Q 01/05

Capoeira is best described as what?

A) A Brazilian carnival dance style

B) A Brazilian style of wrestling

C) An Afro-Brazilian martial art and game

D) A Portuguese stick-fighting tradition

Answer · why

C) An Afro-Brazilian martial art and game

An Afro-Brazilian martial art and game is how reference works define it: players speak of 'playing' capoeira rather than fighting or dancing it, and a...

Q 02/05

Which Angolan combat game, nicknamed the 'zebra dance', is widely named as capoeira's ancestor?

A) Moraingy

B) Batuque

C) Engolo

D) Maculelê

Answer · why

C) Engolo

Engolo is played near the Cunene river in southern Angola. The painter Albano Neves e Sousa sketched it there, then saw capoeira in Brazil in the 1960...

Q 03/05

In 1789, what gave capoeira its first written mention?

A) A parish register

B) A shipping manifest

C) A court case

D) A plantation ledger

Answer · why

C) A court case

A court case gives the first mention: in 1789 a man named Adão was arrested and punished for being a capoeira, the earliest known record of the word u...

Q 04/05

One widely cited theory traces the word 'capoeira' to Tupi words meaning what?

A) Slave dance

B) Foot fight

C) Chicken coop

D) Round forest

Answer · why

D) Round forest

Round forest is the usual gloss: Tupi ka'a, forest, plus a word for round, meaning the low scrub where runaways could hide. Dictionaries call the orig...

Q 05/05

What was the violent street-fighting capoeira of 19th-century gangs called?

A) Capoeira Angola

B) Capoeira regional

C) Capoeira carioca

D) Capoeira dura

Answer · why

C) Capoeira carioca

Capoeira carioca takes its name from Rio de Janeiro, where rival gangs called maltas fought with kicks, headbutts, razors and clubs and terrorised the...