Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity And Resistance In Brazil (Paperback)

by Floyd Merrell (Author) "The spirit of Capoeira is growing in the United States, Europe, and other areas outside Brazil..." (more)
Key Phrases: capoeira regional, contradictory complementarity, dissembling act, Capoeira Angola, United States, Mestre Pastinha (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves in Brazil, and Candombl‚ is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. The two are closely interconnected. Capoeira and Candombl‚ have for centuries made up a coherent form of Brazilian life, despite having been suppressed by the dominant cultures. Now they are not only widely recognized in Brazil, but have become popular in North America and Europe as a new blend of sports, dance, and holistic approach to many facets of life. For Western audiences, Capoeira performance and Candombl‚ services are fun to watch and participate in, but difficult to understand. Both have apparently familiar elements, but this seeming conformity with the dominant cultures was for 400 years a strategy of resistance by Brazilian slaves. The author offers his own reflections about Capoeira and Candombl‚, combining personal experiences with anecdotes, historical facts, and research as well as religious and philosophical interpretations, both Western and non-Western. The result is informative and entertaining, a description and analysis that allows readers to get a feeling, understanding, and even experience of the spirit of Capoeira and Candombl‚.

About the Author
FLOYD MERRELL, who is a professor of linguistics at Purdue University and the author of over 20 books, spends part of each year in Salvador (Bahia) in Brazil, where he practices and lives what he describes in this book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 315 pages
• Publisher: Markus Wiener Publishers (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558763503
• ISBN-13: 978-1558763500
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,268,991 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Playing in the "bodymindspirit", August 26, 2005

By	Nancy L. Watterson "Capoeira fan & folklorist" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Merrell's book offers a fresh perspective on the tradition of capoeira, particularly with his emphasis on the influences of candomble. Merrell builds upon and references Mestre Acordeon's often-cited insights (of "playing in the dark," "playing in water," "playing in the light," "playing with the crystal ball," and "playing in the mind"), attempting to explain to readers the feel and power of "playing in the bodymindspirit." For those who like pondering ways of being (i.e, notions of "becoming," of ambiguity, and of the processual)--and I do--this work is truly enjoyable. While this book may be a bit weighty or academically abstract and philosophical for some capoeiristas' tastes, Merrrell's work fills an important niche in 8-10 top books in English written on the subject. As but one example of his scholarly flights of imagination, see his handling of Exu, trickster by default, and the complexities of moving beyond "either/or" and "both/and" thinking to a third way of thinking, or "thirdness." Expect coverage of complex topics, a bit of "jargon" (appropriate for a scholarly work well-informed by years of research in Latin American history)--and you'll be rewarded with a book that makes you go "hmmmmmm." Axe ASCAB

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "It's in their bones": Merrell's essentialist and superficial account of capoeira, candomblé, and Brazilian "nature". , November 6, 2007

By	Ana P. Hofling (Laramie, Wyoming, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Merrell's generalizations about Brazilian culture are essentialist and simplistic. The examples he uses to support his analysis of "what makes Brazil Brazil" (255) often come from Brazilian novels and even from TV Globo's telenovelas-- highly dubious sources of Brazilian reality. Merrell concludes that Brazilians are illogical, and that we (for him, they) "use this illogical logic at the drop of a hat, because it's second nature to them; it's in their bones, so to speak" (236). These kinds of statements, where Brazilians are othered as irrational, overly physical beings, can be found in every chapter of this book. As a Brazilian, I found Merrell's book deeply offensive.
Merrell sexualizes and exoticizes Brazilian culture through his choice of adjectives to describe samba, capoeira, and candomblé: samba is "sensuous," "feverish" and "erotic" (126); one of the stages of learning capoeira is described by the gerunds "twirling," "gyrating," "scintillating," "vibrating" and "undulating" (88). In Merrell's capoeira, the instruments "throb" and the vocal chords "chant" (83), and "you throw your body around with reckless abandon, and with neither inhibition nor fear" (81). Capoeira is "vague and imprecise" (68), it is "uninhibited freedom" (67) and it is "indescribable" (54). In capoeira, "you're not supposed to think" (83), the player is "completely spontaneous" (65) and there are no rules: according to Merrel's definition, play is "disrespectful of all boundaries" (46), and "capoeira is play, play in the most profound sense" (47). It is hard to believe that this rhetoric, where the mover "gyrates" with "reckless abandon" while the instruments "throb" and where the dance is "feverish" and "erotic" is coming from a book published in the 21st century. It often reads like the travelogue of a European colonizer describing the illogical but titillating ways of the "primitive natives" of the New World.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Neither insightful nor complete, July 31, 2007

By	Heather Forster (Southern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Capoeira And Candomble: Conformity And Resistance in Brazil (Hardcover)

This book offers neither historical information nor insightful commentary. The only thing unique I can see is the combining of Capoeira and Candomble references into one book and even that is questionable as the two are isolated in separate sections.

Floyd Merrell's writing lacks any tidbits of historical significance. His perspective on Capoeira is so biased pro Angola that he misrepresents Capoeira as a whole. This includes his beloved Angola, which he does not appear to understand so much as he believes. He falls for a trap that many authors of Capoeira literature fall for, obsessing over the idea that Capoeira is difficult to understand. He then proceeds to explain Capoeira and Candomble using the most artificially built up confusing language that he can muster making the topic even less clear. Over and over he slips back and forth saying Capoeira is like this but not like this but it is like this or not really like this but it looks like this.
etc.
etc.

This is also one of the most blatant cases of reverse racism I have ever seen. Mr. Merrell idolizes African's and Afro-Brazilians. He paints the origins of not only Capoeira and Candomble but of Afro-Brazilian society as a whole, as systematic and deliberate.

This would probably have been a great paper, if it had been something less that 40 pages. Don't expect to learn anything about either Capoeira or Candomble. If you want some deep and often redundant insight on Floyd Merrell's opinions regarding the two topics in the title then by all means pick up this little gem. I'm sure it would be a great gift for his mother or brother. Everyone else will find it boring, self gratifying and pedantic.