Tactics!



Playing in the available space

Communicative rationality functions alongside instrumental rationality, and can itself be instrumental in some ways. This blog and the two that follow will explore instrumental rationalities within the game and history of capoeira. This blog looks at tactics – the gains that can be made within the available space and according to which the weaker party conforms to the same rationality as the dominant party. A destitute thief and a rich person may have different perspectives on the law but agree on the value of money.

De Certeau differentiates between strategy and tactics, whereby strategy involves the ability to command and shape and environment. Conversely, “The space of a tactic is the space of the other. Thus it must play on and with a terrain imposed on it and organized by the law of a foreign power… It operates in isolated actions, blow by blow… It is a guileful ruse… In short, a tactic is an art of the weak” (de Certeau 1984, 37).

Attack! Escape!

The history of capoeira and the identity of the capoeirista derives from the perspective of the weaker party: it was developed in slave communities and then among people who were politically and economically marginalised.

Contrary to other martial arts and mainstream security thinking, there is little notion of defence. People talk about defence in capoeira but there is no block. Players swipe away kicks that have not come to full force, but they do not stand in the way. The key defensive tactic in capoeira is escape – esquiva: ducking the kick, or moving to the side or behind. This allows the game to continue. As Mestre Poncianinho observes: ‘escape is infinite.’ In security terms, having an infinite resource is helpful.

from Alexandre Robatto’s 1954 film ‘Vadiação’; photo displayed in Forte de Santo Antonio

The game of capoeira is not role-play, and there are strategies that are employed within the characteristically tactical context: players try to dominate space and the stronger player has some advantages. Of greater significance, though, is malandragem – being streetwise. Capoeira is a streetfighting art: songs celebrate no wrong step, no move in vain. The kicks are not the point; the point is to take down the other person, preferably using a rasteira – a sweep – something that goes under the radar and takes away the other person’s feet when they are attacking. As a corrido puts it, “tough guy, I’ll give you a rasteira and put you on the ground!” (FICA songbook p27).

Protection

Santo Antonio – He’s a busy man

Protection is a recurrent theme in the moves and the songs, reflecting the vulnerability of the weaker party. All moves involve an element of protection – the capoeirista can be attacked at any moment: one hand always protects the face, and the body is protected by being ‘closed’ – using the legs or arms to protect the torso.

There is a strong theme of protection in the songs too. A commonly sung corrido is ‘Saint Antonio is the protector’: firstly protector of Noah’s ark, then of capoeira, quite often of Salvador, and finally of love! Orixás, too are called on for protection, either by name or by allusion. The corrido “my mermaid, queen of the sea, don’t let my boat capsize’ is addressed to Yemanja, Orixá of the sea, often depicted as a mermaid.



Yemanja taking care of a boat

God is another source of protection: “a little with God is a lot. A lot without God is nothing” (Retrato da Bahia. CD Mestre Paulo dos Anjos). The ladainha ‘Iê Senhor Bom Deus’ (‘Oh Lord Good God’ – sorry, this one is really lost in translation!) (FICA CD track 3) makes clear allusion to the Lord’s Prayer, but is a honed-down version, especially for capoeiristas! Firstly, ‘make me a good capoeirista’ (with the usual ambiguity between the game and life). It then misses the majority of the prayer and cuts to the protective elements: deliver me from temptation, all evil and my enemies. It concludes with a prayer for protection.

Reducing vulnerability

The identity of the capoeirista is a ‘small’ one: ‘pequeno sou eu’ – ‘I’m small’ is a constant refrain, especially in chulas (the songs sung between the ladainha and the corrido). But the diminutive size of the capoeirista amplifies the size of the protector: ‘Maior e deus!’ – ‘God is great.’ That reduces vulnerability.

The animals invoked in moves and songs also signal an element of vulnerability. They are not predatory: they are frogs, monkeys and birds, not big cats, bears or wolves. In ladainhas there are frequent references to being wary or careful: ‘I don’t go to your house, you don’t come to mine’; ‘I say my prayers with a knife in my belt.’ By allusion too, the capoeirista is often threatened: ‘the German canary killed my songbird.’

Sapinho – want to play?

In this threatened role, the priority of reducing vulnerability is higher than that of increasing influence. Besouro de Mangangá – ‘Beetle’ is the name of a quasi-mythical capoeirista (some say he is mythical. Mestre Joao Pequeno, when asked about him said, ‘yes, he was my father’s cousin’). The beetle has a protective shell but is small and does not pose a threat. It can fly away though (and Besouro is credited with the ability to fly when pursued by the police), so it is able to outwit and destabilise its persecutor.

Resilience

“The boat capsized, sailor! There is treasure on the ocean floor!” – corrido.



Head above water? Missing opportunities!



Nancy Scheper-Hughes has written about psychological responses to violence and theorises resilience as the ‘refusal to be negated’ (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 19). A short ladainha observes, “The miner bird doesn’t sing when it’s in a cage. It only sings when it’s by the anthill and sees an ant outside!”

Resilience is a subject that is taken up in Claudia Seymour’s ground-breaking work on young people’s experiences of violence in eastern Congo, in which she explores how people cope in various ways and to various degrees with incessant violence. She finds, amongst other things, that the way that people recount their own histories is significant in attributing responsibility and meaning to violence. In capoeira, too, the preservation of cultural identity and the tactics used in the game demonstrate a strong form of resilience: you smile in adversary, if you are taken down you get up, if you are taken down again you get up again. You look the other person in the eye. You sing.

There is a clear instrumental rationality in staying in the game (literally or figuratively) by whatever means, and this has some lessons for the pursuit of security. Mearsheimer identifies the inability of states to cooperate as the ‘Tragedy of Great Power Politics.’ The reason, he argues is that ‘it pays to be selfish in a self-help world’ – both in the short and the long term (Mearsheimer 2002, 33). The ‘tragedy’ as far as great powers is concerned, is of political stalemate and environmental collapse. But a much more immediate ‘tragedy’ faces weaker states: that of political, cultural or literal obliteration. The tactical responses offered in and by capoeira inform an understanding of the quest for security for the majority of the world. Escaping, seeking protection, reducing vulnerability and refusing to be negated are tactics that start to fill some of the conceptual void created by the assumptions of conventional security studies – assumptions of strategic rationality and power.

References:

de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life, University of California Press.

Mearsheimer, J. J. (2002). The tragedy of great power politics. New York London, W. W. Norton.

Capoeira sou eu! Capoeira I am!

A poetic context of Africa and slavery is complemented by a more recent and literal history of market, dock and farm workers. Considering Habermas’ notion of communicative rationality, Miller argues that, “Common understandings arrived at consensually provide the basis for a morally valued way of life and the construction of collective identities that transcend the individual” (Miller 1992, 29). This blog will be looking at capoeira identities that derive from common understandings.

Menino, quem foi seu mestre? Kid, who’s your mestre?

Capoeira preserves few names before the 20^th century, and those that survive have quasi-mythical status. From the early 1930s onwards, capoeira was taken from the street to the Academy. This allowed for more formalised histories and hierarchies within groups and mestres are celebrated in song, among them Bimba, Pastinha, Waldemar and João Grande.

Preserving names in this way is consistent with an oral history. It also cements the significance of the mestre and the importance of descent. The question ‘kid, who was your mestre’ (related in songs) presents the status of a capoeirista as the child of a history and is the first question that is asked of anyone visiting an academy. The figure of the mestre is mixed in with family line: there is a strong notion of being ‘son’ or ‘grandson’ of – invariably male – lineages. The ladainha ‘Tradition’ includes the assertion, “Whoever has no father or mestre also has no tradition” (CD GCAP 3).

The notion of ancestry is reinforced by rituals that are performed in various ways: some academies honour the birthdays of past mestres, some have ‘baptisms’, some include in this the use of capoeira names – apelidos. Baptisms establish identity within a capoeira family and in doing so ritually reclaim space from Catholic church, which forced slaves to be baptized, disorienting them from their familial roots.

There is also some ground seized from the state. Capoeira does not render a national identity. Foreigners can play capoeira and become accomplished without any aspiration to being Brazilian. Brazil is scarcely mentioned in capoeira: the geographic setting is Bahia – and the geographical parameters are set by the sea not the state. The identity derived from capoeira comes from Salvador, Bahia or Angola, not from Brazil.

Power is also reconfigured. A ladainha on Mestre Pastinha’s CD includes the lines, “If you want to learn, come to Salvador and get in touch with Mestre Pastinha, he is the best teacher.” Another song claims, “I’ve never seen anyone better than Mr Bimba!” Within the group, the authority of the mestre is unquestioned and there is an associated responsibility in the guidance given within a relationship of confidence. The generation of status and respect that are distinct from and – formerly – contrary to the state establishes a community and source of support that shifts the distribution of power.

Angola & Regional

In discussing identity, some consideration is needed of the two major strands of capoeira. The ‘Regional Fight of Bahia’ known as Capoeira Regional was established by Mestre Bimba’s academy in 1932 and brought the combative elements to the fore. Around the same time, Mestre Pastinha opened an academy for ‘Capoeira Angola,’ placing greater store by the African roots and ritual elements of the game.

Filhos de Bimba, heirs of M Bimba

There are significant differences between the two schools in the music, games, values and histories. Angola and Regional function as concurrent universes of capoeira, with scarcely any acknowledgement of each other. ‘Contemporary capoeira’ is influenced by both schools and cites both styles or both founding fathers in its songs. I have come across only one reference in Capoeira Angola to Capoeira Regional. The song, ‘Tudo é diferente na Angola’/‘Everything is different in Angola’ seems to be an implicit comparison to Regional: the details are, ‘the viola responds to the gunga (referring to the conventions of interaction between the berimbaus); the berimbau is tuned; the game is low.’ (I don’t think it’s talking about the country).



GCAP - heirs of M Pastinha



Few capoeiristas are born into their capoeira line. Most choose their group and identities are constructed through the conventions and values of the group: the sway of the ginga (the core capoeira movement), the composition of the batería, Angoleiros wear yellow and black and train in hat and shoes, Regional schools have various colours but no shoes or hat. Regional schools have coloured belts to indicate level; Angoleiros ask how many years of training you have. Regional players enter the roda with exuberance; Angoleiros engage in ritual and then sneak in warily. I am not making an exhaustive comparison of the two schools, merely indicating some of the many ways in which identities are reproduced within and across groups.

Both the Regional and the Angolan branches of capoeira have universalising discourses: Regional popularised capoeira, for the first time training whites and people from the middle class, and arguably saving capoeira from obscurity. Pastinha also insisted that anyone could learn – asserting ‘capoeira is for men, women and children’ – but was keen to save capoeira from popularisation. He was specifically inclusive: one of his ladainhas states that generals and doctors can learn – but they need to submit to capoeira’s conventions. It’s the difference between taking capoeira to the people and bringing the people to capoeira.

Self-presentation

“Capoeira is my name

Capoeira is in my blood

Capoeira is to live well” (CD GCAP 3/ FICA songbook p17)

Capoeiristas are descendents of a general and particular lineage and, through their participation in orality and tradition, they become part of it. By joining a group they become integrated into its history and assume various duties of commitment and behaviour. They are responsible for the t-shirt they wear; when visiting other academies they are implicitly representing their group and their mestre.

Capoeira draws on – and feeds into – community (maintained by common exclamations ‘vamos vadiar’, ‘vamos embora’ – let’s play capoeira), but it is not a team sport. The realization of ancestry and training is the game that takes place in the roda, and that is about the individual and what he or she can do. Capoeira is not simply about presentation of history or the representation of a group or its conventions. Ultimately it is about self-presentation: how the capoeirista interacts with conventions, tests them and extends them through improvisation, creativity and expression. ‘Capoeira sou eu!’ It is personal – it is never ‘we are,’ it is always ‘I am!’

‘I have no superior, I am the son of freedom.

I’m not recounting my life, because there’s no need.

I am not on the run, and you are not the authority” (CD Mestre Canjiquinha e Waldemar/ FICA songbook p9)

References:

Miller, B. (1992). "Collective action and rational choice. Place, community and the limits to individual self-interest." Economic Geography 68(1): 22-42.

Soldier, Sailor

Africa, as a continent, but more as a concept, ideal or set of values, gives the context for capoeira. There is a more recent history that is also communicated through the songs and movements of capoeira. This is a history of heroic capoeiristas and their – often military – exploits, and of ordinary capoeiristas and their daily lives.

From Africa, with sunshine!

I got back to Salvador from Kilombo Tenonde and found a postcard from a friend in Madagascar! It took a month to arrive and seems to be evidence of a big world out there!



Warriors

There are a few songs in capoeira that are traced to military battles. Paranaé – perhaps the most widely sung capoeira song – references the involvement of slaves in the war against Paraguay (1865-70) in which many capoeiristas were enlisted.



The participation of capoeiristas in historic battles places them central to the history of Brazil – and as a function of their martial art, which was illegal at the time. This was also a moment of liberation: capoeirstas were promised freedom on the misplaced assumption that they would not survive the fighting. The song: “I won the battle of Camugerê,” also recalls a victory; in this case runaway slaves killed the slave master who was pursuing Aidê, an African enslaved woman. The recounting of these stories locates capoeira politically – in opposition to the state and slave masters. It also creates a heroic past in which capoeiristas’ exploits became decisive in their freedom from slavery.

There is a more radical critique of mainstream Brazilian history relayed by capoeira songs that debunk of the myth that slavery was abolished by the Golden Law of 1888. The argument is put succinctly in the ladainha ‘Dona Isabel, que historia e essa?’ (Madame Isabel, what history is this?). The ladainha offers an explicit counter-narrative: freedom was not given by Princess Isabel; it was Zumbi who fought for the true freedom, training heroes in the runaway settlement of Palmares. A similar line is given by the ladainha ‘Zumbi, King of Palmares,’ which begins, “history deceives us, telling us the opposite of what happened…” and elsewhere, sometimes mixed with the – contradictory – assertion that slavery has never been abolished.



Zumbi dos Palmares, statue in the Pelourinho, Salvador





Plaque by the statue

 





Workers

 

Vou vender coco, senha

A larger body of songs refers directly to the everyday lives of capoeiristas: not having the gravitas of the references to slavery or war, these more incidental histories tend to be rendered in the corridos, which are the simple songs that are sung during the roda and have a call-and-response structure. Market traders, cowboys, plantation workers, petty craftsment, dockers and sailors are represented in song. With the exception of ‘espora’ – ‘spur’, the names of moves are not derived from jobs. Cowboy songs also have direct reference to the game: ‘lasso, lasso, cowboy’ indicating the moment to strike. There is some sedimentation around the first half of the 20^th century. No one is working as a call centre or a petrochemicals factory.

There is a range of trades but they are all labouring jobs: there are no bureaucrats or property owning classes in capoeira songs. The jobs cited demand bodily strength, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes notes that people who have physical work are more likely to express themselves somatically (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 187). The shapes of the moves in capoeira are expansive and demonstrative of physical form: they are devised by labourers, not by people sitting at computers or driving cars.



women in the roda (from Alexandre Robatto’s 1954 film
‘Vadiação’; photos displayed in Forte de Santo Antonio)



Practically all capoeira songs present the male perspective, reflecting the predominantly male history of the game, a predominance that continues particularly in the upper echelons of the game. There are references to female Orixás and occasionally to their associated female saints. There is also a palpable female human presence: there are very few romantic love songs, but women appear in the everyday of life. There are women market traders, there are women’s names in songs ‘sai sai Caterina’ (leave, Caterina); ‘Dona Maria, como vai voce?’; (Maria, how are you?) ‘Dona Alice, nao me pega nao,’ (Alice, don’t get me) or more generally, ‘menina,’ ‘nega,’ ‘morena,’ or ‘mulher’ – terms addressing or referring to women.

Salvador-on-Sea

An important set of references is also made to Salvador, Bahia, the home of capoeira. There are a few mentions of Brazil (usually as the country that abolished – or didn’t – slavery), but the immediate geographical environment is frequently the subject of songs. You can literally (yes, literally) sing your way round Salvador: ‘Bahia de todos os santos’; ‘Good Jesus of Lapa!’ (an area of Salvador); ‘I’m going to Maré Island’; ‘If you want to see me, go to Piedade [Square] tomorrow’; ‘Adeus Santo Amaro’ (a town near Salvador).

Bom Jesus de Lapa-eh!

Sao Bento me chama

Saia do mar, marinheiro!

 



Bahia de Todos os Santos



The sea is also a constant presence in songs: as a source of fear and fish, as a vector for journeying and the source of sunken treasure, the preserve of the Orixá Yemanja, and as a feature of the city. It is also where the sting-ray lives, the ‘sting-ray’s tail’ – raba-de-arraia, being the name of a spinning kick. There is something very beautiful about playing in a roda by the beach singing, ‘Aprendi a jogar capoeira de Angola na beira do mar’ – ‘I learned to play capoeira Angola by the edge of the sea.’

The message

The perspective relayed through movement and songs is a workers’ perspective. There is not a strong class-consciousness or a unified political ideology, but there is a strong recognition of roots and social context.

References to Salvador and Bahia and the lives of extraordinary and ordinary people who live here sit within the broader context of Africa and slavery and provide local roots to capoeira. The relaying of experiences and familiar places establishes a bank of shared knowledge, experience and identity. Capoeiristas come from the street, are workers and – despite all the talk of travelling – really rather like Bahia (it’s lovely!).

References:

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992). Death without weeping. The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley, Oxford, University of California Press.



´AFRICA´

You can find very similar instruments
 in the National museum in Kinshasa, Congo

The big news story is the waves. In the past week they have gone from being small and friendly to huge and very friendly. Apparently it’s now winter (it’s still extremely sunny!)

In this and the next few blogs, I’ll be presenting the knowledge that is transmitted through capoeira – the cognitive ends of the extralinguistic communication – and considering how it relates to communicative and instrumental rationality.



This blog will be looking at the references that are made to Africa and slavery, and that iteratively acknowledge these origins in capoeira and in Brazilian history. I put the word ‘Africa’ in inverted commas as the name does not refer to the continent in historical or geographical terms. Instead, a notion of ‘Africa’ is forged by capoeira that serves social and political functions.



According to the Afro-Brazilian Museum in Salvador, 4,507, 940 Africans arrived in Brazil as slaves from the beginning of Portuguese colonisation until 1851. Thousands more died en route. By way of comparison, a similar figure is put on the excess mortality rates in Congo during the wars from 1998-2002.



A double-headed agogo from Benin
 - in the Afro-Brazilian museum, Salvador



Off-shoots

 A ladainha from Mestre Pastinha’s CD includes the lines, “Capoeira came from Africa. It was the African who brought it” (CD Mestre Pastinha/ FICA songbook p6).

 

There are elements of capoeira that can be regarded as ‘off-shoots’ of Africa: the instruments, the roda, the call and response singing, the incantation of ‘Iê!’. Combat games were played in parts of central and southern Africa before colonisation.

 That there are elements of African culture is not contentious: until the 1930s, capoeira was played almost exclusively by people of African descent. Music was introduced probably around the beginning of the 20^th century, and as Brazilian social life was segregated, it is not surprising that African instruments were used.

Invocation

  

Oxum

 There are more explicit references to Africa: the frequent invocation of Orixás (the divinities of the West African pantheon), and the notion of a numerous family and common ancestry that they inspire. Some songs have words that are understood to be ‘African’: Nzambe (God in Lingala), Aruanda (a spiritual home in various sects and religions such as Umbanda, Quimbanda and Candomblé), Benguela (a Angolan port). There are colloquial references to race or skin colour – which is always black.

There are direct references to slavery in songs. The first ladainha I learnt in Salvador was ‘Saudade do grande mestre’ – which reflects on the experience of being enslaved and brought to Brazil. Giving a personal account – albeit poetic – it recalls to the misery and confusion of the slaves, rather than simply the physical hardship or the injustice. Corridos refer to captivity, slave-masters and their families, and plantation work.

 

Xangô  - Orixá of thunder and fire.

Xangô in capoeira is a backflip



There are also many songs and moves that refer to a natural environment – there are frequent references to the moon and the sun which, along with religious citations, summon a cosmic, rather than a human, order. A jungly context is given by ubiquitous mentions of forests and animals in the names of moves and in songs: monkeys, frogs, scorpions and various bird species.

Jungle cookies

In Guyana, you can buy jungle cookies. They don’t come form the jungle, though – they are baked in a factory but cut to look like jungle animals.

The Africa mix is compiled in Brazil. Orixás and agogos come from West Africa, berimbaus and atabaques (drums) come from central Africa. The pandeiro came with the Portuguese; practically all capoeira lyrics are Portuguese. And ‘Angola’ comes from Mestre Pastinha, the founding father of Capoeira Angola.



Berimbaus & pandeiro – (from Alexandre Robatto’s 1954 film ‘Vadiação’;
photos displayed in Forte de Santo Antonio



  

 People were brought for slave labour from Angola, but also Congo, and from West Africa – the Yoruba and Evê-Fon kingdoms. Angola is constantly invoked in Capoeira Angola songs; no other African countries are mentioned (the only exception I have come across is a corrido that relates: ‘I left Congo, I went to Angola!’). There is very occasional reference made to ‘Bantu’ which is commonly understood to include Congo and Angola, but comprises a much larger area.


What is more, slaves were brought from the interior and would not have national Angolan identity (not least because the territory was not fully established until after the end of slavery). Nor would they sing about Luanda, now the capital city, but then essentially a slave port. Slave identities would relate to kin or kingdom groups, and the lack of reference to these names is poignant: slavery disoriented heritage, and reference to broad and imposed identities, such as ‘Angolan’ preserves the dislocation of slavery rather than the more complex political reality from which people were brought.


Map showing slaving routes,
in the Afro-Brazilian museum in Salvador



Yansa



 





  

Exu

If we look at the jungle scenes, we find that they are not African – the animals are South American: there are jaguars in songs not lions, cutias (a South American chipmonk) not gibbons, caimans not crocodiles. Beija-flor – the hummingbird/ one-handed handstand – lives only in the Americas. ‘Macaco’ (or ‘macaque’ in French) has an offensive colonial legacy, particularly in Congo where the Belgians referred to uneducated ‘non-evolved’ Congolese as monkeys. ‘I stepped on a dry leaf and heard it crunch’ is a story about a runaway slave concerned that the noise made by the dry leaves will give him away.



Xango



Where is Africa?

The notion of African culture, words or ancestors provides a uniting discourse for a consciousness of slavery. References to Africa have communicative rationality in establishing a base and with it a lineage and capoeira community.

  

 

It´s difficult in the city

This non-literal concept of Africa performs social and political functions. It is the watchword for the motherland and black consciousness. Africa is the refuge, the home. Lacy talks of the ‘tame zones’ of security and modernity – oppositional to the ‘wild zones’. But the wild zones of the jungle are not threatening to all; Africa is the nurturing jungle where alternative norms, hierarchies and laws exist. In capoeira, Africa (or Angola) establishes a counterpoint to the tame zones of modernity. By reference to these origins, which legitimize and provide historical significance to capoeira, an alternative way of life is established through the processes of musical, lyrical and somatic communication.



Ossayin



Africa is not somewhere that has been left behind. It is the other side of the kalunga – the middle passage – that continues to exist in people’s identity, religious beliefs and artistic expressions. It is the other side of death, where the ancestors live and provide guidance and protection. It has a historical function in granting meaning and continuity. But its significance is also in a continued presence: this is what makes capoeiristas who they are. And Africa is the future too: frequently it is where capoeiristas are just off to ‘I’m going back to Angola’ – to play capoeira!

Orixas by Carybé, displayed in the Afro-Brazilian museum in Salvador 



Oxossi



References:

Lacy, M. J. (2003). Security and climate change : international relations and the limits of realism. London, Routledge.