Build Your Own Archive: Afro-Latin America, 1800 - 2000

  
The book "Afro-Latin America, 1800 -2000" by George Reid Andrews is an excellent overview of the history of the African Diaspora in Latin America, including the Caribbean. While it seems like an impossible task to succinctly cover such an immense subject, the author does a superb job examining and presenting major, overarching historical themes - such as the wars of independence, the institutional policy of “whitening” the population, and the oppression of blacks - and then applying specific examples from the different countries of Latin American and the Caribbean, comparing and contrasting results and consequences.

Brazil, with the largest population of African descendents in the area, gets much attention in the book, and the author talks about capoeira as well as other African traditions, including samba, that came to be defined as essential to the cultures of the countries of Latin America.

Here is a little of what Andrews has to say about capoeira:

This was the martial art of capoeira, a combination of dance and kick-boxing based on Angolan antecedents and developed into a distinctly New World discipline and aesthetic by African slaves. The term and the phenomenon first appeared in Brazilian documents in the 1770s. By the 1790s and early 1800s, capoeiristas were organizing themselves into the maltas, or gangs, that became as much a part of nineteenth-century urban life in Brazil…


… the capoeira gangs were entirely male and based on rigorous codes of secrecy and loyalty to the group. Betrayal of the code meant harsh punishment, up to and including death… capoeira was closely tied to seaports and the sea...


… capoeira gangs in Rio de Janeiro sought to acquire control over the hiring of dockworkers in the port. Frustrated in their effort, they turned to protection rackets and other forms of criminal activity, dividing the city into small fiefdoms and fighting violent turf wars against each other. The gangs somewhat rehabilitated their public image in 1828, when they joined forces with the army to defeat a mutiny by German and Irish mercenaries. During the second half of the century they sought to establish patron-client ties with powerful protectors by hiring themselves out as bodyguards and “enforcers” of important politicians and businessmen. But… the violence of the intergang struggles provoked intensifying police repression and the eventual outlawing in 1890 of “the exercise of agility and corporal dexterity known as capoeira.”

and later in the book:

Brazilian authorities undertook a similar war against capoeira, which was outlawed by federal statute in 1890. In Rio de Janeiro, police arrested more than 600 suspected capoeiristas and sent them to the penal colony on the far offshore island of Fernando de Noronha. Organized capoeira gangs were eliminated from the capital, and from all Brazilian cities except Salvador, where police repression continued through the 1920s and 1930s. According to elderly practitioners of the sport, the police would tie captured capoeiristas to horses and drag them through the streets at full gallop back to police headquarters. As a result, they jokingly recall, they always practiced near police stations so that, if arrested, they would be dragged a shorter distance.

This book is packed with interesting information. We will present more relevant finds in the future.

"Afro-Latin America 1800-2000" is available in the FICA-DC Archives library thanks to the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
   

War Songs of the Nagoas and the Guaiamuns

The following bit comes from the June-July- August 1996 edition of the Brazilian newsletter Capoeirando:

A musical relic from the last century

In the Toque de Berimbau [musical section of newsletter] the first registration of the musicality of capoeira in the 19th century: a song of challenge between the two great capoeira groups: the Nagoas and the Guaiamuns.

The Guaiamuns sang:

Terezinha de Jesus
Abre a porta e apaga a luz
Quero ver morrer Nagoa
Na porta do Bom Jesus

And the Nagoas responded:

O castelo içou bandeira
São Francisco repicou
Gaiamum está reclamando
Manuel Preto já chegou

These were part of a capoeira song and were registered by Plácido de Abreu in his book Os Capoeiras* in 1886 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The author called it a "tune" and it reveals the conflict between the two groups in the 19th century: the Gaiamuns and the Nagoas. These groups were divided into various factions based on city neighborhoods.

Today, these "tunes" have significant historic value as they confirm the presence of music in the conflicts as well as the name of the capoeira groups, and they reveal the presence of Manoel Preto, who was then one of the leaders of the Nagoas.

Interpreting this “tune” we can understand a little better the culture of capoeira of the maltas [gangs] of the 19th century. This song is the oldest registration of musicality related to the practice of capoeira.

*ABREU, Plácido de. Os Capoeiras Rio de Janeiro. Tip. Escola Seraphim Alves de Brito 1886. p. 03

In her book The Hidden History of Capoeira, author Maya Talmon-Chvaicer offers further insight into the song, including a translation:

Documents and illustrations from the early nineteenth century bear witness that musical instruments were played during the capoeira game, but no description of songs is provided. It is only toward the end of the century that various sources mention songs connected to capoeira. Abreu wrote that before rival capoeira groups got into a fight they would challenge their rivals with songs like the one the Gaiamus sang:

Terezinha de Jesus
Open the door and turn off the light
I want to see dead Nagoa
At Bom Jesus' door

The rival team would answer:

The fortress raised a flag
São Francisco answered with a drum beating
Guaiamu is complaining
Manuel Preto has shown up.

Manuel Preto was the Santana group leader's nickname and put the fear of God into his enemies' hearts. The Nagoas used images that belonged to their spiritual world. The flag, as described above, was used to communicate with the world of the dead. This is evident in the flag waving during funerals. São Francisco, a Catholic saint, used a drumbeat to overcome the Guaiamu. Africans compared their deities to the Catholic saints and worshipped them while hiding their African deities behind Catholic ones. Saint Francis was syncretized with the orixá Orunmila, the great benefactor of humanity and its principal adviser. He reveals the future through the secret of Ifa, the supreme oracle. He is considered a great healer. The drums warn against imminent danger but also communicate with other worlds and possess supernatural powers that infuse Manuel Preto with such strength that the "Gaiamu is complaining".

The Guaiamu were influenced mainly by Christianity, which is evident in their challenging song and their use of the names Therezinha (little Saint Theresa) and Jesus and the images "open the door and turn off the light", signifying the notion of extinguishing the life of the Nagoa and opening the doors of heaven for his soul. Songs used as challenge were widespread in the Yoruban cultures in the context of war. They had remarkable psychological influence. Evoking the memory of extolled victories, eminent warriors, spirits, and ancestral fathers that help in the war effort, songs were supposed to cheer up fighters and frighten their enemy. As Yoruban culture was very influential among the enslaved population from the mid-nineteenth century onward and as the Capoeiras were increasingly associated with belligerence, we can see why the ritual challenge was connected to song in the late nineteenth century. These songs were soon categorized as "war songs".

Both the book and the newsletter are packed with information about capoeira. We will be posting more from each in the upcoming months.

If you have something you would like to share with the community, please send it to: ficadcarchives (at) gmail (dot) com

Movement Theory: Weight in Capoeira

Monalisa, who trains in Boston and used to train in DC, sent us this piece from an article entitled, "Weight: The First Motion Factor". Written by Edward Luna, a researcher who studies dance as well as capoeira, the piece discusses three qualities of weight, resiliency, strength, and lightness, and examines each in relation to the game of Capoeira Angola. He also talks about their applications in Capoeira Regional and how the use of weight by their practioners distinguish the two types of capoeira.

In the more traditional style of capoeira angola, movers frequently appear to use a kind of elastic resiliency to surprise their opponents. This appearance of bounciness, where the weight is constantly shifting, is deceptive not only for the opponent, but also for the academic observer.

A key concept in capoeira, malícia (or "treachery"), helps us understand this deception. Use of passive/elastic weight is a common feature of many African-American dances. In capoeira, this translates to a loose, resilient, and flexible bodily attitude that is nevertheless rooted to the earth, weighted and fully aware of where its weight is. Without that awareness, a capoeira angola player would easily be tripped. In other words, the body is oriented to the vertical axis, always "under itself," even when low to the ground, or inverted, with hands on the ground.

Read the whole article here (scroll about halfway down to get to the capoeira discussion).

Thanks, M.

Find something interesting that you would like to share with the capoeira community? Send it to: ficadcarchives (at) gmail (dot) com, and we'll post it.