This series of four video has no translation, so I will summarize the teacher says, this is the safest thing to do with the origin of capoeira, based on ethnographic and anthropological studies. Capoeira as we know it did not exist in Africa was born of the mixture of at least four warrior dances and ritual fights of African tribes, each supporting a different aspect. N'golo: Blows with the legs, sweeps. Gabetula: Blows with open hands (classically, no punches are used in capoeira) Bassula: Falls. Umudinhu: Acrobatic jumps, evasive maneuvers. These abilities were aggregated into a real form of fighting, with which Africans could fathom. They were persecuted by "Captains of the Forest," men who specialize in recovering fugitive slaves (alive and well, for they were a very expensive "possession"). In the woods Africans (or descendants born in Brazil) formed quilombos where the capoeira was developed, but according to the professor the history does not end there, these communities interacted with with native communities and sometimes they were added. The natives also had ritual fights, the best known are wrestling (huca-huca), but there is also xondáro, a confrontation based on dodging, it is now believed that xondáro participated in the development of capoeira. Unfortunately, some nationalists and possibly racists spread the idea that capoeira would be purely native and only appropriated by Africans. It is possible that other African traditions are involved, I have already read about libanda and about kipura (no, this is not the origin of the word capoeira), which would be inspired by the cock fight, but I do not have much data about them and not considered by Brazilian scholars. I found a theory that says a Madagascar style, diamanga, might also be involved (a small group of Malagasy slaves came from there), the interesting one is that this style would be somehow related to the silat. I exposed this theory in this topic (I ask exclusive posts on this subject be directed to the topic not to clutter the forum). Diamanga is no longer practiced for a long time and we do not know if what is seen today is authentic, until we discover that it is not possible to say with certainty. Capoeira comes from Silat?
