Black Combat Arts Institute.
AFRICA · ENDANGERED
Seu
The body of ground-fighting techniques proper to the canton of Tchitchao, in Kabyé country, in Togo, among the Kabyé people.
ORIGINS & SOCIAL FUNCTIONS
The ground-fighting corpus proper to the canton of Tchitchao, in the Kabyé country of Togo, a local speciality within the Kabyé wrestling constellation.
THE GAME
The body of ground techniques, reversals and controls, cultivated as the canton's own art, alongside the standing games of the neighbouring cantons.
PLACE IN THE FAMILY
With the tata-lubie, the seu shows the family capable of territorial specialisation: one canton curating the ground, others the standing game. The division of the art's dimensions across a map, verticality here, the ground there, is the kaleidoscope distributed in space.
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. Seu. In: The Atlas of the Black Combat Arts [online]. Black Combat Arts Institute, 2026. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/atlas-en/seu [accessed date].
RELATED PRACTICES
→ Tata-lubié, Kabyé ground fighting, same canton
→ Essoda-lubié, Kabyé wrestling
→ Evalas, Kabyé country