Talk:Capoeira/History

Date

In the last edit, is that your writing or was it copied from a book? Do you have a source for your date of 1520? or for the fighting slave story?

As for the fighting-slave story, it is a popular story in Brazil and widely believed to be true; it is certainly attestable by colonial documents that Capoeira arose in slave circles. However, the 1520 date is likely wrong as the Portuguese only began colonization of its American possessions in 1530! Certainly any sort of European presence before then would be at most an outpost or two to resupply the India-bound fleets, and no slaves at all.

Perhaps the correct date would be closer to 1620, but then again, I have never read anything of the kind. Personally, I believe one cannot pinpoint with precision the beginning of the art, as there is no single inventor figure of capoeira as there is for, say, kung fu. -Wtrmute

Feel free to make changes to that date. I too, thought it was strange, but left it out of respect for the previous contributor as I could find no other date I preferred. I don't know what kind of source material they were using. -Thomas

For what is worth, the historian Thomas Skidmore says that the first slaves were brought to Brazil in 1549. The book "A Arte da Gramática de língua mais usada na Costa do Brasil," edited in 1595 by Padre Anchieta, mentions that the Tupi-Guarani played Capoeira. --Mancoduco

Historical Footnote: 1937

1937 - The year Capoeira Regional started it's process of mainstream acceptance, was also the eventful time of the Estado Novo (New State) in Brazil. The president of the day was one Getúlio Dorneles Vargas. Interesting to study the circumstances and the chaotic socio-political climate of Brazil which lead to the development of Capoeira Regional. In a sense, Capoeira really was born out of a contstantly evolving cycle of struggle and endurance, from the time it was practiced during the slave period through to the time of revolution in Brazil.

Tartaruga 08:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Roots

I have read, in Nestor Capoeira's second book on capoeira, that the word capoeira wasn't used until late in the colonoization of Brazil, and it was used mostly to describe urban criminals of violent reputation. Moreover, the "popular myth" that capoeira was created by African slaves holds no water, historically. ALL forms of African expression and culture were outlawed, INCLUDING dance and music. So why would African slaves mask a martial art to look like a dance when an African dance would get them just as much unwanted attention? Also, nothing similar to capoeira what-so-ever exists in Africa today. What happened? Did it just disapear off the African continent, only to survive in Brazil? I don't think so.

A more realistic theory, albeit less romantic. is that capoeira was born on the streets of urban colonial Brazil. It was a result of an amalgamation of multiple cultures. Africa itself is a very diverse continent, with different languages, cutoms and cultures throughout. When all these Africans moved into Brazilan cities, either as freed or working slaves, their cultures began to blend together. This, along with the influences from the innumerable European immigrants, and the native indians in the area, ALL contirbuted to the evolution of capoeira, an urban martial art.

Moreover, the practioners from each city varied greatly, depending on the demographic of the city in question. The three maor hubs for capoeira were: Recife, Rio, and Bahia. Each city had it's own regional iteration of capeira, with Bahia having the largest African influence due to the large proportion of freed/working African slaves in the city. Rio, on the other hand, had many foriegners practicing capoeira. Manduca da Pria, a famous capoeirista who lived in Rio, was a successful business man that owned a fish market. He was said to have a pointed red beard and red hair. He obviously was not an African, but he was of Europenan ancestory. You can still hear songs sung about him in capoeira rodas all over the world.

I have been training and teaching capoeira for eight years in California, and many people seem to think that they know were capoeira originated. The best book that I have ever read on the history of capoeira is "Capoeira: Roots of the dance-Fight-Game". This is an EXCELLENT book, with actual evidence to support all of his claims.

I think the bottom line is, capoeira's history is much more diverse and complicated than most people can imagine, that is why it is easy for people to say, "Oh yeah, I know that, that's capoeira! African slaves made it to look like a dance to disguise their martial art from the slave masters." This one sentence makes someone sound smart to the unscrutinizing mind, but further investigation shows that this popular myth, in Brazil AND America, is little more than hearsay.

Boa Gente

Hi capoeirista,

I think you're slightly arguing against a straw-man: nowhere does the article say or even suggest that capoeira was invented as a way of disguising a fight as a dance. As you rightly say, this is a myth that was started much later and has no realy support: that's why it's not mentioned in the article.

But as for whether it was developed or practiced by slaves, there is plenty of evidence that it was. Look for instance at the painting at the top of the article: it shows a game of capoeira, which it explicitly labels as "capoeira", practiced by blacks out in the countryside, and was painted over fifty years before the abolishment of slavery in Brazil. The people in the painting are therefore almost certainly slaves.

You say that "A more realistic theory, albeit less romantic... It was a result of an amalgamation of multiple cultures." Indeed, the article agrees: it puts it as "The homogenization of the African people under the oppression of slavery was the catalyst for Capoeira."

As for whether there are African dances which are similar, I'm not sure what you read in the article that says there is. The article mentions other, similar, dances which were developed in the New World: baile del maní, batuque and maculele. While many people are pretty sure that there were similar dances in West Africa, particularly as practiced by the Bantu peoples, we have no citations for this and so it is not discussed in the article (though it possibly ought to be, particularly the Engolo dance of South-West Angola which is still practiced today and emphasizes headbutts, kicks and sweeps. I'll get some proper citations).

Basically, the article doesn't say that capoeira came straight from Africa, it doesn't say that it was invented to disguise a fight, it agrees that it was a result of an amalgamation of cultures, it agrees that much of the development of capoeira was on the streets of the cities.

I'm not therefore sure what it is you're arguing ought to be changed in the article. You're right, many people have a lot of misconceptions and myths about the origins of capoeira, but the article itself stays pretty well away from these myths. I expect most of the contributors of this article have read Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game, as well as a lot of other literature on capoeira. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 19:03, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. All that aside, I hope I wasn't sounding harsh. We always appreciate more contributors, especially as this article has mainly been managed by just four or five regular editors. Be bold and make improvements to the article if you wish, and we can continue to discuss here. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 19:42, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

It is interesting to note that in the Caribbean in places such as Martinique and Haiti there exist native martial arts that resemble capoeira. there are some differences however, in that in the Martiniquian form the swaying movement (ginga), is sometimes more of an "L" formation than the familiar "V" formation of the brazilian expression. Kicks, acrobatic movements are very much the same,it would seem to me that these countries must've shared some common bonds in order for similar art forms to have developed, these bonds I believe must have been the shared ritual, history and games of the settled african slaves.

CAPOEIRA IS AN AFRICAN ART FROM ANGOLA, NIGERIA, MOZAMBIQUE

Capoeira is a combination of similar african fighting arts from Angola-Kongo kingdom, Mozambique and Nigeria. These arts or variations still exist in these areas today.

In a racist and negating system of genocide, one of the great tricks is to deny the culture and contributions of Black people. If capoeira was theft or gangstarism there is no doubt the questions about its African creation and invention would not be disputed.

However, for racists, negators and amphibian-brain using people, anything that Africans create or invent is either stolen, given to others as the inventors or rejected as African.

As one of Nigerian and East African (Sudan-Ethiopia) as well as preColumbian Guanini (Black American before Columbus), rest assured that Capoeira, mani, machete and African-American martial art "kicking and sticking' are Manding-Kongo in origins. That means these arts are similar and originated from the Niger-Kongo peoples.

On the other hand, arts like 'ting' and 'Kano boxing,' the Senegalese wrestling and boxing combination are of Niger-Kushi (Sudan/West Africa) origins. In fact, drawings in Egypt show sequences of martial arts drawn over four thousand years ago. Most Africans are dispersals from the Sudan/Egypt corridor that began about 10,000 years ago and spread to all areas including all the way to Japan. See http://community.webtv.net/nubianem2

So, its no use trying to deny Africans their creation. It is time that African cultural officials in places like Angola, Nigeria and Mozambique do more to stop bigots and negators from trying to destroy and deny Africans their culture.

It is time to stop mixing and fusing African culture and adding so-called 'outside influences' into it, when the evidence is that the Portugese colonials tried to destroy the art, just as Americans tried to demonize rock and roll and jazz when they were first invented by Blacks.

→  The problem is thought that Afrocentrism is maybe also at times... rewritting history - it is a 'centr-ism', and an '-ism'. History should be a SCIENCE, NEUTRAL of any influences. Bad science and false history will NOT help, only truth will.

That said, if there is prooves, we must take them in count. "Only the facts, ma'am."

But also, NOTHING on earth is sacred - why blacks/africans couldn't take ideas from outside - things have to be 'pure, untouched'? As pointed by another poster, capoeira is maybe a product of a fructfull cross-cultural milieux. Blacks, but also indians AND whites even... And later, asians perhaps.

Blacks can play rock - or metal. Whites can do capoeira. Asians play classical music. So on. As long it is done in passion and respect... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.163.21.122 (talk) 21:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)