Recently I’ve been asked by some of my colleagues to speak to them  about and explain capoeira. Whilst for many such a request might seem odd, considering my position as an ethnomusicologist the request is perhaps not so unusual: due to my work with a community of capoeira practitioners, a small number of my students have chosen capoeira as a research topic – thus some colleagues wanted reassurance that this is, indeed, a legitimate subject area. The students’ interests ranged from the analyses of transcendental states, through to ideas surrounding the interaction, or inter-connectedness between the music and the movement. Perhaps, however, the most commonly expressed interest lies in the historical elements of the art form especially its Africanist center. Thus discussions ensued concerning its beginnings, resulting in recalling many of the confusing mythologies that we at the Capoeira Conviver family are trying to resolve.

A Historical View
The origins of capoeira are frequently presented as a mythological space celebrating African influences, the super-human abilities of a few select practitioners and the music and dance influences of art forms [specifically] from Angola in Southern Africa. These origin-myths are frequently heard in the song lyrics and the stories told, underlining its colonial slave origins and the lack of the accurate recording of slave histories at the time. Moreover, the decision to burn the existing slave records on 20 December 1890 – two years after the end of Brazilian slavery – further deepens the mystery of its origins (Chazkel, 2012). Deeply Africanist, and in concurrence with most practitioners today, much of its fundamental form, shape and ideas originated from somewhere in Africa as individual ingredients (Maultsby, 1992). When, through Trans-Atlantic slavery, these art forms met and mixed with each other, with the Portuguese culture and language, the Brazilian colonial space, as well as local Amerindian concepts, the result was this: a syncretised art form that, circumstantially can only be Brazilian, and for a host of reasons became known as CAPOEIRA.

Why it is called capoeira is not completely clear, as there are many different ideas that at the one end would suggest a closeness to the Nigerian dance called korokoro, through references to the grass lands surrounding slave plantations to, at the other end, carriers of chicken coops (Asante, 1889). Thus I suggest that, unless you are a philologist studying the science of language, trying to find the origins of the word is, for the moment, perhaps not that interesting.

Of greater interest is its developmental history. When talking to my students I realized that they, like many capoeiristas, had fallen into the trap of gaining information from unsubstantiated sources. So much so, that many have chosen to explain its history through means of commonly held mythologies as to its name, its origins and its meanings, including ideas that traces its origins to southern Africa, and an obscure dance, called the N’golo  dance, said to exist in rural South Central Angola (Assunção, 2005).

This idea, of the N’golo dance, had been spread and embroidered upon ever since Albano Neves e Souza, a Portuguese poet and artist, visited Mestre Pastinha’s Academy in 1965 (Assunção, 2005). Since then, no one had been able to trace the dance form. Thus it has not yet been clarified whether these were the fanciful musings of a writer and painter obsessed with the romance of Africa, or whether it existed, at some point in the past . Furthermore, others have also tried to ‘claim’ it origins, linking it to the Yoruban Nago and Congolese traditional dances – making for a confusing history (Talmon-Chvaicer, 2009).

That capoeira is a Brazilian art form as explained above, is unquestionable, and that it is a syncretised art form, is irrefutable.

Syncretised Art
Syncretised art is similar to baking a cake: you take a host of individual, seemingly un-related ingredients and you mix it all together in just the right proportions and in the correct order, give it time to bake (develop) and you have something new – you have a cake!

Similarly so the development of the music of capoeira: a confluence of musical ideas have had to come together at just the right historical time, develop and – sometime in the early 20th century – a new music form, with a specific function was in evidence.

Let me demonstrate this: When Erich von Hornbostle wrote in the early 20th century on musical bows found in southern Africa, he noted four: a ground-bow, a noose-bow, a mouth-bow and a gourd-bow. These, as many will know, are played across the entire southern African region, south of the African equator.

Of these, the gourd-bow is perhaps the better known, partly because of its many uhadi (Xhosa) and umakhweyana (Zulu) players. Indeed, legend has it that the Zulu king (Sigidi kaSenzangakhona, aka Shaka Zulu) had a bevy of female gourd-bow players for musical entertainment and spiritual guidance (Pops Mohammed, interview with author, 2006).

Certainly (spiritual) diviners such as Princess Mandosini[1] (see the youtube link below) plays an uhadi to this effect. Considering its musical popularity, it is not particularly surprising that the instrument, through its Black Atlantic history, had made its way to Brazil. An uhadi, if you watch the video, is almost exactly the same as a berimbau, except that the gourd is placed about halfway up the bow and, you will note, the playing technique (and gendered performers) differs somewhat.

If we also bring into the mix the use of the West African cow-bell (agogo) and the atebaque – most probably a combined adaptation of the shape of the Ghanaian peg-drum ( the atumpan) and the drum-head technology found in a djembe – and we have something new.

Furthermore, the song-form of capoeira songs, also is the basis of the majority of song-forms found across sub-Saharan Africa in its repetitive, cyclical, short-phrased call-and-response ideas.

Thirdly: Take into account the poly-rhythmic instrumental approaches of the common-time rhythm in the bateria – against the loosely placed rhythmic ideas found within the vocal parts, sometimes even forming cross-rhythmic ideas – and you will realize that these are also found all over sub-Saharan Africa (Kubik, 2010).

Finally, add to this the idea that the hand clap pattern, that is sometimes in a straight 4/4 rhythm [ 1 – 2 – 3 – rest] and sometimes a half clave, and sometimes clapped as a combined poly-rhythm is, as noted by Denis-Constant Martin, found in almost all Trans-Atlantic port cities . This, Martin continues, have developed as a direct result of the globalization caused by the Black Atlantic – and thus you can begin to understand the depth of this syncretism (Martin, 1996).

Consequently, if we follow this argument – that musical forms and instruments had made its way across the Atlantic to re-emerged, post-slavery, as a new Brazilian music – it would suggest that the movement forms had been similarly sourced. Thus I have no doubt that many of the movements used had former homes in places all along the West African region – including Cote Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo and Angola. Indeed, movements such as parafusos (Screwdriver kicks) may have been taken from dance movements found in Cote Ivoire. The evasive N’golo dance alluded to by Neves e Souza, may indeed have influenced the art form, as could the movements form from Congo, Ghana and Nigeria. Other influences, such as the well-known adoption of Eastern martial arts, had been used in the 1930s as a teaching model ( e.g. uniforms, annual graduations and a belt system) , leaving some of its movement forms as an influential calling card.

However, what for me is perhaps the more notable among all of these ideas, whether it is the musical instruments, the song forms, the use of Brazilian Portuguese in its lyrics, the culture-specific Brazilian musical phrases or the movement form itself, indeed, what for me unites all of this, is the sense of play and playfulness.

In some of my previous research I wrote specifically on ludic [play] behaviours in southern African musical contexts ( Loubser, 2009). In this I found a number of play ideas that seemed culture-specifically African, including notions of ‘inverse play behaviour’ that are also found in African-American musics, and identified as ‘The Signifying Monkey’ by Henry Gates Jnr (1988). And this is, I suggest, where my tiny mustard seed idea of ‘Africanisms in Capoeira’ truly reside: even though many of the visible and audible ingredients of capoeira were sourced from across Africa (or even across the world), culture-specific play behaviours or ludic behaviours that are in evidence throughout the southern African region, are clearly found in capoeira. Therefore, in capoeira games of playful expression and opponents caught off guard, with songs chiding a cry-baby or a slightly over-confident player, with hopping and skipping in physical and verbal wit, we find this: an echo-location of African ideas that are still fully operational in Brazil (Muller, 2012; Kubik, 1995; Riley, 1997).

A 90 Year-old Historical overview
In explanation of how practitioners view the art form today we should look at its descriptions and its 20th century historical accounts. Thus, as we established earlier in this article: capoeira is a Brazilian art form that incorporates music and movement in equal measure and is a unique expression of play. By consummate practitioners it is viewed as being at once a game, a dance, a martial art, a form of music, a spiritual journey and cultural phenomenon; displaying a range of syncretised cultural ideas. This syncretisation resulted because of its creation on the slave plantations and the quilombos (maroon settlements) that sprang up during the time of the Black Atlantic.

Contemporary writers on the history of the art form underline these obscure beginnings, yet agree that, had it not been for Manoel dos Reis Machado (Mestre Bimba), Vicente Ferreira Pastinha (Mestre Pastinha) and Getúlio Vargas, three times president of Brazil, capoeira may have fallen into obscurity and died out.

President Vargas, during his rein in the 1930s, and in his bid to gain popularity and win the hearts of the Brazilian people, decided to use popular folk art forms (e.g. capoeira and samba) as part of his political mouthpiece, thus inadvertently creating a unified view of Brazil. Consequently, as capoeira was one of the art forms he supported, it was re-addressed, re-imagined and decriminalized. Shortly after this the first white student, Cisnando Lima, joined Mestre Bimba’s class and capoeira finally opened up to include a wider Brazilian audience, with many white middle-class students joining as a result.

This new-found popularity led, in turn, to its development – as 20th century Masters from each style contributed to its codification – and its gradual globalization to the point where we are today: an art form with three main styles (Angola, Regional and Contemporanea) , and followers in almost every major city in the world.

Perhaps the ultimate accolade to capoeira’s history and its globalised status was its inscription to UNESCO’s list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in November 2014.

Viva Capoeira, Viva!

Jostine Loubser, December 10th, 2017

Full Bibliography on Request from Author

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About the author:
Jostine Loubser is an ethnomusicologist at the University of Salford (Manchester, UK) whose research areas include, among others, ideas concerning identity formation, Africanist thought, Afrocentric behaviours, Cape Jazz and Capoeira. She is a multi-instrumentalist, has worked in the past as a composer and performer for theatre and dance, and has played capoeira for more than 15 years. This weekend she will be training for five hours… J.Loubser@Salford.ac.uk

#Africansism #Africa #Identitystudies #identity #capoeira #africanisthistory #ethnicities #afrocentric #brazil #capoeirahistory

BLOG Written for Capoeira Conviver (Manchester & Santos, Brazil), 2017.

The article is used to teach the history of capoeira to practitioners new to the art form.