa nova cair
Nunca vi o menino cair
Nunca vi a menina cair…”
(”Hail Mary, my Lord
I’ve never seen a new house fall
6. The nicknames of both of these players have been slightly altered for this account.
3

I’ve never seen a little boy fall
I’ve never seen a little girl fall…”)
The Mestre then lowers the instrument between them, indicating that
they may begin. With this signal, the players shake hands and then raise their
hands to the air, as if calling to a higher power. They then place their hands
on the ground and rise together to perform a short handstand, before drop-
ping down to a deep lunging position. With the Mestre’s song continuing all
the while, the players finally creep into the circle together to begin playing ca-
poeira.
The game begins tentatively and deliberately, with each attack acting as
a kind of “question” calling for a specific defensive “answer.” They take turns
crouching, bending, and stretching their bodies over and around each other in
a series of attacks, feints, dodges, cartwheels, and occasional backbends. Only
the feet, hands, and head touch the ground.
Eventually, the movements become faster and trickier, giving the appear-
ance of a real fight. Yet there is little contact between the players, who skill-
fully sidestep or crouch under each other's attacks. Attacks are performed
primarily with the legs, extending from standing or inverted positions. The
hands are rarely used offensively. Instead, they sculpt loose patterns in the air,
supporting the movements of the legs and often distracting the other player.
One unlikely weapon is the headbutt, used very selectively. After Boca
Limpa applies a particularly effective headbutt to Bruto’s midsection, the Me-
stre begins to sing a song that obliquely references this movement:
“Quebro coco sinhá
Ô quebro côco iaiá!”
(“I’m breaking coconuts, my lady
I’m breaking coconuts, my child!”)
The game continues to get “hotter” and more confrontational. Boca
Limpa, perhaps overconfident about her well-placed headbutt, tries to recklessly
trip Bruto, threatening to disrupt the energy of the game. Bruto shakes
his head disapprovingly and calls for a volta do mundo (“circle around the
world”), indicated by drawing a circle in the air with his finger. Both players
then begin to walk or jog in a counter-clockwise circle opposite each other, to
relax and “restart” the game. After a revolution or two, they return to the
4

foot of the Mestre’s berimbau and start anew. The Mestre begins another
song to help calm things down:
“Devagar com essa menina, devagar com esse menino
Capoeira de angola, todos somos miudinhos…”
(”Play slowly with that girl, play slowly with that boy
In capoeira angola, we are all just children…”)
After another series of question-and-answer movements, it is Bruto’s
turn to accidentally lose his control, showing a powerful kick and nearly
striking Boca Limpa in the face. Realizing that his attack might arouse Boca
Limpa’s temper, Bruto brings his leg down immediately, and then raises his
hands in an apparent gesture of “apology” to her. This movement is known
as a chamada, or the “calling.” In response, Boca Limpa backs away quickly
and returns to the foot of the berimbau, while smiling and pointing to Bruto,
as if to jokingly say, “are you calling me?” The Mestre’s song changes again
to reflect the mood:
“Meu canário brigou
Coitado do meu canário!”
(“My canary was fighting
My poor, poor canary!”)
Inspired by the music, Boca Limpa then shows a flying acrobatic move-
ment at a safe distance from Bruto, before finally approaching his out-
stretched hands carefully, and meeting him palm-to-palm. Bruto then leads a
kind of partnered, three-step “waltz” that ends only when he gestures to Boca
Limpa and invites her to perform a cartwheel before him.
At the end of her cartwheel, however, he appears to suddenly pull out a
knife and slash her throat. Of course, the “knife” is just his outstretched
hand, but it is an appropriate “revenge” for the headbutt taken earlier in the
game, eliciting gasps of laughter from the viewers. Taking her humiliation in
good humor, Boca Limpa then grasps at her “slit” throat and proceeds to
“sew” it back together, bringing more laughter from the audience.
The Mestre, carefully observing this “theatre” out of the corner of his
eye, signals the end of this game with his berimbau. The two players agree to
call it a draw and return to the foot of the berimbau, shaking hands and em-
5

acing in reassured camaraderie. After this acknowledgment, and the trading
off of a few musicians, the Mestre then points to the next two players…
In capoeira angola, a roda like this one may continue for as long as four to
five hours. Individual games may take anywhere from three to ten minutes each. At
the end, it is customary for the Mestre to begin a final song called “Adeus, adeus”
(“Good-bye, good-bye”), after which all the players begin to walk in a proces-
sional circle. During this procession, any player may “buy” into the game to show
off their best acrobatic movements or to even up an old score. At the close of this
procession, the capoeira roda often becomes a celebratory samba-de-roda
(“Samba-in-a-circle”), during which the entire audience is invited to dance the
samba, clap, and sing with the group.
Mestre Caboquinho describes capoeira angola primarily as an art form devel-
oped in Brazil some 500 years ago by slaves who had to “disguise a fight in
dance.” However, he is quick to distance capoeira from the fighting applications of
a “martial art,” instead emphasizing it as a game of harmony and education
through which aggression is hidden and contained, “rehearsing between two peo-
ple to become free.” 7 Laughter and the use of “theatre” are thus crucial to a deeper
understanding of capoeira.
Mestre Caboquinho also sees the songs of capoeira as a kind of set “sched-
ule,” sung in a sequence that is followed by those who consider themselves follow-
ers of the traditional style of capoeira angola. Meanwhile, the rituals and gestures
of the game, often appearing to echo African and Afro-Brazilian spiritual practices,
are not thought of by the Mestre as primarily religious, although he himself is a
7. Taken from , 2006.
6

devoted follower of Afro-Brazilian religion. Instead, he insists on characterizing
these rituals as practical regulamentos (“rules”) meant to manage one’s own ener-
gies and prevent accidents in the circle.
These are what constitute the basic traditions of capoeira angola, which the
Mestre has devoted his life to preserving and passing on. These traditions were
taught to him by his own father, José Vicente Dantas (b. c. 1925), and other teach-
ers in Bahia. 8 The Mestre's father, in turn, was a student of Mestre João Bodeiro of
Serrinha, Bahia, Brazil, who was himself a student of an African named Nonó, re-
portedly from Mozambique. 9 Thus charting his own lineage to the early 1900s
(and perhaps earlier), Mestre Caboquinho presents himself as part of a continuity
of capoeira practitioners that is thought to extend to the beginnings of the form in
sixteenth century Bahia.
Yet according to the Mestre, there are many—including a number of well-
known capoeira angola practitioners—who have chosen not to follow these tradi-
tions to the letter. In his eyes, such people have broken with continuity, changing
capoeira angola to suit their own needs, or spreading lies and misinformation
about the real roots of Bahia. Framing this issue with the utmost seriousness, the
Mestre often suggests that people like these do not comprehend that “when you
break one thing [or one aspect of the tradition], you break everything.” 10
This thesis thus begins with the so-called “fundamentals” of capoeira angola,
as taught to me by Mestre Caboquinho. Having described a roda under his watch-
8. According to Mestre Caboquinho, he has had three other mestres: M Yoyó (son of a policeman), M Alfonsinho,
and M Curió.
9. See .
10. Mestre Caboquinho, various class lectures, 2002–2006. I shall explain the nature of my use of the Mestre’s
informal lectures as the need arises.
7

ful eye, and having just respectfully summarized a few of the Mestre’s main phi-
losophies, the remainder of this thesis shall attempt to further define, examine, and
explain the context of his teachings, while corroborating the Mestre’s assertions
with those of the written record and other sources, and framing capoeira angola as
a kind of “movement tradition” that owes a great deal to its communal context. In
doing so, I hope to present a work of scholarly value that nevertheless holds true to
the game as I have learned it under the Mestre.
I shall begin by providing evidence to substantiate the Mestre’s assertion that
capoeira angola has remained largely the same for many years—at least one hun-
dred years, or as many as 300–500 years. This assertion, which is usually qualified
as “mythical” or simply rejected by most reputable historians, 11 gets to the heart of
the issues surrounding capoeira history, and will help illuminate the central themes
of this work.
11. See the review of literature for a broader perspective on this.
8

FIG. 2 / The barração (”hut”) of Mestre Waldemar, c. 1940s–50s
Liberdade neighborhood of Salvador, Bahia
(Photo from archive of Fred Abreu)
The following description is of another capoeira roda, written by the pioneer-
ing anthropologist Ruth Landes. Landes, who visited Salvador in 1937–38, wit-
nessed this roda with her colleague, the Bahian historian Edison Carneiro. I will
quote her lengthy description in its entirety, and will try to respect the author’s
original typography and notes.
We had arrived at the spot where the men were forming for capoeira.
Watchers were crowded four deep around a wide circle, and there was not a
woman or a priest among them. To one side of the innermost ring stood three
tall Negroes, each holding a berimbau with one end resting on the ground.
Two more musicians soon came--one with a chocalho, or metal rattle, and the
other with a pandeiro, or tambourine. Edison and the others helped me push
front, and we were glad of the diversion.
Two capoeirists were squatting there facing the musicians. One was the
champion Beloved of God, with the Christian name of Samuel. He was tall,
9

lack, middle-aged and muscular, a fisherman by trade. His challenger was
The Black Leopard, a younger man, shorter and fatter. They were barefooted,
wearing striped cotton jersey shirts, one with white trousers, the other with
dark, one with a felt hat, the other with a cap which he later changed to a
hard straw hat. Squatting in their hats and bare feet, one had his left arm on
his left thigh, the other had his right arm on his right thigh, and they stared
straight ahead, resting. It was required of them to keep silent, and the re-
quirement carried over to the audience.
The orchestra opened the events by strumming an invocation, and this
monotonous accompaniment too was essential to the occasion. It was a sort
of whining nasal-toned framework within which the men executed acrobatic
marvels, always to the correct beat, while the musicians chanted mocking
verses:
“I stood at the foot of the cross
Saying my prayer
When there arrived Catherine,
The very image of the Devil.
“Eh, eh, Ah-Ruanda!
Missy, let's go away!
To beyond the sea!
“It's a sharp knife, Missy,
It's for piercing.
Missy, throw it to this side,
Missy, throw it to that side.
“Eh, eh, long live my master
And my mistress, who taught me!
Master, leave me to the vagrant life!
Missy, to the capoeira life!
“Missy, may the earth revolve!
Master, may the world go on!” *
(* This song and those following, to p. 109, translated from the Portuguese of
Edison Carneiro, Negros Bantus, pp. 149-153, 155, 158, 133, 138-140.)
10

It was a song of challenge and hope and resignation, containing frag-
ments of rebellious thoughts. It did not possess a simple theme well worked
out, but it summarized a type of life and of protest. And it opened the fight.
Beloved of God swayed on his haunches while he faced his opponent
with a grin and gauged his chances. The fight involved all parts of the body
except the hands, a precaution demanded by the police to obviate harm. As
the movements followed the musical accompaniment, they flowed into a
slow-motion, dreamlike sequence that was more a dancing than a wrestling.
As the law stipulated that capoeirists must not hurt each other, blows become
acrobatic stances whose balancing scored in the final check-up, and were
named and classified. Various types of capoeira had evolved, with subtleties
in the forms and sequences of the blows and in the styles of playing the
berimbau.
Beloved was prodigiously agile in the difficult formal encounters with
his adversary, and he smiled constantly while the ritual songs droned on:
“They told my wife
That a capoeira man had conquered me.
The woman swore, and stamped her foot down firm
That this could not have been.”
And the berimbaus changed again:
“There was I. Oh! There was my brother,
There was my brother and I.
My brother rented a house
But neither he paid, nor I!”
Impertinently, with slow, calculated, beautiful movements, Beloved
butted his adversary with his hatted head, catching him lightly in the pit of
the stomach, upsetting him so that he fell on his head. Thereupon the orches-
tra struck up triumphantly:
“Zum-Zum-Zum,
Capoeira kills one!
“The cutting knife is bad,
Prepare your stomach to catch it!”
The challenging echoes silenced, the round over, the two men walked
and trotted restfully in a counter-clockwise circle one behind the other, the
11

champion leading with his arms high in the air, and the other grasping his
wrists from behind while the orchestra played and sang teasingly:
“In the days when I had money
My comrade called me 'kin.'
After my money was gone
My comrade scorned me as 'bold.'”
Gradually, having rested, the one in front wheeled to face the one be-
hind, and they parried to the beat of the songs, never still, balancing from one
foot to the other, watching for openings.
“Comrade, attention!
Capoeira goes at you!”
warned the berimbaus. The two faced each other, Beloved swaying, Leopard
backing away, always rhythmically. As Beloved advanced bending from the
waist, lowering his head for the telling blow at the other's middle, Leopard
curved forward intending to evade him. Actually he created an opening into
which Beloved charged with his right leg, his left one stretched parallel with
the ground to support him. Leopard's arms swung back loosely, and he fell
forward over the butting head in a clean arc. Laughing quietly in apprecia-
tion, the two rose, loping in circles to relax while the orchestra applauded:
“Lo, he is a messenger of the king!
He is from Ruanda!
What can one do with a capoeira?
He is an African sorcerer* *Mandingo
And knows how to play.”
They sparred again, and again Beloved was the one to attack, half squat-
ting as in a Russian dance, swaying, arms curved forward for balance. Instead
of following through with his head as before, he worked to one side and sud-
denly raised up his body. Leopard bent to charge, but Beloved swung his
weight to his right leg and cleared his opponent's head with his left, causing
him once more to fall sprawling!
Now another insisted upon entering the ring. He had attempted to do so
earlier but had been ignored. Impatiently he pushed Leopard aside, pointing
indignantly to the corner where scorekeepers were chalking the points on the
12

ground, points Leopard had failed to make. And sulkily Leopard yielded his
place.
The hero Beloved wiped his streaming face and back, and bared his head
to cool it. Through everything the onlookers remained silent, only shuffling to
ease their positions and inner excitement. Soon the bows whined an invoca-
tion for the new round... 12
I have quoted Landes’ lengthy description in its entirety to illustrate that a
roda performed in Bahia for the benefit of an anthropologist nearly seventy years
ago is nearly the same as my own experience of a capoeira roda in twenty-first cen-
tury Detroit. These rodas of different periods both appear to closely follow each
other in terms of their specific rituals, movements, and the music of the game. In-
deed, many of the songs cited by Landes (apparently transcribed by Carneiro) are
virtually the same as those sung in traditional rodas today.
Of course, there are important differences between the two time periods, and
great care must be taken not to make unsound generalizations from this compari-
son of a mere two texts.
Moreover, I must admit that Landes’ account had a huge influence on my
own description. But this primarily because her work elegantly captures the spirit
of the form as I have already learned it from Mestre Caboquinho, and as I have
seen it performed in Bahia today. Landes’ description, written with the helpful eyes
and ears of Carneiro at her disposal, 13 also provides evidence that Mestre Cabo-
quinho is not merely exaggerating or inventing his claims about the longevity of
capoeira angola and its traditions. This evidence not only reinforces the reality of
12 Ruth Landes, The City of Women [orig. pub. 1947] edited with introduction by Sally Cole. (Albuquerque:
U of New Mexico P, 1994). 102–105.
13. It is perhaps worth noting that Carneiro was also Landes’ lover during her time in Bahia.
13

the Mestre’s teachings and philosophy, but it has also helped illuminate my own
path of training, playing, and listening to capoeira.
With this key, and the keys provided under the guidance of the Mestre, I be-
lieve I have begun to unlock some important aspects of capoeira angola. Among
these, has been the realization that the best way to understand capoeira—a form
that has hidden itself deliberately for decades, perhaps centuries—is not to ask ca-
poeira to answer primarily to the needs of objective history, but rather to answer to
the needs of capoeira itself, as it is played in the present.
Conditions and limitations of this work
To be sure, the very personal nature of this work requires explanation and
qualification. I have thus found it useful to frame this thesis primarily as a “reflex-
ive” or “personal” ethnography 14 documenting my experiences as a student and
apprentice teacher under Mestre Caboquinho in a preliminary way.
As such, this thesis is not meant to represent the work of a trained historian,
anthropologist, dance teacher, or movement analyst. Nor is it the account of an
African-American, a Brazilian, or even a fluent speaker of Portuguese. While I have
based much of this work on empirical research in these areas—familiarizing myself
with various historical and anthropological approaches, the Laban system of
movement notation, terms and concepts of movement analysis, and the Portuguese
language itself 15 —my most fruitful “research” has undoubtedly been to train, play,
14. For more on “reflexive ethnography,” see Charlotte Aull Davies, Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching
Selves and Others: ASA Research Methods in Social Anthropology (London/New York: Routledge,
2002).
15. My level of proficiency in Portuguese might best be characterized as “almost fluent.”
14

and listen to capoeira angola myself. This thesis thus relies heavily on very per-
sonal discoveries made while following the form.
This does present some methodological challenges: namely, it may be too sub-
jective, and therefore of questionable value to the field of “capoeira studies,” and
even less valuable to other likely fields of interest, such as African and Latin
American studies, or studies of martial arts and social dance. And, while I have al-
ready attempted to frame this as a “preliminary work,” my admitted lack of train-
ing in some of these areas may reveal some unfortunate conceptual blind spots.
Having said that, I will attempt to address the limitations of this work as the
need arises. In this regard, I hope to adequately convey the scholarly importance of
giving myself over to the logic of a traditional form such as capoeira angola, which
has encouraged me to place a great deal of “faith” in my teacher, and which in
turn has allowed me to access a few of the hidden “truths” of the form.
Accordingly, I shall proceed with a somewhat detailed description of my very
personal path of training in capoeira angola thus far, and my experience of the
idiosyncratic world of Mestre Caboquinho. Through this, I hope to adequately ac-
count for the ways in which I am qualified (and sometimes not qualified) to write
this thesis from “within” the tradition of capoeira angola. Throughout, I will also
call out important details about the current capoeira scene, such as the diversity of
pedagogical approaches in the form, oppositions between modernist and tradition-
alist views, and urgent issues facing practitioners in Bahia today.
15

Early experiences
T H E P A T H O F T R A I N I N G
One of my earliest glimpses of capoeira was in the late 1990s, through a 3-D
fighting game named Tekken 3. 16 One memorable character, named “Tiger Jack-
son,” wore 70s clothing and fought with strange, inverted movements that ap-
peared to come from breakdancing. I later learned that “Tiger” was an alternate
African-American “disco” version of the more famous Brazilian character “Eddy
Gordo.” Both characters had been animated from digital motion captures of ca-
poeira.
In the year 2000, I began a Master’s program in dance at the Ohio State Uni-
versity. There, I took advantage of an introductory one-day workshop on capoeira
offered by a fellow graduate dance student. This student later taught a ten-week
elective dance class in capoeira, which I also eagerly took. At the end of the ten-
week class, the instructor also co-hosted a workshop with the esteemed Mestre
Acordeon (Bira Almeida), offering me my first opportunity to interact with an
authentic capoeirista from Brazil.
Looking back, I am thankful for having been introduced to capoeira, but the
class did plant certain “contemporary” notions about capoeira that took a long
time to dispel. For example, if one were accidentally struck in the game or during
16. From Tekken 3, Namco, 1997.
16

training, students were taught that it was their own fault for failing to defend
themselves. I was also taught that the mysterious capoeira angola was the “low,
and slow” style of capoeira, an assertion that I have heard over and over ever
since. There were also pedagogical concerns, given that the class consisted of a be-
ginner teaching other beginners, without a sanctioned mestre, teaching in the con-
text of modern dance, isolated from tradition, with little time for music or culture.
At the end of the term, instead of presenting a customary capoeira roda, the
teacher created a capoeira-inspired stage piece for the students to perform.
Nevertheless, this class stimulated my interest in the form, so I began pursu-
ing it on my own time. In the summer of 2001, I had the opportunity to visit vari-
ous capoeira academies, including Mestre Acordeon’s studio in Berkeley, a branch
of the famous Grupo Abadá in San Francisco, and Capoeira Longe do Mar in
Mexico City. At these academies, I experienced a style of capoeira that was similar
to what I already knew, emphasizing strength, calisthenic training, full-body
movement, and aspects of competition, suggested by students’ clear designations of
rank. Brazilian culture, if mentioned at all, was more like a backdrop to the prac-
tice. I also noted that a large number of people in each group trained in other fight-
ing practices, suggesting that this style of capoeira lent itself easily to the mentality
of “martial arts.” All of this represents the typical ambience of what I will call
“contemporary” capoeira. 17
17. I have deliberately chosen to use quotes when referring to “contemporary” capoeira, which is the modernized,
stylized, hybridized, and generalized form of capoeira. In part, this is because I am not convinced
that the practitioners of this style have all agreed to be identified by that word, or its Portuguese counterpart,
capoeira contemporânea. In my experience, many of these academies in fact prefer to simply say they play
“capoeira,” a supposedly unmarked, unified, and uncontradictory term. But in using quotes, I am also selfconsciously
critiquing modernized capoeira, and echoing M Caboquinho’s extremely pessimistic characterization
of the form as being “aggressive,” “incomplete,” “exaggerated,” and “disrespectful” of the history of
Bahia, as I shall note.
17

Inspired by these visits, I decided to establish an informal capoeira training
group at Ohio State in the fall of 2001, the first of its kind in the area. I was joined
by members of the elective capoeira class, as well as a few break dancers, martial
artists, and aficionados of Brazilian culture. Although the group had initially been
set up as a communal entity for sharing information, I soon began to effectively
lead the group, in part because of my age and predisposition to leadership, but also
because my experiences in the capoeira world had already shown me the impor-
tance of hierarchy and organization.
As leader of the group, my responsibilities included securing a training space
within the university, organizing classroom exercises, and offering suggestions/
corrections based on my experiences at the other schools.
Enter capoeira angola
In December of 2001, I visited the capoeira angola center of Mestre João
Grande (João Oliveira dos Santos) in New York City. At his academy, I was con-
fronted with a whole new philosophy and style of movement that contradicted
much of what I had already learned. Capoeira angola appeared very far away from
a martial art, and seemed instead to be more of a ritualized, ambivalent, and very
African-influenced game. Although I initially returned home to Ohio unsure of
how to reconcile these two distinct approaches to capoeira, I soon began to apply
my naïve interpretation of M João Grande’s pedagogy to the student group, sub-
liminally pointing the group in the direction of capoeira angola.
In the summer and fall of 2002, I visited the International Capoeira Angola
Federation (ICAF or FICA) center in Washington, D.C., where I met Mestre Co-
18

inha Mansa (Sinézio Feliciano Peçanha), perhaps the second most respected
teacher of capoeira angola in North America after M João Grande. While there, I
pored through FICA’s voluminous library of videos and documentation, and exam-
ined a poster that exhaustively listed the various “family trees” of capoeira angola
teachers. I also returned to New York City and spent nearly a week studying at M
João Grande’s academy. While the Mestre himself was in Bahia, I trained under the
supervision of his longtime student Mario Pereira. I also bought my first berimbau
instrument there, and began to learn the basics of how to play it.
Around this time, I also had a personal breakthrough in my physical under-
standing of capoeira angola. After over a year of training in various places, the
mobile stance of capoeira, called the ginga (or “sway”) had not made much sense
to me. By softening my body and swaying the ginga back and forth indecisively,
however, I began to understand the ambivalent, ironic attitude of the angoleiro. So,
while I still continued visiting “contemporary” capoeira schools, and occasionally
trained and taught some movements from that form, I knew that this personal
breakthrough would lead me to follow capoeira angola more seriously.
Perhaps inevitably, this also led to the beginning of tensions within the stu-
dent group, between those who wanted to follow behind me towards capoeira an-
gola, and those who did not want to become formally affiliated to any one “style.”
This tension would only increase after I met and began training with Mestre Ca-
boquinho.
19

Enter Mestre Caboquinho
FIG. 3 / Mestre Caboquinho (white hat) with students
Wayne State University, 2003
(Photo from collection of author)
In the summer of 2002, I visited Wayne State University in Detroit (see Fig.
3), where Mestre Caboquinho taught a small number of students in a second-floor
dance studio. I recognized the movements and the style of play as capoeira angola,
but there were important differences. The Mestre’s teaching style was very informal
in some ways, militant in others, and generally ambivalent and secretive overall.
However, the Mestre made it clear that he did not want to keep the deeper aspects
of the form to himself, but to pass them on little by little to the right kinds of stu-
dents. Taking this as an invitation, I began to train there as often as I could. (This
was also a practical move, given that the drive from Columbus to Detroit was only
200 miles, versus the nearly 600 miles to New York).
The Mestre also seemed unafraid to discuss the philosophy and misconcep-
tions of capoeira during long, impenetrable lectures that sometimes took up the
20

entire two-hour class time (and sometimes longer). In these talks, spoken in a hy-
brid of English and Portuguese laced with vivid Bahian metaphors, the Mestre al-
ternated from deadly seriousness to wild humor. Mainly, he seemed to want to pro-
tect us from the aggressiveness and martial-arts mentality of modernized capoeira
(generically designated at that time as capoeira regional) that appeared to mock the
history of his homeland, Bahia.
But the battle to save capoeira was being fought on two fronts, as he also
criticized those within the capoeira angola community—in particular, M Cobrinha
and M João Grande, two of the best-known angoleiros based in North America at
that time—for their alleged lack of respect for the form’s traditions (especially with
regard to the musical “schedule” noted in the Introduction). For the Mestre, such
lapses proved that these men were not interested in teaching the right thing to
North Americans, and had instead turned their backs on Bahia.
Although I did not understand many of the intricacies of the Mestre’s discus-
sions, or the many characters involved, something about his anxious ener-
gy—which was simultaneously pessimistic and deeply humorous—made me want
to be a part of his complex capoeira world. His willingness to discuss the realities
of the game, in words as well as in movement, made it easy for me to decide that
he would be my mestre.
Early difficulties
However, my decision to focus my training under Mestre Caboquinho was
not universally applauded by the members of the Ohio State student organization.
As I continued training under the Mestre on my own, bringing back many of his
21

teachings and philosophies to our group, and organizing a workshop with him in
Columbus in December, some of the students began to question whether the
group’s emphasis on only one “style” of capoeira—not to mention the Mestre’s
pessimistic view on “contemporary” capoeira—was becoming an obstacle to their
training. Although the group was destined to become an official T.A.B.C.A.T.
group by the end of the following year, at these earlier stages I deferred to the
group’s wishes, and did not attempt to affiliate the group with T.A.B.C.A.T.
At that time, I also believed it was very presumptuous for me to take over a
capoeira group with my meager level of training—even though I was, in effect, its
only teacher. I also did not want to assert control over what had begun as a com-
munal group—even though I was its primary maintainer and organizer. In retro-
spect, failing to recognize this obvious dissonance was perhaps my biggest mistake
during the earlier part of my training.
My training with Mestre Caboquinho also far from easy during this time.
Some of this was due to issues of language, as he often spoke in English that was
heavily colored by Portuguese pronunciation and metaphor.
On my trips to Detroit, the Mestre often spent half of the class time attempt-
ing to “clean up” my mistaken assumptions, while conveying the crucial impor-
tance of following a mestre (any mestre), and his/her teachings. His exasperated
Detroit students often looked at me with a mixture of disdain and relief: upset with
the fact that I was taking time away from their training, but relieved that the Me-
stre’s negativity was no longer being directed at them.
22

On book learning
It did not help that I was also spending my first serious attention to the litera-
ture of the form at this time, prompted by my visit to FICA’s capoeira library in
Washington, D.C. I shall summarize this literature shortly, but at the time, much of
it seemed to problematize Mestre Caboquinho’s accounts on the history and devel-
opment of the form. Because of this, I often arrived to class armed with questions
to help me resolve some of the contradictions of these various accounts, but the
Mestre seemed very dismissive of book-learning, suggesting that even a “mountain
of books on capoeira” would not help me understand the game. He also pointed
out that book learning can in fact be an obstacle to training, with each book pre-
senting its own point of view. According to the Mestre, spending too much time
reconciling these various accounts was time better spent training and playing ca-
poeira.
His position is perhaps best summed up by a more recent incident, triggered
at a workshop in Atlanta in 2006. This woman, holding a copy of Nestor Capoei-
ra’s 2002 book Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game, insisted that it contra-
dicted one of the Mestre’s statements at the workshop. Awakened by this chal-
lenged, the Mester refused to answer her question directly, and instead asked her
why she didn’t email the author personally. The Mestre suggested, somewhat jok-
ingly, that Nestor Capoeira (who is in fact known for being somewhat net-savvy)
would probably reply to her question by saying, “I’m so glad you liked the book!
Would you like to buy some of my other books as well?” In essence, the Mestre
was reminding his listeners that capoeira is always being marketed in one way or
23

another. When the woman continued to protest, the Mestre simply waved away
her challenge, saying: “I don’t play capoeira with books!”
Reading pessimism
Experiences like this have been instrumental in my understanding of the Me-
stre’s apparently pessimistic exterior. No doubt, this exterior appears to be an inte-
gral part of his complex and passionate personality, overseen by a tempestuous
orixá. 18 But at least some of it seems to have stemmed from the difficulties and
challenges he faced during his seven years of teaching capoeira in Miami, Florida,
upon his arrival in the U.S. In Miami, he was often confronted by practitioners of
other martial arts and “contemporary” capoeira—including many Brazilians—who
argued that capoeira angola was weak or ineffective as a martial art, or worse, that
what he was teaching was not really capoeira at all. He often expressed frustration
that he had not yet mastered English in order to refute some of these claims.
Of course, it would not be out of line to suggest that the Mestre’s attitude
may have also been influenced by the ambiguous nature of capoeira angola itself,
which is itself an extension of an Afro-Bahian view of world in which energies and
intentions are very significant. 19 For example, like many followers of Afro-
Brazilian religions, the Mestre seems to attach great importance to what I previ-
ously thought were mere coincidences or accidents.
18. The orixás are spiritual intermediaries between the earthly and godly realms in the Afro-Brazilian religion
of candomblé. Each person is said to be represented by one or more of these beings—some of whom are
more tempestuous than others. And, while it can be disrespectful to discuss someone else’s orixá too obviously,
I will say that the Mestre is guided by one of the harsher dispensers of judgment.
19. Again,this is an important component to candomblé. Greg Downey (2005) has also helpfully written a
chapter that discusses this issue more explicitly, arguing that many capoeiristas and Afro-Bahians tend to
“walk in evil.”
24

One instance of this occurred very early in my training with him. I purchased
a T.A.B.C.A.T. academy t-shirt, but lost it in the laundry soon thereafter. The Me-
stre interpreted this as a subliminal sign that I was not ready to take responsibility
for being a serious student under him. I tried to protest that this “accusation” was
ridiculous, and dismissed it as a pessimistic delusion. However, I later learned not
only that he was right (in this and many other cases), but also that such coinci-
dences were an important part of my training.
Nevertheless, under such a cloud of apparent pessimism, it was not hard for
me and other students to accidentally offend the Mestre, or stumble into “delicate”
areas. The possibility of betrayal—big or little—and disrespect—even acciden-
tal—thus seemed to loom over every interaction with Mestre Caboquinho.
“100% angola”
Another incident from this period is particularly instructive. Before his arrival
in Columbus for our December 2002 workshop, I warned the Mestre that I was
still teaching my students some movements from capoeira regional, but that we
were doing 80% capoeira angola Although I had merely intended this comment to
reassure the Mestre that I was passing his teachings down to my own students, and
slowly shifting the group’s emphasis to capoeira angola, he was greatly offended by
my statistical comparison. He insisted that one can only be “100% angoleiro.”
I did not understand the Mestre’s point at the time, but as I shall discuss in
Section 2, this kind of error often comes from assuming that capoeira angola is
merely a style or sub-category of capoeira, rather than a complete “package” unto
itself, as the Mestre would assert. Moreover, it also comes from a misreading of
25

history, in which the two Bahian forms of capoeira were split for very specific rea-
sons.
Unreasonable demands
By 2003, the brow-beatings I received from the Mestre appeared to be getting
much worse. With every trip I took to Detroit, his lectures became more and more
urgent and demanding. He begged me to purge any remnant of my earlier training
in modernized capoeira, to secure “my group” in whatever way possible, and to be
awake to the destructive effects of modernized capoeira on capoeira angola. I tried
to assure him that I was his student, and that I was spending what little money I
had on coming to train with him in Detroit, but none of my answers or supposed
personal sacrifices appeared to satisfy him.
Throughout, I also felt unable to reconcile the contradictory aspects of his
demands. How could I purge my older training when some within the group still
wanted to play that way? How could I admit to him that perhaps part of me still
wanted to learn some of those flashier movements? How could I be asked to secure
“my group” when I did not feel it was really “mine,” and that I was absolutely
unqualified to lead it anyway? How could I “protect” my students from modern-
ized capoeira, when it was one of the main things that attracted people’s interest?
How could I clarify a history of capoeira for my students, when I was having such
a hard time reconciling its contradictions myself?
What I had failed to understand was that in clamoring for me to assert con-
trol over the Columbus group, he did not really expect me to be a mestre, or an-
swer any of these questions definitively. He simply wanted me to start thinking like
26

a mestre, following in someone’s footsteps, and demonstrating to my students that
I was their leader, keeping them “in the line” of capoeira angola and its teachings.
The rest was easy.
However, my failure to understand any of this, and my failure to act on the
Mestre’s recommendations, slowed the group’s progress significantly.
Perhaps out of subliminal rebellion against the Mestre’s demands, I did not
travel to Detroit that whole summer. Instead, I managed to take another trip to
New York to visit M João Grande, where I documented his classes extensively with
video recordings and photographs, and learned how to make my own berimbau. I
also visited the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in June of 2003.
where I photocopied various materials on capoeira, including an important thesis
by T.J. Desch-Obi discussing the engolo, a supposed African antecedent of
capoeira. 20
As a result of this research, I belatedly decided to focus my graduate research
entirely on capoeira, which would mean an additional two or three years of aca-
demic work. The remainder of the summer was thus spent compiling materials for
the historical section of this thesis.
The big mistake
In this meantime, I committed what was probably the biggest mistake I have
ever made as leader of the Columbus group. I allowed a practitioner of “contem-
porary” capoeira to conduct a workshop in the summer of 2003, inside what was
certainly “my house” by that time. Initially, I permitted the workshop to take place
20. Desch-Obi’s work would be highly influential on my understanding of capoeira history.
27

in order to appease the group’s reasonable desire to explore other styles of ca-
poeira. In retrospect, however, this single workshop—and the events that pro-
ceeded from it—undermined much of what the Mestre had been carefully prepar-
ing me to do.
The workshop in question was taught by by an Afro-Brazilian professor of
capoeira from the south of Brazil who was my age and had recently moved to Cen-
tral Ohio from California. The professor first arrived on the scene by respectfully
coming to observe some of my classes. He seemed to agree that my job controlling
this very diverse group of students was a difficult one. With his apparently humble
entrance, I was hopeful that this “authentic” capoeirista might help me convey the
reality of capoeira to my students.
Later, as a guest in several of our rodas, he played spectacular games with
everyone, exhibiting a great deal of charm and humor in his game. He even ap-
peared to understand the deeper rituals, including the chamadas (one of which is
described in my opening account), which are often misunderstood by practitioners
of modernized capoeira. At times, however, he used his hands in very aggressive
ways (once dragging a female student on the floor by her hair), and eventually, he
began to show bigger acrobatic movements that did not make sense with Mestre
Caboquinho’s teachings.
While some welcomed these exciting new movements, others began to worry
whether this professor might jeopardize our relationship with Mestre Caboquinho.
In his workshop, the professor sparked further controversy by teaching a number
of jujitsu-style takedowns that bruised several students badly. These movements
28

were later used somewhat recklessly by several students who wished to emphasize
the martial arts aspect of capoeira.
The kind of problems that this workshop (and by extension, “comtempo-
rary” capoeira) forcefully introduced into the group were serious indeed. This sin-
gle workshop taught my students that capoeira should emphasize strength over
subtlety, that capoeira must hybridize with other martial arts in order to become
more “effective,” and that certain kinds of violence are okay in the roda. Perhaps
most damaging of all, this kind of capoeira was being presented as somehow
“equivalent” to Asian and other martial arts, which minimizes or even erases the
very aspects that make capoeira distinctive in the first place.
Indeed, Mestre Caboquinho had often warned me that I, as a non-Brazilian
who was still very new to capoeira, would be very vulnerable to anyone who ar-
rived in my space claiming to do both styles of capoeira, while hiding their martial
arts mentality and the modernist rhetoric of “contemporary” capoeira. As it turns
out, this is exactly what happened. Moreover, the professor himself turned out to
be less than forthcoming. Unlike other angoleiros I had met by then (and have met
since), the professor rarely discussed his own mestre, even when asked. He said
almost nothing about the capoeira organization he represented. I was also unable
to find any information about him online.
Throughout that summer, the professor had also been at the center of a few
unsavory incidents between students after class. While it may not be appropriate or
relevant to comment on the professor’s personal behavior in this study, I believe it
is worth noting that after humbly apologizing to me for his behavior at first, he
later justified all of his questionable actions by claiming that a capoeirista must al-
29

ways “have surprises,” demonstrating his willingness to use capoeira to justify his
own questionable behavior.
At our final collaboration at a roda in 2004, he even tried to reassure me that
he was also “80% angoleiro.” After having been so thoroughly chastized by Me-
stre Caboquionho on the very same point (even down to the same percentage), it
was hard for me to suppress a knowing laugh.
Of course, not all practitioners of “contemporary” capoeira use their art as
an excuse for self-gratification and malandragem (“roguery”). But regardless of
anyone’s good or bad intentions, I have found that the Mestre’s warnings about the
negative effects of “contemporary” capoeira on capoeira angola are in fact real.
This has been proven to me time and again, in ways that will underlie many of the
assertions of this thesis.
Unfortunately, in this case, I failed to grasp the urgency of the Mestre’s sug-
gestions. Back in Michigan, Mestre Caboquinho had heard about the ill-advised
workshop with the professor. This prompted him to ban me from training with
T.A.B.C.A.T. Yet likely because of my continued inability to understand his English
(or his intentions) clearly, I did not even realize that I had been barred until I fi-
nally returned to a class in Ann Arbor in September of 2003. The Mestre, ever sen-
sitive to the coincidences of life, read my reappearance as a positive sign, and con-
ditionally reinstated me. Thus granted his forgiveness by happenstance, I finally
began to understand what he had been saying to me all along: that none of the
challenges and apparently unreasonable demands he had placed upon me were ever
meant to be taken personally. They were only meant to ensure the proper passage
of capoeira angola.
30

So when several of my own students continued to argue for openness to other
“styles” of capoeira, and a few students began to show their disrespect to the class
more openly (showing up excessively late, socializing during exercises, ignoring my
corrections), I realized this was the critical juncture. In October, I finally an-
nounced my intention to affiliate the group with Mestre Caboquinho, and warned
the rebellious students that disrespect would not longer be tolerated. By then, the
“contemporary” professor had begun his own classes, which ironically made it eas-
ier for me to establish T.A.B.C.A.T. Columbus in early 2004 with a clear, undis-
tracted path towards capoeira angola.
Of course, there have been other difficulties since that time, often the result of
my incomplete (but always improving) understanding of Bahian Portuguese, and
his continued difficulty with English. While he now appears more relaxed with
English, he often relies on intermediary translators for longer, more complicated
lectures. Some of these translators, including the Mestre’s Michigan-raised wife
Roshani Dantas, have been quite capable. But at other times, when Roshani is un-
available, the Mestre has been obliged to enlist an ad hoc translator—sometimes a
senior student, or a random Brazilian visitor—who is not always quite up to the
task. 21 Adding to the difficulty is the Mestre's unconscious habit of mixing the two
languages, sometimes with humorous results. 22
Despite such glitches, the upward progress of the group has been remarkably
consistent. It is perhaps ironic that my decision to “limit” the focus of the group in
21. As one of his older students, I have been increasingly been called upon to translate, to mixed reviews.
22. For example, on a number of occasions, the Mestre has been in the midst of a translated lecture in Portuguese,
only to lapse into English. Waiting for the translator to translate his English into English, the room
often erupts into laughter. (No one laughs harder than the Mestre himself.)
31

fact made the path to understanding the mysteries of capoeira angola much more
open.
Measuring my status
Nevertheless, I am now entering my fifth year of training under the Mestre
without having gained an official title or certification of graduation in capoeira an-
gola. This has been a source of confusion and frustration to some of my most dedi-
cated students, who know something about the history of our relationship, and be-
lieve that I should have been formally recognized long ago.
This lack of status in capoeira angola will undoubtedly lead some in the ca-
poeira community to read my work, and some of my bolder statements, as being
highly premature, perhaps even presumptuous, given my relative “youth” in the
game. 23
Unfortunately, as I and my students have come to learn, it is often quite diffi-
cult it is to measure one’s progress and status in capoeira angola. In most modern-
ized capoeira schools, a system of colored cordas (rope belts) are granted to stu-
dents who have achieved specific goals of proficiency, 24 thereby eliminating much
of the inherent ambivalence of the game. However, in capoeira angola, such ranks
and titles are applied very inconsistently. Indeed, in some academies, like that of M
João Grande, there are students with decades of training who are still not recog-
nized with any rank at all.
23. In fact, this has already happened. On one of the online forums, Capoeira.com,
24. These cordas do not always guarantee a student’s level of understanding, but they are more or less reliable
indicators.
32

Judging by the Mestre’s own standards, students appear capable of gaining
the title of treinel (trainer) in about three to five years, and the title contra-mestre
(half, or assistant mestre) in five to seven years. The title of mestre, which Mestre
Caboquinho has not yet given within T.A.B.C.A.T. (as of this writing), is often
given in other academies in as little as eight, or as many as twenty-five years. By
this measurement, I could have already gained the title of treinel, and begun the
path to contra-mestre. The fact that I have not done so remains the business of
Mestre Caboquinho, but it may be partially illuminated by the proceeding discus-
sion on my freedom to research, teach, and speak for the form.
My freedom to speak, and its limits
In spite of my lack of official title, the Mestre has repeatedly given me his
blessing to do my own research, even if it contradicts him, or gets me into trouble
with the capoeira community. 25 He is confident enough in his own “job” to allow
my research to contradict him. As one of the few self-identified representatives of
capoeira angola tradicional outside of Bahia, the Mestre has often asserted that he
is simply transmitting the raw, unfiltered reality of Bahian capoeira to his students.
Through his classroom teachings, biannual student trips to his homeland, and the
encouragement of students’ personal research, the Mestre not only believes that he
is demonstrating the qualities of a good teacher, but more importantly, that he is
helping to preserve the uniquely Bahian character of capoeira angola in his North
25. Pointing to the same forum controversy I noted a moment ago, in which I was also very strongly accused
of misrepresenting another mestre, Mestre Caboquinho reminded the community that “[w]hat Luna says, he
as an American, does what I have asked all my students to do and that is research Capoeira.” Personal
communication, May 2006. Other, more ridiculous accusations have also arisen, including one that suggests
I went around Bahia demeaning M Caboquinho .
33

American students. He also believes that with the right kind of guidance—a con-
tradictory combination of hands-on and hands-off instruction—students will each
arrive at the truth of capoeira angola in their own way. He trusts that with this
freedom, his students will inevitably fall in line with his own philosophy. (This atti-
tude is also very much in keeping with the spirit of capoeira itself, in which players
improvise in a very personal way within a limited system of movement options.)
This freedom, in fact, has been one of the reasons I have decided to continue
training with him, in spite of the challenges, difficulties, and mistakes that have oc-
curred. Given what I have learned, however, I do not feel I have the right to quote
the Mestre directly, outside a few useful instances. By extension, I do not believe it
is my job to speak for him, 26 but rather to speak on my own terms, as his student.
This is much in keeping with the passage of capoeira angola, in which one’s own
interpretation from within the tradition only adds to the practice.
In this light, he has asked me to refrain from “comparing” his teachings to
others, because he does not feel he has anything to “prove” through my research.
Indeed, he prefers to say that his capoeira speaks for itself. (Taking some time to
understand and respect such a statement has itself been very instructive.)
Still, the Mestre’s has asserted my right to speak as his student, and as some-
one who is at least “curious” about capoeira. 27 As such, my tutelage under him,
beginning in 2002, has consisted of some fifty trips to Detroit and Ann Arbor, half
a dozen formal workshops with him in Columbus, and dozens of phone conversa-
tions thus far. In addition, I have also sat through dozens of the long lectures on
26. At any rate, because of this preference, I have not even been granted a formal interview with the Mestre.
27. This understatement was a powerful corrective for me. Personal communication, 28 May 2006.
34

philosophy, history, and the realities and mysteries of the game that often start or
end his classes. (Thankfully, these are no longer directed primarily at me.)
I have also had the opportunity to train several times with his Contra-Mestre
Biriba (b. Raquel Prymak, São Paulo, Brazil, c. 1970) from Miami, Florida.
From an academic point of view, it is unfortunate that I have generally not
been permitted to document these teachings in a formal way, however. The Mestre
believes that note-taking and recording devices are obtrusive and can prevent stu-
dents from gaining a more embodied understanding of capoeira angola. (Indeed, I
have also found this to be true.) Instead, I have written extensive post-class notes,
dating back to 2003, which have been very helpful in writing this work, and
transmitting the Mestre’s teachings to my own students.
Teaching
As already suggested, I began to teach and lead a capoeira group at a much
earlier stage than most mestres would recommend. However, once underway, I
found it difficult to stop the momentum of local interest in capoeira. From 2001–
2002, for example, Ohio State student group swelled to about a dozen permanent
or semi-permanent members, and dozens of others passed through our doors for
one or several classes.
By the autumn quarter of 2002, Professor Susan Hadley of the Department of
Dance noted this growing interest, and enlisted me to teach my own introductory
elective class. After my experiences with capoeira angola throughout that summer,
I felt that my knowledge—though far from complete—was just deep enough to
give new students the broad outlines of the form.
35

Over the course of the next four years, some two hundred students—averag-
ing about eighteen students during each ten-week term—took the class. These stu-
dents literally came from every corner of the university community, ranging from
disciplines all the way from African Studies to Zoology. In addition, from my ob-
servations (and comments from the Department of Dance faculty and students), the
class was consistently among the most diverse in the Department, with nearly a 50/
50 split between males and females—a rarity in dance classes. It also served as a
laboratory for my own teaching, allowing me to experiment with different peda-
gogical models. In the end, however, I found that the closer I moved to the teaching
style of Mestre Caboquinho, the quicker my students also learned capoeira angola.
Not coincidentally, the class has also been the most important source of new stu-
dents for the T.A.B.C.A.T. student organization.
The apprenticeship begins
Through my somewhat accidental leadership of these two capoeira entities
(the elective class and student group), I joined a rag-tag group of North Americans
who have begun teaching capoeira far too early, often causing more harm than
good. This was only made worse by the fact that I was financially unable to train
with Mestre Caboquinho more than once or twice a month. Despite this, by late
2002 the Mestre had decided to grant me the informal recognition as an apprentice
teacher of capoeira angola under his name, permitting me to officially teach with-
out the title that is usually required to lead a group. 28 But the Mestre did not grant
this favor merely because of my apparent determination to learn capoeira angola.
28. I am not alone in this regard, as the Mestre has other groups in similar situations.
36

Many students like me have come and gone in his many years of teaching. Instead,
it was the urgent reality of my day-to-day teaching that left him no choice but to
give me some kind of tentative approval, in order to “save” me and my students
from becoming worse off without him.
As already outlined, his recognition of my right to teach did—after the obsta-
cles already described—finally led to the establishment of the T.A.B.C.A.T. Colum-
bus group. As the group’s leader, I have taught an average of three two-hour classes
every week since late 2003. I have also led dozens of group workshops, rodas, and
demonstrations throughout the area, organized workshops to bring the Mestre and
his students to Columbus, and spearheaded several group trips to see the Mestre in
Michigan. I have also been responsible for making and maintaining the group’s col-
lection of berimbau instruments, as well as providing uniforms, designing promo-
tional materials, as well as creating and maintaining the group’s website
(www.tabcatcolumbus.org) and email contact lists.
Training and teaching: problems and positives
As noted, my leadership did not always ensure the group’s success in learning
capoeira angola. Failing to understand capoeira angola, or the Mestre’s intentions
fully, meant that I did not always know how to protect my students from the dan-
gers he repeatedly warned me about.
However, for better or worse, this arc of training and teaching at the same
time has enabled me to accumulate a great deal of experience in interpreting and
transmitting the practice to new students. As such, the many mistakes and errors I
37

have committed along the way, while regrettable from other points of view, have
also been highly instructive.
Until recently, for example, I often found myself returning from a solo train-
ing session in Michigan with the realization that I would have to correct or rethink
older assumptions I had already passed on to my own students. As the Mestre had
already warned, many of these assumptions (a handful of which may still remain
to be purged) were inherited from my first twelve to eighteen months of hodge-
podge training in both traditional and modern capoeira. For example, well into my
apprenticeship in capoeira angola, I found that I was still telling my students that if
they got hit in training or in a roda, it was their fault for “failing to defend them-
selves”—a notion that had come from my earliest training in modernized capoeira.
I now realize that this kind of teaching completely contradicts the philosophy of
capoeira angola.
On the other hand, the chance to transmit the Mestre’s teachings and phi-
losophies so soon after learning them myself, has often helped me connect my stu-
dents to the tradition, and the Mestre himself, with less “filtering.” In fact, this
self-conscious negotiation through the Mestre’s labyrinthine teachings—not to
mention the twists and turns of his personality—has taught me how to “relax” in
the form’s difficulties and contradictions, thereby bringing me and my students
closer to capoeira angola. It has also helped me to understand how to “relax” in
the contradictions of a teaching style that does not conform to Western pedagogi-
cal models emphasizing linearity, logical progression, and clarity. 29
29. As I was often reminded by my colleagues at Ohio State, this was a “folk” model of teaching, that appeared
to be less about analysis, aesthetics, and formal training, and more about experience, culture, and
informal playing.
38

This complex process of teaching and learning has also given me a better un-
derstanding of the ways in which practitioners situate themselves within the prac-
tice of capoeira. After moving from the “modernist” point of view of the professor
and the majority of capoeira groups worldwide, to the “traditionalist” point of
view represented by Mestre Caboquinho and many angoleiros in Bahia, I feel I am
qualified to contextualize the arguments of both sides.
Recent recognition
With the growth of trust between the Columbus and Michigan groups, Me-
stre Caboquinho has begun to recognize me in a more public fashion. In the pres-
ence of several mestres of capoeira angola in 2005, for example, the Mestre noted
that my responsibilities were equivalent to those of a contra-mestre. 30 The Mestre
has also hinted that I would receive a “good graduation” in Bahia in August 2006
(after the scheduled publication of this thesis).
Irrespective of the Mestre’s hints, I believe I still have a great deal of work to
do to deserve the title of contra-mestre. Whatever title I do receive, however, it is
more relevant to note that the Mestre at last appears to trust that I am on board,
and that I have learned from my past mistakes. Moreover, he appears very com-
fortable in my ability to teach in his name, and to “secure” my own students in
this tradition.
In closing this section describing my training and qualifications to speak from
within the tradition of capoeira angola, I will now now summarize two trips to
Bahia that were instrumental to this thesis, and their wider implications. (N.B.:
30. Capoeira encounter, Detroit, MI, 11 Sep 2005.
39

Some of the finer details may only be of passing interest to readers who are not
heavily involved in the capoeira angola community.)
Bahia, 2004: “Encontro da Nata”
In August of 2004, I was part of T.A.B.C.A.T.’s “Encontro da Nata” (“En-
counter of the ‘Finest’”), attended by six of my own students and approximately
ten other T.A.B.C.A.T. members. Throughout the two week trip, the group offi-
cially hosted—or was hosted by—teachers such as M René (Renê Bittencourt dos
Santos) of ACANNE, M Augusto (Augusto Januário Passos da Silva), M Curió
(Jaime Martins dos Santos), his wife M Jararaca (Valdelice Santos de Jesus), M
Neco (Manoel Marcelo dos Santos), Professora Ritinha, M Raimundo (Raimundo
Dias), M João Pequeno (João Pereira dos Santos), and others.
The group also spent a great deal of time with Mestre Caboquinho in his
home city, as he took us to the Lagoa do Abaeté (a lagoon and nature preserve at
the edge of Salvador) and the beaches of Barra and Itapoã. The Mestre also organ-
ized a weekend trip into the recôncavo region of the Bay of All Saints, stopping in
the legendary town of Santo Amaro briefly on the way to Cachoeira, to attend a
rural school opening featuring a capoeira roda, and to witness the yearly proces-
sion of the Irmandade da Nossa Senhora da Boa Morte (the Order of Our Lady of
the Good Death), a sisterhood made up entirely of Afro-Brazilian women.
T.A.B.C.A.T. also hosted an event at the Associação Brasileiro de Capoeira
Angola (the Brazilian Association of Capoeira Angola, or ABCA), which featured a
demonstration of candomblé dances, followed by a ceremony acknowledging the
Mestre’s father, M Jose Vicente Dantas (then in his 80s and just barely able to at-
40

tend). The event also featured an award ceremony for students, witnessed by many
of the old guard of capoeira angola (among them, the then 86-year-old M João Pe-
queno), followed by a long roda de capoeira and celebration of Mestre Caboquin-
ho’s success in the US.
The group part of the trip was not all positive, however, as tensions arose be-
tween group members, and as I struggled to understand some of the stubbornly
mysterious aspects of capoeira in Bahia.
Bahia, 2004: solo research
I was among four students who remained in Salvador for an additional three
weeks. During this time, I trained alone with several teachers, including Professora
Ritinha, M Pelé da Bomba, and at the school of M Moraes (Pedro Moraes Trin-
dade), where I met the esteemed historians of capoeira, Jair Moura and Professor
Carlos Eugênio Líbano Soares. I also attended a family birthday roda in honor of
M Neco, various rodas at the academy of M João Pequeno, and the ABCA; I con-
ducted an informal interview with M Boca Rica (one of M Pastinha’s oldest stu-
dents); and visited the academy of M Bimba’s son, M Nenél (Manoel Nascimento
Machado), to investigate the true roots of capoeira regional. I also attended and
documented an event hosted by Ginga Mundo, featuring an onstage performance
of capoeira at the central Pelourinho of Salvador. The event included shows by M
Nenél’s group as well as the ABCA, which closed with a memorable game between
M Caboquinho and M Raimundo.
I also had the opportunity to investigate the Afro-Brazilian religion of can-
domblé on several occasions, seeking spiritual advice from a babalorixá and a
41

taata n´kese (two types of priests), while researching its conceptual links to ca-
poeira. From Mauro S., a student of M Moraes’ GCAP organization who is origi-
nally from Goiânia, I learned how to weave caxixis, the small shakers used to ac-
company the berimbau musical bow. I also joined Mauro on a trip to the nearby
city of Feira de Santana, to procure the vine-like material called junco, used to
make caxixis. Mauro also gave me important information on bringing back mate-
rials to make my own berimbaus.
One regret, however, was my inability to do library research at the Centro de
Estudos Afro-Orientais (Center for African and Oriental studies of Federal Univer-
sity of Bahia, or CEAO), where an untimely strike of workers prevented me from
examining the most important collection of documentary materials available in
Bahia. I did, however, manage to conduct some research at the Biblioteca Central
dos Barris.
I also encountered some of the bitter personal rivalries that divide the world
of capoeira angola. For example, during my time researching and training with
other groups, Mestre Caboquinho's legitimacy as a teacher of traditional capoeira
was often challenged by a few faladores (“shit-talkers”) who argued that he was
not a real mestre, or claimed that his father was completely unknown in capoeira
circles. 31
On the other hand, others defended Mestre Caboquinho like a brother, citing
his long and well-known history in the city, the quality of his North American stu-
dents. and his willingness to bring them to Bahia to show them the reality of ca-
31. Indeed, I had already been surprised to not see the names of M Jose Vicente Dantas or M João Bodeiro
among the dozens of traditional players listed in M Bola Sete’s book A Capoeira Angola na Bahia (ref). Nor
are their names visible in the aforementioned “family tree” prepared by a student of FICA. (Incidentally, on
that document, M Caboquinho is listed as a student of M Curió, which is only partially true.)
42

poeira angola. Unfortunately, the accusations still raised serious doubts in my mind
about the Mestre’s qualifications and genuine link to capoeira history. Despite
these doubts, I chose to stay with my teacher, remembering that the answers to
many of capoeira’s contradictions reside in listening to the game itself, not in the
stories that wily capoeiristas weave behind each other’s backs. 32
Results
Thus, upon my return to the US, and my first trip back to Detroit, I set my
doubts aside to train. Soon thereafter, the Mestre was apparently betrayed by two
of his most trusted students: one “resigned” for strange, inconsistent reasons; the
other was suspended indefinitely after allegedly committing a sacrilegious act
against the Mestre’s family. These betrayals were discussed over and over within
the Michigan group, but interestingly, the environment of the Mestre’s academy
also became much more relaxed, opening a space for my training to improve much
more quickly. The harshness of these betrayals may have also reminded the Mestre
that my “mistakes” had really just been more like miscommunications rather than
deliberate acts of disrespect. After this, the Mestre seemed to forgive me for all my
past sins, and even joked that after returning from Bahia, I was no longer capable
of making “big” mistakes, just “little” ones. 33
32. I have since come to learn that the T.A.B.C.A.T. lineage is authentic, and may not have had much to do
with the more popular, mainstream lineage of M Pastinha and those who visited his academy in Salvador. I
have also learned that M Dantas and M Bodeiro may have been better known in the nearby town of
Serrinha, in the Bahian interior.
33. It is only fair to note that only a few months later, I was suspended from T.A.B.C.A.T. for two months,
over my failure to pay him the Mestre his full workshop fee at a Columbus event in December, 2004. Yet the
suspension had only good results, allowing me the time to further organize the Columbus group, and giving
me a concrete example of how to discipline my own students, if the need were to arise.
43

Accordingly, over the last two years, this trust has finally been rewarded by a
deeper understanding of what capoeira angola represents. The other riches I
brought back from Bahia have also infused my teaching with a better understand-
ing of what capoeira and its culture is about.
Bahia, 2005
In August and September of 2005, I spend another three weeks in Salvador
and the surrounding areas. 34 This trip was fraught with personal complications,
including paperwork errors at the Brazilian border, an unscheduled trip to Buenos
Aires, and another strike at the Center of Afro-Oriental Studies (which only
seemed to confirm the Mestre’s skepticism about book research). In most ways,
however, the 2005 trip deepened my research, and further underlined the Mestre’s
teachings.
Among new contacts, M Zé do Lenço (José Alves), an avuncular capoeira
teacher who teaches in the neighborhood of Sete Portas, welcomed me into the
family-like atmosphere of his academy. The Mestre also insisted on telling me
many details of local capoeira history, through which I came to realize that there is
still a very localized history of capoeira that is little understood, such as the street
corners that served as hideouts for capoeiras, or how particular docks in the lower
part of the city were an important source of capoeira movements.
M Neco, a longtime student of the late Mestre Canjiquinha, also welcomed
me to his free community classes in the neighborhood of Brotas, and his annual
34. Funded in part by a Tinker Field Research Grant, and the support of a personal colleague, Mr. Rory
Benson.
44

irthday roda for a second time, which again reminded me that capoeira in Bahia
is more often an excuse for a family celebration than for a martial display.
I also revisited such teachers as M Renê, M Raimundo Dias, M Curió, and his
wife M Jararaca, while adding classes with M Caboré and befriending a number of
capoeira students. I also observed a practice session of the percussion group Olo-
dum, received music lessons from Mauro S., and brought back a great number of
instruments as well as raw materials for instrument-making. I was also officially
initiated into a house of candomblé de angola.
On this trip, I also took more deliberate time to wander away from the
tourist-oriented Centro Histórico to observe and absorb the pace of everyday life.
Thus “productively idling,” I walked the streets, attended soccer matches, sat at
cafés, talked to taxi drivers, ate street food, and just generally tried to listen to the
city. In so doing, I believe I was better able to bring back the genuine “feel” of Ba-
hia to my students, and to imbue this thesis with the same.
An uncertain future
In part because of this listening, I came closer to another “reality” of Bahia.
Although there are strong forces in place to preserve Bahia’s cultural heritage, the
future of practices such as capoeira angola is nevertheless in doubt. In Bahia, ca-
poeira angola is threatened by internal and external politics, capitalism, globaliza-
tion, and the practical, everyday need to survive. As such, practitioners of capoeira
angola face major struggles to assert their rightful place in Bahian—and global—
life.
45

At the same time, hundreds of foreign students descend into Salvador each
year to research capoeira angola and take scraps of it back to their own countri-
es—often, like myself, with the official nod of a Bahian teacher. With its teachings
thus trickling out, piecemeal, from Bahia, non-Brazilians are given a false sense of
security that the practice is “thriving” outside of Brazil, or worse, that the “best”
of capoeira is no longer found in Brazil. In contrast, my research has found that
many of the deeper aspects of capoeira angola have in fact never left Bahia.
Moreover, from my observations, foreign students too often take up capoeira
either as a recreational activity or an “abstract” object of research, with little re-
gard for the preservation of the practice for the future, let alone the fundamental,
daily needs of most of its older practitioners, 35 whose precious knowledge will
likely be lost within the next several decades unless something is done. My own
position became increasingly apparent to me on my second trip to Bahia, when I
realized that I, too, was just another lucky foreigner with the opportunity to travel,
“abstract,” and translate this folk practice to written, rationalized, and notated
form.
So before proceeding, I want to at least call attention to some of the pressing
issues facing these practitioners today, which will also shed some light on the
deeper rationale behind this work.
35. I have not examined this question statistically, but even in my short time in Salvador, I encountered dozens
of students from all over the world, most of whom claimed to be “researching” capoeira.
46

Bahia não é brincadeira não (“Bahia is no joke”)
The city of Salvador is a polluted, congested city of some 2.4 million inhabi-
tants, where rates of “official” unemployment are seemingly locked around 25% 36
(quoting 2004 statistics, although unofficially, it is believed to be much higher)—
worst of all of Brazil’s major cities. The minimum wage, despite significant in-
creases under President Lula, is still only R$350 (less than USD $180) a month, 37
and at least one government official has argued that Bahians in particular are paid
the worst salaries in the whole Republic. 38 This does not even account for the
numbers of people who are paid less than the minimum wage, or who are “under-
employed” (for which I was unable to find any statistics). This, in a country where
criminal gangs and trabalho escravo (“slave labor”) still operate on a depressingly
wide scale. 39
Most Bahians can thus barely imagine the luxury of making a trip to another
country, let alone comprehend why a foreigner would want to study something as
“impractical” and “unproductive” as capoeira. So, while most Bahians agree that
capoeira is a cultural treasure, few see it as a serious or “practical” career path.
It is therefore important to remember that many of the rapidly-aging genera-
tion of capoeira angola teachers—living links to capoeira’s storied past—continue
36. Anuário dos Trabalhadores 2005. 6ª edição. São Paulo, SP: DIEESE (Departamento Intersindical de
Estatística e Estudos Sócio-Econômicos), 2005. 20 Apr. 2006 .
37. As of April 1, 2006. See “Salário mínimo sobe de R$ 300 para R$ 350 a partir de amanhã,” Folha Online
(Sãõ Paulo) 31 Mar 2006. 20 Apr. 2006. .
38. Representative Emiliano José (PT-Bahia), “Servidores baianos recebem piores salários do país.” [”Bahian
Civil Servants Receive the Worst Salaries in The Country”] 31 Mar. 2006. 19 Apr. 2006
.
39. Osha Gray Davidson, “Heart of Darkness.” Rolling Stone 25 Aug. 2005. 20 Apr. 2006
.
47

to live with little financial support, meager health care, and few retirement bene-
fits. Many of these men (and virtually all of them are indeed men) survive through
their own inventiveness, earning wages as teachers, instrument-makers, and other
undocumented jobs.
The problem of status in capoeira angola
Earlier, I estimated the average length of time it takes for students to achieve
ranks within T.A.B.C.A.T., but as noted, many academies and students do not con-
form to these “standards.” More seriously, the community in Bahia lacks a gener-
alized, reliable way to measure the title of mestre. Throughout Brazil, the word
mestre has been used for many years as an informal, honorific title given to anyone
who demonstrated a mastery or skill, such as carpentry or metal-smithing. In older
days of capoeira, the title of mestre was also given somewhat informally to those
individuals who had proven their mastery and longevity in the game. The title was
regarded as a recognition from a community of practitioners, and appears to have
become more of a formal term with the rise of capoeira academies in the middle of
the twentieth century. (Confusingly, it is also often given to older gentlemen who
trained for some time in their lives but did not become active teachers.)
However, younger students in traditional capoeira are increasingly declaring
themselves “mestres” on their own, changing group affiliations to gain titles more
quickly, or buying titles from older mestres, in a practice previously thought to be
more common in modernized styles of capoeira. 40 Yet the younger generation in
40. For example, one of the most prominent capoeira angola teachers in the US recently “bought” a certification
from a well-respected teacher in Bahia. This teacher now uses the older man’s name on his website and
promotional materials, despite the fact that he was never officially his student.
48

Brazil cannot entirely be blamed for wanting to “leapfrog” into mestrehood, given
the lack of economic opportunities and drastic inequalities in distribution of
wealth in that country, which is statistically among the very worst in the world. 41
Partially as a response to this, a new law was passed in 1998, 42 requiring ca-
poeira teachers who were granted the title of mestre after that year to be certified
by the educational standards of a university degree in physical education. This
regulation, which established the Conselho Federal (Confef, or Federal Council)
and the Conselho Regional de Educação Física da Bahia/Sergipe (Cref-BA/SE, or
Regional Council of Physical Education of Bahia/Sergipe), was written in the hopes
of better controlling all types of physical education. However, the law has been ve-
hemently opposed by all facets of the capoeira community in Bahia. This sentiment
is perhaps best summed up by the words of the esteemed M João Pequeno, who
was 85 when quoted in 2004, saying: “This [law] is ridiculous. Capoeira is much
more than physical education, it is old and encompasses the body, mind, music, it
meshes with everything.” 43 Thankfully, however, the capoeiristas have staged a
“counterattack” of their own, by appealing for recognition from an alternate gov-
ernment entity, the IPAC (Institute of the Artistic and Cultural Patrimony of Ba-
hia). If approved under the IPAC, capoeira would be categorized as an “immaterial
41. According to the 2005 Human Development Report released by the UN, Brazil’s income inequality ranks
117th out of 124 countries profiled. Only Guatemala, Swaziland, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone,
Botswana, Lesotho, and Namibia were worse. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2005 Human
Development Report. New York: UNDP, 2005. 20 Apr 2006 .
42. Federal Law nº 9696/98.
43. Original: “Isso é besteira. A capoeira é muito maior do que a educação física, é antiga e mexe com
corpo, mente, música, mexe com tudo.” From “Capoeira da resistência,” Emtursa (Official Tourism Site of
the City of Salvador), 23 Aug. 2004. 20 April 2006 . Keywords: capoeira, Conselho
Federal. (Translation mine.)
49

patrimony” or cultural activity, which would no longer be subject to the 1998
law. 44
Urgency of this research
Given the overall picture of the current situation facing the practitioners of
capoeira angola, I hope the reader may forgive the “rhetorical urgency” underlin-
ing this work, which I have no doubt inherited from Mestre Caboquinho (with
echoes from Detroit's Mad Mike as well 45 ). I also hope that, regardless of how I
have gone about translating some of the aspects of capoeira angola to an audience
of fellow practitioners, scholars, and critical readers, this account holds true to the
traditions which I am learning, teaching, and upholding—not merely for my own
benefit, but for the benefit of practitioners of the art in Bahia today, and by exten-
sion, the jogo itself.
Having thus explained my personal experiences and qualifications, I will now
attempt to better situate my work through a more technical examination some of
the most relevant materials available in the growing area of “capoeira studies.” As
I will make clear, this review will not only provide important hints about the his-
tory of the form, it will also reveal many of the limitations of history itself. Para-
doxically, admitting to such limitations will allow me to listen to history in new
ways and allow me to narrate my own version of capoeira history.
44. Katherine Funke, “Ipac dá início ao registro de tombamento da capoeira.” [”IPAC Initiates Registration of
the Cultural Conservation of Capoeira”] Correio da Bahia, 23 Dec 2004. 20 Apr 2006
.
45. “Mad” Mike Banks is an African-American producer of Detroit techno known for his defiant political communiqués
as leader of the music collective known as Underground Resistance (UR). “Mad” Mike was also
one of my mentors in the 1990s, whose views often echo those of Mestre Caboquinho.
50

S E C T I O N 1 : H I S T O R Y
51

Overview
P A R T 1 : R E V I E W O F L I T E R A T U R E
Despite the fact that capoeira has been noted in the written record as far back
as the colonial records of late eighteenth century Brazil, and that it was an impor-
tant urban phenomenon throughout the nineteenth century, little serious attention
was turned to the form until the twentieth century. The burgeoning field of “ca-
poeira studies” is a very recent phenomenon, in which most of the best books have
only been published since the 1990s.
This is perhaps not surprising, considering that capoeira has generally been
equated with criminality, idleness, and lower class, “primitive,” African-derived
culture. Indeed, the neglect of capoeira parallels the overall repression and neglect
of the African contribution to Brazilian culture. Likewise, the increasing status of
capoeira as a subject worthy of study closely follows the rise of Afro-Brazilian
studies overall.
In order to present a wider view of this shift, I begin with a brief summary of
the earlier references to capoeira before moving on to a more detailed examination
of materials written in the latter half of the twentieth century. For the sake of ac-
cessibility, I have prioritized materials written in English. Because the vast majority
of works about capoeira are still in Portuguese (with little hope of future transla-
tion), it is important and useful to summarize the most relevant of those Portu-
52

guese materials. 46 I shall also point to the limitations of these materials whenever
appropriate.
Early references to capoeira
An excellent summary of the earliest references to capoeira is available on-
line, through a web archive entitled Capoeira: Historical Documents Timeline. 47
On this page, coordinated by Pol Briand and his partner Lucia Palmares, a number
of historical documents pertaining to capoeira have been transcribed with great
care, including the earliest known reference to the form in a 1789 police report. 48
Briand and Palmares also include excerpts from the nineteenth century travel ac-
counts and descriptions of non-Brazilians such as Henry Koster (1816), 49 Henry
Chamberlain (1821), 50 Johann Moritz Rugendas (1827), 51 Jean-Baptiste Debret
(1834), 52 Charles Ribeyrolles (1859), 53 Emile Allain (1866), 54 as well as references
46. With a few exceptions, I shall translate most Portuguese titles within footnoted citations, not in the body
of the text.
47. Pol Briand and Lucia Palmares, “Capoeira: Historical Documents Timeline.” Capoeira Palmares - Paris.
2006. 20 Apr 2006 .
48. Unearthed by Nireu Cavalcanti, Jornal do Brasil, 15 Nov, 1999.
49. Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil, 1st ed, (Longman, Hust, Rees & Brown, London, 1816).
50. Sir Henry Chamberlain, Views and costumes of the city and neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from
drawings taken by Lieutenant Chamberlain during the years 1819 and 1820, with descriptive explanations
(London: T. M’Leau, 1822).
51. Johann Moritz Rugendas, Viagem pitoresca através do Brasil [A Picturesque Voyage Across Brazil].
Trans. Sergio Milliet. 5th ed. (São Paulo, SP: Livraria Martins Editôra, 1954).
52. Jean-Baptiste Debret, Viagem pitoresca e histórica ao Brasil (Picturesque and Historical Voyage to Brazil).
Vol. 2. 1835. Trans. and notes Sérgio Milliet. Bio. Rubens Borba de Moraes. (São Paulo, SP: Livraria
Martins, 1972. 2 vols. 1834–39).
53. Charles Ribeyrolles, Brésil Pittoresque (Paris, 1859).
54. Emile Allain, Rio de Janeiro: quelques données sur la capitale et sur l'administration du Brésil. 2ème ed.
(Paris: Frinzine & Cie. Paris, Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Lachaud & Cia,, 1886).
53

from later Brazilian authors such as Machado de Assis (1885), Melo Morais Filho
(1893), 55 and Manuel Querino (1916), 56 among others.
Nineteenth century newspapers that wrote about capoeira in Rio include the
Diário do Rio de Janeiro, Jornal do Commércio, and O Correio da Tarde. Other
primary sources from the nineteenth century include a number of government re-
cords that were not known by writers of that time. In Rio de Janeiro, these include
codices, official letters, judicial proceedings, manuscripts, legal declarations, and
police and military records. Thus far, most documents have been drawn from the
Secretaria de Polícia da Corte (Office of the Court Police), the Ministério de Justiça
(Ministry of Justice), the Casa de Detenção (House of Detentions), general archives
of the city of Rio de Janeiro, police archives, and a collection of Imperial laws,
among many others. Most of these are held at the Arquivo Nacional (National Ar-
chive), the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library), and the Centro de Estudos
Afro-Asiáticos (Center for Afro-Asian Studies) of Rio de Janeiro. In addition, Car-
los Soares has researched documents held at the Arquivo da Marinha (Marine Ar-
chives), the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino in Lisbon (Portugal), and the Arquivo
Histórico Nacional in Luanda (Angola). 57
In Bahia, capoeira was first cited by name in newspapers such as O Alabama,
A Tarde, and Diário de Notícias. Otherwise, however, documentation on Bahian
capoeira in the nineteenth century has been more sparse (thus far). Antonio Lib-
55. Melo Morais Filho, “Capoeira e capoeiragem no Rio,” 1893.
56. Manuel Raimundo Querino, “Capoeira,” A Bahia de outrora [Bahia in Older Times], 1916.
57. For a more complete list, consult Soares (). As elsewhere in this thesis, I favor the original Portuguese
whenever possible, translating to English only when it seems appropriate. I am aware that this may add
needless clutter, but it is my attempt to stay closer to the spirit of the language. Unless otherwise noted, all
translations of Portuguese are mine.
54

erac Pires has found legal documents held at the Arquivo Público Estadual da Ba-
hia (Public Archive of the State of Bahia). The Centro de Estudos Afro-asiaticos in
Bahia is another important source. 58
Early twentieth century literature
While most of these archival materials are only available in Brazil, secondary
materials from the early twentieth century are widely available in university librar-
ies throughout North America and Europe. Increasingly, these texts are also being
excerpted online. 59 However, nearly all of these were written in Portuguese and
have yet to be translated into English or other languages. Additionally, most of
them consider capoeira only peripherally, or as part of a wider study of folklore
that marked the beginning of “Afro-Brazilian” studies, an approach pioneered at
the turn of the twentieth century by Raymundo Nina Rodrigues and his protégé
Artur Ramos. 60 Among these types of materials, the most relevant to capoeira are
Edison Carneiro’s Negros Bantus: notas de etnografia religiosa e de folclore
(1937), 61 Antonio Vianna’s Quintal de Nago e outras crônicas (1979), 62 and Luis
58. See Pires (). I have not had the opportunity to consult any of these records myself, but I have included
them here to confirm their existence and importance to the field. I also hope that my description can serve
as an orientation for interested researchers. Other sources no doubt await discovery and analysis.
59. See, for example, the Brazilian online magazine, Jangada. 2006. 20 Apr 2006
.
60. See for example, Nina Rodrigues, Os Africanos no Brasil [The Africans in Brazil], 1905; Artur Ramos, As
culturas negras no Novo Mundo [Negro Cultures in the New World] (São Paulo, SP: Ed. Nacional, [1935],
1979).
61. Edison Carneiro, Negros Bantus: notas de etnografia religiosa e de folclore [Bantu Negroes: Notes on
Religious Ethnography and Folklore] (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Civilização Brasileira, 1937).
62. Antonio Vianna, Quintal de Nago e outras crônicas [The Back Yard of the Nago and Other Chronicles]
(Salvador, BA: UFBA, Centro de Estudos Baianos, 1979). Compiles writings from the early twentieth century.
55

da Câmara Cascudo’s extensive Dicionário de Folclore Brasileiro (various
editions). 63 French sociologist Roger Bastide, who documented the Afro-Brazilian
religion of candomblé, also wrote a short description of capoeira as part of his
book Imagens do nordeste místico em branco e preto (1945). 64
Among works in English, Ruth Landes’ City of Women (1947) also focuses
primarily on capoeira’s sister art candomblé, but she also provides the vivid de-
scription of capoeira that opened this thesis. 65 Donald Pierson, a prolific scholar of
Brazilian studies, also provides some helpful details on capoeira in his 1942 study
of race relations in Bahia. 66
Other published works include non-academic attempts to promote capoeira
as a unique Brazilian martial art and/or athletic practice. The first of these was a
pamphlet entitled Guia do capoeira ou ginástica brasileira (1907) written by an
anonymous military officer in Rio de Janeiro known only as “O.D.C.,” who de-
scribes various capoeira positions and techniques. 67 Apparently inspired by
“O.D.C.,” another carioca (resident of Rio) named Anibal Burlamaqui wrote his
own pamphlet, entitled Ginástica nacional (Capoeiragem) metodizada e regrada
63. Luís da Câmara Cascudo, Dicionário do folclore brasileiro. 5a edição. (São Paulo, SP: Edições Melhoramentos,
1979).
64. Roger Bastide, Imagens do nordeste místico em branco e preto [Images of the Mystical Northeast in
Black and White] (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Emprêsa Gráfica O Cruzeiro, 1945).
65. Ruth Landes (1947, 102–107).
66. Donald Pierson, Negroes in Brazil: A Study of Race Contact at Bahia (Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P,
1942).
67. O.D.C., Guia do capoeira ou ginástica brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1907), republished by the Associação
de Capoeira Barravento (Niteroi, RJ).
56

(1928). 68 Burlamaqui, an athlete and gymnast, was among the first to propose the
reflexive, purposeful modernization of capoeira.
These were followed by two works by one of Burlamaqui’s students, an ath-
lete, sociologist, and specialist in physical education named Inezil Penna Marinho,
who published Subsídios para a metodologia do treinamento da capoeiragem
(1945) 69 and Subsídios para a história da Capoeiragem no Brasil (1956). 70 These
works were highly nationalist in character, hoping to turn capoeira into the equiva-
lent of a national gymnastic practice largely devoid of African or Afro-Brazilian
character.
FIG. 4 / Illustration from Capoeira sem Mestre (Capoeira without a Master Teacher)
Lamartine Pereira da Costa, c. 1960s
68. Anibal Burlamaque, Ginástica nacional (Capoeiragem) metodizada e regrada, [National Gymnastics
(Capoeiragem) Methods and Rules] 1928.
69. Inezil Penna Marinho, Subsídios para o estudo de metodologia do treinamento da Capoeiragem [Supplements
for the Study of the Methodology of Training in Capoeiragem] (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Imprensa Nacional,
1945).
70. Inezil Penna Marinho, Subsídio para a história da Capoeiragem no Brasil. [Supplement for the History of
Capoeiragem in Brazil] (Arquivos da ENEFD, Rio de Janeiro, ano 9, n.9, p.81-102, Jan.-Jun./1956a).
57

Another work in this vein was a popular handbook by Lamartine Pereira da
Costa with the presumptuous title of Capoeira sem mestre (or “Capoeira without a
Master Teacher,” c 1962), 71 which contains numerous illustrations, and has gone
through numerous editions. The famous modernizer of capoeira in Bahia, Mestre
Bimba (Manuel dos Reis Machado), also released his own LP and accompanying
instructional pamphlet entitled Curso de Capoeira Regional (c 1960s) 72 Mean-
while, the self-styled protector of capoeira angola, Mestre Pastinha (Vicente Fer-
reira Pastinha), also released a book, Capoeira Angola (1964), which was compiled
by a ghost writer out of various comments, interviews, and manuscripts. 73 M Past-
inha later released an LP of music and personal recollections, also entitled “Ca-
poeira Angola” (c 1968). 74
Among works of fiction, several books by Jorge Amado deserve mention.
Amado, a longtime resident and aficionado of Bahia, depicted several characters as
players of capoeira in the novels Jubiabá (1935) 75 and Capitães da Areia (1937), 76
to name a few. Also, in a 1960s edition of his highly popular regional “guide-
71. Lamartine Pereira da Costa, Capoeira sem mestre [Capoeira without a Master Teacher] (Rio de Janeiro,
RJ: Ecições de Ouro, c 1962).
72. Mestre Bimba, Curso de Capoeira Regional [Course in Capoeira Regional] (Salvador, BA: RC Discos,
1989).
73. Vicente Ferreira Pastinha (Mestre Pastinha), Capoeira Angola. 3rd ed. (Salvador, BA: Fundação Cultural
do Estado da Bahia, 1988).
74. Mestre Pastinha e sua academia, “Mestre Pastinha: Capoeira Angola” (Phillips, Bahia. SCDP-PF-001/
GB. R.765.097L. Salvador, BA. c 1968).
75. Jorge Amado, Jubiabá (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1935).
76. Jorge Amado, Capitães da areia [Captains of the Sand] (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Livraria José Olympio Editora,
1937).
58

ook,” entitled Bahia de Todos os Santos; guia das ruas e dos mistérios da cidade
do Salvador (1966), Amado sings the praises of Mestre Pastinha himself. 77
Rego: Capoeira Angola: ensaio sócio-etnográfico
Capoeira scholarship, however, does not begin in earnest until 1968, with the
publication of Waldeloir Rego’s imposing four-hundred-page volume entitled Ca-
poeira Angola: ensaio sócio-etnográfico. 78 Rego, an ethnographer and historian,
modestly frames his book as a mere “essay,” but it is in fact more like an encyclo-
pedia, bringing many of the various strands of capoeira study together. The book,
although only available in Portuguese, has become the standard reference manual
for “old style” Bahian capoeira.
In it, Rego presents very detailed and methodical examinations of nearly
every aspect of capoeira. His twenty-page etymology of the word “capoeira,” for
example, presents no less than thirty possible definitions and/or origins of the
term. 79 The book also features examinations of the game itself, its history, and pro-
files of contemporary practitioners and their academies. He also presents historical
entries on each of the instruments of the capoeira orchestra, lists of dozens of tra-
ditional capoeira songs, and a very comprehensive etymological glossary of ca-
poeira terms. The book also contains shorter (but still thoroughly footnoted) chap-
ters on capoeira’s influence on the arts, literature, film, and popular music.
77. Jorge Amado, Bahia de Todos os Santos; guia das ruas e dos mistérios da cidade do Salvador [The Bay
of All Saints: Guide to the Streets and Mysteries of the City of Salvador] Ilustrações de Manuel Martins. (São
Paulo, SP: Martins, 1945).
78. Waldeloir Rego, Capoeira Angola: ensaio sócio-etnográfico [Capoeira Angola: A Socio-Ethnographic
Essay] (Salvador, BA: Editora Itapoan, 1968).
79. This does not even include possible Bantu derivations of the word, which were only suggested later by
scholars such as C. Daniel Dawson (1993) and Peter Fryer (2000).
59

Rego’s important achievements in this book merit further detailed assessment
and analysis. For the moment, however, it is enough to note that despite its thor-
oughness, Rego neglects one crucial aspect of the form: its actual movements. This
lacuna—surprisingly or not—has been the most persistent problem in the field of
capoeira studies.
Scholarly works of the 1970s
The 1970s saw a rather dramatic reevaluation of “black studies,” prompted
by the work of Franz Fanon, the move towards independence in Africa, and Black
Power in the USA. In Brazil, this led to a rethinking of the contribution of Africans
and their descendants to the national culture. For example, Afro-Brazilian practi-
tioners of the candomblé religion began to proclaim the purity of their religion on
its own terms, disassociating it from notions of its syncretization with the Catholic
Church, which had often hidden candomblé through its elaborate rituals and hier-
archy of saints. 80
However, for quite some time after Rego, new scholarly work on capoeira
appeared only sporadically. One of these, Valdemar de Oliveira’s Frevo, Capoeira
et Passo (1971) contains a thirty-five page chapter on capoeira that is largely a re-
capitulation of Rego’s work, but the book overall adds research on the frevo and
passo dances of Recife (capital of Pernambuco state), another important center of
capoeira activity in the nineteenth century. Edison Carneiro also recompiled his
80. See, for example, an online translation of the article “Candomblé diz não ao sincteticismo” (Candomblé
says no to syncretism), Vander Prata, Jornal da Bahia, Friday, 29 July 1983
Jul 2006.
60

findings on capoeira into a short pamphlet entitled Capoeira: cadernos de folclore
(1975). 81
In her thesis entitled Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (1972), Mary
Karasch began her pioneering work in the Arquivo Nacional in Rio de Janeiro,
which later became a 1987 book by the same name. 82 Karasch was among the first
to call serious scholarly attention to the frequent citations of the word capoeira in
these archival documents, which laid the groundwork for later “hard” historians
such as Thomas Holloway, Carlos Soares, and Antonio Pires, whose works I shall
discuss shortly.
Gerhard Kubik, a German ethnomusicologist, presented a compelling account
of the living links between Brazil and Africa in his book Angolan Traits in Black
Music, Games and Dances of Brazil (1979), 83 which includes a chapter on capoeira
angola specifically. Kubik is also the first to suggest that the word capoeira may
have origins in an African language, not Portuguese or indigenous Brazilian as
most theories had proposed previously. Kay Shaffer’s in-depth study of the berim-
bau musical bow, O berimbau de barriga e seus toques (1977) 84 starts with Rego’s
musicological work, but finds that some of his research was already out-of-date
only nine years later.
81. Edison Carneiro, Capoeira: cadernos de folclore [Capoeira: Notes on Folklore] (Rio de Janeiro, RJ:
Campanha de Defesa do Folclore Brasileiro, 1975).
82. Mary C. Karasch, Slave life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1987).
83. Gerhard Kubik, Angolan Traits in Black Music, Games and Dances of Brazil: A Study of African Cultural
Extensions Overseas (Lisboa: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, 1979).
84. Kay Shaffer, O berimbau de barriga e seus toques [The Belly Berimbau and its Rhythms] (Rio de Janeiro,
RJ: Instituto Nacional de Folclore, Funarte, 1977).
61

Growth of the field: practitioner accounts
Since 1980, the number of materials written about capoeira has grown slowly
but steadily. Among the first of these were works written by longtime students of
Mestre Bimba. These include Capoeiragem: arte e malandragem (1980) 85 by Jair
Moura, and Bimba: Perfil do Mestre (1982), 86 by Raimundo César Alves de Al-
meida’s (Mestre Itapoãn). While these might be categorized as “practitioner ac-
counts” rather than the work of historiography proper, both authors attempted to
follow academic standards of scholarship.
Another student of M Bimba, Bira Almeida (Mestre Acordeon), published the
first English book on capoeira in 1982, entitled Capoeira: A Brazilian Art Form. 87
Almeida’s chapter on the history of capoeira again draws heavily from the work of
Rego, but he infuses it with his own personal reminiscences of meeting and train-
ing with his teacher. He also summarizes his efforts to systematize the art, as well
as information on the instruments, music, and rhythms of capoeira (again, owing a
great deal to Rego). He also includes a section quoting written works by his own
students (most of them North American), a nostalgic chapter about Mestre Bimba
and his philosophies, and several descriptions and photographs of capoeira tech-
niques and movement sequences. The later, better-known second edition, entitled
85. Jair Moura, Capoeiragem: arte e malandragem (”Capoeiragem”: Art and the Rogue’s Life) (Salvador:
Prefeitura Municipal de Salvador, Secretaria Municipal de Educação e Cultura, Departamento de Assuntos
Culturais, Divisão de Folclore, 1980).
86. Mestre Itapoãn (Raimundo César Alves de Almeida), Bimba: perfil do Mestre [Bimba: Profile of a Master
Teacher] (Salvador, BA: Centro Editorial e Didático da UFBA, 1982).
87. Bira Almeida (Mestre Acordeon), Capoeira: A Brazilian Art Form (Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books;
Palo Alto, CA: Sun Wave, Inc., 1981, 1982).
62

Capoeira: A Brazilian Art Form: History, Philosophy, and Practice (1986), 88 omits
the student commentaries and specifics on training methods in favor of more de-
tailed historical notes, general comments on training, and a more generous use of
illustrations throughout. Both editions read as a hybrid between history, personal
philosophy, recollection, and advice.
Almeida’s most recent published work in English is an article from 1996, en-
titled “Capoeira: An Introductory History,” originally published by The Latin
American Institute, 89 and now available online. In this, one of the most thorough
and widely-distributed histories of capoeira, 90 he presents a wide-ranging and well-
balanced view. However, like most of his work, it tends to be colored by his expe-
rience as a practitioner of modernized capoeira, 91 which leads him to dismiss many
of the historical claims and traditions of capoeira angola, a form he claims only
exists in its “contemporary” form. 92
The work of Nestor Capoeira, 93 a longtime capoeira practitioner and well-
known “red cord” 94 of the organization Grupo Senzala, is of a similar vein. N. Ca-
88. Bira Almeida (Mestre Acordeon), Capoeira: A Brazilian Art Form: History, Philosophy, and Practice (Berkeley,
CA: North Atlantic Books, 1986).
89. Ubirajara G. Almeida (Mestre Acordeon), “Capoeira.” UNM, Albuquerque, 1996. 20 Apr 2006
.
90. This is demonstrated by the fact that Almeida’s words—often used without much editing—are used as
the basis of several other online histories. See, for example
91. For example, he does not refrain from positioning his own work in the continuity of capoeira history
through his Capoeira-Bahia school or his “COM-PÉ” teaching style. Almeida (1996).
92. “Contemporary Capoeira Angola codified some elements of Capoeira Angola, developed an articulated
discourse based on ‘traditional values,’ and a well-defined political agenda based on Afro-centric perspectives.”
Almeida (1996).
93. The last name of “Capoeira” is apparently a pseudonym that the author has taken up in order to downplay
the honorific title of “Mestre,” which he believes is overused. See N. Capoeira (2002, 294).
94. The “red cord,” or “corda-vermelha,” was previously the highest rank possible within the Grupo Senzala.
63

poeira published his first edition of O pequeno manual do jogador de capoeira in
1981, 95 which was later translated into English (and several other languages) as
The Little Capoeira Book. 96 This book has probably been the most widely distrib-
uted book on capoeira to date. As might be expected from the title, the book reads
like a “handbook,” outlining history, philosophy, and movements of capoeira. The
book also includes illustrations of the eight movement sequences of Mestre Bimba.
N. Capoeira’s subsequent books, Galou já cantou (1985) 97 and Os funda-
mentos da malícia (1992) 98 were also widely distributed, and contained the
author’s wide-ranging investigations into capoeira history, philosophy, personal
recollection, conversations with scholars such as Julio César de Tavares and Muniz
Sodré, proceedings from conferences, and interesting tangents into such areas as
Hindu mythology and the spirituality of candomblé.
In 1995, the English translation The Little Capoeira Book was only the sec-
ond book about capoeira published in English. Os fundamentos da malícia was
later re-edited into English as Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game (2002), 99
adding new sections on philosophy, history, exercises for capoeira training, and
recollections of presentations from the 1990 World Samba Capoeira Meet in Rio
95. Nestor Capoeira, O pequeno manual do jogador de capoeira (São Paulo, SP: Ground, 1981).
96. Nestor Capoeira, The Little Capoeira Book. Trans. Alex Ladd (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995).
97. Nestor Capoeira, Galou já cantou [The Cock Crowed] (São Paulo, SP: Ground, 1985).
98. Nestor Capoeira, Os fundamentos da malícia [The Fundamentals of Treachery] (São Paulo, SP: Ground,
1992).
99. Nestor Capoeira, Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2002).
64

de Janeiro. In 2003, a revised edition of Little Capoeira Book 100 also added recol-
lections from several other important meetings from 1968, 1969, and 1984.
N. Capoeira’s writings are an important addition to the literature, which, like
the work of Almeida (M Acordeon), present a relatively honest, insider’s view of
capoeira. The wide distribution of both of these author’s works also guarantees
that they will continue to be among the most accessible and influential of books on
the subject for general readers for some time to come. However, their work is
marred by a writing style that is highly personal and idiosyncratic. And especially
in the case of N. Capoeira, there is a near lack of source citations—not to mention
a frustrating absence of subject indexes—that needlessly limits the scholarly use-
fulness of his work.
Mestre Bola Sete, one of Mestre Pastinha’s younger students, published his
own account called A Capoeira Angola na Bahia (1989, revised 2003). 101 His book
is similar to the work of Almeida and N. Capoeira in that it is highly personal, but
in some ways it is also a complement to Rego’s exhaustive work, including lists of
many of the past and present mestres of capoeira angola (including a list of seven
women who played the game long ago), photographs of many of the movements of
the game, and nearly one hundred pages of capoeira songs.
100. Nestor Capoeira, The Little Capoeira Book. Trans. Alex Ladd. Revised ed. (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic
Books, 2003).
101. Mestre Bola Sete, A Capoeira Angola na Bahia (Bahia, BA: Record, 1989).
65

New approaches
A seminal academic work by Julio César de Tavares, entitled “Dança da
guerra: arquivo-arma” (1984), 102 marks the beginning of a more scientific ap-
proach to capoeira. In this work, which is arguably the first academic thesis on ca-
poeira, Tavares suggests that capoeira has functioned as a kind of “bodily ar-
chive,” or “a non-verbal repertoire of communication, a bodily-gestured channel
of communication, a gesticulated bricolage, and the condensation of a bodily
knowledge from an African matrix.” 103 However, other than this work, the call to
consider important questions of embodiment in capoeira has been largely ignored.
Thomas H. Holloway, a noted scholar of Brazilian history, published an in-
fluential article for the Hispanic American Historical Review in 1989, entitled “‘A
Healthy Terror’: Police Repression of Capoeiras in Nineteenth-Century Rio de
Janeiro.” 104 Holloway is one of the first scholars to base his research on a detailed
examination of the Arquivo Nacional (National Archive) and the Biblioteca Na-
cional (National Library) in Rio de Janeiro, where he examined references to
nineteenth-century capoeira in Rio. Such a rigorous academic approach had
scarcely been attempted since Rego, and Holloway’s work in many ways has set
the tone for a renewed emphasis on “hard” history.
J. Lowell Lewis, currently a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Perform-
ance Studies at the University of Sydney, published the first widely-available aca-
demic book on capoeira, entitled Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Bra-
102. Júlio César de Souza Tavares, “Dança da guerra: arquivo-arma.” [”Dance of War: Archive-Weapon”]
(MA Thesis, Sociology, Brasília: Universidade de Brasília, 1984).
103. Tavares (1984), summary. Quoted in Assunção (2005, 24–25). Translation presumably Assunção.
104. Thomas H. Holloway, “A Healthy Terror: Police repression of Capoeiras in Ninetheenth-Century Rio de
Janeiro.” Hispanic American Historical Review 69.4 (Nov. 1989), 637-676.
66

zilian Capoeira (1992). 105 In it, he draws heavily from performance studies, an-
thropology, game theory, and his own practice of the game. His most important
contribution is in terms of movement studies, with his preliminary use of Laban
Movement Analysis (LMA) to examine the movement tendencies of the game, and
of Bahians in general. To date, his suggestive work represents the only serious
scholarly attention turned to the movements of capoeira. The book is also notable
because it focuses primarily on capoeira angola, which he helpfully identifies as
“the ludic [playful] style…more in line with an African esthetic.” This is distinct
from the modernized, or “agonistic” style of capoeira, which tends to “correspond
more closely with contemporary Western traditions.” 106 This dichotomy between
“ludic” and “agonistic” has been useful in my own analysis. One minor problem
he leaves for future research, however, is his overemphasis of a hybrid style he calls
atual (”actual,” or “present day” capoeira), that is now more often referred to as
capoeira contemporânea or, in my text, “contemporary” capoeira. Beginner stu-
dents who read this book therefore often believe the term atual represents yet an-
other style of capoeira, although in fact this term is rarely used.
Two books by Carlos Eugênio Líbano Soares, entitled A negregada institui-
ção: os capoeiras na Corte Imperial, 1850–1890 (1999) 107 and A capoeira escrava
e outras tradições rebeldes no Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (2001) 108 are the result
105. J. Lowell Lewis, Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira (Chicago: U of Chicago
P, 1992).
106. Lewis (1992, 114).
107. A negregada instituição: os capoeiras na Corte Imperial, 1850–1890 [The Hated Institution: Capoeiras
in the Imperial Court, 1850–1890] (Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Access Editora, 1999).
108. A capoeira escrava e outras tradições rebeldes no Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 [Slave Capoeira and
Other Rebel Traditions in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850)] (Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2001).
67

of very detailed analysis of the archival documents of Rio de Janeiro. Using meth-
ods similar to those of Holloway, Soares reconstructs a vivid picture of capoeira in
nineteenth century Rio de Janeiro that is incredibly detailed and thorough. Soares’
work has set a very high standard of scholarship that will be difficult to surpass.
Nevertheless, it is striking to note that in nearly one thousand pages of materials,
actual descriptions of the movements of capoeira are still quite scarce.
In English, two other notable books have included chapters devoted to ca-
poeira. Barbara Browning’s Samba: Resistance in Motion (1995) 109 is largely a
practitioner-style account about samba, candomblé, and capoeira written in a free-
ranging, journalistic style. Her book is nevertheless an important addition, drawing
from classic texts, as well as an awareness of the literature on embodiment.
Through her work, she hopes to “allow a synthesis of time and signs, which would
be the only way to account for the complex speaking of the body in Brazil.” 110
Peter Fryer’s Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil
(2000) 111 is a musicological survey that includes a ten-page chapter placing the mu-
sic of capoeira in the wider, extremely complex context of Afro-Brazilian music.
Fryer’s musicological work is quite expansive, and his account on capoeira also
contains the earliest incidence I have found of an English description of what is
probably capoeira in Bahia in 1856. 112 Fryer’s work on capoeira does contain some
problems, such as the puzzling omission of the most frequently cited etymology of
109. Barbra Browning, Samba: Resistance in Motion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
110. Browning (1995, 9). Emphasis mine.
111. Peter Fryer, Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil (Wesleyan UP; Hanover, NH:
UP of New England, c 2000). I shall present this quote in Section 1.
112. James Wetherell, Brazil: Stray notes from Bahia: being extracts from letters, &c., during a residence of
fifteen years. Ed. by William Hadfield. (Liverpool: Webb & Hunt, 1860) 119.
68

the word capoeira—from the indigenous caá-puêra—in favor of Portuguese and
African suggestions. He also appears to rely too heavily on the supposed “oral his-
tory” of the form, mistakenly linking more recent academic theories of capoeira’s
origins to the authentic tradition. 113
Also in 2000, T.J. Desch-Obi published a thesis examining the contemporary
Angolan dance-fighting form called the engolo, 114 often cited by scholars and prac-
titioners alike as the most likely African origin of capoeira. While I shall examine
this idea in more detail in Section 1, Desch-Obi’s work appears to silence those
who claim that capoeira developed in Brazil out of various African and Brazilian
elements. Yet in writing his somewhat convincing account of the continuity be-
tween the engolo and its Brazilian iteration, Desch-Obi makes some serious errors,
not the least of which is overemphasizing “survivalist” notions of the passage of
cultural forms, 115 without accounting for the drastic changes that have occurred in
the region, even in the last thirty years (let alone the last two hundred years). Per-
haps more damning, he also fails to provide a single bit of new evidence other than
his own, self-referential account. For example, he provides no new photographs or
illustrations to prove his assertion that the movements of the engolo are almost
identical to those of capoeira, and only includes the same drawings used to first
113. See Fryer (2000, 30). Here, the author categorically states that “there is an oral tradition in Salvador
according to which capoeira originated in…an Angolan dance [the ngolo].” As I shall note, this theory originated
in the 1960s—too recent to count as the kind of “oral history” Fryer is suggesting.
114. M. Thomas J. Desch-Obi, “Engolo: Combat Traditions in African and African Diaspora History” (Ph. D.
Thesis UCLA, 2000).
115. By “survivalism,“ I am referring to an anthropological concept developed by Herskovitz (1958) which
emphasizes the survival of specific cultiral traits across time. This theory, while still important, has been supplanted
by notions of “creolization.”
69

suggest the theory in the 1960s. 116 He also mentions his informants somewhat
obliquely, without providing much in the way of details. And he fails to explicitly
state the names of the city or villages in which he witnessed the engolo matches,
leaving it to the reader to infer that it was in and around the city of Quilengues,
Angola.
More widely distributed than his thesis is an essay by Desch-Obi entitled
“Combat and the Crossing of the Kalunga” (2002). 117 In it, the author links ca-
poeira and other “combative practice rituals” with a Central African cosmology
that “linked human combat to the interplay of spiritual forces across the kalunga,
or the threshold between the lands of the living and the dead.” 118 His essay makes
several important connections between the movement arts of Africans in the
Americas and their Central African counterparts, thereby opening a window to the
possible internal, spiritual connotations of these movement forms. But again,
Desch-Obi’s scholarship is problematic. For example, although the concept of the
kalunga forms the basis of his article, he does not cite a single other written source
that uses that word—suggesting that it cannot be found in any literature except his
own. Such problems could easily be rectified by simply providing honest, detailed
information on his sources, oral or otherwise.
The work of Edward L. Powe provides and interesting counterpoint to that of
Desch-Obi. Like Desch-Obi, Powe has traveled extensively and had the opportu-
nity to study African-derived martial arts in great detail, which has resulted in the
116. page number
117. Thomas J. Desch-Obi, “Combat and the Crossing of the Kalunga.” Central Africans and Cultural Transformations
in the American Diaspora. Ed. Linda Heywood (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 2002) 353–370.
118. Desch-Obi, in Holloway (2002, 354).
70

publication of a series of small-run books under the title Black Martial Arts, in-
cluding one volume on capoeira and congo, 119 and another on the East African is-
land region of Madagascar, Reunion, and Comores, 120 where several fighting forms
similar to capoeira appear. Also like Desch-Obi, he is an Afro-Centrist who be-
lieves a “smoking gun,” or a likely antecedent of capoeira, will someday be found
in the hinterlands of Africa. 121 Yet unlike Desch-Obi, Powe’s published works are
full of illustrations and specific source citations. For example, in his chapter on ca-
poeira, Powe reproduces his own capoeira angola training certificate (signed by
Mestre Pastinha himself) from 1968. He also includes a short section containing
recent photographs of capoeira movements demonstrated by the author himself.
He also provides images and names of most of his informants, in a far more trans-
parent manner than Desch-Obi. Unfortunately, these books are not widely avail-
able, limiting their impact to those who can access extant copies in library
collections. 122
Thomas Green has written two thoughtful entries, “African Martial Arts”
and “Capoeira,” in his encyclopedia entitled Martial Arts of the Modern World (c
2001). 123 He describes how traditional “African combat systems” often relied “on
the rehearsal of combat movements through dances,” but also admits that the
119. Edward L. Powe, Black Martial Arts (Volume IIII): Danced Martial Arts of the Americas Part 1(Capoeira
and Congo) (Madison, WI: Dan Aiki Publications, 2002).
120. Edward L. Powe, Black Martial Arts (Volume II): Combat Games of the African Indian Ocean (Madagascar,
Reunion, Comores) (Madison, WI: Dan Aiki Publications, 2001).
121. page
122. Even though these volumes have all been published recently, they are already out of print in 2006.
123. Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia. Ed. Thomas A. Green (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO,
c2001).
71

documentation of this is scarce. With regard to capoeira, he reminds his readers
that “[c]onsiderable debate exists among practitioners and historians as to whether
capoeira is the New World development of an African martial art or a system
originating in the New World with African influences…” 124 Green also provides
helpful summaries of other African combative arts found throughout the Americas.
Historian Antônio Liberac Cardoso Simões Pires is among the first to apply
the research approaches of Holloway and Soares to Bahia. His Bimba, Pastinha e
Besoura de Mangangá: Trés personagens da capoeira baiana (2002), 125 is a short
work summarizing much of the extant material about M Bimba and M Pastinha,
while adding an account of the famously mysterious Besouro Mangangá, compiled
from research done in Besouro’s home town of Santo Amaro da Purificação, Bahia.
Liberac Pires’ most recent work, entitled A capoeira na Bahia de Todos os
Santos: um estudo sobre cultura e classes trabalhadores (1890–1937) (2004), 126
originally began as an attempt to unearth an equivalent font of documentation in
Bahia as Soares had worked with in Rio de Janeiro. However, Liberac Pires soon
discovered that Bahian capoeira was not usually prosecuted under the specific na-
tionwide prohibition on the form; instead, arrests were made for more general
crimes, such as causing “disorder.” He was then forced to turn to the manuscripts
of various capoeira mestres, including Mestre Noronha (Daniel Noronha), whose
written recollections from the 1970s were edited by Frede Abreu as O ABC da Ca-
124. Green (2001, 7).
125. Antônio Liberac Cardoso Simões Pires, Bimba, Pastinha, e Besouro de Manganga: Três personagens
da Capoeira Bahiana [Bimba, Pastinha, and Besouro of Mangangá: Three People of Bahian Capoeira]
(Tocantins/Goiania: Fundação Universidade de Tocantins, 2002).
126. Antônio Liberac Cardoso Simões Pires, A capoeira na Bahia de Todos os Santos: um estudo sobre
cultura e classes trabalhadores (1890–1937) [Capoeira in the Bay of All Saints: A Study of Culture and the
Working Class (1890–1937)] (Tocantins/Gioánia: NEAB/Grafset, 2004).
72

poeira Angola: os manuscritos do Mestre Noronha (1993). 127 Noronha helpfully
listed a number of turn-of-the-century capoeiras whose names corresponded with
some of those found in the arrest records. This allowed Liberac Pires to reconstruct
a history of Bahian capoeira of the period, and link it to the ambience of lower
class life in Salvador.
Fred Abreu is himself a longtime researcher and tireless archiver of capoeira
materials in Bahia. He has compiled several documentary works, such as the
aforementioned manuscripts of Mestre Noronha. His most recent publications in-
clude a retrospective/collection on a well known but little-heralded capoeira
teacher named Mestre Waldemar, 128 and a detailed examination of the scarce cita-
tions of capoeira in nineteenth-century Bahia. 129
Dr. Angelo Decânio, perhaps the oldest of Mestre Bimba’s students still living,
has done similar work in collecting the documents of Mestre Bimba and Mestre
Pastinha. His website Capoeira da Bahia, 130 for example, features a wide-ranging
collection of his recollections and advice, plus downloadable facsimiles of Mestre
Pastinha’s manuscripts. He has also collected the various sayings of Mestre Past-
inha and Mestre Bimba into two documents that are also available to download. 131
127. Daniel Coutinho (Mestre Noronha). O ABC da Capoeira Angola: os manuscritos do Mestre Noronha
[The ABC of Capoeira Angola: The Manuscripts of Mestre Noronha] (Brasília, DF: Ministério da Educação e
Desportos, 1993).
128. Fred Abreu, O barração do Mestre Waldemar [The Bivouac of Mestre Waldemar] (Salvador, BA: Organização
Zarabatana, 2003).
129. Frederico José de Abreu, Capoeiras: Bahia, Século XIX [Capoeiras: Bahia, 19th Century] Vol 1. (Salvador,
BA: Instituto Jair Moura, 2005).
130. Capoeira da Bahia. Angelo Decânio, ed, 2005. 20 Apr 2006
.
131. Angelo A.Decanio Filho, A herança de Mestre Bimba: filosofia e lógica africanas da capoeira. 2a ed.
(Salvador, BA: Coleção São Salomão, 1997); A herança de Mestre Pastinha. 2a ed.. (Salvador, BA: Coleção
São Salomão, 1997).
73

Floyd Merrel’s Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance
through Afro-Brazilian Experience (2005) 132 is another wide-ranging personal ac-
count by a practitioner of capoeira angola. Merrell’s work, although admittedly
not “anthropology…sociology…historical treatise or literary analysis…” is never-
theless imbued by philosophical grounding that offers interesting new ways to con-
sider capoeira. He positions capoeira as a kind of “excluded middle,” arguing that
“…slaves’ actions, reactions, and responses were devised in such a way as to give
the appearance that they were matters of either/or imperatives for the masters. But
they were not.” 133
Greg Downey has recently published Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning
from an Afro-Brazilian Art (2005), 134 which was mostly a refashioning of his 1998
dissertation. 135 In both, Downey draws heavily from phenomenological theory,
which allows him to look at capoeira not as an object of analysis, but rather “from
the inside out, asking how the world looks after one has spent enough time in the
roda.” 136 Downey’s most important contribution is thus to carefully imbue his
writing with a knowledge gleaned from training and practicing capoeira himself.
This allows him, like Merrell, to dissimulate academic theories in favor of the im-
mediate, kinesthetic aspects of the game, left largely untheorized by practitioners.
In this, he considers the implications of daily work habits (such as the African
132. Floyd Merrel’s Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience
133. (Merell 2005, 132).
134. Greg Downey, Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art (New York, NY: Oxford
UP, 2005).
135. Greg Downey, Incorporating Capoeira: Phenomenology of a Movement Discipline (Ph.D.Thesis, U of
Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, August 1998).
136. Downey (2005, 20). Italics in original.
74

habit of carrying loads on the head) and their influence on capoeira, as well as the
ways in which capoeira nurtures its practitioners to maneuver through the world
(as suggested by chapters entitled “The Rogue’s Swagger,” “Closing the Body,” and
“Walking in Evil”). His physical descriptions of capoeira movement are also in-
formed by his more recent research on neurological patterns in physical learning.
Downey is therefore only the second scholar to seriously consider the importance
of movement in capoeira.
Assunção: Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art
Matthias Röhrig Assunção, a senior lecturer in history at Essex University,
has published what is probably the most thorough historical account of the devel-
opment of capoeira published thus far, entitled Capoeira: The History of an Afro-
Brazilian Martial Art (2005). 137
Among his most important contributions is his reliance on “hard” documen-
tary evidence. This leads him to dismiss many of the more romantic notions of ca-
poeira’s development as “fakes.” 138 Eventually, this leads to a rather devastating
critique of Desch-Obi’s work, which is characterized by Assunção as leaning too
heavily on Afro-Centric notions of continuity. 139
Assunção also provides an analysis of six “master narratives” that operate in
capoeira history: Eurocentric repression, Brazilian nationalism, Afro-Brazilian and
Afrocentric studies, regional competition, corporatization, and class conflict. This
137. Matthias Röhrig Assunção, Capoeira: A History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (New York, NY: Routledge,
2005).
138. See especially Assunção (2005, 5–9).
139. Assunção (2005, 52–55).
75

precedes chapters on the cultural context of the “Black Atlantic,” the nineteenth
century capoeira scene in Rio (which summarizes the work of Holloway and
Soares), a crucial chapter on early twentieth century capoeira in Bahia (perhaps the
first to put all resources on Bahia in one place), detailed examinations of the devel-
opment of M Bimba’s modernist capoeira regional, the rise of traditionalist ca-
poeira angola under M Pastinha, and up-to-date information on contemporary it-
erations of the form. Drawing from nearly every source currently available,
Assunção has written a specialist’s book that is very close to “definitive,” and will
certainly remain the most thorough book written about capoeira in English, per-
haps even in Portuguese, for quite some time.
However, even such a highly rigorous, seemingly unimpeachable historical
text has its own “narratives.” In Assunção’s case, he takes nearly thirty pages to
reveal his bias in the model of creolization, which is a somewhat outdated ap-
proach. Hoping to offer a compromise in the “struggle over which group is more
‘entitled’ to reappropriate capoeira: diasporic blackness or Brazilian national iden-
tity,” Assunção suggests that “the issue of creolization in capoeira can provide a
middle ground for a more consensual narrative” between these two “incompatible
master narratives.” 140 In short, this is the view of “contemporary” or modernized
capoeira, which seeks to collapse the differences between modernized capoeira and
the older capoeira angola.
Ultimately, although his book is intended primarily as an historical account,
Assunção follows the long line of academics who have neglected the actual move-
ments of the form. Strangely, he even quotes, with little comment, the seminal
140. Assunção (2005, 27). Emphasis mine.
76

1984 work of Tavares (discussed earlier), centered on issues of embodiment. As I
shall discuss shortly, this lacuna is not limited to the field of capoeira studies.
Future pathways
Gerard Taylor, a freelance writer from the UK, recently published the first
volume of his own history of capoeira, entitled Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola from
Luanda to Cyberspace (2005). 141 This volume covers the early period of Brazilian
history until the late 1800s, and the place of capoeira within that history. The book
reads less as a historian’s account of capoeira history (i.e., Assunção), and more of
a journalist’s account meant for general readers. Taylor’s contribution provides a
replacement for the older, more widely distributed “practitioner” histories of Al-
meida and N. Capoeira. Nevertheless, Taylor makes a few problematic jumps in
his text. For example, he usually provides exhaustive sources throughout his text,
but then curiously fails to provide them at other, more speculative junctures. The
most glaring example of this is when he gives a tantalizing hint about the primitive
history of capoeira in Bahia, without providing documentation to back up his
assertion. 142
Also, like Assunção, Taylor is a practitioner of the “contemporary” style of
capoeira and a longtime follower of the London School of Capoeira Herança,
which is strongly linked to the Associação of Capoeira Senzala of Mestre
141. Gerard Taylor, Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola from Luanda to Cyberspace (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic
Books, 2005).
142. Taylor (2005, 202).
77

Sombra. 143 While this does not necessarily compromise his project (and, unlike
Assunção, he states his biography quite clearly in this regard), questions about the
ideology of “contemporary” capoeira still seem very much alive—in particular,
concerning oppositions between tradition versus modernization. In either case, this
first volume says little about capoeira’s movements.
Web-based, internet research on capoeira has also become increasingly im-
portant, as has already been noted. Such research represents a very mixed bag, as
with many other fields. For example, there are several reliable, useful sites—such
as those of Pol Briand and Lucia Palmares, 144 Dr. Angelo Decânio, 145 the French
site www.capoeira-infos.org, and articles on Brazzil Magazine, 146 to name a few—
that contain many primary and secondary materials. The proliferation of internet
forums or discussion groups has also broadened the conversation immensely. In my
own research, I have come across several key pieces of evidence by simply scanning
threads in such venues as The Capoeira Café, 147 Planet Capoeira, 148 and Capoeira
Online. 149
The downside is that there is also an enormous amount of erroneous infor-
mation about capoeira on the web. Dozens of sites simply copy one another’s as-
143. Mestre Sombra’s Senzala group, based in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, should not be confused with the
Grupo Senzala and its offshoots from Rio de Janeiro. However, both groups may be categorized as “contemporary”
capoeira, as will be discussed.
144. http://www.capoeira-palmares.fr/
145. http://paginas.terra.com.br/esporte/capoeiradabahia/
146. http://www.brazzil.com/
147. http://www.beribazu.co.uk/forum/
148. http://pub83.ezboard.com/bplanetcapoeira/
149. http://www.capoeira.com/forum.php
78

sumptions, mistakes, and even HTML coding. 150 Even on Wikipedia, which is oth-
erwise a remarkable research tool, the entry on capoeira (as of May 2006) contains
a number of factual errors, not to mention political biases, despite the fact that it
has been edited by dozens of people thus far. 151 As is the norm when considering
internet resources, caution is the rule.
150. For example, I have seen my own work on the web stolen and reconfigured without (and occasionally
with) permission.
151. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira for main entry, or
for version history
79

Unanswered questions
P A R T 2 : S I T U A T I N G “ H I S T O R Y ”
As I have just demonstrated, the field of capoeira studies is now a wide-
ranging industry. Yet the sheer volume of materials is nevertheless deceptive, be-
cause most of the biggest questions about capoeira still remain unanswered:
· How and where did capoeira develop? Did it come more or less intact from
Africa, at a certain point in time? Or was capoeira the result of a long process of
mixing and creolization that took place over many generations, under many influ-
ences?
· What part(s) of Africa did the likely antecedent(s) of capoeira come from?
When did these Africans start arriving in Brazil? Can these antecedents still be
found in present-day Africa? To what extent have they changed or stayed the
same?
· Or, was capoeira more of a Brazilian creation? If so, was it actually used as
fighting form in the bush, and how? Or was it primarily a slave amusement per-
formed on rural plantations? Could it have been both? Or was it only developed in
urban areas?
· What about the fighting forms and dances of the native Brazilians? Did they
leave a mark on capoeira too?
· When did creoles, freedmen, and Europeans become involved in capoeira?
How much did they contribute to the art?
80

· Was capoeira spread throughout the Americas—and perhaps even taken
back to Africa—by manumitted slaves and black seamen? Or did other Afro-
American forms similar to capoeira develop on their own?
These are just a few of the more general historical questions that could be
asked about the history of capoeira. But capoeira has remained stubbornly ob-
scure, in spite of all attempts to illuminate its history. Thanks to the work of schol-
ars such as Assunção, and Taylor, we are learning a great deal about the context of
capoeira’s development; thanks to Soares, and Liberac Pires, we have also learned
many more details about those who performed capoeira. However, the disappoint-
ing truth is that we may never know much about the real history and development
of the form itself. I now turn my attention to examine why.
A neglected culture
There are several important reasons for this obscurity. First, as I have already
suggested, capoeira has until recently been a marginalized form performed largely
by marginalized people in a marginalized corner of the world. Even when attention
was given to the form, it was often rather dismissive. 152 Only with the work of
Moraes Filho in the 1880s 153 did capoeira begin to be seen as a Brazilian mestiço
practice worthy of some national pride.
Capoeira—along with other forms of African and Afro-creole expres-
sion—was thus neglected well into the twentieth century, arguably to the present
152. Assunção (2005, 102).
153.Alexandro José Mello Moraes Filho, Festas e tradições populares do Brasil [Festivals and Popular Traditions
of Brazil] (Belo Horizonte: Ed. Itatiata, EDUSP, 1979).
81

day. Moreover, its traces are primarily found in the documents of the very authori-
ties mandated to repress and destroy it.
Deliberate obscurity
Capoeira was also actively hidden by its practitioners precisely because of this
atmosphere of repression and marginalization, a context in which practitioners
would have no doubt done whatever they could to avoid punishment, protect their
cultural and/or spiritual secrets, and maintain a sense of their own identity.
Of course, today’s capoeiristas no longer have to fear being imprisoned or
punished for their art, and in fact capoeira is increasingly being used by poor peo-
ple to climb out of Brazil’s endemic poverty.
But for many practitioners of the traditional capoeira angola—the only ex-
tant iteration of capoeira with demonstrable links to the nineteenth century—ques-
tions of secrecy, protection, and self-preservation are as important as ever. For ex-
ample, the tendency among practitioners of “contemporary” capoeira is to loudly
proclaim their status as a capoeirista by wearing capoeira pants, shirts, berimbau
tattos and necklaces, and other paraphernalia. This is seen by many angoleiros as
quite contrary, and even disrespectful, to the origins of the art.
As a result, practitioners of capoeira angola tend to be more protective, even
secretive, about their practice. In this regard, Mestre Caboquinho often gives his
students elaborate instructions to avoid problems with other capoeira academies.
For example, counsels his students to avoid wearing their uniforms in public in
Bahia, to avoid undue attention (as tourists, as well as capoeiristas). He also warns
that wearing one’s uniform while standing in front of another academy might be
82

interpreted as an attempt to disrespectfully “promote” one’s own Mestre in front
of someone else’s “house.” This advice also applies outside of Bahia, where wear-
ing the shirt of a capoeira angola group might invite unwelcome challenges from
modernized capoeira, which is almost always the dominant style outside of Bahia.
Behaving in such a low-key manner also no doubt protects capoeira angola from
being commodified too overtly.
Indeed, it is important to understand how secrecy functions in capoeira soci-
ety today, as represented by the Mestre’s teachings on when to “show” and when
to “hide” one’s intentions and/or movements in the game. As such, capoeira often
distinguishes between “external” aspects and “internal” aspects. Tourist and out-
siders are often taught only the “external” aspects of capoeira, such as acrobatic
movements, which allow practitioners to make a living and impress naïve audi-
ences with tricks. In the past, these same “external” aspects were seen by authori-
ties as mere amusements.
On the other hand, the “internal” aspects are far more personal, and histori-
cally allowed Africans and their descendants to keep important parts of their cul-
ture alive. This is also paralleled in the contemporary practice of candomblé, in
which some houses are open to tourists, and others are not. All of this resonates
with Mestre Caboquinho’s own advice to me, to know when to teach the “fake”
capoeira, and when to teach the “real” capoeira.
Here, I would also like to suggest that this kind of strategic deception may
owe something to a tendency found in traditional African aesthetics which, accord-
ing to Amiri Baraka, “aims at circumlocution rather than at exact definition.”
83

The direct statement is considered crude and unimaginative; the veiling
of all contents is ever-changing paraphrases is considered the criterion of in-
telligence and personality. 154
Such deception perhaps served Africans in Brazil in a much more urgent way,
allowing them to hide the reality of their beliefs behind apparent falsehoods. This
strategy also represents a countercurrent against the European values of the En-
lightenment, in which transparency and intellectual honesty are among the highest
virtues.
Lastly, as suggested in the contemporary situation of many practitioners,
there are clearly reasons to believe that racism and repression are still real. Given
all of this, there are a number of good reasons why practitioners of capoeira an-
gola, many of them Afro-Brazilian, might keep important aspects of their traditions
to themselves. Without an inside knowledge of the form, and the careful guidance
of a mestre, many important aspects of capoeira may thus remain inaccessible.
Assessing documentary sources
Most accounts on capoeira history thus far have relied on documentary
sources that are less than ideal. Much of the written documentation on Africans
and their movement forms was written by travelers and traders who were not con-
cerned with preserving or describing the deeper aspects of African culture for pos-
terity.
154. Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: Quill, 1999)
[Originally published 1963) 31.
84

FIG. 5 / Rui Barbosa, c. 1889
Another oft-cited problem is the supposed destruction of records regarding
Brazilian slavery. The claim, often repeated by capoeira practitioners as one of the
primary obstacles to further historical research on capoeira, is that in 1890, Rui
Barbosa, Finance Minister of the recently-declared Republic of Brazil, ordered all
documents to be burned. However, the decree itself appears to have applied only to
those documents held by the Ministério de Fazenda (Ministry of Finance). At the
very least, the work of Holloway, Soares, and Liberac Pires would suggest that this
order was not carried out in the case of most criminal documents. 155
At any rate, as already noted, most of the government documents citing ca-
poeira were written from the point of view of authorities, whose primary purpose
was to protect the populace from the dangers of supposed capoeira thugs, rather
than to document a cultural practice. Likewise, the newspapers of nineteenth and
155. Capoeira practitioners also tend to believe that this was done to repress the history of slavery, but this
is complicated by the fact that Barbosa was in fact a lifelong abolitionist. The best evidence indicates that
the government merely wished to make it more difficult for ex-slave owners to demand compensation for
their loss of labor. See, for example, the web essay “Rui Barbosa: Justiça e Liberdade.” Projeto Memória.
2004. 20 Apr 2006 .
85

early twentieth century Brazil also reflected biases of their own, primarily in terms
of supporting or opposing particular government policies.
Among other primary materials, the travel and cultural accounts of visitors
such as those of the Bavarian Johann Moritz Rugendas and the Parisian Jean-
Baptiste Debret 156 have also presented problems for the modern historian. While
they are extremely valuable, and in some cases quite detailed, they still represent
European points of view. In this, they are not free of the racist beliefs of the nine-
teenth century, which decried African culture as “primitive” and “degraded.” 157
Moreover, some recent interpretations have looked at these materials without a
sensitivity to the actual historical context of such works. 158
Meanwhile, the majority of practitioner manuals and accounts are of too re-
cent a vintage to be of much use to investigations of capoeira before the twentieth
century. Additionally, most of these were written well after the modernization of
capoeira had begun, by practitioners who actively took part in the modernization
process. The words and philosophies of pre-modernization capoeira have therefore
been represented rather piecemeal, by a few manuscripts and collections of quota-
tions that have been compiled (and sometimes heavily edited) by later scholars
such as Abreu and Decânio.
156. Examined in more detail in Part 3.
157. See, for example, the work of Georges Cuvier (1812) and Arthur Joseph de Gobineau (1855).
158. Assunção (2005, 7) notes a particularly egregious example of this from Robert Farris Thompson.
86

Assessing oral history
To better hear the voices that have been “silenced” by this lacuna, scholars
have tried to turn to the oral tradition of the form. Oral history is thought to tell a
different kind of truth than that of written history, intended to root present-day
communities to the past. As such, oral history is not necessarily meant to provide
the same kind of “reliable” knowledge required by traditional historiography.
Also, as Assunção and others have pointed out, 159 it is often difficult to differenti-
ate the “authentic” oral history internal to the form, and the influence of scholars
and theorists projected back onto the tradition itself. 160
This frustrating state of affairs has tempted many—including a number of
well-intentioned scholars and practitioners—to make unsubstantiated claims and
even fabricate non-existent evidence, as pointed out by Assunção. 161
Informed speculation
Others, such as historian Joseph C. Miller, have pointed to the positive use of
informed, speculative inquiry. Miller, who writes on issues in African and Brazilian
history, has already applied this approach to consider how Africans might have re-
tained, reinvented, and restored their identities under the conditions of Brazilian
slavery. While he admits that this can be a “dangerously conjectural” approach
that might offend some “methodological purists,” he also argues, as I have already
159. Assunção (2005, 9).
160. Occasionally, the way Mestre Caboquinho frames a particular historical issue appears to reflect the
influence of one of my own questions. For example, in recent months, after several discussions on the matter,
he has begun to emphasize the term “capoeira contemporânea” over “capoeira regional” when discussing
modernized capoeira. It is difficult to say, however, whether this is the direct result of our conversations,
or his own formulation.
161 See, for example Assunção (2005, 5–9).
87

shown, that current methodologies tend to project the assumptions of present-day
academics, as well as those of the slave holders themselves, back onto the past. 162
For example, he finds it problematic that current discussions are “too often in po-
larized terms of ‘survivals’ of African culture(s) against ‘creolization,’” outdated
terms that have tended to objectify African cultures in terms of “ethnicity” rather
than considering a more complex picture that allows scholars to hear how the re-
ported actions of slaves might have “expressed other meanings of their own, mean-
ings more autonomous and more African than merely reactions to, adaptations of,
or assimilations to the norms of their masters.” 163
My own research has already made use of this kind of speculation, drawing
inspiration from some of Miller’s own conclusions, as well as my own training in
capoeira angola to suggest how Africans and their descendants may have used
something like capoeira to keep their culture intact. In this regard, I also believe
that it is possible to carefully apply this kind of speculative approach to one of the
most neglected “primary sources” of capoeira history: its movements.
The neglected source: movement
As noted in the review of literature, movement has been seriously neglected
by most scholars of capoeira history. This lack of consideration is partially a con-
sequence of movement’s status as “immaterial” culture, which, like oral history,
makes it unreliable from an epistemic point of view. However, it also reflects a long
162. Joseph C. Miller, “Retention, Reinvention, and Remembering: Restoring Identities through Enslavement
in Africa and under Slavery in Brazil.” in Enslaving Connections, Curto and Lovejoy, eds. (2004).
163. Miller (2004, 82).
88

standing lack of theoretical interest in the body, a lacuna that in recent years has
finally been addressed by scholars in dance and the social sciences. 164
Yet scholars outside of the field of dance still tend not to consider movement
as a possible source of history, and usually fail to familiarize themselves with the
tools available to movement scholars, including Laban Movement Analysis, Laba-
notation, Motif Description, Benesh Movement Notation, and digital technologies
such as motion capture.
The neglect of movement in history tends to downplay evidence that move-
ment habits can be passed down for long periods of time. For the moment, I shall
only cite an example. In Dante’s Inferno (c. 1310s) an obscene gesture known as
the fig is described as a “coarse, defiant insult, consisting in shaking the fist, while
holding the thumb between the index and the middle finger.” This gesture, which
had already been in use for centuries before Dante’s time, remains a potent insult
even in today’s Italy. Of course, gestures with specific meanings are epistemologi-
cally different from entire systems of movement or the movement habits of an en-
tire continent such as Africa, but for the moment I am merely proposing this as an
important question for further research.
Still, there are certain dangers in projecting current iterations of the form into
the past. Historical questions should obviously not be answered solely by examin-
ing present-day movements and gestures. Among the many reasons for this is the
fact that too much has changed—apparently.
For example, in the few historical descriptions of capoeira exist before the
early twentieth century, none correspond exactly to the form as it is practiced to-
164. See Brenda Farnell, “Moving Bodies, Acting Selves.” Annual Review of Anthropology (28: 1999. 341-
73) for an overview of this paradigmatic shift.
89

day. This certainly presents problems for those wanting to establish a clear link to
the current practice of the form (including me), while on the other hand it gives
self-conscious modernizers the justification to claim, as many have done, that ca-
poeira must “evolve” to survive. 165 Even my own use of Ruth Landes’ description
is not free from this dialectic. In emphasizing the similarities to my own present-
day experience of the form, I have also set aside—for the moment—some distinct,
and important differences. Nor have I mentioned the ways in which her description
was inevitably shaped, and perhaps reshaped, by her highly-ideological partner,
Carneiro.
Indeed, this is a more subtle and complex issue than most historians and
practitioners want to admit. But to echo Miller’s point again, most scholars have
either tried to emphasize historiographies of survivals/continuities (Kubik, Desch-
Obi, Dawson) or creolization/hybridization (N. Capoeira, Almeida, Assunção)
rather than a broader view that considers both. Furthermore, there is a general
skepticism that capoeira angola has any real connection to the capoeira before
1900, even though almost no scholar—with the notable exception of J. Lowell
Lewis, and to some extent, Greg Downey—has undertaken any kind of systematic
examination of capoeira movements. Most have been content to simply list the
names of movements, or their taxonomies, while practitioner accounts and manu-
als usually present them in the form of practical “exercises” for learning.
Thus, by approaching this work from the perspective of a practitioner, and a
scholar keenly interested in movement, I hope to throw some light into this dark
corner.
165. Mestre Camisa in N. Capoeira (2002, 204).
90

Learning to listen
I am aware, of course, that this may strike some readers as highly problem-
atic methodology to apply to history. As I have already said, an examination of the
current practice of capoeira angola does not necessarily guarantee a verifiable link
to the past. But at the moment, I am not yet interested in empirically accounting
for the “500 years” of history claimed by Mestre Caboquinho and many other
practitioners of capoeira. Instead, I first hope to suggest other ways to “hear” such
claims. As already noted in the Introduction, the main concern of this work it is
not primarily with history, anthropology, pedagogy, or movement studies. My
analysis of documentary evidence, or the evidence—faulty or otherwise—provided
by movement, is in some ways secondary to the path laid out by my teacher, a path
that has allowed me to investigate what it really means to be a practitioner of ca-
poeira angola.
Here I will cite the influence of a particular essay by Brenda Farnell, esteemed
anthropologist of movement at the University of Illinois. In “It Goes Without Say-
ing—But Not Always,” 166 Farnell points to the limitations of observational or in-
terpretive models in the analysis of movement performance. Drawing from her
own “personal ethnography” and a particular epiphany while observing dances in
Nigeria, she realized that
I had no way at all of knowing what they thought they were doing [italics in
original]. In other words, I was bust interpreting and making judgments
166. Brenda Farnell, “It Goes Without Saying—But Not Always.” In Dance in the Field: Theory, Methods, and
Issues in Dance Ethnography. Ed. Theresa Buckland (New York City, NY: St. Martin's P, 1999) 145–160.
91

about the meanings of their body movements and their uses of the perform-
ance space entirely according to my own language and culture. 167
Later, she describes her work documenting and analyzing Plains Indian Sign
Language, and how her classification systems did not always correspond to those
of her consultants. In learning to listen more deeply to her consultants, she made
important breakthroughs that “no amount of careful observation or experi-
ence…could have revealed…” 168
In 2005, I suddenly became very conscious of the fact that in my three-odd
years of researching and training, I had never asked a very simple question: what
does Mestre Caboquinho think about when he plays capoeira? I soon realized I
had not really been listening to the Mestre. Especially with regard to questions I
had asked him about capoeira history, I found that I had often just been parroting
the work of other authors, throwing him my “theory of the week.” Meanwhile,
many of the answers I sought were already there, not only in the Mestre’s long lec-
tures to me and his students, but in his own game.
Among the many things that became clearer to me was the fact that his main,
or even his only objective, is to reproduce the capoeira of his youth to his North
American students, exactly as it is done in Bahia. In doing this, capoeira angola not
only becomes relevant for today, but also “secures” his students within the legiti-
mate traditions of capoeira angola, and their links to four centuries of Brazilian
history.
167. Farnell (1999, 146–147).
168 Farnell (1999, 155).
92

Similarly, I also realized that most of the Mestre’s comments—even his his-
torical ones—often speak with a greater concern for the game as it is played today,
rather than with the past. While capoeira angola is certainly the result of history,
and is maintained by self-consciously promoting itself as a “tradition” with links
to a fabled past, it is the present iteration of the game, now, that is of the utmost
value. As I noted earlier, this suggests that capoeira is perhaps not meant to answer
to needs of objective history, but rather its own needs, in the game.
Before examining the important implications of this realization to notions of
“history” and “tradition” within capoeira angola, I feel this is the best time to pre-
sent my own narrative of the history of capoeira.
This account is not intended to reconcile all the questions brought up in the
present section, nor does space permit me to present a work along the lines of Tay-
lor’s and Assunção’s impressive documents. Instead, it is merely meant to provide
the reader with a useable, journalistic summary of the context and development of
capoeira, with occasional points of illumination provided by my interpretation of
Mestre Caboquinho’s teachings.
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P A R T 3 : A H I S T O R Y O F C A P O E I R A
94

Origins
The practice of capoeira is said to be linked to a number of dance-fighting
games, challenge dances, and warrior arts found throughout Bantu-speaking areas
of Africa, especially the Central African regions known today as Angola, the
Congo, and Mozambique. These are the same areas from which a large percentage
of Africans were taken and transported to Brazil throughout the 17th and 19th
centuries, as part of the ruthless trade of slavery.
FIG # / The engolo (or n’golo)
(Drawings by Neves e Sousa, 1965)
While traditional African iterations of these forms have, like Africa itself, un-
dergone radical transformation in the last several centuries, a few contemporary
dance-fighting games found in Africa today (for example, the engolo of southwest
Angola, the moringue of Madagascar, and the dundunba of Guinea’s Mandinka)
still utilize various capoeira-like movements such as acrobatic leaps, headbutts,
kicks, and leg sweeps.
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Whether capoeira is African or Brazilian is more a question of rhetoric, strat-
egy, and emphasis. Assunção (2005) has examined how these views have evolved,
but it is also important to consider them from Mestre Caboquinho’s point of view.
According to him, the movements of capoeira are indeed African, but they came
from various regions of the continent. Moreover, in Africa, they were often done
alone, by individual warriors. Only in Bahia/Brazil did they become an intricate
game.
FIG # / ‘A negro fight in South America’ (Venezuela)
(In Harper’s Weekly, 1874)
Other games of the Americas
Over the course of nearly four hundred years of slavery (c. 1550–1889), a
number of these African dance-fighting games were likely adapted and “reframed”
to the New World context, in various ways. The existence of dance-fighting games
in other African-American communities, such the tripping/punching game maní of
rural Cuba, the percussive kicking sport l’adja or danmye of Martinique, and the
combative “knocking and kicking” of the southern U.S. offer interesting clues to
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the ways in which African forms were preserved and adapted to new conditions
throughout the Americas. However, few of these arts (with the possible exception
of l’adja) appear to have reached the level of complexity achieved by capoeira in
Brazil. 169
Modes of amusement and resistance
However they developed, and wherever they were found, these playful—and
occasionally deadly—slave games were usually performed for amusement. In Bra-
zil, they were often displayed as part of competitive dance circles known as batu-
ques—the same circles that later brought us the famous samba.
Some aspects of dance-fighting may have also been used in a combative con
text, either among rival slaves, or as one of many guerilla tactics available to rebel
or runaway slaves. Some form of these arts may have been practiced in the qui-
lombos, or temporary backland communities established by runaway slaves. The
capitães-de-mato, hunters sent to capture these runaways, were often Africans
themselves, who may also have been adepts at the “hard” applications of these
warrior arts.
169 In addition, there are many other combat games and practices of Africans, Europeans, and Amerindians
(most notably stick-fighting and wrestling) that have yet to be seriously considered in this complex history.
Further research will no doubt point to evidence of intriguing links between all of these forms.
97

FIG. # / Jogar capoeira, ou danse de la guerre
(J. M. Rugendas, Rio de Janeiro, c. 1830s)
Nineteenth-century capoeira
Regardless of these tantalizing possibilities, our first notices of the word “ca-
poeira,” as associated with a slave game, date to the colonial records of late 1700s
and early 1800s Rio de Janeiro, the second capital of Brazil.
In this increasingly urban context, capoeira was known as a bloody “war
dance” practiced by thugs, also known as capoeiras. By mid-century, it was associ-
ated with semi-organized street gangs known as maltas. Throughout this period,
the practice was recorded in the police records of Rio de Janeiro as capoeiragem,
or the practice of capoeira, often linked with criminality and public disorder.
Capoeira was not merely a criminal pastime, however, as capoeiras were of-
ten found at the front of parade-like processions and religious celebrations. Ca-
poeiras were also used by politicians as strongarm enforcers during elections.
Moreover, other variants of capoeira were also reported throughout the
1800s in Salvador (Bahia), Recife (Pernambuco), São Luis (Maranhão), and Soro-
98

caba (São Paulo), among others. After a number of local persecutions and legal
statutes failed to wipe out the practice, the newly-established Republic of Brazil
officially prohibited capoeiragem nationwide in 1890.
In Rio, this led to a “purge” of the malta gangs that forced capoeira to be-
come a marginalized underground art. It was kept alive sporadically by a few ro-
guish characters such as Madame Satã (the famous transvestite), sports enthusiasts
such as Sinhozinho, and as part of training regimens in a few military academies.
Meanwhile, the remaining local variants of capoeira found throughout the rest of
the country were destined to be replaced by the revitalized capoeira of Bahia in the
1950s.
Bahia
By contrast, in the former capital, Salvador, Bahia, and its surrounding sugar-
rich recôncavo region, capoeira managed to thrive. This was partially the result of
inconsistent enforcement of the 1890 prohibition, as well as the geographic diver-
sity of the Bay of All Saints region. Furthermore, in Salvador, the maltas never
reached the level of organization that they did in Rio, so no equivalent “purge” of
capoeira had been necessary.
Bahian capoeira also took on the more deliberate appearance of a game—
known colloquially as vadiação, or simply “idling”—through the use of instru-
ments such as drums, tambourines, bells, and an ancient Angolan bow instrument
called the berimbau. While Rio’s capoeira had sometimes been performed with
drums, and the berimbau was linked to parallel activities such as the batuque, mu-
sic lost its importance with the increasing criminalization of the art. In Bahia, ca-
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poeira—and its music—became important symbols of the playful subterfuge and
resilience necessary for everyday survival.
Early twentieth-century capoeira in Bahia
In the early twentieth century, many mysterious figures inhabited the world of
capoeira. Among them was the legendary Besouro (or Bisoro) Mangangá from the
city of Santo Amaro, named for his ability to transform himself into a beetle to
avoid capture by the police. He was also known for having a corpo fechado (or
“closed body”) invulnerable to harm by metal. It is said that he was only killed (c.
1924) by being stabbed with a knife made of tucum wood.
Many streetwise mestres of Bahian capoeira remained active in the face of the
nationwide 1890 prohibition, performing rodas openly at various religious festivals
and in the outlying neighborhoods and cities of the Bay of All Saints region. These
men, mostly lower class workers of Afro-Brazilian descent, collaborated with sym-
pathetic local authorities—some of whom were capoeiras themselves—and sought
refuge in houses of the Afro-Brazilian religion candomblé during times of heavy
persecution. Among these was a diminutive, slender young man named Vicente
Ferreira Pastinha, who would emerge decades later as the most prominent spokes-
man for this traditional practice of capoeira. Throughout this period, capoeira was
largely learned informally by observation, or taught in back rooms, closed bars,
and backyard patios—often one student at a time.
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Mestre Bimba and capoeira regional
Another famous capoeira of this period, nicknamed Mestre Bimba (c. 1899–
1974), grew tired of the political repression and informal teaching style of tradi-
tional capoeira. In the late 1920s, after playing and teaching traditional capoeira
for several years, M Bimba decided to streamline the seemingly innocuous, folklo-
ric pastime of vadiação into an effective Afro-Bahian fighting form. Influenced by
an old Bahian kicking game called the batuque, the rise of Asian martial arts in
Brazil, and the suggestions of some of his students (including a few who had been
trained in other martial arts and physical education), M Bimba eliminated many of
the rituals of capoeira, standardized its movements, and simplified its musical rep-
ertoire to create what is now called capoeira regional, or “capoeira of the region.”
This style was initially called luta regional baiana (or “regional fight of Ba-
hia”) to avoid the illegal word, capoeira. In the 1930s, M Bimba founded one of
the earliest formal academies of capoeira, called the Centro de Cultura Física Re-
gional (CCFR), which was among the first to be officially recognized by the Brazil-
ian government. This recognition—although only applicable to indoor capoeira
“academies”—nevertheless paved the way for the eventual decriminalization of ca-
poeira altogether.
M Bimba imposed strict rules in his academy and based his classes on a set of
eight simple movement sequences. He also pioneered the use of uniforms and rank-
ing ceremonies. These innovations helped make capoeira popular among Salvador’s
lighter-skinned middle classes for the first time. After a series of challenge matches
and public demonstrations throughout Brazil, capoeira began to be seen as a
uniquely Brazilian sport, fighting form, and cultural practice. By the 1950s, M
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Bimba’s style came to be known as capoeira regional, quickly becoming the domi-
nant form of capoeira in Brazil, and largely replacing remnants of local capoeira
that still existed outside of Bahia.
Capoeira regional was the first “style” of capoeira to be self-consciously cre-
ated to appeal to a wider audience, while the older vadiação remained a more
spontaneous expression of everyday Bahian life. However, capoeira regional was
not intended to replace the older capoeira. While M Bimba was undoubtedly a
fighter at heart, and often spoke out against “old-fashioned” capoeira, he did not
completely sever his own connections to Afro-Bahian culture. If anything, he used
his highly individualized—and extremely beautiful—style of capoeira to preserve
the distinctions between Afro-Brazilian culture and the new global culture of capi-
talism that threatened to erase it.
To accomplish this, M Bimba purged his capoeira regional of most obvious
allusions to Afro-Brazilian ritual—such as the atabaque drum, a symbol of the
candomblé religion. Yet he was also a master drummer in the religion, and even
protected many of its adherents from persecution. By all accounts, M Bimba also
continued to play capoeira in the old way himself. This suggests that Mestre Bimba
was well aware of how to divide his cultural heritage between its more visible as-
pects, and its hidden aspects.
Capoeira angola and the return of Mestre Pastinha
Nevertheless, the rise of capoeira regional was perceived as a threat by those
who held on the older, more ambivalent capoeira of the past. As a result, the older
form began to be called capoeira angola, in recognition of its likely origins in the
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Bantu practices of Africa. Among the many mestres who played and taught ca-
poeira angola during this golden era (c. 1920–1960), were such men as Daniel No-
ronha, Maré, Samuel Querido de Deus, Waldemar da Paixão, Canjiquinha,
Caiçara, and Cobrinha Verde. The description by Ruth Landes that opens this the-
sis (c. 1938) paints a vivid picture of a game between the boatman Querido de
Deus (”Beloved of God”) and another capoeirista named Onça Preta (”Black Jag-
uar”).
There were also a handful of women who played capoeira around this time,
including Maria Sete Homems, but the real story of women’s participation in this
period remains untold. (By contrast, women often held the highest positions of
authority in candomblé, providing many capoeiras with protection and spiritual
guidance.)
Above all, however, it was Mestre Pastinha who would become the most
widely known teacher and protector of capoeira angola. In the 1940s, M Pastinha
came back after thirty years of semi-retirement to open his own academy, the Cen-
tro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola (CECA). Following a similar path to the one
forged by M Bimba, M Pastinha’s academy quickly became an important focal
point for capoeira angola, where many diverse capoeiristas came together under
one roof. Guided by M Pastinha’s gentle demeanor, informal teaching style, and
philosophical spirit, the playful—but still dangerous—capoeira angola thus became
a valuable cultural heritage. In 1966, at the age of 77, M Pastinha became the first
teacher to bring capoeira back to the motherland, Africa, as part of the First Festi-
val for Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal.
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The proliferation of capoeira regional
In Rio de Janeiro, capoeira carioca (“capoeira of Rio”) had surived piecemeal
as an underground criminal art, a sport, and occasionally as a military combative
form. One sportsman, named Sinhozinho, taught capoeira movements without rit-
ual or music, but otherwise there were few actual teachers of the form. In the
1940s and 50s, Bahian capoeira started making an impact in the city. M Bimba
showed off his students there in the 1940s, and another Bahian mestre named Ar-
tur Emídio began teaching his own stylized fusion of capoeira in Rio in the 1950s.
By the 1960s, a group of young enthusiasts (some of them originally from
Bahia) began calling themselves the Grupo Senzala, named after the slave barracks.
These youngsters, many of them white and university educated, decided to take M
Bimba’s capoeira regional and add their own innovations. They incorporated ex-
treme acrobatics, techniques from other sports and martial arts (such as vale tudo,
or free-for-all fighting), and systematic rankings based on rope cords, or cordas.
Much of this happened without the guidance or blessing of a formal teacher
of capoeira, and at a capoeira conference in 1968, M Bimba expressed disgust at
what his art was becoming. Nevertheless, this new, more competitive form—often
called “capoeira contemporânea”—eventually took the country and the world by
storm. Through organizations numbering tens of thousands, competitive tourna-
ments, and public demonstrations, the Grupo Senzala and its offshoots, such as
Abadá-Capoeira and Omulu, eventually became the dominant force in capoeira.
Others prominent groups include Mestre Suassuna’s Cordão de Ouro, Mestre
Boneco’s Capoeira Brasil, Mestre Dinho’s Grupo Topázio, and dozens more.
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Commercial interests have found this exciting, somewhat “de-Africanized”
type of capoeira the easiest to market, featuring it in advertisements for Propel,
Nokia, and the BBC, and mainstream films such as Only the Strong (1993) and
Ocean’s Twelve (2004). The game company Namco also motion-captured capoeira
to create the characters of “Eddy Gordo” and “Christie Monteiro” for their
Tekken series of fighting games. Capoeira has also become a stage-friendly form,
providing choreography for acts such as Cirque du Soleil, Jelon Vieira’s DanceBra-
zil, and even Latin pop star Ricky Martin.
“Contemporary” capoeira has also been promoted as an efficient system of
self-defense, mixed and taught alongside Brazilian jujitsu, karate, boxing, and vale
tudo. Increasingly, it is even being used as an aerobic workout equivalent to Tae
Bo, under such creative names as “Capoeira Workout,” “Capoeirobics,” “Cardio
Capoeira,” or “CapoFit.”
With its emphasis on modernization, innovation, and efficiency, “contempo-
rary” capoeira has become an international sport and martial art. In addition, with
the increasing social acceptance of capoeira, women have become more and more
involved in this once vagabond art form. A few—such as Mestrandas Edna Lima
and Cigana of Abadá—have already achieved higher ranks. In this process, ca-
poeira has also become a global “symbol” of Brazilianness: like Carmen Miranda,
bossa nova music, and football soccer. However, many of the old-schoolers in Ba-
hia believe that the elegant simplicity of M Bimba’s original capoeira regional and
the playful ambivalence of capoeira angola have been lost or diminished in this
process of globalization.
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Mestre Bimba himself did not reap the rewards of this. He spent his last years
bitter and broke, and died in Goiânia in 1974, far away from his beloved Bahia.
Since that time, a few of his most famous graduated students, such as the esteemed
Dr. Angelo Decânio, Jair Moura, Mestre Acordeon, and Mestre Itapoan, have tried
to rescue the spirit of his teachings, but among the hundreds of capoeira teachers
who claim to represent capoeira regional today, only M Bimba’s own son, Mestre
Nenél, adheres strictly to the form as M Bimba taught it.
The decline and appropriation of capoeira angola
In the 1970s, as capoeira regional continued to grow exponentially, capoeira
angola suffered a period of neglect, no doubt exacerbated by the sad closure of M
Pastinha’s academy. In the early 1970s, M Pastinha had been asked to temporarily
vacate his space on the famous Pelourinho, but instead of returning it to him, the
government turned the space into a tourist restaurant which is still in operation
today. As a result of this and other insults, many angoleiros stopped teaching. Oth-
ers (including Mestres Canjiquinha, Caiçara, and Nô) even tried to copy M Bim-
ba’s model, creating their own streamlined styles of capoeira for shows and per-
formances. With the death of Mestre Pastinha in 1981, blind and penniless at 92
years of age, it seemed that the powers of capoeira angola were on the wane.
A few well-meaning practitioners of “contemporary” capoeira, recognizing
the imminent extinction of the old traditions, began to study under angoleiros in
order to enrich their own teachings. In the process, capoeira angola became just
another “style” of capoeira, especially in “contemporary” schools, where practi-
tioners have either tried to integrate the two modalities into a single, “unified” ca-
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poeira, or to divide between the “high and fast” style of capoeira regional, and the
“low and slow” style of capoeira angola. From the point of view of most angolei-
ros, however, this needless reintegration has reduced the deeper, more mysterious
aspects of capoeira angola—its rituals, playful ambivalence, trickery, mandinga
(“sorcery”) and sonorous musical orchestra—to mere caricatures.
The revival of capoeira angola
Luckily, in spite of the appropriation of capoeira angola and the continued
growth of “contemporary” capoeira throughout the world, many of the “secrets”
of capoeira angola have remained firmly in the hands of Bahian mestres. Capoeira
angola finally began its own revival in the 1980s, thanks to the work of Mestre
Pastinha’s eldest students—most notably, Mestre João Pequeno (b. 1917). Other
elder students of Pastinha, such as Mestres João Grande (b. 1933) and Boca Rica,
as well as a few younger ones such as Bola Sete, have also established their own
schools.
The most prominent reviver, however, has been Mestre Moraes, a student of
the two Joãos under Mestre Pastinha. Moraes, perhaps the most savvy of the ango-
leiros, established the Grupo Capoeira Angola Pelourinho (GCAP) in 1980, mobi-
lizing black political consciousness and teaching a streamlined style of capoeira an-
gola that was informed by years of playing as an angoleiro in the tough rodas of
Rio de Janeiro. GCAP has been instrumental in the growth of capoeira angola
worldwide, through its teachings, its popular CD recordings, and various offshoot
organizations such as the FICA/ICAF of Mestre Cobrinha Mansa. Likewise, stu-
dents of Mestre João Pequeno—including Mestre Jogo de Dentro, Mestre Barba
107

Branca, and Professora Ritinha—have gained strength in recent years, while the
famously mischievous Mestre Curió (who was also well known at Pastinha’s acad-
emy) has graduated the first female mestra in capoeira angola, named Mestra
Jararaca.
At the same time, other Bahian mestres—including M Lua de Bobó, M Renê,
M Neco, M Curió, M Augusto, M Zé do Lenço, M Raimundo Dias, and the
author’s own M Caboquinho—have breathed new life into long-neglected, parallel
lineages of capoeira angola that date back Bahia’s old street rodas, and far beyond.
Some of these mestres formed an organization called the Associação Brasileira de
Capoeira Angola (ABCA) in 1993.
Non-Brazilians and women are also playing an increasingly important role in
the future passage of capoeira angola. M Caboquinho, for example, has graduated
two women to the level contra-mestre: CM Biriba and CM Rapidinha. With their
guidance, and the determination of the students who follow them, the game of va-
diação and its traditions are poised to survive for centuries to come.
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S E C T I O N 2 : T R A D I T I O N
109

The answer from Bahia
Despite the optimistic note that closed my version of capoeira history, Mestre
Caboquinho answers much of the recent history of capoeira with great pessimism.
He believes that the modernization of capoeira and subsequent appropriation of
capoeira angola into the logic of “contemporary” capoeira has been very destruc-
tive to the history and traditions of the form, while making it much more difficult
for capoeira angola to exist on its own terms. Moreover, modernist attitudes tend
to disrespect Bahia, taking away what is truly “hers.” In the view of the Mestre
and many other angoleiros, capoeira angola deserves to be thought of as the
“original” form, the root of all current styles of capoeira, or capoeira mãe
(“mother capoeira”). In this formulation, capoeira regional and styles that
spawned from it are seen as ungrateful children.
Skepticism
The harsh tone of these words may strike some in the capoeira community as
purely defensive and reactionary. Worse, such words seem to suggest that those
who believe in the “purity” of capoeira angola are militant, revisionist, or ignorant
of the “real” history.
Indeed, as my own history has just outlined, the best evidence clearly indi-
cates that capoeira has changed a great deal, evolving to suit new realities of Afro-
Brazilian life throughout its existence. In contrast to the angoleiro’s emphasis on
the uninterrupted integrity of continuity and the seriousness of capoeira pedagogy,
history indicates that there have been serious ruptures in capoeira history, and that
the form was in fact learned quite informally—even opportunistically—on the bus-
110

tling streets of Brazil’s urban centers. History also points to a number of “tradi-
tions” that have only been invented in the last few decades, including the use of
academy uniforms, the establishment of a set musical orchestra and order of songs,
and the very positioning of capoeira as a “tradition” in the first place.
Such evidence appears to overturn much of what I have learned under the
Mestre. It also makes it increasingly difficult to defend capoeira angola on the ba-
sis of the historical record. Indeed, from from my point of view as of one of his
students, as well as a scholar, I have often found it very difficult to reconcile the
Mestre’s teachings with the available evidence. However, as this thesis has implied
numerous times, I have come to understand that it is not really my job to defini-
tively reconcile these apparent contradictions, one way or the other. Nor is it my
job to defend Mestre Caboquinho, or even to ask him to defend himself against
this evidence, which, as I have already noted, can be highly biased and conceptu-
ally flawed. The only job I am entitled to perform here is to listen to him—to trust
his 30-plus years of experience, try to understand everything he says on its own
terms, and finally interpret, for myself, why he might say what he says.
As such, any investigation of what the Mestre means by “tradition” must be-
gin by an investigation of the word “tradition” itself.
Tradition
“Tradition” is often linked to customs or cultural values that have stood the
test of time. In this context of continuity and historical validity, tradition is also
connected to notions of “authenticity” and “heritage.” A tradition is thought to be
a “genuine” expression of culture, an accumulation of collective wisdom that
111

should be respected. Indeed, Mestre Caboquinho often frames his discussions
about capoeira tradition in terms of this kind of trust and respect for the past.
In this sense, tradition is also akin to the philosophy of conservatism, in
which incremental change is favored over radical revolutionary change. By exten-
sion, conservatism is often positioned as a political and philosophical response to
change, preserving the trusted status quo in the face of rupture and chaos. It also
resists the forces of “instrumental rationality,” which reduces human actions to
reason and individuality, and modernization, which is concerned with progress,
efficiency, and individual definitions of truth. This dichotomy thus posits capoeira
angola as the traditional form, defending “old style” capoeira against “modern-
ized” or “stylized” versions of the form.
Accounting for change and stylistic variation
However, there is an inherent tension within tradition that also accommo-
dates forces of change from within. Tradition is not necessarily meant to be
“fixed,” or unchanging—it is alive. Of course, a tradition cannot be passed down
without a certain continuity between generations, but this continuity serves the
needs of a community. Thus, traditions evolve and change with a community and
its changing needs.
On a practical level, traditions do inevitably change over time, as they are
passed down one generation after the other. Without accounting for outside influ-
ences, even in a hypothetically “sealed” culture we could expect that any single
tradition passed down over the course of one hundred years will demonstrate cer-
112

tain changes, as each participant inflects it with slight variations in personality and
differences of emphasis.
Yet this is only one linear, diachronic dimension upon which movement varia-
tions may be graphed. Given a community of movers, or practitioners of a move-
ment tradition such as capoeira, there will also be a certain amount of variety pre-
sent. In this sense, it is similar to language, in that regional (or even family-specific)
variations can be identified in every language. Yet there is still some sense of
“agreement” about when the language becomes unintelligible. Likewise, with re-
gard to a movement form such as capoeira angola, the community does more or
less agree when someone has changed the movement beyond the bounds of the ac-
ceptable stylistic range. As Lewis (1992) has pointed out, this may in fact involve
rather drastic rule-breaking, but this is still within the boundaries of the form. If,
however, a movement cannot be “read” by the community, it is thought to be
“outside” of the game. A practice such as capoeira angola may therefore vary
widely within itself, or from place to place, but nevertheless tends towards overall
conformity.
Consequences
This picture of tradition makes it possible to better understand how practi-
tioners like Mestre Caboquinho can assert, practically in the same breath, that ca-
poeira angola does not “change,” but that it simultaneously has not always been
“the same.”
With this in mind, it becomes far easier to interpret some of the apparent dis-
continuities in the history of capoeira. The Mestre thus attaches great importance
113

to following what he himself was given, trusting that each thing in the game has
been purposefully developed and continues to serve the game today. Coincidentally
or not, this also appears to resonate with the common African belief in acknowl-
edging the living presence of those who came before.
Keeping within the line
One example of this is with regard to the composition and placement of the
instruments in the capoeira batería (“orchestra”), which are often markers by
which the Mestre measures a group’s links to “tradition.” Above all, he points to
the importance of placing the lead berimbau, the gunga, in the “corner,” at the
very extreme end of the orchestra. Indeed, the vast majority of capoeira angola
schools in Bahia follow this pattern today.
However, the evidence of this configuration of instruments in the documen-
tary record—for example, as shown in the photos of Pierre Verger—is very incon-
sistent. Aside from the obvious preference for berimbaus and pandeiros, little
points to the hegemony of any particular lineup, let alone the eight-instrument
lineup favored today.
Yet if the Mestre were asked to explain this inconsistency, he would likely re-
act very negatively, because from the traditionalist point of view, such a question
disrespects those who created the game and established its instruments in a particu-
lar way for very purposeful reasons. It also undermines capoeira tradition by sug-
gesting that elements of the game are merely arbitrary. 170 This is the main reason
170. Interestingly, “arbitrary” is a word that I have used to describe the instrument setup in many academies
of “contempoorary” capoeira that I have witnessed.
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that he spends so much time—sometimes hours on this issue alone—urging us not
“change” any aspect of capoeira.
When given over to this point of view, it eventually becomes clear that there
are practical, as well as deeper reasons for everything in capoeira. For example, the
Mestre tells his students that the practical reason the lead berimbau is in the “cor-
ner” is because it allows the mestre to safely “call” the players in the game by low-
ering the gunga at the edge of the roda, without accidentally hitting someone. On a
symbolic level, the gunga is also on the corner because the mestre is meant to be
somewhat detached from the action, not the central focus of a roda. Mestre Cabo-
quinho has suggested that this is even true in some tribal situations in Africa,
where the king is too “important” to be in the center. This also resonates with the
place of the supreme being in candomblé cosmology, named Olodum, who is inac-
cessible to humans, and thought to be quite uninterested in the reality he created.
Even if we dismiss all of this as rationalization or justification (which I trust it
is not), positioning such answers from the point of view of capoeira angola and its
purposeful history allows students to discover important subtleties that are often
not immediately apparent from the outside. 171
For example, in the older pictures of Bahian capoeira that I previously char-
acterized as “inconsistent,” one notices that the mestre is often standing not the
center, of the proceedings. Perhaps this is significant, perhaps it is not, but without
the guidance of a mestre, one might never look for that kind of information.
171. It also sharpens the Mestre's critique of those who have followed Mestre João Grande in placing the
berimbau gunga in the center of the roda. In fairness, it may be worth asking whether these followers have
actually departed from a specific tradition, or whether they may simply be representing (or initiating) another
tradition? Again, it is not my place to answer that question, but it is disappointing that Downey (2005) dismisses
this subtlety.
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A moment ago, I also described the Mestre as urging his students not to
change anything about capoeira. Yet it turns out that even this exhortation is not
absolute. To be more specific, the Mestre urges his student not change capoeira an-
gola without knowing what the right thing is first. Thus, for impromptu photo
shoots, rodas with less than the required eight musicians, or perhaps in situations
where one wants to hide the truth of capoeira angola, the instrument lineup may
change to suit the practical needs of the situation. This offers yet another interpre-
tation of the “inconsistent” historical photos.
The “tradition” of shoes
This approach also applies to the use of shoes in capoeira angola, which is
often cited as another “reinvented” tradition enforced by angoleiros in a militant
way. 172 Again,the Verger pictures are inconsistent on this point, but nineteenth cen-
tury depictions of slavery are almost unequivocal: virtually no image features a
black person with shoes on. Some practitioners cite this as evidence that “authen-
tic” capoeira is played barefoot. However, Mestre Caboquinho’s explanation
speaks more directly to the reality of Afro-Brazilian experience. Again, the Mestre
suggests a practical, and a more serious way to understand the issue.
The first is to acknowledge the reality that people in Bahia do not always
wear shoes that are practical for use in capoeira. Certain types of sandals and flip-
flops, as well as certain surfaces such as the beach, are not ideal for playing the
game. A capoeirista who shows up to a roda wearing the wrong shoes, or to a roda
on the beach, might therefore kick them off before playing.
172. At my first class at the academy of M João Grande, for example, I removed my shoes to prepare for
class, eliciting unwelcome looks from all of his students.
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The second explanation is a harsh reminder of the everyday reality of slave
life. The reason why most, if not all slaves depicted in nineteenth century Brazilian
images are barefoot, is because they were not allowed to wear shoes. As Mestre
Caboquinho notes, the moment slavery was abolished, shoes were among the first
things Afro-Brazilians hoped to obtain. Thus, the self-conscious enforcement of
shoes in today’s capoeira angola academies is not just some arbitrary “rule” im-
posed to ensure uniformity. It directly references a psychological reality, in that
wearing shoes denotes one’s level of civilization and personal pride.
Again, knowing such reasons—practical, historical, and psychological—a
student may selectively “violate” the traditions of capoeira angola, but only if it
makes sense to do so. From this perspective, those who go barefoot without know-
ing or respecting this subtle cultural knowledge, do not understand capoeira.
Implications for tradition and history
I believe these kinds of readings are in fact among the most important “se-
crets” of capoeira angola, because they call attention to the current, practical itera-
tion of the game, while very much aware of history.
Thus, when the Mestre speaks of “tradition,” on one level he is primarily ref-
erencing his own experience, and the world of capoeira he inhabited when he was
growing up. Yet this is not mere solipsism; it demonstrates a deep trust in his own
community, which he believes has constructed capoeira for very good reasons and
passed it down correctly for a long time before him.
One can therefore position the Mestre’s supposedly “historical” assertion of
500 years of history as a simple rhetorical or strategic exaggeration that translates
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to “a long time.” As such, it is arguably not really meant to be proven or disproven
by documentary history. Read in this way, it also provides a reason and rationale
for upholding game and its traditions in the present.
Yet when pressed, or presented with contrary “evidence,” the Mestre will still
insist on the “reality” of this 500-year figure. While I cannot produce a document
that proves this empirically, I now hear such an assertion not only in terms of “500
years,” but as a way of subtly shifting the focus of history, and the present-day it-
erations of the game—to the very real neglect of Afro-Brazilians since the early
days of Brazil. In this sense, capoeira, or at least the mindset required to keep one's
humanity in the face of oppression, was truly “born” nearly 500 years ago: the
moment an African landed in Brazil and was forced to to reinvent his or her iden-
tity.
With this newfound sensitivity to understanding “tradition,” I now turn to
the bodily practice of capoeira angola.
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