SOUTH AMERICA · EXTINCT

ORIGINS & SOCIAL FUNCTIONS

A leg game of the carioca capoeiragem complex, played formerly in Rio de Janeiro in the Afro-carioca popular circles, in the ring alongside the batuque and the pernada, the festive world of the samba courtyards, where game, music and prestige were one.

THE GAME

Sweeps and unbalancings launched in rhythm; the fall eliminates. The player must attack the other's base without ever leaving the tempo that carries the round.

PLACE IN THE FAMILY

With the pernada and the batuque, the cateretê forms the vertical pole of the carioca complex: the provoked fall as the single condition of victory. Its strict submission to rhythm, the continuous flow as rule, binds it to the deepest logic of the family, and its Rio world to the history the thesis restores: the capoeiragem's circle culture surviving inside the samba.

SOURCES

Olivier Malo, La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles, 1905–1984 [Capoeira and the Black combat arts: erased history, invisible techniques (1905–1984)], doctoral thesis in History, Université des Antilles, 2020.

HOW TO CITE THIS ENTRY

MALO, Olivier. Cateretê. In: The Atlas of the Black Combat Arts [online]. Black Combat Arts Institute, 2026. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/atlas-en/caterete [accessed date].

RELATED PRACTICES

→ Batuque, Carioca leg-game complex

→ Pernada, Sweeps and unbalancing, a fall eliminates

→ Capoeira, Carioca capoeiragem circle