The Family That Crosses Three Oceans

WHY THIS ARTICLE

These practices are studied in national silos — a Brazilian game, a Martinican one, a Malagasy one. The thesis assembles them into a single comparative field, defined by a shared history and a shared internal logic.

One field, many shores

Capoeira in Brazil, the mayolè, bènaden and sové vayan of Guadeloupe, the danmyé of Martinique, the moring and tolona of the Indian Ocean, the manì of Cuba: these are not scattered curiosities but one family. What binds them is at once historical — the African origin, the transatlantic trade, the enslavement of Black people — and structural: a shared ludo-motor foundation without equivalent in the martial arts.

A geography of deportation

The field's geography espouses that of the deportations. To read these games together, from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, is to read the map of a diaspora in the form of its games — the same principles reappearing wherever the enslaved were carried.

Why it matters

To constitute the Black combat arts as a single field is not to erase local differences but to make visible a unity the national silos hid. The family is the diaspora, read through the body at play.

SOURCES

La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part III, on the Black combat arts as a single comparative field whose geography follows the deportations).

IN THE CORPUS

→ The Game That Is Played on Two Planes at Once

→ The Shared Structure Nobody Could See

→ An Erased History, an Invisible Technique

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. The Family That Crosses Three Oceans. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 80. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-family-that-crosses-three-oceans. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.