Batuque
An extinct Bahian game with one goal: throw your opponent to the ground with hips, thighs, or feet. A forerunner of capoeira.
Quick Facts
BrazilCharacter & Origin
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Batuque
Batuque was a wrestling-style game played in Bahia, Brazil, at the beginning of the twentieth century by enslaved Africans and their descendants, a game that has since died out. In Rio de Janeiro, a similar version called pernada existed at the same time. The rules were spare. Two players stood in a circle; the defender in the middle held a defensive stance with feet turned inward, protecting the groin while also bracing against the ground. The attacker had a single attempt to bring him down — using the hips, thighs, or feet. When the defender fell, a new player took his place; when he held his ground, the roles switched and he became the attacker. Individual moves had their own names, among them rapa, baú, banda lisa, and encruzilhada. It was played to the accompaniment of the berimbau, tambourine, scraper, and singing. Its origin is predominantly Angolan, and in the nineteen-thirties Angolans were the best batuque players in Brazil; among the most famous was a man called Angolinha, meaning little Angola. The connection to capoeira is direct and documented: Mestre Bimba adopted a number of techniques from batuque into his school, and his own father was a champion at this game. One of the last people to keep the art alive was Mestre Tiburcinho. Today there are efforts to revive batuque, and foot-wrestling in general, as a modern sport.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.