The 1928 Book Its Author Barely Wrote

WHY THIS ARTICLE

Philology decides where polemical opinion rages: by placing side by side the texts of 1916, 1921, 1925 and 1928, the thesis demonstrates that Burlamaqui does not invent — he transmits. Each identified borrowing is a proof of continuity of the carioca tradition.

Piece no. 1: the passage of 1916

Two texts, which the thesis cites without translating them “to render account of the strong similitude”: “Nos ominosos tempos da escravidão, antigamente, quando os negros, acossados pelos martyrios infligidos pelos feitores e pela prepotencia sanguinaria dos senhores, num assomo de repulsa, sacudiam as cadeias e fugiam […]” — Lothus and Aleixo, 1916. “Nos tempos da escravidão, quando os negros acossados pelos martyrios infligidos pelos feitores e pela prepotencia sanguinaria dos ‘senhores’, num assomo de repulsa, sacudiam as cadeias e fugiam […]” — Burlamaqui, 1928.

Twelve years apart, one comma of difference. The historical narrative of the 1928 book comes in a direct line from the mestres of 1916 — with whom Zuma “had no doubt built his theoretical and practical knowledge.”

Piece no. 2: the anonymous 1925 interview

Three years before the book, an anonymous witness details for the review Careta the techniques of the old capoeiras: rasteira, rabo de arraia, tranco, pentear, chincha. Compare: “‘Pentear’ ou ‘peneirar’ — jogar com o corpo e os braços em todos os sentidos, em ‘ginga’, de modo a perturbar a attenção do outro e preparar melhor o golpe decisivo” (1925). “O pentear ou peneirar. Joga-se os braços em todos os sentidos em ginga, de modo a perturbar a attenção do adversario e preparar melhor o golpe decisivo” (1928). The anonymous man of 1925 was him. The book was already written in his memory.

Piece no. 3: the O.D.C. copy, and the Pederneiras parallels

To this are added the complete copy, by hand, of O.D.C.’s manual “inside the walls of the National Library” — the second codifier copying out the first — and the attentive reading of Pederneiras: the rasteira of 1921 (hands on the ground, horizontal sweep, the art of peneirar, “to draw to the ground in little time five or six people”) and the corta-capim of 1928 (body suddenly lowered, leg extended that “turns violently,” given “almost always in an unequal fight, of one man against several”) describe the same gesture, the same function, the same context: “the technical nomenclature was sometimes different, but the gesture was the same.”

And the loop closes publicly: on 22 April 1928, Pederneiras salutes in the Jornal do Brasil “the intelligent patrician sportsman Annibal Burlamaqui (Zuma), publishing in an illustrated pamphlet the rules of this game […] a work of great utility.” The elder endorses the younger.

A chain, not a man

Let us recapitulate the genealogy the texts establish: Lothus — the elder of the maltas — forms and inspires; Aleixo co-signs the 1916 narrative; Pederneiras publishes and illustrates; O.D.C. furnishes the 1885 foundation; the army adds its training (capoeiragem and savate); and Burlamaqui synthesises the whole in 1928. These men knew one another, frequented one another, saluted one another in the press: “given their origin, their responsibilities, their athletic practices and their pronounced taste for capoeiragem, they found themselves ‘naturally’ practising and exchanging.”

The 1928 book is not the work of an isolated inventor whom one might judge on his skin colour alone. It is the documented point of arrival of a chain of carioca transmission half a century old — “a synthesis both of the bookish culture on capoeiragem and of carioca popular culture.” Each borrowing philology identifies is one more link in the chain. Zuma was reproached for not being an origin. That is exact. He was better than that: an heir.

SOURCES

Lothus, R. and Aleixo, M. (1916), p. 4; Falção, I., “Esplendôr e decadencia da capoeiragem,” Careta, 14 November 1925; Burlamaqui, A., Gymnastica nacional, 1928, pp. 11, 27, 42; Pederneiras, R., “A defesa nacional,” 1921; “A gymnastica nacional,” Jornal do Brasil, 22 April 1928; manuscript copy of the O.D.C. manual (National Library of Brazil). — Malo, O., La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020, Part I, chap. D.2.

IN THE CORPUS

→ The Circle or the Ring: A 1928 Rulebook’s Hidden Choice

→ Condemned Before Being Read

→ The “Fan” Defence: When a Master of 2013 Confirms a Book of 1928

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. The 1928 Book Its Author Barely Wrote. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 40. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-1928-book-its-author-barely-wrote. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.