The Hidden History of Capoeira: A Collision of Cultures in the Brazilian Battle Dance

Four: New Center, New Style: Capoeira Regional and Capoeira Angola in Twentieth-Century Bahia

111 four​ New Center, New Style Capoeira Regional and Capoeira Angola in Twentieth-Century Bahia Part 1. A New Capoeira Center From Crime in Rio de Janeiro to National Sport in Bahia Capoeira was outlawed in 1890, one year after the fall of the monarchy. Since the late nineteenth century ideas of branqueamento (whitening) had been circulating in Brazil, influenced by racial “scientific” theories justifying the superiority of whites that spread across Europe and the United States. This Bela­ Época (Beautiful Epoch) was characterized by the wish to emulate European social and cultural customs and norms and to reject anything associated with cultures perceived as inferior, first and foremost the heritage of blacks.1 Brazil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was undergoing crucial social and political changes. Slavery was abolished in 1888, and a year later the monarchy was replaced by a Republican regime. In the 1890s European immigrants flooded into Rio, and unemployment, poverty, and disease plagued the city. The government now lacked the means to control the masses, unlike the time of slavery when owners were held accountable for their slaves’ conduct. The freedmen and the unemployed free men, the lowest and poorest stratum of society, posed a threat to the rest of the citizens. The authorities tried to instigate a work 112 Chapter 4 ethic as a major value, a reflection of a stable, civilized, and progressive society opposed to hooliganism, idleness, and vagrancy. In this context the new regime, struggling against social and economic instability, began to wage a relentless war on capoeira and eventually succeeded in stigmatizing the Capoeiras as drifters and criminals, enemies of progress. In 1906 Kosmos reported, “Today’s Capoeiras are no longer devoted to their art. It would be more accurate to call them masochists, razor-wielders, [and] knife-drawers.”2 And police records depict them as terrorizing the peaceful citizens of Rio. Yet little by little in the early twentieth century, capoeira gained recognition and tacit approval as a martial art or sport, an admission that in certain social situations and for specific purposes it was acceptable. This was the first time respectable whites recognized the potential advantages of capoeira.The handbook Guia do Capoeira ou Ginástica Brasiliera (Guide to Capoeira or Brazilian Gymnastics ), published in Rio de Janeiro, bluntly states in the introduction: “This work was written by a high-ranking officer in the Brazilian army, an expert in weaponry, a military instructor, and an authority on defensive gymnastics, the genuine art of capoeira.”3 It adds: “Our efforts are directed at elevating Brazilian gymnastics . . . to a national level, like English football, French Savate, German wrestling, and other national sports.”4 Capoeira had to be legitimized, to become socially acceptable. First and foremost , it had to be presented as a national activity, integrating the talents and abilities of the three major races in Brazil—the white, the red, and the black. To quote from Kosmos of March 1906: Why, when and how was capoeira formed? Probably in the transition from the Portuguese monarchy to a free empire. . . . Since capoeira is neither Portuguese nor black, it must be mulatto, a crossbreed between Indian and black, and mameluco [a crossbreed between white and Indian]. . . . The razor came from Lisbon’s fadista; some samba and monkey movements from the Africans; and above all the agility and catlike nimbleness of the Indians in turning swift and unexpected somersaults.5 Capoeira’s standing was also enhanced by emphasizing the benefits of physical fitness and flexibility—capoeira’s advantages as a martial art for self-defense. A booklet published in 1928, titled Ginástica Nacional (Capoeiragem), presented both the history of “the sport called capoeira” and its basic movements. Mário Santos, in the introduction to his booklet written one year earlier, expressed the following opinion: It’s high time that we freed ourselves from foreign sports and paid attention to what is ours. . . . Brazilian gymnastics are equal in value to all the others New Center, New Style 113 . . . better than boxing that only uses the arms; better than Greco-Roman wrestling based only on strength. It is superior to Japanese close combat that combines all these arts, because it (capoeira) includes the intelligence and vitality characteristic of our hot blood by combining the exercise of arms, legs, head and body!6 In the same year Coelho Neto published a book emphasizing the need to teach capoeira because it...