Hotep

Dedicated to JMello.



Capoeira Angola is an African-Brazilian art form combining fighting techniques and dance movements, ritualized gestures and theatrical improvisations, percussive rhythms and rhythmic songs. Its origins lie among enslaved Africans taken to Brazil who wove elements of the cultures from which they came into a shared response to their oppression during slavery and in its aftermath. This unique expression of past and present struggles for freedom is beautiful to watch and invigorating to play.

"Angola" derives from the Kikongo word, ngola, meaning "general" or "military officer" as does the name of the modern African country, Angola. Also the word, "ngolo" refers "power." This power according to Congolese cosmology is acquired by the warrior through the earth.

Congolese scholar K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau suggests that the word, "capoeira," is really a deformation of the kikongo word Kipura/kipula. According to Fu-Kiau "Both pura and pula means to flutter, to flit from place to place; to struggle, to fight, to flog. Both terms are used to describe rooster's movements in a fight: their back and forth, up and down as well as turning around moves. Kipura, in the kongo cultural context, is...an individual whose techniques of fight or struggle are based or developed on the ground of rooster fighting techniques.

The use of music and dance helped to mask the teaching of capoeira to enslaved Africans on plantations who practiced it on their only day off, Sunday. They were practiced a deadly martial art while their unknowing owners thought they were just "celebrating" (in truth they WERE "celebrating").

"Capoeira Angola" is the original form. "Capoeira Regional" is a modern version created by Mestre (Master) Bimba in the 1930s. It was his demonstrations that finally convinced Brazilian authorities to lift the ban on it because its cultural significance to Brazilian history. It combines more high-flying and dancing (visually-stimulating) movements. Traditional capoeira is a type of ground-fighting and meant to be a low versus high art. The fighter gains power from the earth and to leave it renders one weak. Any effective martial arts downplays the use of high, jumping or air techniques (as viable attacks) because 1)it leaves one open 2) if you jumped and are coming down their is only one place you can land (Like when Morpheus kicked Neo in "The Matrix"). It is not as effective as the original; it just "looks" nice.

It is interesting to note that there is little use of offensive hand techniques in capoeira. Some have attributed this to the belief that slaves had to fight with their hands immobilized by chains and therefore emphasized foot and leg techniques. It is also likely however that the absence of hand techniques is based on an ancient kongo tradition in which the hands should be used for good work, i.e, creative activities, while the feet should be used for bad work, i.e, punishment and destruction. Fu-Kiau explained one relevant proverb in kikongo "Mooko mu tunga, malu mu diatikisa"(Hands are to build, feet are to destroy).

History of Capoeira

The enslaved Africans were from different ethnic groups and sometimes from enemy tribes as well, which made it difficult for these slaves to organize a revolt. More slaves in Rio were from Bantu-speaking (particularly Congolese) peoples, while in other areas, such as Bahia, sla ves came primarily from West Africa.

As the slaves became aware that their condition was irreversible, that they were intended to be an involuntary work force forever, they began to run away. In Recife, a group of 40 slaves rebelled against their master, killed all the white employees, and burned the plantation house. They then set themselves free and decided to find a place where they could be hidden from the slave hunters. They headed to the mountains, a trip that took many months to complete. Had it not been for the help they received from the Indians, this journey would have been practically impossible to accomplish. Eventually they reached what they thought was a safe place, which beca use of its abundance of palm trees they named Palmares. In this place an African community was born; a community which lasted nearly a century. In this community the first forms of Capoeira were developed.

Palmares was growing rapidly as more refugees arrived in this little African nation. It started to worry the Portuguese colonizers. People from Palmares would come down from the mountains to trade produce, fruit, and animal skins and would often raid p lantations to free more slaves. Palmares began to effect the life of the plantations as more and more of the slaves escaped. The colonists suffered economically because of the diminishing labor force.

Then Holland invaded Brazil in 1630. The slaves took advantage of this situation and with assistance from Palmares left the plantations and fought the Portuguese Army. The army at this point was fighting two enemies. The Dutch won the war, but the Africans never stopped fighting. In 1644 the Dutch organized an expedition to go to Palmares, but nothing was accomplished. In the following years a second expedition was sent to the mountains which also failed.

It is important to point out that these expeditions were formed by very experienced and well-armed soldiers. But the Africans developed a system of fighting called "ambush." Capoeira was the key element in the unexpected attacks . With fast and tricky movements the slaves caused considerable damage to the white men. Capoeira became their weapon, their symbol of freedom.

Also note that the Palmares community was a "Maroon" community and used the same military strategy of "ambush" as the Maroons of Jamaica. Many try to argue the true African origins of capoeira only giving it a "marginal African influence." I point this out to show that "capoeira" is an African art further molded by the extenuating circumstances of the MAroonish colony in Brazil with Portugese influence versus a "Brazilian art" with an African influence.

PEace
Solarus


"Activism is the practice of using an internal, self-determining source of power to live one's life and/or enact some sort of change. Power is the ability to define reality, while self-determination is to decide or define one's self. Therefore activism, is not simply something done to right some wrong or to fight some cause but rather it is a way of life. Activism is the way of life where one can define self and change anything that may impede or control the reality that one chooses to live."-Solarus