ANTHROPOLOGY, CULTURAL STUDIES

CAPOEIRA, MOBILITY,

VARELA
Series: The Anthropology of Tourism: Heritage, Mobility, and Society
Series Editor: Michael A. Di Giovine, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

AND TOURISM
“Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition in PRESERVING AN AFRO-BRAZILIAN TRADITION
a Globalized World is a tour de force in every sense. Varela’s deep and
IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

CAPOEIRA, MOBILITY, AND TOURISM

close understanding of capoeira angola in Brazil is the pivot around which
his powerful argument about global mobility turns.”
— MARTIN HOLBRAAD, University College London

In Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition

in a Globalized World, Sergio González Varela examines the mobility
of capoeira leaders and practitioners. He analyzes their motivations and
spirituality as well as their ability to reconfigure social practices. Varela draws
on tourism mobilities, multi-sited ethnography, global networks, heritage, and
the anthropology of ritual and religion in order to stress the commitment,
dedication, and value that international practitioners bring to capoeira.

SERGIO GONZÁLEZ VARELA is professor of anthropology

at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí.

LEXINGTON BOOKS
An imprint of
Rowman & Littlefield

SERGIO GONZÁLEZ VARELA

800-462-6420 • www.rowman.com

Cover photo by Sergio González Varela.

 Capoeira, Mobility,
and Tourism

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 Anthropology of Tourism: Heritage, Mobility, and Society

Series Editor
Michael A. Di Giovine (West Chester University of Pennsylvania)

Mission Statement
The Anthropology of Tourism: Heritage, Mobility, and Society series provides anthro-
pologists and others in the social sciences and humanities with cutting-edge and engaging
research on the culture(s) of tourism. This series embraces anthropology’s holistic and
comprehensive approach to scholarship, and is sensitive to the complex diversity of human
expression. Books in this series particularly examine tourism’s relationship with cultural
heritage and mobility and its impact on society. Contributions are transdisciplinary in nature,
and either look at a particular country, region, or population, or take a more global approach.
Including monographs and edited collections, this series is a valuable resource to scholars
and students alike who are interested in the various manifestations of tourism and its role as
the world’s largest and fastest-growing source of sociocultural and economic activity.

Advisory Board Members

Quetzil Castañeda, Saskia Cousin, Jackie Feldman, Nelson H. H. Graburn, Jafar Jafari,
Tom Selwyn, Valene Smith, Amanda Stronza, Hazel Tucker, and Shinji Yamashita

Books in Series
Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition in a Globalized
World, by Sergio González Varela
Rethinking the Anthropology of Love and Tourism, by Sagar Singh
Tourism and Wellness: Travel for the Good of All?, edited by Bryan S. R. Grimwood,
Heather Mair, Kellee Caton, and Meghan Muldoon
Bourbon Street, B-Drinking and the Sexual Economy of Tourism, by Angela Demovic
Anthropology of Tourism in Central and Eastern Europe: Bridging Worlds, edited by
Sabina Owsianowska and Magdalena Banaskiewicz
Apprenticeship Pilgrimage: Developing Expertise through Travel and Training, by Lauren
M. Griffith and Jonathan S. Marion
Cosmopolitanism and Tourism: Rethinking Theory and Practice, edited by Robert Shepherd
Tourism and Language in Vieques: An Ethnography of the Post-Navy Period, by Luis
Galanes Valldejuli
Tourism and Prosperity in Miao Land: Power and Inequality in Rural Ethnic China, by
Xianghong Feng
Alternative Tourism in Budapest: Class, Culture, and Identity in a Postsocialist City, by
Susan E. Hill

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 Capoeira, Mobility,
and Tourism
Preserving an Afro-Brazilian
Tradition in a Globalized World

Sergio González Varela

LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

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 Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com

6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2019 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
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may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gonzalez Varela, Sergio Armando, author.
Title: Capoeira, mobility, and tourism : preserving an Afro-Brazilian
tradition in a globalized world / Sergio Gonzalez Varela.
Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2019] | Series: The anthropology of
tourism : heritage, mobility, and society | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019006097| ISBN 9781498570329 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781498570336 (electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Capoeira (Dance)—Anthropological aspects. | Culture and
tourism.
Classification: LCC GV1796.C145 G654 2019 | DDC 793.3/1981—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019006097

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

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 To Natasza

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19_0234-Varela.indb 6 4/26/19 7:59 AM
 Contents

List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1

1 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 15

2 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 37
3 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 63
4 Religious Foundations 85
5 Worshipping the Ancestors 103
6 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 123

Conclusion 145
Bibliography 151
Index 163
About the Author 171

vii

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19_0234-Varela.indb 8 4/26/19 7:59 AM
 Figures

1.1 Capoeira players at Fundação Internacional de Capoeira

Angola (FICA), Bahia, Brazil. Photo: Sergio González
Varela. Date: July 17, 2006. 31
2.1 Mestre Carlão doing a one-hand aú (cartwheel) during his
visit to San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Photo: Sergio González
Varela. Date: September 28, 2018. 55
2.2 Capoeira Angola in London, United Kingdom. Photo: Sergio
González Varela. Date: March 27, 2007. 58
3.1 Capoeira music orchestra minutes before the beginning of
a roda at Terreiro Mandinga de Angola academy, Mexico
City. Photo: José Luis Pérez Flores. Date: November 19, 2011. 79
4.1 A close-up of a berimbau. Photograph: Sergio González
Varela. Date: July 22, 2018. 88
5.1 Images of orixás at Terreiro Mandinga de Angola academy,
Mexico City. Photo: José Luis Pérez Flores. Date:
November 19, 2011. 118
5.2 Altar to the orixás with elements related to the Mexican Day
of the Dead celebration at Terreiro Mandinga de Angola
academy, Mexico City. Photo: José Luis Pérez Flores. Date:
November 19, 2011. 120

ix

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19_0234-Varela.indb 10 4/26/19 7:59 AM
 Acknowledgments

This book could not have been completed without the generous support of
the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades (Faculty of Social Science
and Humanities) at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México,
my academic home. I thank my undergraduate and postgraduate students for
their questions and comments about the ideas that appear in these pages. I
also thank Michael Di Giovine for his support and encouragement to write a
book about capoeira, mobility, and tourism while I was on sabbatical leave
as a visiting professor at West Chester University, Pennsylvania. His sugges-
tions and comments along the way were of much help in shaping the book’s
general argument. I extend my gratitude to Noel Salazar, who also provided
me with excellent comments related to the anthropology of mobility. The
influence of Bruce Kapferer resounds throughout the book, and his work on
ritual and globalization remains a source of inspiration.
I want to highlight the importance that capoeira mestres (leaders) and
practitioners all over the world have had in the development of the main
ideas that appear here. In their relentless role as global missionaries of Afro-
Brazilian culture, mestres have contributed to a better understanding between
people of diverging origins, and this book is dedicated to them. In particular,
I thank Mestres Boca do Rio, Carlão, Valmir Damasceno, the late Bigodinho,
Pedrinho de Caxias, Cobra Mansa, and Renê Bittencourt for sharing their
experiences and capoeira teachings with me.
Global practitioners are redefining the meaning of tradition in capoeira
circles today; their passion, their commitment, and the value they give to
capoeira is a lesson that goes beyond words—thanks to all of them. In specific,
I thank Adriana Albert Dias, Alejandro Ruiz, Celso de Brito, Contramestre
Pintado, Contramestre Marcelo Peçanha, Christine Zonzon, Jagad, Lauren

xi

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 xii Acknowledgments

Griffith, Márcio de Abreu, Paulo Magalhães, Ricardo Nascimento, Treinel

Toca, and the capoeira Angola groups in Mexico City, London, and Salvador.
I want to thank the anonymous reviewers for their attentive and punctual
comments on the draft, their suggestions, and their positive criticisms. I also
extend my gratitude to Kasey Beduhn, an associate acquisitions editor at
Lexington Books, and her assistant editor, Alison Keefner, for their work and
help during the publication process.
Finally, I thank my parents; my brother and his family; and my wife, Kasia,
and our daughter, Natasza, for their love, patience, and understanding during
the demanding process of writing this book. Without their support, nothing
would have been possible.

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 Introduction

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art, dance, and fight that combines

physical attacks and defensive movements displayed by two individuals in a
combat circle called a roda, together with live music and ritual elements; it
also has an inner philosophy and spirituality. Since its formalization in the city
of Salvador, in the state of Bahia, Brazil, in the 1930s, capoeira has branched
out into three major styles: Regional (based on competition), Angola, (based
on “tradition”), and Contemporânea (a combination of Angola and Regional).
Each style has its own history, with specific rules, traditions, and goals. They
represent three different versions of the meaning of capoeira. This book deals
mainly with capoeira Angola, which I have been practicing and studying for
more than fifteen years. Capoeira, in all its variants, has developed exponen-
tially, so today focusing anthropologically on all styles simultaneously is a
daunting and impossible task. Although there are common elements across all
forms of capoeira,1 the differences are substantial and imply a complexity that
eludes any attempt at anthropological generalization. Each style constitutes a
world in itself, and each refers to multiple histories and references that would
take many years of research to understand correctly.
The topics that I deal with in this book, therefore, relate almost exclusively
to capoeira Angola, the style that claims to be the closest to its Afro-Brazilian
roots. The strategy that I follow addresses the mobility, tourism, globaliza-
tion, and heritage from the perspective of Angola mestres (leaders) and their
students.2 This is not a detailed ethnographic account about a specific local
setting, although I draw on my ethnographic data from Brazil. Instead, this
book moves between micro and macro analytical levels. I intend to give jus-
tice to the complexities of globalization and mobility by showing the dynamic
spirit and constant movement of capoeira practitioners, and the different
social and spiritual relations they create in their ephemeral but continuous
1

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 2 Introduction

transit around the world. This task is not easy, as it questions conventional
knowledge about methodology, data collection, practical experience, and an-
thropology. It constitutes another way of framing a traditional query related
to identity, power relations, religion, and politics. In sum, this book is not
located ethnographically in one place; it moves comparatively through differ-
ent cities, countries, and continents. I delineate the path that capoeira Angola
leaders have taken in the last twenty years as part of their missionary work
around the world. I describe why capoeira leaders decided to become cultural
missionaries, what they think about their role as caretakers of Afro-Brazilian
tradition, and how they interact in a globalized world.

MOBILITY AND TOURISM

Mobility has been inherent to the practice, theory, and method of social an-
thropology since its inception. Mobility and its opposite, immobility, are two
sides of the social configuration of humanity. They are concepts that define
the epistemological and ontological realms of anthropological discourse and
method. Human collective life depends on the dynamics of culture and the
uses of metaphor to talk about social change, migration, innovation, and
movement. Mobility also implies people who do not move, who refuse to
migrate and stay behind in the same place for an entire life. The concept of
mobility appears in sociology, urban studies, geography, art, international
relations, and other disciplines—it is not exclusive to anthropological inquiry.
This book takes its inspiration from the new mobilities paradigm that Mimi
Sheller, John Urry, and others proposed in the first decade of the twenty-first
century (Sheller and Urry 2006, Elliott and Urry 2010, Urry 2007). The ap-
proach has had a strong influence in social anthropology and in the way we
perceive social movement and the dynamic flow of people and culture today.
The new mobilities paradigm does not mean a further radical disruption of
current theories. Following the work of Mimi Sheller and John Urry, Jillian
Rickly, Kevin Hannam, and Mary Mostafanezhad (2017: 1) argue that the
mobilities paradigm is “an approach that helped to frame the ways in which
people’s daily lives are spatially interconnected.” This new way of seeing the
dynamics of culture requires attending to this spatial and interlinked process
where humans and objects flow constantly.
Anthropologist Noel Salazar (2014: 55) mentions that “mobility captures
the common impression that our lifeworld is in constant flux.” This concept
challenges many of the assumptions that academics have had about social
life, such as homogeneity, stability, boundaries, belonging, and the control
of social fluidity. Initially thought of as the realm of nomadic cultures such

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 Introduction 3

as hunter-gatherers, religious pilgrims, and pastoralist societies, the study

of people (and things) on the move has gained a broader meaning for an-
thropology. In the last thirty years, work on mobility has expanded its scope
and has included the fluidity of modernity and the interconnectedness of
humans around the globe. Noel Salazar (2014: 57) points out that mobil-
ity is not the same everywhere; there are different types, dimensions, and
values related to the concept. Some infrastructures and global expressions
of mobility, such as migration and tourism, are more visible than others
(Dalakoglou 2017, Franklin 2014).
This book deals with a specific type of mobility among capoeira lead-
ers and practitioners of this Afro-Brazilian martial art. I frame their social
dynamics from a global perspective where mobility intersects with tourism.
To clarify this point, I would like to characterize the meaning of “tourism”
and “the tourist” that I use for capoeira practitioners in this book. John Urry
(2008: xiv) notes that academics must understand tourism today within
the mobilities paradigm, where movement becomes the norm rather than
the exception in social life. I agree with him in the sense that tourism and
mobility are two realms of human life that implicate one another, where, as
Scott McCabe (2014: 249) explains, “the tourist epitomizes all that it means
to be mobile and all that means to be modern.” In the case of capoeira,
tourism operates at different scales—domestically, regionally, and inter-
nationally—and these scales imply the movement of capoeira leaders and
international practitioners (Hedegard 2012). This flow in capoeira crosses
the boundaries imposed by traditional notions coming from tourism studies,
such as the dichotomy between Western and emerging regions (Cohen and
Cohen 2015a). Schematically, capoeira mestres tend to move from Brazil
to the rest of the world, while international practitioners move from other
regions of the world to Brazil. In-between, we have mestres who are based
abroad and traveling regionally, and foreign capoeira practitioners who
today live in Brazilian cities.
This type of mobility begs the question about what kind of tourism we are
talking about in capoeira Angola. We must move away from a stereotyped
conception of Western tourism and expand the meaning of tourism as a
combination of leisure, work, and in some instances religious activity that
implicates capoeira experts and their students. However, this type of tourism
is an etic characterization that does not correspond to local forms of interpret-
ing capoeira’s practice in constant flow (Hedegard 2013). As Lauren Griffith
and Jonathan Marion note, many capoeira practitioners and mestres would
be offended if we defined them as “tourists” (Griffith and Marion 2018: 75).
Perhaps it would be more proper to characterize international practitioners as
apprenticeship pilgrims, a term first coined by Lauren Griffith and which she,

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 4 Introduction

together with Jonathan Marion, recently extended to describe the interest of

foreigners not only in capoeira but also in other performances (Griffith 2016;
Griffith and Marion 2018). For Griffith and Marion (2018: xv), apprentice-
ship pilgrimage “involves physical engagement and developing expertise.”
Their perspective fills a gap in the anthropology of tourism about a subtype
of tourism that has to do with the embodiment of skills in a mobile environ-
ment. Their approach highlights the different local, regional, national, and
international scales of pilgrims’ mobility (see also Di Giovine 2013). By re-
defining the concept of “pilgrim,” Griffith and Marion stress the importance
that global practitioners give to certain performance practices and how they
engage with such practices in different times and spaces.
Lauren Griffith’s work on capoeira and her recent book with Jonathan
Marion provide a new approach to the anthropology of tourism and mobility
related to performative practices such as martial arts, sports, ballroom dance,
and ballet, to mention only a few. Their contribution reveals the different
motivations that people have when they become committed to a practice and
provides a performative approach to the study of pilgrimage (Griffith and
Marion 2018: 9). For these authors, apprenticeship pilgrimage usually occurs
as a personal search for knowledge and expertise, and as a secular quest for
transformation and belonging to a performative community.
Griffith’s characterization of non-Brazilian capoeira practitioners as ap-
prenticeship pilgrims is vital for understanding how people relate to perfor-
mative practices and how they build connections with capoeira communities
around the globe. My approach follows her theoretical perspective but also
expands it by focusing on the lives of capoeira experts and their global itin-
eraries, something she does not address in detail. I also highlight how for
a subset of individuals apprenticeship pilgrimage becomes a religious and
spiritual quest beyond secular practice. Therefore, on one side we have ap-
prenticeship pilgrims, and on the other side we have traditional missionaries
(capoeira leaders) whose job is to spread their message to the world and who
define themselves as caretakers of an Afro-Brazilian tradition. In combina-
tion, pilgrims and missionaries appear as the actors in the plot of tourism
mobilities in capoeira Angola from the inside of cultural practice.
Sometimes international practitioners are interested in learning capoeira
as a physical activity, martial art, and sport. In other cases, practitioners
travel to Brazil and connect with famous leaders for spiritual or religious
reasons. Their aims vary, and throughout this book I highlight the different
types of mobilities of international practitioners and how their relationships
with mestres change through time. In contrast, my focus on the mestres as
itinerants works as the leading guide for understanding the global expansion
of capoeira. Because the views of the mestres intersect with those of inter-

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 Introduction 5

national students, this tourism cannot be characterized exclusively as either

leisure or work. It is a mixture of purposes and intention that, in the case of
the mestres, combines with a missionary spirit to spread the message of tradi-
tion and Afro-Brazilian values all over the world.
This two-edged form of mobility challenges traditional Eurocentric notions
of tourism that emerge from a particular type of mobility. To focus on the
global movement of capoeira practitioners is to pay attention to tourism that
comes from other places and tourism that begins and ends in Brazil, whether
a Brazil of space and time or a Brazil of the imagination. Erik Cohen and
Scott Cohen (2015b) call for a paradigm shift in tourism studies, and they
have stressed the importance of looking beyond Eurocentrism. This books
implicitly follows that aim by tracking the stories of mobility of capoeira
leaders and international students. Consequently, when I talk about tourism
in capoeira, I do so within this new decentralized paradigm of tourism that
highlights emerging regions, new actors, complex movements, and a set of
divergent and often contradictory practices and conflicting representations
(Cohen and Cohen 2015b: 164).
Tourism in capoeira must be understood as an active mobile engagement
between mestres and students. In this process, the distinction of capoeira
styles plays a considerable role in the type of mobility we are dealing with
here. Today, anybody can learn the physical movements of capoeira with-
out a teacher, and there are even instruction manuals (Costa 1962). Some
groups work and train in capoeira without the need for a Brazilian teacher
or a qualified instructor. There is more flexibility among experts of capoeira
Contemporânea and Regional about this way of learning. Elsewhere I have
described how these two styles of capoeira have been more popular than
capoeira Angola because this flexibility allows them to innovate and attract
more students (González Varela 2017). It is not by chance that casual tourism
and secular apprenticeship pilgrimage in capoeira have flourished more with
Regional and Contemporânea groups.
Capoeira Angola does not have this flexibility. A student needs to learn
from a famous and renowned mestre or offer proof of a connection with
one of these powerful individuals; it is the form of ID. In the global Angola
community, a reference signifies the way others will treat you and how they
recognize you. In capoeira Angola, an association with a mestre is the only
way to become a real practitioner and is nonnegotiable. Although there are
international groups that work with many mestres at the same time, at some
point they have to privilege a particular lineage, a path that goes back to
the mythical founders of the Angola style. Their apprenticeship pilgrimage
and devotion to a mestre, therefore, tends in the long term to become almost
spiritual or religious.

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 6 Introduction

Unfortunately, my portrait of capoeira Regional and Contemporânea is

superficial because of my limited ethnographic knowledge about these styles
and my unavoidable bias as someone coming from a capoeira Angola per-
spective. Nevertheless, I have tried as much as possible to bring into view the
work of academics on the perspective of Regional and Contemporary mestres
(Capoeira 2002, 2003, Guizardi 2017, Reis 2000, Vieira 1996). This is sig-
nificant for my argument on globalization and mobility in chapter 2 and also
about heritage in chapter 6, as I build on what members of the three styles
have to say about these issues.
Tourism as a form of mobility in Brazil means conceiving of capoeira
as an exotic cultural experience. What interests me from this external,
etic view on tourism is how Angola leaders negotiate their tradition in a
commercial landscape and how they interact with individuals identified as
“tourists,” who are not necessarily practitioners. I argue that leaders show a
staged form of authenticity to captivate the senses of an audience that is not
versed in capoeira. On the other hand, mestres make clear distinctions be-
tween casual observers, beginners, casual practitioners, committed players,
advanced students, leaders of international groups, and people with a title
in the hierarchy of capoeira knowledge. Leaders deploy different strategies
when dealing with travelers with divergent interests in capoeira. I describe in
chapter 3 how leaders perform this seductive act for differing audiences and
the emotions it evokes. Tourism and mobility push capoeira practitioners
to innovate in their discourses and actions. This confluence of innovation
and tourism happens with the redefinition of tradition. As capoeira Angola
becomes more popular around the world, mestres compete with each other
for people’s attention. They intend to get their message to a wider audience
and use their status as possessors of knowledge to redefine the meaning of
“authenticity.” Staging authenticity becomes a particular form of cultural
experience that appears in capoeira and legitimates it as a traditional practice
for outsiders (MacCannell 1999: 98–99).

THE RESIGNIFICATION OF
FIELDWORK IN A CHANGING WORLD

Anthropologists have been debating for the last thirty years the transforma-
tion of the meaning of “fieldwork” and “participant observation,” and the
purpose of ethnography (Amit 2000, Davies and Spencer 2010, Hastrup and
Hervik 1994, Lareau and Shultz 1996, Van Maanen 2011, Taussig 2011).
The practice of anthropology today is very different from what Malinowski
had in mind in the first decades of the twentieth century. The effects of glo-

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 Introduction 7

balization, decolonial and postcolonial processes, the role of the Internet in

the flow of information, migration, and the reflexive turn in anthropology
have all shaped how anthropologists do and understand fieldwork today.
Most of all, the democratization of academic life, which restricts tenured
professors—the lucky ones in a world of precarity (Platzer and Allison
2018)—to shorter and shorter periods of field research, is changing the
constitution of “fieldwork” itself.3
Although I draw on my intensive field research in Brazil, which I under-
took in the traditional Malinowskian sense in 2005 and 2006, I also base my
findings on my experience as a practitioner of capoeira in other cities such
as Mexico City, London, and Stockholm. Additionally, I make use of my
interaction with mestres when I was traveling and through conversations I
had with them via Facebook. Facebook has been of great help in following
the capoeira leaders in their missionary work. In their profiles, one gets a
glimpse of mestres’ itineraries and the views they have about their interna-
tional students and groups. Facebook also provides a platform for researchers
to explore how capoeira leaders interact with their disciples and how they use
the site to transmit their teachings. Anthropology depends not only on field
research but also on finding strategies for keeping relations with the people
we work with alive for the long run, as some anthropologists have explicitly
advocated (see Bloch 2005, Stoller 2009).

GLOBALIZATION

Throughout the years I have been interested in the way capoeira practitio-
ners travel around the world. My first experiences of capoeira in the late
1990s and early 2000s happened not in Brazil but in Mexico, Sweden, and
England. As I got to know more groups and decided to take capoeira as an
anthropological research topic, I realized that the complexities of mobility
and global expansion demanded a different kind of anthropological ap-
proach. However, pushed by my supervisors’ suggestions, I decided that
I had to know the meaning of capoeira in Brazil before I could study the
problem of globalization and migration among capoeira Angola practitio-
ners. In the end, I decided to follow the traditional path of anthropological
initiation, and I spent almost two years in Salvador, Bahia, in the North-
east Region of Brazil doing fieldwork. That invaluable experience, which
formed the core of my monograph on power relations among practitio-
ners and the role that leaders play in the transmission of knowledge (see
González Varela 2017), served as a platform to undertake the study of the
globalization of capoeira, mobility, and tourism that appears in these pages.

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 8 Introduction

Without my previous fieldwork experience and my long-term commitment

to studying capoeira, this book would not have been possible.
Moving the scale of analysis from the local to the global required tracing
connections among practitioners of the Angola style that I had not explored
before. In this attempt, I have detailed the global expansion of the other
capoeira styles too, because it was with practitioners of capoeira Regional
and Contemporânea that capoeira traveled outside Brazil. The Angola prac-
titioners, more worried about keeping a tradition alive and being reticent
to settle abroad due to the movement’s revival in the 1980s, moved more
slowly than the other two styles, but finally at the turn of the new millen-
nium became global too.4 Trying to build a general picture of capoeira’s ex-
pansion today is difficult because of the intertwining of globalization with
mobility and the resignification of tradition among capoeira Angola practi-
tioners. However, it is through globalization that we begin to understand the
transformation of capoeira from a local practice into an international and
cosmopolitan phenomenon.
As it is difficult to describe the multiple lines of global expansion, in this
book I delineate only the contours of this expansion and how it has affected
the lives of some mestres. My particular interest has always been with the
leaders and their deeds. It is, I argue, with these influential individuals that
capoeira Angola makes sense. Without the mestres, capoeira Angola cannot
exist. This axiom applies not only in Brazil but also in the rest of the world.
Therefore, I analyze the global expansion of capoeira first through the lives
of the leaders and some advanced students and then turn to the other side
of the equation: the national and international students who keep mestres
under constant demand.

ANCESTRY AND CULTURAL INNOVATION

Globalization, mobility, and tourism brought to capoeira a new way of pro-

ducing culture. Here I would like to mention some elements of this innovative
approach to capoeira. The first has to do with new discourses among prac-
titioners concerning the mythical origins of the martial art and references to
Africa. Here, the continuities between the Angola style and the African conti-
nent help capoeira leaders consolidate a tradition that connects their founding
fathers (dead mestres) with their ancestors. Africa is an empty sign, referring
to a set of projections about ancestry that give substance to the religious foun-
dations of capoeira Angola, which I describe in chapter 4. Claiming ancestral
connections is a new way mestres claim legitimate access to knowledge that
separates them from the rest of the Angola practitioners in the world. As the

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 Introduction 9

global expansion of capoeira accelerates, leaders need to find innovative

ways to differentiate themselves from the rest, so the mythical discourses
of capoeira’s ancestry serve the purpose of making their knowledge more
authentic and closer to their traditional past. Globalization, mobility, and
tourism set up the context for innovative relations among practitioners. These
themes affect the individual and collective dynamics of the culture of Angola
adepts, especially those in the higher ranks of the hierarchy of knowledge.

HERITAGE

In recent years, the national and global status of capoeira has transformed
substantially. During the first half the twentieth century Brazilian authori-
ties considered it to be a violent practice associated with criminality and
marginal people, and today participation in capoeira is seen as prestigious.
This radical change did not happen from one day to the next. It took many
years for society to accept this martial art. It started with the formalization of
capoeira Regional in the 1930s and continued with the institutionalization of
the practice into academies and with the emergence of capoeira Angola and
Contemporânea. As capoeira became, in part, an art taught in enclosed places,
it came to represent the powerful appeal of Afro-Brazilian culture. However,
although all styles fought for social recognition, practitioners felt that the
Brazilian government did not acknowledge capoeira as a valuable cultural
practice, and mestres got little or no support from the government.
This dismissive situation changed in 2008. In July of that year, the Brazil-
ian government, through the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico
Nacional (IPHAN, National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute), reg-
istered the capoeira roda in its Book of Expression Forms and recognized
the role of the mestre in its Book of Knowledge (Fonseca and Vieira 2014).
This recognition means the government finally understood both the value of
capoeira as part of Brazil’s intangible cultural heritage and the importance of
the caretakers of tradition in the dissemination of knowledge.
This national recognition set up the most important cultural achievement
of capoeira to the present day, its registration in UNESCO’s Representative
List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in November 2014. This
international recognition allows capoeira to access a broader audience from a
position of prestige. The UNESCO recognition has given capoeira an author-
ity not seen before; it constitutes an Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD), to
use the concept developed by Laurajane Smith (2006). For Smith (2006: 29),
the AHD “defines who the legitimate spokespersons for the past are.” Both
the IPHAN and UNESCO recognitions highlight the importance of the mestre

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 10 Introduction

as a symbol of tradition and ancestry, fitting Smith’s description. However,

the downside of establishing this type of AHD is that many nonexperts be-
come excluded from a “true” appreciation of capoeira’s heritage, something
that Smith (2006: 34) also pointed out.
With the new national and international status, capoeira, in all its vari-
ants, has found itself in an unprecedented situation where it has to deal with
bureaucratic and structural procedures and public policy. There is access
to obtain funding, so groups compete for resources. This constitutes a new
landscape of cultural negotiation. Some groups have been more receptive to
these changes than others. I know people who have retreated and refused to
engage with bureaucracy and governmental agencies. Mestres of capoeira
Angola appear on both extremes; some try to exploit the new status of Intan-
gible Cultural Heritage by creating projects to value the social memory of the
Afro-Brazilian culture, but others see this as selling out and going against the
precepts of tradition.
The issue of heritage is complicated, and it has shown the divisions within
capoeira styles, where diverging views about the meaning of capoeira prevail,
and where no consensus or agreement exist about how to show capoeira to
the outside world. The recognition of capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage
of Humanity by UNESCO has benefited many academies, but it has also
deepened problems, conflicts, and rivalries in the search for funding and the
distribution of resources.
The national and international cultural recognition of capoeira is a form of
power, one given by external bodies and institutions that legitimate this tra-
ditional Afro-Brazilian practice to Brazilian society and the world. This new
value, in all its variants, is a “calling card” that mestres and advanced students
carry with them. The inclusion of capoeira in the UNESCO list constitutes an
immediate, powerful sign of legitimacy and belonging that just a few decades
ago was unimaginable. The future of the three styles of capoeira, from my
point of view, will depend on the way they use and control the narrative of le-
gitimacy and authenticity. In the case of capoeira Angola, the future depends
on how leaders translate and appropriate the cultural value of their craft into
the language of preservation of tradition in a mobile and globalized world.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

The book is organized into six chapters. Each chapter focuses on the role that
globalization and mobility have had in the lives of capoeira Angola leaders
and advanced students. My objective is to analyze capoeira from a leader’s

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 Introduction 11

point of view, exploring how these leaders negotiate their local and global
relations in a changing world. To understand capoeira at multiple scales, we
need to follow the mestres and their views about tradition, tourism, religion,
and politics. By “anchoring” my description on these charismatic leaders, I
describe the global development of capoeira, focusing primarily on their mo-
bility, which parallels that of celebrities, athletes, and businesspeople.
Chapter 1 describes the oral tradition of capoeira Angola about its African
origins. I contend that these narratives offer a glimpse of the local imaginar-
ies surrounding the mythical past of capoeira. The intertwining of history
and mythology plays a vital role in the constitution of the Angola style as
a traditional practice. Here I describe how the “imaginaries” of the African
origins of capoeira appeared in the narratives of Angola leaders and how
academics promoted capoeira Angola as the “mother of all capoeiras.” I do
not view these imaginaries as false or misleading representations of reality.
What I consider relevant is how mestres see these mythical narratives as real
and how these narratives help leaders add new meanings to their origins and,
above all, to their ancestry in their global itineraries. What we call imaginar-
ies are virtual potencies, latent possibilities that constitute a world in itself.
By analyzing the mythical past of capoeira, the Angola style becomes a ho-
listic practice in its own right.
Chapter 2 depicts the global expansion of capoeira of all styles. This
Afro-Brazilian martial art became popular in Brazil in the 1960s, and this
unprecedented popularity drew the attention of artists, intellectuals, and activ-
ists and eventually led to capoeira becoming a global practice. The concept
of mobility is, I argue, essential for understanding globalization. I describe
two different tales of mobility of capoeira Angola practitioners in Europe: I
discuss how capoeira developed in London and how a famous capoeira leader
found himself living as an immigrant in Spain.
Chapter 3 is about the mestre-student relationship in the age of tourism.
I describe how mobility and globalization are changing the way leaders
interact with their disciples. My focus is on the role that tourism has played
in the modification of this apprenticeship relation in Brazil and abroad, and
what mestres of the Angola style think about tourism. The chapter details the
emotions and feelings that emanate from the mestre-student relationship over
short, medium, and long periods of interaction. My argument is that the emo-
tional consequences of the apprenticeship depend on the time that mestres
and students commit to spending together. What interests me here is the vari-
able that tourism brings to the reconstitution of this Afro-Brazilian tradition.
Chapter 4 describes the religious foundations of capoeira Angola seen as
a way of preserving an Afro-Brazilian tradition. My argument follows the

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 12 Introduction

discussion in chapter 1 where I talked about the mythical past of capoeira.

Here, however, I center my attention on what mestres consider as the foun-
dations of their tradition and how these principles relate to specific religious
and spiritual beings that supposedly appear in the roda, such as the dead
mestres, the ancestors, and the images of slavery. I argue that the religious
foundations of capoeira Angola complement the Afro-Brazilian religion
of Candomblé, to which many mestres belong as initiates. Independently
of other religious practices among Angola practitioners (some leaders are
Evangelical and others converted to Catholicism or Protestantism), the reli-
gious foundations of the tradition hover above other religious expressions.
The religious foundations of the Angola style are dynamic, providing a
creative motile ascription that mestres adapt based on the local or global
context in which they are interacting.
Chapter 5 addresses the issue of ancestor worship. Here, I detail the mean-
ing of tradition in practice, its core elements, and how tradition implies a
temporal distancing between leaders and practitioners. By accessing a dis-
tant, mythical time, capoeira mestres position themselves as almost ancestral
beings who bring the ancestors into the present in the roda. I describe eth-
nographically how mestres execute this enactment of the past in Brazil and
how some international practitioners travel to Brazil not only as a pragmatic,
secular form of pilgrimage but also as a committed spiritual path, a form of
transformational experience and religious awakening. In contrast, I also show
how ancestor worship takes a different turn abroad. Here, I describe ethno-
graphically how Mexican capoeira Angola groups incorporate a different set
of local ancestors in their daily practice and how these entities coexist with
the traditional Afro-Brazilian ancestral beings of capoeira Angola.
Finally, chapter 6 is about the recognition of capoeira as Intangible Cul-
tural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. I describe the historical process of
legitimating capoeira as cultural heritage and also address this issue from an
anthropological perspective and how it relates to the development of heritage
practices in Brazil. Relevant for my discussion is the problem of who speaks
for capoeira and how mestres negotiate their new status with the government,
NGOs, and cultural bodies. As a matter of public policy, the case of capoeira
posits questions about cultural appropriation, essentialization, commercial
gain, and power relations. I describe how these topics appear in two case
studies: the Red Bull Paranauê initiative and the Roda dos Saberes do Cais
do Valongo (Roda of Knowledge of the Valongo Wharf) project. Both show
the multiple meanings of capoeira coming from different styles. Red Bull
Paranauê promotes capoeira through competition, and the Roda dos Saberes
through heritage practices and activism. In each case, we see how heritage
practices impact the way practitioners discuss capoeira today, supporting my

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 Introduction 13

argument about capoeira styles as microcosms that engage with opposing

meanings and purposes. Heritage recognition aims to generalize capoeira as
a consistent practice, but, in reality, heritage discussions exacerbate the cur-
rent polemics, inherent conflicts, and rivalries that have become more visible
when capoeira is brought into the public sphere.

FINAL REMARKS

The themes explored in this book depict capoeira as a dynamic cultural

phenomenon that depends on the identification of styles and on the role that
leaders play in the reproduction and preservation of tradition. In the case of
capoeira Angola, mestres try to dictate the course of action that practitioners
must take concerning globalization, mobility, and tourism. Though they in-
fluence local and international students, mestres face the challenge of their
success as the expansion of capoeira seems more uncontrollable than ever and
students become more aware of their agentive role. As I write these pages,
new debates that criticize an outdated vision of masculine power in capoeira’s
structure are happening in Brazil and abroad. New voices are speaking, and
mestres are learning to adapt to a more complex world. Globalization, mobil-
ity, and tourism are only three instances where the tensions between innova-
tion and belonging to an Afro-Brazilian tradition are evident. There is more
to say about the anthropology of capoeira than I have written here, and I am
aware of the potential criticism and limitations of the book. I hope that despite
the inevitable shortcomings, this book will elucidate some of the complexities
that the adepts of capoeira Angola are facing today as part of a traditional glo-
balized form. In the end, the destiny of capoeira Angola, and of all styles of
capoeira, relies on the commitment and dedication that mestres and students
have to their craft, despite the adversities they face and the challenges they
confront in the roda of life.

NOTES

1. For instance, common features of capoeira include two practitioners playing in a

roda, standardized attacks and defensive movements, common music references and
songs, and a shared history of oppression and cultural resistance.
2. Initials have been used and identifying factors have been removed for all infor-
mants in chapters 4 and 5.
3. To have one or two years off to be on the field sometimes happens once in a
lifetime; it is a luxury that a few can afford. Most of the time, the core of one’s field
research occurs when completing a PhD, doing postdoctoral research, or later taking a

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 14 Introduction

sabbatical. For those who do not have tenure, the situation is even harsher, and bring-
ing food to the table, paying the rent, and finding the next job are of more immediate
and pressing importance than useless meditations about the purpose of fieldwork. For
those lucky ones with tenure, the opportunity to do extended field research is lim-
ited, so other methodologies must be implemented. This book emerges in the current
context of precarity where extensive fieldwork is challenging to do, and new meth-
odological resources are desperately needed in academia if we want to make sense of
mobility, migration, and tourism. The new academic and bureaucratic environment in
which people undertake anthropological research demands that we pursue alternatives
to the classic fieldwork approach.
4. Many Angola leaders did not want to settle down abroad in the decade of 1980
because of their focus on strengthening local academies and their commitment to
educating a new generation of Brazilian practitioners who would lose hope if their
mentors decided to leave Brazil.

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 Chapter One

History, Mythology, and the

Local Imaginaries of Capoeira

There is no topic more passionately debated in capoeira circles than its past.
Since people began studying capoeira informally and professionally in the first
decades of the twentieth century, the often-opposite stories about its origins and
heritage have puzzled practitioners, historians, and artists. Some, guided by a
nationalistic agenda, tried to define capoeira as an exclusive Brazilian martial
art, a practice institutionalized in the 1930s. Others, following the approach of
professional academics, considered it a martial art with clear Afro-Brazilian
origins. With the advent of the style called Angola in the 1940s, discourses
about authenticity became prominent among academics and expert practitio-
ners. In another book, I have briefly told the history of capoeira Angola in
Bahia in an effort to make sense of its historical development and its focus on
the epic stories of powerful persons (González Varela 2017). I do not want to
repeat myself here, so what I address in this chapter are those other narratives
about capoeira that fuse historical data with a “mythical” oral tradition of the
Afro-Brazilian art. My intention is not to dismiss these other narratives as false
or untrue, but to position them at the same level of importance as the official
historical accounts. By using the term “mythical,” I am not saying the descrip-
tions made by capoeira leaders are lies or fabrications. As I do not have another
word at hand, I will continue using the concept “mythical” as a heuristic for
addressing these alternative stories about the origins and practices of capoeira.

THE AESTHETIC AND VIRTUAL

EFFECT OF RITUAL PRACTICES

The relationship that capoeira has with its past is a creative product of its ritual
potentiality. Here I follow Bruce Kapferer (2007), who sees the efficacy of
15

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 16 Chapter One

ritual practices in their aesthetic dynamics of representation. In a way that is

similar to his argument for the Sinhalese case, where the aesthetics of perfor-
mance guide the process of healing and individual transformation, I contend
that the references to the mythical past of capoeira and its documented history
produce an aesthetic, creative ritual effect that brings a particular agency to
practice. For Kapferer, the pragmatic force of ritual creates its possibilities of
existence; this constitutive domain contrasts with the conventional notion of
ritual as a symbolic expression or consequence of something external to its
configuration (Kapferer 2007: 129–30). Kapferer is interested in the realm of
possibilities that ritual practice can produce through aesthetic means. His use
of the concept of “virtuality,” taken from Gilles Deleuze, refers to this aes-
thetic constitutive effect that ritual practice provokes. He writes, “The idea of
virtuality that I develop here accents, I suggest, a significant of the aesthetic
that may not otherwise be so obvious. The aesthetic in virtuality manifests
the thoroughly constitutive, rather than expressive, dimension of the aesthetic
as quintessentially the potency of humanly produced symbolically sensuous
processes” (Kapferer 2007: 130).
The concept of virtuality in Kapferer’s work relates to the technical as-
pect of practice, to the creative and “machinic” element of ritual (Kapferer
2006: 672–73). Therefore, at the center of Kapferer’s argument is the idea
that ritual can configure a reality of its own making without necessarily re-
curring to an external explanation. It constitutes a world in itself. Kapferer
(2006) and Don Handelman (2005) have pursued in their respective works
the study of ritual and performances in their own right. Handelman (2005:
2) highlights the importance of turning the study of ritual on itself: “If one
wants to think about what ritual is in relation to itself, how it is put together
and organized within itself, then first and foremost ritual should be stud-
ied in its own right and not to be presumed immediately to be constituted
through representations of the sociocultural surround that give it life.” In
this analytical process, the cultural value of ritual stands by itself in its own
ground and integrity (Handelman 2005: 4). Its self-referentiality makes of
ritual a holistic self-organized total practice.
The capacity that ritual practices have to create a world is essential for my
argument about capoeira’s past and my use of the concept of social imaginar-
ies. My idea of social imaginaries relates to this condensed capacity of ritual
to create its own reality. Independent of whether the narratives about Africa,
slavery, or particular individuals are true, the aesthetic and virtual effects
these tales produce on the world of capoeira Angola make the narratives real
and part of the tradition.
To clarify, social imaginaries are not equivalent to “false” or “alternative”
realities. As Kapferer mentions, the virtual, in its constitutive form, is merely

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 17

the possibility that other entities, beings, and potentialities may appear during
a ritual as part of people’s experience. Ritual experience, analyzed and dis-
cussed in detail by anthropologists such as Victor Turner (1987) and Edward
Schieffelin (2005), refers to what is possible in practice. Understood in these
terms, ritual practices such as the capoeira roda configure a particular world
that intends to keep at bay the forces affecting daily life. A movement occurs
that goes in the other direction, from ritual to everyday life; through rituals
like capoeira individuals transform the meaning of their world. Through the
virtual possibilities of capoeira, practitioners turn their art into cosmological
guidance about the sense of Afro-Brazilian culture.
In the following sections I show the realm of virtual possibilities that
capoeira can bring into practice. I shed light on that “phantasmagoric space”
(Kapferer 2006: 673) where reality stops meaning what common sense and
evidence tell us, when it becomes an open space where things we did not
consider possible suddenly take place. The uncanny, the ominous, and the
secret open a door so we can see things from a different perspective. These
imaginaries, as I show in later chapters, define the terms of the debates on
mobility, globalization, and the religious foundations of capoeira Angola.

THE PASSION FOR ORIGINS

When Mestre Pastinha codified the Angola style in the 1940s, he envisioned
it as close to its Afro-Brazilian values, which, he said, had been inherited
from slavery. Pastinha was motivated to reform the practice of capoeira
Angola in reaction to the other dominant capoeira style of the time, the
Luta Regional Baiana, created by Manoel Dos Reis Machado, known as
Mestre Bimba. Bimba, an exceptional capoeira mestre, wanted to profes-
sionalize the practice of capoeira by creating a rigorous method of fighting.
Bimba wanted an “authentic” Brazilian martial art. In the 1930s, drawing
on his knowledge of Asian martial arts and thanks to his view of capoeira
as a competitive practice in the ring, Bimba moved capoeira away from the
streets, where it had been traditionally played for decades, and located it in
enclosed places known as academies. The move brought the martial art to
new practitioners who until then knew little or nothing about capoeira. Bim-
ba’s students were mostly white and educated middle-class persons—the
complete opposite of the practitioners one could find in the streets. Some
intellectuals viewed Bimba’s project as a “whitening” attempt to sanitize
capoeira of its Afro-Brazilian roots (see Rego 1968). In the 1930s in Bahia,
there was a political movement to bring to light the struggles and discrimi-
nation faced by Afro-Brazilians; those in the movement saw the capoeira

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 18 Chapter One

of Mestre Bimba as regressive and dangerous for the Afro-Brazilian cause.

In the middle of this struggle, the project of Mestre Pastinha emerges as an
attempt to focus on the African heritage of capoeira.
Pastinha’s reform of capoeira was similar to Bimba’s. It consisted in bring-
ing the martial art out of the streets and into enclosed spaces. In his academy,
called Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola (CECA), Pastinha worked tire-
lessly to create rules that could become the essence of an Afro-Brazilian
tradition. He centered his core precepts around the image of the mestre, the
leader of capoeira. He also established a knowledge hierarchy that matched
the rigidity of the Luta Regional Baiana, but without the ceremonies, exams,
and rituals of the latter. For Pastinha, the quality of knowledge and expertise
depended on the relationship a student could build with a mestre. He insti-
tuted a uniform in his group; he stressed the importance of music and the
value of capoeira’s ancestors. He sought to build an Afro-Brazilian tradition
that could combine teachings in music, physical skill, and spirituality. His
vision of capoeira was holistic, bringing a sacred aura to the Angola style.
It is in this context of polarization between antagonistic styles that the
passion for the origins of capoeira takes form in Bahia. Historian Matthias
Assunção (2005: 5) has characterized three “mythical” historical themes
that fascinated capoeira practitioners and intellectuals during the first half
of the twentieth century: “the remote origins of capoeira; its invention, in
Brazil, by maroons; and the disguise of the fight as a dance.” In this sec-
tion, I would like to explore the remote origins of capoeira. My take on this
topic, however, is slightly different from Assunção’s. He describes these
narratives as examples of an Afrocentric agenda that little or nothing has
to do with reality and lacks the most basic evidence to sustain it. I most
agree with this. Nevertheless, my aim here is not to validate the narratives
as historical data; my concern is to amplify these alternative descriptions
in order to locate them within a local cultural configuration without judg-
ing beforehand their historical relevance. I consider the oral tradition of
capoeira concerning its past as invaluable for understanding the meaning
of capoeira Angola today, particularly in a globalized context marked by
practitioners’ mobility and circulation of cultural traits.
The passion for origins in capoeira stems from a curiosity that practitio-
ners have had about the hybrid composition of the martial art: it is Brazilian
but is at the same time Afro-Brazilian with direct links to Africa. This dual
property makes capoeira a practice that brings together two worlds: Brazil
and Africa. These terms should not be taken at face value. Their richness
resides in the imaginary and often “empty” meanings these two words entail
for capoeira adepts. Since the institutionalization of capoeira, the themes of
its “Brazilian-ness” and African heritage proliferate in Angola and Regional

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 19

academies. The Angola style professes adherence to Afro-Brazilian values, so

its search for origins goes all the way back to the African continent. For many
Angola practitioners since the 1940s, capoeira Angola is, in essence, a quest
to find its “African” roots. As Assunção (2005: 7) discusses, referring to the
work of T. J. Nardi, “In its most radical expression [of the remote origins of
capoeira], it asserts rather bluntly that capoeira as such was practiced in An-
gola. Transplanted to Brazil, it is supposed to have been performed without
major alterations before spreading to the rest of the world.”
For many practitioners, there is a temporal continuity between Africa and
Brazil that makes possible an analogical connection between capoeira An-
gola and other ritual practices found in Africa that may resemble capoeira.
Strikingly, Assunção (pers. comm.) has noticed recently that in many regions
of West Africa there are fighting ritual dances very similar to capoeira. Of
course, the similarities between capoeira and other rituals in Africa and the
Caribbean should be taken with caution. It is necessary to avoid the tempta-
tion to make hasty anthropological interpretations of a diffusionist nature,
where cultural practices flow almost unaltered from a unique source, or with
the idea that something perennial and mysterious remains hidden behind the
surface of practice. From an anthropological perspective, this argument is
difficult to sustain because it essentializes the proper character of culture,
which by definition is transformative and creative. Nevertheless, capoeira
practitioners are not very concerned about the anthropological dilemmas that
may arise from essentializing the martial art. On the contrary, the direct link
to Africa and the subsequent appeal to the immobility and permanence of hid-
den traits behind the surface of capoeira’s practice motivates the proliferation
of narratives about origins, survivals, and a “true” African connection.
Since the formalization of styles, the context of capoeira Angola and
capoeira Regional in Brazil have relied on the trope of “Africa” to situate the
styles within a general framework of authenticity and belonging. In the next
section, I describe one of the most critical narratives about the African origins
of capoeira developed mainly in Angola academies from the 1940s onward.

N’GOLO: THE “ANCESTOR” OF CAPOEIRA

The most important connection made between capoeira and Africa appeared
in the 1960s in the work of Angolan artist Álbano Neves e Souza. Accord-
ing to Assunção (2005: 23), Neves e Souza in his visit to Brazil in 1965
wanted to establish explicit connections between Brazil and Africa: “Neves
e Souza aimed to document the multiple links between popular cultures of
the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Brazil, anticipating thus the idea of a

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 20 Chapter One

‘Black Atlantic.’” The historian mentions that in Salvador, “Neves e Souza

was struck by the similarity between capoeira movements and a dance of his
native country, the n’golo.” (Assunção 2005: 24). Neves e Souza shared his
observations with Pastinha and intellectual Luís da Câmara Cascudo and sug-
gested that perhaps the origins of capoeira were in the N’golo or Zebra Dance
of southern Angola.
The Angolan artist based this claim on several drawings of the N’golo
he had made in his exploration of southern Angola. In his sketches, Neves
e Souza shows the resemblance between the N’golo and capoeira in Bahia.
Assunção, who had access to his drawings, reproduces the text that accom-
panies the illustrations. Here I quote in its entirety the remarks of Neves e
Souza about the N’golo:

N’golo, the Zebra Dance, is possibly the origin of the Capoeira, the fighting
dance of Brazil. It is danced at the time of the “Mufico,” a puberty rite for the
girls of the Mucope and Mulondo regions. The object of the dance is to hit
your opponent’s face with your foot. A rhythm for the dance is beaten by clap-
ping hands, and anyone who attempts a [b]low while outside the marked arena
is disqualified. The “Angolan Capoeira” in Brazil also has its special rhythm,
which is one more reason to believe that it originates with the N’golo. N’golo
means “zebra,” and to a certain extent the dance originates from the leaps and
battles of the zebra; the blow with the feet while the hands are touching the
ground is certainly reminiscent of the zebra’s kick. (Neves e Souza cited in
Assunção 2005: 49)

Cascudo, Pastinha, and other capoeira Angola practitioners relied on Neves

e Souza’s affirmation to demonstrate authoritatively the African character
of capoeira. Unable to corroborate the Angolan artist’s observation, prac-
titioners of capoeira, supported by Câmara Cascudo, took at face value the
claim about the N’golo as the ancestor of capoeira. Cascudo was the closest
to Neves e Souza, and he further elaborated the characteristics of the N’golo
in his correspondence with the Angolan artist (Assunção 2005: 51–52). Maya
Talmon-Chvaicer cites another quote from Cascudo’s book Folklore do
Brasil that she attributes to Neves e Souza; here references to the N’golo are
connected to the female initiation ritual called Efundula:

The Mucope in southern Angola have the zebra dance—the n’golo—performed

in the course of the Efundula—the girls’ rite of passage, when they stop being
muficuemas—young girls—and become young women, ready to marry and bear
children. The boy who wins in the n’golo can choose his wife among the new el-
igible brides without having to pay a dowry. The n’golo is capoeira. The slaves
who came from the tribes that went there [to Brazil] through the trading port of
Benguela, took with them the foot-fighting tradition. With time, what was first

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 21

a tribal tradition became a defensive and offensive weapon for survival in a hos-
tile environment. . . . Another reason that convinces me that capoeira originated
in Angola is that hoodlums in Brazil play an instrument called the berimbau,
which we call n’bolumbumba or hungu, depending on the place, which is played
[in Africa] by the herdsmen. (Cascudo cited in Talmon-Chvaicer 2008: 154–55)

Although these narratives about the N’golo fall into an Afrocentric ideologi-
cal frame, they have been used by adepts of capoeira Angola and intellectuals
to confirm the authentic African heritage of the martial art. Some authors,
such as Desch-Obi, have elaborated more fully on the relationship between
African rituals and dances and the practice of capoeira in Brazil. Talmon-
Chvaicer (2008: 29) mentions, for instance: “Desch-Obi argues that capoeira
originated in the Imbangala tribe of southern Angola, where boys practiced
the engolo to improve their physical fitness, to prepare for battle. And to
acquire high status among men, as well as courtship.” As emphatic as it may
sound, the problem with this and other similar affirmations is the lack of em-
pirical evidence to sustain them. For instance, Cascudo went to Angola and
could not find the N’golo or some of Neves e Souza’s other ritual references.
Nevertheless, these views have an impact on the way capoeira leaders con-
ceive their practice and their ancestry, and therefore we cannot dismiss them
as pure fantasy or as imaginary projections.
Anthropologist Lowell Lewis, who wrote one of the most significant books
on capoeira in English, also mentions the reference to the N’golo as the origin
of capoeira. However, he is skeptical about the hypothesis of Neves e Souza
and does not take it for granted: “Thus far I have found no reference to the
Mucope in the anthropological literature, but Loeb . . . discusses an efundula
ritual, also a female initiation, among the Kuanayama Ambo in an area (now
Namibia) considerably south of the Angolan port of Luanda” (Lewis 1992:
25). Although Lewis views with suspicion the argument about the N’golo
as the origin of capoeira, he acknowledges that there are fighting dances in
other parts of Africa that resemble capoeira, and some words and references
in capoeira music use African names in African languages (Lewis 1992: 26;
see also Downey 2005: 64–65).
Be that as it may, the support given by some respected intellectuals to
Neves e Souza’s hypothesis that the N’golo was the ancestor of capoeira
provided legitimacy to the continuity of essentialist traits in capoeira. Angola
mestres used this affirmation of the African ancestry of the martial art to in-
stitute it as part of a particular cosmology. This descent explains why many
Angola academies have logos with zebras (Talmon-Chvaicer 2008: 155), ref-
erences to the drawings of Neves e Souza, and the Angolan national flag. By
bringing together Afro-Brazilian references like orixás (Candomblé deities)

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 22 Chapter One

and images of slaves or Maroons, capoeira leaders elaborate narratives about

their ancestry by adopting different cultural imaginaries.
Mestres love to talk about the origins of capoeira, and they are aware that
the standard mythological explanation of the N’golo satisfies the curiosity
of many capoeira students around the globe. The connection with Africa
provides a political and religious Afro-Brazilian discourse in Angola acad-
emies. In the late 1980s, for instance, two of the most politically oriented
groups in Bahia, the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho (GCAP), led
by Mestre Moraes, and the Associacão de Capoeira Angola Navio Negreiro
(ACANNE), directed by Mestre Renê Bittencourt, mentioned the importance
of using capoeira in the fight for Black resistance and as a means of spiritual
awakening. Mestre Moraes highlights the importance of the African connec-
tion to capoeira and refers to the N’golo:

Generally speaking, people are inquisitive about the religiosity of capoeira and
ask: “is there any connection between capoeira and religion?” It is very difficult
to answer this question, but it is possible when we situate capoeira as a cultural
manifestation inherited from Africans. Capoeira as a practice of the African
Man, based on an African Ancestry becomes part of that religiosity. Capoeira
songs are full of praying and askance made to that sacred world beyond the
roda. . . . [C]apoeira has its origins in an African initiation ritual for women. It
is an unquestionable thesis, that capoeira has its origins in Africa, specifically
in Angola. Therefore, capoeira is not a manifestation of Brazilian culture. But
then it comes the question “Why there is no capoeira in Angola?.” One of the
most researched questions that the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho has
undertaken is precisely about these origins. We discover that the N’GOLO is
an initiation cultural manifestation from southern Angola, which has physical
movements very similar to those of traditional capoeira Angola. In Africa, there
is a marriage tradition requesting a dowry, and the N’GOLO was a way of ex-
empting the groom from the dowry. The groom, in fact, would be the one who
could show a better physical performance during the ceremony of the N’GOLO.
(Moraes, quoted in Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho and Associação de
Capoeira Navio Negreiro 1989: 34–35)

This quote indicates that Moraes was acquainted with Neves e Souza’s nar-
rative, perhaps via Cascudo. Moraes adds a more stylized story that merges
the African connection with a particular form of religiosity as part of the
foundational myth of capoeira. In chapter 4 I address the religious founda-
tions of capoeira Angola in detail. For the time being, I am interested in
showing how the fascination for the origins of capoeira finds its best answer
in the hypothesis of the N’golo. Although one can dismiss this association
as lacking evidence, it serves to bring an “authentic” African legitimacy
to capoeira Angola. However, not all mestres of capoeira Angola have

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 23

the certainty that Moraes professes about the movement’s African origins.
Mestre Renê Bittencourt, for instance, remains slightly skeptical about di-
rect transplantation of capoeira into Brazil via the survivals of the N’golo.
For him, the connection to Brazilian slavery is as important as the connec-
tion to Africa (pers. comm.). It is on this ignominious Brazilian past that we
focus now, as I follow the role discourses on slavery have had in the social
imaginaries of capoeira Angola academies.

SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION, AND ZUMBI DOS PALMARES

If the N’golo offered a foundational mythical narrative to capoeira, the con-

nection of the martial art with slavery and emancipation provided it with a
political and subversive character that remains until today. Independently of
styles, practitioners and intellectuals have considered capoeira during most of
the twentieth century and into the new millennium as a form of resistance and
as a weapon to fight against oppression. In this section, I describe some of
the perceptions that mestres and academics have about slavery, emancipation,
and the subversive character of capoeira.
Bearing in mind that the formal history of the martial art varies according
to the region one studies, I will concentrate on the development of capoeira
in Bahia, which is often considered to be where capoeira originated in Brazil
(Vassallo 2003). Although little documented historical information exists
about capoeira in Bahia before 1864, practitioners all over the world consider
this region to be the Mecca of capoeira. Curiously, we find the most valuable
historical documentation about the martial art before 1930 in Rio de Janeiro
because of police records, notes in journals, and outstanding historical work
by historians such as Eugênio Libano Soares (2001).
Recent historical research in Rio de Janeiro, São Paolo, and other Brazil-
ian cities has documented the complexities of the historical development of
capoeira in Brazil (Almeida et al. 2007, Cunha 2011, Leal 2008, Melo 2013,
Reis 2000, Silva 2007). These works have contributed to the immaterial
heritage status that UNESCO bestowed to capoeira in 2014. In chapter 6, I
describe the importance of the intangible heritage of capoeira and the effects
it has had on the perception of this art globally. For the time being I want
to mention that the history of capoeira today should be considered in all its
diversity; there are multiple histories of capoeira and various regional devel-
opments that make the art unique and invaluable.
The lack of historical records in Bahia before 1864 fuels theories and
imaginary associations with capoeira and its slavery past. Because few things
can be corroborated, nothing can be discredited—so it seems that everything

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 24 Chapter One

goes. Within this diversity of histories, the foundational myth of the N’golo
and the reference to slavery and emancipation serve as unifiers that bring new
meanings to an art that has changed dramatically in the last twenty years as
a result of globalization. My interest is describing how capoeira leaders and
some academics refer to the slavery past of Brazil and the emancipation that
capoeira supposedly provoked.
One such narrative is from Mestre João Pequeno (João Pereira dos San-
tos), who died in 2011 and was a disciple of Mestre Pastinha. João Pequeno
was until his death one of the most famous and respected capoeira leaders of
capoeira Angola. In 2000, professor Luis Augusto Normanha Lima published
a book with fragments of interviews with João Pequeno over the years. Here
is how the old mestre referred to the past and the origins of capoeira in Brazil:

I am not a History professor, but I know from people who know . . . [that] after
Pastinha returned from Africa, he brought a painting with two figures playing
capoeira, and he said that its name in Africa was “the zebra dance.” . . . Pastinha
told me that the name capoeira happened in Brazil because Capoeira here in Bra-
zil means bushes, and the bushes were the places where people trained Capoeira.
Maroons ran away to the bushes to practice capoeira, and they fought with slave
hunters, who looked into the bushes and tried to capture the ran away slaves, so
black people defended themselves with capoeira. (Santos 2000: 29–30)

Mestre João Pequeno here follows a recurrent theme among mestres that
capoeira as we know it was started in sugarcane plantations by Maroons,
who used it to fight against slave owners and slave hunters. Daily oppression
gave few moments of respite to slaves, so in the short periods of rest they
had, they planned rebellions while pretending to play and dance. Through this
pretending, capoeira slowly formed as an art of deception and cunning. These
deeds supposedly happened in the state of Bahia. Mestre Pastinha (1988: 24)
addresses the importance of deception in capoeira’s past: “Black Africans in
Colonial Brazil were slaves, and in this inhuman condition they were not al-
lowed to use weapons or any means of self-defense, which could put at risk
the safety of their masters. In these circumstances, capoeira couldn’t develop,
so it was practiced hidden or disguised carefully as a dance and music from
their places of origin.”
The narratives of capoeira as a form of Black resistance take multiple
forms. Mestre Carlos Senna (1994: 12), a student of Mestre Bimba, says,
for instance: “The bellicosity of capoeira developed as a slave’s craving for
freedom, who through batuque—an African rhythm—developed his physical
conditioning (prowess and balance), accepting rationally, the particular irra-
tionality of the monkey, jaguar, fox, and spider’s self-defense.” The link be-
tween capoeira and animals is well-known in capoeira circles, and in another

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 25

place I have written in detail about it (González Varela 2016). Here, Senna
wants to connect the idea of fighting with the imitation of animal movements
as one of the natural origins of capoeira.
The practitioners of the Angola style have elaborated on the themes of
ancestry, Black culture, and slavery. Mestre Pastinha talks briefly about the
past in these terms:

Among African slaves who came to Bahia, the number of capoeiristas couldn’t
be small, but to reveal this attack and defense knowledge to their masters, obvi-
ously, would have brought them only disgrace. They would have been subject
to more surveillance. So, one of the oldest capoeira mestres was the Portuguese,
José Alves, a disciple of Africans, who led a group of capoeira practitioner in
the War of Palmares. The history of Capoeira begins with the arrival of the first
African slaves to Brazil. (Pastinha 1988: 24–25)

We cannot overestimate the importance of slavery in the historical devel-

opment of capoeira. It serves not only as a form of identity but also as a
context that fuels all kinds of social imaginaries. One of the most important
narratives that connect slavery and resistance in capoeira is of Zumbi dos
Palmares (1655–1695). Zumbi, a runaway slave who formed a community of
Maroons called Quilombo in Alagoas, is the symbol of Black resistance in
Brazil (Downey 2005: 66–67). He fought against the Portuguese and orga-
nized multiple rebellions; his deeds and those of the Quilombo dos Palmares
are well-documented in colonial archives and history books (Carneiro 1958).
Historian Antonio Risério (2004: 152–56) considers that the communities of
runaway slaves, or Quilombos, offered one of the few alternatives that slaves
had to resist their oppression apart from suicide and poisoning their masters.
Although today the significance of the word “Quilombo” varies widely and
it is used to forward particular political agendas (Leite 1999), for capoeira
practitioners it means liberation and an organized form of resistance.
The image of Zumbi reverberates throughout Brazil, not only in capoeira
circles, because of his status as fighting for the emancipation of slaves and
forwarding a set of ideas that foreshadowed abolitionism. During the Dia
da Consciência Negra (Black Awareness Day) on November 20 (the date of
Zumbi’s death), Brazilians commemorate the abolition of slavery, which of-
ficially occurred on May 13, and celebrate the life and deeds of Zumbi Dos
Palmares. In capoeira circles of every style, practitioners hold special events
related to Zumbi. For them, Zumbi used capoeira as a weapon to fight against
his oppressors; he was a capoeirista and taught his martial art to runaway
slaves. This story is a standard explanation found in capoeira academies.
Matthias Assunção (2005: 6) states that the connection between capoeira
and Zumbi came from different accounts by mestres who used fake quotes

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 26 Chapter One

and questionable historical material to sustain the possibility that Zumbi used
and knew the martial art back in the seventeenth century. This romantic idea,
false from a historical perspective, does not diminish its importance as a
foundational narrative about the development of capoeira in Brazil. Today, in
capoeira Angola academies, the image of Zumbi as a man who knew capoeira
is unquestionable and taken for granted. Groups, songs, and stories refer to
Zumbi as a man who fought against oppression using the skills of capoeira.
While the N’golo provided a foundational narrative about the African
character of capoeira, the association with Brazil’s slavery past and the he-
roics of Zumbi brought a specific Afro-Brazilian connotation to the martial
art—one marked by the ideas of freedom, resistance, and rebellion. Finally,
the emphasis on deception and cunning as fighting strategies exemplifies the
hidden and subversive character of capoeira as a fighting art practiced by
slaves during their scant free time. These elements have become parts of a
general social imaginary of capoeira’s distant past, and today the narratives
are fundamental to the traditional Afro-Brazilian discourses found in Angola
academies and beyond.

BESOURO, THE FLYING BEETLE:

A METAPHOR OF INVULNERABILITY

The story of Besouro, the flying beetle, represents a third mythological nar-
rative of capoeira’s past. This tale is part of the local imaginaries of capoeira
that explains cunning and bodily closure from a religious point of view.
Bodily closure refers here to the ability that capoeira leaders have to remain
physically closed to any form of vulnerability in a roda and in their daily
lives. The narrative of Besouro is also one of the most popular descriptions
that relate humans and animals. I base my account on the oral and written tra-
dition of Angola mestres that I have collected through the years. I also draw
on a book by Antônio Liberac Pires in which he discusses the historicity of
Besouro and on a master’s thesis by Jonalva Da Silva in which she analyzes
the representation of Besouro in popular culture.
The legend of Besouro is part of the traditions of the Northeast and has
appeared in short stories, art, and recently a film under his name (Da Silva
2010). Mestres narrate the tale of Besouro in the following manner. At the
end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century,
there was a bandit, a marginal character who embodied the arts of cunning
and trickery; his name was Besouro. He knew capoeira and had problems
with the police, whose efforts to arrest him always failed spectacularly. Be-
souro was a practitioner of the religion of Candomblé, and people feared him

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 27

because they thought he had special magic powers that protected him from
danger. Among these forces were the capacity to close his body (as capoeira
players do in their performances) and the ability to transform into a flying
beetle. By closing his body, Besouro appeared invulnerable to gunshots,
stabbings, and injuries. Any time he faced the police and was on the verge of
being captured, he was able to escape by disappearing into thin air (in fact, he
turned into a beetle and flew away), leaving the police perplexed and flum-
moxed. His magic protection, however, brought him many enemies. In the
narrative that Mestre João Pequeno (who said that Besouro was his father’s
cousin) told me during my fieldwork, Besouro appears as a fearsome pres-
ence in capoeira performances, where even the most dangerous troublemak-
ers had respect for him.
Multiple versions of Besouro’s death abound in the oral tradition of the
Northeast. Some mention his death by a farmer who ordered his assassina-
tion in an ambush, using the same cunning techniques of the flying beetle.
The farmer in question gives a piece of paper to Besouro, instructing him to
deliver it to another farmer in another town. The second farmer welcomes
Besouro and reads the message, which contains the instructions for getting
rid of Besouro once and for all. In this version Besouro is illiterate, so he is
unaware of the farmer’s plans to kill him. The next day, a woman seduces
Besouro, and they have sexual relations. Through sexual intercourse, Besouro
remains exposed, vulnerable, open to attacks, and unable to use his power to
turn himself into a beetle. That same night, the woman stabs Besouro in the
heart with a knife made of ticum—a type of wood extracted from a palm tree
core, hard as steel (Cruz 2006: 195–96).
Antônio Liberac Pires offers more formal historical accounts about the real
existence of Besouro. In his book Bimba, Pastinha e Besouro de Mangangá,
Pires embarks on a search for evidence about the legendary figure of Besouro
in the city of Santo Amaro, in the interior of the state of Bahia, where people
said he was born. Pires compiled a list of oral testimonies that old people
there gave about Besouro in the 1990s. From these statements, Pires discov-
ers that social memory about the flying beetle is still present and strong in
Santo Amaro. According to Pires, Besouro’s real name was Manoel Henrique
Pereira, and he was born in 1885 (Pires 2002: 17–18). The people Pires inter-
viewed called him “Besouro de Mangangá” and “Besouro Cordão de Oro.”
The oral testimonies that Pires collected mention that Besouro worked
on the docks, was a cooper, and was an excellent capoeira player. One of
the people providing a testimony even claims to have learned capoeira from
Besouro. Pires, however, tells us that there is no information about anyone
named Manoel Henrique Pereira in the police or birth records in Santo
Amaro. This situation disheartens Pires, who decides to go to Salvador to

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 28 Chapter One

continue his search. There, he finally gets hold of police records that men-
tion the name of Pereira as a second sergeant of a battalion. The name is
associated with conflicts between the local police and the battalion led by
Henrique Pereira. In a couple of other written police records, Pereira appears
as a troublemaker who had conflicts with police; the documents indicate that
Pereira was dismissed from the army because of his problems with the local
authorities (Pires 2002: 28–29).
What is interesting about the accounts described by Pires is the brief part
related to Besouro’s death. Pires found Besouro’s 1924 obituary and other
contentious versions of his death. In one case, the oral tradition says that one
of his friends who had invited him to dance samba betrayed him; in another
version, the police kill him (Pires 2002: 29). One source mentioned that
Besouro was accused of attempted murder in 1921. What is striking about
the related police records is that Pereira’s nickname “Besouro” is printed
on some of the official documents. This certifies Besouro as a real human
being. The Pereira’s obituary, written in 1924, is motivated by the desire to
close the prosecution’s attempted murder file, and it reads like this: “Manuel
Henrique, dark mulatto, single, 24 years old, born in Urupy, resident of Usina
Maracangalha, profession cowboy, entered here on the 8 July 1924 at 10:30
am, having died [later] at 7 pm from a stab wound in the abdomen” (obituary
reproduced in Pires 2002: 32; see also Da Silva 2010: 17).
For Pires, the coincidences between the oral mythological narrative and
documented written history are remarkable. Although the fantastic transfor-
mation into a flying beetle is absent from the written records, his actual death
due to a stab wound resembles the narrative of the knife attack in an ambush
(see also Da Silva 2010: 82). The secrecy surrounding the real circumstance
of Besouro’s death is another marker of his mysterious and elusive character.
As little is known about his death, people have created all sorts of theories
about why, where, and how Besouro was fatally wounded. The social imagi-
nary of the “real” Besouro falls into the standard narrative we find about
the lives and deeds of capoeira practitioners in the early twentieth century.
These were individuals who belonged to the margins of Bahian society, who
frequented or inhabited the underworld of crime and illegality and were in
constant conflict with the authorities (Dias 2006). Most of these players were
Afro-Brazilians, although immigrants, mestizos, and white people took part
in the social environment of capoeira too.
Anthropologically speaking, Besouro’s narrative is a tale about the corpo
fechado (closed body), an essential element in the cosmology of capoeira
and Candomblé (Da Silva 2010: 41). This cosmological principle states that
persons can close their bodies spiritually and physically against misfortune,
danger, and death. Mestres of capoeira Angola become experts not only in

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 29

the arts of deception but also in remaining closed against attacks by rivals
and enemies inside and outside capoeira performances. The animal references
to Besouro evoke human feats of prowess, cunning, and invulnerability. As
part of the social projections that capoeira mestres create about the past, the
story of Besouro is also a metaphor of specific material properties of beetles,
such as the hardness of their exoskeletons and their capacity to fly away
from danger. In this way, human and animal properties provoke the desire
of humans to transcend their physical constraints and become one with the
animal. This identification does not come from a real encounter between hu-
mans and beetles but from a mode of identification that projects conceptually
the animal shape with human attributes. The intensity with which capoeira
practitioners identify with beetles and with the story of Besouro depends on
the level of knowledge that these practitioners have about capoeira and their
experience in the rodas.
Besouro’s narrative is as important as the African and slavery references.
Besouro is alive in the memory that capoeira mestres preserve about their his-
tory. It is understandable then that old capoeira mestres want to claim a direct
connection with the flying beetle. As I have shown briefly at the beginning of
this section, Mestre João Pequeno said that Besouro was his father’s cousin.
In the same vein, Mestre Cobrinha Verde, a contemporary of João Pequeno
and native from Santo Amaro, also tells us that he learned capoeira from
Besouro; Besouro was his mestre and was related to him:

Besouro, my mestre, began teaching me capoeira when I was four years old. His
dad’s name was João, his last name Grosso, his mom Maria Haifa. Maria Haifa
was my aunt. Besouro was my carnal cousin and my brother. My mom raised
him. . . . At the time, Besouro taught capoeira to his students hidden from po-
lice, because they harassed him a lot. When he was agitated because the police
arrived to arrest him, he rebelled, told his students to run away, and fought the
police all by himself. (Santos 1991: 12)

Cobrinha Verde died in 1982, so there is no way to probe or disqualify

his statement, which he left in his memoirs compiled by Marcelino Santos
(1991). Nonetheless, the oral tradition of capoeira acknowledges the connec-
tion between Cobrinha Verde and Besouro (Abib 2004: 160). As Pastinha
taught capoeira to João Pequeno, João Pequeno’s association with Besouro
has passed relatively unnoticed. Capoeira practitioners remember Besouro
mainly in capoeira songs and through the Literatura de Cordel (Cordel litera-
ture), pamphlets summarizing folklore tales, novels, poems, and short stories.
It is by using these artistic means that the memory of Besouro has survived
the test of time and continues to fascinate local and foreign capoeira practi-
tioners in their quest for the ancestry of the Angola style.

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 30 Chapter One

EVOKING A VIOLENT PAST

The fourth type of narrative that complements references to the African and
Afro-Brazilian origins of capoeira relates to ideas about capoeira’s violent
past. As practitioners conceive the martial art in Bahia as a form of resistance
used to fight against the oppressors of slaves, violence is constantly evoked.
Many mestres, who experienced the violent period of capoeira in the first de-
cades of the twentieth century, mentioned that the Afro-Brazilian art played
in the streets before the reformation of Bimba and Pastinha was extremely
violent. They said that performances happened mainly during carnival and
other local celebrations. Therefore, anybody could show up and participate.
Many did so under the influence of alcohol; others came as members of gangs
and armed with knives or even guns. Mestres often said that the self-orga-
nization of capoeira gatherings was precarious, and there were no rules for
avoiding open fights. Infamous troublemakers and marginal characters did
not always respect the art of deception and feigning attacks and saw capoeira
as a weapon to solve personal disputes and vendettas.
Mestre Pastinha, in the opening words of his book, warns the reader that
the capoeira players at the beginning of the twentieth century were violent
troublemakers who terrorized the streets of Salvador. He lamented that this
infamous reputation still permeated the general public’s perception about
capoeira in the 1940s (Pastinha 1988: 17–18). As I mentioned earlier, many
of the efforts to reform capoeira stem from the desire to formalize it as a pro-
fession with particular rules, styles, and codes of discipline. These attempts
sought to eradicate the associations of capoeira with marginality, criminality,
and gang culture. Although Pastinha’s and Bimba’s projects did not promote
violence, they referred to the violent past of capoeira as a reminder of the
dangerous possibilities of the martial art. In this section, I describe the dif-
ferent ways mestres and academics talk about the violent past of capoeira as
another type of mythological narrative surrounding capoeira.
At the core of my discussion is the concept of possible or latent violence.
Capoeira privileges deception and cunning as fighting strategies and does
not incite direct blows or feats of open force. Whatever happens in per-
formance, particularly of capoeira Angola, must occur using artful bodily
skills to defeat an adversary. Therefore, violence remains always a potential
that rarely materializes. Violence creates a tension that characterizes the
protective strategies of the closed body. As capoeira sometimes uses spiri-
tual means to attack an opponent, people need to be prepared to face poten-
tial aggression and use the same spirituality as a means of defense. The idea
that violence is an integral part of capoeira, although one that rarely occurs
today in Angola circles, is still present among practitioners. Thus, the nar-

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 31

Figure 1.1. Capoeira players at Fundação Internacional de Capoeira Angola (FICA),

Bahia, Brazil.
Photo: Sergio González Varela. Date: July 17, 2006.

ratives about the violent past are often romanticized, creating an image of
dangerousness that is part of capoeira’s local imaginaries. Greg Downey
(2005: 103) characterizes the feeling of dangerousness in capoeira’s history
as part of its “sinister” past: “Historical references to violent events, and the
sinister sense of foreboding that they summon, help maintain the delicate
balance between creative playfulness and mortal seriousness that makes the
game at once so ambiguous and compelling.”
This romantic view of violence appears in mestres’ narratives. For in-
stance, when discussing whether violence was necessary or not in capoeira,
Mestre Canjiquinha, one of the most famous capoeira Angola teachers of all
time, mentioned that everything depended on the context. Inside the acad-
emy, there was no violence because there was control. In the streets, it was
another story: anyone could play capoeira, and adversaries could come with
evil intentions and use force as a strategy. Thus, one had to be smart to avoid
violence in a street performance (Silva 1989: 32). Canjiquinha confesses that
he never saw or heard of a person being killed with capoeira moves but that
his Mestre Aberrê died in a roda after he overate rice and beans and choked
when doing a cartwheel (Silva 1989: 27–28).

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 32 Chapter One

Canjiquinha, who did not like the differentiation between Angola and
Regional, considered that those close to the Regional variant tended to have
more violent encounters. He complained that violence sometimes eclipsed
cunning and shrewdness, and he did not like that kind of competitive
capoeira. Today, from what I have seen, open violence happens more in street
rodas1 and Regional or Contemporary performances than in Angola ones. Be
that as it may, violence as a possibility remains an integral part of the local
imaginaries about the dangerousness of capoeira.
Adriana Albert Dias argues that the meaning of violence in the early twen-
tieth century depended on the distinction between social order and life in
the streets. The opposition between an ideal society and the street culture of
Salvador produced a struggle that politicians at the time tried to sort out by
eliminating those they considered troublesome individuals (Dias 2006: 26).
Those individuals who made their lives in the streets, did not have formal
jobs, and took part in public disputes threatened the “peace” of the elites.
Therefore, politicians initiated “cleansing” campaigns to get rid of disor-
deiros (troublemakers), valentões (tough guys), and vagabundos (vagrants).
Through written testimonies such as those of Pastinha and Mestre Noronha,
people got to know some of the most infamous and violent capoeira players
of the beginning of the twentieth century. Most of the conflicts among capoei-
ristas happened in the streets, during or after performances. At the time, Dias
explains, the word “capoeira” referred to something very different from what
people practice today. In a personal communication before his death in 2013,
Frederico de Abreu told me that the differentiation and stylization of capoeira
took decades to develop, so we should be aware that the capoeira played in
the early twentieth century was utterly distinct from what we see in the pres-
ent. According to Greg Downey, the evocation of a violent past reminisced
in songs, rituals, and the dynamics of the game brings an intense temporal
experience that reminds people capoeira is not only a game but also a fight
with severe consequences (Downey 2005: 113).
The stories shared in Angola groups about violence activate the virtual
potential of its emergence in practice. I have seen many capoeira encounters
that seemed to be on the verge of ending in a fight. However, opponents man-
aged to control their bodies and tempers and ended their interaction under
the rules of deception and cunning. This control does not mean that violence
never occurs; there are instances where violence ends a game, particularly in
the streets. In capoeira Regional and Contemporânea, the situation is slightly
different. Because of the focus on competition and physical skill, violence
may become a real problem in these rodas, whether in closed spaces or on
the streets. I have seen videos on YouTube in which performances ended in
brawls and with people injured. In these cases, violence passed from virtual

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 33

potential to materialization in practice. This situation has consequences: it

intensifies rivalries and brings a negative image to capoeira globally. Many
of the comments found in these videos condemn the use of open violence and
lament the excessive focus on competition and fighting. In the end, the blame
lies not only with the players involved in the fight but also with the mestres
who allowed it to happen. Because mestres embody the rules of capoeira,
they need to keep violence under control. Perhaps this is one of the reasons
why violence rarely materializes in Angola performances in Bahía. Mestres
are in charge and do not allow players to continue if they want to fight. Mes-
tres are the embodiment of tradition, and practitioners do not dispute their
authority in these matters. Mestres’ awareness of deception as a fundamental
strategy dictates the game, and they sanction anything that strays from that
path. Nevertheless, the virtual potential of violence is always there, and one
cannot dismiss it. It is part of capoeira’s history and tradition.

THE AGENCY OF LOCAL IMAGINARIES

The passion for origins, the N’golo, Zumbi dos Palmares and slavery, the tale
of Besouro, and the evocation of violence are local forms of capoeira imaginar-
ies. As I describe in chapter 3, social imaginaries emerge as a combination of
collective conventions and individual creations and should not be considered
falsehoods (see Wagner 1981). In the examples shown above, local imaginar-
ies are latent narratives in a world of possibilities, of potencies that may appear
in a capoeira performance. These local imaginaries are part of the culture of
capoeira, and their true or false status is irrelevant for their virtual character.
In this sense, these imaginaries have agency. They are not only representations
but also techniques that may appear in the world. As Bruce Kapferer (2006:
674) states: “I stress virtuality as a direct and immediate entrance into the
processes of reality and their formation. Reality is not set apart, as it were, or
re-presented so that it might be reflexively explored. Rather, the virtuality of
ritual, and ritual as a technology of the virtual, descends into the very reality
it appears to represent, the very representations it engages being a technology
for doing so.” Virtuality as a set of coordinates for understanding the reality
of ritual practices produces capoeira’s local imaginaries, which infiltrate the
frame of reference for a discussion about tradition and cosmology. As I show
in chapters 4 and 5, these narratives form part of the religious foundations of
capoeira Angola and the worshipping of the ancestors. They do not model
reality; they set the possibilities for engagement with it (Kapferer 2006: 676).
My use of the concept of local imaginaries discussed in this chapter is
slightly different from the “tourism imaginaries” that I refer to in chapter

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 34 Chapter One

3, where I use the concept to frame the relationship between a student and
a teacher in capoeira groups. Here, the local imaginaries are narratives that
provide a virtual configuration of the potentialities of capoeira through time
and space. When I say that these stories have agency I mean that they affect
practice directly. They create beings that may or may not appear in perfor-
mance and are not illusory; they are concrete elements that provide help and
protection to a practitioner in certain circumstances.
A couple of examples will illustrate my point. The academy of Mestre Renê
Bittencourt, Academia de Capoeira Angola Navio Negreiro (ACANNE), in
the Rua de Sodré in the center of Salvador, Bahia, has a wall adorned with im-
ages of orixás, the Candomblé deities that offer protection to their disciples.
On the opposite wall, there is a mural of Renê’s mestre Paulo dos Anjos, who
died in 1999. This mural lies exactly behind the music ensemble that hosts
the roda, giving the impression that Mestre Paulo dos Anjos is looking at the
roda from a higher vantage point. When I asked Renê about these images, he
said that the orixás were there to offer him spiritual protection. The mural of
Paulo dos Anjos, however, had a more personal meaning. Paulo was there as
a witness of the roda, as a symbol of Renê’s ancestry and a reminder of his
debt to his lineage of knowledge. Orixás and the mural of Paulo dos Anjos
are images evoking capoeira’s past. They are virtual imaginaries that have
agency in performance and affect the dynamics of practice.
A second similar example comes from a description of the FICA Bahia
headquarters found in Lauren Griffith’s book In Search of Legitimacy:

The personality of this group is instantly evident upon stepping out of the eleva-
tor. The bright yellow columns have been painted with black patterns: serpents
on one, perhaps a nod to Mestre Cobra Mansa’s name sake, and zebra stripes
on another, the zebra being a legendary animal in the origin myths of capoeira
and a nod to the group’s Africanist orientation. . . . The left wall has been nearly
covered in a giant mural of the orixás, Candomblé deities, surrounding a wa-
terfall. In the far right corner of the room is a large framed chart that traces the
lineage of selected capoeira mestres. All other open spaces have been covered
with framed photographs of current capoeira mestres, as well as historical pho-
tographs and documents. (Griffith 2016: 9)

Here again, we have a description that stresses visual imagery, where al-
lusions to deities and spiritual beings coexist with the local imaginaries of
capoeira’s ancestry, lineages, and history. These images constitute visual
narratives that evoke the virtual effect of capoeira as a ritual practice. They
signal the cosmology of capoeira and part of its spiritual substance. The
lyrics in which we find descriptions of capoeira’s historical epic past, the
poetics of social memory, and the tragedy of slavery are also elements that

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 History, Mythology, and the Local Imaginaries of Capoeira 35

have agency. Songs are virtual possibilities that actualize the past in the
present of capoeira performances.
Local imaginaries are a byproduct of the virtual possibilities of ritual. They
emerge and take shape as narratives that concretize the power of African and
Afro-Brazilian images as expressive forms of preserving a tradition. Besouro
and Zumbi, for instance, live in the way of capoeira lyrics, in the oral tradi-
tion of cunning, trickery, and malice. They are images that motivate people to
continue practicing capoeira and to connect to a distant past. The local imagi-
naries of capoeira are also parts of a social memory that refuses to disappear
in Bahia. They influence the way practitioners remember and commemorate
the lives and deeds of dead leaders. When mestres die, they become ancestral
beings whose spirits hover over the capoeira rodas. They become spectators
and may affect the development of a performance by altering their disciples
emotionally. We turn next to how these local imaginaries translate today in a
global context marked by constant mobility.

NOTE

1. A street roda refers to a public display of capoeira in a square or a famous

city place. During these performances, any person can participate, and there is less
control of the audience. Typically, a street roda carries more risk for a practitioner
because the interaction could be more violent and the mestre in charge may incite
rivals to play more aggressively than in an enclosed place. It is common say that
you play in a street roda only if you feel confident that your skills are enough to
survive a possibly hostile environment.

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19_0234-Varela.indb 36 4/26/19 7:59 AM
 Chapter Two

Global Expansion:
Making Sense of Mobility

This chapter is about the importance of mobility in capoeira. What interests

me is the way capoeira leaders and advanced students plan and make possible
their global itineraries. Although most of the leaders I refer to in this book
come from Salvador, Bahia, and belong to the Angola variant, my discussion
is not limited to a specific geographical location nor does it focus on just one
capoeira style. Rather, I examine the multiple trajectories delineated by lead-
ers and capoeira students in their quest for international exposure, teasing out
understandings of seasonal or permanent mobility as a way of life.
Mobility as a conceptual anthropological category will be the primary
guide in this effort. Mobility is not just another instance of curious ethno-
graphic data that we encounter in the field and need to document. On the
contrary, constant movement sets up its own pace and agenda, reconfiguring
the meaning of cultural life and social relations. It is a methodological chal-
lenge to tackle the issue of mobility from a traditional ethnographic perspec-
tive. Because people move constantly, we lose control of the familiar meth-
odological tools we use to describe a changing social reality. When people
set up a new itinerary, we either follow them as long as we can or find ways
to keep in touch. Without losing the significance of such constant displace-
ment for the people who are traveling, I want to trace the connections that
individuals create in a world where they move from place to place, teaching
their art as they go.
The mobility of capoeira practitioners demands a different sense of scale.
We do not talk any longer of a city, a region, or even a country. Indeed, places
of origin are relevant, but they do not explain the new experience that people
gain through mobility. In this new mobilities paradigm, constant movement
changes people’s minds and behaviors. It expands their horizons and makes
them reflect on their culture, backgrounds, and future selves. In this chapter,
37

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 38 Chapter Two

I describe a few trajectories of mobility among capoeira leaders I met during

my nomadic life on two continents. Some of these stories start in Salvador,
but others began elsewhere in Brazil or, in some instances, took place abroad.
The first three sections describe the analytical and methodological implica-
tions of the anthropology of mobility and how anthropologists have addressed
the issue of displacement ethnographically. Here I draw on recent work in
the anthropology of migration, framing the context of movement of capoeira
Angola practitioners within the anthropology of mobility and highlighting its
importance for a relational anthropology that depends on innovative ways of
creating social networks.
The next sections sketch a brief history of the mobility of capoeira prac-
titioners. I describe the origins of such global itineraries through narratives
of capoeira Angola players and tales from practitioners of other styles who
helped develop the global capoeira scene we see today.
The remaining parts of the chapter describe two different cases of mobility
among capoeira Angola practitioners, looking at their global experiences, how
they built their microcosm abroad, how leaving their hometowns helped them
economically and politically, and, finally, the repercussions of their absence
back home. What interests me is how these practitioners preserved and con-
tinued an Afro-Brazilian tradition despite cultural differences and challenges.
Finally, I argue that the issue of mobility influences today the influx of
capoeira tourists in Brazil. Here I mention the importance of describing the
social relations that capoeira practitioners create in different levels: locally,
regionally, and internationally. Such levels are influenced by the advent of
social media, the Internet, and the itineraries made possible by global transit.

MOBILITY, COSMOPOLITANISM, AND GLOBALIZATION

Though mobility has played a significant role in the history of anthropology,

the consequences of its impact ethnographically demand a methodological re-
vision. People migrate and move daily, seasonally, or yearly. Some do it only
once; others are forced to run away from their hometowns because of war,
famine, or economic collapse. Many have refused to move at all. Noel Salazar
(2016) has recently described the different meanings of the word “mobil-
ity”. He argues, “Mobility studies call attention to the myriad ways in which
people become part, in highly unequal ways, of multiple translocal networks
and linkages” (Salazar 2016: 2). There is not one single definition of mobility
as an analytical concept that can explain social reality. People are displaced;
in some cases this is voluntary and in others involuntary. Those who decide to
leave or move voluntarily between continents, countries, or cities may find a

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 39

better life and an improvement of their economic and social status; they may
become “cosmopolitans,” as Ulf Hannerz (2006) says.
Hannerz argues that the discussion of cosmopolitanism is intrinsic to
the problem of voluntary mobility and tourism for work and leisure. He
reminds us of the two facets of cosmopolitanism: cultural and political.
For him, both fronts played a significant role in the years after the fall of
the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union (Hannerz 2006: 8–9). An
emerging new process that became known in intellectual circles as global-
ization gave origin to cosmopolitan citizens and their itinerant predisposi-
tions. Concomitant to a positive and homogenizing response to the effects
of these global forces, cosmopolitanism became associated with values like
multiculturalism and respect for cultural diversity; it turned into a political
alternative to nationalism and patriotism. In this sense, Hannerz (2006: 11)
mentions an elective affinity between cultural and political cosmopolitan-
ism. Those professing a cosmopolitan cultural attitude would be more open
to experiencing cultural diversity and would create mechanisms of inclusiv-
ity and tolerance. Hannerz (2006: 14) contrasts these two types of cosmo-
politanisms as expressing different feelings: “Political cosmopolitanism is
often a cosmopolitanism with a worried face, trying to come to grips with
very large problems. But cosmopolitanism in its cultural dimension may
be a cosmopolitanism with a happy face, enjoying new sights, sounds and
tastes, new people. And in combination, and merging with one another, they
may be that thick form of cosmopolitanism, where experience and symbol-
ism can motivate identification and a will to action.” Cosmopolitanism and
mobility go hand in hand. These two concepts appear as consequences of
globalization and the free flow of cultural goods, people, and traits. Ini-
tially, the fascination with globalization led anthropologists to focus on its
external features, which enhanced a romantic view of cultural homogeneity
that shrank time and space as organizational principles. Marc Augé was one
of the first anthropologists to hold a relatively positive view of globaliza-
tion. He saw it as a sign of contemporary life that marked the acceleration
of history, the proliferation of information, and the exchange of dominant
cultural features (Augé 1998a). All this happened before the rise of the
Internet and the turn of the new millennium. For Augé, one of the external
signs of globalization in the early 1990s was the intensification of mobility
and the emergence of a new kind of cosmopolitan social actor who transited
through contexts devoid of meaning. He called these areas “nonplaces,”
anonymous zones of transit where people rejected specific forms of belong-
ing and attachment (Augé 1995). Augé viewed the nonplaces of mobility
as characteristic of what he called “supermodernity,” an early synonym for
globalization. Nonplaces became an index of an excess of modernity and

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 40 Chapter Two

its immediate effects (Augé 1995: 29). Nonplaces were an example of the
“spatial overabundance of the present” (Augé 1995: 34).
Augé talked more deeply about the anthropology of mobility about a de-
cade after his writings on nonplaces and supermodernity (Augé 2007). In a
small book published in Spanish, he returns to the problems of mobility as
characteristic of supermodernity. He explicitly says that “it is necessary to add
that supermodern mobility is a consequence of the ideology of the system of
globalization: an ideology of appearance, of evidence and the present” (Augé
2007: 16). This thinking relates to concepts Augé considers essential to the
definition of mobility, such as borders, migration, travel, and utopia. Each of
these components sets up the machinations and trajectories of movement.
Borders signify zones of transit (Augé 2007: 21), liminal spaces that
confront the traveler with the Other (human, nonhuman, or imaginary). For
Augé, borders are temporal, open-ended projects that change meaning histori-
cally. They are markers that divide centers and peripheries in culture. For the
French anthropologist, boundaries do not always mean the deployment of
physical barriers that separate people. On the contrary, they indicate zones
of possibility, transgression, and intense experience. In essence, we could
interpret Augé’s concept of borders as contexts of possible intelligibility, of
trajectories of meaning.
Migration, the second characteristic of mobility, responds to the contextual
dimension of the present, of people living in urban agglomeration, where
individuals migrated from rural areas or other countries. Augé mentions that
the attraction of the city is vital for those who migrate; it is part of people’s
cosmopolitan endeavors to find a sense of belonging to a modernity that
could offer economic possibilities and personal advantages (Augé 2007:
38–39). The final destination of many migrants is a city where they have
relatives or personal connections. However, Augé warns the reader that cities
have divisions; they have internal frontiers, barriers that segregate people and
that become a microcosm for all the existing cultural and social problems of
exclusion and discrimination. The sharp divisions in a city expose the peril-
ous logic of mobility and serve as a reminder that not all types of mobility
are equally valuable.
The third characteristic of modern mobility is tourism. For Augé, tourism
is a negative consequence of supermodernity, an example of the excesses of
mobility (see also Augé 1998b, 2003). He highlights sightseeing as a super-
ficial and grotesque spectacle: “Our times are characterized by a contrast as
surprising as it is terrible, because tourists tend to visit the countries from
where immigrants are forced to leave, in difficult conditions and, sometimes,
risking their lives” (Augé 2007: 62). There are several prejudices in Augé’s
perception of tourism that need further discussion and that represent an

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 41

ethnocentric perspective on the tourists (Cohen and Cohen 2015b). When

discussing the cosmopolitan character of global itineraries, it is important to
note cultural differences in travel.
The fourth and last characteristic of the anthropology of mobility that Augé
proposes has to do with the imaginary projection of an urban utopia of global
migration. For Augé, despite the dangers and existing conflicts in urban set-
tings, the city is still seen by migrants and travelers as a place of opportunities
and improvement. Helped by utopian visions of modernity, the images of the
city found in films, art, and mass media portray a hopeful, imaginary, and
illusory vision of mobility (Augé 2007: 77–82).
Augé links the concept of mobility to the emergence of the city as a mi-
crocosm of social life. For him, mobility is always in the present, part of the
acceleration of time and space (Augé 2007: 89). To analyze this concept as
an anthropological category means to describe the present as a flow of ener-
gies, motives, dreams, and illusions. Scholars should see the aim of mobility
as the reconfiguration of the cosmopolitan citizen: transnational individuals
never alienated by their culture of origin precisely because they are interested
in and absorbed by all cultures (Augé 2007: 92).

THE NEGATIVE SIDE OF MOBILITY

Some anthropologists have criticized the liberal ideal of mobility, cosmopoli-

tanism, and globalization presented by Hannerz and Augé. Jonathan Fried-
man (2003) and Terence Turner (2002, 2003, 2006), for instance, describe
some of the idealism that permeates globalization and mobility studies and
makes it hard to describe globalized processes critically. Notably, after the
attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, the perception of cultural
mobility changed abruptly. The free flow of information, cultural goods,
and people—elements that supposedly predicted the end of borders and the
weakening of the nation-state—experienced a rude setback with the terror-
ist attacks on American soil. Suddenly, issues of mobility and free transit
became the focus of security concerns and suspicion. Years earlier, Jonathan
Friedman (2003: viii) had already criticized the concept of globalization for
being a harbinger of a neoliberalist Western ideological agenda. He argued
that the alienation produced by neoliberalism could exacerbate feelings op-
posed to the positive free ideals of globalization.
Friedman (2003: 5–7) traces the recent development of globalization to
the history of the world system; a regional economic shift happened in the
1960s and continued for the next two decades, forming a horizontal fragmen-
tation of national values. Migration played a significant role in this process:

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 42 Chapter Two

“Migration is again a massive phenomenon in a destabilized world. But

immigrants no longer come to their new countries simply to become good
citizens. On the contrary, the ethnification of such groups has led to a strong
tendency to diasporization and to a cultural politics claiming recognition in
the public sphere. In some cases this has led to a fragmentation of a former
national unity” (Friedman 2003: 7–8). According to Friedman, mass migra-
tion produces an identification of particular ethnic values with an emerging
national identity, a new form of radical nationalism based on religion and
anti-assimilation practices. Friedman notes the need to move past a celebra-
tory view of globalization and mobility, suggesting that researchers should
focus instead on its destabilizing forces. These forces exert horizontal and
vertical polarizations between citizens and their supposed cultural integra-
tion. He explains, “The interaction of globalization and fragmentation con-
sists in driving a class wedge through the ethnic groups themselves, leading
to a whole new set of internal conflicts” (Friedman 2003: 18). It is easy to see
where this polarization has carried the world in recent years. The emergence
of radical extremism in Europe, violence against minorities, the revival of
nativist nationalism in the United States, and mass migration to Europe from
Africa and Asia are just a few examples of the consequences. Arjun Appa-
durai has condemned the assault against minorities, resulting from what he
characterizes as the fear of “small numbers” (Appadurai 2006: 40).
The late Terence Turner (2003: 37–38) also contends that the contradic-
tions at the interior of globalizing processes foment a rejection of neoliberal
values. He states that the opposition to globalization by anticosmopolitan
citizens is part of a particular plural chronotope that dislocates a sovereign
national center:

The changes brought by globalization, I suggest, are re-framing this cultural chro-
notope as one of “synchronic pluralism,” in which there is neither a direction of
historical time towards the creation of culturally homogeneous national societies
nor states identified as unique centers of sovereignty. This is the chronotope as-
sociated with the new social movements based on ethnicity, feminism and mul-
ticulturalism. Among these new movements, the world-wide surge of indigenous
struggles for cultural and social autonomy, political recognition and territorial
rights since the end of the 1960s has played a prominent part. (Turner 2006: 17)

For Turner, the active role of the anthropologist as a social agent is funda-
mental for bringing visibility to emerging minority subjects. Making others
equally visible, exhibiting those who are at odds with the values of a hege-
monic nation-state, became an imperative within an anthropological cause
that demanded a plurality of voices. In his view, the anthropologist must ad-
dress the effects of mobility by participating in the causes of minorities and
by being critical of the concept of globalization itself.

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 43

Bruce Kapferer (1988, 2004, 2010) has also highlighted the contradic-
tions of modernity and the emergence of violent nationalism and terrorism.
Kapferer (2004: 68) describes how corporate power and the new global order
have weakened the power of the state in recent decades: “The global situation
is a context of distributed sovereignties, corporations are in many respects
state-like structures.” Sovereignties became deterritorialized; corporations
acted together within the state and exerted their influence on it. For Kapferer,
globalization means a new imperial control different from the one that existed
in the past, displaying a strategic form of warfare. Siding with Deleuze and
Guattari, Kapferer (2010: 132) talks about a war machine within the modern
state, “The modern state, its agents, and its institutions became consciously
oriented to the creation or production of the very society in which its sover-
eignty was defined and, furthermore, engaged the citizenry to perform this
task through a variety of discursive practices. Power and control became an
effect of social production in line with state interests.” For the Australian an-
thropologist, however, the state is in a current crisis exacerbated by the global
effect of modernity. As globalization dictates looser control of territorialities
and international forms of ascription, transnational values, mobility, and the
decentering of the state as a keeper of social control, many ethnic minorities
have claimed what Kapferer (2010: 138) calls “wild sovereignties” through
microwarfare against the state. Finally, he acknowledges the power of cyber-
connections in the dissemination of a social message among minorities that
brings international visibility.
The weakening of the state as a center of control and the growing influence
of corporations are a consequence of the power of globalization and deterrito-
rialization. In the development of an anthropology of mobility, it is necessary
to pay attention to these disruptive forces. The adverse effects of globaliza-
tion and mobility should be taken into account when discussing cosmopoli-
tanism and voluntary migration. Cultural movement and displacement are not
always cause for celebration, as Turner and Friedman remind us. Although
the transit that capoeira leaders engage with is not violent, it involves a dis-
placement of “small numbers” of the sort mentioned by Appadurai. Having in
mind both the positive and the adverse effects of mobility and globalization,
we turn now to address the specific methodological problems of mobility
from an anthropological perspective.

METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES

The methodological challenge of the anthropology of mobility is one of scale.

How far can the analyst go in pursuit of cultural description? Traditional
ethnographic methods seem insufficient to deal with a reality that continually

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 44 Chapter Two

changes, oscillating between micro and macro settings. The problem of scale
implies different descriptive methodological tools to make sense of mobility.
It is necessary to delineate trajectories that transcend regional boundaries
when tracing the movement of capoeira leaders. The leaders I worked with
and know travel every year to places, regions, and countries including Japan,
the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Other lead-
ers spend extended periods living abroad or have settled in Brazil after ten
or twenty years living in other countries. Leaders are cultural missionaries
whose work is to spread the word of capoeira to any person willing to listen.
To make sense of mobility and its relationship to tourism in capoeira requires
addressing the methodological challenges of dealing with the accelerated
dynamics of social life.
In a recent book called Mega-Event Mobilities, the editors tackle the an-
thropological problem of dealing with massive events, large-scale spectacles
that agglomerate an enormous number of people for a brief period (Salazar
et al. 2017). One of the editors, Noel Salazar (2017: 3), characterizes mega-
events such as the World Cup, the Olympic Games, and concerts as places of
the imaginary. He says that “the construction of a mega-event indeed starts
with an imaginary, often utopian idea. This is then translated into a concrete
proposal, which needs to be approved . . . before it can be properly planned
and designed, procured and built” (Salazar 2017: 4). A mega-event is a com-
plex phenomenon, a total social fact as Marcel Mauss (2004) would say; it
involves money, culture, music, dance, politics, religion, and social imaginar-
ies. I am interested in the fleeting character of mega-events, their power to
mobilize crowds, and the difficulty of analyzing them ethnographically.
Salazar has described mobility as containing a plurality of meanings,
reminding us that it is not always about people—it has to do with imaginar-
ies, materials, and ideas too. He says, “Mobility—a complex assemblage of
movement, imaginaries and experience—is not only an object of study but
also an analytical lens, promoted among others by those who talk about a
‘mobility turn’ in social theory and who have proposed a ‘new mobilities par-
adigm’ to reorient the ways in which we think about society” (Salazar 2017:
6). Although I frame this book within the new mobilities paradigm, I am still
hesitant about the declaration of a new mobility turn in anthropology that is
radically changing the discipline. Yet, I acknowledge that the importance of
movement as an analytical way of seeing life and culture forces us to expand
our creativity and the way we do anthropology.
The study of mobility demands a redefinition of ethnography. I agree with
Salazar and Graburn (2014: 6), who say that the anthropology of mobility
sometimes makes it impossible to undertake a description that shows the in-
depth knowledge of our interlocutors because they are always on the move.

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 45

How can one narrate a decent life story with a visitor who will leave the set-
ting in two hours? How can one build rapport with people on the move? The
anthropology of mobility must face its problem of scale. It has to recognize
its position within a global context of positive and negative values, which I
have discussed previously. Besides, it has to connect this global context to
a microsetting where mobility happens empirically. Technological tools are
essential in tracking down the flow of “mobile” citizens and cultural prac-
tices. Virtual ethnography helps us connect with people on the move. The
anthropologist must be creative in finding ways to follow people through all
means available and to trace the connections they make and how they refer
to their experiences online. The Internet is not a substitute for ethnographic
fieldwork, but it is helpful in tracing social connections.
The methodological challenge of mobility is an effect of people’s displace-
ment and its implicit neo-nomadism (see Maffesoli 2005), which stands in
dialogue with sedentary cultural patterns. As Mari Korpela (2016: 123) men-
tions, mobility and its multiple meanings evidence its contrary—sedentary
life—but as a complement to mobility, not as a separate entry. It is in the
dialogue between the metaphors of mobility that we anthropologists need to
choose the best method to capture the sense of nomadism.
In a first attempt to figure out how to deal with the movement of capoeira
practitioners, I made use of some of the principles of actor-network theory
(ANT). I wanted to trace mobility connections by paying attention to the dif-
ferent networks that capoeira leaders created and how they visualized their
travel trajectories. I tried to lay out the horizontal relations around the globe
that mestres created in their trips. I followed Latour’s (2005) idea of assem-
blage and connections to reveal the content of the social. In this chapter, I
expand the framework of ANT by using the anthropology of mobility.
The idea of the “single starting point” or the line of departure must be
discarded as the primordial notion of displacement. In the anthropology of
mobility, there is no initial line; there are only multiplicities that coexist and
whose patterns outline a movement of life that lacks clear directionality. In
my view, this is one of the most significant challenges in the anthropology of
mobility. There is no intrinsic rationality behind the multiple movements of
people. This lack of rationality does not mean, however, that people do not
think or plan when they move.
On the contrary, they have a real or vague idea about when, how, and
where to move. What I mean by lack of deliberate intention concerns the
initial motivation and trajectory of mobility. The unpredictability of life
plays a role in sabotaging the clear intentions of people’s movement. An
individual makes her plan and decides to move away from where she is. As
soon as that person begins her trajectory, the imponderables of life define

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 46 Chapter Two

those movements. In the making of her road ahead, many variables guide
her decisions. So, the trajectory reveals itself as a series of imponderables
and accidental circumstances in life. They can be minimal or foundational,
full of expectations, fears, and dreams. What is important are the relation-
ships this person is making on the road. From my perspective, the making of
unforeseen relationships is one of the most important methodological values
that we can gain from the anthropology of mobility.
The idea of unpredictability is similar to the process of making things and
performing actions that Tim Ingold has described as part of the human en-
deavor of living and producing one’s life. He says, “Making is a journey; the
maker a journeyman” (Ingold 2013: 45). What is important methodologically
is the journey itself and not the outcome. We may explore ethnographically
how a person lives her life after she reaches her destination, of course, but
what is more relevant is how the trajectory unfolds a life’s journey.
This phenomenological approach to mobility prioritizes the unfolding of
multiple relations without considering if the path traversed is short or long.
Ingold (2013: 70) considers the nomadic trajectory as an open-ended project
in a world in constant motion where planning and making, as activities, are
almost synonymous. This sense of open project is relevant to my narration of
the haphazard history of the global mobility of capoeira practitioners.

THE ORIGINS OF MOBILITY

OF CAPOEIRA PRACTITIONERS

The global history of mobility of capoeira practitioners has its origins in the
1930s and 1940s as styles were formalized. What we know so far of this
history comes from narratives by capoeira leaders (Almeida 1986, Capoeira
2002, 2003, and Vieira 1996) and from academic works that have discussed
the global expansion of capoeira in the twenty-first century (Assunção 2005,
Brito 2017, Delamont, Stephens, and Campos 2017, Guizardi 2017).
It is impossible to detail the scale of the current global mobility of capoeira
practitioners. Instead, here I outline some of the general causes of this move-
ment, independently of capoeira styles. What I describe here is a process that
began when Mestre Bimba, the great reformer and inventor of the Luta Re-
gional Baiana in the 1930s (known now in capoeira circles simply as capoeira
Regional), decided to codify a capoeira style based on competition, effective-
ness, athleticism, and combat dexterity.
As I mentioned in chapter 1, Bimba was one of the first mestres who
fought for the recognition of capoeira as a legitimate social practice. He
wanted to distance his capoeira style from its marginal associations, and

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 47

he made an incredible effort to teach capoeira to people who were either

students or professionals, middle-class citizens who did not belong to the
underworld of the capoeira played in the streets (Assunção 2005: 132–34).
His success in the ring fighting practitioners of other martial arts brought
him fame in Brazil; he traveled to other cities such as São Paulo and Rio de
Janeiro to show his capoeira style and, in so doing, captured the attention
of politicians and intellectuals.
The popularity of the Luta Regional Baiana contributed to the formaliza-
tion of capoeira Angola in the 1940s. As mentioned in the previous chapter,
Mestre Pastinha’s reform characterized the Angola style as the most authen-
tic Afro-Brazilian tradition in Bahia (Decanio 1997). Pastinha defined his
capoeira, positioned as the only alternative to the sportive capoeira practiced
by Bimba, as the direct link to an African past. His success in Salvador during
the 1950s and the 1960s, like that of Bimba, brought him fame and popular-
ity. His most famous trip was his participation in the First World Festival of
Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966, where he, together with a delegation
of representatives of the Afro-Brazilian culture of Bahia, showed the practice
of capoeira to a foreign audience (Assunção 2005: 166). If Bimba set up the
basis for the expansion of capoeira in Brazil, Pastinha showed capoeira for
the first time abroad. Both mestres became ambassadors of capoeira, and
they contributed significantly to exposing people in other parts of Brazil and
elsewhere to this art form.

CAPOEIRA GROWS IN POPULARITY IN BRAZIL

The golden age of capoeira epitomized by Bimba and Pastinha’s success

ended abruptly in the 1970s. Bimba died in 1973; Pastinha, old and blind,
lost his academy and was unable to teach.1 Despite their popularity, these two
mestres could no longer spread the popularity of capoeira. This task became
the responsibility of a new generation of practitioners, particularly of some of
Bimba’s students in the 1970s.
New influences flourished in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo after the decline
of Bimba and Pastinha. Matthias Assunção mentions that since the 1950s and
1960s capoeira practitioners traveled from the Northeast to Rio and São Paulo
(Assunção 2005). Among these practitioners, Artur Emídio figures as one of
the most famous capoeira mestres living in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s. As-
sunção (2005: 171) explains, “One of the reasons why Artur Emídio had such
an impact [in Rio de Janeiro] is that although being a fighter in the ring he
still stuck to capoeira with music, songs and rituals in his everyday practice.
Alongside his combat performances, which relied on the use of a wide range

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 48 Chapter Two

of martial arts, he exhibited capoeira for a public more interested in folklore

and exotic rituals.” Artur Emídio helped build a new tradition of capoeira in
Rio de Janeiro, and he influenced other local practitioners, such as Leopol-
dina, and even army officials who took classes with him, such as Lieutenant
Lamartine (Assunção 2005: 172).
In the north of Rio de Janeiro, a few affluent students who had the oppor-
tunity to travel to Bahia in the early 1960s formed the group Senzala in 1963
and began spreading the teachings of Bimba in their own fashion, bringing an
innovative approach to capoeira beyond combat. The Senzala group was one
of the most famous capoeira academies in Brazil in the 1970s, and it subse-
quently created stronger links with groups in Bahia. The leaders of Senzala
traveled to Bahia frequently to learn directly from Bimba’s students and
invited Bahian mestres to Rio de Janeiro to teach regularly. Assunção (2005:
174) mentions that many capoeira practitioners from Bahia ended up moving
to Rio de Janeiro either to teach capoeira with Senzala or to start their own
groups. Senzala’s vision of capoeira stressed its artistic and aesthetic sides.
Some of the members of the group were well-educated and held a holistic
view of capoeira and saw its potential as an art form, far beyond the restric-
tive scope of combat and martial art effectiveness. The Senzala practitioners
in Rio did not have the pressures that accompanied many Bahian capoeiristas
who had to adhere to a strict form of tradition; they could work more inde-
pendently in innovative ways without restrictions.
In São Paulo and other cities in the south of Brazil, capoeira slowly ex-
panded by the same migratory pattern found in Rio de Janeiro. Bahians who
were important capoeira practitioners decided to improve their lives by risk-
ing all and moved to the major cities. Assunção (2005: 177) notes that some
of the most famous mestres of the Northeast, such as Acordeon, Suassuna,
Brasilia, and Ananias, settled down in São Paulo. Some of these individuals
were direct students of Bimba and others learned from Angola teachers too.
Specific styles never constrained their vision, and they often mixed Angola
and Regional influences in their teaching. These mestres called their prac-
tice capoeira Contemporânea. This innovative approach to capoeira was a
consequence of its expansion. Freed from orthodoxy, capoeira migrants in
the south of Brazil created their own capoeira style, and together with local
practitioners solidified the foundations of a new approach that would gain a
significant number of capoeira adepts in the coming years.
On the other hand, capoeira Angola expanded more slowly than capoeira
Regional. Facing extinction during the 1970s, the so-called mother of all
capoeiras did not experience a revival until the 1980s. One of the most fa-
mous Angola mestres in the late 1970s, Pedro Moraes Trinidade (Mestre
Moraes), was a migrant from Bahia who was living at the time in Rio de

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 49

Janeiro. Mestre Moraes was one of the players responsible for the revival
of capoeira Angola in the 1980s, as I have mentioned elsewhere (González
Varela 2017). His role in the preservation of the Angola tradition is as signifi-
cant as some of his mentors, such as Mestre João Grande, João Pequeno, and
even the mythical Mestre Pastinha (see also Brito 2017: 57–63). However,
capoeira Angola expanded slowly in Rio de Janeiro during the 1970s. Moraes
taught a new generation of students in Rio, and years later they would become
the bearers of the Angola tradition in the south of Brazil and abroad.
In São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the 1970s and early 1980s, in addi-
tion to the capoeira taught by Bahian migrants who followed mainly the Re-
gional style, capoeira existed in the streets. This capoeira did not care about
labels and did not want to get involved in the historic rivalries and politics of
Bahia. The constant interaction of local players and migrants helped define
a capoeira practice different from that of the Northeast. Today, one can see
this distinctive type of capoeira in two of the most famous street gatherings,
the Roda de Caxias in Rio de Janeiro and the Roda of Mestre Ananias in São
Paulo. Both street rodas have traditions with a history more than forty years
long. They attract not only people from other cities and regions of Brazil but
also foreigners who want to see firsthand these important gatherings and, if
they are lucky, take part of them. Both rodas are prestigious, and players who
go need to know what they are doing—there are no concessions for beginners
or advanced students.
Mestre Nestor Capoeira (2003: 17), one of the most prominent figures of
the Senzala group in the 1970s, ponders the situation of capoeira’s practice
at the time: “In the 1970s and 1980s, capoeira experienced great growth
throughout Brazil and for the first time began expanding beyond Brazil’s
borders. Salvador lost its hegemony or, more accurately, began to share it
with Rio and São Paulo due to the migration of its elite young capoeiristas
[capoeira players] to these two capital cities and the development of strong
local capoeira groups there.”
Expansion brought visibility to capoeira in Brazil, and after the 1970s it
consolidated its presence and status as one the most important martial art in the
country. From the 1970s onward, capoeira practitioners appeared in TV com-
mercials and films and took part in dance companies and art performances.

GLOBAL EXPANSION

According to Mestre Acordeon (Almeida 1986), one of the pioneers of capoei-

ra’s expansion worldwide, the migration of mestres abroad happened mainly
when dance companies in Brazil hired capoeira practitioners as performers.

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 50 Chapter Two

Through dance companies, players had the opportunity to show their art to a
broader audience and to travel not only to other cities in Brazil but to other
countries, reaching a public that until then was inaccessible.
It was in the United States, thanks mainly to the work of Jelon Vieira and
Loremil Machado, that capoeira established itself outside Brazil (Assunção
2005:190). They were two of the first mestres to settle abroad. Both were
part of a dance company that toured the United States with success in 1975.
Mestre Acordeon says that after the tour, Jelon and Loremil decided to stay
(Almeida 1986). Jelon settled in New York, where he has spent most of his
life engaged in the diffusion and practice of capoeira. Loremil worked as a
professional choreographer and performer of capoeira in Manhattan until his
premature death in 1994.
Bira Almeida (Mestre Acordeon) became part of the global mobility scene
of capoeira practitioners too. As Assunção (2005: 190) mentions, “Bira Al-
meida, another student of M. Bimba, settled down on the West Coast of the
United States. M. Acordeon—as he is known among capoeiristas—started
teaching upper-middle class students at Stanford University in 1979. He soon
extended his teachings to poorer neighborhoods and the Latin community of
San Francisco and finally opened his own school Capoeira-Bahia.” Bira Al-
meida is without question one of the most important proponents of capoeira
abroad. He has worked for more than thirty years in the United States, and he
has graduated many professors and mestres during that period. Bira Almeida
is also a skilled musician who has recorded capoeira music CDs and DVDs
with the content of his teachings. He has also promoted gender equality in
capoeira circles. He has graduated qualified female teachers who are among
the best in the world, and his capoeira lessons extend beyond the United
States to several countries in Latin America.
The slow rebirth of capoeira Angola in Brazil affected its national and
global expansion. Thanks to the work of some of Mestre Moraes’s students
from Rio de Janeiro, the practice of capoeira Angola became more visible
not only in Rio but also in other cities such as São Paulo and Belo Horizonte.
Moraes returned to Salvador in 1982 and convinced the old guard of retired
Angola mestres to teach again, and by organizing workshops he brought
famous mestres back to the classroom. Supported by Mestre João Pequeno
and Mestre João Grande, Moraes opened his academy, Grupo de Capoeira
Angola Pelourinho (GCAP) in the Forte Santo Antônio Além do Carmo in
1982. Slowly, the so-called mother of all capoeiras took over the largest cit-
ies in Brazil in the 1980s and by the end of the decade had expanded abroad.
In 1989 Mestre Moraes and some members of GCAP traveled to Lagos,
Nigeria, to participate in the International Festival of African Arts. Upon his
return, Moraes’s popularity grew significantly, and he received numerous

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 51

invitations to participate in cultural events in the United States. He traveled

to cities in America, and he was responsible for presenting capoeira Angola to
a wider international audience in the 1980s. However, it was one of his most
outstanding students, Sinésio Peçanha, better known as Mestre Cobra Mansa,
and Moraes’s mestre, Mestre João Grande, who took the responsibility for
disseminating the tradition of capoeira Angola abroad.
In 1990, Mestre João Grande migrated to the United States. He was in his
early sixties, already a living legend in Bahia (being a direct disciple of Mes-
tre Pastinha) and one of the most famous and charismatic mestres of all time.
Despite his age, João Grande decided to move to a foreign land and settle
down in the heart of New York (Capoeira 2003: x). He continues traveling all
over the world, and he still teaches capoeira in his academy.
The case of Mestre Cobra Mansa is also remarkable. After he left GCAP
in 1994 because of differences with Mestre Moraes, he began an ambitious
worldwide project, the Fundação Internacional de Capoeira Angola (Interna-
tional Capoeira Angola Foundation, FICA in Portuguese), which sought to
congregate all capoeira Angola academies in the world into one single federa-
tion. FICA had its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and later opened core
branches in Salvador, Bahia (commanded by Mestre Valmir); Seattle, Wash-
ington; Oakland, California; and Belo Horizonte (led by Mestre Jurandir).
Initially, many teachers in Brazil joined FICA and worked together with
Cobra Mansa. Over the years, however, many of the initial members departed
the foundation either to form their own groups or to follow other agendas.
Some of the Rio leaders, contemporaries of Cobra Mansa and Jurandir, had
just left GCAP at the time and did not want to work again under the tutelage
of another mestre. Because of this, Mestre Cobra Mansa’s ambitious plan
suffered a setback. Nevertheless, it succeeded in bringing capoeira Angola
unprecedented global exposure. In recent years FICA has opened academies
or study groups in many cities such as Berlin, Montpellier, Helsinki, Stock-
holm, Mexico City, London, San José in Costa Rica, Maputo, Moscow, Rio
de Janeiro, Bogotá, and Copenhagen, to mention the most important ones.
The FICA branch in Bahia, the one I know best, for instance, hosts many
capoeira practitioners from Europe and the United States, and it has helped to
build international relations between local and foreign players.
FICA’s success increased the number of practitioners of capoeira Angola
outside Brazil. As a result, there is greater demand for Brazilian mestres and
advanced practitioners to teach abroad, which has led, in many cases, to some
of those individuals settling down in other countries. Today it is hard to count
the number of capoeira Angola mestres and advanced Brazilian students who
have migrated to other nations. Although the tendency is to move to Europe
and the United States, some have opted to live in countries such as Canada,

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 52 Chapter Two

Mexico, Israel, and Japan. Some mestres who initially intended to leave Bra-
zil for good have also reconsidered their decision and have opted to move
seasonally between Brazil and other countries. As I show later in the chapter,
seasonal mobility has grown in the past ten years among capoeira Angola
mestres. Though there are leaders who have their homes permanently abroad,
they are constantly moving around the world.
The global expansion of capoeira in all its variants has democratized the
possibilities of becoming a mestre. Today, obtaining a title in capoeira does
not depend on being Brazilian or on living in Brazil (although this is more
common in capoeira Contemporânea and Regional groups). Numerous
mestres are foreigners or learned their craft abroad. Although I do not have
estimates, I personally know at least three mestres in London and Mexico
City who are not Brazilian. For instance, Adolfo Flores (Mestre Cigano)
and his wife Rosita (Mestra Rosita) are two of the most famous capoeira
Contemporânea practitioners in Mexico and have the largest group in the
country, Longe Do Mar. They received their titles from Mestre Acordeon
in 2013 and 2017 respectively.
The international proliferation of capoeira Regional and Contemporânea
groups has created an uncontrolled chart of academies, mestres, and ascrip-
tions, making it complicated to trace connections directly to a particular Bra-
zilian mestre. The meaning of capoeira in these two styles changes depend-
ing on the artistic or sportive motivation of Brazilian or foreign leaders (see
Delamont, Stephens, and Campos 2017). In some places, the practice that ad-
vertises itself as “capoeira” may not resemble the Regional or Contemporary
traditions found in Brazil at all. Because of the explosion of groups abroad,
foreign groups sometimes attempt to build a genuine connection with a fa-
mous Brazilian mestre or a prominent group branch to become “legitimate”
bearers of a tradition (see Griffith 2016: 41–47). In other cases, although
these groups may seek the blessing of a great mestre, they may want to
remain independent and free from the restrictions imposed by a strong com-
mitment to a leader. Forming a Regional or Contemporânea academy abroad
is more flexible than forming an Angola academy, and it gives practitioners
more freedom about the kind of capoeira they want to pursue.
Capoeira Angola groups deal with the same issues that affect Regional and
Contemporânea groups abroad, but with more control. As the Angola style
since its inception has claimed to be the most traditional capoeira and the one
closest to its African roots, innovation and departure from tradition are not
desirable. Therefore, foreign mestres are less common than in the other two
styles. It is not impossible to become a mestre if one is a non-Brazilian; it
is only more difficult. Lauren Griffith (2016: 47) points out that “nationality
is more entwined with legitimacy for foreigners who want to teach capoeira

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 53

versus those who simply want to play capoeira.” I agree with her in the sense
that Brazilians put more pressure on non-Brazilians when recognizing the
ascension of these individuals in the hierarchy of knowledge. However, de-
spite the inherent obstacles, there are Angola mestres from the United States,
European countries, and even Japan whom Brazilian mestres consider to be
true bearers of an Afro-Brazilian tradition.
Someone practicing capoeira Angola abroad needs a link with a mestre to
become a “real” player. However, sustained connections are not easily kept,
and groups abroad often change their adherence to Brazilian groups. Mem-
bers may start working with a prominent mestre just to abandon that relation-
ship after one or two years because the mestre in question lost interest and
faith in the group. Mestres have the desire to work with groups abroad, but
they try to be selective and choose academies that can bring some advantage
to them. For instance, some Angola groups in Mexico have changed adher-
ence and stopped working with a particular mestre because of money issues
or disagreements over the meaning of tradition and the way of teaching. In
London, groups have experienced similar transformations through time.
The inconstant dependence that a group abroad has with a mestre is a typi-
cal pattern of the social relations that exist among capoeira Angola academies
in the world. For foreigners, being part of a tradition abroad sometimes means
accepting the mentorship of a mestre who they do not know very well. For
mestres, giving their name to a group they do not fully trust is not an easy
matter, as status and prestige are at stake. Therefore, time plays a significant
role in building a consistent relationship between Brazilian mestres and inter-
national disciples. The value that capoeira Angola deposits in the figure of the
mestre as representative of knowledge and expertise makes travel and mobil-
ity indispensable. Leaders are missionaries and need to spread their message
internationally. In many cases, such a missionary enterprise culminates with
a mestre living abroad for either a short or an extended period.
Multiple histories of capoeira expansion exist, and it is not possible to de-
scribe them all here. The situations described above exemplify just a few rep-
resentative cases of global itineraries in the United States. Many other mestres
of all styles settled abroad or began visiting capoeira groups not only in the
United States but also elsewhere in the Americas. Simultaneously, migration
of capoeira practitioners in Europe commenced in the 1980s, intensified in the
1990s, and exploded in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Today, the
mobility of capoeira practitioners around the globe is very dynamic; it defies
our capacity to portray it, and its tourism mobilities cross the boundaries be-
tween Western regions and emergent regions (Cohen and Cohen 2015a). The
movement of practitioners does not flow only to the First World; it circulates
through many venues and unpredictable channels. Capoeira groups of all styles

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 54 Chapter Two

proliferate in places such as Palestine, Cuba, India, and the countries of West
Africa. It moves between Brazil and the rest of the world.
For every mestre or advanced student who settles down temporarily or
indefinitely abroad, there is probably an academy or group of practitioners
willing to receive and host the leader. Therefore, mestres often take up the
challenge of leaving Brazil to migrate and adapt to a new culture only to find
themselves at the same time influencing the local milieu with their capoeira
knowledge and skills. In some instances, mestres master the local language
and integrate into a new cultural context. In others, the process is more
complicated because of mestres’ constant interaction with people who speak
Portuguese. Mestres have the privilege of living abroad but continuing to
use their mother tongue regularly without being forced to speak another one
at work; sometimes mestres even impose Portuguese as a lingua franca in
capoeira classes and social relations. I will return to this issue of adaptation in
the next chapter; for the moment I want to highlight the complicated situation
that mestres face in their missionary path.

TALES OF MOBILITY AND ADAPTATION IN LONDON

The global expansion of capoeira moves through a vast diversity of cities

and countries. One can get a better understanding of this constant mobil-
ity by focusing on a particular city, London, and the importance that local
academies have had in the construction of global relations. London, to-
gether perhaps with Berlin and New York, is one of the few places where
many capoeira Angola mestres and advanced students coexist. During my
time living in London, between 2004 and 2010, I had the opportunity to
meet many famous Angola practitioners, and I got to know their diverse
origins and backgrounds in Brazil.
Although the capoeira Angola scene in London has changed since I left,
it remains an important hub for advanced practitioners and mestres. Many
groups have dissolved, others have emerged, some people have moved to
other countries, and mestres come and go seasonally. The history of capoeira
Angola in London is one of transformation.
Around five to six groups dominated the capoeira Angola scene between
2004 and 2010 in London. They represented one of the most significant
recent developments of the Afro-Brazilian martial art in Europe at the
beginning of the twenty-first century. This expansion also included acad-
emies in other cities of the United Kingdom such as Brighton, Nottingham,
Manchester, and Bristol.

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 55

Figure 2.1. Mestre Carlão doing a one-hand aú (cartwheel) during his visit to San Luis
Potosí, Mexico.
Photo: Sergio González Varela. Date: September 28, 2018.

One of the first Angola mestres who settled down temporarily in London
was Carlo Alexandre Teixeira, known as Mestre Carlão. Carlão has a long
history in the Brazilian capoeira Angola scene. Born and raised in Rio de
Janeiro, he began training capoeira in 1982 with Mestre Marco Aurelio and
later with Mestre Armando and Mestre Jose Carlos in Niteroi. These three
mestres were direct disciples of Mestre Moraes, the leader of the GCAP in
Salvador, and with these outstanding teachers Carlão learned the core of
the Angola fundaments while he also trained as a musician. He founded his
group, Kabula Capoeira Angola, in Rio de Janeiro in 2000. Carlão came to
London for the first time in 1996 to do a master’s degree in performance arts
at the Queen Mary and Westfield College in the Mile End. He stayed for
eleven months, then for personal reasons dropped the master’s program and
went instead to New York to train with Mestre João Grande for two months
before returning to Rio de Janeiro.
Carlão considers that he founded the first capoeira Angola group in the
United Kingdom, Brincadeira de Angola, which was at the time part of the
GCAP led by Mestre Moraes. Initially, Carlão moved seasonally between
London and Brazil due to immigration laws, which allowed him to reside
only as a tourist or a student for a determinate period. After some years, he

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 56 Chapter Two

settled down in the UK in 2009 with his wife and daughter, but returned to
Brazil in 2012 for personal reasons. During his time living in London, he was
an active participant in the cultural life of the city, combining his capoeira
expertise with his musical and performative proficiency. He took part in a
diversity of events in the UK and European cities, contributing significantly
to the presence of capoeira Angola in Europe. He participated in festivals
such as the Thames Major Festival in 2005, the Carnaval Del Pueblo, the Not-
ting Hill Carnival, and the prestigious South Bank Brazil Festival where he
presented two performances called “Capoeira Extravaganza” and “Capoeira
into Shakespeare.”
Carlão also created a unique project in 2010 that combined capoeira with
theater in a play called In Blood: The Bacchae, a story based on the Greek
tragedy of Euripides and adapted to the Brazilian mythical narrative of Be-
souro, the flying beetle. Mestre Carlão has become perhaps one of the most
prominent figures of capoeira not only in London but also globally. His work
and his artistic interests have contributed to the production of new meanings
and possibilities for the Afro-Brazilian art. On his return to Brazil, Carlão
continued combining his work on capoeira with art through his group, which
is now called Kabula Arte e Projetos. He was responsible for the traditional
Roda do Cais do Valongo (Valongo Wharf Gathering), held in 2012, which
brought together prominent figures of the Afro-Brazilian culture with local
artists (see chapter 6). Since 2012, Cais do Valongo has become an important
cultural center for exhibitions, lectures, films, music concerts, and dance per-
formances. Carlão continues traveling to London regularly.
A second capoeira academy worth mentioning is the East London Capoeira
Group, founded in 1997 by Simon Atkinson, known as Mestre Fantasma.
Since 1993, Simon has been one of the pioneers of capoeira in the United
Kingdom. In 1997, he became associated with Mestre Marrom from Rio de
Janeiro and adopted the style and philosophy of capoeira Angola. His academy
has become one of the most common places for mestres traveling abroad to
visit. Every year Simon invites Mestre Marrom (who lives in Rio de Janeiro)
to London to give classes and to be present in the activities of the group.
The commitment of Simon’s students, like those in any other group in
London, changes over time. However, he has managed to consolidate around
ten to fifteen practitioners who train regularly with him. Most of them are of
European background, though he has students from other parts of the world.
He holds rodas every weekend, and he teaches at least three times a week in
the borough of Hackney in northeast London.
Simon is a foreign-born mestre, exemplifying the power that globaliza-
tion has in the practice of capoeira. Without the constant flow of people and
cultural traditions, he would never have been able to learn capoeira. Simon

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 57

was there when capoeira first arrived in London in the early 1990s and has
seen it grow, first slowly and then more rapidly in the new millennium. He
often travels to Brazil, and the connection he has made with his mestre has
endured for more than twenty years. Some of Simon’s students have become
professors in their own right or have become part of the hierarchy of power
in the academy of Mestre Marrom.
Another leader, Mestre Joãozinho da Figueira, came to London in 2004;
he founded the group Mar Azul that same year. Originally from São Paulo,
he has a long trajectory in capoeira Angola. Joãozinho was one of the found-
ers of Mar Azul in 1983 in his home city; he moved to Manaus in 1985 to
form a second branch of his academy. In 2003, Joãozinho lived for a year in
Mozambique, where he opened the third branch of Mar Azul. He is a traveler,
an adventurer that likes to explore different cultures, and enjoys teaching
capoeira wherever he goes. He is a genuinely cosmopolitan citizen. With
over thirty years of experience teaching capoeira, Joãozinho has contributed
substantially to the consolidation of the Angola style in London. He regularly
gives workshops to different sectors of society such as children and immi-
grants; as far as I know, he holds a weekly roda on Friday where practitioners
of all styles and backgrounds come together to participate and commune in
the capoeira circle. Joãozinho has hosted many capoeira events in London,
and any respectable mestre who passes through London ends up visiting the
roda at Mar Azul.
The three groups described above are the most representative academies of
the Angola style in London. However, other groups are also important, such
as the FICA group in London, Aprendendo Angola, Angoleiros do Mar, and
Filhos de Angola. Although there is no space to make a detailed description
of these groups here, they have contributed enormously to the development of
capoeira in London, mainly by hosting workshops with famous mestres. The
capoeira Angola groups described in this section also set up the platform that
other mestres who do not live in London will use to create new social net-
works. In this sense, it is right to talk about the creation of threads or lines that
mestres trace when they come to London. What demands attention, therefore,
is the description of relations that have been established rather than the simple
contextualization of a general pattern of mobility. Tracing the connections of
mobility offers itself as the only alternative for representing the constantly
moving context of capoeira Angola expansion worldwide.
The Angola groups constitute the horizontal platform on which multiple
lines of mobility appear. Kabula, Mar Azul, Filhos de Angola, and other
academies are exemplars of possible paths for mestres to exploit. In recent
times, the proliferation of trajectories often overlap. As the demand for
mestres increases, it is possible that the schedule of some classes organized

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 58 Chapter Two

Figure 2.2. Capoeira Angola in London, United Kingdom.

Photo: Sergio González Varela. Date: March 27, 2007.

by a mestre in transit will clash with the agendas of other groups that have
also invited mestres to give workshops. Paradoxically, what happens in
London is that sometimes an excess of high-level visitors arrive in the city
all at once. As prestigious mestres such as Carlão and Joãozinho or long-
standing practitioners such as Simon lead the local academies in London,
then, it is easier to contact and arrange classes with Brazilian mestres who
are already in Europe or intend to go to Europe. As the market expands,
mestres use London as a platform for earning a substantial amount of
money in a short period. However, they have to face the challenge posed by
the Home Office, which often refuses them entrance on security grounds.
Notwithstanding the stringent migration rules, mestres continue to visit
London, and their visits are unlikely to abate.

FROM BAHIA TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, AND BACK

The second narrative of mobility I want to show is that of Marcelo Conceição

dos Santos, Mestre Boca do Rio, one of my closer contacts in Bahia. He is

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 59

one of the most talented practitioners of his generation, and I have described
his story elsewhere (González Varela 2017). He trained in the 1980s with
the GCAP under the guidance of Mestre Moraes and Cobra Mansa. In the
mid-1990s, he created his own group, Grupo Zimba, in Salvador. During
the most important part of my field research in 2005 and 2006, I practiced
capoeira with Boca and his group, and I learned his view on capoeira from
interacting on a daily basis with him. At the time, Boca complained that few
people recognized his role as a mestre and educator of capoeira Angola. He
explained that some of his current students did not even value the importance
of training daily with him, and it was hard to get them committed to the
demanding principles of the Angola style. Not only did Boca teach capoeira
in the neighborhood of Pituaçu, but he also worked at a middle-class school
teaching capoeira for kids, and at least twice a week he worked in an orphan-
age sharing his knowledge of capoeira with troubled teenagers. His life was
tough, as is the case for most people who want to make a living only by teach-
ing capoeira in Salvador.
At the end of my fieldwork, Boca told me that he wanted to travel around
the world, just like his mestres did. He had left Brazil only three times, to Eu-
rope in 2002, to Nigeria with the group that made the trip with Mestre Moraes
to Lagos in 1989, and to the United States once to visit Mestre João Grande.
He felt that the time had come to travel and to make connections abroad. I left
the field in October 2006, but I kept in touch with Boca. I followed his work
through social media, and I learned about his plans to leave Brazil for Spain.
In 2007, after saving most of their salaries, Boca, his then wife Cristina, and
their family made the big leap to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. They chose
that location because Cristina had capoeira contacts there. Finally, he had
made it to Europe with the plan of settling there permanently.
Things were not easy. Boca, his daughter and son, his wife, and her daugh-
ter had some troubles adjusting to Spain, particularly to the rainy weather
and the local culture. His wife did not have any issues with Spanish because
it was her mother language. In the beginning, however, Boca struggled with
Spanish. It took him many months to master the language, and he had to do
all kinds of odd jobs that were not related to capoeira at all to sustain his fam-
ily, such as working in restaurants and bars or selling things. As with many
immigrants, the first months were also complicated by visa issues. I do not
precisely know how Boca and his family became legal residents in Spain. I
do know that by the end of their stay they did not have any problems travel-
ing in the Eurozone.
I know firsthand about the first months of Boca’s life in Europe because
I helped him come to London for a short visit. After many problems with
the Home Office, Boca visited for the first time in 2007. He came for one

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 60 Chapter Two

week, and he taught capoeira at some of the groups I mentioned in the pre-
vious section. The mestre liked London, and he was very impressed by the
quality of playing and the level of the local capoeira Angola practitioners
that lived in the city. Boca returned to Santiago, but to avoid being picked
up by immigration authorities while his legal situation was still unclear, he
did not travel much outside Spain.
Step by step, his project of teaching capoeira Angola became a reality. He
opened his own group together with the help of his wife and some friends. As
soon as he sorted out his legal residence, Boca began traveling more regularly
to other countries. His name resounded among Angola academies in Europe
because of his status as one of the most distinguished capoeira mestres in
Bahia. His prestige helped open doors in the global Angola scene. He had
the opportunity to meet mestres from other styles and famous Angola teach-
ers from different regions of Brazil. Slowly, he began creating connections
that gave him exposure among people who had heard of him but had not had
the opportunity to see him in person. After a few years living in Spain, he
returned to London for a visit in 2009. Sadly, he managed to stay only two
days before the Home Office forced him to return to Santiago.
Although Boca felt happy in Santiago, he missed Bahia; he had not re-
turned to his home city for a while. It was not until he sorted out his migra-
tory status that he went back to Salvador to visit Grupo Zimba. In Bahia, he
realized how difficult it was to lead a group without a leader there to provide
guidance. Grupo Zimba survived Boca’s absence, but it made Boca aware
that a group depends on a mestre. Based on this experience and subsequent
visits to his hometown, he planned to return to live in Bahia. This project
would take some time to accomplish.
After some years living in Santiago de Compostela, Boca decided to re-
turn to Salvador in 2013. He made this decision not only because he missed
the Northeast of Brazil but also because he needed to reconnect with his
Brazilian roots. He said that it was not right to be away from Salvador for
too long because he would lose some of his ways of moving and being a
capoeira player; he would also forget the importance of the Afro-Brazilian
religion of Candomblé in his life. He said that the return to Bahia was
planned as a strategy to continue teaching capoeira locally but with the
advantage of knowing a lot of people in other countries who could invite
him to teach in their academies. Through his time living in Spain Boca do
Rio consolidated a robust social network with foreign groups that allowed
him to travel regularly to Europe and Latin America to teach capoeira in the
years after his return to Salvador.
Like other famous Angola mestres, Boca fulfilled his dream of being
rooted in Bahia while being in high demand from groups abroad. He joined

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 Global Expansion: Making Sense of Mobility 61

the same path as other Bahian mestres who have returned in recent years to
Salvador after living abroad. Most of these leaders have become central in
the development of the local capoeira milieu of Salvador, but with an inter-
national agenda that keep them on the road for long spells. At the same time,
their fame gained abroad has intensified the number of visits from interna-
tional practitioners to their Brazilian headquarters. In a sense, the free path of
capoeira Angola mestres such as Boca do Rio has paid off. Global exposure,
together with the help of social networks like Facebook and YouTube, has
helped mestres spread their missionary work internationally as caretakers of
tradition; this has contributed to the intensification of tourism and the redefi-
nition of the mestre-student relationship in recent years. However, before de-
scribing the new social relations that exist between teachers and disciples, it
is necessary to summarize the ethnographic effect that capoeira leaders have
in the context of the anthropology of mobility.

MAKING SENSE OF MOBILITY

What is the conclusion of the cases of mobility described above? What do

they tell us about the nature of mobility and its methodological challenges? In
this section, I will wrap up the argument about the globalization of capoeira
to answer these questions.
The cases of mobility of capoeira practitioners discussed above reveal is-
sues and problems similar to those any migrant faces. The singularity of these
ethnographic cases, however, highlights the situation of these high-profile
immigrants (the mestres seen as caretakers of tradition) engaged in a trans-
national pattern of working migration. Mestres are cosmopolitan citizens.
They force others to treat them deferentially. We cannot talk about a process
of “complete integration” to the local culture, as some of the exponents of
capoeira Angola do not stay long enough or do not speak a language other than
Portuguese in their work and daily interactions. It is a relatively privileged
sort of mobility, despite the adverse circumstances they inevitably experience.
The stories of migration presented here influence the social meaning of
capoeira in general. Mobility, this endless task of bringing knowledge and
expertise to every corner of the world, is a transformational process for mes-
tres and advanced students too. Through a seminomadic way of life, these
people expand their vision about the meaning of capoeira and their place
in the global context of a traditional Afro-Brazilian practice. It serves as a
symbol of status for mestres to travel all year-round, to have connections and
“branches” in other countries, to show in Facebook updates how well they are
received and how people admire them.

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 62 Chapter Two

Mobility is a political statement of the cosmopolitan citizen, and it is recon-

figuring the meaning of belonging to an Afro-Brazilian tradition. The kind of
transformation capoeira undergoes depends on style. For instance, Regional
and Contemporânea capoeira groups allow more innovation and experimen-
tation. On the contrary, in capoeira Angola, affiliation with a famous mestre
limits the scope of creativity, or, in theory, leaves the task of innovation to the
charismatic “famous mestre.” The caretakers of tradition, the mestres, also in-
novate within limits. In chapter 5, I describe how this innovation occurs and
how a new meaning of tradition is possible. This chapter, however, stresses the
more or less spontaneous, unplanned, and unpredictable efforts that leaders of
capoeira made to extend their social relations to various countries and people.
The missionary work of leaders captures an instant in the process of
production of social imaginaries too. These imaginaries are projections that
mestres make about otherness. These are, in essence, the obverse of the pro-
jected and idealized imaginaries that foreign practitioners make about leaders
any time they travel to Brazil. In this mutual creation of social imaginaries,
between the expectations mestres have about their international students and
the recursive projection of idealized forms of authority these practitioners
make, a world of creative engagement emerges.

NOTE

1. Ironically, Pastinha lost his academy because of a government renovation of old

colonial houses to bring affluent tourists to the city center. Although the government
promised the old mestre that he would have his academy back, this never happened
(Assunção 2005: 166).

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 Chapter Three

The Mestre-Student Relationship

in the Age of Tourism

In the world of capoeira Angola the relationship between mestres and stu-
dents is vital for the transmission of knowledge. It does not matter if an
Angola academy is in Brazil, the United States, Japan, or Russia, members
have to build a relationship with a known mestre, so it is common for famous
leaders to lend their names to international groups—and the same is true with
academies in Brazil. Of course, many Angola groups in the world exist with-
out a direct association with a single mestre. There are cases where interna-
tional members prefer to stay independent, working with many leaders at the
same time without committing to one. In other instances, infighting between
leaders and students can lead to separations and disappointments. Although
the relationships between mestres and their groups vary, what is constant is
the requirement that any student who aspires to become a true angoleiro work
with an influential figure at some point.
The mestre-student pair is, in this sense, indissoluble. It is a dialogic and
almost symbiotic relationship. Sometimes it is full of friction, enmity, and
mistrust; other times it is sustained through mutual admiration, loyalty,
fraternity, and guidance. The connection is complicated, involving contra-
dictions and moral dilemmas. What I analyze here is how this relationship
has changed as a consequence of the global mobility of capoeira leaders
described in the previous chapter. My interest centers on the characteriza-
tion of tourism that happens among capoeira Angola academies in Bahia,
Brazil, and groups in other cities abroad. The objective is to portray the
perception that mestres have about tourism and mobile citizens, and the way
these leaders negotiate the dictates of belonging to a tradition and making
money at the same time by showing capoeira internationally. The chapter
also addresses the point of view of those whom capoeira mestres consider
to be “apprenticeship pilgrims,” to borrow Griffith’s concept, and how
63

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 64 Chapter Three

international practitioners represent a particular form of tourism mobility.

The tension between tourism and tradition becomes visible in the dialogue
between the perspectives of mestres and of students.

TOURISM AS AN INSTANCE OF
THE INVENTION OF CULTURE

Anthropology and tourism have had a strained relationship. I have not titled this
section “anthropology of tourism” because what interests me here are the chal-
lenges that tourism poses for anthropology, not just tourism as a topic of anthro-
pological research. In recent decades, the anthropology and history of tourism
have increased in the most unexpected ways (see, for instance, Guichard-An-
guis and Moon 2009, Jolliffe 2007, Richards and Wilson 2004, Staples 2002,
and Smith 1989). Tourist guides have become professional scholars, bringing a
view of their industry from the inside (Picard and Di Giovine 2014). They have
confronted the maligned interpretation of tourism held by many anthropologists
and have contested the prejudiced perception of tourism as a banal, superficial
cultural expression. At the same time, tourism has become more important
economically and culturally for many people and for the development of cities
and countries (Scranton and Davidson 2007, Souther 2006).
The effects of tourism on societies all over the world is unmissable; we
cannot ignore it. Condemnation has not led to a better understanding of how
people relate to a mobile life imposed by tourism. The experts in the field,
following the pioneering work of Dean MacCannell (1999), have deepened
our understanding of what apparently would be the banality of culture, the
simulacra of the real as Jean Baudrillard (1983) would say, the process of
endless simulation. But there is no banality in tourism: it affects people, its
impact is real, and its consequences could be a matter of life and death. In
sum, tourism is a symptom of capitalism (Merrill 2009).
My objective in this section is to think through tourism anthropologically
by reflecting on alterity and the power of otherness (Picard and Di Giovine
2014). Today, everybody is a tourist; if you have the fortune to take holidays
and travel, you qualify as a member of this category. Roy Wagner (1981:
36) mentions in The Invention of Culture that all human beings are potential
anthropologists, inventors of culture. In the same vein, all humans are or have
been at least once in their lives “tourists” in the sense of seeing or visiting
something not restricted to working activities. You may work in the tourist
industry, but you can still become a tourist when you travel or when you take
someone for a tour of your hometown.

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 65

The anthropological category “tourist” is an ambivalent and empty sign,

either full of meanings or devoid of any significance. It is like the concept of
“culture”; we do not know what it is, but we all have it. We speculate about
the limits of the concept “tourist,” but it is a category into which we can all
potentially fit. Tourism is another instance of the invention of culture. It is a
way of describing particular cultural experiences presented to people willing
to engage with human creativity. Tourism can be problematic: in some cases
it can transform the landscape of a whole city; it can reproduce stereotypes
and economic inequalities; it can destabilize relations between local and
global forces. However, tourism is essential for the construction of intercul-
tural understanding (see Di Giovine 2009, Guichard-Anguis and Moon 2009,
Kringelbach and Skinner 2014, Timothy and Nyaupane 2009).
Tourism operates on a set of conventions, collective forms of meaning
that makes it credible. In this way tourism works like culture. For Wagner
(1981: xiv–xv), the dialectics of anthropology oscillate between the realms
of collective conventions and individual inventions. By this he intends to
address the artificiality of these two combined dialectic forms by refusing
to display a world “out there” and independent of human agency—what we
would today call “nature.” “Nature,” for Wagner, would be another name
given to the collective conventions about the meaning of human life. In this
sense, there is never an “out there” purified of human agency (Wagner 1981:
145–51). Nature and humans are always related; they form an indissoluble
pair, or, as Bruno Latour would say, they constitute a fundamental relation
of “natures-cultures” (Latour 1993). Humans make culture by inventing the
way they relate to alien or unfamiliar collective conventions. Experience and
perception control the act of invention, which is an effort to give meaning to
a particular context. Wagner (1981: 37) mentions that the power of invention
lies in the human capacity to move between contexts of collective conven-
tions. Therefore, anthropology is the paradoxical art of “imagining a culture
for people who do not imagine it for themselves” (Wagner 1981: 27).
Tourism works in the same fashion. It displays a set of collective conven-
tions about places, mobility, and people that could be and are most of the time
artificially presented. Tourism leaves the power of making sense of that expe-
rience to individuals who cannot or do not possess an in-depth understanding
of the creation of those collective conventions. The convention-invention
relationship produces the culture of tourism, and it is the source of social
imaginaries about people and places.
As I mentioned in chapter 1, “social imaginaries” should not be equated
with falsehoods. They do not emerge from fantasy but from the combina-
tion of conventions and inventions, of collective meanings and individual

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 66 Chapter Three

creations. Like anthropology, which strives to describe objectively the ex-

perience of alterity, tourism tries to deploy conventions related to the world
the conventions intend to describe. In both cases, the process is one of try-
ing to gain a “relative objectivity,” as Wagner says (1981: 2). When using
their own culture to understand another, anthropologists thereby make ob-
jectivity possible, but objectivity relative to their perspective as possessors
of an already-shaped point of view. Pure objectivity would be only possible
by a nonhuman anthropologist devoid of culture. In the same fashion, the
invention of the culture of tourism rests on a set of collective conventions
relative to a set of objective materials, ideas, individuals, places, monu-
ments, music, and so on.
In this sense, the “social imaginaries” of tourism are an analogue to the in-
ventions that anthropology creates through the uses of “culture.” The problem
with some of these tourism imaginaries has to do with the unmasking of the
process of constructing the collective conventions it portrays. The artificiality
of these imaginaries seems too obvious to nontourists, or to anthropologists
of tourism. So, their inventive process seems false and exaggerated. The
“falseness” of the process of invention has led some authors to argue in favor
of invention as a form of unreal projection, as in the case of the “invention
of tradition” developed by Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger (2000). For
them, the invention of traditions has the purpose of unmasking the artificial
uses of the past in the construction of recent myths.
Although the approach of these authors is revealing, they fall into the trap
of thinking that the concept of invention is devoid of any objective inten-
tionality and is purely politically motivated. Marshall Sahlins (1999: 403–4)
argues in his critique of the uses of “invention of tradition” that all traditions
are invented, but people put enormous effort into keeping their tradition an-
chored in a set of legitimate conventions that use the core symbols of a culture
in innovative ways and not solely for political purposes. In the same way, the
invention of the culture of tourism should not be portrayed as a fantasy but
as the creative effort of people who want to ascribe new meanings to a set of
cultural conventions.
The anthropological analysis of tourism is far too complicated to tackle
here. Rather, I want to show here only how the concept of “tourism” is
analogous to the concept of “culture.” In the next sections I describe how
the inventive process of tourism has affected the “traditional” relation of
knowledge that exists in capoeira between mestres and students. Due to their
global itineraries and missionary work, mestres of capoeira are beginning
to transform their relationship with their global students, projecting a set of
social imaginaries and intense feelings analogous to those found in tourism.
It is to these emotional traits and imaginaries that I now turn.

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 67

THE TRADITIONAL MESTRE/STUDENT

RELATIONSHIP IN CAPOEIRA ANGOLA

When Mestre Pastinha codified the Angola style in the 1940s, he put the
value of Afro-Brazilian tradition on the figure of the mestre. For him, mestres
symbolized the real knowledge of capoeira; they embodied all the desirable
attributes that a player had to cultivate to become a genuine practitioner.
Pastinha made the mestre the pivot on which all teaching, rules, and deci-
sion-making turned. By placing everything necessary on the will of a single
person, Pastinha transformed the mestre into more than just an educator. For
him, a mestre had to be a leader, a moral guide, capable of managing the
positive and negative sides of capoeira, willing to sacrifice his life for the
well-being of his students. He had to be a paternal figure for his disciples.
The hopes that Pastinha pinned on mestres set the bar too high for other
practitioners. Some mestres criticized Pastinha’s view as too demanding and
overbearing. They negotiated and did what they could to assume their new
role as moral figures of authority. Their main complaint had to do with the
deceptive nature of capoeira Angola itself; How could one become an ethical
guide when the core practices of the Afro-Brazilian martial art prioritized
feigning, cheating, and taking advantage of others by simulating attacks,
friendship, and solidarity and by using underhand tricks? To become a moral
authority contradicted the essence of being a capoeira player, a rogue-like
figure and a deceptive being capable of misleading an opponent; it also went
against the background of most Angola mestres at the time.
Some of these individuals played between the limits of legality and illegal-
ity, either forming criminal gangs or being troublemakers. They liked fight-
ing the police, as Mestre Cobrinha Verde mentions in his memoir: “When I
turned seventeen I went to fight the police. To the point that with seventeen
years old I got into a huge brawl with it. Police hated me because I always
resisted arrest” (Santos 1991: 12). Because of his problems with police, Co-
brinha Verde had to flee from his hometown of Santo Amaro after injuring
a couple of officers in a brawl. Mestre Caiçara, another infamous capoeira
player, was also involved in illegal activities and was known among prac-
titioners for having troubles with the police in Salvador. Many mestres did
not have formal jobs and had to deal with a hostile and violent environment
where being streetwise was not only a virtue but also a strategy for survival.
It is understandable, then, that many mestres had difficulty adjusting to the
new vision implemented by Pastinha. However, some of his fellow mestres
saw in Pastinha’s teaching an opportunity to break with the notorious reputa-
tion that capoeira had in society at the time, and most of his students, over the
years, would accept their role as moral guides in their academies. The idea of

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the mestre as the possessor of knowledge and embodiment of tradition was no

longer questioned in Angola academies; the mestre’s authority went unchal-
lenged unless other powerful mestres objected to it. As I have shown else-
where, mestres constituted lineages of power through which they transmitted
their knowledge to younger generations (González Varela 2017). Tracing an
ascending line to a famous mestre became a prerequisite for belonging to a
community of participants; it was a process of legitimization.
Respect toward older mestres created social relations based on vertical au-
thority. This verticality explains the admiration and deference that exist from
disciples (who are themselves sometimes younger mestres) to their mentors.
A case that comes to my mind is the admiration that Mestre Renê Bittencourt,
a famous Angola leader, professed for his Mestre Paulo dos Anjos. Renê,
in his public Facebook posts, has mentioned how vital Paulo dos Anjos’s
presence was. When traveling all over the world, he considered it his duty to
honor the memory of his deceased mestre by telling stories in the classroom
about him. He says, referring to his mestre: “Sometimes I feel tired, but I
find my strength in the legacy from the person who taught me [capoeira], it
is my mission and it is with love. I am going to share what I learned from
him: being a capoeirista, a better human being, a better father, and a more
understanding citizen and son” (Bittencourt 2018). For Renê, his missionary
duty has been to keep the memory of his mestre alive.
The respect Mestre Renê felt for his mestre mirrored the reverence, and
even fear, that his mestre felt for his older mentor, Mestre Canjiquinha. This
unbroken chain of power and strong feelings also exists with other mestres I
have met in Brazil and abroad. The project implemented by Pastinha, his idea
of turning everything in capoeira Angola around the figure of the mestre, has
become the norm among capoeira practitioners all over the world.
Naturally, not all students become mestres or ascend in the hierarchical
structure of academies. Many, most of them, are casual practitioners, and just
a few assume responsibilities or become deeply engaged with their groups.
In Bahia, it is difficult to get a title within the capoeira Angola community
because there is a lot of competition and mestres are careful about giving a
title and responsibility to somebody in their hometown. In some instances,
it is easier and faster to become part of the hierarchy abroad because being
outside Brazil makes it more difficult to challenge the bestowal of a title and
because giving a title to a person in charge of a group abroad is a way to cre-
ate strong connections with international students. I have seen many cases
where a person who in Brazil would be considered just an ordinary player
takes a title and the responsibility for leading a group abroad.
Mestres and students have a relationship of interdependence. Students
expect a lot from their mestres, and so too the other way around. Mestres ex-

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pect a lot from their disciples. However, as in any ritual activity, hierarchies
determine how mestres classify their students. Advanced students with titles
or with a long commitment to the Angola cause get the sympathy and relative
trust of mestres who value the time they have invested and the experience
gained through practicing capoeira. This situation applies not only to groups
in Brazil but also abroad. Mestres expect that international students could
make it to Brazil one day to practice capoeira there, and, most importantly,
they want individuals to move from being casual students to become real
adepts of the Angola style.
When Pastinha codified capoeira Angola, he envisioned the mestre-student
relationship as a close and daily interaction between individuals. This rela-
tionship between students and mestres was stable throughout the revival of
capoeira Angola. During the 1980s and the early 1990s, it was still possible to
follow the ideal of Mestre Pastinha. Students and mestres interacted closely;
they reinvented the notion of tradition, explored new movements, revised
sequences of attacks and counterattacks, and studied more deeply the mean-
ing of songs. More important, young students learned the politics of capoeira
in a general social environment where local authorities excluded them and
discriminated against them openly. For mestres, being at home regularly
developed ideas about the meaning of capoeira as an Afro-Brazilian practice.
This traditional and idealized image of the mestre-student relationship
remained relatively unchanged until leaders began their international mis-
sionary work in the late 1990s. Before that global exposure, the dictates of
tradition stipulated that students should follow without question the lessons
taught by their mestres. Mestres were also responsible for students in a roda,
giving advice and protection if something went wrong or out of control in
the performances. During the 1980s and 1990s, mestres and students worked
more closely together, and hierarchies in the groups remained established
with relatively few changes. The global expansion of capoeira has shattered
this image. Today, the mestre-student relationship is very different; leaders
and students travel more than ever before, and there are new social relations.
From the late 1990s onward, the interactions between mestres and students
took on a new meaning.

TOURISM SUBVERSIONS

Mestres took their role as missionaries of Afro-Brazilian culture in the 2000s

seriously. If in the previous decades we saw interest in creating, sustaining,
and consolidating Angola academies in the local scenes of Bahia, Rio de
Janeiro, São Paulo, and other Brazilian cities, in the late 1990s and the first

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decade of the twenty-first century, the movement of capoeira Angola tar-

geted the “outside world.” The mestre-student relationship experienced many
changes. Leaders, who were supposed to be with their students all the time,
suddenly had to be absent for many months. Some mestres migrated to other
countries and left their groups in the charge of a minor mestre or a professor.
The demands of an international market signaled a change in mestres’ re-
sponsibilities. They could no longer spend time with local students on a daily
basis. Some disciples were now advanced students or mestres themselves.
Mestres began to delegate duties and started exploring the world.
Although the increase in mobility of capoeira Angola practitioners hap-
pened at the beginning of the new millennium, tourism in capoeira settings
existed well before the intensification of movement and travel. Ethnographer
Waldeloir Rego, for instance, pointed out in 1968 that the tourism industry
in Bahia had affected the local practices of Afro-Brazilian culture, although
capoeira practitioners used the industry to their advantage:

Concerning capoeira, if things did not go like in a dream, it was not completely
disastrous. It is clear that there were groups of capoeiristas and academies that
yield to pressures and economic temptations, devaluating themselves com-
pletely. But in reality, the majority remained away from those influences and
more importantly, capoeira took out from tourism what it was more convenient
of it, which was the international and national promotion and diffusion [of
capoeira]. Seen as an exotic thing, the capoeira from Bahia, together with can-
domblé, was sought after by all kind of tourists, ethnographers, artists, writers
and filmmakers. (Rego 1968: 318–19)

Rego mentions that the tourism industry raised capoeira’s visibility in other
sectors of society and in other areas such as painting, performing arts, poetry,
cinema, and music. However, tourism also made capoeira more mainstream
and detached it from its Afro-Brazilian roots. Rego (1968: 43) notes, for
instance, that the changes in academy dress codes in the 1960s were a conse-
quence of the tourism industry, which had devalued local customs. For him,
tourism was the opposite of tradition. Tourism was a subversion of the patterns
of cultural stability that existed among different ritual and religious practices
in Bahia. The economy of tourism focused on the display of art as spectacle.
For Rego, the advent of tourism “cheapened” the essence of capoeira.
This conflict is similar to the one mentioned by Dean MacCannell (1999:
91–198) about the staging of authenticity and the opposition between “true”
and “false” representation of local cultures. He explains, “The current struc-
tural development of society is marked by the appearance everywhere of
touristic space. This space can be called a stage set, a tourist setting, or sim-
ply, a set depending on how purposefully worked up for tourists the display

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 71

is” (MacCannell 1999: 100). The creation of a tourist setting related to ritual
or traditional practices creates an artificial stage designed for purposes other
than those dictated by the members who perform on that stage.
In the late 1960s, famous capoeira Angola mestres such as Pastinha and
Canjiquinha used to their advantage the interest that local authorities had in
showing capoeira for tourists. Rego cites a variety of places where Mestre
Canjiquinha presented capoeira as a spectacle in Brazil; Rego (1968: 276–78)
divides the exhibitions into categories: “official,” “In the State of Bahia,”
“Outside Bahia,” “During Carnival,” “In Cinema,” “Social Clubs,” “Public
Squares,” and “Various.” For Rego (1968: 276), Canjiquinha used the tour-
ism industry to his advantage more effectively than other mestres: “From all
Bahian capoeiristas, he [Canjiquinha] was the one who was invited most to
exhibitions, traveling around Bahia and outside the state, he was also the one
who acted most in cinema, short and long productions.”
Since the 1960s the use of Afro-Brazilian culture for economic develop-
ment and tourism has marked the local policies concerning many Afro-
Brazilian practices. This continues today, and it is impossible to dismiss the
power that the tourism industry has in shaping the perception that Angola
mestres have about their art. Although Rego’s opinion of the use of tourism
by local mestres could look outdated, it serves as a reminder today of how
leaders deal with contextual circumstances when tradition and the preserva-
tion of Afro-Brazilian values are at stake.
Another important (although short) narrative about tourism and mobility
appears in a footnote of Greg Downey’s Learning Capoeira, where we find a
casual but revealing description of capoeira tourism in the 1990s:

Black North Americans once traveled to Brazil to experience what they saw
as a society free of prejudice. . . . [N]ow many make a pilgrimage to Salva-
dor to experience the city’s Afro-Brazilian heritage. While I was in GCAP,
a constant complement of foreign capoeiristas was in residence, some for
months at a time. This intimate, long-term contact between Bahian and foreign
capoeiristas, especially African Americans, left a deep imprint on everyone
involved. (Downey 2005: 214)

This note, made during Downey’s intense fieldwork between 1993 and 1995,
offers a view of the situation within GCAP (Mestre Moraes’s group) and of
the intentions and motives of American capoeira practitioners who had trav-
eled to Bahia. These players did not come for just a few days but for months,
in a pattern that will become the norm in subsequent years. Unfortunately,
Downey does not offer more information about who these African Americans
are and why they consider their visits to Bahia a sort of pilgrimage. We can
speculate that if this interaction between local and foreign practitioners was

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already taking place in the 1990s, then it is possible that the influx was a con-
sequence of the early impact that mestres such as João Grande, Cobra Mansa,
and Jelon Vieira already had in the United States.
The beginning of new relations and the emergence of new actors in the
capoeira scene in Salvador led mestres to ponder their heritage and their role
as caretakers of Afro-Brazilian culture. From the broad scope of influences
that the tourism industry brought to Salvador in the new millennium, what in-
terests me here are the destabilizing forces that tourism brought and how they
affected the traditional mestre-student relationship in the practice of capoeira
Angola. With the promotion of capoeira as a tourist attraction and its insertion
in the general context of Bahian society since the 1970s, practitioners began
their global itineraries searching for new economic and social opportunities.
By making travel their primary focus, mestres transformed their local rela-
tions with their students at the same time that they created new connections
with practitioners abroad.
Traveling fractured forever the traditional relationship between mestres
and students. Pastinha’s idea of mestres’ daily interaction with and commit-
ment to students changed; students had to adapt to a new set of relations that
included the prolonged absence of their mentors. At the same time, mestres
gained new paths of apprenticeship with international students. The mestre-
student connection adapted to a mobile reality where both mestres and stu-
dents had to build a new meaning of tradition and knowledge transmission.
Tourism and mobility also changed the role that women play today in the
development of capoeira. As part of the transnationality of the Afro-Bra-
zilian art, women have sought equal treatment within the hierarchies of the
groups, both within Brazil and in other countries. The #MeToo movement,
for example, has brought a reckoning about the violence and abuse against
women in capoeira, where men dominate the structures of power. In Sal-
vador, a courageous group of women has taken up the task of denouncing
on social media acts of violence and harassment against them by prominent
figures of the capoeira scene. The initial act of condemning violence and
abuse has mutated into a new and exciting social movement of feminist
capoeira practitioners, whose members, among them researchers Christine
Zonzón and Adriana Albert Dias, condemn any act of misogyny and fight
for gender equality and the visibility of women in Bahian capoeira. The
initial movement has gained national and international attention, expanding
in 2018 to other regions in Brazil and gaining support from international
practitioners in other cities across the globe.
In an environment marked by male-centric power and authority, the influ-
ence of female students and the achievement of women recognized as group
leaders have contributed to a more balanced relation between leaders and

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 73

students. One of the biggest struggles in capoeira circles today is opposing a

particular male-centric form of power as the only way of transmitting knowl-
edge and preserving a tradition.
The global itineraries of mestres were and are not all equal. Some famous
leaders travel all the time, others travel less often, and some mestres do not
like to travel at all. However, the general condition is one of mobility as a
form of preserving the capoeira Angola tradition. The subversion produced
by tourism has also increased the diversity of practitioners of capoeira An-
gola. Today, there are all kinds of people practicing capoeira Angola not only
in Bahia but also all over the world: children, adults, adolescents, women, and
senior citizens all take part in an Afro-Brazilian art that tries to transcend the
barriers of language and cultural adscription. The popularity and accessibility
of the Angola style, although it has never achieved the same level of success
as Regional and Contemporary variants, has to do with its semantic bodily
expression and the nature of dance itself (Robitaille 2014). Through its imme-
diateness, capoeira Angola has attracted practitioners interested not only in
physical activities but also in the culture that supports it. As Kringelbach and
Skinner (2014) mention, dance brings a unique possibility of integration and
inclusion of people with different backgrounds because it does not entirely
depend on language.
Despite the openness and inclusion that capoeira foments, mestres and
advanced students struggle to control the collateral effects of the move-
ment’s global mobility. Sometimes the malleability and open interpretation
of capoeira Angola abroad clashes with the perspective of mestres about what
is allowed and forbidden in practice. Questions about the limits of innova-
tion are not limited to capoeira but also are raised in other dances and ritual
performances where dependence on the body makes them “vulnerable” to
modifications, improvisations, and extreme variation. Due to this potential
risk, mestres emphasize that part of their global mission is to bring the right
message and the correct way of learning capoeira to international groups.
A brief ethnographic example from my field notes in Bahia exemplifies
the subversion of tourism in capoeira Angola’s practice. While I was training
with Mestre Valmir, the leader of FICA Salvador, one of his students invited
me to a capoeira exhibition for tourists coming from a transatlantic cruise.
We rehearsed at FICA the day before a series of sequences and practiced a
choreography to entertain the tourists with some acrobatic movements. The
performance took place the next day, and Valmir acted like a showman, skill-
fully motivating people to participate. Dressed all in white, we performed
our choreographed sequences during a performance that lasted no more than
twenty minutes. After we concluded the show, we were invited to talk to the
tourists and explain a little bit about the meaning of capoeira.

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Days later I talked to Valmir about the exhibition. He told me that he did
not do such shows very often; in this case he did it as a favor for a friend and
because of the money and opportunity to show capoeira Angola to travelers.
He said that many mestres were conflicted about using capoeira Angola as
a show because it did not have the same acrobatic and spectacular appeal
as capoeira Regional or Contemporânea. He also mentioned that using
capoeira as a performance for tourists gave a false impression about Afro-
Brazilian traditions. In the end, Valmir had to negotiate his commitment to
tradition within an environment of increasing tourism. He was more open to
engaging with shows than other mestres because he was an avid traveler. He
understood the curiosity that tourists had about capoeira and how different
people around the world interpreted capoeira in their own terms. Although
Valmir acknowledged this conflict between tradition and spectacle, he had
learned how to separate both contexts and use his capoeira skills to negoti-
ate its diverse expressions.
The mestre-student relationship in all its variability fluctuates based on the
mobility of leaders and advanced students and the subversion that tourism
and global exposure generates. An increasing number of avid participants
want to learn the “true” meaning of capoeira from a great mestre. In the next
section, we explore what happens when mestres and students meet in concrete
situations and “controlled equivocations,” to use Eduardo Viveiros de Cas-
tro’s (2004) expression, to establish apprenticeships.

WONDERMENT

The mestre-student relationship is in principle asymmetrical. The obligation

of learning from a qualified mestre makes those in the category of “student”
always at a disadvantage. The power and authority in the transmission of
knowledge imposed by tradition are expected to flow in one direction only,
from leaders to disciples. This directionality constitutes a power relation. In
theory, students are supposed to learn without questioning much the status or
quality of the source of knowledge—that is, they are expected to defer to the
mestre. Deference plays a vital role in the way capoeira should be practiced
among students, but it does not explain the mestre-student relation entirely.
The mestre-student relationship is more than just an association based on
power and authority. Students influence mestres’ perspectives and are active
participants in the transmission of knowledge. Students owe mestres defer-
ence and respect, but, because of the global expansion of capoeira, students,
particularly international ones, are more willing to question some of the Afro-
Brazilian principles concerning concepts such as “tradition,” “religion,” or

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 75

“belonging.” The mestre-student relationship is not only one of obedience;

rather, we need to see this vertical relation as tending all the time toward be-
coming partially horizontal as students try to establish a dialogue with their
mentors and to create possibilities of mutual understanding.
In the development of the mestre-student relationship, I identify three mo-
ments that shape the effects of tourism mobilities: wonderment, expectations,
and disappointments. These three moments shape the relationship between
mestres and students. They unfold through time, they represent the duration
of apprenticeship, and they indicate the emotional engagement between lead-
ers and students in local and global scales.
The feeling of wonderment appears in the initial contact between a mestre
and a student. A student feels a sense of complete admiration when she sees
the leader perform, talk, and sing for the first time. The mestre, on the other
hand, transmits his knowledge to beginners. He wishes to capture the atten-
tion of the new disciples as they, possibly, have never trained capoeira before.
Of course, the context where this interaction takes place for the first time is
crucial. People in Brazil who want to try out capoeira for the first time sup-
posedly have more knowledge about the Afro-Brazilian art, although this is
not always the case, so the mestre may take for granted some elements such
as music and the African origins of capoeira. When the initial contact hap-
pens abroad, the mestre changes his attitude because the new students may
not know much about capoeira or may have only a vague notion about it. The
mestre may talk more than perform, spending time explaining the meaning
of songs, music, and the history of capoeira. Nevertheless, the mestre will
also try to express bodily the art of deception by playing with some of the
advanced students in the classroom or the roda.
A student’s experience of wonderment appears as an initial moment where
the world stops, where she has the strong feeling of being in the presence of
a unique and charismatic person. It is an aesthetic effect the mestre produces
with his body. On the other end of the relationship, a mestre knows that his
missionary role has been intensified by a multiplicity of travels all over the
world. The seductive effect of capoeira is essential for transmitting the mes-
tre’s message immediately to students he does not know very well or whom
he encounters for the first time. The feeling of wonderment is very similar to
the rapture of an aesthetic semiotic experience of art (Greimas 1997), occur-
ring in unexpected circumstances and places, such as in a museum exhibition,
as Stephen Greenblatt (1991) has aptly described.
In this initial stage, mestres know that they have to transcend as quickly as
possible the commercial side of their craft. By this I mean they try to show
the “true” essence of capoeira and make curious observers into students. This
deliberate move happens in the academies or workshops abroad. On the stage,

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when Angola members perform for tourists, as in the case described with
Valmir, mestres do not have time to go beyond the tourist setting. So, instill-
ing the feeling of wonderment in beginners is the initial step that mestres
take as a strategy to move beyond the constraints of tourism. These casual
students who came for a diversity of reasons to take a lesson with a mestre in
an Angola academy need to feel an initial wonderment about capoeira even if
they never return or never see capoeira again.
Sometimes, the feeling of wonderment occurs also with advanced students
who meet a famous mestre for the first time. I remember a couple of occa-
sions when I had the fortune to meet mestres such as João Grande, Moraes,
Cobra Mansa, Bigodinho, and Virgilio da Fazenda Grande for the first time.
Although I was not a neophyte when I met these mestres, my feeling of won-
derment was strong enough that I chose to dedicate part of my life to train
capoeira and also convinced myself that the intricacy of the Angola style
would be worth studying anthropologically.
Personal power appears seductively. As Luke Freeman (2007: 286) notes,
“Power is about gathering followers by communicating an aura of unusual
efficacy as a person and of natural authority as a ruler.” This unique aura
is what I consider the feeling of wonderment experienced by students who
meet a mestre for the first time. I remember how I felt when I got to know
Mestre Moraes during his first trip to Stockholm in 2002. I had met other
famous leaders before, yet seeing Moraes was a life-changing experience. He
was in Stockholm just for a couple of days, but during that time participants
understood his greatness as a capoeira leader. The way he played music, how
he moved in the roda, and his singing and personal engagement with students
were things I had never seen before in capoeira. Moraes was different, and
his body irradiated the aura that Freeman describes. People who attended
that workshop with Moraes knew he was powerful. He represented the char-
ismatic figure Max Weber refers to (1947: 358–63). His personality showed
his power in practice.
The feeling of wonderment is part of the charisma that radiates from a mes-
tres’s inner spiritual force. Through wonderment, a leader builds a different
sort of connection with people, especially when he knows he will not be stay-
ing in one place for long. This seductive first encounter aims to create an in-
tense and durable experience for students, one that lasts long enough to keep
students motivated to continue practicing capoeira. It is irrelevant whether
mestres are successful in their missionary path to overcome the superficiality
of casual and ephemeral experiences of capoeira. What remains important is
that mestres act with their bodies to transcend the barriers imposed by tourism
mobilities in order to show an “authentic” form of tradition.

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EXPECTATIONS

The second moment that surrounds the mestre-student relationship has to do

with the expectations that students build around a leader. Expectations are a
by-product of mestres’ charm and their initial effect of wonderment. They are
a consequence of the fluctuating presence and absence of a leader in a group.
Mobility makes mestres into itinerant beings who cannot stay for too long in
one place. Expectations grow when a leader is absent. Students wait for the
day of a mestre’s return to continue their learning from the vital source of
capoeira. This waiting happens in Brazil, the United States, Europe—in any
place where an Angola academy is depending on a mestre to exist. Expecta-
tions also lead to imaginary projections. Just as tourism mobility often por-
trays an unreal experience of local settings, people who want to know more
about capoeira Angola sometimes have expectations that do not correspond
to the reality of mestres’ intentions.
Let me return here for a moment to the concept of tourism imaginaries
discussed by Noel Salazar and Nelson Graburn. One of the main arguments
in the introduction of their edited volume is that social imaginaries emerge
from the relationship between tourists and the places they visit. Defining
these imaginaries is complicated, and it is even more difficult to locate or
make them tangible: “By their very nature, imaginaries remain intangible, so
the only way to study them is by focusing on the multiple conduits through
which they pass and become visible in the form of images and discourses”
(Salazar and Graburn 2014: 2). So, images and discourses shape the social
imaginaries of tourism, and these images and discourses are the ways the
social imaginaries become anthropologically relevant. The mestre-student
relationship, if not entirely characterized as a touristic one, has many of the
elements needed to create a set of imaginaries very similar to those found
in tourism. The expectations that are a product of mestres’ mobility set up
imaginary projections in students. These expectations are about specific im-
ages of Afro-Brazilian culture. In their missionary quest, mestres reveal, step
by step, what they consider to be their Afro-Brazilian values and traditions,
such as the importance of slavery in the history of capoeira, the primacy of
deception as a compelling game strategy, their musical knowledge, and the
social memory of some dead mestres. Through intermittent face-to-face inter-
actions, disciples learn gradually about all these issues and complement the
experience they gain with the help of the Internet and the contact they make
with their mentors through social media.
As mestres are constantly moving, imaginary projections are not only an
experience of international students but also affect practitioners in Brazil. The

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imaginaries that capoeira Angola creates vary widely. These imaginaries are
a by-product of the expectations built around a leader. Mestres are aware that
something is expected from them, that students, as they become more and
more involved in capoeira, want to learn the fundaments of tradition. At the
same time, mestres expect a lot from students; they demand loyalty, defer-
ence, and respect for the right way of performing capoeira. Disciples then cre-
ate a set of “tourism imaginaries” about their mentors that focus on the role
of mestres as caretakers of Afro-Brazilian tradition. Students, in many cases,
follow what their leaders say without question. Mestres, on the other hand,
use the expectations of students to maintain student interest in the fundaments
of capoeira Angola without revealing too much. They try to keep the image
they are presenting within that realm of deference and relative sacredness
while maintaining secrecy.
One example of the tourism imaginaries that mestres inadvertently project
has to do with how they speak about their places of origin. The importance
leaders give to their home cities and how they talk about them always sur-
prises me. I remember, for instance, how Mestre Pedrinho, leader of Terreiro
Mandinga de Angola (TMA), spoke with his students in Mexico City about
his hometown of Duque de Caxias in Rio de Janeiro. The way he described
different aspects of Caxias, its violence, its “dangerousness,” the people who
inhabit it, and the stories of his childhood and teenage years there gave stu-
dents a sense of the meaning of capoeira in that social context. His capoeira
stories about the famous Roda de Caxias transported disciples on an imagi-
nary journey about Caxias, Rio, and Brazil. It made students hopeful about
one day visiting Caxias to see capoeira there and meet the people Pedrinho
mentioned. Unintentionally, Pedrinho was building a connection between his
Mexican students and Brazil. Years later, that relationship brought Mexican
students to Caxias; they had the opportunity to know firsthand the capoeira
scene there, and, in turn, capoeira people in Caxias were able to meet the dis-
ciples Pedrinho talked so much about when he visited his old neighborhood.
Through this dialogical exchange, imaginaries in capoeira operated in the
same fashion as imaginaries in tourism. In this way, seductive and fantastic
projections of otherness surrounded places, people, narratives, and images.
Globalization and the mobile nature of tourism make possible exchanges
between leaders of capoeira Angola and academies all over the world. In the
example cited above, imaginaries also operate with capoeira players from
Caxias, who understand and represent the presence of international practitio-
ners, who visit the Roda de Caxias all year-round, in their own imaginative
ways. They, the people from Caxias, built imaginary projections about the
otherness of tourism, and they also fall “prey” to the images that itinerant

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 79

Figure 3.1. Capoeira music orchestra minutes before the beginning of a roda at Ter-
reiro Mandinga de Angola academy, Mexico City.
Photo: José Luis Pérez Flores. Date: November 19, 2011.

mestres display about other Brazilian cities with strong capoeira traditions
like Bahia.
The social imaginaries produced by the mestre-student relationship could
multiply ad nauseam. They appear as moments of expectation with students
who are neither beginners nor exclusively casual practitioners. In this sense,
imaginaries extend to other disciples who have trained capoeira for many
years. Relevant to the discussion here is the content of the imaginaries about
capoeira that students create, and, recursively, the meaning that mestres give
to their contact and interactions with people in capoeira settings. In other
words, what is at stake here is how mestres imagine students, how they lo-
cate them in a hierarchy of power and knowledge that extends globally. This
inquiry leads us to the third moment of the mestre-student relationship.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Both leaders and disciples experience a widespread feeling of disappoint-

ment at some stage in their relationship. Some students have negative
feelings about their mentors after the initial moments of wonderment have

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 80 Chapter Three

passed, and mestres are often disappointed when their disciples do not con-
form to their high expectations.
It takes time for some students to feel disappointed about their mentors.
The initial fascination with all things associated with capoeira Angola can
last many years; practitioners adapt to the nomadic life of their leaders and
get used to seeing them sporadically. Sometimes, however, disciples’ percep-
tion of their mestres undergoes an abrupt change. It is common, particularly
outside Brazil, to wrap the figure of the mestre in a semisacred aura. Inter-
national students of capoeira Angola—whether beginners, advanced players,
or those positions of authority and responsibility within an academy—tend to
take their leaders too seriously. Students often forget that these leaders live a
missionary life and cannot pay attention to everyone they meet. More impor-
tantly, they change their views about the meaning of capoeira with time; they
must embody the art of deception as a game strategy and a form of establish-
ing power relations too.
International students get caught in a web of misunderstandings when they
give high moral value to interactions with their mestres. Just because mestres
hold power does not mean that they will act automatically according to par-
ticular values. Students sometimes demand that mestres behave morally, and
more often than not such demands contradict the dictates of deception as the
primary strategy of capoeira.
Mestres use the new moral status they have gained for missionary purposes.
They play along with students’ demands, but they cannot always be seen as
moral beings—they must also embody deception and trickery. They know
that it is part of their lives to be malandros (rogues), fluctuating between or-
der and disorder, disruption and continuity, legality and illegality, and “good”
and “evil” (Downey 2005: 153–68). So, at some stage in their lives, mestres
face the same dilemma that Pastinha confronted when he realized that becom-
ing a moral guide and quasi-religious leader often contradicted the essence
of capoeira. Deception is one of the lessons that capoeira gives students,
and leaders must demonstrate that lesson at some point in their lives to their
disciples. As I have shown (González Varela 2017), stories of “betrayal” by
mestres who take economic advantage of students are common, as are stories
of students betraying mestres. The relationship between leaders and disciples
is a risky one. If capoeira’s practice is about simulation and feigning attacks
to catch your opponent off guard and win, the same situation may happen out
in the world, in the roda of life.
Students must be prepared to confront their leaders’ deception when the
time comes and must decide what to do about it. International students have
to face the reality that the moral status they have given to their mentors is not
the ideal behavior they should expect. Instead, they should embrace the art

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 81

of deception and recognize its value when embodied and performed by the
leaders of capoeira. However, many mestres could change their attitudes and
become moral guides for their disciples around the world. As far as I know,
leaders are assuming more and more their role as moral guides, even if this
attitude contradicts the art of deception as a virtue. Of course, these new pat-
terns may be part of innovative deceptive strategies employed to hide and
protect mestres’ power and knowledge. I am not sure how widespread the
status of mestres as moral figures is among capoeira academies worldwide,
but the tension between what students imagine about their leaders and what
leaders do is a cause of conflict and disappointment.
If students feel disillusioned with their mentors, the reverse is also true.
Mestres have high expectations of students, and when they think that stu-
dents’ commitment is not strong, they may feel extremely disappointed and
annoyed. Leaders expects blind deference from advanced students, who
should, in theory, be committed to capoeira full-time. As students struggle
to keep these high standards, mestres could consider them not to be true
“capoeiristas.” I remember how a leader in Mexico mocked a student because
of his lack of commitment to capoeira. The mestre said that the student had
not embraced the Afro-Brazilian art because he would train intensively for
two months and then stop completely for another four months; the student
in question would come to many rodas and then suddenly disappear for
extended periods. This inconstancy made the mestre furious; he berated the
student and often told him that he was a “capoeira tourist,” someone who did
not believe in discipline or responsibility. Another Bahian mestre also felt an-
noyed with international students who focused only on physical movements.
He said that these students did not want to listen to a mestre; they did not want
to learn the Portuguese language, music, or lyrics; and, worse, they did not
want to know anything about capoeira’s history or the tales of his ancestors.
The mestre said that these were not capoeira practitioners but lame players,
capengas, incomplete persons.
These are just two examples of the disappointment in their students that
mestres sometimes experience. There are other situations when leaders feel
that their disciples do not understand capoeira as they should, including the
choice of international practitioners to become independent, rejecting an
association with a single mestre, switching loyalties from mestre to mestre,
challenging the authority of a leader, banning people because of race, and
failing to make the visit of a mestre profitable. Mestres try to keep control
of their groups and the people they meet during their trips, but they face a
changing landscape that seems to create constant tensions related to tradi-
tion and what is allowed or not allowed in capoeira Angola performances.
Paradoxically, the more a mestre’s missionary work intensifies, the more the

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 82 Chapter Three

mestre loses control as the message gets lost in translation or is interpreted in

diverse and unexpected ways.

THE LIMITS OF INNOVATION

The current, accelerating changes in capoeira Angola academies in Brazil and

abroad do not pass unnoticed by mestres, who blame globalization, tourism,
mobility, and cultural differences. However, many have realized that they
own part of the blame too. Many mestres use social media to express their
concerns about tradition, innovation, and the preservation of Afro-Brazilian
culture. They know they are facing a complex environment.
On the one hand, they want to “correct” and give proper direction to the
development of capoeira Angola throughout the world, so they continue mov-
ing around the globe to deliver their message. On the other hand, the more
they travel, the more they lose control of how capoeira is interpreted and as-
similated in different cultural settings, as they are not there all the time to cor-
rect or supervise in the flesh. This loss of control, naturally, does not happen
everywhere, and there are academies and well-organized franchises, such as,
for instance, FICA and Filhos de Angola, that institutionalize the transmis-
sion of knowledge from mestre to students. However, as I show in chapter 5,
in countries such as Mexico, mestres are losing their grasp on how tradition
should work, and more independent groups, led by local long-term practitio-
ners, even contest the power of mestres. The proliferation of groups abroad
and the idealized image that students create about traditional capoeira cities in
Brazil and the mestres who embody Afro-Brazilian religions bring into ques-
tion the limits of innovation in capoeira Angola. How far can a group depart
from the mentorship of a mestre? How do leaders present themselves abroad
so that they can keep control of their tradition?
These are difficult questions to answer. What I can say is that one of the
critical problems in the transmission of knowledge between a mestre and his
students today is that it is more permissible, allowing students to innovate
in modes that do not always follow the “right way” of performing capoeira.
Mestres know they have to adapt to this uncontrolled environment and thus in-
novate in the way they teach students, both in Brazil or abroad. They compete
with other Angola mestres too, so they need to transmit their message in the
most innovative way. Nevertheless, there are limits to what mestres will allow
within capoeira groups they lead. For example, they do not permit recorded
music in a roda, and they require members to learn how to play musical instru-
ments. They condemn singing in languages other than Portuguese, and they

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 The Mestre-Student Relationship in the Age of Tourism 83

warn students of the consequences that will occur if the students start calling
themselves “mestre” or “professor” without their mestre’s consent.
Mobility, globalization, and the effects of tourism are changing the
structure and emotional tenor of the mestre-student relationship in capoeira
Angola today. Transformations in the way practitioners define concepts
such as “tradition,” “power,” and “Afro-Brazilian” are visible more than
ever, and leaders face the challenge of controlling innovation and change
in capoeira Angola and the commodification of Blackness for consumption
by tourists (Hedegard 2013). In the next chapter, I describe how mestres
set up limits to innovation in the face of these challenges. The process of
innovation depends on religious and spiritual principles that need to remain
relatively untouched in order for leaders to preserve and transmit the “true”
meaning of capoeira Angola.

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 Chapter Four

Religious Foundations

My aim in this chapter is to describe the religious foundations of capoeira

Angola from a perspective that questions many of the cultural and historical
assumptions that academics have made about this style.1 Although I am aware
that being totally unbiased is impossible, the object of this analysis is to por-
tray how the religious foundations of capoeira Angola have developed since
its formalization in the 1940s up to the present day (Assunção 2005, Pires
2002). These foundations hold the key to a better understanding of capoeira
in its performative and spiritual dimensions, but only if we anthropologists
can transform the meaning of what we consider to be “religious.” In a global
context marked by the increasing mobility of practitioners and the influence
of the tourism market, the religious aspect of capoeira has gained prominence
not only among Brazilians but also with international students. In this way, a
new meaning of the spiritual and religious domain of capoeira is transforming
the social relations between teachers and students.
The argument in this chapter derives mainly from my involvement as a prac-
titioner and ethnographer with capoeira Angola groups in the city of Salvador,
Bahia, Brazil, since 2005. In this sense, these pages intend to show the different
ways in which mestres constitute the religious foundations of capoeira Angola.
Although I base the ethnographic material on my experience in Salvador, I
also draw on my interaction with other Angola mestres traveling or living
abroad and with their affiliated groups, mainly in the United States, Mexico,
the United Kingdom, and Sweden. This international scope is vital in order to
grasp the new meaning of capoeira Angola as a practice that today includes a
wide range of practitioners from different nationalities, religious backgrounds,
and personal interests (see, for example, Griffith 2016). It is through this ongo-
ing interaction of mestres with groups abroad that the religious foundations of

85

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 86 Chapter Four

capoeira Angola have become more important as a way of affirming that this
practice belongs to an Afro-Brazilian tradition.
The first part of the chapter describes the complexity of defining capoeira.
I analyze the efforts that capoeira teachers have made to characterize their
practice as ambiguous and why they consider it ontologically “elusive” and
“indeterminate.” I further discuss how a problem of definition becomes at the
same time an issue about inherent values and meanings that encompass dif-
ferent attitudes toward the logic of practice, such as deception, betrayal, play,
and embodiment. Here I address some of the common assumptions made by
anthropologists (for example, Downey 2008, Lewis 1992, Reis 2000), who
often argue that although capoeira involves a form of spirituality, it is in
essence “nonreligious,” and I examine why this has become the misguided
solution to the definitional problem.
The second part moves from a discussion of the problem of definition to a
description of the practice and its political meaning. I describe the substance
of politics ethnographically by focusing on the expression of individual
power and its links to magic and spirituality in capoeira. I argue that the
sociality of capoeira stems from a set of hierarchical relations imposed by
powerful, charismatic leaders.
The third section returns to the definitional problem, but from a perspective
that highlights the religious foundations of capoeira Angola. These foundations
combine elements of the Afro-Brazilian formal religions such as Candomblé
and Umbanda with a set of ontological presences that emerge from the practice
of capoeira Angola itself. Finally, in the conclusion I describe capoeira as a
practice that mestres preserve through the continual transformation and innova-
tion of its religious foundations—what I call “foundations in motion.”

INDETERMINATE AND ELUSIVE DEFINITIONS

According to Brazilian ethnologist and folklorist Waldeloir Rego (1968),

the word “capoeira” has been the subject of different etymological theories.
Some argue that it has its origins in the Tupi word caa-apuam-era, which
refers to a piece of trimmed forest land. Others state that it comes from the
word capão, which means deforested virgin land. Further etymological defi-
nitions relate it to a fowl (Odontophorus capoeira Spix) native to Paraguay
and the coastal regions of Brazil, or to a basket used for collecting this type of
bird (Rego 1968: 17–23). Rego’s exhaustive work, which I have just briefly
summarized here, is exemplary of a preoccupation that has fascinated aca-
demics and practitioners alike (see, for example, Almeida 1986, Araújo 1999,
Carneiro 1977, Downey 2002, Merrell 2005, Oliveira 2005, Robitaille 2013,

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 Religious Foundations 87

Rector 2008, Soares 1993). What is capoeira? Where did it originate? Who
invented it and why? Is it authentically African or is it Brazilian? Is it a sport?
A dance? A fight? Who practiced it before its formalization in the 1940s?
I do not have definitive answers to all of these questions, and I doubt I
ever will. In previous chapters I have portrayed the passion for origins and
the mythological narratives about the African and Afro-Brazilian past as ele-
ments of the virtual possibilities that capoeira offers to practitioners and as
local imaginaries. What interests me here is how this uncertainty about the
definition of capoeira has motivated all these queries on so many levels: ety-
mological, historical, sociological, psychological, and anthropological. For
those who have practiced capoeira for an extended period, it is common to
feel puzzled by the indeterminacy of an art form that is not strictly “art” but
also a ritual, a dance, a fight, a martial art, and much more.
The definitional problem I would like to address in this section relates to
the ontological status of capoeira Angola as a traditional practice.2 Briefly,
capoeira consists of an interaction between two players (as practitioners refer
to themselves) within a circle called a roda (Lewis 1992). Other capoeira
players typically help the audience form the circle, and advanced practitio-
ners are the ones in charge of playing the live music that accompanies the
performance. Depending on the style, different instruments are used in the
music ensemble, although invariably the berimbau, a resonance “bow,” is
the most prominent (Fryer 2000, Graham 1991, Shaffer 1977). In essence,
capoeira is a performance between two individuals moving to musical pat-
terns and specific songs in a combat ring.
The logic of the practice, at least in capoeira Angola, depends on avoiding
open violence. The two players interact but must do so through deceptive
means. Leaders often state that there are no losers or winners in capoeira but
only astute players who can deceive adversaries at will. It is a game of ques-
tions and answers expressing a form of symbolic violence.
The meaning of capoeira goes beyond the realm of performance. For ad-
vanced practitioners and leaders, capoeira is considered a way of life, some-
thing that pervades all aspects of their existence. It affects their perception of
space, their social relations, and their attitudes toward the world (Abib 2004,
2006, Downey 2005, 2008). It is this sense of totality that makes this art form
fascinating but at the same time puzzling. In many sports, dances, rituals, and
fighting practices there is a holism similar to the one found in capoeira. Asian
martial arts practitioners, athletes, and participants in rituals all give a holistic
meaning to their activities (see Besnier and Brownell 2012, Dyck and Archetti
2003, Zarrilli 1984, 2000). In some cases these meanings relate to specific
forms of spirituality, in others to personal emotional attachments. Capoeira is
not foreign to these kinds of holistic expressions. In what follows I summarize

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 Figure 4.1. A close-up of a berimbau .
Photograph: Sergio González Varela. Date: July 22, 2018.

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 Religious Foundations 89

a diverse array of definitions of capoeira given by famous Angola mestres to

show the indeterminacy of its conceptualization and the links capoeira has built
with a spiritual domain and with a system of values.
One finds some of the most important thoughts on the essence of capoeira
in the writings of Mestre Pastinha. Often puzzled by the ambiguous situation
of a deceptive fight wrapped with aesthetic and ludic actions, Pastinha strived
to keep his art close to an ethical framework that could counterbalance the
violence that had been part of capoeira for many decades. He wanted to get
rid of the bad reputation that some practitioners had by establishing an acad-
emy to educate students and prepare them for life. His attempt to reform the
Angola style upheld these noble aims (Decanio 1997).
Pastinha always stressed the importance of instilling moral values in his
students. He considered capoeira a way of life. It is not only physical move-
ments or acrobatic techniques; it is a form of being in the world. Pastinha
offered in an interview shortly before his death in 1981 his ultimate vi-
sion about capoeira. In a brief piece of film footage, when asked about the
meaning of capoeira, the old mestre would immortalize the quintessential
definition of his art form by replying: “Capoeira é manha, é malicia, é tudo
o que a boca come” (Capoeira is trickery, is malice. It is all that the mouth
can eat) (Muricy 1998). This phrase, which has become common knowledge
in all Angola academies, summarizes the ontological status of capoeira. If
this practice is all that the mouth can eat, then capoeira embraces all aspects
of life with no separation between the sacred and the profane, to use Dur-
kheim’s (1995) terminology. Capoeira produces, in fact, a perspectival filter
based on trickery and malice. In my interpretation of Pastinha’s phrase, I
agree with what Mestre Cobra Mansa, one of the most influential leaders of
capoeira Angola today, once told me: capoeira is, in essence, a philosophy
of life, a form of education.
The emphasis on malice and trickery, which implies deception, relates to a
practical philosophy embodied by those who played and grew up in the streets.
For the old mestres, as Cobra Mansa told me, capoeira was not only an art but
also a survival skill to help face a hostile social environment. Although today
this hostile environment has changed to some degree, the deceptive attitudes
that capoeira leaders embody still prevail. The world appears to the senses
to be wrapped in disguise, in deception. Therefore, one must always be on
guard, or, as Greg Downey (2005: ch. 10) puts it, one must always be aware
of “walking in evil.” Cobra Mansa stated that if a student intends to become
a real capoeira practitioner, he must live for a while in Salvador (although
recently other leaders affirm that this can apply to any other Brazilian city).
He said that a practitioner needs to have firsthand experience about how to
negotiate a hostile and deceptive environment in the streets. It is not enough

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 90 Chapter Four

to practice capoeira in an academy in one’s own country; one needs to live

it in the flesh and play it in the social milieu where capoeira originated. The
necessity to travel to Brazil to experience the “real” capoeira is one of the rea-
sons international students continue traveling regularly to cities such as Rio
and Salvador. As I have shown in chapter 2, the missionary work of mestres
and their relentless mobility outside Brazil are efforts to bring the message to
students worldwide about the importance of visiting Brazil if they really want
to understand the true meaning of the Afro-Brazilian art.
Other Angola leaders, such as Mestre Pedro Moraes, who reformed
capoeira Angola in the 1980s, believe that capoeira encompasses something
beyond practice. Moraes considers the roda to be a metaphor for the world:
the capoeira circle stands for the circle of life. For him, capoeira reflects a
pragmatism that uses capoeira to solve matters connected with everyday life.
Capoeira teaches you how to handle conflictive situations in the cleverest
possible way, he argues—through deceptive, nonviolent means.
Pastinha, Cobra Mansa, and Moraes coincide in their holistic view of
capoeira Angola, although they are not the only ones who see it that way.
A number of mestres in Bahia have similar views and express them in their
academies. The stress put on deception makes capoeira an ambiguous prac-
tice, fluctuating between fighting and playful action. If capoeira makes you
see the world through the lens of deception, then turning your sight to study
capoeira automatically puts you in the same deceptive mood. This paradox
means that when you want to reflect on capoeira, you are already tricked by
its deception. Mestres who want to understand and define capoeira end up
falling into the trap of its intangible content. This elusiveness may help ex-
plain why leaders at some point in their lives consider themselves incapable
of knowing the real meaning of capoeira. The presumed ignorance that they
profess shows not only their humility but also their acknowledgment that the
definition of capoeira lies beyond the possibilities of individual human com-
prehension. From my point of view, however, holism does not mean religion.
Holism can exist in practices that are not religious, such as Chinese medicine
or other martial arts. On the other hand, holism can also be connected to
spiritual practices. The holistic perspective of capoeira Angola helps mestres
establish a closer connection with a spirituality similar to that in the Afro-
Brazilian religion of Candomblé.
One wonders why scholars have rushed to define capoeira exclusively as
nonreligious. Yet in a sense they are right. Capoeira Angola never becomes
more than a physical practice for many people in Brazil and abroad. The
meaning of capoeira that mestres give depends on their audience and where
they are. Especially when speaking with novices and casual practitioners

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 Religious Foundations 91

abroad, leaders insist that what one thinks about capoeira is a personal mat-
ter, and they have stressed that to become an apprentice you do not need to
believe in a particular kind of religion. However, most of the time this is said
as a matter of political correctness to keep capoeira inclusive.
In other situations, particularly with advanced students, mestres may of-
fer a different meaning. I have seen mestres emphasizing the importance
of Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé to those practitioners who wish
to ascend in the hierarchy of power in capoeira Angola academies, so this
religious association should not be ignored. In making this religious and
spiritual relation explicit, mestres have created a “standard” interpretation
that affirms that capoeira borrows its spirituality from the religiosity of
Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Abib 2006, Parés 2006). One wonders if this is
all there is to the religious foundations of capoeira Angola. In the third part
of this chapter, I discuss in more detail the multiple connections between
Candomblé and capoeira Angola. For now, I want to show how the standard
religious narrative serves the purpose of framing capoeira as democratically
open to all people, while at the same time giving individuals who seek to
ascend the hierarchy of power the option to become more involved in the
knowledge of Candomblé.
Unfortunately, conceiving of capoeira Angola exclusively as nonreligious
has diminished the potential of research focused on spirits, energies, and
supernatural beings. Academics have often come to conclusions too quickly
without having thoroughly investigated the religious foundations of capoeira.
Because this art form is connected very closely with Candomblé in Salvador
and with Umbanda in Rio de Janeiro, any discussion of religion ends up de-
priving capoeira itself of spiritual potentiality. It is always either dissociated
from or complementary to a wider worldview.
The relation between capoeira and the Afro-Brazilian religions is not
superfluous. On the contrary, Candomblé has an important influence in the
lives of the mestres with whom I interacted in Bahia. Images of orixás (Can-
domblé deities) and other elements related to this religion adorn the walls of
the capoeira Angola precincts I visited regularly. Leaders dress up on many
occasions according to the religious calendar of Candomblé and impose food
and drinking restrictions on themselves. Abroad, I have seen the importance
of the Afro-Brazilian religion for advanced capoeira Angola students and
those in charge of branches from Bahian groups. With the influx of inter-
national capoeira practitioners to Brazilian cities and the constant travel of
mestres abroad, a new, more complex meaning of capoeira is emerging, one
that strives to create new spiritual ascriptions while stressing the importance
of an Afro-Brazilian heritage as a form of traditional belonging.

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 92 Chapter Four

The connection between capoeira Angola and Candomblé has eclipsed

other forms of religiosity that capoeira can create without the need for for-
malized Afro-Brazilian religions. What happens with evangelical capoeira
groups in Brazil, or with groups abroad who mix capoeira practices with
local religious forms? Who can control these transformations? Before trying
to analyze these complex issues, it is necessary to address first the issue of
individual and magical power bestowed to the mestres of capoeira as part of
the religious foundations of the Angola style.

THE SUBSTANCE OF POLITICS

The politics of capoeira needs further anthropological research. Although

innovative studies carried out recently on gender differentiation, education,
and social activism in capoeira talk about politics, they have failed to ad-
dress another set of political relations within capoeira Angola academies
(Araújo Caires 2006, Barbosa 2005, Guizardi 2011, 2017, Rector 2008).
A few years ago, the late Brazilian specialist Frederico de Abreu lamented
in an informal conversation that scholars of capoeira often end up studying
the same things, arriving at the same conclusions. For instance, most of the
time historians focus on the standard differences between styles and the
African past of capoeira, while anthropologists, psychologists, and sociolo-
gists address topics such as identity, personal transformation, tradition, and
the preservation of Afro-Brazilian values. He did not see anything wrong
with doing that, but he was disappointed that other issues—such as the
structure of academies, the economic situation of leaders, and the hierar-
chies of power—remain obscured.
I agree with Abreu’s critique, and in part my objective in this section is
to return briefly to the issue of power to establish a connection with the
apparently nonreligious definition of capoeira discussed in the previous
section. My intention is to bring to light the substance of politics, as I be-
lieve it holds the key to understanding some of the religious foundations of
capoeira’s practice.
The Angola academies I studied in Salvador turn around the figure of the
mestre, the leader who is the possessor of knowledge and the caretaker of
tradition. He is the “pillar” that sustains capoeira Angola as a “proper” Afro-
Brazilian art. It is unthinkable to conceive of capoeira Angola without this
charismatic figure. How one becomes a mestre—how this status is acknowl-
edged, transmitted, recognized, and shared—has been one of my long-term
ethnographic queries. Within the microcosm of capoeira Angola, the mestre
appears as the primary connection with the ancestors, the dead, and the old

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mestres. Thanks to a painstaking effort, many leaders in Salvador have been

able to build and represent the lineages of knowledge through which they
justify their origin and their place within a more general community of par-
ticipants. As I mentioned in chapter 3, all students, not only in Salvador but
elsewhere, must provide clear proof of belonging to an ascending line that
links them to one or several superior mestres. These lines determine how they
are treated by other capoeira practitioners and by other leaders. For example,
the mestres of the Fundação Internacional de Capoeira Angola (International
Capoeira Angola Foundation) trace their lineage all the way back to Mestre
Pastinha. Mestres Valmir, Jurandir, and Cobra Mansa (the main leaders of
the foundation) are descendants of Mestre Moraes, whose teacher was Mestre
João Grande, a direct disciple of Pastinha.
The reliance on the mestres as figures of power has produced a pyramidal
hierarchy in the academies I studied in Salvador. A mestre is responsible
for the most important decisions. He keeps students motivated and constant
in their training, and he designates and sanctions changing the status of a
student, as he is the only one qualified to name a new mestre or to give
another title in the hierarchy. Hierarchy means all in capoeira Angola, and
practitioners must acknowledge it and act according to the status imposed
by the mestre. In other Angola academies in Salvador that are not linked
directly to the heritage of Pastinha, there is a similar pyramidal hierarchy.
The same applies for some of the groups I studied abroad, although they
depend less on Brazilian mestres.
The establishment of hierarchies would not be effective if the mestre could
not demonstrate his power. Evidence relies on performance. A true mestre
must act as such, both inside and outside the roda. He needs to make his status
visible once in a while since the performance character of power is one of
its most evincing, valid proofs, particularly with young mestres. In the case
of old mestres who can no longer perform in the same way as they did in the
past, resigning themselves to a musician’s role while relying on previous epic
deeds serves as a counterbalance to the loss of vitality and physical dexterity.
Hierarchies vary from academy to academy. Some have divisions that
range from three to five stages, not counting the founding mestre at the top.3
Other academies have just one or two levels. All groups share a lengthy and
ascetic process that individuals must experience in order to become mestres.
This method, which involves many years of training and learning, hinders the
creation of standardized rituals for awarding a title. I have been fortunate to
be present at two ceremonies when students obtained a title. On both occa-
sions, the mestre in charge summoned the most prominent mestres in Salva-
dor to attend as witnesses in a special roda organized in honor of the graduat-
ing students, as the diplomas and titles must be awarded publicly. Since there

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are no set rules concerning the acknowledgment of a title, it appears that the
decision depends exclusively on the student’s mestre and on the approval
of other mestres. However, the real validation of a new mestre comes from
proficiency in mastering the most important aspects of capoeira Angola and
in nurturing the development of deceptive skills in the roda.
A mestre is a person who embodies charismatic power. In every academy
I visited in Salvador and elsewhere, I was always surprised by the astound-
ing qualities that the mestres possessed and how people regarded them with
marked deference. Not only are they masters of the practice, but their lead-
ership also extends to other areas of their lives. In the way they move, talk,
and address their students and foreigners alike, they enact their role in practi-
cally every social circumstance. If they do not consider themselves religious
leaders, they closely resemble that status in their behavior. Students affirm
that there is something mystical surrounding the mestres, and I concur. As I
described in chapter 3, the relationship between mestre and students is vital
for capoeira Angola. It is, in essence, a social bond that creates mixed feel-
ings in the students, ranging from respect and admiration to fear and caution.
It is a bond sometimes broken by unexpected situations in life. For instance,
students who become mestres and need to pave the way for their own life
projects sometimes have to terminate their relationship with their teacher in
order to become more independent.
As Max Weber (1978) reminds us, charismatic power is seductive but
always fragile. It is unstable by nature because it depends on the personal
efforts of an individual. Institutions or bureaucratic systems do not sustain
it, and thus continuity is not guaranteed. Capoeira Angola academies depend
on charismatic power whereby the transmission of knowledge to subsequent
generations rarely operates systematically. Some mestres who regularly
travel abroad have been able to maintain their academies over the last twenty
years by delegating authority to their sons and other relatives. The practice of
using blood ties as a way to continue tradition is still a recent phenomenon.
More long-term fieldwork is needed to provide evidence about the extent of
this practice in Salvador and elsewhere.
Having depicted the organization of hierarchies and the institution of char-
ismatic power, I now describe what I consider to be the substance of poli-
tics in capoeira and the sense in which charismatic power relates to magic,
spirituality, and religion. Mestres have power. But what kind of power? In
my research, I have concluded that this power has to do with the apprehen-
sion of an energy sometimes called mandinga or malandragem (roguery).
Capoeira mestres consider the former to be the secret of capoeira, the latter to
be the possession of deceptive skills used to mislead and negotiate the world
(DaMatta 1991). One relates to an inner power accumulated during years of

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training, while the other is seen as a skill developed through life and also
found in other Brazilian social contexts. Both mandinga and malandragem
appear at the core of political power. In capoeira circles, both concepts are
valuable, and they have positive connotations. For example, a good capoeira
practitioner is one who can deceive an opponent during an interaction in the
roda. The strategies of deception may vary, but they are physical techniques
that a practitioner learns in order to make an opponent vulnerable to attack.
To expose the vulnerability of an opponent is one of the most important at-
tributes that a skilled practitioner can have. The mestres I trained with empha-
sized that through acts of malandragem, one learns to play along with what is
allowed and what is forbidden during a capoeira attack. They explained that
their inner power is responsible for opening an opponent’s body to attack. In
sum, their power exudes through a combination of physical skills and magic
acts, making a capoeira practitioner a dangerous being.
Greg Downey (2005) and Lowell Lewis (1992) have talked at length
about the symbolic and phenomenological importance of cunning and de-
ception. Both have stressed the importance of the body and language in de-
veloping proper skills. In Brazil, Letícia Vidor de Souza Reis (2000), Pedro
Abib (2004), Luiz Renato Vieira (1996), and Paulo Magalhães (2012) have
stressed the role played by deception in the preservation of capoeira’s tradi-
tions. All of these authors consider the concepts of malandragem, malicia
(slyness), and trickery to be paramount. Nevertheless, the idea of mandinga
has not been the object of attention by scholars, though it is regularly men-
tioned among capoeira practitioners. In another context I have talked about
mandinga in detail (González Varela 2017). Here I would only like to stress
that mandinga conceived as the secret of capoeira connects power with
magic, constituting a unique form of spirituality enacted through the body in
performance.
Both mandinga and malandragem are evidence that magical power embod-
ies the substance of politics in capoeira Angola. If hierarchies, vertical rela-
tions, and reassurances of authority through practice are the expressions of po-
litical action, their substance has its origins in a spiritual or magical form. The
best way to make mandinga and malandragem self-evident is for mestres to
interact in a roda. When they perform, when they play one another, something
changes. A game becomes more than a game. It becomes a fight where status
and prestige are at stake. When mestres perform, members of the public under-
stand immediately that these individuals have power—that they become power.
For this reason, it is not always desirable for mestres to get into confrontations,
so they try as much as possible to avoid regular interactions, particularly with
mestres whom they do not know or with whom they have quarreled in the past.

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Some practitioners and scholars think that the spiritual and religious sides
of capoeira come exclusively from Afro-Brazilian religions. In part, this is
true, as many mestres and advanced students of the Angola style in Salvador
are members of these faiths. But in another sense, the politics I am discussing
may complement the classic relation made between capoeira and Candomblé,
and may help establish more sophisticated religious foundations for capoeira.
The Afro-Brazilian religions support the power that a mestre holds, but
they do not define it completely. The easiest way to confirm that capoeira
creates a more complex set of religious foundations is that some leaders do
not subscribe to the Afro-Brazilian religions but still retain all the elements
related to mandinga and malandragem. These mestres do not believe in
orixás. Rather, they venerate the dead mestres as if they were individual sup-
portive beings. For such mestres, deception is of paramount importance, and
mandinga is seen as a form of strange power.
In this way, magical power transforms and confirms a mestre as a char-
ismatic leader. Power forms hierarchies that separate, divide, and classify
capoeira groups according to an opposition between the collective and the
individual (Dumont 1999). In the next section, I address the role of this power
in the elements that form the religious foundations of capoeira Angola.

ANCESTORS, DEAD MESTRES, AND ORIXÁS:

THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF CAPOEIRA ANGOLA

What are the religious foundations of capoeira Angola? The answer to this
question depends on one’s definition of the word “religion.” There has been
a lengthy, ongoing discussion in anthropology about the concept of religion,
making it difficult to arrive at a unanimous consensus (Bloch 2008, Boyer
2001, Durkheim 1995, Geertz 2000, Southwold 1978, Sperber 1985). I do
not intend to get involved in an anthropological discussion about the limits
of the notion of religion per se. For the purposes of this chapter, I will use a
straightforward and preliminary definition of religion, heuristically defined as
the existence of spiritual and supernatural beings in social practice. What in-
terests me here goes beyond the definition of religion. I want to describe how
some elements of capoeira Angola help leaders create religious foundations
that become malleable and fluid depending on the context and the people with
whom they are interacting, whether in a roda or a classroom.
My argument is similar to the critique of the essentialism of Afro-Atlantic
religions that Stephan Palmié (2013) recently developed. Palmié argues that
there is a common misconception that has taken for granted many aspects of
the “diasporic” cultures involved in the formation of the Black Atlantic. He

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 Religious Foundations 97

wonders if anthropologists, in complicity with their informants, could be repro-

ducing a conceptual problem about what genuinely constitutes “Afro-Cuban”
or “Afro-Atlantic.” Palmié maintains that there is always a form of essentialism
pervading such concepts that omits the long and continuous process of elabo-
ration, invention, and transgression of historical development. Thus, Palmié
(2013: 97) prefers to talk about the “cooking of history” as an endless process
of adding, mixing, and combining that occurs in the so-called Afro-religions.
Palmié’s culinary metaphor makes us think about the process itself at the
same time that it questions the use of essential a priori categories and con-
cepts for anthropological understanding. My view is that scholars of capoeira
Angola need to move away from a static and frozen conception of its reli-
gious foundations to consider the constant movement of religious elements
and ongoing negotiating process that mestres introduce into their lives. To
make this statement clear, I would first like to characterize these malleable
religious foundations.
The religious foundations of capoeira Angola are based on the interaction of
some elements of the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé (and in some cases
Umbanda, particularly in the south of Brazil) with certain ontological beings
that appear exclusively in Angola performances. Capoeira mestres I worked
with in Bahia borrow elements from Candomblé including music rhythms,
lyrics, deities (orixás), rituals of protection, deference to powerful figures of
authority, and respect for their African past. On the other hand, the ontologi-
cal presence of the ancestors and the dead mestres takes place exclusively in
capoeira performances. Encompassing these characteristics from both practices
are the cosmic forces of axé (life force) and the secrecy of mandinga as a form
of power, with its deceptive strategies (malandragem, malicia, cunning).
The mestres who identify themselves as disciples of Candomblé bring
the deities, or orixás, to the roda as personal protectors, although, as Ângelo
Decanio Filho (2001) argues, these gods are not supposed to take possession
of individuals during a performance.4 Mestre Decanio instead describes a
form of semitrance during the performance in which a performer is always in
control of the self and which preserves the partial awareness of the performer.
A mestre may invoke his orixás as protectors of his academy and his students,
but these deities are not expected to interfere with the rodas. However, they
are ontological presences that positively affect the mood of a mestre.
Capoeira Angola songs also borrow lyrics from Candomblé, and mestres
who follow this religion sing such songs on special occasions, particularly
when they feel vulnerable and in need of protection, or when they confront
a more potent adversary. In capoeira, music rhythms—particularly those of
drums, the berimbau, and the double bell (called agogô)—seem to follow
patterns similar to those in Candomblé.

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The respect that individuals in capoeira Angola profess to their mentors

and guides is analogous to the reverence that initiates in Candomblé have for
their leaders (see Bastide 1978, Goldman 2005, Parés 2006). As in Candom-
blé, the value of and respect for the African past is also present in the capoeira
academies where I studied. In lyrics and in the way practitioners refer to their
art, references to African origins are constant, either visually in the decora-
tion of academies or in the way leaders speak about slavery and oppression.
Additionally, capoeira Angola mirrors the strict hierarchy of knowledge and
power that exists in the Afro-Brazilian religion. The process of learning in
both practices demands a lot of energy and long-term commitment. As Mestre
C, one of my close friends in Salvador, mentioned in an interview: “You [the
capoeira practitioner] are free to be part of any religion, but it is difficult to
see nowadays a true angoleiro who did not start out with Candomblé. If he is
today an evangelical, it is because before he was part of Candomblé.”
Complementing the elements of the Afro-Brazilian religions, we have the
dead mestres and the ancestors—beings that appear in capoeira Angola per-
formances. Both are ontological and virtual presences that affect the dynamics
of practice, and Angola mestres and advanced students feel their presence as
something real. The ancestors and dead mestres constitute important figures
in the cosmology of this art form. The idea of ancestors refers to precursors
of capoeira before it was formalized—for instance, African slaves during the
colonial period or West African and Afro-Atlantic ritual practices. One of the
most famous ancestors is Zumbi dos Palmares, a runaway Afro-Brazilian slave
who in the seventeenth century formed a community of rebels. Zumbi often
appears on T-shirts of capoeira Angola groups, in their logos, and in capoeira
lyrics, and today people in Brazil celebrate his heroism during Black Aware-
ness Day on November 20. Capoeira groups come together to form part of this
national celebration, which recently has extended to other countries. Zumbi,
the ancestor of capoeira Angola, reminds practitioners of their Afro-Brazilian
heritage. In the narratives I have collected about him in chapter 1, mestres de-
pict Zumbi as a hero, a man who knew capoeira and used his fighting skills to
defeat the slave oppressors. He stands as a symbol of freedom and resistance.
Another important figure among the ancestors in capoeira Angola is Be-
souro, the “flying beetle.” According to mestres, Besouro had the power to
transform himself into a flying beetle as a form of protection and had a pact of
invulnerability with his orixás. Today, the figure of Besouro resonates among
capoeira Angola groups in the same way that Zumbi does. Both represent the
ancestral presence of an Afro-Brazilian heritage that continues to have an
impact on the lives of capoeira Angola leaders. These ancestors, reminiscent
of a lost mythical past, are virtual potencies that have agency and affect the

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 Religious Foundations 99

dynamics of capoeira performances. They are latent possibilities in the micro-

cosm that constitutes the practice of capoeira Angola, and they are felt as real.
Together with the ancestors, the dead mestres form part of the religious
foundations of capoeira Angola. The dead mestres were actual people who
helped build a proper tradition and who fought for the survival and develop-
ment of capoeira in the twentieth century. They created the contemporary
lineages of the academies and became the source of traditional ascription. In
capoeira gatherings, dead mestres are represented on T-shirts and in mural
paintings, songs, stories, and informal talks, just like the ancestors and the
orixás. Leaders consider dead mestres to be close to the roda, and in some way
their power is present by being embodied in living disciples. In the groups I
worked with, practitioners commemorate the birth date of certain deceased
mestres, such as Pastinha, João Pequeno, Paulo dos Anjos, and Waldemar.
On such occasions, they organize rodas in remembrance of these individuals,
to pay them respect and to honor their influence on capoeira Angola.
Both ancestors and dead mestres belong to the actuality of present-day
capoeira, and current mestres invoke them regularly in the rodas. This is not
because they come from a lost, inaccessible distant past or because practitio-
ners perceive them only as supernatural beings. Instead, they are in some way
kin, active participants in the politics of capoeira. In the next chapter I discuss
the particular way ancestors or dead mestres affect a performance, how these
beings are active spectators, and the manner in which they constitute the most
significant and demanding entities in a roda. Their active presence means that
mestres must strictly follow the essential aspects of tradition in order to keep
these beings pleased. In a sense, mestres perform for their ancestors and the
dead. It is by means of doing things in the right way for the ancestors and the
dead mestres that capoeira practitioners preserve their Afro-Brazilian tradi-
tion. To execute capoeira Angola “traditionally” is to have an awareness of
all the implicit practical rules necessary to satisfy a spiritual audience. This
awareness applies not only to adepts in Brazil but also to members of any
capoeira Angola group globally.
In what sense ancestors and dead mestres interact with the deities of Can-
domblé is something that I cannot answer satisfactorily. I can say that they
coexist in capoeira Angola, forming its religious foundations and provid-
ing a unifying sense of Afro-Brazilian tradition. The elements taken from
Candomblé and the entities that emerge from Angola’s practice appear as a
mixture between religiosity and spirituality—one that affects its practice and
its outcome. Orixás, dead mestres, and ancestors are always felt to be close by
and are understood to belong in a certain way to humanity. They proliferate
among capoeira academies without their existence being questioned, just as

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 100 Chapter Four

the existence of a berimbau or the authority of a mestre would not be doubted.

In sum, they have agency.
The fact that ancestors, orixás, and dead mestres are close to humanity
makes them familiar beings who are considered real and have an emotive
connection with capoeira Angola practitioners. They act not exclusively as
supernatural entities but as ontological presences that are not a matter of
belief but a matter of causation and evidence. In this way, the approach to
ancestors resembles that of the Malagasy of Madagascar, whom Maurice
Bloch (2005: 112) has characterized as not placing ancestors in a system of
belief but seeing them as active agents in this world whose “status is no dif-
ferent from that of rain.” In this case, the Malagasy make an ontological dif-
ference between what they refer to as idols, which the missionaries purported
to eradicate, and ancestors, which the missionaries did not consider part of a
proper pagan local religion (Block 2005: 108–13).
Although there are ontological differences between orixás, ancestors, and
dead mestres, they are all important for the religious foundations of capoeira
Angola, which have their most significant expression in the roda. It is in
these gatherings that these entities bring protection and power to participants.
Mestre C talks about the spiritual meaning of a roda: “The spirits help you
get into a roda protected. Because a roda is a concentration of many ener-
gies, because it is an enclosed space, it turns into a single force. . . . [Y]our
spirituality could help you to get protection or it can blind an opponent so he
cannot perform correctly.” For Mestre C, a roda is a sacred place where many
things, both positive and negative, can happen. Tying together this view with
the previous discussions on power, magic, and the religious foundations of
capoeira Angola, it is easy to see how this Afro-Brazilian art form is more
than simply a physical practice. It is a world in itself, a microcosm of social,
spiritual, and cosmological forces.

CONCLUSION: FOUNDATIONS IN MOTION

This chapter has described capoeira Angola’s spiritual and religious do-
main, something often neglected or dismissed in academic research. My
aim is to highlight the potential that a discussion about the religious founda-
tions of an apparently nonreligious practice could bring to the study of ritual
and performance. To conclude, I would like to describe how the elements I
have defined as part of the religious foundations of capoeira Angola work
in particular situations.
The religious foundations of capoeira Angola form a dynamic matrix in
which the aspects belonging to the Afro-Brazilian religions and the entities

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 Religious Foundations 101

emerging through capoeira’s practice are in constant motion, often trespass-

ing their boundaries and acting in conjunction. However, there is a perceptual
difference between the ontological realms. Mestres of capoeira Angola know
that all the elements of Candomblé are part of a more encompassing formal
religion and that the dead mestres, the ancestors, and the power of mandinga
and malandragem constitute a form of spirituality, or, in Bruce Kapferer’s
(2006) terms, virtual possibilities. In this sense, they discern two explicit
domains: a proper religion and a spirituality.
This perception of a divide between these domains permits combining
elements from one source or the other in the discourses and lives of the
mestres. The religious foundations of capoeira Angola are very adaptable to
the social circumstances and contexts in which mestres interact. Inasmuch as
these foundations depend on the charismatic power of a leader, that leader
decides how to combine the elements. Mestres teaching abroad may modulate
speech about Candomblé, focusing instead on the mestre’s own mestre, the
ancestors, or Mestre Pastinha. When with his group back in Salvador and
addressing advanced students, the mestre may talk more openly about Can-
domblé and the protection of orixás. If no longer committed to the religion of
Candomblé, a mestre will never speak of that side of the Angola foundations,
and the spiritual lessons will focus exclusively on the ancestors, the dead
mestres, mandinga, and deception. Although this may sound too schematic, it
uncovers the way that mestres adapt their spiritual and religious views about
capoeira Angola in a changing world.
In sum, the Angola religious foundations provide mestres an opportunity
to innovate in the classroom about the meaning of capoeira, a way to bring a
transformative sense of belonging to an Afro-Brazilian tradition, and a form
to cope with the exposure to globalization. The identification of religious
elements from Candomblé and the existence of ontological beings that take
part in the practice help us acquire a more profound understanding of the
knowledge involved in the practice of capoeira Angola today. The religious
foundations of capoeira Angola discussed in this chapter appear as the views
of Angola mestres, the possessors of power and knowledge, particularly those
who are adepts of Afro-Brazilian religions. However, the meaning of these
foundations could be expanded to other members of the groups and to other
mestres who profess different religions, and ultimately to any committed
capoeira practitioner in the world. What is important is to view the spiritual
and religious beings that affect capoeira Angola’s practice as something real,
as having agency. They may or may not appear simultaneously; some ele-
ments could be suppressed, modified, or exchanged for others. Nevertheless,
they remain virtual potencies that affect the logic of practice.

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 102 Chapter Four

Dead mestres, ancestors, and orixás are also active political agents that
may determine the performance intensity of a roda. They help mestres keep
control of their academies, provide protection and legitimation, and add
power to the magical force contained in the body of living mestres. In all
these ways, they play a significant role in the configuration of the substance
of politics and the social relations that mestres have among themselves.
In the end, the religious foundations of capoeira Angola explored in these
pages are just the outline of a more general sense of spirituality and transcen-
dental belonging that seems to be always one step ahead of the understanding
of anthropologists and practitioners alike. Ongoing long-term research with
mestres is needed to provide more information in the future.

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this chapter was originally published as “The Religious

Foundations of Capoeira Angola: The Cosmo-Politics of an Apparently Non-Religious
Practice,” Religion and Society: Advances in Research 8 (2017): 79–93.
2. Among the most important aspects of this tradition, we find respect for the
authority of the mestres, proficiency in Portuguese , mastery of musical instruments
and songs, deception as a primary fighting strategy, and awareness of an African and
Afro-Brazilian past.
3. A standard classification would include, in descending order, the following
stages: (1) mestre, (2) contramestre, (3) professor or treinel, (4) advanced students,
and (5) beginners.
4. However, see Nascimento 2017 for a counterexample about spirit possession
and exorcism among foreign capoeira practitioners in Poland.

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 Chapter Five

Worshipping the Ancestors

Mestres of capoeira are powerful beings. They stand for the knowledge and
tradition of Afro-Brazilian capoeira. Their power signifies a connection with
their ancestors, those beings that appear as virtual potencies reminiscent of
the past. The religious foundations of capoeira Angola described in the previ-
ous chapter frame the way the spiritual power of a mestre is shown in prac-
tice. In another book, I have discussed the meaning of power and its social
implications (González Varela 2017). I mentioned how the concept of man-
dinga represents a local form of control and how it affects music lessons, the
teaching of bodily movements, and the dynamics of play. Here I would like
to return to ancestor worship as a form of spiritual power. Because capoeira
mestres represent a direct link with tradition and the past, their role as power-
ful subjects resides in their capacity to transcend the restrictions of lost time,
therefore gaining access to the power of their ancestors. In a sense, mestres
become the ancestors, and they embody the substance of ancestral legitimacy.
Though there is no spirit possession in capoeira, there is a form of semi-
possession that happens when a mestre plays in a roda or when he sings and
plays the berimbau. It is in these instances that we can talk about a person
becoming an ancestor or embodying the force of the ancestors. The object of
this chapter is to describe the different forms in which mestres show their cos-
mological power as a form of seduction and proof of their capacities to affect
others. In this quest, the spiritual power of a mestre plays a fundamental role
in the preservation of an Afro-Brazilian tradition. The academic and practitio-
ner Pedro Abib (2015: 14) summarizes the unavoidable transformative power
that capoeira has when he reflects on his life in the world of this Afro-Brazil-
ian practice: “Capoeira has this power of transformation, it conducts people
on a path of no return; one that makes people learn without hurry; a way that
teaches you the value of many things that you cannot learn with words; a path
103

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 104 Chapter Five

that takes you to experience another relationship with time, with the elders,
with memory, with the sacred. It is a path where you learn to let yourself
go wherever life takes you.” Capoeira seen as a path confirms what Mestre
Cobra Mansa has told me about the essence of capoeira, which he conceives
as a form of life, a lifelong quest for knowledge, and an endless attempt to
understand the core values of the tradition. For many practitioners around the
world, capoeira is becoming a way of life, a way of connecting with ances-
tors. Therefore, in this chapter, I also show how other capoeira practitioners
interpret and are affected by the cosmological power of a mestre and why
they end up worshipping the ancestors through the bodies and discourses of
the mestres. Finally, I argue that for national and international practitioners,
the global expansion of capoeira has become a quest for knowledge, identity,
and spiritual awakening.

THE MEANING OF TRADITION

Tradition among capoeira Angola practitioners can mean many things. That
is why in this section I summarize the main aspects of tradition for capoeira
practitioners. The use of tradition as a form of identity among capoeira practi-
tioners began with the formalization of the Angola style in the 1940s. Vicente
Ferreira Pastinha, the leading reformer of capoeira Angola, systematized the
practice of this style and highlighted the ethical, philosophical, and spiritual
dimension of this practice. After his death in 1981, subsequent groups linked
to his heritage in Salvador followed his steps and reproduced his teachings in
classes, as I have shown in chapter 3. Other academies not directly associated
with the great mestre also reproduced the discourses about the tradition that
Pastinha professed throughout his life, and these discourses became part of
the daily talks between leaders and students.
To differentiate the practice of capoeira Angola from other styles, leaders
emphasize the role of tradition as part of the reproduction of practice and
make it the cornerstone of movements, music, and philosophy. Pastinha,
together with other intellectuals such as writer Jorge Amado and ethnologist
Edison Carneiro, reacted against the sportive characterization of capoeira de-
veloped by Mestre Bimba, the creator of the Regional style. Carneiro (1977:
14), in particular, denounced the lack of commitment to Afro-Brazilian
causes in Bimba’s approach: “Bimba, a virtuous of the berimbau, became
famous since in the 1930s he created a school that trained athletes in what he
called Luta Regional Baiana, a mixture of capoeira, jiu-jitsu, box, and catch
[catch wrestling]. Folkloric, popular capoeira, the legacy of Angola, has
nothing to do with Bimba’s school.” Here, Carneiro is reproducing a division

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that has predominated in capoeira circles until the present day. This division
states that capoeira Angola practitioners associate their craft with tradition,
and their Regional and Contemporânea counterparts with sport and spectacle.
This great divide is one of the reasons their aims, purposes, and philosophy
differ radically. Some academics and practitioners have tried to attenuate this
polarization by appealing to common objectives and a shared history of op-
pression. As I show in the next chapter, the primary way of framing a discus-
sion on capoeira in general terms independently of styles has been through its
inclusion in definitions of heritage. Yet, disagreements persist, and capoeira
Angola continues to stress its distinctiveness by anchoring its practice under
the rubric of tradition and rejecting any reference to sport or spectacle.
The concept of tradition refers to four elements. The first has to do with the
practitioner’s awareness that the origins of capoeira are in Africa, along the
coast of Benin and in Angola, and in the practice of the N’golo or zebra dance
that I described in chapter 1. The second element relates to the deference
and respect that students must always profess to the mestre as the possessor
of knowledge and caretaker of capoeira’s ancestral past. The third element
dictates that students need to understand and follow the rules of playful inter-
action in training and the roda; this includes knowing how to play music cor-
rectly, how to sing and accompany the songs with movements, and when to
stop the interaction. The fourth and last element prescribes that practitioners
must show respect to individuals with more experience in capoeira; age plays
a part but does not determine this behavior of deference—what is important
is the time invested in learning capoeira. Practitioners in their twenties or
thirties but who recently started capoeira must behave respectfully to younger
individuals who started capoeira when they were kids under the tutelage of
their parents (some of whom are famous mestres). Showing respect means be-
ing aware of the outstanding skills of seasoned capoeira players and playing
with caution and good intentions in the roda to avoid violence.
Failing to follow these four dictates is going against tradition. When a
beginner plays capoeira for the first time, the mestre or person in charge tells
the player that capoeira has its origins in Africa and was brought to Brazil by
slaves. Tradition, in this case, means an essential connection with Africa and
slavery in Brazil; it builds a mythical bridge with Afro-Brazilian ancestry.
Although this may not happen in every Angola academy in the world, this
essentialist discourse about the past is widespread.
Mestres expect their students to follow their commands and orders; this
is how tradition should work. Students could protest and disagree with their
mentors, but not about the foundations of tradition. Paradoxically, tradition
means following the mestres’ orders without questioning their authority.
The extent of a mestre’s authority is a matter of debate and discussion, both

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in Brazil and globally. The issue of power constitutes a dilemma that may
cause tensions and discord in a group that does not have daily contact with
its mestre. For many people, capoeira Angola is about freedom and resistance
against oppression, so how can one be free and liberated while showing defer-
ence to a leader? Not an easy question to answer, I dare say. This element of
tradition is in many ways nonnegotiable, and practitioners must understand
that respecting the authority of a mestre is at the core of capoeira’s teachings.
In the logic of practice, students need to follow the dictates of tradition too.
They must follow the rules of the game. These rules relate to the proper way
of playing capoeira and how to behave in a roda. Some of these rules imply
a negotiation between playful action and possible violence, a negotiation that
takes place accompanied by music and through a combination of attacks and
defenses. In the circle, two opponents face each other in a narrow ring to test
their mutual vulnerabilities. Through time, the attacks and defensive move-
ments have changed, according to José Luiz Oliveira Cruz, known as Mestre
Bola Sete, one of the disciples of Mestre Pastinha. He said that the name of
the physical movements in capoeira varies greatly among academies: “Today,
every capoeira school uses a limited number of movements chosen by the
mestres, with names that vary from one school to another” (Cruz 1989: 43).
Bola Sete identifies thirty-three different movements in capoeira Angola, and
he concedes that his list is not exhaustive (Cruz 1989: 43–48). Despite this
variation, all practitioners identify a core of seven to ten physical movements
as essential for the practice of capoeira Angola. These movements include
the basic swinging move, called ginga, some of the kicks such as rabo de ar-
raia (stingray’s tail kick) and meia lua de frente (front half-moon kick), and
acrobatic moves like aú (cartwheel) and bananeira (handstand).
Learning capoeira, as Greg Downey (2005) states, it is to internalize the
contradictions between playfulness and symbolic violence; to become a mal-
andro, a rogue that plays with good and evil, is a consequence of living a
life of deception, malice, and trickery. Deception as a principle of interaction
transforms individuals into cautious people who try to live by that precept.
Tradition at this level means learning how to keep others at bay, to be close
but distant at the same time, to open yourself and to be vulnerable while being
aware that openness invites deception and counterattacks too. As I mentioned
in chapter 3, the mestre-student relationship is complicated as it embodies the
precepts of deceit and mistrust as traditional values. This situation makes the
mestre an ambiguous moral being, a person that others respect but fear, one
whose real intentions seem always shrouded in secrecy.
The fourth element of tradition, respecting people with more experience,
comes together with the development of skills in the logic of practice. Re-
spect means to play in a roda with care and without trying to challenge a more

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experienced practitioner. Respect requires being slightly passive and waiting

until the more experienced person takes the initiative. Mestres value this
carefulness; they see it as a signal that a student is learning and not pushing
too hard against another player that she does not know or is more experienced
than her. In this world of unconventional rules, one of the trickiest situations
is when students play with a mestre. The mestre’s acts are unpredictable and
difficult to discern. Here, students must show respect and wait for the mestre
to initiate action. Even when students have a close relationship with a leader,
they have to behave with respect and care in the roda, without trying to push
the game too hard. When playing with more experienced adversaries, the
same rules apply. As Pedro Abib (2015: 22) mentions, “Disagreement, con-
flicts, and confusion will always exist in the roda of capoeira, however, above
all, people learn to respect others, even enemies.”
The tradition of showing respect to more experienced people reveals the
rigid hierarchies that exist in the Angola style. This structure of authority
provides another example of the ambiguities of capoeira. On the one hand,
capoeira is a fight for resistance and liberation. On the other hand, it operates
through a set of hierarchies and traditional precepts that practitioners must fol-
low. Between hierarchical rigidity and the fight for freedom, capoeira Angola
practitioners navigate their role as members of an Afro-Brazilian tradition.

BELONGING TO A DIFFERENT TIME

Belonging to an Afro-Brazilian tradition carries temporal implications for

capoeira mestres. These powerful beings must position themselves as inter-
locutors with their ancestors and execute a dialogue with their ancestral past.
Johannes Fabian, considering the relationship between the anthropologist and
the Other, calls for an understanding of contemporaneous time. For Fabian, it
is essential that anthropologists position themselves in the same time context
as their so-called informants in the field. For him, to mark a temporal distance
between the analyst and the subjects of study is a form of ethnocentrism: the
researcher seems to belong to another time while the Other remains frozen in
the traditional past. He calls this temporal distancing the “denial of coeval-
ness,” which he defines as “a persistent and systematic tendency to place the
referent(s) of anthropology in a Time other than the present of the producer of
anthropological discourse” (Fabian 1983: 31). This temporal negation stands
as a by-product of colonialism. For Fabian, the denial of coevalness repre-
sents the power of colonial rule, used to justify the control of vast territories
and cultures. It also instigated a distorted, imagined, and romantic perception
of alterity. He argues that the anthropologist needs to fight against this form

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 108 Chapter Five

of colonialism by placing the researcher and the Other in the same contem-
poraneous time (Fabian 1983: 34–35).
I agree in principle with Fabian when he says that the anthropologist
needs to stand in the same contemporaneous time as the subjects of study.
This claim is similar to what Latour (1993) has called the principle of sym-
metrical anthropology, where the differences between the analyst and the
Other are not incommensurable or insurmountable. The anthropologist and
the Other share a common humanity, which implies a shared time. Kevin
Birth (2008) considers Fabian’s call for coevalness under the concept of
homochronism, or the sharing of the same time between the anthropolo-
gist and the Other. Birth argues that anthropologists face a problem when
interacting with Others who assume they belong to another time. Often,
other people negate coevalness and mark a power or religious separation as
a fundamental cultural distinction; in these cases, homochronism crumbles
and the anthropologists must acknowledge that the ideal of coevalness only
goes so far. Birth (2008: 16) describes four challenges that the appeal to
coevalness must confront when dealing with radical alterity: “the split be-
tween the ethnographer’s experience of time and the tropes for representing
the ethnographer; the existence of multiple histories; the diversity of ways
in which the relationship of the past and future shape the phenomenological
present; and the diversity of ethno-ontologies.”
For Birth, the solution is to think of other ways of conceiving the temporal
relations between the anthropologist and the Other. He argues that “to cre-
ate coevalness, it is crucial to adopt the local conceptions that organize the
past and relate them to ‘general social reality.’ This is not homochronism,
but since it is grounded in local temporalities, it is not European-derived
allochronism, either” (Birth 2008: 16–17). Birth’s criticism is essential for
the present discussion because, in capoeira Angola, the existence of differ-
ent temporalities is vital in the constitution of an Afro-Brazilian heritage. As
I have mentioned before, mestres are the caretakers of tradition, and their
role represents a temporal connection with a lost past. They also embody
the lineages of power and the oral transmission of knowledge from genera-
tion to generation. Therefore, time plays a critical role in the constitution of
capoeira Angola groups. It is not by chance that capoeira academies contain
images that evoke an epic past, some depicting the ancestor and orixás, others
showing photographs of dead mestres or images of prominent figures such as
Zumbi dos Palmares or Besouro. Songs are reminiscent of a violent past, and
practitioners see physical movements as implicitly referring to their ancestry;
music also represents a connection with slavery and the fight for freedom.
The origin of the ancestors is placed in “Africa.” Africa here is an empty
sign that stands for the local imaginary of ancestry and mythical time. The

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 109

“Africa” of capoeira Angola practitioners evokes images of Angola, Benin,

Mozambique, Nigeria, Congo, and Central Africa. It is an “Africa” also found
in Afro-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda and Candomblé (Alonso 2014,
Dantas 2009, Johnson 2002, Parés 2006, Van de Port 2011). When capoeira
mestres talk about Africa in their discourses, they do not necessarily imply a
racial or geographical boundary. This is because not all capoeira Angola prac-
titioners are Black, and many are foreigners. The situation of capoeira Angola
is similar to Stephan Palmié’s (2013) description of Afro-Cuban religions;
race is not necessarily a definitive marker in building a connection with Africa.
In their mythical belonging to a distant past, capoeira mestres deny coeval-
ness. They define their power and role at the top of the hierarchies as a mani-
festation of embodying the spirits of the ancestors. In a sense, they do not
belong entirely to the same present as most practitioners. They also belong to
the past via an uninterrupted chain of knowledge. The importance of “Africa”
in capoeira circles, therefore, appears in statements made by famous mestres
such as Pastinha and Bimba, who affirmed that they learned their craft from
authentic African men. Although it is impossible to corroborate these claims
today, it is not a coincidence that the two most important figures in capoeira’s
history make this kind of African connection as a justification for their posi-
tion of power. Similarly, other mestres try to build a relationship with the two
famous leaders by claiming to be their lost disciples or by learning capoeira
from Pastinha and Bimba’s students.
Belonging to another time also influences how mestres interact with each
other. A leader needs a connection to an older mestre to legitimize himself.
He needs someone more experienced to whom he can show deference and
respect, and because respect is everything, an older mestre always holds
absolute power over his disciples. For instance, Mestre Renê, the leader of
ACANNE, once told me that years ago, when his mestre Paulo dos Anjos at-
tended an event at his academy, Renê had to give the control of the classes,
roda, and workshop to his own mestre. Paulo did not even ask for permission;
he merely took control of the event. For Paulo dos Anjos, it was natural to
step over Renê’s authority because Renê was his disciple, and tradition states
that you need to respect your mestre. However, when Mestre Canjiquinha
(Paulo dos Anjo’s mestre) showed up at one of Paulo’s events, Paulo had to
cede control to Canjiquinha. Paulo dos Anjos assumed the same submissive
attitude that his student Renê had taken, becoming another “student” in front
of his own mestre, Mestre Canjiquinha.
This brief example shows how practitioners express the dictates of tradi-
tion about the power of superior mestres. Traditional relations, therefore, are
asymmetrical. Adscription to a lineage determines interaction and a posi-
tion in a temporal frame of oral transmission of knowledge. The difference

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 110 Chapter Five

between a mestre and the rest of practitioners is that the mestre establishes
a temporal distancing in the middle of the relationship. Leaders assume that
they are caretakers of an ancestral tradition and that they are the only ones
who can communicate with the ancestors. In some cases, they affirm that they
embody the power of dead mestres and other figures of the ancestral past such
as Besouro, Zumbi dos Palmares, and African slaves.
Capoeira leaders do not only talk about belonging to another time; they also
demonstrate it through capoeira, singing and composing songs, playing the
berimbau, and performing. Pragmatically, they pass from discourse into action.
In this process, mestres try to make of capoeira’s practice a mythical represen-
tation of the past in the present. In their bodies, leaders offer the ultimate proof
that they are worshipping their ancestors through capoeira, and even embody-
ing their ancestral power. We now turn to this dynamic, pragmatic process.

ENACTING THE PAST

In a roda, mestres show their power and authority. To see them play is, for
many, a privilege worth watching. A mestre playing with an advanced student
raises expectations and excitement; two mestres playing together is the quint-
essential act that embodies the ethos of capoeira Angola. To see three or four
generations of mestres playing music together feels like grasping the magic
and spiritual essence of this Afro-Brazilian art. On such special occasions
an audience can perceive something mysterious, something magical in the
roda of capoeira. The fascination of seeing mestres interacting together has
captured the imagination of countless practitioners, including me. The aura
that surrounds these powerful persons and their effect on the audience stand
as proof of their connection with an ancestral past.
Mestres manipulate the ancestral beings that surround them in the roda
and bring them into the performance. For instance, Mestre C, one of my
informants in Salvador, mentioned that he only made chamadas (callings)
in particular situations, and his motivations were mostly spiritual. He used
the chamadas when he wanted to assess the strength and state of mind of his
opponent; when something was wrong in a roda, such as a rival mestre enter-
ing his academy; or when he wanted to test an opponent spiritually. In these
cases, the C’s body became more than a physical body; it transformed into a
vehicle of spiritual and ancestral forces that took control of him.1
For mestres, the roda is a sacred place where mythical forces appear as
agents. The ancestral beings are close and familiar to the perception of lead-
ers, and they manifest themselves in the dynamics of interaction. Kenneth

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 111

Dossar (1992: 8) has captured the fundamental relationship between a mestre

and his mythical past:

Prior to their saida [beginning of the game], players sing invocations, and make
symbols on the ground and their bodies as a form of protection. From placing
one’s hands on the ground energy is received and contact is made with the world
of the ancestors, those who danced the N’golo, those who used capoeira as a
means of liberation, as well as the spirit of mestres who are now in the other
world. In doing this Capoeiristas tie into epic myths.

Dossar’s notion that there is a connection between worlds coincides with

the narratives that mestres offer to their students. They explain that actions
in a roda mobilize forces found in different levels. Academics such as Maya
Talmon-Chvaicer also point to the religious and spiritual connection that
leaders make with their past through music, which resembles the enacting
of West African dances; when a leader kneels at the bottom of the music
orchestra or when he is singing an opening song, called ladainha, he is
evoking a distant past. Talmon-Chvaicer (2008: 148) says that this music
“is further evidence that in practice the memory of Bantu and Yoruban
traditions has been preserved but that the philosophy as a complex of inter-
related components has been forgotten.”
For leaders, music and performance blend into an enactment of the past.
What looks from the outside like a kick or an acrobatic sequence means
something else for a leader; the movements could be associated with physical
moves performed by slaves or by Zumbi dos Palmares. Therefore, ancestors
and mestres belong to a shared universe. From a mestre’s perspective, clos-
ing the body and appealing to a mandinga are also ways of controlling the
existing forces between worlds. When a mestre sings songs related to Africa
or dedicated to the mythical figure of Zumbi, the energies of these virtual po-
tencies are being invoked. In this sense, when mestres tell students to follow
the Angola tradition strictly, they mean that capoeira Angola is capable of
creating a direct link with the past, either the world of the African ancestors
or the epic history of the dead mestres. Mestres are mediators between the
world of the present practice of capoeira and the transmission of knowledge
from a distant past.
Enacting the past takes many forms, as evident in the way the following
two leaders displayed through performance their connection with their an-
cestry. In July 2006, I went together with some students and Angola mestres
to Capão, a small town in the interior of the state of Bahia, in the middle
of the Chapada Diamantina National Park. We went there for a workshop
with a pair of mestres, A and B, from the neighboring Bahian city of Santo

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 112 Chapter Five

Amaro da Purificação, the mythical birthplace of Besouro. When we met

the two, both in their late forties, they began talking about how runaway
slaves played capoeira in their hometown and told us that the capoeira An-
gola of Santo Amaro was more authentic and closer to its African roots than
the one from Salvador. They said that in Salvador capoeira had lost part of
its essence, so it was difficult for them to connect with the Angola style of
the academies in that city.
For A and B, the distinction between rural and urban areas was equivalent
to the one between traditional and less traditional. These mestres assumed
that although capoeira unfolded as an urban phenomenon, its roots were in the
rural areas of Bahia, where slavery was predominant. Thus, the more distant
capoeira was from a city, the more traditional and authentic it became. This
particular distinction for A and B was vital to position their tradition as more
authentic; it also contained a temporal dimension that placed the rural region
of Bahia closer to their ancestry.
Capão was the perfect place for A and B to show off as more traditional
than the Bahian urban mestres. Their workshop the first day passed without
incident; it consisted of movement classes and a documentary screening.
The second day, A announced that he wanted to have a roda to close the
general event and to have the chance to play with everyone. As the night
unfolded, A summoned the participants to make a circle and start the roda.
A and B took control of the music, and the other two mestres that came
with us, C and D, took minor roles in the music ensemble. After one hour
of roda, A gave the berimbau to D and decided to play. He came close to the
foot of the berimbau, made some exaggerated symbols on the ground with
his fingers, and called a foreign capoeira player to play with him. In this
fashion, A began a series of games with different players that lasted almost
an hour. His skills were not outstanding, his movements did not look more
impressive than those of C or other mestres I had seen before, and some of
the advanced students with whom he played with caught him by surprise
many times. Nevertheless, A seemed not to care.
At the one-hour mark, B, the other mestre from Santo Amaro, passed
the berimbau to C and decided to play too. A and B began playing like
in a rehearsal, exchanging choreographed moves with acrobatic displays
that seemed prepared beforehand. Nothing special here, as many mestres
who are friends sometimes play together diplomatically. Suddenly, they
changed the intensity of the game and began acting more aggressively;
they were trying to get one another. The audience of other capoeira players
practically woke up from their slumber, and the music intensified as well.
A suddenly took out two sharp knives from his pocket and gave one to B.
After a brief pause to rest, both mestres resumed the game and played for

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 113

real with the knives. The audience thought for a moment that they were
going to hurt themselves or that some unfortunate accident would happen.
C and D continued playing the berimbaus, and because they were guests in
the roda, they could not intervene. Their faces showed that they were not
very happy with the performance they were witnessing. A and B kept good
control of the game, although they managed to cut themselves slightly. A
was very skillful at controlling the knife. Finally, he made a chamada and
caught B by surprise with a rasteira (leg-sweep), knocking him down and
causing him to lose his knife in the fall.
A concluded the roda with a loud shout, the music stopped, and the mes-
tres from Santo Amaro explained the performance. A said that the fight with
knives is something that he and B have practiced for many years. He said that
by playing with knives, they were enacting the violent past of capoeira during
the early twentieth century. B added that they performed games with knives
because it was an almost lost tradition that people needed to preserve. Both
mestres felt that it was their responsibility to share this knowledge with other
practitioners. Finally, they said that players today must remember that in the
past capoeira was a lethal weapon and played in the streets by dangerous
men; so, by playing with knives, A and B connected with their ancestral past
and brought into the present the power of their forefathers.
This ethnographic example shows how leaders enact the past in the roda.
A and B came from Santo Amaro, so their performance turned into a more
meaningful display as they wanted to show to their guests, including Mestres
C and D, that their traditional heritage was unique. It is not by chance that C
and D were unimpressed by the game with knives. For them, it was a display
that questioned their place in the hierarchy of knowledge. Initially, because
they were playing the berimbaus, they did not have the chance to play with
either B or A. When they could, they did not want to do it. They preferred to
follow the dictates of deception and simulation, and stayed neutral, invent-
ing excuses to avoid playing with the Santo Amaro mestres. They said later
on the way back to Salvador that they had a good time in Capão and did not
want to ruin everything by challenging B and A in the roda and destroying the
harmony of the event. C, in particular, stressed the importance of not losing
control even in situations when his status was at stake.
The game with real knives between A and B is not exceptional. A famous
researcher once told me that he was sure that many old mestres in Bahia still
showed up in a roda armed with pocket knives. He said that although this
practice was unusual today, it was part of capoeira circles, and he mentioned
that it is not by chance that in capoeira Angola you see players simulate with
their hands the use of knives to attack an opponent. This set of imitative skills
is more commonly found among mestres, so it is essential to clarify that this

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 114 Chapter Five

enactment of the past in a roda is not widespread among all practitioners of

capoeira Angola. Greg Downey (2005: 102) points out that the value of his-
tory, myth, and ritual is of greater concern to more advanced players in the
hierarchy of knowledge than to everyday players:

Practitioners, like academics, treat the roda as a historical artifact. They suggest
that elements of its rituals survive from bygone days: a hand gesture is a legacy
of knife fighting, a song recalls slavery, a strategy was developed by maroons,
an instrument came from Africa. When I asked veteran players to explain the
musical or ritual dimensions of the roda, they inevitably turned to history. In
contrast, practitioners tended to explain attacks and defenses pragmatically; an
evasive dodge, for example, was useful to avoid certain sorts of kicks or sweeps.

Downey suggests a divide between the interpretations of experienced play-

ers and other practitioners. I agree with him in the sense that there is a clear
distinction between the intentions of mestres and the rest. The use of knives
is part of the mythology of capoeira related to a violent past, and mostly per-
formed by older practitioners. Although Downey (2005: 103) focuses more
on the pragmatics of capoeira skills as a form of learning, he often addresses
the issue of ancestor worship and the enactment of the ancestral past: “Recall-
ing the past buttresses the roda, making it an environment in which the ambi-
guity of capoeira might be fully experienced. These rituals generate a shared
sense of the game’s hidden, sinister side.” This sinister side, as I mentioned
in chapter 1, has to do with the remembrance of a violent past in capoeira and
its history of oppression and suffering.
The past appears as a source for worship when mestres claim access to
it in the form of hierarchical distinctions and temporal separations from the
rest of the students. Ancestor worship, however, does not end with the par-
ticular views of the mestres; it permeates the practice of capoeira Angola on
all levels, and it extends to the whole community of participants worldwide.
In the following section, I address ethnographically how other practitioners
interpret and conceive of their belonging to an ancestral tradition.

AN ANCESTRAL TRADITION AND THE

TRANSNATIONAL PILGRIMAGE TO BRAZIL

Ancestor worship varies by location. Because capoeira Angola is a global

practice, the meaning that leaders give to their ancestral traditions varies
based on their location. It is difficult to compare ancestor worship among
Angola groups in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Latin America. The
nationality and academic formation of the analysts are also important factors

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 115

in the way we study and define capoeira, whether historically or ethnographi-

cally. Lauren Griffith (2016) has described her own experience as an Ameri-
can practitioner of capoeira Angola who traveled to Brazil to understand the
role that foreign players have in the development of an Afro-Brazilian tradi-
tion. She distinguishes between different types of travelers, their intentions,
and their commitment to capoeira. Griffith (2016: 54–59) also describes
foreigners’ different purposes for making a journey to Brazil to experience
capoeira in its place of origin. She focuses in particular on what she calls
“apprenticeship pilgrims,” who go to Brazil as an initiation ritual in the
world of capoeira (Griffith 2016: 60). They are travelers who do not consider
themselves tourists, and they despise being identified as such (Griffith 2016:
62). Griffith (2016: 69) correctly assesses that “the purpose of the pilgrim-
age is to gain access to knowledge and experiences that are not available for
purchase.” Pilgrims seek authenticity through a singular experience with the
caretakers of tradition, with the expectation of consolidating a more signifi-
cant relationship with them (see Griffith and Marion 2018).
In this process, the origin of practitioners is essential for assessing the re-
action that mestres have toward them. As I described in chapter 4, capoeira
leaders subtly discriminate against foreign practitioners in several ways: by
diminishing and demoralizing them in the roda, by not giving them titles or
recognition, or by taking advantage of them economically. In some cases,
race and national stereotyping become issues for capoeira leaders (Griffith
2016: 98). The journey to Brazil for many practitioners is a trip designed to
enhance their lives, their understanding of capoeira, and the meaning of an
Afro-Brazilian tradition; it is also a form of gaining legitimation in Brazil,
which they will later use to cement status in their places of origin (Griffith
and Marion 2018: 73). Griffith argues that many seek a form of secular
pilgrimage, with the only objective to learn capoeira skills. For others, the
pilgrimage is spiritual and transformative.
The endless flux of pilgrims to the centers of capoeira in Brazil such as
Salvador and Rio de Janeiro prove that people take capoeira seriously. It is
impossible to know the intentions of all the travelers who go to these cities,
but as Mestre Cobra Mansa once told me, practitioners need to come to Brazil
at least once in their lifetimes to experience real capoeira in the flesh. For
some of these practitioners, traveling to Brazil becomes a way to worship the
ancestors. Their pilgrimage, however, stops with the famous capoeira acad-
emies, or with the prominent spots in the historic center of Pelourinho, and
does not extend to visiting the places where the dead mestres reside. Even
capoeira leaders do not know very well where their ancestors are buried. In
this cosmological landscape, the ancestors are active beings, so it is irrelevant
for capoeira mestres to remember them as inert beings buried in a cemetery

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 116 Chapter Five

far away from their academies. They are present and sentient beings that sur-
round the rodas and the Angola academies, and they are always close.
There are plenty of reasons for international practitioners to make a
capoeira trip to Brazil. Lauren Griffith offers very interesting examples in
her research, and they are by no means exhaustive. Therefore, to think about
the notion of ancestor worship on a global scale demands tracing connections
that link countries of origin and Brazilian cities. Brazilian anthropologist
Celso de Brito describes how even before the idea of a pilgrimage to Brazil
comes to the mind of an international capoeira practitioner, there is already
a religious meaning of capoeira related to the worship of ancestors. When
Brito (2017: 151) discussed the significance of capoeira Angola for a group
of practitioners in Lyon, France, he discovered that there was a connection
between the sense of community among the French practitioners and a form
of religiosity. Because some of the members of the group in Lyon were artists
and academics, with an anthropologist in their ranks who wrote a thesis about
the connection between capoeira and Candomblé in Brazil, the participants
saw capoeira Angola as eminently religious. Brito describes how the roda and
the group’s classes took on a spiritual and ritual meaning. Most of the songs
came from Candomblé, and the use of the instruments and the rules of the
game followed the dictates of tradition more strictly than in many Brazilian
groups (Brito 2017: 181–87). Brito (2017: 193–94) points out that the mem-
bers of the group in Lyon value traveling as a form of apprenticeship and a
vital element in their social identity. Finally, he mentions that belonging to
a particular lineage of capoeira becomes predominant for people in the Lyon
group. In this case, identifying the different lineages of capoeira Angola that
exist in Lyon and other French cities is a way of establishing the mobile con-
nection between groups in Europe and Brazil.
The rich ethnographic description that Brito gives of capoeira Angola
groups in France, to which I cannot give justice here, shows the relevance that
tradition, ritual, and ancestry have in the configuration of groups abroad. For
French capoeira leaders, lineages are a form of ancestor worship in that refer-
ring to a particular line of knowledge evokes a reminiscence of the dead mes-
tres. Although perspectives on lineages vary, in France groups have a strong
allegiance to specific lines, and these lines determine the social relationships
that practitioners have among themselves. For these people, the construction
of identity happens by referring to an ancestral lineage. In their daily prac-
tice, their focus on ancestry is a form of worship that elevates a mestre (dead
and alive) to a semidivine mythical status that blends the past in the present
and, recursively, the present in the past. In the next section, I address another
ethnographic example of ancestor worship that combines the Afro-Brazilian
tradition of capoeira with other local forms of spirituality and religion.

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 117

ANCESTOR WORSHIP IN MEXICO

Capoeira came to Mexico in 1992 via the Argentinean practitioner Mariano

Andrade, who had trained under the Angola style in his native country. He
had a connection with Mestre Curió, one of the living legends of capoeira
Angola in Bahia and a student of Mestre Pastinha. His first class was in
the Dance Department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Mariano began teaching local practitioners who were mainly dancers, artists,
and people interested in the cultural side of capoeira. In 1994 he founded the
group Ollin-Bao, which worked as a collective that promoted Afro-Brazilian
culture in Mexico. In 1996 he disbanded Ollin-Bao to create the capoeira
Angola group Banda do Saci (The Band of Saci2), which is still active.
From Banda do Saci emerged some of the most prominent capoeira lead-
ers in Mexico, both from the Angola style and capoeira Contemporânea,
such as Alejandro Ruiz (treinel espanador da lua) and Adolfo Flores (Mes-
tre Cigano). Alejandro, through the work of his mentor Mariano Andrade,
formed the Escola de Capoeira Angola Irmãos Gêmeos (ECAIG) under the
mentorship of Mestre Curió in the late 1990s. In 1997 Adolfo Flores founded
the capoeira Contemporânea academy Longe do Mar, which is the largest
group of capoeira in Mexico today, with branches in more than ten states.
A group of Argentinean capoeira students arrived in Mexico in 2000, flee-
ing the turmoil caused by the economic crisis in their home country. They
brought with them their teacher, Mestre Pedrinho de Caxias, a Brazilian
leader from Rio de Janeiro who had been living in Buenos Aires for several
years. In Mexico, Pedrinho opened his group Terreiro Mandinga de Angola
(TMA), and together with his old students began teaching capoeira in the
southern and western parts of Mexico City. Pedrinho lived in Mexico City for
approximately six years until his departure to Spain and later France to pur-
sue his work with capoeira. For many years, Pedrinho was the only Brazilian
mestre of capoeira Angola who was a permanent resident in Mexico. Another
important practitioner was Contramestre Rogerio Teber, the leader of FICA
Mexico, who founded his group in 2004 in Xalapa. Rogerio graduated as a
mestre in 2013; he has resided on and off in Mexico and regularly travels
between Rio de Janeiro, South Korea, and Mexico City.
Mexico does not offer the same economic advantages as places in Europe
or the United States; therefore, to make a living exclusively with capoeira
is very hard. For this reason, Brazilian mestres tend to use Mexico only as
a stopover on their way to visit other places, and few reside permanently
in the country. The groups of capoeira Angola in Mexico, like many others
around the world, grew in association with certain mestres and their lineages
or in partnership with international academies like FICA. What distinguished

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 118 Chapter Five

Mexican groups was that, with the exceptions of the groups led by Pedrinho
and Rogerio Teber, they operated intermittently without the constant pres-
ence of their mestres. When Pedrinho and Rogerio left Mexico, there were no
more Angola mestres permanently residing in the country. Mexican groups
ended up being led exclusively by Mexican nationals or permanent residents
of Mexico. There are more capoeira Angola groups today than ten years ago;
new ones have emerged, others have merged, and some finished their associa-
tions with Brazilian mestres.
The lack of Brazilian leaders residing either permanently or for long peri-
ods in Mexico has had an impact on the development of ancestor worship and
the spirituality of capoeira Angola practitioners in Mexico. In the beginning,
when Mariano Andrade and others began their association with traditional
Brazilian mestres, they followed as much as they could the precepts of tra-
dition, just like the groups in France described by Brito. Some radicalized
their views and became strict adepts of the teachings of their mestres. They
devoted their lives to capoeira Angola. Those practitioners who had their
leaders around, such as the members of FICA and Pedrinho’s group, became
more connected with the headquarter groups in Brazil. Many converted to
Candomblé and tried to adapt the discourses about Afro-Brazilian culture and
Blackness to their groups, even though Mexico had just a small percentage
of native Afro-descendants. The linguistic closeness between Spanish and

Figure 5.1. Images of orixás at the Terreiro Mandinga de Angola academy, Mexico City.
Photo: José Luis Pérez Flores. Date: November 19, 2011.

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 119

Portuguese and the cultural similarities between the two countries facilitated
the cultural understanding of Brazilian capoeira.
For the first decade of the twenty-first century, groups in Mexico worked
like other capoeira Angola groups around the world and tried to keep close
connections with their mestres. Nevertheless, groups in Mexico became more
independent over time. As mestres visited Mexico less often, either because
Mexico did not offer the same economic gains or because of the difficulties
local groups had raising the funds to pay for a leader’s trip, local practitio-
ners took the initiative to give capoeira Angola a Mexican touch. In the last
couple of years, some leaders of Mexican groups have stopped their associa-
tions with Brazilian mestres or, having grown disillusioned with them, have
formed fully independent capoeira groups. These groups may invite a famous
leader to give a workshop but have refused to work under the tutelage of a
specific lineage or tradition. Some of the most experienced practitioners in
Mexico are beginning to integrate a political tone in the tradition and have
added elements of their local spirituality.
I know at least three or four members of Angola groups that have incorpo-
rated into capoeira their beliefs from Cuban Santería, which is very popular
in Mexico. Independent groups follow the precepts of Afro-Brazilian tradi-
tion rigorously but have added elements of Mexican history and mythology
to their songs, not only evoking the memory of African slaves, freedom, and
Zumbi dos Palmares but also calling to mind Emiliano Zapata, one of the
heroes of the Mexican Revolution and the emblem of indigenous rights and
the Zapatista movement in Chiapas. For Mexicans, both Zumbi and Zapata
are symbols of freedom and justice and pertain to the same mythological
pantheon of capoeira spirits.
On other occasions, without the restraints of a mestre, capoeira Angola
groups include in their workshops not only capoeira but also yoga retreats,
temazcal (sweat lodge) immersions, neo-shamanic trance ceremonies, and
neo-Aztec Concheros dance (see De la Torre and Gutiérrez 2017, González
Torres, 2005, and Rostas 2009). Some practitioners are followers of this neo-
Aztec tradition, which tries to execute the dances, religion, and cultural prac-
tices of pre-Hispanic times and brings these ancestral deities and practices in
dialogue with their Afro-Brazilian counterparts. This form of ancestor wor-
ship works like a bricolage in the manner described by Claude Lévi-Strauss
(1997), where people select a set of available cultural references in a coherent
semimythical discourse with an inner logic.3
Both independent Mexican groups and academies that still work under the
tutelage of a Brazilian leader bring this kind of local spirituality to the practice
of capoeira. The reaction of traditional mestres to such innovation is interest-
ing to analyze. Many do not approve of the integration of Mexican references

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 Figure 5.2. Altar to the orixás with elements related to the Mexican Day of the Dead
celebration at the Terreiro Mandinga de Angola academy, Mexico City.
Photo: José Luis Pérez Flores. Date: November 19, 2011.

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 Worshipping the Ancestors 121

into capoeira and criticize the local groups, trying to convince them to stop
making these references. Other mestres are more open and receptive. Because
local groups treat them as guests, they feel they do not have a say about how
the groups should work or interpret capoeira in Mexico. Independent groups
are trying to keep some essential elements of tradition—such as the rules of
the game, deception, the proper way of performing music, and lyrics that men-
tion the ancestors of capoeira—and join them with elements from Mexican
culture. Many of the leaders in Mexico are well-versed capoeira practitioners
with more than fifteen years of experience, so what they add to capoeira is not
improvised or opposed to the basic rules of the game. They are giving a new
sense of spiritual meaning to the Afro-Brazilian practice without distancing it
too much from what Angola mestres profess.

CONCLUSION

By experimenting with local forms of spirituality and religion, practitioners

in Mexico are modifying capoeira Angola, and they are bringing new spiritual
actors into the scene. Capoeira Angola is changing through its global expan-
sion, and new traditional meanings are emerging. Some people follow the
traditional path of the Brazilian mestres strictly—particularly those who
work closely with leaders and their academies, both nationally and interna-
tionally (such as the case analyzed by Brito). There are others who are tired
after many years of following a single spiritual path and do not want to work
so rigidly with one mestre. Leaders of capoeira Angola are changing their
views too. In their quest for spiritual answers, some have delegated the re-
sponsibilities of their academies to others and have initiated individual paths
of knowledge to bring a new meaning to their ancestral worship. There are
cases such as Mestre Carlão, who dissolved his group in order to have more
freedom and so he could move away from the cosmopolitics of capoeira in
his native Rio de Janeiro.
The spirituality of capoeira is important for mestres and practitioners alike.
The religious foundations of this art, which combines elements of Candomblé
and ancestral beings that come from a mythical and historical past, lead to
ancestor worship that gives a more powerful meaning to the hierarchies of
knowledge, where leaders assume they belong to a different time. The past of
the ancestors comes to life when a roda begins and through a mestre’s bodily
movements, singing, and playing the berimbau. There is an element of magic
in capoeira, such as the moment that Pedro Abib mentions at the beginning
of this chapter. Capoeira’s practice provides mystical and spiritual value to
the Angola style. People who train capoeira in Brazil and abroad feel this

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 122 Chapter Five

magic with more intensity the more they delve into the intricacies of its prac-
tice. Capoeira is not for everyone, so time is crucial and social relationships
between mestres and students change over the years. The logic of deception
plays a huge role in the complex cosmological landscape of capoeira’s inter-
actions, which define the relationship between mentors and disciples.
The ancestors have agency. As virtual entities they participate in the roda
and are alive in the academies; they appear in stories, paintings, T-shirts,
murals, music, lineages, and performance. Mestres embody this ancestry, and
they are the links between the past, the present, and the future of capoeira.
Leaders and students form an indissoluble binary compound that defines the
foundations of tradition and ancestor worship. In a global landscape, tradi-
tion motivates mestres to become itinerant missionaries of Afro-Brazilian
culture; it also fosters the curiosity of national and international practitioners
to become apprenticeship pilgrims and visit the big centers of capoeira in
Brazil. Abroad, capoeira Angola groups depend on the recognition and as-
sociation with traditional mestres to create an ancestral and spiritual connec-
tion. Depending on the country, capoeira Angola and its form of worshipping
the ancestors follow the dictates of tradition, though in some cases, such as
Mexico, it blends with local forms of worship and spirituality. Without the
desire of mestres to become global itinerants, none of this ancestral worship
would have been possible. The power of mobility, in this case, is the power
of leaders to disseminate the message of an Afro-Brazilian tradition.

NOTES

1. Greg Downey gives a similar interpretation when he describes the importance of

the chamada and its dramatic dynamics in practice (Downey 2005: 107–11).
2. Paying homage to the character of Brazilian folklore, Sací represents a one-
legged Black mulatto who grants acts of magic.
3. This inner logic runs parallel to what Floyd Merrell mentions about capoeira
and Candomblé as developing their own cultural logics of practice (see Merrell 2005:
205–88).

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 Chapter Six

Capoeira as Intangible
Cultural Heritage

In November 2014 UNESCO registered capoeira in its Representative

List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This recognition has
brought substantial changes in the way capoeira is perceived globally. The
days when it was illegal and represented only a marginal sector of society
seem remote. Today, this new global status is slowly defining the relation-
ship between the leaders of the Afro-Brazilian art, the caretakers of tradi-
tion, and the rest of the world.
I have described the global expansion of capoeira and how its leaders have
taken a missionary quest as part of their duties and responsibilities with a par-
ticular tradition. I have depicted the way capoeira leaders refer to a mythical
past and how they bring it into the present through local imaginaries that be-
come virtual possibilities of the logic of practice. Finally, I have highlighted
the complex social and power relations that emerge from the interaction
between mestres and students of different levels of competence in a com-
mercial and mobile tourism setting, as well as the new religious foundations
of a capoeira style.
I now analyze capoeira from the outside, through categories of recogni-
tion that value capoeira’s intangible nature. I aim to show the effects of the
UNESCO recognition and the emerging debates about the intangible cultural
heritage status of capoeira. My purpose is to describe the intersection between
the intangible value of capoeira and its perception within Angola groups, thus
demonstrating how the new status of capoeira is affecting discourses and
practices about tradition.

123

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 124 Chapter Six

ANTHROPOLOGY AND
INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

Anthropology is not the only discipline that studies intangible cultural heritage
(ICH). Today, the discussions of ICH include social scientists, policy makers,
critical heritage studies scholars, governmental agencies, NGOs, consultants,
and UNESCO itself. Every discipline has a particular approach to intangible
cultural heritage, and there are diverging perspectives about it. Anthropolo-
gists have often been critical of how governmental and nongovernmental
institutions represent culture in their discussions of heritage. From the wide
range of sources, I would like to highlight the work of Lourdes Arizpe, one
of the most famous anthropologists working on intangible cultural heritage
in Latin America. She mentions that UNESCO has devised its Representative
List based on a distinction between singularity and plurality (Arizpe 2013).
She says that “singularity, as dealt with in anthropological literature, has to
do with the originality and uniqueness of a cultural practice” (Arizpe 2013:
19). This uniqueness, however, depends on a variety of cultural forms that
cannot be overlooked by those who create UNESCO’s Representative List.
Singularity, Arizpe argues, has to do with authenticity and variability at the
same time. A ritual, for instance, appears in different regions with different
themes, narratives, and practices. Each place claiming an authentic expres-
sion of a particular ritual faces a challenge about belonging and appropriation
as many other places make the same claim.
Arizpe describes the dilemma that members of UNESCO and policy
makers face when dealing with the contrasts between singularity and plural-
ity. In her example, two dances from Mexico—the Dance of the Malinches
in Yautepec, Guerrero, and the Dance of the Chinelos in Morelos—claim
to be authentic in those regions but are part of a variety of regional dance
expressions. Here, we have the contrast between singularity and plurality.
How can these dances be safeguarded as parts of the UNESCO’s Represen-
tative List without overlooking the point of view of those who created and
performed them? This question is not easy to answer, and it relates to the
situation of capoeira today.
The safeguarding of cultural heritage depends on the anthropological dis-
tinction that Arizpe describes between singularity and plurality and on how
UNESCO policy makers recognize these contrasts. Anthropology provides
expertise about the importance of the cultural expression of minorities,
groups facing global problems, and vulnerable people in general (Arizpe
2013: 21). These distinctions led UNESCO to divide the list in two: the Rep-
resentative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and the List
of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 125

Although Arizpe is right in her distinction between singularity and plural-

ity, the crucial question is how anthropologists define ICH. Fairchild Ruggles
and Helaine Silverman (2009: 2) note that the UNESCO definition lists rep-
resentative categories, such as the following:

• Oral traditions and expressions including language

• Performing arts (such as traditional music, dance, and theater)
• Social practices, rituals, and festive events
• Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
• Traditional craftsmanship

In their historical analysis, Ruggles and Silverman (2009: 3) show how the
concept of the intangible took form in a discussion among architects in Spain
at the beginning of the twentieth century about the preservation of monu-
ments and heritage. The definition of “world heritage” in the 1970s incorpo-
rated this move from tangible to intangible and began to recognize traditional
local perspectives. The agency of local people and their views about what
could be considered a world heritage monument or site rapidly expanded
the ideas about definition of what preservation and conservation entailed.
Ruggles and Silverman (2009: 9) argue that in a painstaking effort to clarify
and refine concepts, the concept of “intangible cultural heritage” replaced
“traditional cultures” or folklore in world conventions. This shift signaled a
new appreciation of heritage as a concept that could include not only material
objects but also cultural traditions, artifacts, and practices that did not have
an exclusive material expression. The definition of what constitutes ICH has
expanded rapidly, Ruggles and Silverman argue (2013: 11), and includes a
long list of embodied cultural practices.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett offers an important insight about intangible
cultural heritage when she signals that in addition to traditions, artifacts, and
social practices, heritage must include creators. She says, “There has been an
important shift in the concept of intangible heritage to include not only the
masterpieces, but also the masters” (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004: 53). This is
essential because it recognizes the process by which knowledge is transmitted
and people’s performative agency. She provides an example of ICH in Japan
in which people continually build, dismantle, and rebuilt a sanctuary in a dem-
onstration of permanence and evanescence. This ancestral tradition depends
on the transmission of knowledge from an older generation of carpenters to a
new one, and its intangible value resides in the performative knowledge that
these carpenters have and not in the sanctuary itself (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
2004: 59). An anthropological perspective on ICH, therefore, needs to focus,
on the one hand, on the intersection between local and national politics, public

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 126 Chapter Six

policies, tourism expertise, and the aims of UNESCO, and, on the other hand,
on the consequences that heritage discussions carry for the local people in-
volved and their agency in the preservation of a particular tradition, in what
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004: 60) calls “the social worlds of persons.”
Anthropologists can use their ethnographic expertise to attest to the efficacy
of cultural concepts projected from the outside to the inside of culture. As
Regina Bendix (2009: 255) points out, “Cultural heritage does not exist, it is
made.” By this, she means that heritage is a category that local people and out-
siders consider instrumental for a discussion of the public dimension of culture.
It is in the interaction between local and external views of traditions that
the concept of heritage takes form. Heritage is an explanatory concept in the
realms of public policy, instrumental politics, and economic interests. Rec-
ognizing and valorizing the past in the present is a social, political strategy.
Bendix (2009: 257) says, “Thus, one task cultural anthropologists face is
research on how the social and temporal axes of heritagisation move ever
closer together, choosing present-day cases as well as selected cases from the
past. . . . From such a present, we might take a look at places and moments in
time where there were different, or perhaps no, regimes of comparative cul-
tural (e-)valuation.” Heritage is also a form of appropriation of authenticity;
it can be locally apprehended or externally defined. What is important in this
dialogue is the distinction between the material and immaterial connotations
of heritage found in the divide between tangible and intangible forms.
Laurajane Smith and Natsuko Akagawa (2009: 1) point out that the appre-
ciation and recognition of intangible cultural heritage stem from a discomfort
with the Eurocentric perspective given to the notion of world heritage.1 The
transition from tangible to intangible, proposed and celebrated by anthropolo-
gists, constitutes a win for the respect of traditional cultures that lie in the
periphery of cultural relevance compared to the central and hegemonic forces
of Western culture. The distinction is not without problems and controversies.
One has to do with the legitimacy granted to UNESCO to determine what
constitutes a representative of intangible cultural heritage and what does not.
Furthermore, the relative vagueness of the definition of intangibility rein-
forces the unequal power relations between local cultures and international
institutions in charge of granting a universal recognition.
A second point relates to the apparent objectification of culture found at the
epistemological base of the notion of heritage. Lourdes Arizpe affirms that
the idea of intangible cultural heritage clarifies the vitality and ongoing trans-
formational dynamics of culture by appealing to a sense of connectedness
between groups. She says, “The sense of flow inherent to intangible cultural
heritage is the best representation of the interrelatedness of cultures around
the world” (Arizpe 2004: 131). For her, ICH discussions need to account

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 127

for cultural diversity and consider the constant global interaction between
humans in different cultural settings. She explains, “Conserving intangible
cultural heritage and cultural diversity implies preserving a certain harmony,
a kind of ‘golden cultural proportion’ whereby people safeguard intimate
cultural roots, whether originally ascribed or adopted, while feeling free to
embrace whatever they have reasons to value from other cultures” (Arizpe
2004: 133). Thus, the self-determinacy of particular cultures concerning the
limits and scope of intangible cultural heritage depends on appropriate diplo-
macy between policy makers, international institutions, and intermediaries of
the cultures in question.
In a global landscape where individuals are “cosmopolitan citizens”
(Hannerz 2006), paying attention to the dynamic flow of cultural traits and
the political uses of terms like tradition, folklore, and heritage is essential.
Arizpe (2004: 134) considers the role of UNESCO as an enabler of new
policy models based on the development of cultural freedom rather than as a
promoter of cultural orthodoxy.
Closely related to the notion of ICH is the anthropological category of
identity, which Smith and Akagawa (2009: 7) argue implies situations of
inclusion and exclusion. Inclusion and exclusion run parallel to what Arizpe
means by singularity and plurality. Questions about effective policy making
arise in the tension between what ICH includes and incorporates as authen-
tic and legitimate and what it leaves aside as inauthentic. UNESCO, in this
sense, cannot be impartial and is complicit in exacerbating this tension. An-
thropologist Chiara Bartolotto (2010: 99), for instance, affirms that the poli-
cies of UNESCO and other international organizations may unwittingly try
to impose a universal and global uniformity on local cultures: “International
cultural policies or global heritage programs are not considered (only) as
unbiased actions aimed at diffusing knowledge and education or concerted
efforts made by nations to protect what is assumed to be a ‘common heritage,’
but (also) as a means for international players to export cultural models via
the global transposition of the founding principles of their national heritage
protection systems.” Bartolotto is right to highlight the complexity of the
uses and meaning of heritage. This tension between outside and inside per-
spectives concerning capoeira as part of the intangible cultural heritage of
humanity brings into light the politics and power relations that exist among
capoeira practitioners and experts, and the diverging definitions and aims of
the Afro-Brazilian art. My long-term commitment to the study of just one
capoeira variant, Angola, has taught me that those distinctions are essential
for grasping what capoeira means for different people around the world.
Capoeira as intangible cultural heritage does not consider this plurality of
meanings and prioritizes homogeneity over heterogeneity. In other words, it

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 128 Chapter Six

seems to reproduce what Arizpe describes as the tension between singular-

ity and plurality. However, the definition of capoeira as intangible cultural
heritage has given to the possessors of knowledge, the mestres, a vital role in
preserving an intangible ancestral tradition. This recognition works similarly
to the metacultural definition of heritage that Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
describes, where people’s subjectivities are considered as fundamental for
the reproduction of heritage. In the next sections, I show the current debates
about ICH in capoeira circles and how these discussions are redefining the
meaning of Afro-Brazilian culture in general.

THE PATH TO CULTURAL RECOGNITION

The concept of intangible cultural heritage has an elusive and abstract char-
acter. As I mentioned in the previous section, there is no consensus about the
definition, uses, or interpretations of ICH among anthropologists and other
academics. In the middle of this discussion stand policy makers, international
organizations such as UNESCO, local people, and even lawyers. This con-
fluence of perspectives has made a positive solution regarding the meaning
of ICH more problematic. Some authors, for instance, also question the util-
ity of concepts such as “traditional cultural expression” or “folklore” when
talking about intellectual property and rights (Antons 2009). In Brazil, the
discussions about ICH and heritage, in general, face the same challenges and
involve actors in a diversity of levels and scales. Unfortunately, I do not have
space here to describe in detail the history of intangible cultural heritage in
Brazil, so I focus only on the intangible cultural practice of capoeira.
The debates about capoeira as intangible cultural heritage are relatively
recent and are made mostly by Brazilian academics. Vivian Luiz Fonseca,
a historian who has studied the development of heritage policies in Brazil,
and Luiz Renato Vieira, a sociologist and renowned capoeira mestre, argue
that the discussions on intangible—or, to use the local word, immaterial—
heritage in Brazil are nothing new. They mention that these discussions ap-
peared in intellectual circles beginning in the 1930s with the creation of the
Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (IPHAN, National His-
torical and Artistic Heritage Institute) (Fonseca and Vieira 2014: 1303). Al-
though there were attempts to debate policies related to immaterial heritage in
Brazil, it was not until the late 1980s that Brazilian policy makers, influenced
by UNESCO’s deliberate efforts to safeguard traditional cultures, decided to
discuss the issue in detail (Fonseca and Vieira 2014: 1304).
Conferences, panels, and symposia in Brazil started talking about ex-
emplary cases of immaterial heritage. After many proposals to consider

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 129

capoeira part of Brazil’s national patrimony, the IPHAN finally recognized

it as Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Brazil on July 15, 2008. IPHAN reg-
istered the Rodas de Capoeira (capoeira circle) in the Book of Expression
Forms, and the Ofício de Mestre da Capoeira (Profession of Capoeira Mes-
tre) in the Book of Knowledge (Fonseca and Vieira 2014: 1305, Lussac and
Tubino 2009: 14, and Vassallo 2008). This recognition cleared the path for
capoeira to become part of the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
As it often happens, this national recognition did not translate into better
conditions for all mestres of capoeira. Although the initiative to show the
value of capoeira to the world was promoted in 2004 by Gilberto Gil, a fa-
mous Afro-Brazilian musician who was then minister of culture, it took four
years to achieve heritage status. Capoeira’s new national status as part of the
Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Brazil in 2008 brought some collateral prob-
lems, as it did not consider the variety of styles and selected just a few rep-
resentatives of Afro-Brazilian culture. The official recognition of the mestre
in the Book of Knowledge of traditional culture brought new disputes, since
many used and abused that status to claim to belong to an Afro-Brazilian
tradition. This situation affected all styles. In the case of capoeira Angola, the
recognition of 2008 resulted in more careful control by older leaders about
who is a genuine mestre sanctioned by a community of participants in Brazil.
The recognition of capoeira as Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Brazil
in 2008 also signified its incursion into the national political and cultural
agenda and led to the development of projects and initiatives that translated
into access for funding. Nevertheless, this interest was nothing new. A few
years before the recognition, in 2006, the minister of culture promoted a cul-
tural initiative called Capoeira Viva (Capoeira Alive), which I got to know
personally. That project intended to show the value of capoeira to the world
by creating projects that promoted capoeira as culture; it involved academ-
ics, capoeira leaders, and practitioners (see Vassallo 2008). Supported by
Petrobras, it was to become a document archive about the Afro-Brazilian
art (Fonseca 2014: 114). The executive board of the Capoeira Viva project
convened a panel of experts to assess the proposals and select the most viable
ones for government funding. This new bureaucratic situation made visible
old rivalries and conflicts that existed among capoeira groups and personali-
ties. As a result of these disputes, Capoeira Viva exacerbated a power divide
between those included and those excluded and marginalized.
Although the Capoeira Viva initiative was successful in bringing the
value of Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions to the center of a national dis-
cussion on traditional heritage and helped lead to recognition by IPHAN, it
also showed the complexities that such an initiative produced. The power

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struggles and controversial policies that emerged from heritage discussions

evoke what Nestor García Canclini has mentioned about the general problems
of heritage and cultural patrimony. He says: “The cultural patrimony func-
tions as a resource for reproducing differences between social groups and the
hegemony of those who achieve a preferential access to the production and
distribution of goods” (García Canclini 1995: 137). For him, heritage needs to
be inclusive by taking into consideration a diversity of local views, although
ultimately it will end up excluding some of the actors involved. In the case
of capoeira, the new status achieved in 2008 presented a situation where a
social practice that was reticent to structure itself formally had to negotiate
in such a structured way with the government and international institutions.
Many capoeira Angola mestres, who had never desired a path to formal orga-
nization, criticized those who chose a new cultural heritage status over pres-
ervation of tradition and even accused them of betraying the Afro-Brazilian
cause. As Ricardo Porto Lussac and Manoel Turbino (2009: 14) predicted,
the inclusion of capoeira in the Book of Expression Forms of IPHAN brought
old and new discussions about capoeira’s definition and relevance back to the
front of current debates on heritage.

AN INVENTORY OF CULTURE

The recognition of the Roda of Capoeira as part of the Immaterial Cultural

Heritage of Brazil and the value of the mestre as a representative of capoeira’s
traditional knowledge cleared the path to recognition by UNESCO in 2014.
But before describing how this recognition took place, it is important first to
characterize the principles that guided the acknowledgment of capoeira as
part of the Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Brazil.
Vivian Fonseca argues that the creation of an inventory of cultural traits
representative of capoeira according to the guidelines of IPHAN occurred
first. This inventory identified the intrinsic characteristics of capoeira, the
elements that showed its historical continuity, a shared social memory, and
authenticity (Fonseca 2014: 108). The guidelines oriented the selection of the
constitutive elements, the procedure to gather information about the value of
traditional culture, and the justification to include it in the books of IPHAN.
For Fonseca (2014: 110), the creation of an inventory was based on finding
a justification for registering a particular cultural practice within the books
of IPHAN. In her research, Fonseca describes in detail the bureaucratic pro-
cess of the inventory and the characteristics it had to fulfill. The immaterial
heritage status of capoeira included a registration of its presence in Brazil,
particularly in three cities: Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Recife. The process

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 131

was arduous and faced many dilemmas. One had to do with the plurality of
perspectives about the Afro-Brazilian martial art and the conflicts and dis-
putes among practitioners and between styles. The main idea of the inventory
was to safeguard the continuity and practice of capoeira not only in Brazil but
also in the rest of the world. Many of the elements that appeared in the inven-
tory served years later as the basis on which the Brazilian authorities would
propose capoeira before UNESCO. The creation of the inventory prompted
discussions about social memory, preservation of tradition, and cultural iden-
tity in Brazil. These themes were already present in Brazil but did not extend
beyond the confines of capoeira groups. The research that generated the
inventory brought a deep self-reflection among capoeira practitioners about
their art and affected the way they presented capoeira to an audience.
The IPHAN document detailing the organization of the inventory struc-
tures the dossier in three levels (Barbosa 2007). The first focuses on the his-
tory of capoeira, the second on the teaching methods and process of knowl-
edge transmission, and the third on the ethnographic description of the roda
of capoeira.2 The dossier, compiled by a group of researchers and mestres in
Recife, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador, was perhaps the first official collabora-
tive document that exhaustively details the history, ethnography, music, and
knowledge of capoeira (Barbosa 2007). It was also a political document that
brought some representative mestres and academics together in a joint fight
for social and cultural recognition in Brazil. What I consider more reveal-
ing in the inventory are the demands put forward to safeguard capoeira and
promote its global diffusion. These demands are the following: the recogni-
tion by the minister of education of the remarkable knowledge of a capoeira
mestre, financial support for old mestres, a national program to incentivize
capoeira globally, the creation of the National Center for Capoeira Stud-
ies, a plan to manage the resources needed to produce musical instruments,
capoeira forums, the creation of a repository of oral histories of capoeira
mestres, and an inventory of capoeira in Pernambuco (Barbosa 2007: 94–96).
This agenda set the platform for discussion of the immaterial patrimony of
capoeira and its safeguarding. The role of the mestre as a living cultural heri-
tage is one of the stronger elements in the IPHAN registration. The mestre’s
knowledge, stressed over and over again in the dossier, shows the political
agenda forwarded by academics and practitioners to recognize the mestre as
the pivot of knowledge transmission and preservation of tradition. It is not a
coincidence that this effort in recent years has been used by leaders to em-
phasize their relevance for the global expansion of capoeira, as I have shown
in chapters 2 and 3.
The recognition by IPHAN signified an achievement for capoeira adepts
and slowly advanced discussions about the heritage, cultural preservation,

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 132 Chapter Six

and social prestige of capoeira. Although discrimination against capoeira

practitioners continues today in some sectors of Brazilian culture, their status
as representatives of the immaterial cultural heritage of Brazil gives them
new tools to fight against prejudice and to demand their value as cultural
ambassadors. This value just increased with the inclusion of capoeira in
UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the world.

UNESCO AND CAPOEIRA AS

INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

The definition of capoeira as an immaterial heritage of Brazil was part of a

national democratic agenda promoted by then president Lula da Silva. Sim-
one Pondé Vassallo (2008: 11) describes the motivations that the Brazilian
government had for including capoeira as part of the immaterial heritage of
the nation: “In the government of Lula and its respective institutions, like
the Minister of Culture, capoeira becomes a representative symbol of Brazil-
ian culture. It embodies the possibility of overcoming inequalities and the
peaceful cohabitation of difference, and the idea of miscegenation, as we
understood it in our society. It [capoeira] becomes a metaphor of Brazil and
our culture, one that encompasses all differences and strives for their peace-
ful resolution.” Vassallo argues that there was a political intention behind
the inclusion of capoeira in the books of IPHAN. The government used the
popularity of the martial art to provide a sense of unity and identity among
Brazilians as a proof of the multicultural and tolerant character of Brazil.
Thus, capoeira served as a cultural “ambassador” of Brazil to the rest of the
world, particularly during a period when the government wanted to promote
the Summer Olympics and the World Cup.
The government’s interest in promoting capoeira as an authentic Brazil-
ian art form was decisive in the proposal made by IPHAN to UNESCO in
May 2014 (see Pertussatti 2017: 6). Célia Corsino, then director of intan-
gible heritage at IPHAN, presented the official nomination document of the
Roda of Capoeira for Inscription on the Representative List of the Intan-
gible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (UNESCO 2014a). The report details
the moments that led to the nomination. It shows how in 2010 the minister
of culture began the process of gathering relevant information, how the Pro
Capoeira Work Group was created to develop a safeguarding diagnosis, and
how a project was established to give cash awards to capoeira mestres as a
form of national recognition (UNESCO 2014a: 7–8).The nomination also
mentions the dossier assembled by IPHAN and the initiatives to safeguard
the preservation of capoeira.

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 133

The nomination document constitutes a formal public-policy proposal de-

signed for an international organization. The nomination and the other written
and video documents supporting the application to UNESCO are very differ-
ent from those gathered for the recognition of capoeira as Immaterial Cul-
tural Heritage of Brazil. While the IPHAN proposal included distinguished
academics and representative mestres of all styles, the UNESCO nomination
focuses on representatives of capoeira Regional and Contemporânea, which
is evident both in the supporting video that demonstrates the consent of the
communities and in the written nomination. Although there are a few Angola
academies represented in the video, only two Angola groups from Salvador
or Rio de Janeiro are represented: the academy led by Mestre Pelé da Pomba
and members of the group led by Mestre Renê Bittencourt. Thus, the nomina-
tion represented only a small fraction of capoeira practitioners. I do not know
why this was the case. I also wonder why the people in charge of the nomi-
nation failed to include the most famous and representative Angola mestres
from Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. If the intention was to present a document
representative of capoeira in all its diversity and richness, then it fell short.
It is not a coincidence that many representative Angola mestres are absent
from the UNESCO initiative. As I have shown in previous chapters, mestres of
capoeira Angola are not fond of the bureaucratization of their craft, and many
prefer to remain on the sidelines, without engaging in talks with government
agencies or local authorities. Besides the mestres’ aversion to institutionaliza-
tion, they have rivalries with members of other styles, mistrust authorities in
general, and have divergent views about the meaning of capoeira. They see
with suspicion all attempts to create bureaucratic structures. Above all, they
prefer to differentiate their capoeira from the rest, and they do not like being
conflated within a general view of “capoeira without labels.” Whatever the
reason behind their withdrawal from the UNESCO nomination documents,
Angola mestres decided not to take part in the official nomination process.
After the Brazilian commission submitted the documents for nomination
to the Ninth Session of the Intercontinental Committee for the Safeguard-
ing of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which took place November 24 to 28,
2014, UNESCO included the Roda of Capoeira in its Representative List of
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.3 The official decision that certifies
the inscription of capoeira in the Representative List appears on UNESCO’s
website. The website describes how capoeira satisfies the criteria listed by
UNESCO as essential for the registration (UNESCO 2014b); among them
were capoeira’s role promoting dialogue between cultures, its fight for so-
cial inclusiveness and against oppression and discrimination, and finally the
IPHAN recognition in the Registry Book of Expression Forms (Fonseca and
Vieira 2014: 1309).

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 134 Chapter Six

The UNESCO recognition means a lot for capoeira practitioners in that it

provides an external official legitimacy that goes beyond the national scope
of IPHAN. The emphasis on the roda of capoeira as intangible cultural heri-
tage and the value given to mestres as possessors of knowledge demonstrate
the importance of tradition, continuation, and preservation. This echoes what
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004) says about the importance of living
people in the metacultural definition of heritage and in the constitution of
intangibility. The inclusion of the capoeira mestre in the IPHAN register and
the UNESCO list is, without a doubt, the most significant recognition that
capoeira practitioners have had in the history of this art.
Finally, the status of capoeira as intangible cultural heritage provides
leaders with an additional recognition that accompanies them wherever
they travel. This new status is changing how leaders, at least from the An-
gola tradition, present themselves. The effects of this new social position
are evident in new religious foundations, in the manner leaders share their
knowledge with national and international students, and in how they wor-
ship their ancestors. The international recognition of capoeira is transform-
ing how practitioners interpret it.

INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF CULTURE:

TWO FORCES IN TENSION

The description of the development of capoeira as an important intangible

cultural form presents many anthropological questions that are now being
studied by academics. The recognition by UNESCO is relatively new, so
more academic work is needed to shed light on its national and interna-
tional repercussions.
For the time being, I turn to an aspect I mentioned at the beginning of
chapter 1: capoeira Angola as a form of virtual world creation. I argued that
the Angola style constitutes a microcosm understood in its own right, on its
own terms. By bringing up the discussion of intangible cultural heritage and
the international recognition of capoeira as a practice, I may have given the
impression that this perspective aims outside of capoeira, to the ambit of ex-
ternal political influences. In a sense this movement is correct; it moves from
capoeira as a self-contained world to capoeira opening itself to an outside
world marked by public policies and bureaucratic processes. Nevertheless,
there is a connection between the inside and outside of culture in capoeira.
The conception of capoeira Angola as a microcosm set the terms of discus-
sion about the externality of intangible culture status. By this, I mean that
the aversion to formal organization and bureaucracy stems from a conscious

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 135

decision by mestres to stick to their Afro-Brazilian traditional values. This

deliberation explains why some of the most representative leaders of capoeira
Angola did not participate in the nomination to UNESCO. These individuals
thought it had already been a concession to participation in the inventory for
IPHAN; to do it again for UNESCO would only require more energy, more
disputes with members of other styles, and disagreements with policy makers.
In the negotiation between the inside and outside of culture, capoeira
Angola groups use the status of intangible cultural heritage strategically to
emphasize their Afro-Brazilian values and the position of the mestres as
caretakers of tradition. In a way similar to what happened with the commodi-
fication of capoeira and the impact of the tourism industry, Angola groups
try to see what they can obtain from these situations without betraying their
cultural and religious foundations. They let members of other styles exploit
the commercial side, and they try not to judge them publicly. Angola mestres,
in the end, utilize the behavior of members of other styles to differentiate their
status as bearers of Afro-Brazilian tradition.
On another level, the distinction between the inside and outside of culture
in capoeira Angola is slightly misleading. For representative leaders, a holistic
perspective filters the outside view of culture; whatever they conceive as the
outside of capoeira is not an outside. As Mestre Pastinha said, capoeira is ev-
erything the mouth can eat; it encompasses all senses, experience, perceptions,
and relations. A mestre cannot place himself outside this holistic perspective,
and his “outside” is, in reality, a projection of his holistic microcosm.
The definition and characterization of capoeira that policy makers, inter-
national organizations like UNESCO, and government agencies make from
the “outside” of culture clashes with the local perspective of Angola mes-
tres. Because the definition from the outside encompasses not only capoeira
Angola but all styles, the Angola adepts consider it an affront to their tradi-
tional values (and their position as true bearers of tradition), evidenced by
the inclusion of competition, martial art contests, and complicated acrobatic
moves, which are absent in Angola performances. Although the definition of
capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity recognizes the artistic
and creative side of the practice, the institutionalization of this status through
a formal international organization still faces the reticence of practitioners
who consider capoeira a form of resistance and rebellion against the system.
This tension between inside and outside perspectives exemplifies what
Lourdes Arizpe (2013) mentions about the singularity and the plurality
of intangible cultural heritage. It also echoes what Nestor García Canclini
(1995: 137–44) says about the politics of patrimony and the divide between
dominant and dominated groups in deciding what is culturally authentic and
what is not. At the core of the debates on capoeira as Intangible Cultural

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 136 Chapter Six

Heritage of Humanity is the divide that exists between capoeira styles; fac-
tions and power struggles have existed for many years among practitioners,
and the UNESCO recognition has just exacerbated them. In the next two
sections, I describe how the acceptance of capoeira by UNESCO, and a
few years earlier by IPHAN in Brazil, has influenced two very different
projects. One, the Red Bull Paranauê, focused on competition and sport; the
other, Roda dos Saberes do Cais do Valongo, focused on art and heritage.
These two projects represent two radically opposite views about capoeira,
and they show the problems that emerge when contrasting perspectives
about the Afro-Brazilian martial art use the public recognition of capoeira
as intangible cultural heritage for different purposes.

THE RED BULL PARANAUÊ:

PROMOTING CAPOEIRA THROUGH COMPETITION

The popularity of capoeira grew substantially after its brief appearance in the
closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics, through the UNESCO rec-
ognition in 2014, and during the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup
in 2016. Major transnational companies have shown a renewed interest in
capoeira and have tried different strategies to work together with practitioners
and leaders of the Afro-Brazilian martial art. This interest is nothing new.
Back in 2002, the BBC1 Ident series on Rhythm and Movement featured two
practitioners performing capoeira on the top of a London building. Nokia had
an advertisement of one of its cellular phones in 2006 showing two capoeira
players. Yamaha also had a TV ad with capoeira players, and the Spanish
watchmaker Potens featured capoeira performers in one if its commercials
of 2007. These are just a few examples of the way commercial brands have
worked together with members of the capoeira community.
Although some members have been more open to establishing commercial
deals with national and international brands than others, there has been noth-
ing like the partnership between the capoeira community and the energy drink
giant Red Bull. The objective of the Red Bull Paranauê (RBP), part of the
Red Bull sports sponsorship program, is to find the “most complete capoeira
player in the world” through competition. Both seasons of the competition,
2017 and 2018, were a commercial success. Red Bull, in partnership with the
Prefeitura do Salvador (Salvador Municipality) and the Empresa Salvador
Turismo (Salvador Tourism Enterprise), developed a business model for
capoeira that emphasized its competitive side. It works like a minitourna-
ment in which capoeira players compete in three modalities: capoeira Angola,
capoeira Contemporânea, and capoeira Regional. The selection of the best

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 137

players happens regionally, with major Brazilian cities choosing the best in
all categories. The purpose is to find the most accomplished capoeira player
that can perform the three styles during a roda. The final is held at the Farol
da Barra in Salvador, Bahia.
The first tournament, in 2017, did not separate women from men, and they
competed together. One woman went all the way to the final sixteen. For the
2018 installment, the RBP divided men and women into separate categories.
A select group of mestres served as judges. They sat behind the live orches-
tra, observing two practitioners playing together, and decided who was the
most accomplished, using flags of different colors to indicate their votes.
The mestres judged skill, dexterity, playfulness, and how the players execute
movements according to specific capoeira music rhythms. The RBP’s web-
site explains how to play capoeira; contains photos of the 2017 and 2018
tournaments; describes the rules of the competition, the registration process,
the event logistics, and the expenses RBP will cover; and features interviews
with the finalists, biographies of the judging mestres, and the social projects
that Red Bull Paranauê is promoting.4
The RBP aims to show capoeira to a broader national and international
audience via TV and the Red Bull channel on the Internet. The selection of
participants always happens in the roda with mestres choosing the students
who perform best. The participants turn a kind of roulette, which has the three
capoeira styles identified with three different colors and with specific music
rhythms. The interactions are brief and intended to select sixteen finalists—
eight men and eight women—for each region. The finalists then go to the
final in Salvador; the selection in RBP 2018 included the players who came
in first and second place during the first RBP competition.
The mestres in the RBP are mainly leaders related to the Contemporary and
Regional variants; one of the most prominent promoters and creators of the
RBP is Mestre Sabiá, a famous capoeira Contemporânea mestre from Ilheus,
Bahia. On the RBP website, Sabiá gives his opinion about the Red Bull initia-
tive, which I reproduce here in its entirety:

I was very happy with the concept we created. We think about the future, but
without leaving the past aside. I was afraid of losing the purpose [conceito] be-
cause capoeira is a vast universe, a bigger flag, which is the flag of resistance,
the history of success. And today, it is a vehicle for social transformation. It
is difficult to make people understand this fact because it has a history, it has
culture on its back. We managed to take all these elements to the event: the
sportive side, the competitive side, adding all the segments of capoeira, Angola,
Regional, Contemporânea. I am very happy. Capoeira has a beautiful history; it
informally conquered the world, so to do an event with this social contribution
is amazing. (Faria 2017)

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 138 Chapter Six

Sabiá and the other mestres stress the importance of promoting capoeira
through competition without losing sight of its traditional elements. The
judges are mestres of prominence such as Mestre Nenél (Mestre Bimba’s
son), Mestre Itapuão, and Mestre Capixaba. Most of these mestres agree with
Sabiá’s statement that RBP is helping promote capoeira. The few representa-
tive Angola leaders, such as like João Grande, Virgilio, and Jogo de Dentro,
do not seem to have any conflict with this initiative, though it is curious that
there are no statements made by these mestres on the RBP website.
It is undeniable that the RBP has promoted the practice of capoeira in a
way never seen before, and Red Bull uses the status of capoeira as Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity to affirm that its initiative is not only an at-
tempt to profit but also an effort to preserve the traditional elements of the
Afro-Brazilian martial art.
As attractive as it sounds, not all capoeira practitioners have seen the RBP
positively. Many detractors and critics have denounced the banality of the
initiative on social media, particularly on Facebook, and have even called for
a boycott. These critics, mostly coming from the Angola variant, consider the
RBP an affront to anything that has to do with tradition and the rebellious
character of capoeira itself. It is no coincidence that very few capoeira Angola
practitioners participate in the RBP. Just a handful of famous Angola leaders
have given their approval or have taken part in the event. However, Angola
players have featured in the competition and have even been in the finals.
On March 4, 2018, the day of the RBP final, Sinesio Peçanha Filho, better
known as Mestre Cobra Mansa, made available through a post to his personal
Facebook profile his opinion about the initiative sponsored by Red Bull.
Here, I reproduce part of the post, which was translated into English by a
capoeira player from the Nzinga Group, Miryan, on March 5:

Has the colonial mentality become so inbuilt within us that we can’t reflect who
we were any more, or what we are or what we are doing for future generations?
Are we simply replicating oppressive thinking? How can we fight for decoloni-
zation of the mind, body and society when we convert our symbols of resistance
into simple events, spectacles? When this happens, you take something that was
originally dangerous and turn it into something clean safe and tamed, because
we withdraw its power of rebellion. . . . The aesthetic dimension of capoeira
when it is appropriated and controlled by the mass cultural industry leads us to
a process of alienation from our own ancestral culture. So, this aesthetic/cultural
recognition reduced to spectacular exoticism really interests us? . . . I believe
that Red Bull offers a platform for those who want to make a show. The ques-
tion that I would like to reflect with the organizers is how long we will continue
to make spectacles only to entertain without conscience? Why do we have to
continue with these competitions in which we are forced to compete among our-

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 139

selves simply to amuse others and distract attention to the real social problems
that affect capoeira and our current society? (Peçanha 2018)

Cobra Mansa’s position is clear and summarizes the concern that many
Angola practitioners have about the RBP and the commercialization of
capoeira. If capoeira is a weapon against oppression, an act of resistance and
a practice that fights for freedom, then to become part of an international
commercial enterprise associated with the giant Red Bull is to be co-opted
by the system, to betray the cause and ideals of a capoeira style, and to lack
respect for capoeira’s legacy. It is, in sum, to go against tradition. We have
seen this discomfort of Angola mestres with formal institutions in the exist-
ing tensions between insiders and outsiders regarding the heritage discus-
sion of capoeira. The recognition, first by IPHAN and later by UNESCO,
signified in some sense a structuring of capoeira that constrained its multiple
meanings and, borrowing Cobra Mansa’s expression, “tamed” it, making it
part of a status quo. However, in this case, many Angola mestres took part
in the IPHAN and UNESCO processes of recognition because they thought
capoeira would benefit from it, something that did not happen with the
RBP. For these mestres, the RBP initiative is for the benefit of only a few;
moreover, it is business oriented and goes against the dictates of tradition
that, at least in Angola circles, condemn competition and spectacle as driv-
ing forces. Angola practitioners agree that it is essential to bring visibility to
capoeira, but without sacrificing its integrity.
The RBP may polarize even further the different views about capoeira,
dividing rather than uniting a community of participants. The RBP also ac-
centuates the differences between styles and may transform the meaning of
capoeira for a new generation of participants.

RODA DOS SABERES DO CAIS DO VALONGO:

PROMOTING CULTURAL HERITAGE THROUGH CAPOEIRA

As a contrast to the Red Bull Paranauê initiative, I address another project that
relates to the new cultural heritage status of capoeira. The Roda dos Saberes
do Cais do Valongo (RSCV, Roda of Knowledge of the Valongo Wharf) is
a cultural project initiated by Carlo Alexander Teixeira, a Brazilian mestre
from Rio de Janeiro known as Mestre Carlão, and his group Kabula, Arts and
Projects. I have discussed his life and work briefly in chapter 2, where I men-
tioned his cultural initiatives using capoeira as a form of social and artistic
resistance. His most ambitious project is the RSCV, which started in 2012.
The accompanying book, Roda dos Saberes do Cais do Valongo, details

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 140 Chapter Six

the cultural heritage of the Cais do Valongo. It was the first product of the
project and constitutes a homage to the Afro-Brazilian culture and heritage
of Rio de Janeiro (Teixeira 2015). Carlão, who organized and coordinated
the book, puts together a variety of academics and cultural representatives of
Afro-Brazilian culture to talk about slavery, memory, religion, and art. My
analysis of RSCV here is based on the book and interviews with Carlão. I do
not describe in detail all the elements of the project; rather, I want to show
the role that capoeira played in the recognition of the Cais do Valongo as a
valuable place for Afro-Brazilians.
The Cais do Valongo was a wharf that the Portuguese empire used to
introduce slaves into the territory from 1774 to 1831 (Assunção 2015: 8). It
is a historical and archeological site, which for many years remained forgot-
ten by local authorities and the Brazilian government, buried under the old
seaport of Rio de Janeiro. It was not until the recent development project of
Porto Maravilha (Port Marvel) started that workers rediscovered the Cais do
Valongo. In 2010, during the excavation for the new seaport, archaeologists
identified the material remains of the old Cais do Valongo (Teixeira 2015:
13). Historian Matthias Assunção mentions in the preface to the RSCV book
that the wharf was of great importance for the Portuguese during the first
decades of the nineteenth century. The city of Rio de Janeiro, according to
Assunção (2015: 8–9), was for many decades the main port of entrance for
slaves in the Americas and the second-largest such port in the world, after
Liverpool. The Valongo Wharf was a place where life, death, misery, and
tragedy but also miracle and hope happened daily. The wharf was a place
where slaves waited for weeks to be disembarked. It was also a place of ini-
tial contact between poor people and Africans; thus, it was a place of cultural
creation, transmission, and creolization (Assunção 2015: 9).
Falling into disuse after the prohibition of the slave trade in the 1830s, the
Cais do Valongo was renovated in the following decades and renamed as the
Cais da Emperatriz (Empress Wharf). Both the remains of the Valongo and
the Empress wharves were buried under urbanization efforts carried out by
the Brazilian government in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 2011,
a year after its rediscovery, the archeological site became part of the Circuito
Histórico e Arqueológico da Celebração Africana (Historical and Archaeo-
logical Tour of African Celebration) (Teixeira 2015: 13).5
The Roda dos Saberes do Cais do Valongo project organized by Mestre
Carlão used capoeira Angola as a mode of social and cultural intervention in
the Cais do Valongo to promote the Afro-Brazilian heritage of Brazil. Carlão
held capoeira rodas once a month; prominent mestres came with their stu-
dents not only to perform but also to listen to what other representatives of the
Afro-Brazilian traditions of Rio de Janeiro had to say about their experiences

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 141

as artists, writers, and intellectuals. The RSCV originated first as the Roda of
Capoeira in Cais do Valongo on July 14, 2012, and later transformed into the
Roda of Knowledge (Teixeira 2015: 13). Carlão wanted to use capoeira as a
public performance to occupy urban spaces valuable for Afro-Brazilians. The
products that resulted from the RSCV included a book, a photography exhibi-
tion, and a video documentary. The name of the general project changed to O
Porto Importa: Memórias do Cais do Valongo (The Port Matters: Memories
of the Valongo Wharf) in 2013, and it won the Prêmio Porto Maravilha Cul-
tural (Port Maravilha Cultural Award) (Teixeira 2015: 15).
The book produced as part of the project is a testimony of the different
voices that participated. It includes impressive photographs of capoeira rodas
by the photographer Maria Buzanovsky and video footage by Guilherme Be-
gué (in the digital edition); contributions by historians Martha Abreu, Hebe
Mattos, Matthias Assunção, Maurício Barros de Castro, Luiz Antônio Simas,
Cláudio de Paula Honorato, and Denise Vieira Demétrio; texts by anthropolo-
gists Milton Guran and Wallace de Deus; and contributions by musician MC
Leonardo, writers Délcio Teobaldo and Amir Haddad, and famous mestre of
capoeira Angola Neco Pelourinho.
RSCV aimed to preserve the memory of slavery and the African heritage of
Brazil. Every author in the book presented testimonies about the importance
of the Cais do Valongo, the value of capoeira’s ancestry, and innovative ways
to promote Afro-Brazilian traditions as cultural tourism. RSCV is relevant
because it gained momentum through the development of the Port Maravilha,
and its success brought the attention of local cultural authorities and govern-
ment agencies. In the end, the collaborative effort took capoeira into the arena
of public policy.
The promotion of the Cais do Valongo and the Empress (the official name
of the Valongo Wharf) by Carlão and his Kabula Artes e Projetos definitely
had an impact on the decision that UNESCO made on July 9, 2017, to register
the Valongo Wharf Archeological Site in its World Heritage List. The RSCV
is an example of how practitioners and intellectuals can use capoeira Angola
as a weapon for the promotion of culture. It shows that the status of capoeira
as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity has power to preserve and dif-
fuse Afro-Brazilian traditions.

FINAL REMARKS

The examples described above show two different uses of capoeira. The RBP
focuses on competition and the sportive side of the martial art. The RSCV
emphasizes its cultural side. Red Bull Paranauê exemplifies the perspective

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 142 Chapter Six

of Contemporary and Regional mestres. The Roda dos Saberes do Cais do

Valongo represents a view from Angola practitioners. These differences do
not mean that one project is wrong or is superior to the other, or that we need
to choose between the sportive and cultural perspectives. Instead, these ex-
amples show the divergent interpretations that exist today and how capoeira’s
status as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity conflates apparently
irreconcilable positions. Lourdes Arizpe is right when she points out that
the problem of heritage is between singularity and plurality. The intangible
cultural heritage status of capoeira is an example of this dilemma that reveals
the profound differences and misunderstandings between styles. It also shows
how the inside and outside of culture develop according to the meaning one
ascribes to capoeira. The path to cultural recognition has not solved the prob-
lems that affect the community of capoeira practitioners of all styles, but it
has helped further legitimate capoeira nationally and internationally.
At the forefront of any discussion about intangible cultural heritage stands
the debate about who speaks for whom and what outsiders make of such status.
Capoeira is not alien to these problems, and many practitioners try to negotiate
the terms on which people who do not practice capoeira talk about capoeira. At
the same time, the diverse meanings within the definition of intangible cultural
heritage about what constitutes legitimate, authentic, and traditional practice
produce tensions among adepts of all styles. Mestres would prefer to speak for
themselves without cultural intermediaries. However, this is not always possi-
ble as the new context of cultural recognition demands that other actors become
involved in negotiating funding, grant applications, and the development of
specific projects. Mestres of capoeira Angola are learning how to navigate this
new situation external to the local practice of capoeira. In the case of Angola
mestres, negotiating means opting for a cultural alternative that supports their
religious foundations, respect for their ancestors, and preservation of historical
and cultural memory. It is in this way that the Angola style can build a bridge
between the inside and outside of culture. On the other hand, adepts of Regional
and Contemporary styles negotiate with more options available for them be-
cause they are more open to innovation in the practice of capoeira, and they do
not see any problem using its sportive and competitive side to their advantage.
It will be interesting to observe how the new status of capoeira as Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity shapes the historical development of the martial
art not only in Brazil but also in the rest of the world.

NOTES

1. For a more detailed discussion on the role of UNESCO as an institution of

power and cultural authority, see Askew 2010.

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 Capoeira as Intangible Cultural Heritage 143

2. The official proposal presented before IPHAN detailing the importance of

capoeira as Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Brazil appears in the following: Ma-
ria Paula Fernandes Adinolfi, “Registro da Capoeira como Patrimônio Cultural do
Brasil,” IPHAN, no. 031/08, February 7, 2008, http://portal.iphan.gov.br/uploads/
ckfinder/arquivos/Parecer%20Capoeira.pdf.
3. The detailed agenda and proceedings of the Ninth Session can be accessed
in the following: UNESCO, “Ninth Session of the Intergovernmental Committee
(9.COM),” 2014, https://ich.unesco.org/en/9com-november-2014–00574
4. Red Bull, “Red Bull Paranauê,” March 3, 2018, https://www.redbull.com/br-pt/
events/red-bull-paranaue.
5. See Carneiro and Pinheiro 2015 for a detailed account of the revitalization of
the Cais do Valongo in Porto Maravilha, where the authors describe the uses of the
Valongo as a tourist attraction and the different rituals that commemorate the preser-
vation of the African heritage of Brazil.

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19_0234-Varela.indb 144 4/26/19 7:59 AM
 Conclusion

For some time, I have been wondering what is in store for capoeira in the
coming years. The martial art is in the process of unprecedented global ex-
pansion. Many things in the new millennium have altered the way people per-
ceive capoeira. A belated recognition by Brazilian authorities that capoeira is
a valuable cultural practice and its new status of Intangible Cultural Heritage
of Humanity by UNESCO signify, from my point of view, a new beginning
for all capoeira styles. Using the new mobilities paradigm, with an emphasis
on tourism mobilities, I have focused primarily on the mobility of capoeira
Angola practitioners, describing the intersection of two types of mobile ac-
tors: leaders of capoeira Angola and practitioners from Brazil and other coun-
tries. On the one hand, I focused on capoeira mestres, who see themselves as
missionaries, embodying tradition, ancestry, power, and knowledge. On the
other hand, I also analyze capoeira practitioners, who have different degrees
of commitment to the practice of capoeira, whether casual observers, avid
apprenticeship pilgrims (Griffith 2016), or those who have taken capoeira as
a transformative spiritual and religious path.

The problem of the anthropology of tourism, as Cohen and Cohen (2015b)

argue, is the etic and distanced characterization of mobile citizens, and the
prejudiced and even ethnocentric view of tourism mobilities. I tried to avoid
these pitfalls by exploring mobility from the inside, from those whom others
call “tourists.” This does not mean that the concepts of tourist and tourism
are obsolete or misleading. On the contrary, they are valuable because they
address the issue of global mobility analytically. From an anthropological
145

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 146 Conclusion

perspective, my view is that tourism is, in essence, an exploration into the

imaginary projections of otherness. When capoeira leaders travel region-
ally, nationally, and internationally, they create an image of otherness. They
simultaneously provide their own vision of themselves, who they want to be,
and how they transmit their knowledge and tradition to students. For other
practitioners, mobility is essential to gain a more profound understanding of
the constellation of capoeira practices. By traveling regionally, nationally,
and internationally, capoeira practitioners show their commitment to an Afro-
Brazilian tradition, independent of their race or place of origin.
In the myriad of meanings and personal emotions that capoeira instills,
the fundamental mestre-student relationship still dictates the interactions of
this Afro-Brazilian art. The premise of global mobility as a form of tourism
depends on what capoeira leaders and students share, and on their mutual
expectations. The development of capoeira Angola cannot be understood
without framing it within a mobile paradigm or dynamic point of view. As
social interrelations between leaders and international groups increase, we
will see more regionally defined groups, which may or may not follow the
dictates of tradition in the terms the leaders expect. Sometimes, groups could
be even more orthodox than their mestres, more concerned with spirituality,
or with skills and race. Other times, they may focus on Afro-Brazilian reli-
gions, music, and status.
In this constellation of mobile cultural practices, we must redefine tour-
ism and tourists. We have to overcome the prejudices, misinformation, and
facile explanations of human movement given by a superficial take on tour-
ism. When capoeira Angola subjects travel, they are already redefining the
meaning of mobility and are contesting classical dividing categories often
employed in tourism studies, such as mobility from the West and emerging
regions. Through an anthropological gaze, we anthropologists can glimpse
from the inside different mobilities linked to sportive, ritual, martial arts, and
performative practices. This book provides multiple perspectives on a partic-
ular movement in which Brazilian and international practitioners, along with
experts of capoeira, engage in a constant flux of knowledge, bodily practices,
skills, spirits, music, language proficiency, and emotions.

II

Today, it is daunting to picture the extension of capoeira Angola around the

world. You can find a capoeira Angola group linked with a Brazilian mestre
in the most unimaginable places. When you discover such a group abroad, you
have to immediately assume there is a mobile connection between the group

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 Conclusion 147

and a particular mestre. If we project a set of networks and traces that leaders
in their endless missionary pursuit leave behind, what we have is something
close to the classic and overused image of the rhizome described by Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari (2005: 3–25). With no beginning and no end, with
no linearity or clear direction, the rhizome extends horizontally through inter-
twined vines that connect, separate, fold, and unfold relations. This metaphor
is appropriate for depicting capoeira Angola’s mobility in the world.
Unfortunately, the anthropologist cannot hold a view of capoeira in all its
ramifications, and I have not discussed the global development of all capoeira
styles, the way leaders of capoeira Regional or Contemporânea connect with
their disciples abroad, or their views about tradition, competition, skill, art,
and business. This immense task shows the need for more ethnographic re-
search related to these themes for every style in particular places with specific
stories and new perspectives.
To use a culinary metaphor developed by anthropologist Stephan Palmié
(2013), the melting pot that is capoeira, cooked slowly or rapidly depending
on who is talking, represents a process of endless innovation, even within the
realms of orthodoxy. There is no escape from the ongoing development and
invention of culture. In its dynamics, the capoeira Angola culture represents
an instance of invention and resistance in a world that seems to privilege
uniformity, reproduction, spectacle, and comfortable and rapid progress. The
way capoeira Angola works, how mestres transmit their knowledge, how
people learn to play, and the slow road to self-realization subvert the premises
of easy economic gain.
Learning capoeira Angola is physically challenging and spiritually discon-
certing, as it involves more than a bodily transformation of the individual,
who endures demoralizing lessons of betrayal and violence as part of the ap-
prenticeship process. It takes many years of practice to understand capoeira’s
holistic appeal. It is difficult to learn how to play, how to become deceptive,
how to deal with powerful figures such as the mestres. Similarly, it is not
easy to be a mestre, as it requires accepting a form of authority that demands
constant innovation, deception, and tolerance. It must be hard to sacrifice
easy money in exchange for remaining loyal to your traditional principles
and a set of religious foundations. The tragic story of Mestre Pastinha and
other mestres who died in abject poverty, alone, forgotten by a society who
“squeezed” their knowledge and then discarded them like a used wipe, is a
reminder to any Angola mestre about the stakes and the risks they take when
they decide to dedicate their lives to capoeira. Who knows who will end up
like the famous mestres or who will live a dignified life? The UNESCO rec-
ognition has brought awareness about the value of a capoeira mestre, and it
provides additional support to his missionary cause. However, there are no

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 148 Conclusion

guarantees of safety in a treacherous world, and mestres know it. Therefore,

they always need to be aware of the possible dangers that could befall them.

III

To conclude, I would like to address a question about capoeira Angola that

many colleagues have asked me. Is it going to end up like Asian martial
arts, like karate, taekwondo, kung fu, and aikido, with a massive general
appeal? My answer is always no. The global expansion of capoeira Angola
will not necessarily make it a practice for the masses. As I have shown in
this book, some elements make the transition from tradition to mass cul-
ture difficult. One is the dependence on a mestre to learn not only physi-
cal movements but also music and singing in Portuguese; another is the
refusal to engage in combat with other martial arts or to compete with other
practitioners. A third element relates to the symbolism of hierarchies and
degrees of knowledge, which are achieved very slowly. A fourth element is
the existence of other two styles that may fulfill the desires of competition,
dexterity, and acrobatics.
Despite these obstacles to mainstream popularity, the global recognition
of capoeira Angola as a traditional practice cannot escape the realm of tour-
ism. In Salvador, the tourism industry uses the appeal to the tradition of the
Angola style as a superficially authentic demonstration of Afro-Brazilian cul-
ture. The financial investment of the Brazilian government in projects such as
the Forte da Capoeira in recent years places the Angola style in a position of
authority and legitimation as an ideal representation of the African heritage
of Brazil. In the future, the tourism industry will likely continue to use the
discourses of tradition and heritage surrounding capoeira Angola to show a
staged form of Afro-Brazilian culture to casual tourists, apprenticeship pil-
grims, and people in general.
I do not believe capoeira Angola will become mainstream like Asian mar-
tial arts, but the other two styles have begun to make this transition already,
as their appeal to different members of society is stronger than that of the
angoleiros. The future of capoeira Regional and Contemporânea is likely to
diverge radically from the trajectory of capoeira Angola because they offer
more visually to the growing spectacle and competition sports industries that
tourists often consume. They can flexibly adapt to different social environ-
ments with specific commercial and artistic demands in a way that the Angola
style cannot. For this reason, my view is that capoeira Regional and Contem-
porânea will follow the path of sportive, combat, and artistic performances,

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 Conclusion 149

while capoeira Angola will go the way of tradition, appealing to the ancestry
of its Afro-Brazilian heritage.
The divergence between styles was already in place with the Red Bull Pa-
ranauê initiative and other world competitions, which were rejected by many
Angola leaders. In the end, capoeira Angola mestres perform not only for
other players but also for the ancestors, the dead mestres, and their protective
spirits and deities. We must remember that these entities are very demanding,
they sanction whatever goes against traditional principles, and they will never
be easy to convince otherwise. In the end, I believe the religious foundations
of capoeira Angola will put a limit on the practices mestres will allow and
forbid . These foundations will be, as they are now, the channels to preserve
an Afro-Brazilian tradition for future generations.

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19_0234-Varela.indb 150 4/26/19 7:59 AM
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 Index

Aberrê, Mestre, 31 Afro-Brazilian tradition, 2, 4, 11, 13, 18,

Abib, Pedro, 29, 87, 91, 95, 103, 107, 38, 47, 53, 62, 67, 78, 86, 99, 101,
121 103, 107, 115–16, 122, 129, 135,
Abreu, Frederico de, 32, 92 146, 149
ACANNE, 22, 34, 109. See also Renê, Afro-religions, 97
Mestre agency, 15, 34–35, 98, 99, 101, 122,
Acordeon, Mestre, 48–50, 52 126; human, 65; in performance,
actor-network theory (ANT), 45 34; of local imaginaries, 33; of local
aesthetics 15 people, 125
Africa, 8, 16, 19, 21–23, 42, 105, 109, ancestor(s), 8, 103, 108; of capoeira.
111; as empty sign, 108; West, 54 See N’golo; of capoeira Angola.
African ancestors, 111 See Zumbi; worship, 12, 103, 114,
African heritage, 18, 21, 141, 143n5, 116–18, 121–22
148 ancestral beings, 12, 35, 110, 121
African legitimacy, 22 ancestral legitimacy, 103
African origins, 11, 19, 23, 75, 98 ancestral worship 121–22
African roots, 52, 112 ancestry, 8–11, 21–22, 25, 29, 34, 105,
Afro-Atlantic, 97; religions, 96; ritual 108, 112, 116, 122, 141, 145, 149
practices, 98 Angoleiro, 63, 98
Afro-Brazilian art, 15, 30, 56, 73, 75, Anjos, Paulo dos, Mestre, 34, 68, 99,
81, 90, 92, 100, 110, 123, 127, 129, 109
146 anthropology, 6, 7, 44, 64, 66, 96, 107,
Afro-Brazilian culture, 9, 10, 17, 47, 124; dialectic of, 65; of capoeira,
56, 69–72, 77, 82, 117, 118, 122, 13; relational, 38; symmetrical,
128–29, 140, 148 108; social, 2. See also mobility,
Afro-Brazilian heritage, 91, 98, 108, anthropology
140, 149 Appadurai, Arjun, 42–43
Afro-Brazilian martial art, 1, 3, 11, 54, apprenticeship pilgrimage, 4, 5;
67, 131, 136, 138 pilgrims, 3, 63, 115, 122, 145

163

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 164 Index

Arizpe, Lourdes, 124, 126, 135, 142 Brazil, 1, 3–9, 11–14, 18–21, 23–26,
Assunção, Matthias, 18–20, 25, 46–48, 31, 38, 44, 47–52, 54–57, 59, 60,
50, 62, 85, 140, 141 62–63, 68–69, 71–72, 75, 77, 78, 80,
Atkinson, Simon, 56–58. See also 82, 85–86, 90, 92, 95, 97–99, 103,
Fantasma, Mestre 105–106, 114–116, 118, 121–22,
Aú (cartwheel), 55, 106 128–133, 136, 140, 141–143, 145,
Augé, Marc, 39–41 148
Aurelio, Marco, Mestre, 55 Brito, Celso de, 46, 49, 116, 118, 121
authenticity, 6, 10, 15, 19, 70, 115, 124, Buenos Aires, 117
126, 130 Buzanovsky, Maria, 141
authority, 33, 62, 67, 68, 94, 95, 105,
107, 109, 147; figures of, 67, 97; Caiçara, Mestre, 67
moral, 67; natural, 76; of a leader, Cais da Emperatriz, 140
81; of a mestre, 99, 102, 106; Cais do Valongo. See Roda dos Saberes
positions of, 80, 148; power and, 72, do Cais do Valongo
74, 110, 142 Candomblé, 12, 28, 60, 86, 91–92,
Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD), 96–99, 101, 109, 116, 118, 121–22;
9–10 deities, 21, 34; religion of, 12, 26,
60, 90, 97, 101
Bahia, 1, 7, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22–25, Canjiquinha, Mestre, 31–32, 68, 71, 109
27–28, 30–31, 33–35, 37, 47–51, 58, Capenga, 81
60–61, 63, 68–73, 79, 81, 85, 90–91, capoeira Angola, 1–13, 15–24, 26, 28,
97 30–31, 33, 34, 38, 47–63, 67–74,
Bahian society, 28, 72 77–78, 80–83, 85–111, 113–119,
Bananeira (handstand), 106 121–22, 129–30, 133–136, 138,
Banda do Saci, 117 140–142, 145–149; academies, 23,
Bastide, Roger, 98 26, 51, 53, 63, 82, 91, 92, 94; as
Begué, Guilherme, 141 a philosophy of life, 89; as a way
Berimbau, 21, 87, 88, 97, 99, 103–104, of life, 87, 89, 104; culture, 147;
110, 112–13, 121 groups, 12, 52, 57, 85, 98, 108, 116,
Besouro, 26–29, 33, 35, 98, 108, 110, 118–19, 122, 135; history of, 15,
112. See also flying beetle 54, 119; mestres, 10, 22, 28, 51–52,
betrayal, 80, 86, 147 54, 61, 71, 101, 130, 133, 142, 149;
Bigodinho, Mestre, 76 players, 38; practitioners, 11, 20, 38,
Bimba, Mestre, 17, 18, 24, 27, 30, 60, 70, 100, 104–105, 107, 109, 118,
46–48, 50, 104, 109, 138 138, 145; tradition, 73
Birth, Kevin, 108 capoeira Angola community, 68
Black Awareness Day, 25 Capoeira Contemporânea, 1, 5, 8,
Black resistance, 22, 24–25 9, 32, 48, 52, 62, 74, 105, 117,
Blackness, 83, 118 133, 136, 137, 147, 148. See also
Bloch, Maurice, 7, 96, 100 contemporary, capoeira
Boca do Rio, Mestre, 58–61, 89 capoeira music, 21, 50, 79, 137
Bola Sete, Mestre, 106 capoeira, Nestor, Mestre, 49, 130, 135
Book of Expression Forms, 9, 129–30, capoeira practitioners, 1, 3–6, 18–19,
133 25, 28–29, 37–38, 45, 47–53, 61, 68,

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 Index 165

70–72, 81, 91, 93, 95, 99, 102, 121, cosmopolitan citizen(s), 39, 41, 57,
127, 131, 133–34, 138, 142, 145–46 61–62, 127
capoeira performance(s), 27, 29, 33, 35, cosmopolitanism, 38–39
97–98 creativity, 44, 62; human, 65
Capoeira Regional, 6, 8–9, 19, 32, 46, criminality, 9, 30
48, 52, 74, 133, 136, 147, 148. See cultural recognition of capoeira, 10,
also Luta Regional Baiana 128, 131, 138, 142
capoeira students, 80 cultural intermediaries, 142
Capoeira Viva, 129 cultural missionaries, 2, 44
capoeirista(s), 25, 48–50, 68, 70–71, 81, culture(s), 2, 37, 40–41, 44, 57, 65–66,
111 73, 107, 124, 126–27, 132–33, 135;
Carneiro, Edison, 25, 86, 104, 143 of capoeira Angola, 9, 33
carnival, 30, 71; Notting Hill, 56 character of, 19; diasporic, 96; dynamics
Carlão, Mestre, 55–56, 58, 121, 139– of, 2; gang, 30; inside of, 126,
141 134–35, 142; invention of, 64–65,
Carlos, Jose, Mestre, 55 147; inventory of, 130; local, 59, 61,
Cascudo, Luís da Câmara, 20–22 70, 126–27; Mexican, 121; minister
Caxias, Roda de 49, 78 of, 129, 132; new, 54; nomadic, 2;
Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola outside of, 134–35, 142; popular,
(CECA), 18 26; producing, 8; promotion of, 141;
chamada, 110, 113, 122n1 street, 32. See also Afro-Brazilian
closed body, 28, 30 culture, black culture, capoeira
Cobra Mansa, Mestre, 34, 51, 59, 72, Angola culture, intangible cultural
76, 89–90, 93, 104, 115, 138–39 heritage, traditional culture
Cobrinha Verde, Mestre, 29, 67 cunning, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35, 95,
coevalness, 108; denial of, 107 97
Cohen, Erik, 3, 5, 41, 53, 145 Curió, Mestre, 117
Cohen, Scott, 3, 5, 41, 53, 145
Collective conventions, 33, 65, 66 DaMatta, Roberto, 94
competition 1, 12, 32–33, 46, 68, 135– danger, 27–29
39, 141, 147–48 dangerous, 18, 27, 30, 95, 113
contemporary, capoeira, 6 dead mestres, 8, 12, 77, 96–101, 108,
contemporary mestres, 6 110–11, 115, 149
contemporary performances, 32 Decanio, Mestre, 47, 89, 97
contemporary traditions, 52 ceception, 24, 26, 29–30, 32–33, 75, 77,
contemporary variants, 73, 137 80–81, 86, 89–90, 95–96, 101–102,
contramestre, 102, 117 106, 113, 121–122, 147
Corpo fechado. See closed body Deleuze, Gilles, 16, 43, 147
cosmological forces, 100 Dias, Adriana Albert, 28, 32, 72
cosmological guidance, 17 Di Giovine, Michael, 4, 64–65
cosmological power, 104 disappointment(s), 63, 75, 79, 81
cosmological principle, 28 discrimination, 40, 133; against capoeira
cosmological landscape, 115, 122 practitioners, 132
cosmology, 21, 33; of capoeira, 28, 34, disordeiros (troublemakers), 28, 30, 32,
98 67

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 166 Index

Dossar, Keneth, 111 Grande, João, Mestre, 49–51, 55, 59,

Downey, Greg, 21, 25, 31–32, 71, 80, 72, 76, 93, 138
86–87, 89, 95, 106, 114, 122 Griffith, Lauren, 3, 4, 34, 52, 63, 85,
115–16, 145
East London Capoeira Group, 56 Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho,
embodiment, 4, 33, 86; of tradition, 33, 68 (GCAP) 22, 50–51, 55, 59, 71. See
energy(ies), 91, 94, 98, 111, 135; drink, also Moraes, Mestre
136. See also mandinga Grupo Zimba, 59–60
Escola de Capoeira Angola Irmãos Guattari, Felix, 43, 147
Gêmeos (ECAIG), 117 Guizardi, Menara, 6, 46, 92
ethical dimension of capoeira, 104
ethical framework, 89 Handelman, Don, 16
ethical guide, 67 Hannerz, Ulf, 39, 41, 127
ethnocentrism, 107 Heritage, 1, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, 72,
ethnography, 6, 44, 131; virtual, 45 104–105, 125–131, 134, 136, 139,
Europe, 11, 42, 44, 51, 53–54, 56, 142, 148; of Pastinha, 93; of Rio de
58–60, 77, 108, 114, 116–17 Janeiro, 140; traditional, 113; world,
evangelical (as movement within 125, 141. See also African heritage,
Christianity), 12, 92, 98 Afro-Brazilian heritage, immaterial
expectations, 46, 62, 75, 77–78, 80–81, cultural heritage of Brazil, intangible
110, 146 cultural heritage
hierarchy, 68, 93; of Candomblé; of
Fabian, Johannes, 107–8 capoeira, 6; of knowledge, 9, 18, 53,
Facebook, 7, 61, 68, 138 98, 113–14; of power, 57, 79, 91
Fantasma, Mestre, 56
Fundação Internacional de Capoeira imaginaries, 11, 17, 33, 44, 62, 66,
Angola (FICA), 31, 34, 51, 57, 73, 77–79; cultural, 22; local, 15, 26,
82, 117–18 31–35, 87, 123; of capoeira, 15, 23,
Figueira, Joãozinho da, Mestre, 57–58 26, 34; of tourism, 77; social, 16, 23,
Filhos de Angola, 57, 82 25, 33, 62, 65–66, 77, 79; virtual, 34
flying beetle, 26–29, 56, 98 immaterial cultural heritage of Brazil,
Fonseca, Vivian Luiz, 9, 128–30, 133 129, 130, 132, 143n2
Forte da Capoeira, 148 immaterial heritage status, 23
Forte Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, initiation, 7, 115; female, 20, 21
50 innovation, 2, 6, 52, 62, 83, 119, 142,
147; cultural, 8; limits of, 82–83
García Canclini, Nestor, 130, 135 Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e
Ginga, 106 Artístico Nacional (IPHAN), 9, 128–
global interaction, 127 136, 139, 143; Book of Expression
globalization, 1, 6, 7–11, 13, 17, 24, Forms, 9, 129–30, 133; Book of
38–43, 61, 78, 82–83, 101; of Knowledge, 9, 129
capoeira, 7 intangible cultural heritage (ICH), 9, 10,
globalized world, 2, 10 123–29, 132–36, 138, 141–42, 145
González Varela, Sergio, 5, 15, 25, 49, Internet, 7, 38–39, 45, 77, 137
68, 80, 95, 103 invention, 66, 97, 147; of culture,
Graburn, Nelson, 44, 77 64–65, 147; of tourism, 66

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 Index 167

Joãozinho, Mestre, 57–58 Merrel, Floyd, 86, 122

Jurandir, Mestre, 51, 93 mestres, 1, 3–13, 21–26, 28–31, 33–35,
45–64, 66–83, 85–86, 89–15, 117–
Kabula artes e projetos, (Kabula, Arts 19, 121–23, 128–36, 137–40, 142,
and Projects) 55–57, 139, 141 145–49. See also capoeira Angola,
Kapferer, Bruce, 15–17, 33, 43, 101 mestres
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, 125–26, Mestre-student relationship, 11, 61, 63,
128, 134 69, 70, 72, 74–75, 77, 79, 83, 106,
146
Latour, Bruno, 45, 65, 108 Mexico, 52–53, 55, 81–82, 85, 117–119,
legitimacy, 10, 21, 52, 126; official, 122, 124
134. See also African legitimacy, Mexico City, 7, 51–52, 78–79, 117–18,
ancestral legitimacy 120
Lewis, Lowell, 21, 86–87, 95 migration, 2, 3, 7, 14, 38, 40, 42;
lineages, 34, 68, 93, 99, 108, 116–17, 122 authorities, 60–61; global, 41; of
London, 7, 11, 51–60, 136 capoeira practitioners, 53; of mestres,
Longe do Mar, 52, 117 49; rules, 58; voluntary, 43
Luta Regional Baiana, 17–18, 46–47, 104 missionaries, 4, 53, 100, 145; of Afro-
Brazilian culture, 69, 122; traditional,
MacCannell, Dean, 64, 70 4. See also cultural missionaries
magic, 94, 100, 110, 122; acts, 95; mistrust, 63, 108, 133
in capoeira, 121; of capoeira, 86; mobility, 1–11, 13–14, 17–18, 35,
powers, 27; protection, 27 37–46; anthropology of, 38, 40–41,
magical force, 102 43–46, 61; global, 46, 50, 63, 73,
magical power, 92, 95–96 145; logic of, 40; of capoeira leaders,
malandragem, 94–97, 101 5, 11, 37–38, 46, 53, 61, 63, 70, 145.
malandro(s), 80, 106 See also tourism mobilities
malícia, 89, 95 mobilities paradigm, 2–3, 37, 44, 145
mandinga, 94–97, 101, 111 Moraes, Mestre, 22–23, 48–51, 55, 59,
manha (trickery), 26, 35, 80, 89, 95, 106 71, 76, 90, 93
Marion, Jonathan, 3, 4, 115 mulatto, 28, 122
Maroons, 18, 22, 24–25, 114 music, 13n1, 18, 21, 44, 47, 66, 70, 75,
Marrom, Mestre, 56–57 76, 81, 97, 104–106, 108–13, 121–
martial art(s), 4, 8, 9, 15, 17–19, 21, 22, 125, 131, 146, 148; capoeira, 79,
23, 25–26, 30, 48–49, 87, 132, 135, 137; CD, 50; ensemble, 34, 112; in a
141–42, 145; Asian, 17, 87, 148. See roda, 82; lessons, 103; live, 1, 87
also Afro-Brazilian martial art musical instrument(s), 82, 102n2, 131
Mauss, Marcel, 44
mega-events, 44 Neco Pelourinho, Mestre, 141
Meia lua de frente, 106 New York, 50–51, 54, 55
memory, 29, 68, 104, 140; cultural, 142; N’golo, 90, 20–24, 26, 33, 105
of African slaves, 119; of Bantu and nomadism, 45
Yoruba traditions, 111; of slavery, nomadic life, 38, 80
141; social, 10, 27, 34, 35, 77, Noronha, Mestre, 32
130–31 Nzinga Group, 138

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 168 Index

ontological beings, 97, 101 Red Bull Paranauê (RBP), 12, 136–37,
ontological presences, 98, 100 139, 141, 143n3
opponent(s), 30, 67, 80, 95, 100, 110, Rego, Waldeloir, 17, 70, 71, 86
113 Reis, Letícia Vidor, 6, 17, 23, 86, 95
orixá(s), 21, 34, 91, 96–101, 108, 118, religious foundations of capoeira
120 Angola, 11–12, 17, 33, 85–86,
Otherness, 62, 64, 78, 146 91–92, 96–97, 99, 100–103, 121,
123, 134–35, 142, 147, 149
Palmié, Stephan, 96–97, 109, 147 Renê, Mestre, 22–23, 33–34, 68, 109,
Pastinha, Mestre, 17, 18, 20, 24, 27, 133
29–30, 32, 47, 49, 51, 62, 67–69, resistance, 23, 25–26, 30, 98, 106–7,
71–72, 80, 89–90, 93, 99, 101, 104, 135, 137–39, 147; cultural, 13n1. See
106, 109, 117, 135, 147 also Black resistance
patrimony, 129–131, 135 Rio de Janeiro, 23, 47–51, 55–56, 69,
Pedrinho, Mestre, 78, 117–18 78, 91, 115, 117, 121, 130–31, 133,
Pelé da Pomba, Mestre, 133 139, 140
Pelourinho, 115 Risério, Antonio, 25
Pequeno, João, Mestre, 24, 27, 29, ritual, 1, 15–17, 19–22, 33–35, 69–71,
49–50, 99 73, 87, 98, 100, 114–16, 124, 146;
performance(s), 4, 16, 27, 29–35, 55, experience, 17; initiation, 20, 115;
73–74, 87, 93, 95, 97, 99, 100–101, practice(s), 15–17, 19, 33–34,
110–11, 113, 122, 141; public, 141. 70–71, 98
See also capoeira performance(s) rivalries, 10, 13, 33, 49, 129, 133
Pires, Antônio Liberac, 26–28, 85 roda, 1, 9, 12–13, 17, 22, 26, 31, 34–35,
Porto Maravilha, 140–41, 143 49, 56–57, 69, 75–76, 78–80, 82, 87,
possession, 94 90, 93–97, 99–100, 103, 105–7, 109–
power, 2, 5, 7, 9–10, 12–13, 15, 27, 35, 16, 121–22, 130–34, 137; of life, 13,
43–44, 56–57, 64–65, 68, 71–73, 76, 80; street, 35
79, 80–83, 86, 91–10, 113, 121–26, Roda dos Saberes do Cais do Valongo
127, 129, 136, 138, 141–42, 145, (RSCV), 12, 136, 139–42
147; charismatic, 94, 101; individual, rogue, 67. See also malandro
86; in capoeira, 13, 91; in practice, roguery. See malandragem
76; of mobility, 122; personal, 76; Rosita, Mestra, 52
relations, 2, 7, 12, 80, 123, 126,
127. See also cosmological power, Sabiá, Mestre, 137–38
hierarchy of power, mandinga, Sahlins, Marshall, 66
magical power Salazar, Noel, 2–3, 38, 44, 77
powerful individuals, 5 Salvador, 1, 7, 20, 27, 30, 32, 34,
powerful persons, 15, 110 37–38, 47, 49, 50–51, 55, 59–61,
pragmatic force, 16 72–73, 85, 89–94, 96, 98, 101, 104,
public policy, 10, 12, 126, 141 110, 112–13, 115, 130–31, 133,
136–37, 148
Quilombo dos Palmares, 25 Santo Amaro da Purificação, 27, 29, 67,
112–13
Rabo de Arraia, 106 São Paulo, 47–50, 57, 69
Recife, 130–31 Schieffelin, Edward, 17

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 Index 169

secrecy, 28, 78, 97, 106 125, 130. See also Afro–Brazilian
semiotic experience of art, 75 tradition, capoeira Angola tradition,
Senna, Carlos, Mestre, 24 contemporary traditions, embodiment
skills, 4, 26, 30, 35, 54, 74, 94–95, 98, of tradition, memory of Bantu and
105–6, 112–15, 146; bodily, 30; Yoruba traditions
capoeira, 74, 114–15; deceptive, 94; treacherous world, 148
physical, 95 Treinel, 102, 117
slavery, 12, 16, 17, 23–26, 29, 33–34, trust, 53, 69
77, 98, 105, 108, 112, 114, 140–41; Turner, Terence, 41–43
slavery past, 23–24, 26 Turner, Victor, 17
Soares, Eugenio, 23, 87
social relations, 37–38, 53–54, 61–62, Umbanda, 86, 91, 97, 109
68–69, 85, 102 UNESCO, 9–10, 12, 23, 123–36, 139,
spirits, 35, 91, 100, 109, 119, 146, 149; 141–43, 145, 147
spirit possession, 97, 102n4–103; Urry, John, 2–3; nomination, 133;
spiritual connection, 111; spiritual recognition of capoeira, 9, 123, 134,
meaning, 100, 121; spirituality, 1, 136; representative list, 129. See also
18, 30, 86–87, 90–91, 94, 100–102, intangible cultural heritage
116, 119, 121–22, 146 United States, 41–42, 44, 50–51, 53, 59,
sports, 4, 87, 136, 148 63, 72, 77, 85, 114, 117
Sheller, Mimi, 2
Stockholm, 7, 76 Vagabundos (vagrants), 32
Stoller, Paul, 7 Valentões (tough guys), 32
symbolic violence, 87, 106 Vassallo, Simone Pondé, 23, 129, 132
Valmir, Mestre, 51, 73–74, 76, 93
Talmon–Chvaicer, Maya, 20–21, 111 Vieira, Jelon, 50, 72
Teber, Rogerio, contramestre, 117–18 Vieira, Luiz Renato, 6, 9, 46, 95, 128–
Terreiro Mandinga de Angola (TMA), 29, 133, 141
78, 117, 118, 120 violence, 30–33, 42, 72, 78, 87, 89, 105–
tourism, 1–9, 11, 13–14, 33, 39–40, 6, 147. See also symbolic violence
44, 53, 61, 63–67, 69–79, 81–83, virtuality, 16, 33
85, 123, 126, 135–36, 141, 145–46, virtual possibilities,17, 35, 87, 101, 123
148; anthropology of, 4, 64, Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 74
145; imaginaries, 33, 66, 77–78; vulnerability, 26, 29, 95, 98
mobilities, 4, 53, 75–76, 145
tourist(s), 3, 55, 64–65, 70–72, 76, Wagner, Roy, 33, 64–66
81, 143, 145; attraction, 72, 143n5; Waldemar, Mestre, 99
setting, 70–71, 76; subversion, 70, Weber, Max, 76, 94
73–74 wonderment, 74–77, 79
tradition, 1–2, 4, 6, 8–13, 15–16, 18, World Festival of Black Arts, 47
20–22, 27–29, 33, 35, 38, 47–49, worshipping the ancestor, 33, 103, 104,
51–53, 61–64, 66–74, 76, 78, 82, 86, 110, 122
92, 94, 99–16, 119, 121–23, 125–31,
134–35, 138–39, 145–49; caretakers Zebra Dance. See N’golo
of, 9, 61–62, 108, 115, 135; oral, 11, Zumbi dos Palmares, 23, 25–26, 33, 35,
15, 18, 27–29.; traditional culture, 98, 108, 110–11, 119

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 About the Author

Sergio González Varela is professor of anthropology at the Universidad

Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and a Fulbright Scholar. He is the
author of Entre Dos Mundos: La Antropología Radical de Paul Stoller (2018)
and Power in Practice: The Pragmatic Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian
Capoeira (2017), and coeditor of Tecnologías en los Márgenes (2015), Hér-
cules en el Mito, la Historia y el Arte Iberoamericano (2015), Violencia y
Entorno Cultural (2014), and Poder y Alteridad (2013).

171

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