The Blade That Was Written Out of Capoeira

WHY THIS ARTICLE

The armed capoeira is an embarrassment usually passed over. The thesis records a claim that weapons belonged to the art, and its rejection — a case of the present editing the past to suit its sensibility.

A rejected claim

According to one author, weapons were an integral part of the culture of capoeiragem, introduced first as a pedagogical tool to improve the mobility and evasions of the practitioners. But this position on the weapons — hardly acceptable in a society crossed, since the early twentieth century, by a process of euphemisation of violence — was rejected.

What was kept, what was dropped

What was kept was the flattering idea of the capoeiras' role in the Paraguay War; what was dropped was the razor. The art's memory was edited to fit a present that could no longer avow the blade — a selective inheritance, keeping the heroic and discarding the uncomfortable.

Why it matters

What a tradition forgets is as telling as what it keeps. The written-out blade shows a present shaping the past to match its own tolerance for violence.

SOURCES

La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part I: weapons as claimed part of capoeiragem, and their rejection)

IN THE CORPUS

→ When Capoeira Meant Gangs, Not Grace

→ The Legend of David Against Goliath

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. The Blade That Was Written Out of Capoeira. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 103. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-blade-that-was-written-out-of-capoeira. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.