SOUTH AMERICA · EXTINCT

ORIGINS & SOCIAL FUNCTIONS

An opposition game of the Afro-carioca circles of old Rio de Janeiro, played in the festive courtyards where the samba was born, the same world, the same men and the same prestige economy as the batuque and the cateretê.

THE GAME

With roles alternating, leg attacks, sweeps, trips, are launched against an adversary on guard; the fall means defeat. Attacker and defender exchange places round after round.

PLACE IN THE FAMILY

The pernada is a textbook case of the family's role dissociation: the two players never hold the same status at the same instant, and the game's interest lies in the ordeal of the defended stance. Its single dimension, the vertical, the provoked fall, places it with the batuque among the one-axis games that the kaleidoscopic forms (capoeira, danmyé) integrate and exceed.

SOURCES

Olivier Malo, La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles, 1905–1984, doctoral thesis in History, Université des Antilles, 2020.

HOW TO CITE THIS ENTRY

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

RELATED PRACTICES

→ Batuque, Carioca leg-game complex

→ Cateretê, Leg attacks, alternating roles, a fall means defeat

→ Mandinga, Rio capoeiragem circles