A Collision of Cultures in the Brazilian Battle Dance - Capoeira Music

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FIGuRe 4.3. a player in the Market (1819). from Henry Chamberlin, Vistas e costumes
da cidade e arredores do Rio de Janeiro, translated by rubens Borba de Morãs (rio de
Janeiro, 1943). By kind permission of the British Library.
tions the berimbau but describes it as “an instrument often played, consisting of
a bow made of pliable wood with one string. different sounds are produced by
applying much or little pressure on the bow, the edge of which is held between
the front teeth.”73 schlichthorst adds that it is a very common instrument, and
the footnotes in a book written in the early twentieth century by emmy dolt and
Gustavo Barroso describe the berimbau as “a small metal instrument shaped
like a harp, with a steel tongue between two branches locked into an oval piece,
played by pulling the two branches between the teeth while holding a finger on
the metal tongue.”74 This is the description of the mouth berimbau whose sound
box is the mouth cavity (figure 4.4).
angela Comnene’s study suggests that this small instrument, known as the
“drimba,” was popular in many european countries and that in the Middle
ages it was made of metal. in italy in the sixteenth century its use was forbidden
because it was also employed as a weapon. in france until the eighteenth
century there was a dance of this name. The portuguese lexicographer Candido
de figueiredo contends that the Gypsies who roamed through europe in the
thirteenth century brought this instrument with them and that from europe it
reached america. He assumes that “drimba” became “brimba” and eventually