A capoeira: de "doença moral" À"gymnástica nacional"

Abstract

In this article, the author traces thie changes in the social meanings of the capoeira, n Brazilian black fíght, between the last decades of lhe nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. These changes are, in fact, closely related to the different approaches of the Brazilian society toward the black people's social position. Since the first decades of this century, the cultural manifestations of backs have become Brazilian symbols and signs of national identity, even though these same black people were considered a seríous obstacle to the development and civilization of the country during lhe end of lhe past century because of a so-called"biological inferiority"