Photo Discussion
Category: Friendly Praise Archive

The berimbau originated in an early nineteenth-century Brazilian slave culture. Several historical notices and depictions
from this period demonstrate the continued presence of a variety of central African musical bows.
These musical bows were known by African names such as urucungu, madimba lungungo, mbulumbumba, and hungu. Sometime in the late nineteenth century, it received a Lusophone name — berimbau de barriga, or "jaw harp of the stomach"—
and entered a new cultural context, the African-Brazilian martial art form known as capoeira.
Beginning at least as early as the eighteenth century, capoeira was fought to the music of
an African-derived hand drum or to simple handclapping.
Capoeira is now fought to the toques (rhythms) of the berimbau,
which accompany the songs known in Brazil as cantigas de capoeira.