Drum Patterns in The Batuque of Benedito Caxias

University of Texas Press
Drum Patterns in the "Batuque" of Benedito Caxias

Author(s): Gerhard Kubik
Source: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Vol. 11, No. 2 (
Autumn - Winter, 1990), pp. 115-181
Published by: University of Texas Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/780123
Accessed: 28-10-2015 02:50 UTC
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Gerhard Kubik Drum Patterns in the
"Batuque" of Benedito
Caxias
Introduction*
According to Lufs da Camara Cascudo

(1954:114), the term "batuque" was used in the nineteenth century by
Luso-Brazilians as a generic designation for dance gatherings by Africans
in Brazil. It seems that originally it had a generalized meaning referring
to community dances with drums and other loud instruments, in contrast
to the individual music for bows, spike tube lutes, lamellophones, pluriarcs,
and so on, as depicted in early nineteenth-century paintings from Rio de
Janeiro (Chamberlain, 1822; Debret, 1834; Rugendas, 1835; and others).
An illustration of one such gathering in Sao Paulo is found in Martius and
Spix's Atlas zur Reise in Brasilien, 1817-1820, under the designation "ba-
ducca," and shows a group of dancers and performers of a gourd-resonated,
portable xylophone and a scraper.
The term "batuque" obviously occurs in variant pronunciations, but
resemblance with another frequently heard term, "batucada," is coinci-
dental; the latter refers to any ensemble performance of percussion instru-
ments. In Angola the term "batuque" is also known and has a similar
meaning for speakers of Portuguese. It is generally encountered in the
nineteenth-century travel literature (see, for example, Capello and Ivens,
1882).
*For clarity, I am adopting in this study a system for distinguishing African and
Afro-Brazilian terminology. African designations are printed in italics and in the
current orthographies for those languages used on the African continent. Afro-
Brazilian terms, on the other hand, are in quotation marks and Roman and use
Brazilian spelling. Thus, "tambu" and "quinjengue" are drum designations in
the "batuque" of southern Brazil; ntambuand kenjengo are the correspondingterms
in Angola; "samba" refers to the Brazilian music/dance category, while samba
(noun) and -samba(verb) refer to this category in some Bantu languages.
Latin AmericanMusic Review, Volume 11, Number 2, December 1990

?1990 by the University of Texas Press
116 : GerhardKubik
Rossini Tavares de Lima collected invaluable material on "batuque"

in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, from 1946 until his recent death. Follow-
ing is a summary of his major findings (Lima 1954:66-67, 68):
1. "Batuque" is of Angolan/Congolese origin and has been known
in Brazil since the eighteenth century. Besides Sao Paulo, the most
important present-day centers are Capivari, Tiete, Laranjal
Paulista, Porto Feliz, Piracicaba, andJundiaf. He mentions Cor-
nelio Pires's "Sambas e cateretes" (1933) as an early refer-
ence.
2. A long time ago, according to the famous "batuqueiro" of Tiete,
Paulo Rafael, it was also known as "caiumba."
3. The location of the dance was referred to as "terreiro." It was
usually on a gentle slope, with the group of women positioned
higher than the men; hence the expressions "descerem as damas"
and "subirem os homens" for the dance interaction. Both groups
formed lines ten to twelve meters apart.
4. The drums were called "tambu," "quinjengue," or "quinjenho"
(formerly known as "mulemba" or "mulamba"); the percussion
sticks were called "matraca" or "mitraca," and the rattle was
called "guaia" or "chocaio." (Lima describes the instruments
and how they are positioned, p. 4.)
5. The essential element in "batuque" choreography was the "um-
bigada," also called "batida," a belly thrust by two partners.
Lima describes it in detail, as well as some other dance figures,
such as "visagens" (or "micagens,") "piao parado" (or "co-
rrupio,") "granche" (or "garanche,") "cortesia," "venia," and
"ca-ca."
6. Regarding song texts, Lima emphasizes that the lines include so-
called "modinhas" and "carreiras." The former are defined as
verses of various subjects, constituting the music and dance proper.
He gives examples in notation (pp. 69-78). "Carreiras" are verses
used in competitive singing, only accompanied by the "guaia"
(rattle). (See notation examples, pp. 79-85.)
The musical notations provided by Lima of several "modinhas de
Batuque" suggest the use of a heptatonic scale and generalized singing
in parallel thirds (see pp. 69-85). These notations indicate that the tonal
material is diatonic and the songs end invariably on a tonic chord (in the
Western sense). One photograph (p. 145, reproduced here, ill. 1) shows
the performance techniques of the "tambu" and "quinjengue" drums
and the "matraca" (percussion sticks) in a high-speed shot taken at Vila
Drum Patterns in the "Batuque" of Benedito Caxias : 117
Ill. 1. F. Rossini Tavares de Lima's photograph of "Batuque drumming" in the

State of Sao Paulo: Vila Sta. Maria-Capital, probably during the late 1940s (Lima,
1954:145).
118 : GerhardKubik
Sta. Maria-Capital. Although the photograph is undated, it is likely from

the late 1940s. Performance style and techniques in Lima's picture cor-
respond with what I saw more than thirty years later in Capivari. Another
of Lima's photographs (p. 68) shows two dancers, one male and one fe-
male, approaching each other to perform the "umbigada." Lima also
attempted to notate the percussion patterns of the drums (p. 85).
The "tambu" drum, according to Lima, is used not only in the "ba-
tuque" dance, but also in the "jongo," for which his informants claim an
Angolan origin. In Brazil it has had a geographical distribution somewhat
different from that of the "batuque." "Jongo" was documented in the
States of Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, and the northern
and coastal parts of the State of Sao Paulo (Lima, 1954:99). The term refers
to a specific music and dance genre.
Another Brazilian author, Alceu Maynard Araujo (1973) mentions
additional places in the State of Sao Paulo where "batuque" gatherings
were common: Pereira, Limeira, Rio Claro, Sao Pedro, Itui, Tatui, and
Botucatu. In those places "ate 1920 havia batuques no Largo do Rosario, no
dia 13 de maio" (p. 79). He considers "batuque" to be unusual in its
Fig. 1. Araijo's Sketch of the Organization of a "Batuque" Performance

(Araujo, 1973:80).
4A, " - V0-4
4 ' ^ CONVENQOES
~
PO _ Tambu
0 ......... Quinjengue
~_"'_
^'
"
'^-^ / Guaia
^
O "...----~.-.....A ^ Homem preto
i^^-*, Mulher preta

F_+ < _____^^^----~0
_
dance figures when compared to other dances such as "jongo," because

of the absence of a circle ("roda"); instead, a group of men and another
of women line up in rows facing each other (fig. 1).
According to Lima (1954) and Araujo (1973), the general stylistic fea-
tures of the "batuque" dance and the drum names were largely identical
over a wide area in the State of Sao Paulo during the 1940s and 1950s,
when these authors conducted most of their fieldwork. At that time, the
name "batuque," as used in the State of Sao Paulo, was no longer a generic
term, as Luis da Camara Cascudo (1954:114) had claimed for the nine-
teenth century. "Batuque" was now a specific genre to be distinguished
from other dance genres such as "jongo," "cururu," "fandango,"
"caterete," or "samba," as found in the State of Sao Paulo. Even today,
however, "batuque" can have wider or modified meanings. According to
Carlos Galvao Krebs (personal communication, March 21, 1979), there
are in Porto Alegre "dancas religiosas do BATUQUE, nome que damos
ao candomble do Rio Grande do Sul." This information was confirmed
in a conversation I had in Sao Paulo with Rossini Tavares de Lima shortly
thereafter (April 21, 1979). Krebs also showed me in Sao Paulo a Super-8
film that he had made in Porto Alegre of a "batuque" that was a ritual
religious festivity with music and songs displaying a predominance of
"jeje-nago" (Ewe-Yoruba) cultural traits. This contrasted with the pre-
dominant Bantu traits characterizing the "batuque" dance in the State of
Sao Paulo.
This example illustrates how a designation may totally change its mean-
ing when transplanted to another region. Krebs (personal communication,
Sao Paulo, April 20, 1979) confirmed that Afro-Brazilians had only begun
to migrate to the extreme south of the country (Rio Grande do Sul) from
Rio deJaneiro and Sao Paulo in the 1930s.
Within the boundaries of the State of Sao Paulo, we can now draw a
map showing the geographical distribution of "batuque" centers during
the 1940s and 1950s, based on information from Lima and Araujo (fig. 2).
Very few "batuque" associations seem to be left in the State of Sao
Paulo. In 1979, Haydee Nascimento from the University of Sao Paulo
introduced me to one of the surviving groups. We went to the house of the
"batuque" leader Antonio Liberatto in the Bairro de Casa Verde in Sao
Paulo. Apparently he is no longer alive (Haydee Nascimento, personal
communication, March 21, 1989). Liberatto was introduced as the presi-
dent of this "batuque." He was dressed in a suit and wore a beret. He
described the instruments he normally used, their names, and playing
techniques. However, since there was no festivity planned at which "ba-
tuque" would be performed, he proposed to arrange a private performance
for us. This would cost around 2,000 cruzeiros, he said, which was, un-
fortunately, beyond my means. With the help of Afro-Brazilian folklorist
120 : GerhardKubik
Fig. 2. The "Batuque" Zone in the State of Sao Paulo.
\j
\Cc/
- I\v5~?r
., i "Batuque" Zone of Sao Paulo
Main highways
Guilherme dos Santos Barbosa I was able to visit another "batuque" asso-
ciation, in Capivari (see fig. 2) and film the drumming of one of the oldest
representatives of this tradition, Benedito Caxias.
Rossini Tavares de Lima who, in 1979, was still the director of Sao
Paulo's Escola de Folclore at the Museu de Folclore, knew the old man
personally from his own research. Lima recommended me to Caxias.
The data here were collected in April 1979 during joint field-trips with
Guilherme dos Santos Barbosa. The interview with Caxias, in the Brazilian
dialect of the area, was transcribed by Guilherme dos Santos Barbosa in
1981. The musical transcriptions of Caxias's drum patterns from motion
picture were completed by me in 1983. Comparative data from Africa,
particularly Angola, were obtained in Luanda and in Lisbon in 1982 and
later.
Field Research Data from Capivari, 1979
Benedito Caxias's Environmentand Family
Capivari is a small town in the State of Sao Paulo, about one hundred
kilometers from South America's largest city, and can be reached by car
via Itu. An African cultural heritage is not immediately apparent in Capi-
vari, in contrast to some other towns in Brazil, but it flourishes in the back
streets and backyards. Nowadays, the population of this town displays a
less significant proportion of people of African descent than it did some
decades ago. Those of African descent seem to be concentrated in certain
side streets, toward the small river Capivari. In one of these streets, sloping
toward the river, we encountered several Afro-Brazilian families, among
them, in one of the "casas terreas" (basement houses) the extended family
of Benedito Caxias, who, in 1979, said that he was eighty-two years old.
We were guided to Caxias's house by Kleber Heraldo de Cassia Teixeira,
a young man and musician.
Caxias was the "chefe da Sociedade de Batuque Capivariano" (leader
of the "Batuque" Society of Capivari), a traditional association with an
apparently long and glorious local history. Here, "batuque" dance and
drumming were transmitted within his family and his narrow circle of
disciples. The old man told us that he had won prizes and trophies with his
group during folkloristic presentations in S5o Paulo, and he showed us
some of the trophies kept in his house. In 1954 he won a prize for the best
"batuque" group in the State of Sao Paulo, and in 1976 he received a
certificate for his participation in a cultural festival. In spite of his age,
Benedito Caxias appeared to be vigorous, and he was helpful once he had
accepted us. We did not try to tape what he was telling us about his life
immediately; first we got better acquainted. Barbosa made some written
notes. Caxias told us that once he shot at a police chief of the town because
the latter had refused to give them a permit and had said: "There are two
dance festivities in this town, but very little police protection is available,
and therefore we are not in a position to consider a Negro festivity." Caxias
also stressed the considerable age of the "batuque" tradition in Capivari:
"'Batuque' . . . is from the era of captivity." In the past they sang
"batuque" in competitive verses ("carreira"); today they sing in the
manner of "corridos" ("moda corrida").
This throws some light on a theme that frequently came up in Caxias's
remembrances. His reference to "moda corrida" as a more recent fashion
of singing in the "batuque" dance was a testimony to change this tradition
had undergone. Tiago de Oliveira Pinto (personal communication, May
1989) defines "moda corrida" as a type of song organization under which
one strophe is directly affixed to another in sequence.
122 : GerhardKubik
Eventually, we were able to record a lengthy interview with Caxias,

shortly before he started to tune his drums for the performance to be filmed.
In this only recorded interview (April 29, 1979) he explained his genealogy.
While he seemed to be somewhat uncertain regarding his father's line of
descent-stating at one point that he had never actually met his father-he
easily recalled his mother's line for three generations back. He stated that
on both sides his grandparents were born in Africa. There was no reason
for us to assume that Caxias's memory at eighty-two was unreliable with
regard to the names of individuals in his family (fig. 3). But we had doubts
about his memory regarding the age at which his forebears were supposed
to have died. Possibly, these numbers were not even meant to be taken
literally. By analogy, during fieldwork in African oral traditions, I have
often found that numbers referring to quantity or distance (in time and
space) are merely illustrative. If someone claims that a certain king was
105 years old when he died and this was 450 years ago, he might simply
wish to convey-through oratory exaggeration combined with a semblance
of accuracy-the ideas of "very old" and "very long ago." It is significant,
however, that Caxias's concept of age seems to be comparable to that of
informants in rural areas of Africa, for example, in Angola, where I have
repeatedly experienced the same idea.
Fig. 3. Benedito Caxias's Family Tree (condensed from Guilherme dos

Santos Barbosa's notes and the recorded interview, April 29, 1979).
Tubia da Cruz
(Tobias Francisco Ana Maria Manoel Caxias-
Jacinta da Cruz
-African from da Cruz)-African I Caxias-African African from
Mocambique; from Mocam- from the "Costa the "Costa da
died 114 years old bique da Africa" Africa"
O A O A
O - -i
Maria Caxias-died in Capivari Manoel Caxias-' 'Baiano"
at age 105 from Beija Flor; came to Brazil
at the "time of slavery"; died
at 95 years old
A'I \
Benedito Caxias, 82 years old
in 1979
According to Barbosa's notes, the paternal grandparents were Manoel

Caxias and Ana Maria Caxias, who were both born in Africa and brought
to Brazil as slaves from the "Coast of Africa." The latter term has a spe-
cific meaning among Brazilian informants according to Tiago de Oliveira
Pinto (personal communication, November 1987). It does not refer to the
West African coast, but to that of Central Africa, that is, present-day
Angola, including Cabinda and adjacent areas. When informants mean
West Africa, they say, "Costa da Guine." On the maternal side we find
the full name of his grandfather Tubia da Cruz (in the interview), rendered
by Barbosa in standard Brazilian as Tobias Francisco da Cruz. The grand-
mother was Jacinto da Cruz. Like her husband, she came from Mocam-
bique, according to Barbosa's notes, but in the interview Caxias says she
came from the "Costa da Africa." This is somewhat confusing, but per-
haps the matter was elucidated later by Benedito Caxias. On the other
hand, there is an expression in an African language recorded in the inter-
view that Caxias attributed to Jacinto da Cruz (see the transcription of the
interview). In the interview, Caxias narrated how his grandmother, near
death, had refused to be attended by relatives or to be taken to a hospital.
In a state of emotional crisis she shouted an African expression, which was
rendered by my Brazilian coworker as "Oioriangununa!" Although it
may be hazardous to try to reach conclusions on the basis of a single phrase,
it is legitimate to say at least that this phrase sounds more Angolan than
Mogambiquan. With the exception of the exclamatory start "Oio-," a
possible prefix, the substance of the expression "-riangununa" seems to
be the verb -lihangununa, known from several eastern Angolan languages
of Guthrie's Zone K, and meaning "to separate," "to part." Such a
meaning would give sense in the story, because the grandmother tells her
relatives not to approach her.
At least we can assume that Benedito Caxias's African grandparents were
all speakers of Bantu languages. His genealogy, therefore, presents us with
the interesting case of an individual of the third generation after the aboli-
tion of slavery in 1888, whose grandparents were Bantu-Africans and were
brought to Brazil during the ultimate stages of the Atlantic slave trade.
Third-generation genealogies of Afro-Brazilians aged seventy to eighty (in
1979) often started with an African ancestor, and that invariably triggered
a psychological response.
Dona Benedita, from Cafundo, Sao Paulo, who remembers that her
grandfather was deported from "Congo" as a twelve-year-old, is another
example (fieldnotes, G. Kubik; tape no. A66/II/4, 1979/Brazil). We do
not know of any instances in which the memory threshold marking a slave's
arrival in the New World would have been overstepped, and that oral
memory of genealogies in Brazil would extend beyond the traumatic and
incisive event of capture and slavery to be linked with African genealogies.
124: GerhardKubik
Ill. 2. The street down to the Capivari River. April 30, 1979 (Arch. No. B 171).
Ill. 3. Neighbors of Benedito Caxias: One of the Families of African Descendants

in this Street. Same date (Arch. No. B 173).
Ill. 4. Benedito Caxias's House in Capivari, April 30, 1979 (Arch. No. B 168).
The PercussionSet
In the backyard of his house (Ill. 4), Benedito Caxias was keeping drums
of African construction type to be used in his "batuque" performances.
The names he gave us are standard in southern Brazil and shared by other
"batuque" groups in other towns (see, Lima, 1954). Caxias's percussion
set included the following:
1. "Tambu": a long, cylindrical, single-headed drum with a deep tuning.

The skin was attached by the method called "nail tension" (Wieschhoff,
1933), that is, with the membrane nailed to the body of the drum, in this
case, with small wooden nails. The body was painted blue. Caxias iden-
tified the single skin as cowhide ("couro de boi") and said that the drum
was made of "madeira ocada" (a hollow piece of wood). In addition to
the nail tension, there was a leather tape ("fita de couro") around the
drum's body. The rim of the drum's lower opening was protected by
an iron ring ("arco de ferro"). In our recordings and motion picture,
"tambu" is performed by the master, Benedito Caxias, himself (Ill. 5).
2. "Quinjengue": a smaller, goblet-shaped, single-headed drum with a

long, toothlike supporting leg. Its tuning was somewhat higher than
that of the "tambu." The skin, also cowhide, was attached by "nail
tension," using wooden nails. Like the "tambu," the body of the
126 : GerhardKubik
"quinjengue" was painted blue, but the long leg was damaged. A
specific feature of Caxias's "quinjengue" was an iron ring with "knots,"
or protuberances, fixed around the waist of the drum's body (Fig. 4). Its
function can be understood only after one has seen the instrument
played. A common playing position is to lay this drum crosswise on the
body of the "tambu," while the "tambu" lies flat on the ground (Ill. 6).
The ring with its protuberances then assures its stability. (The material
for the ring itself comes from industrial debris.) Another important
organological trait of this "quinjengue" was the presence of a sound
hole at the side (Fig. 4B). Caxias identified it as the "orificio unico de
ressonancia" while he designated the drum's long stand or leg of solid
wood as the "pe (foot)."
Fig. 4. "Quinjengue"
\ - iron ring
L'knots
0$.1t
A^^^^^Ns1 sound hole
A B
The "quinjengue" was played by our guide, Kleber Heraldo de

Cassia Teixeira, a resident of Capivari. Since he was not a member of
the "batuque" ensemble, however, he had to learn the pattern from
Caxias.
3. "Matraca": two percussion sticks, each about 35 centimeters long; used
by one player to strike a pattern on the body of the "tambu." The sticks
were connected with a string or strap of cloth, so that neither could get lost.
Ill. 5. "Tambu." (Arch. No. B 147) Ill. 6. "Quinjengue." (Arch. No. B 148)
Obviously, it is considered essential in "batuque" that the pattern

should be struck simultaneously with the two sticks. The "matraca" was
cut from "pau de goiabera," according to Caxias. This wood was used
because it is elastic and does not break. The "matraca" was played by
Dito Cabe?ada, age around fifty, a member of Caxias's entourage.
4. "Guaia": a double-cone rattle with a metal stemgrip welded on; it was
not played by anyone in the recorded session. With the regular per-
former absent, it was merely shown to us (Ill. 7). Caxias described it as
"de material de lata (flandre), com chumbo dentro." "Chumbo" is the
little ball of lead used in a shotgun. This word is pronounced "tlumbu"
in this region, deviating from standard Brazilian.
This was the standard instrumentation of Caxias's "batuque." The

drum names are treated here as masculine nouns and it is correct,
therefore, to say "o tambu," and "o quinjengue." The same applies to
the name of the dance itself: "o batuque." The rattle is also masculine-
"o guai'a"-but the name for the percussion sticks is feminine and singu-
lar: "a matraca," although it refers to a pair of sticks used jointly. With
these instruments Benedito Caxias and his assistants produced the move-
ment-and-timbre sequences that we recorded and filmed in his courtyard
on April 29, 1979. Our recordings begin with an interview (tape A 65/II-
A 66/I/1). At the end of the interview, Caxias starts tuning the two drums.
128 : GerhardKubik
Ill. 7. "Guaia." (Arch. No. B 152)
This was not easy, since they had been left unattended for a long time.
Talking about his method of tuning by warming the skin at a fire, he points
out that it is quicker than simply leaving the drums in the sun. He adds: "If
the drum stays for a long time [without tuning] one can put some alcohol
on the skin and the tuning goes much faster." By "alcohol" he means the
homemade distilled type, generally known as "pinga" in the State of Sao
Paulo.
After tuning he tapped the "tambu" (rec. A 66/I/1) while I briefly filmed
his action. But he was not yet happy with the tuning. He holds his drum
again near the fire (Ill. 8) and then tells the others, Kleber Heraldo in par-
ticular, what they should play. At one point, Caxias complains that his
companions "know nothing." That may have been true to a certain ex-
tent, but Caxias was also known for having a somewhat nagging character.
Eventually, they seemed to play to his satisfaction and we made what he
considered a representative recording and film of the "batuque" ensemble
drumming (tape A 66/1/6). Dito Cabecada, aged about fifty and a member
of Caxias's "batuque" team, struck the "matraca" on the body of the
"tambu." Although he appeared to be drunk, he seemed to play to
Caxias's delight. There was no one to join in with the "guaifa," however.
U
IS .IW
z
: a4
:: : t
Ill. 8. Benedito Caxias warms up the skin of the "quinjengue" at a fire

in his courtyard. Capivari, April 19, 1979. (Archive No. B 162/Kubik).
130 : GerhardKubik
Film Documentationand Kinetic Analysis
In the documentation of Benedito Caxias's drumming, one of our aims

was to assess and record what he and his associates were actually doing
while performing "batuque" and how their patterns were organized and
combined. It was only at a later stage that we began to sort out possible
African and non-African traits in his performance style and to discover
how his patterns could be related to certain musical genres and certain
historical musical cultures in Africa. Another focus of our fieldwork was
to assess the role and function that Caxias's "batuque" might have in the
present-day Afro-Brazilian environment, such as that of Capivari.
My analytical shots of Caxias's drumming and the accompaniment (on
super 8 mm, color, synch-sound, at 24 frames per second) were all made
on April 29, 1979, in the courtyard behind Caxias's house. The context
could be characterized as a rehearsal, as there was no audience. Caxias
did not have all his professional performers with him during the filming
session and the young man on the "quinjengue," Kleber Heraldo, had to
be shown what to do. But we had no other choice. In any case, after some
practice, he seemed to agree to the accompaniment, concentrating with
visible delight on his own performance on the "tambu."
The following discussion involves the sonic and nonsonic aspects of the
drum patterns themselves, integrating direct field observations with audi-
tory analysis of the sound recordings and analysis of the motion behavior
of the musicians and the kinetic structure of their patterns as recorded on
film.
My shots begin with a short episode in which Caxias shows Heraldo
how to play "quinjengue." From watching the interaction in the film, it
appears that the latter understands the pattern in its temporal structure,
but possibly not so well in its kinetic aspects and in the timbre values
expected to be produced on the drum. Caxias's own performance of this
pattern, while demonstrating it to Kleber Heraldo, suggests that it is com-
posed of three timbre units, two to be produced by strokes with the right
hand, and one with the left. The right hand alternates between a kind of
"dry" stroke-almost like a "voiceless consonant"-falling on beat 1 of
the performer's internal reference line, and an "open" stroke falling on
beat 3. The accentuated left-hand strokes precede those of the right hand
by the value of one elementary pulse and fall, therefore, off beat.
The next shot shows the three musicians in full performance. From here
on, I did the frame-by-frame transcription reproduced below, following
a method I developed in 1962 during field research in Mocambique
(Kubik, 1965). It was later refined to go beyond "impact notation," in-
cluding the analysis of movement between impact points without any sonic
result (Kubik, 1972, 1981/82).
Drum Patternsin the "Batuque" of Benedito Caxias : 131
:-:-2
A, .qN
,
'4
I 4
?:'0 :::
??-
zi;
Ill. 9. The "quinjengue" can be laid across the body of the "tambu"; the
iron ring stabilizes its position. Kleber Heraldo is seen in this photograph
helping Caxias (left) to put the "quinjengue" in place. This is one of the
possible performance positions, another is that seen in our film (cf. draw-
ings accompanying the transcription of the drum patterns).
In the courtyard of Caxias's House, Capivari, April 29, 1979. (Archive
No. IX/37A).
132 : GerhardKubik
Applying cinematographic transcription to Caxias's drum patterns, we

first isolate the agents generating motion: hands, percussion sticks, and
so on. Next, we have to identify the kinemes within each agent's move-
ment, that is, the smallest discernible action units that seem to be signifi-
cant for the performer, such as stroke with the flat right palm or stroke with
the right fist. Each of these kinemes is then given a notational symbol. For
determining what is intraculturally significant, there are two basic pro-
cedures: (1) interpreting verbal statements given by the performer himself
during fieldwork; and (2) determining each supposed kineme's variation
margin by looking at a sequence of several repetitions either in a live per-
formance or on film. For example, if the variation margin of two modes
of striking supposed to be separate kinemes is so wide that they overlap and
one cannot always distinguish them clearly as this or that mode, then they
have to be taken as representing one and the same kineme from the per-
former's viewpoint. On the other hand, if they remain visually distinct in
every repetition, it is likely that they are also distinguished in the per-
former's mind as separate modes of action. This is, of course, an indirect
method of assessing what may be significant for the exponents of a culture
and it has its flaws if scrutinized rigidly from the viewpoint of cognitive
anthropology. But in a situation of great need, that is, if verbal inquiry is
not possible or produces no tangible results, it may still be helpful.
Caxias's kinetic resources turned out to be extremely rich. A comparison
of the movie shots with tape recordings that were made simultaneously
(orig. tape no. A 66/1/6) demonstrates that his repertoire of strokes is meant
to produce different timbre units. In the recording one clearly hears that
the master drummer aims at producing not merely "rhythms" but dif-
ferent "pitches" or timbre/pitch units. There is what may be called a
"deep tone," there is a "middle tone," a "high tone," and perhaps there
are two more intermediate tonal levels. In all, I have counted five. Identical
timbre is produced by analogous strokes either with the right or the left
hand, expressed in my notational symbols by 0 and@.
Before I began the frame-by-frame transcription, I made a preliminary
assessment of the repertoire through normal screening of a copy of the film,
followed by screening in slow motion. Next I checked my general observa-
tions with the independent tape recordings, which-in contrast to the syn-
chronous sound on the film's magnetic strip-cover longer stretches of
Caxias's performance. For the frame-by-frame analysis, I used a viewer-
editor. From this moment on, evaluation was exclusively based on visual
observation frame by frame to determine the impact points of strokes,
changes in hand positions, and the movement profile visible between
strokes or taps. The sound recording was not consulted while transcribing
from film; thus I was not influenced by the sound. The original transcrip-
tion was made on common graph paper. The vertical lines stood for the
frames of the film and were numbered from left to right this way: 0, 10, 20,
and so on (see also Kubik, 1972). The horizontal lines stood for the dif-
ferent instruments used ("matraca" was also counted as an instrument).
In this notational system, I systematically marked each action seen in
the film, frame by frame, identifying each type of stroke with the nota-
tional symbol I had chosen.
When such a transcription is completed, it is retranscribed into a final,
film-independent notational system and the vertical lines are erased. Before
rewriting the transcription, however, the analyzer has to identify the "ele-
mentary pulsation" (Kubik, 1961). In African and African-American
music, this term signifies a continuous flow of fast reference units in the
mind of the performers and the dancers. These reference units, although
subjective, are so omnipresent and deeply entrenched in the mind that one
does not actually think of them. And yet they serve as a most important
temporal orientation screen for the performers. The elementary pulsation
can be objectified by actual strokes, but it can also be silent or represented
in fragmentary fashion with strokes "left out."
In a cinematographic transcription, the elementary pulses can often be
detected by identifying the shortest, but regularly recurring, distances
between impact points (strokes and so on). New vertical lines are then
drawn through those impact points to represent the elementary pulsation
(see the transcription, Fig. 5). Caution is recommended here, however,
because of a frequent misunderstanding by observers who hold that the
elementary pulse line is identical with the "smallest rhythmic units" in
a piece. In certain African musical styles, for example, in the Yoruba-based
cult music of Bahia, there can be instances where the elementary pulse
line is at some points further divided by certain drum strokes (usually by
the half). Such subdivisions have no orientation function for the performers
and are often merely ornamental. They are always transient. Thus, they
must not be mistaken for the elementary pulsation. Although in practice
the elementary pulses may indeed coincide with the smallest time units that
one can detect in a piece of African or African-American music, the rule
of thumb is that the elementary pulse line is made up of only those action
units that suggest an uninterrupted flow.
The circled number at the beginning of my transcription scores indicates
what I call the "form or cycle number" (Kubik, 1961). It expresses repeat-
ing units, such as themes, by the number of elementary pulses that they
cover. In Caxias's drumming, for example, the basic theme that he per-
forms on the "tambu" covers sixteen elementary pulses. That is his cycle.
In notations of African and African-American music the cycle number
replaces Western-style time signatures. Reinforced vertical lines indicate
where performers feel the inception points of their inner "reference beat,"
that is, beat 1. Besides the elementary pulsation, the beat is the second line
134 :GerhzardKubik
Fig. 5. Transcription
Extract from "Batuque" Drumming by Benedito Caxias.
Basic pulsation (one pulse: 576 M. M.)
3 4
I II I I I II I IL I L i i I
matraca")
quinjengue" (r)
0 ID 0 III-1
"tamnbu"(3)(12)
Internal
reference Beat: 1 2 3 4
6 7 8
0~~~0
9 10o1 12
13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20
4 4~~~JL A
o 0
0 I) ?
21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28
29 30 31 32
33 34 35 36
37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44
I I O o o 1t o I -o 0 I
136 : GerhardKubik
45 46 47 48
oLi---- ~_o ----- -8-o---* -

I ? 1'r I?
I ItI *T' I 4 T1o" IT I i
49 50 51 52
- I.Io o 4 o- o
IT?T @"
?"T'"
T II II T
cf?i |
53 54 55 56
57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64
65 66 67 68
0IO io I I I11 11II 11
69 70 71 72
? IT . . . .2 . 6~;:
N
I I I I I I I I I I VT T I ' I
73 74 75 76
77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84
- o I: <-- -I
L o I -lf-- L o
IT1 1To ~o
-,
- , , I ToT
o
- , ,I
85 86
I I io I etc . . . . .
-
I I T?-T ~' I..
138 : GerhardKubik
?
o
l 0o oS: ' r o T
t'l - ,.^ v
v r l i I ..n u .. I I II II I
END
of orientation for the performers. In the material from Capivari, the per-
formers have a "common beat," thus the reinforced lines pass through the
staff. It is easy to determine the place of beat 1 from the motor behavior of
the performers (and dancers), as well as from the structures of the patterns
themselves. By far, the easiest method of verification is by looking at the
steps and general movement behavior of dancers. In Caxias's drumming
on the "tambu"-but not in the patterns played by his companions on
their instruments-there is evidence for the presence of two simultaneous
elementary pulse lines, dividing the cycle alternately by 16 and by 12. This
is a notable curiosity. The master drummer Caxias shifts between the two
in several places in his performance. The second pulse line, namely, the
one that divides the cycle by 12, has been indicated in my transcription by
additional vertical "way marks" for the "tambu" score.
In figure 6, taken from single frames in the film, the playing positions
and types of strokes (i.e., division of a total movement cycle into kinemes)
are shown for each instrument. Each action unit in a performer's reper-
toire is identified by a notational symbol.
The combination of patterns in Caxias's "batuque" is organized to
allow the master drummer (on the "tambu") a broad margin for variation.
Each instrument has a specific function:
(1) On the "quinjengue" the performer plays a basic pattern without any
variation, using both hands. This pattern is produced by alternating
left-right hand movements. There are three kinemes: (a) the "closed,"
"dry," "stopped," or "muted" stroke-whatever one prefers to call
it-which falls on beat 1 of the inner reference scheme; (b) the "open"
stroke, with the right hand falling on beat 3 and resulting in a prolonged
sound; (c) the accentuated left-hand strokes which occur always one
Ill. 10. Dito Cabecada is striking Ill. 11. Playing positions for the
a time-line pattern on the lower "quinjengue" (performed by
part of the body of the "tambu," Kleber Heraldo, left) and the
played by Caxias in "riding posi- "tambu" (by Caxias). In the
tion." Capivari, April 29, 1979. background is Guilherme dos
(Arch. No. B 167). Santos Barbosa. Capivari, same
date. (Arch. No. B 166).
pulse before any of the other strokes, that is, always off beat. In terms of
its sequence of timbre values, this pattern has a bipartite structure and
extends over eight elementary pulses. The pattern is repeated through-
out. In the "batuque" of Caxias-as probably elsewhere in the State of
Sao Paulo-the "quinjengue" functions as the basic drum.
(2) With the "matraca" another performer marks what can be identified
as a "time-line pattern." Obviously, it is essential in "batuque" that
such a pattern be struck with the two sticks at once-the player holding
one stick in each hand. It is struck on the lower part of the body of the
"tambu," which is played simultaneously by the master drummer, who
is squatting on it in a "riding position." The strokes of the "matraca"
are slightly dissimultaneous, which results in a "dry" timbre effect,
considered desirable by the performer. The difference in impact of the
left and right hand beaters is, however, minimal. There is no "rhyth-
mic" intentionality in it, so it need not be rhythmically expressed in
notations.
140 : GerhardKubik
Fig. 6. Playing Positions and Notational Symbols.
Playing Positions Notational Symbols
"matraca"
The two percussion sticks hit the body of

the "tambu" with a stroke that is slightly
dissimultaneous, thus producing a friction
effect. The difference in time is so small
'?\~ \. \
/~\. |that it need not be marked in the transcrip-
tion. It is also not intended to produce two
different rhythms, but to create a charac-
teristic "double-stroke" timbre.
"quinjengue"
An "open" stroke; the flat

palm of the right hand,
fingers relaxed, not
touching, strikes the area
of the drum skin indi-
cated in the illustration.
A "closed" stroke; pro-

duced in the same man-
\ \ ner with the flat palm of
the right hand as above,
but here the hand restson
the drum skin after the
impact for the exact time
period indicated by this
symbol. A kind of "dry"
timbre is the result.
* An "open" stroke with

the front part of the left
hand (shaded in the
drawing). It must fall
precisely on the area of
the drum skin in-
dicated.
" tambu"
O A tap with the front part of the right

palm into an area of the drum skin as
shown. After impact the hand is lifted
immediately. This stroke is analogous
to the one with the left hand, notated
as *, below.
A somewhat more forceful (accentu-

ated) stroke with the right palm's front
part (shaded in the illustration). It hits
the same area of the drum, bouncing
back immediately. The result is an
open sound of some duration.
* A tap with the front part of the left

palm into the area indicated. This
stroke is analogous to the one of the
right hand notated as C , above.
md\ A stopped stroke produced by striking

the front part of the palm of bothhands
simultaneously into the area indicated,
whereby the hands adhere to the drum
skin for only a short moment, assuring
that no prolonged sound will develop.
0f
Return of the hands to a "waiting

position" (resting on the drum skin).
142 : GerhardKubik
The performer hits the centre of the

drum with the side of his right hand,
fingers lightly spread.
A slackened tap with the right hand

on an area at the edge of the drum
skin. The skin is lightly hit with first
and second fingers only, in a move-
ment that is generated from the wrist.
This produces a sound with a "high"
pitch and "metallic" timbre. There-
after, the hand glides off the edge
of the drum skin.
0 A stroke with the right fist into the

centre of the drum skin. This type of
stroke is used as a signal for ending
a piece or a section of the drumming.
(3) The "tambu" is the master-drum. On this drum the performer intro-
duces a timbre-melodic theme and then varies it, comments on it. While
playing he probably verbalizes his patterns; that is, the drum seems to
"speak," at least to him. This would explain the use of so many distinc-
tive timbre-values produced within a repertoire of four kinemes for the
right hand alone, one more for the left hand, and one for both hands. In
his performance, Caxias draws without doubt on a repertoire of standard
variations for "tambu" in the "batuque" dance; he must have played
most of them throughout his long life. Essentially, his variation method
consists of paraphrasing the basic timbre-melodic theme, which covers 16
elementary pulses. It always ends in the same place, with a distinctive
stroke (either@ or in fig. 5). After that comes a pause of one bar or
more, during which his hands are held parallel in a resting position. Al-
though this produces no sound, it has the value of a kineme on its own
(transcription symbol: $ ).
Most of the repertoire of different kinemes, or "modes of striking," is
concentrated in Caxias's right hand. In the left hand he only uses a stan-
dard stroke (transcription symbol: )), which is analogous to the standard
tap of the right hand (transcription symbol: O ).
The accents struck on the "tambu" seem to run parallel to those played
by the other performers, to the extent that even the same gesture is used
concurrently, for example, when the "quinjengue" player strikes with his
right hand, so does the "tambu" player. There are virtually no cross
rhythms. The principal method by which Caxias creates rhythmic tension
is through his shifting between the two simultaneous elementary pulse
lines. When he abandons the 16-pulse division of the cycle by superimpos-
ing chains of "triplets" (cycle number 12), a sort of sham cross rhythm
results. Some Western researchers might categorize this as a "vertical
hemiola" (Brandel, 1959), but I think that on an unconscious level Caxias
was permanently aware of two simultaneous inner reference lines related
4: 3 (16: 12 in the cycle). At times, his strokes were placed at points of one
line, at times, at points of the other line. In my notation I have expressed
this by adding vertical way marks dividing the cycle by 12 for Caxias's
drumming only (see bottom of the staff, fig. 5).
The African and the Non-African Heritage in Caxias' s

"Batuque"
The study of Brazilian music almost inevitably leads the researcher to

questions about the historical components of the country's present-day
traditions. One cannot fully understand Brazilian music without under-
standing its past. But in regard to Afro-Brazilian traditions, this often
144: GerhardKubik
requires passing a threshold. Slavery and colonization, which denied

Brazilians of African descent any kind of African historical past, resulted
in the extreme repression of cultural memory. Even if there were such a
past, it would have to be vague, general, mythological, and pan-African.
The problem is therefore psychological. There are specific African cultural
memories in most Brazilians, but in Afro-Brazilians-categorized as such
by society on the basis of physical characteristics-they were anesthetized,
immured in concrete, impossible to crack. So one cannot easily talk about
this memory; it is too deeply buried in the unconscious. One can talk about
"Africa," but that is either Tarzan's Africa or "modern Africa" as a
symbol of ideological struggles and hope for liberation.
It is not possible here to elaborate on the tremendous psychological
aspects of research in Afro-Brazilian cultures. But disregarding psychology
for now and working basically from the platform of a historian and anthro-
pologist, one can adopt either of two standard approaches in the study of
Brazilian culture history (including music): (1) evaluate sixteenth- to
twentieth-century written, iconographic, and other sources from both sides
of the Atlantic Ocean; or (2) compare present-day (i.e., late twentieth-
century) traditions as they survive in Brazil and in Africa with one another
and project the results into the past. Here, one has to keep in mind that no
cultural tradition has ever been absolutely stable in history; cultures have
always been subject to processes of change. Traditions have often migrated
to other areas (thus changing our distribution maps) and into the repertoire
of other peoples, for example, the acquisition of certain African instru-
mental traditions by Amerindian and Luso-Brazilian communities. Many
traditions have modulated in the most unexpected manners.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. Both
have undergone considerable methodological refinement in recent years
and gone are the days when it was sufficient to make statements such as,
"ANGOIA OU ANGUAIA-E um tipo de chocalho de procedencia
negra"(Lima, 1954:120).
Considering the importance of decades and centuries of amalgamation,
reinterpretation, and transculturation in Brazil, I am adopting here, for the
historical analysis of research data, a method of "dissective" consideration of
a culture complex such as "batuque," in addition to other methods. This
means that we must first look at cultural traits in the singular, "dissecting"
the "batuque" complex into its smallest distinguishable meaningful units,
and compare them with analogous small units in African cultures. Allowing
for the fact that matter (object) and designations are never rigidly attached,
but-on the contrary-are dissociable when historical factors promote dis-
sociation, we have to recognize that the two need not necessarily have the
same geographical or cultural origins. Thus, we shall treat the organological
features of Benedito Caxias's drums separately from their designations.
In addition, organological features themselves are to be considered as

composite. We can dismantle them and look at single traits in isolation,
such as the thin column or "pe" of the "quinjengue" or the strange sound
hole at the side of the body, or the nail tension of both "quinjengue" and
"tambu," and only later look at them in an integrated way. Similarly,
other areas of comparative inquiry, namely, the playing techniques and
the structure of the patterns played, can first be looked at in dissociation,
disregarding the instruments themselves. The results of each inquiry stand
on their own; later, all of the results can be compared and evaluated jointly
to see if any conclusive configuration emerges.
African Parallels to the Organologyand Designations of the "Batuque" Instruments
A comparison of Caxias's percussion instruments with African in-

struments in museums or in descriptions-including my personal African
field notes-points to the following results.
"Quinjengue." Some organological characteristics of this drum type point

specifically to one area in Africa: Mocambique. Goblet-shaped drums with
a long supporting leg and nail tension of the skin are known particularly
in southeastern Africa. Their main distribution area covers the lower Zam-
bezi valley, southern Malawi, all of northern Mocambique up to Lake
Malawvi (Nyasa) in the west, and the Ruvuma valley in the north. Among
the -Makonde, such drums assume unusual proportions in certain speci-
mens of the singanga, which look like teeth and are pierced into the sand for
playing (see the photographs in Kubik, 1982:185-187; Dias 1986:Figure
107). When comparing Moaambique models with the "quinjengue," it is
important, however, to consider only those whose stand or leg is of solid
wood, because there are other drums in southeastern Africa of comparable
shape with a hollow stand, for example, among the -Yao (field notes, 1967/
Kubik to Malawri collection, archived in the Museum fur Volkerkunde,
West Berlin). These can be excluded from comparisons with the "quin-
jengue" of Brazil.
In a collection of several goblet-shaped drums with supporting legs in
the Museu de Etnologia, Lisbon, I found that the specimens under inv.
nos AO-182 and AO-183 (the latter with a shorter and somewhat thinner
leg; see ill. 12) are the closest parallels to Caxias's "quinjengue" that I can
trace at the present. They were acquired for the museum by a missionary,
Pe. Borges, at Borome in Tete Province, Moaambique, in 1970 and attri-
buted to the "Angonis," which is to be understood symbolically, because
the true Angoni, migrants from South Africa in the nineteenth century,
do not use drums, unless they adopted them from people conquered by
146 : GerhardKubik
(Arch. No. B 1078, inv. no. AO-182 [right] and AO-183 [left])
(Arch. No. B 1079)

11. 12. Drum types from the Zambezi valley, Mo;ambique. Courtesy of
the Museu de Etnologia, Lisbon.
them. Without doubt, these drums came from local cultures within lan-
guage zone N (in Malcolm Guthrie's tentative classification of the Bantu
languages, 1948), in the lower Zambezi valley. The Zambezi valley and
northern Mozambique were important areas for slave recruiting in the
nineteenth century (Carreira, 1979) during the last stages of the Atlantic
slave trade.
Following are the details for the two specimens (Ill. 7) copied from the
card index at the Museu de Etnologia:
No. AO-182
Dec. 1971, Coll. 91, 1970, compra. Adquirente: Pe. Borges.
Moaambique-Tete- Borome
Grupo cultural: Angonis
Alt.: 0,880. Diam. boca + 0,460
Unimembranofone, com caixa em forma de calice em que o pe e cilindrico,
nacisso, e sem base. Nesse p6 ha dois aneis escavados, um no alto outro no
fundo, estando passado por este uma cordinha que amarra a azelha que se
destaca da pele (membrana). A membrana abotoa para pinos de madeira,
por baixo e por cima dos quais, alternadamente, passa uma tira torcida de
couro. Altura do pe 0,360.
No. AO-183
Coll. No. 92, Dec. 1971, 1970 compra. Adquirente: Pe. Borges
Mocambique-Tete-Borome
Grupo cultural: Angonis
Alt.: 0,810. Diam. boca 0,370
Unimembranofone, cor caixa de madeira em forma de copo, cor um pe
nacisso, cilindrico de 0,230 de comp. x 0,090 de diam. A pele (membrana)
esta abotoada para pinos de madeira. A maior parte dos pinos faltam, que-
bradas.
Goblet-shaped drums with a long, solid column projecting from the

middle of the "cup" downward and serving as an unfooted stand, are, of
course, also found in West Africa. An example is the chenepritalking drum
photographed by Mose Yotamu among the Anyi (an Akan group) on the
border of Ghana and the Ivory Coast (Yotamu, 1979). But in these West
African types, which include the famous atumpan (talking drum) of the
Asante of Ghana, the single skin is attached by the method of cord-and-peg
bracing ("Schnurpflockspannung," Wieschhoff, 1933: 16, 18-19); that is,
the cords are laced at the lower end to pegs stuck into the wall of the drum.
This type of tension is only found in certain areas of the Guinea Coast (see
distribution map in Wieschhoff, 1933:16). In Brazil it is often found in the
drums "rum," "rumpi," and "le" as used in Nago/Jeje "candomble"
religious cults (Pinto, 1986a). But in southern Brazilian musical traditions,
with their Bantu-dominated African heritage, this skin tension is not com-
mon, as it is unknown in the Bantu language zones of Africa, including
148 : GerhardKubik
Mozambique and Angola. The drums used in Caxias's and other "batuque"
groups, both the "quinjengue" and the "tambu," have nail tension
("Nagelspannung," Wieschhoff, 1933), that is, with membrane nailed to
the body of the drum. More than form alone, technology can, of course,
be used as a diagnostic marker for historical connections between tradi-
tions. Consequently, we have to look at areas in Africa that have counter-
parts to Benedito Caxias's drums, not only with regard to similarity of
shape, but also to parallels in the technology of manufacture.
Considering the designation "quinjengue," our attention is drawn to a
different geographical area. Among the OvaNkhumbi, OvaHanda, and
OvaCilenge of southwestern Angola, there are obviously related drum
designations, for example, kenjengo in Lunkhumbi (field recordings at
Katengeta, tape no. 51; Kikuku, tapes 51 and 52; Munengole, tape 52),
cikenjengo(at Kalingiri, tape no. 52), and ocipinjingoin Luhanda (recordings
at Mambondwe, tape 54; Mukondo, tape 55). (See also published record-
ings on the record G. Kubik: Humbi en Handa-Angola, no. 9, Musee
Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren 1973, item nos. A/2 and 3.) Among
the -Nkhumbi, also known in the literature as "Humbe" (Portuguese
spelling), kenjengois one in a set of two or three drums used in a variety of
dances such as nkili, kaunjangera,bulunganga,and macikuma(film documents
and field recordings 1965/Kubik). The southern Brazilian designation
"quinjengue," if retranscribed in a Bantu orthography, gives the spelling
kinjenge,which falls within the margin of phonological variation that south-
western Angolan drum names could easily have gone through in Brazil.
In his interview (tape A 66/I/1; reproduced at the end of this article),
Benedito Caxias claims that "in Africa," the "quinjengue" is called
"candongueiro." Lima (1954:102) and Araujo (1973:74) indicate this
name for a drum used in "jongo." In Lima (1954 147), a photograph of a
performance suggests that this drum is closer in shape to the "tambu" than
to the "quinjengue," while Araijo's drawings (1973:74, 135) give incon-
sistent information. A specimen of "candongueiro" that I saw in Lima's
collection in the Museu de Folclore, Sao Paulo, is a cylindro-conical drum
(open at the bottom) and relatively small. It resembles much more the
"tambu" type than it does the "quinjengue." The museum notes confirm
that a drum called "candongueiro" is used in "jongo" and not in "ba-
tuque." Nevertheless, Caxias's statement is interesting as an oral tradition
because both drum names, "quinjengue" and "candongueiro," probably
come from the same region in Angola. The name "candongueiro" sounds
suggestively like belonging to a language in Angola's Provincia de Wila
(Huila), the same area where drums called kenjengocan be found. Retran-
scribed into current Angolan orthography, "candongueiro" would read
kandongero,which resembles the designation for a dance genre found among
the VaNkhumbi and Vahanda called kaunjangera(see recordings Kubik/
1965, at Kalingiri, tape no. 52). This dance involves a line of girls clapping
hands and three men with drums (one called ng'oma, the other two called
cikenjengo).The drums are held by the standing performers between their
legs. Two of the women dance out of their row toward the drums, later to
be replaced by another pair, and so on (see film document at village Kalin-
giri, ca. 25 km from Dinde, Provincia de Wila, Angola, field research
document KubikJuly 17, 1965).
As mentioned, the kenjengoin southwestern Angola do not resemble the
"quinjengue" in shape, although they are also goblet-shaped, single-
skinned, and have a "pe," if only a very short one. In spite of the obvious
differences there is, however, one significant trait that can indeed be com-
pared, namely, the presence of a small sound hole cut into the side of the
lower part of the drum's body. It is the kind of "orificio unico de resso-
nancia" that Caxias pointed out as important for the "quinjengue." By
comparison, there are no such sound holes in the Mozambique drums.
Kenjengo-type drums were, of course, constructed by slaves and their
descendants in Latin America. We have one document in Oneyda Alva-
renga (1974:132), which gives a photograph (figure 33) showing a specimen
of this type of drum made in Brazil.
Our analysis seems to have paid off in the case of the "quinjengue."
The results suggest that "quinjengue" represents a fusion of ideas going
back (1) to drum models from the lower Zambezi valley (Mocambique)
and (2) to the Provincia de Wila (Huila) in Angola. The overall shape and
the method of attaching the skin are for the most part perpetuating a
Mocambiquan tradition, while some other elements, such as the sound hole
at the side, probably come from the kenjengo.The name "quinjengue" is
a phonetic variant of kenjengo,although it cannot be ascertained at present
which of the two designations has changed its final vowel during the last
150 years. It is possible that, by the mid-nineteenth century, there was in
Angola an -e or -i as the final vowel, in which case the Brazilian term would
have retained an older pronunciation.
"Tambu." It is easier to identify the African connections of the second

drum in Brazilian "batuque," the "tambu." Organological traits and
designation both point to a distinct area: the former Kingdom of the
Congo, including northwestern Angola and the southwest of the Republic
of Zaire. On the LP record Muziek van de Mpangu by Gerard Ciparisse,
devoted to one of the Kikoongo-speaking subgroups, listeners will find a
recording and, in the accompanying notes, a photograph and description
of a drum called ntambu. It is played together with another called ngoma.
Ciparisse writes (1973:4)
Dans la classe de membranophones nous trouvons le ngomaet le ntambuqui
150 : GerhardKubik
sont des tambours a membrane dont la base est ouverte et dont les peaux sont
clouees ou lacees. Ces deux unites ne different que par leurs dimensions, le
ngomaetant le plus grand des deux, et par leur disposition en cours d'execu-
tion, le ngomaetant place entre les jambes, le ntambuse jouant en general par
paire, plus volontiers sous les aisselles.
Some "rhythmic" patterns transcribed by Lima (1954:108-110) for the
"tambu," "candongueiro," and "angoia" in the Brazilian dance "jongo"
(see the first lines of his notations) are more or less identical with the pat-
terns transcribed by Ciparisse (1973:7) for an ensemble he recorded in the
"Bas-Congo" area of Zaire. Only the performers' roles, it seems, are
exchanged, not the patterns and their combination.
In the collections of the Museu de Etnologia, Lisbon, I have found one
specimen of drum, comparable to the Brazilian "tambu." Characteris-
tically, it is from the same Kikoongo-speaking region, but was collected on
the Angolan side of the border, in Zaire District, near Quelo. It once be-
longed to a chief of the -Solongo, a Kongo subgroup. Following are the
details from the museum's cards (ill. 13):
No. AL - 194
Maio 1970, No. da coll. 80, Mar?o 1967, compra.
Adquirente: A. A. Osorio de Castro. Proprietarioanterior: Rei do Povo
da Sanzala do Kinkengue-Quelo-Angola-Distr. Zaire-Quelo.
Grupo cultural: Mussorongos.
Local da fabrica: Sanzala do Kinkengue-Quelo-Conc. S. A. Zaire.
0,110 Comp., 0,25 Larg.
Tambor comprido duma pele de antilope. Tronco sem decoracao com dois
resaltos laterais onde pendia a corda para a sua suspensao. Tronco escavado
de les a les; membrana aplicada no topo mais largo, dobrada sobre este e fixa
por duas series de pinos de madeira; tampo p6stico de madeira com um fuso,
na outra extremidade.
As far east as Katanga (Shaba Province, Zaire) a type of drum called tambwe
(containing the same word stem) was reported byJean-Sebastien Laurenty
(1972:44). Among the Luba-Shankadi it is now associated with a friction
drum, imported from the Kanyoka. Tambwe in Shiluba means lion.
"Matraca. "Neither the shape nor the designation "matraca" gives us any
clues. What is significant, however, is how they are played and what func-
tion the struck pattern has in the ensemble of Caxias. The "matraca" are
struck on the body of a deep-tuned drum; the player strikes what can be
called a time-line pattern, in this case, a well-known 8-pulse, 3-stroke
pattern; the strokes with the two sticks are slightly dis-synchronous. All
three traits would point to West-Central Africa, precisely to the large area
from the Lower Congo across northern Angola to Katanga.
Ill. 13. Chiefs drum collected from the "Rei do Povo da Sanzala do Kin-
kengue," near Quelo, Zaire District, northwestern Angola in March 1967.
Inv. no. AL 194. Courtesy of the Museu de Etnologia, Lisbon.
152 : GerhardKubik
The word "matraca" does not sound Bantu-African, mainly because

of the -tr- cluster of consonants in the word stem; but ma- could, of course,
be derived from a Bantu cumulative prefix. The latter idea is corroborated
by a statement found in Lima (1954:119), namely, that the percussion
sticks used in "batuque" are also known as "mitraca." Ma- being ex-
changable for mi- underlines its nature as a separate, meaningful unit,
for example, a prefix. In addition, mi- is a prominent plural prefix in
various Angolan designations for percussion sticks, for example, mikakaji
in the Cokwe and Luvale/Lwena languages. Similarly, these sticks are used
for striking time-line patterns (field notes 1965 and 1982/Kubik in Angola).
"Guaid." The double-cone rattle called "guaia" in Caxias's "batuque"

group, and as "ganza" in various other contexts (Araujo, 1973:135), can
be traced as a distinctive type of rattle to culture areas of Angola and
southern Zaire. Characteristic is the double-cone shape and the use of
sheet metal as manufacturing material. Among the -Nkhumbi of south-
western Angola I documented an identical rattle, which was used by Emilia
Kakinda, a kimbanda(traditional healer) in an umbandahealing and spirit
possession ceremony that I recorded at Kikuku, Provincia de Wila, on
July 13, 1965. She also used, in the same ceremony, a friction drum called
pwita in southwestern Angola. The rattle was called maxakaxaka,an ono-
matopoeic designation referring to the timbre of the rattle strokes (orig.
tape no. 51/1/16 - 18). I saw the same type of rattle used in the deep interior
of Angola by a Cileya masked dancer at Sangombe, Provincia Kwandu-
Kuvangu, in September 1965. Here it was called ngenzo, a word obviously
related to the second name common in Brazil: "ganza." Ciparisse (1973:
22) also reports this type of rattle from his fieldwork in the "Bas-Congo"
area of Zaire, and his photograph shows that it is indeed the same double-
cone type: "Le nsaka, ici un boite de conserves contenant des graines
sechees et munie d'une manche, est un hochet que l'on agite selon deux
mouvements alternatifs."
In the Afro-Brazilian community at Bairro de Cafund6, near Salto de
Pirapora in the State of Sao Paulo, a rattle used by the young Jovenio,
about nineteen, was made from the nose of a watering can-another
(although single) conical shape. He produced fascinating variations of
timbre sequences implying an 8-pulse time line, such as in Caxias's "ma-
traca" pattern (field notes and cinematographic documentation, April 16,
1979/Kubik). He called his rattle xakwayo. It was part of a vocabulary of
remnant words from Umbundu, Kimbundu, and Kikoongo that the
Cafund6 community still remembered (Barbosa 1978, 1982).
Regarding the designations for rattles in southern Brazil, including the
term "ang6ia" for a broad basket rattle (Araujo, 1973:133), which was
probably introduced by slaves from Cabinda, we can say that they are often
based on the Bantu word stem -GWAYA (in its variations: -KWAYO,
-GOYA, -KAYA, and so on). In Kimbundu-speaking communities in
Angola, sakaya (pl.: jisakaya) is a common name for tin rattles (see my
recordings at Kizenga, Malanji Province, 1982, orig. tape 92). From the
Ilha de Luanda, Jose Redinha (1984:137) reports the name sakayu for a
"forma deturpada de chocalho. Nome duma cabaQa estriduladora, especie
de maracf, entre os Muxiluandas da Ilha de Luanda. Usam graos de milho
como estriduladores." It seems that this kind of designation for rattles is
predominantly found in languages of northwestern Angola, southwestern
Zaire, and Cabinda.
From the aforementioned observations, we can narrow down the areas
in Africa from which Benedito Caxias's instruments and probably the
present-day instruments of "batuque" in general must have originated:
(1) southwestern Zaire/northwestern Angola (Kikoongo- and Kimbundu-
speaking areas); (2) southwestern Angola (Lunkhumbi- and Luhanda-
speaking areas); (3) the Lower Zambezi valley, into northern Mocambique
(languages of Guthrie's zones N and P). "Tambu" (name and object)
originated in the area of the Kingdom of Congo, at its largest extension
(Mpangu name: ntambu). "Quinjengue" represents a blend of Lower
Zambezi drum forms and some traits from drum traditions in southwestern
Angola (-Nkhumbi, -Handa, -Mwila, and so on). The name "quinjengue"
is probably related to kenjengoin Lunkhumbi and neighboring languages,
where variants such as cikenjengoand cipinjingooccur. "Matraca" is ubiqui-
tous in West-Central Africa as a percussion tool, but can be related in
playing style, technique, and in the patterns performed to northern An-
golan, southern Zairean, and northwestern Angolan traditions. "Guaia"
can be related as an object, that is, a double-cone tin rattle, to various
musical cultures across Angola into southwestern Zaire; as a designation,
it can be related specifically to rattles in Kimbundu-speaking areas of
northern Angola.
Structuraland Stylistic Traits of Caxias's Drum Patterns
At first hearing of the recordings of Caxias's "batuque" drumming, nearly

everyone for whom I played them in Brazil and in Europe has suggested
that it is a percussion style in an "African idiom." This impression was
shared by audiences in West, Central, and South East Africa for whom I
played the recordings at lectures in 1981 and 1982 (particularly item no.
A 66/1/6). The reaction of these audiences raises a question: Did they really
find Caxias's drumming style convincingly "African" or were they merely
influenced by a stereotype associating drums with Africa? If the "African"
characteristics in the percussive part of Caxias's "batuque" are indeed so
154 : GerhardKubik
overwhelming, then it is legitimate to ask what exactly constitutes this

Africanness, and whether one could link not only the instruments and their
names, but also performance style and patterns to some specific African
traditions. When questioned in this particular manner, most of my inter-
locutors, in Brazil, Africa, and Europe were at a loss. All except one (from
Malawi) had suggested "Africa" or "Angola," but were apparently inspired
by a generalized knowledge about the ancestry of many Afro-Brazilians.
My Malawian coworker, Moya Aliya Malamusi, who was on our research
team in Brazil in 1980, viewed the film and heard the recordings on more
than one occasion. He said that the drumming style and pattern combina-
tions of Benedito Caxias reminded him of some music and dance forms in
the Lower Shire/Zambezi valley (Malawi and Mo?ambique). When he
made this statement I had not informed him of Caxias's genealogy on his
mother's side. He added that his impression was purely subjective.
There is one general characteristic in Caxias's drumming style that can
be linked to African musical cultures: the organization of the group's per-
formance in terms of a functional triplicity of combining drum patterns.
The performers' tasks are divided as follows: (1) the basic drum pattern
(on the "quinjengue"); (2) the time-line pattern (on the body of the
"tambu"); (3) the master drum patterns with many variations (on the
"tambu"). A fourth element, not documented in the film, is the rattle beat
(the "guaia"). This kind of organization is widespread in Africa and is
found in a comparable form, for example, in the area of the Kingdom of
Congo (Ciparisse, 1973), in Eshirima- and Elomwe-speaking cultures of
northern Mo?ambique (Kubik, 1964:82-86), and other places. The presence
of a time-line pattern, irrespective of the kind of pattern it is, allows us to
narrow down the area of possible historical relationships (for methodo-
logical aspects, see Kubik, 1979:13-22). And the fact that it is struck, in
Caxias's "batuque," on the body of a deep-tuned drum, and not perhaps
a bell narrows it down even more, precisely to the West-Central African
zone, including southwestern Zaire, northern Angola, eastern Angola,
Katanga, and adjacent areas. That the "tambu" can also be played lying
flat on the ground (although Caxias preferred the "riding position") points
suggestively to northwestern Angola/southwestern Zaire and, in this par-
ticular case, even more concretely to the Kingdom of Congo in its largest
historical extension. The time-line pattern itself ([x . . x. . x. ] is
ubiquitous and is known as a structure from the music of many African
cultures, including Arabic music in the Sudan. It cannot be used, there-
fore, as a diagnostic marker for historical connections with specific areas.
The basic drum pattern for the "quinjengue" is also ubiquitous. Con-
sidered in isolation, it is not particularly conclusive, except perhaps that
its development within a 16-pulse cycle-with the left-hand strokes falling
on pulses 4, 8, etc., very close to the right-hand strokes-is somewhat
unusual in comparable African patterns. In many west and south-central

African cultures, this pattern develops within a 12-pulse cycle. Whether
the change to 16 pulses could be due to the influence of certain nineteenth-
century mainstream Brazilian musical fashions (see below) is open to
speculation. We do not know how the "guaia" would fit into the music of
Caxias since we were not given a demonstration. Does it play a straight
beat or a pattern? From Lima's transcriptions of "batuque" performances
in the 1940s (Lima, 1954:87), it would appear that it plays different pat-
terns in different songs. The most surprising result, however, arises from
the analysis of Benedito Caxias's variations on the "tambu." Although
the auditory impression gathered by audiences from the recordings was
that of an almost "undiluted" African idiom surviving in Brazil, my
kinetic analysis from film does not confirm it. Caxias's drumming has
turned out to be a few marks less "African" than most of us had originally
thought. On the basis of the transcription (fig. 5) we can now differentiate
the African and non-African traits in Caxias's style.
African Traits
1. His delight in shifting between two different pulse lines, that is, between
3 and 4, in this case. Superimposition of strokes dividing the cycle either
by 12 or 6 (see bars 11 and 12, or 42-44) is in fact the only polyrhythmic
technique employed by Caxias.
2. His conceptualization of drum patterns not merely as "rhythms," but
as timbre-melodic sequences.
3. His concept of drumming as a movement of the hands in spatial con-
figurations.
4. The presence of a repertoire of several different kinemes (action units)
to constitute motion patterns.
5. His tendency to reinterpret non-African traits (see below) in terms of
African kinetic motion concepts.
None of the African traits isolated in Benedito Caxias's style of drumming,
except perhaps point 1, is specific enough to be traced exclusively to one or
two African cultures. Thus, contrary to expectation, the patterns played
by him on the "tambu" help us even less in narrowing down possible con-
nections with Africa than did the accompaniment ("quinjengue" and
"matraca"). On the other hand, it is also true that none of Caxias's drum
patterns could be called pan-African. In this context, what can help us is
to realize how significant not only the presence but also the absence of
certain well-known African traits in his drumming style may be. For ex-
ample, no traits whatsoever point to any West African connections; no
Yoruba or Ewe/Fon stylistic traits can be detected.
156 : GerhardKubik
With regard to point 1, the presence of a double elementary pulsation

organized in a 12 against 16 pulses relationship is a trait so specific that it
might serve as a diagnostic marker, if we can recall in which African musical
cultures it is prominent. Heretofore, it has been documented with concrete
and reliable transcription examples in the following African cultures: (a)
among the Chopi of Mocambique, particularly in their xylophone playing
(personal communication, Andrew Tracey); (b) among the Shangana-
Tsonga of Moaambique (see transcriptions of mohambixylophone pieces by
Johnston, 1973/74:91-93). It probably occurs elsewhere, but only from
Mo?ambique (and perhaps not by chance) do we have indisputable evi-
dence.
Non-African Traits
1. Caxias's tendency toward playing predominantly divisive rhythms;
compare, for example, the theme (mm. 3 and 4) in figure 5.
2. His use of what may represent short "drum rolls," subdividing the
second line of the elementary pulsation (cycle 12; see my way marks) by
half for a very short stretch of time (see mm. 19 and 20, figure 5). It is
not very difficult to guess what may have inspired these drum rolls:
marching-band music.
When checking the motion analysis from film with the sound recordings,
it becomes clear that some of Caxias's motifs must be based on marching
melodies. They all end with a characteristic "full stop"; that is, throughout
his variations, Caxias conceptualizes something like a recurring terminal
point, which has a fixed position in the cycle. (In the film transcription it
is represented with the symbol Q ). In the tape recording, covering longer
stretches of his drumming than does the film (orig. tape no. A 66/1/6),
some of his highly timbre-melodic drum sequences sound as if he wanted
to play actual marching tunes on his drum. The illusion is persuasive.
These marching-style melodies looming up from his "tambu" can be ex-
pressed in conventional European staff notation (figure 7):
Fig. 7. Implied Marching Tunes in Caxias's Drumming.
Ex. 1
' n rn
~~ - tt~~z C, /
"c >1 . .
Vlatraca" .
Ex. 2
rn . * rR iJ I n
i .1'
i
0
JJa -
-L/ I 0- ML-JL~-
SI
V I
"Matraca" )j >J. > 14. 1
Even the time-line pattern (see Fig. 7) lends itself smoothly to this context;
it is one of those patterns that are relatively easily reinterpreted in a march-
ing context. Musicians who grew up in African or Afro-American cultures
at the turn of the century almost automatically reinterpreted nineteenth-
century brass band parading rhythms as proceeding along that particular
time-line. (For comparison, listen to Mose Yotamu's recordings of konkomba
music performed by the Ghanaian Brookman Mensah; Phonogrammarchiv
Berlin/Yotamu 1979).
Expanding our assessment of Caxias's possible assimilation of European-
derived marching music in his "batuque" drumming style and the influence
it may have had on his musical concepts, we can also use some other re-
cordings we made in his house. In these, Benedito Caxias was singing a
number of songs alone, with considerable enthusiasm, perhaps even greater
verve than he had when he gave us the drum performance. Three times
he sang the song "AntSao . . .," until we began to joke about it. From his
singing style and accentuations it became clear what itched the eighty-two-
year-old man. One could imagine him parading to his song in uniform
with a flat-peaked cap and a baton in his right hand:
Recording orig. tape no. A 66/I/7, 11 and 15, three recordings.

Text: Pois antao
antao, antao
Tres umbigada e da conta
Passou de quatro e lambanca.
Translation: Well, then

(G. Kubik/ then, then
Tiago de three umbigadathat is still admissible,
Oliveira Pinto) but more than four is "greasing off."
It is not easy to render in English the allusions in this text. It basically says
that partners in the "batuque" dance who do the umbigada(pelvic thrusts)
158 : GerhardKubik
move within the margin of acceptability if they do it three times. But an

umbigadadone more than four times is a "lambanca." In standard Brazilian
one would say today "lambada" (blow, thrashing, "rubbing off," close
touch or contact). This could refer to the "gafieira" dance known for its
obcenity. "Lambanca" could then refer to the way people used to dance in
the darkness to music of the appropriate kind or it could be used in
the sense of being licentious, getting out of control, being insolent, and
the like.
The song "Antao" could be accompanied with the kind of "batuque"
drumming we recorded. The rhythm of the song as sung by Caxias suggests
a military background, but against that stands the content of the text. From
the reference to the umbigada, we can extrapolate that this song is firmly
entrenched in the "batuque" tradition. Its military flavor, therefore, could
only be explained by the fact that elements of military music were at some
stage musically assimilated into "batuque," although not choreographically.
Military topics do appear in the texts of other songs by Caxias (see
recorded items A 66/1/16, "Geraldo," and A 66/11/3). Certainly the issue
is complex, because marching rhythms or melodies have been reinterpreted
from the angle of African concepts about movement. For example, the
marching-style "rolls" on the "tambu" are conceptualized by Caxias in
terms of a 2 against 3 combination between left- and right-hand strokes
(see measure 15, fig. 5). And if one listens repeatedly to the resultant image
forming between the "matraca's" time-line and Caxias's variations ending
with a "full stop" on beat 3, there is suddenly the allusion of a well-known
structure, the Cuban "rumba" pattern struck on "claves": ( [x . . x
. . x . . . x . . . ]. It was never actually played by any performer in
Caxias's recordings, but it comes up inherently and one could add it to
the drumming combination without any harm.
That Benedito Caxias's musical world should contain aspects of march-
ing music is not surprising after all. With regard to the transculturative
processes in African traditions in Brazil during the nineteenth century, it
is significant, however, that marching-style elements would come up spe-
cifically in the patterns of the master drummer. As a leader of a "batuque"
association, the performer on the "tambu" was always a target figure
particularly exposed to social pressures by his environment. The society
at large probably expected him to adapt to current fashions. Brass band
music was a fashion through much of the nineteenth century in Brazil and
had a strong impact on the popularity of musical instruments (marching-
style, double-skin drums, and so on) and even on musical patterns that
became associated with "samba" (see, for example, Haydee Nascimento's
account of Henrique Preto, Nascimento, 1982).
Especially during the late nineteenth century, European brass band
music affected local traditions worldwide and almost simultaneously.
Marching music contributed to the rise of many popular African-American

and African musical genres developing between 1880 and 1920. By 1880
the global network of communications with sea links, railways, postal ser-
vice, and the telegraph was already dense enough to permit the fast spread
of musical fashions. European nineteenth-century military music spread
quickly not only with the increasing European migration to the Americas
and with leisure-time transatlantic travels, but with the publication of
sheet music. Thus, popular parading music in the post-Napoleonic era
quickly gained a foothold in the New World, from Louisiana to Brazil, and,
with the export of military parades during the period of African colonial
penetration, to West Africa. Somewhat later, military-inspired music came
up in east African coastal cities. At that time, marching music was the style
that most stimulated the imagination of contemporary young Africans and
African-Americans. Street band jazz developed first in New Orleans as an
adaptation of marching music to African performance traditions and com-
positional techniques. In Ghana about the same time, konkombamusic
developed as a forerunner of Highlife, and on the east African coast beni
emerged. The strong influence of marching music on what became ur-
banized forms of "samba' in Brazil at the turn of the century is testified
to in surviving traditions, for example, in the almost universal presence of
marching-style, double-membrane drums used by "samba" schools during
Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. In Brazil the "bandas-de-pifanos" are a
further example of marching-style groups (see Jose Maria Ten6rio Rocha
and Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, in Pinto, 1986b). It is not surprising, there-
fore, that the generation of Benedito Caxias clung to the appeal that march-
ing music had during their youth, that is, up to the time shortly after World
War I.
The "Batuque" Dance
Benedito Caxias did not give us a demonstration of the dance and its move-
ment patterns. In spite of these gaps, however, I can discuss the subject on
the basis of Lima's (1954) and Araujo's (1973) data. Lima knew Caxias,
and we may assume from the uniformity of the instrumental resources and
their names in the "batuque zone" of Sao Paulo, that there might be some
uniformity also concerning the organization of the dance. What is notice-
able in the mid-twentieth century "batuque" dance, as described by Lima
and Araujo, is the organization in two facing rows of men and women, with
individuals dancing out of their rows to "select" a partner of the opposite
sex, then performing various kinds of courtship gestures, up to a touch of
the belly (the "umbigada").
These traits compare to dance traditions in Angola. In southeastern
160 : GerhardKubik
Angola in 1965 I documented a dance-game for youngsters called kamun-

donda(fig. 9). In its organization it was virtually identical to the "batuque"
of southern Brazil, except that there was no real "umbigada," just some-
thing similar. Boys and girls formed two facing rows at a distance of a few
meters. A dancing boy would leave his row, move toward the opposite
row and end up his sequence in front of the girl of his choice, with a gesture
that included a bounce-stop action, as in "umbigada," but without the
touch (orig. recordings and field notes, tape nos. R 68 and R 73).
Fig. 9. Sketch of the KamundondaDance-Game.
Girls: O o 0
4
1/ 2 7t
Boys: -
0 o o
Kamundondawas performed on moonlit nights and its social function was

to promote acceptable forms of meeting between teenage boys and girls.
It was a chance for unmarried individuals to make choices in an atmosphere
of play without any definite commitments and to indicate preferences in
possible future partners. The participants belonged to the thirteen to nine-
teen age group in rural areas of Angola, where traditional morality was
still widely observed in 1965.
In the same area I documented another dance-game called kandowa(tape
no. 74/1965, Angola, and field notes); it had the same social background
and was for the same age group, but had a circular formation. The inter-
action between the dancers inside the circle corresponded in great detail
with Araujo's (1973:73-75) description of the Brazilian "jongo." In south-
eastern Angola, neither kamundonda nor kandowa was accompanied by
drums; only a rattle could be employed. While in my first recording of
kamundonda(tape R 68) there were no instruments used, only hand clapping,
on another occasion, in November 1965 in the same village, one boy made
a tin rattle with a handle and filled with maize kernels. He was one of the
lead singers in the game. While singing he performed a pattern that he
memorized with the syllables ma-cha-ki-li ma-cha-ki-li (tape nos. R 73 and
R 74, field notes 1965/Angola). From other parts of Angola, for example,
the Provincia de Wila (Huila) from which many people were deported to
Brazil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we know of more dances
with two facing rows, males and females in opposition, for example, the
musakalungadance (Kubik in Stockmann, 1987). In the nkili dance among
the -Nkhumbi there is an acrobatic episode during which a young man
jumps high up to be held by the receiving woman. All these dances-in

contrast to the kamundondaof VaMbwela and VaNkhangala teenagers-are
performed by adults. None of these dances seem to include any explicit
"umbigada." Performance of the real "umbigada" seems to be a specific
trait of the dance culture of Kimbundu-speaking people of northwestern
Angola; it can be seen most authentically performed in the semba or rebita
dance clubs in Luanda. In 1982, I found that four such dance clubs still
existed in the Angolan capital. Here it was accompanied with accordion
and dikanza (a scraper) (Kubik, 1989).
With regard to the "batuque" in the State of Sao Paulo, Araujo (1973:
79-81) stresses the absence of "foot stamping" (sapateado), pointing out
that movement is concentrated on pelvis and abdomen. This is significant,
since prominence of the pelvic/abdominal area as a motion center in dance
has been considered by some researchers as characteristic of a "Central
African dance-style region" (Ginther, 1969; Dauer, 1983).
The Caxias Family in its Social Environment
Ideally, this study would have concluded with a detailed examination of

Caxias's social environment and the role his family and associates played
in the "batuque" of a small town like Capivari. Unfortunately, however,
due to the unusually short period of field work, we learned very little about,
for example, his regular audiences. We do have Caxias's family tree up to
the "African threshold," but we have little data about horizontal, collateral
relationships and about the organization of his "batuque" association, the
roles assigned to members, the leadership structure, and the like. On the
other hand, we have been able, to a certain extent, to assess Caxias's re-
markable personality and get a glimpse at intrafamiliar relationships.
The interview with him (following) gives us many clues regarding the
kind of society in which Benedito Caxias grew up at the beginning of the
twentieth century. His mention of contemporary commodities such as the
old coins called "vintem" and the "trolinho" street cars comes to our aid
in roughly dating his memoires. The interview is delightful reading material,
best, of course in the original Brazilian. Benedito Caxias grew up in a
society in which the male caretaker, father or stepfather, of a teenage boy
played a dominant and often authoritarian role. In one of his narratives
he gives a vivid account of the tense atmosphere that prevailed whenever
his father found him while he was secretly smoking cigarettes or drinking
ginger beer. Here, we are penetrating a society whose mores and be-
havioral patterns seem strange from the viewpoint of urbanized societies
at the end of the twentieth century. When Caxias talks about the impossi-
bility of smoking or drinking alcoholic beverages in the presence of his father
162 : GerhardKubik
and how he was doing it secretly, the permeating theme is that of a power
struggle. Not that his father would have advised him to stop those habits
because of the health hazards involved; with the results of modern medical
research not yet available, his generation was not worried. After all, he
himself had those habits. What was really unacceptable to the father was
that his son would smoke and drink in his presence without his explicit
consent.
Throughout Caxias's narrations we get the view of a male-oriented,
even macho society, in which addictive habits such as smoking and drinking
had become symbols of adult virility. Male authority was defended. Con-
sequently, during the process of a boy's growing up and becoming a replica
of his father, the son would wish to take over these symbols for himself.
His father's resistance would only make him more determined. Such psy-
chological "mechanisms" were prominent in Victorian-style societies with
their Oedipus conflicts and perceptions of threats and counterthreats be-
tween father and son. It is interesting that Afro-Brazilian communities in
a town like Capivari became so strongly affected by behavioral patterns
much more associated with European than African cultures. One wonders
whether any African societal elements reinforcing this syndrome could
have been transmitted. The Kikoongo-speaking peoples in northwestern
Angola and southwestern Zaire, where half of Caxias's grandparents came
from, have matrilineal kin groups, with the maternal uncle (and not the
physical father) exercising authority over a male child. The people of the
Lower Zambezi valley, on the other hand, from whom the other half of
Caxias's genealogy seems to stem, have predominantly patrilineal kinship
organization, as do most people of southwestern Angola, the third African
component in Caxias's cultural profile. Internalization of his father's (or,
more precisely, his stepfather's) concept of authority must have been deep
in Benedito Caxias. From what we observed during the brief visit to his
house in April 1979, it seems that he had assumed a similar authoritarian
role as the "Chefe da Sociedade" in relation to those who regularly per-
formed with him. Minor emblems, such as, for example, wearing a hat
during performance, served to express his distinction in relation to the
others and enhance his role as a group leader. Like many of his contem-
poraries, Caxias (in the interview) deplored the increasing disappearance
of the "good manners" of the past. In the world of the late twentieth cen-
tury, his generation felt somewhat deprived. While he had once uncon-
ditionally identified with the models set by his parents, his own children
and grandchildren-and the young generation in general-apparently did
not pay the same respect to him he had once paid to his stepfather. This
was a painful experience; it was as if an agreement had not been kept. His
own reverence for his father was not returned to him. Benedito Caxias's
somewhat nagging character is therefore comprehensible. At the time we
met him, Caxias's authority was not strong enough to control the likes and
dislikes of his offspring and younger relatives, or to guarantee cultural
cohesion within his extended family. A case in point was his nephew,
Aparecido Morato, who was staying in Caxias's house when we arrived.
The "batuque" tradition seemed to be of no concern to him. Very musical,
he told us that he belonged to an "umbanda" religious group (Terreiro
Pai Oxala) in Vila Maria Alice, Parana, where he lived, and we recorded
two songs from him (tape A 66/1/13, 14, and A 66/II/1). These were in a
pentatonic, Yoruba-dominated style, totally different from anything Caxias
had produced, and the subject matter was Yoruba divinities such as Xango
and Ogum. Obviously, the "umbanda" group in Brazil's extreme south
to which the nephew belonged, was-like many other "Umbanda terreiros"
in southern Brazil-heavily penetrated by Yoruba religious notions that
had swept to the south from Bahia's "candombles." It had not had most
of its Bantu-African heritage for a long time.
This shows that consanguinity in Brazil, such as within Caxias's
extended family, does not necessarily imply sharing the same culture.
Brazil has always been a good case to demonstrate the fact that physical
characteristics are one thing, genealogical relationships another, and cul-
tural affinity or identity yet another realm. Sometimes these areas con-
verge, but not necessarily. Very often they converge mainly because society
forces the individual to assume the roles it expects from him or her accord-
ing to its prevailing stereotypes. In Brazil such stereotypes are powerful,
as they are elsewhere, but while in the past there was a strong ethnicity
component, for example, the alleged character of "nacoes" of Africans in
the early nineteenth century, they seem to be drifting now more toward a
black/white polarization. Thus, Brazil is drawn into some racial conflict,
superimposed on the more obvious and perhaps more important regional
and cultural subdivisions of the population. The cultural identity of Caxias's
nephew did not conform perhaps with his uncle's normative expectations,
but it conformed with a variation margin permitted by present-day social
trends.
A final question is whether our findings regarding the African back-
grounds of Caxias's "batuque" can be related to his genealogy. It is con-
vincing to assume a relationship, because the areas in Africa to which we
have traced single traits within his "batuque" culture coincide with what
Caxias remembered about the regional African provenance of his grand-
parents. To interpret this in the sense of a cause-and-effect relationship,
however, would leave us with a methodological problem. We have stressed
in several parts of this article, directly and indirectly, that culture is learned
and, therefore, also transmittable to ethnic "aliens."
There are three options, therefore, for interpreting the fact of Caxias's
grandparents coming from the Congo/Angola area on the father's side and
164 : GerhardKubik
from Mocambique on the mother's line, instead of the likely geographical

origins of various traits in his "batuque":
1. We could assume that essential elements in Caxias's "batuque" were
known to one set of grandparents, or to one individual among them and
then directly transmitted to his parents, and eventually to him. In this
case, we would have to consider Caxias's "batuque" the most recent
offspring of a family tradition that has its roots in knowledge directly
brought from Africa by one or more of his ancestors.
2. We could assume that Caxias's genealogy was not unique in its ethnic
components but typical for many southern Brazilians of African descent,
reflecting from where their ancestors were deported during the last stages
of the African slave trade. The latter continued officially until 1851, but
thereafter only clandestinely until abolition in 1888. Although Lima (1954:
66) stresses that the "batuque" was present in Brazil from the eighteenth
century on, it is likely that those conglomerate styles that were running
under that designation had changed considerably during the nineteenth
century until the form crystallized in what we know today, with its stan-
dard percussion set of "tambu," "quinjengue," "matraca," and
"guaia." If Caxias's genealogy is typical, then late nineteenth-century
"batuque" could have received constant input from those African tradi-
tions that we have isolated.
3. As a third possibility, we could interpret the peculiarities of Caxias's
genealogy as coincidental and unconnected to the kind of music/dance
he performs. We could see his "batuque" association to be the product of
late nineteenth-century/early twentieth-century social conditions and
musical fashions in the so-called "batuque" zone of the State of Sao Paulo
(fig. 2). In this case, Caxias's "batuque" and his style of drumming would
be basically the result of a young and talented musician's and his asso-
ciates' response to popular musical trends in southern Brazil at the turn of
the century. Coming of age, he would then have continued and developed
this tradition until the present, encouraged by organizers of folklore festi-
vals from about the 1950s on.
The three possible scenarios do not exclude one another. Some of their
aspects seem to supplement the others, and it is possible that their combi-
nation determined the rise of his version of "batuque." Thus, we can say
that "batuque" drumming by Benedito Caxias and his assistants, in the
town of Capivari, is based on a heritage of Bantu-African traditions from
nineteenth-century Moqambique, the Congo/Angola area, and south-
western Angola. These traditions were processed and reinterpreted in
Brazil by Caxias and other "batuque" group members in other towns in a
strikingly uniform manner that integrated elements of contemporary Luso-
Brazilian popular music, such as, for example, marching rhythms. No
traits in "batuque" point to any west African cultural heritage. This
conforms with historical evidence about a predominance of Bantu-African
population components in southern Brazil (Mourao, 1980) in contrast to

northeast Brazil.
Text Transcriptions
Following are extracts from the interview with Benedito Caxias, in his
house in Capivari, on April 29, 1979, and conducted by Guilherme dos
Santos Barbosa, Sao Paulo. (Orig. tape no. A 65/II/2 and A 66/I/1).
Transcription: Guilherme dos Santos Barbosa
Translation: Tiago de Oliveira Pinto and Gerhard Kubik
A Note on the Language (by Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, February 20, 1987;
summarized by G. Kubik)
Caxias's pronunciation conforms with the idiom called "dialeto caipira"

(Amadeu Amaral, 1920), which is used in the State of Sao Paulo. What is
striking at first sight is the almost "English" use of the Irl. The blade of the
tongue forms a narrow space against the teeth ridge, through which the
stream of breath, voiced in this case, is driven, without rolling the Irl. This
pronunciation only occurs when the Irl is positioned in the middle of a word,
for example, in "prudente" or "cruz." When it stands at the beginning, for
example, in "roda," Caxias rolls the Irl. This deviates both from the Caipira
dialect and from standard Brazilian usage, where the initial Irl is pronounced
somewhat like the German Ichl. This aberration conforms with the so-called
ABC area of Sao Paulo (Sorocaba, Maua) at the border of which lies Capi-
vari. Typical of the language of this area is the use of a closed [o], for ex-
ample, [no fogo] instead of [nu fogu]; also the voiceless [t] in "tive," instead
of the pronunciation "tSive," common in the coastal area between Sao Paulo
and Rio de Janeiro. The letter /1/, if it appears between a vowel and a
consonant, for example, "malvadeza," is pronounced in the Caipira dia-
lect with the /r/, for example, "marvadeza." Frequently, the /sl at the end
of a word is dropped, as in "Tubia" (instead of "Tobias"). Even the initial
letters, usually vowels, can disappear, for example "cupava" instead of
"ocupava" or "rudia" instead of "arrodia." Sometimes a consonant
remains unpronounced, for example, "oce" instead of "voce."
Word changes, typical for the region around Capivari, include, for ex-
ample, "ansim" instead of "assim." But clearly identifiable is the region
where the speaker comes from by expressions such as that for surprise:
"credo," or the typical "malemfa" (instead of "mais ou menos") which,
in fact, derives from "mal-e-mal," normally not used. Characteristic of
the speech community of Caxias's generation is the importance of tonality,
166 : GerhardKubik
especially with regard to long vowels such as [i], which seem to be almost
sung. Tonality is particularly striking in the speech of older people coming
from the area of the Serra da Mantiqueira within a radius of sixty to one
hundred kilometers from Sao Paulo. Otherwise, Benedito Caxias has clear
pronunciation, almost better than a younger colleague who is often heard
in the conversation. In contrast to the young man's use of language, all the
more recent expressions borrowed from slang ("giria") of radio broadcasts
and television are absent.
.. *. ..
Caxias's interview begins with the story about how his stepfather died.
This part was recorded in the living room of his house (tape no. A 65/11/2).
The second part (tape no. A 66/I/1) was recorded in the courtyard while
Caxias was testing the drums to get them ready for performance.
Cx = Benedito Caxias
Gui = Guilherme dos Santos Barbosa
Kb = Gerhard Kubik
Am = Aparecido Morato
At eighty-two years of age, Caxias seemed to have a hearing problem,

which is evident from some of his queries during the interview. But it did
not affect his drumming, because of its strong basis in concepts of move-
ments besides timbre values.
Cx-Caiu um poste em cima dele Cx-A pole [mast, telegraph pole]

. . . quebrou tudo . .. inda fell upon him [Caxias's step-
durou tres ano . . . Dai morreu. father]. It broke him completely
Minha mae morreu aqui comigo! . . .but he would last for an-
other three years before he died.
-My mother died here at my
place.
Gui-E? Gui-Eh?
Cx-Minha mae morreu aqui. Cx-My mother died here. My
Minha mae morreu com 105 mother died at the age of 105
anos. years.
Gui-105?! Gui-105?
Cx-105 anos. Minha v6, a mie Cx-105 years. My grandmother,
de minha mae, foi africana, the mother of my mother, was
porque meupai era baiano. Meu African, while my father was
pai era baiano de Beija Flor. Bahian. My father was Bahian
E, minha v6 morreu com 114. from Beija Flor. My grand-
mother died with 114 years.
Gui-Nossa Senhora! Gui-By our Holy Mother!

Cx-114 afnos. "V6! Menn Cx-114 years. "Grandmother!
Ihh ... por que messe num Why don't you stop [to live]?"
para?" "Ahh . ."-(resposta -[Grandmother answers]:
da v6) Levantava cedo, saia, "Ahh!" She used to rise up
.. Uhhmm ... uhhmmm . . . very early, went out, uhmmm
Ia la em cima . . . faze a feiss uhmmm went up there, and
vermei, ne . . . vinha feii . . . put out red shit! The shit came
Uhhhn . . . mai num precisa. very ugly . . . But it is not
"Oce num tem nada cum isso!" necessary to continue . . . [She
(v6 falando) said]: "You have nothing to do
with this."
Kb-Ela falava? Kb-She said that?
Cx-Um dia eu 6iei, ala tava ... Cx-One day I looked and she was
(gesto) levantou . . . ta cum os here, she stood up; she had red
6io vermelho, eu digo: "Vo eyes and I said: "Grandmother
num ta boa!" Ai . . . entao is not well." There was the
tinha o carcereiro, o um Toninho gaoler, Toninho da Cruz, he
da Cruz, e o carcereiro. No was the gaoler. At the time of
tempo do carr . . . tempo do slavery it had been my grand-
cativeiro . . . foi mea v6 que mother who had brought him
cri . . . que criou ele, intao ele: up. He said: "Mother! Mother!
"Mae! Mae! Mae!-Fala, v6! Mother!" Then grandmother
Intao ela era africana: "OIORI- spoke, because she was African:
ANGUNUNA!" Non te a timax- "Oioriangununa"! Don't come
uco! Eu digo, sim senhora . . . too close to me, I hurt you! Then
sai devagarzinho, fui la: "To- I said: "Yes, madam . . . and
ninho, eu digo, . . . v6 num t went away, retreated slowly,
boa ... e num para . . ." and said: "Toninho, grand-
Mai num parava. Batia pra la, mother is not well. She does not
-mexia cum uma coisa . . . stop to . . ." and she really did
ai, ele veio:-"Oh . . . mae!" not stop. She strolled away over
-"Ahhnn?"-"Como e que there, paid attention to some-
vai?"-"To boa."--"Vamo thing; then he came: "Oh
leva a senhora um poco no mother! "-' "Ahhnn?" '-"How
hospital!"-"Num v6!"- are things?"-"I am well."
"No . . . vou . . . levo a "We shall take you to the hos-
senhora num hospital de . . . la pital for some time!"-"I am
. . a senhora vai ficar la um not going."-"No! . . . I will
. . hoje quando for de tarde eu . . .take you into a hospital.
vou-busca'."-Bom, naquele You will remain there for . ..
num, num tinha ... ninguem Today, when it is later [for a
conhecia automovel . . . era few hours] I will fetch you."
168 : GerhardKubik
trolinho . . . Well, at that time there was

nobody who would have known
a motor vehicle, there was the
"trolinho" [= from Eng.
trolley].
Kb-Trol, ne? Kb-"Trolinho? Nothing else?"
Cx-Poi no trolinho, levou la na Cx-Yes, he put her into the
Santa Casa, eram dez horas . . . trolley and brought her to the
quando foi as cinco . . . as Santa Casa [the government
quatro horas, telefone ... tinha hospital]. It was 10 o'clock.
morrido. When it was five o'clock, four
o'clock-telephone! . . . She
had died.
Voz- Poooxa vida ... Voicefrom the background.Damn it!
Cx-Num sofreu nem pra morrer Cx-She didn't even suffer when
. . .nem pra morrer . . . nem she died, when she died, when
pra morrer . . . Mai tamem . . . she died. But also-114 years,
114 ano .. .mai num parava and she had never had a rest
rapai .. num parava rapai [i.e., she was always busy]. My
. . . agora num sei como e que boy! [speaking to Guilherme].
. . agora ainda eu ja sinto I don't know how things are
dor nas cadeira, minha v6 num nowadays. I am already feeling
sentia dor nas cadeiras . . . Ahh, pains in the hips. My grand-
nao ... 6i, qui . . . a coisa vira mother didn't feel any such
. . .vira, vira, vira, vira. . . pains in the hips, no! Look here!
vira memo. Things take a turn . . . turn ..
turn. . . turn . . turn . .
turn . . .they really do.
Gui-Seo Caxias! A mae do senhor Gui-Mr. Caxias! How old was
morreu com quantos anos? your mother when she died?
Cx-Ahnn? Cx-What?
Gui-A mae do senhor? Gui-Your mother.
Cx-Que ela morreu? Cx-That she died?
Gui-E! Gui-Yes.
Cx-95! Cx-95.
Gui-95. Gui-95 (!)
Cx-Minha mie? Cx-My mother?
Gui-E. Gui-Yes.
Cx--105! Cx-105!
Gui-Ah ... o pai que morreu Gui-Ah! And it was your father
cor . . . noventa e cinco? who died at the age of 95. (?)
Cx-Noventa e cinco. Cx-95.
Gui-Puxa vida, heim? Que raca Gui-What an excellent race! And

boa, heim? Ahhh . . . Ela con- did she tell you many stories . . .
tava muita historia de . . .
Cx-Era pra . . . oia aqui . . . ja Cx-It was about . . .look, I have
me esqueci mesmo . .. j a fai really forgotten it, it is very long
muito tempo, eu era pequeno ago, I was small. That is too
. . eu era pequeno . . . ja faz long ago. My deceased grand-
muito tempo isso . . . Difunta mother told things from Africa,
minha v6, ela contava negocio because she was African, the
da Africa, porque minha v6 era mother of my mother.
africana, a mae de mea mae ...
Gui-O nome dela? O nome Gui-The name, the name of the

da v . . . grandmother?
Cx-Jacinta! Cx-Jacinta.
Gui-E o v6? E o avo? Gui-And the grandfather?

Cx-Ooo . . . meu avo? Cx-My grandfather?
Gui-E. Gui-Yes.
Cx-E . . . e um mofambique Cx-Yes. He was a Mocambiquan.
e . . Yes.
Gui-Mo(ambique! Gui-Mocambique!
Kb-Uuuhhnn!!! Kb-Uhnnn!! !
Cx-Tubia . . . Tubia da Cruz ... Cx-Tubia da Cruz [that was his
name].
Gui-Tobias da Cruz Gui-Tobias da Cruz.
Cx-Um Mofambique. Minha v6, Cx-A Mocambiquan. My grand-

uai ... da Africa ... minha mother came from Africa. My
v6, a mae de minha mae e da grandmother, the mother of my
Costa da Africa. Meu pai nao. mother, came from the "Costa
Meu pai era de Beija Flor. da Africa." But not my father.
My father was from Beija Flor.
Gui-Bahia? Gui-Bahia?
Cx-Da Bahia. Veio de la no Cx-From Bahia. He came from
tempo do cativeiro, meu pai. there during the era of slavery,
Eu num conheci . . .* my father. But I have never
known him personally.*
*Tiago de Oliveria Pinto thinks that this could either mean that he had
abandoned Caxias's mother or that he had died prematurely.
170 : GerhardKubik
Cx-. . diz que os-antigo era Cx- . .. Some say that the an-
muito atrazado . . . mai no cients were extremely backward
baque os antigo criou us filho, and that they were bringing up
o sabido d'agora num cria um their children with their fists,
filho na bota que os antigo while the artful dodger of today
criou. Noi tava proseando aqui, does not educate his son with
mue pai e . . . e tava proseando the boots, as the old ones did.
aqui . . . eu vinha de la, eu . . . We were conversing here, my
en passava aqui? Eu . . . parava father, we were conversing here
ali. Ele: "o que e?" "Tar coisa . I came from that direction,
assim . . . assim . .." "Pode I passed by and stopped there.
passar!"-Siao num passava "What's going on?" [he said].
. . num passava . . . era capaz "Such-and-such" [I told
de t ... meu . . . meu pai him] . . . "So, now you can
. . . eu ta cor o cigarro na pass!" There was no other way
mao assim? to pass [in front of my father].
That I would have passed with
a cigar in my hand . . .
Gui-Num fumava? Gui-You did not smoke?
Cx-Eu fumava . . . ele sabia que Cx-I did, and he knew that I
eu fumava . . .eu tava fumando used to smoke. I had just been
. . . eu via ele la ... jogava o smoking when I saw him over
cigarro. Ele tamem nem me there and threw the cigarette
olhava. Ia na venda, ia no bar instantly away. He did not even
. . .aquele tempo era venda look at me. He entered the
. . . quase nummmm . . . store, the bar, it was almost a
nummm gosto de bar .... kind of bar. For example: If you
numa comparacao . . . se oce go had started to take a drink, any
. . . comecava toma qualquer . . kind of drink . . . so! First you
qualquer bebida assim, espia would look, first you would look
primeiro! Espia primeiro! Se around. If you would see him
voce visse ele vim meno . . . coming from there you would
nem num pedisse . . . fique not order anything and just
quieto . . . Eu .. . um dia remain quiet. One day I was in
tavana no bar. e . . . e ... na- the bar. I was talking about
quele tempo eu falava em gengi- "gengibir" [from Eng. ginger
beira, tomava-Malzebier e beer]. I drank malt beer and
chamava gengibir. Poi gengi- called it "gengibir." I opened
beira, ai, quando abriu a the bottle, poured it into the
garrafa, poe o copo, eu sai, meu glass, and went out. And my
pai vinha vindo assim, eu . . . father came . . . I stepped aside
incostei . . . que e que ha ... . . "What's going on?"-He
Ele chegou, olhou . . . passou a came near, looked around and
mao na garrafa, "Pode beber"! took the bottle. "You can drink!"
"Pode beber!"-Eu bebi. Num [he suddenly said]. "You can
teve nada. Mai . . . eu, por drink!" I drank and nothing
exemplo, se eu bebesse, eu, eu was wrong with it. But if I had
pegava o copo . . . eu pegava o been drinking, let us say, if I
copo e, e experimentava . . . had taken the glass on my own
Disse "Oi la, heim!" Inda and tried, he [would have] said:
agora ele tava ai . . . um cumo "Watch out, you! ha!" He was
outro . . . minha mae: "Agora still here with the others. My
fala pro seu pai assim, 6i .. ." mother [then said]: ". .. You
Eu ia la vinha fala o que minha talk to your father! Look!" So
mae mandou! Eu chegava ai ele I would go to my father and
tata pen ... eu ... "Ohh . talk to him, as my mother had
pai!" Nao! Chegava la ficava ordered me to do. I would arrive
quieto. Ele tava proseando cor [and say]: "Oh . . father!"-
outro ele . . . oia . . . "O que No, in fact I would have had to
e?"-Mae falou assim assi . . . enter and remain quiet. I would
Bom, e ansim, cabou . .. num find him in conversation with
tinha nada . . .Agora . . . oia, someone else. Then he would
agora... si.. muleque, look at me: "What's going on!
passa a-barra na cara do pai e, What's happening?" And I
inda da risada! Ta vendo? Ah would say: "Mother has told me
. . . meu Deus do cu ... Num such and such ... " Well! So
e facil . . . the matter would be settled.
Nothing bad would happen. But
now, look how it is nowadays!
Look at a street-boy! Nowadays
such a lousy little rogue would
rub his trousers in the face of
his father! And on top of all that
he would laugh! You see! God
in Heaven! It's not easy . . .
Cx-No Barreiro, no Barreirinho, Cx-In Barreiro, in Barreirinho

aqui pra dentro do pau-a pique, here, after the Pau-a-Pique I
trabaiava mes inteiro . . . used to work the whole month.
quando era no fim do mes vinha When the month ended I came
faze a compra c'o a-carroca- by coach to make purchases in
vinha na cidade, pra vim faze town. At that time I came here
compra aqui na cidade, chegava to town [only] for buying things.
-aqui, naquele tempo, o que And what happened? There
dava? Dava doze vintens! Ta! were twelve "vintem" to be
172 : GerhardKubik
Doze vintem. Ihhh . . . noi happy with them. [That was the
ficava alegre cum aquele doze payment.]
vintem.
Am-Ochaa ... Am-Ochaa.
Cx-Voce num conheceu o di- Cx-Did you never know the
nheiro de vintem? "vintem" money?
Am-Num conheci. Am-No, I never knew it.
Cx-Inda hoje deve de ter, ainda. Cx-I wish it still existed today!
Gui-Eu conheci. Eu conheci. Gui-Myself, I knew it, I knew it.
Cx-Esse e dois vintem. Cx-[Showing to us two coins of

"vintem"]. These are two
vintem!
Cx-A coisa passa ... a gente lida Cx-Things are passing away . . .
com a coisa . . . lida corn We are preoccupied with one
outra . thing and afterwards with some-
thing else.
Cx-Esse e o tambu. Cx-This is the "tambu."

Gui-Uhhnnn ... Gui-Uhhnnn!
Kb-O que que, como chama-se Kb-What's the name of this one?
isso? Este?
Cx-Esse e o Tambu. Cx-This is the "tambu."
Kb-E Esse? Kb-And this one?
Cx-E esse aqui e . . . nau . . . no Cx-This one is the "quinjengue,"
e Quinjenje.Na ... na Africa in Africa it is called "candon-
trata-Candonguero. guero.
Kb-Ooohhhh... Candonguero? Kb-Oo! . . . Kandongero.
Cx-E. (bate o instrumento)-Ta Cx-Ee! [tapping the drum] It is
fria! Ehn, se tava no sol. (bate cold! If it had been lying in the
o instrumento demoradamente) sun! . . . [he strikes the drum
-Pricisava quente. Se ele tivesse for a longer time] . . . One
quente, dava um som . . . should warm it up! If it were
naquele geito. warm, it would give a sound, in
this way! [taps again].
Gui-Sera que no sol num es- Gui-Don't you think it would
quenta? warm up in the sun?
Cx-Iiihhh . . . demora pra es- Cx-No, that would take too long.
quentar . . . porque no sol, ate Because until the sun makes it
que o sol vai esquentando . . . warm, that's too long. It is not

vai esquentando . . . demora so with fire! Just a little bit [by
. . .No fogo nao, cum pouca the fire] and it gets warm.
coisa. . . Suspende.
Gui-Uhhmmm. . . e? Gui-Uhmmm. Yes.
Cx-E assim ele ta fria. Ainda, Cx-So cold it is! In addition it
coro novo. Coro novo. has a new skin, a new skin . . .
Gui-Era . . . era . . . da muito Gui-That's much work, to warm
trabalho esquentar, ne? Da it up, isn't it? It causes a lot of
muito trabalho esquentar, ne? work, doesn't it?
Cx-Ah, da! Da trabaio. Tambem, Cx-Oh yes, that gives work, but
isquentou, isquentou. Isquentou when it's warmed up, then it's
. . .daf, no sol la tem que ficar really warm . . . In the sun it
mais de uma hora, mais de uma would have to lie for more than
hora pra esquenta one hour to warm up.
Gui-Uhmm. . . Gui-Uhmm!
Kb-Seria possivel de esperar, nao? Kb-We could wait, couldn't we?
Gui-E . . . mas . . . sera que ele Gui-But don't you think he could
num esquentaria, pra gente . . . warm it up for us [at the fire]?
cor ele?
Am-Fala cor ele . . . Am-Talk to him!
Gui-Fala voce que e sobrinho Gui-No, you talk to him, you
dele are his nephew!
Am-Tio! Eles falaru se, era possi- Am-Uncle!-They have asked
vel o sinhor quenta pra eles whether it would be possible
faze uma gravacao melhor? that you warmed it up, so that
they could record it better!
Cx-Como e? Cx-What's the matter? [apparent-
ly not hearing well].
Am-Sera possivel o senhor dar Am-I say, wouldn't it be possible
um jeito de esquentar o tambu, that you warmed up the "tam-
pra eles faze uma gravacao bu" so that they could record
melhor. it better?
Cx-Ah, pra gravacao? Mais . . . Cx-Ah! For the recording. But I
eu acho que num temo . . . Se think we don't have . . . if we
tivesse um.. had a .. . [fire]!
Kb-To . . . toca . .. toca um Kb-Just play a bit the "matraca"!

pouco a Matraca!
Gui-Pega um pouquinho a Ma- Gui-Take a bit the "matraca"
traca, seo... toca um pouquinho. and play them a little [please]!
Cx-A Matraca? Cx-The "matraca"?
Gui-E. Gui-Yes.
TABLES I AND II
Summary of our findings regarding the African heritage in "Batuque"
I BRAZILIAN Individual traits and their origins

OBJECT AND designation organological features playing a
ITS NAME organizati
"quinjengue" - probably from - (a) similar goblet- - ubiqui

kenjengoin Lunkhumbi shaped drums with nail different
and related languages of tension and a long "foot" to "Africa
Zone R of the Bantu found in Tete Province,
languages (southwestern Mocambique (and some
Angola). parts of northern
Mocambique). See
Museu de Etnologia,
specimens.
(b) a short "foot" is
essential in drums of
the ng'oma and
chikenjengo(or kenjengo)
set of southwestern
Angola.
(c) a sound-hole on the
side of the drum's corpus
found on the taller model
of the ng'oma/kenjengoof
southwestern Angola.
" tambu" - probably from - very similar drums - playing

ntambu(name of a found in the area of the (riding, o
drum among the former Kingdom of Congo ground) r
Mpangu and other sub- (northwestern Angola and Congo, b
groups of the Kikoongo- Zaire). See: Museu de African t
speaking peoples, Zaire, Etnologia, Lisboa,
northwestern Angola. specimen AL 194.
"guaia" -derived from variant - identical constructions -- identica
Bantu word stems in West found all over Angola (for Zairean at
Central Africa such as: example in Umbanda
-GWAYA, -GWAYO, ceremonies among the
-GOYA, -KAYA etc. -Mwila, southwestern
Related to sakaya (name Angola, and in the hand
for rattles in Kimbundu) of masked dancers
and comparable terms in (southeastern Angola);
northern Angola and also in southwestern Zaire.
southern Zaire.
"matraca" - probably a non- - ubiquitous and found - struck o

African (at least non- in very many African a drum-sig
Bantu) word; but ma- traditions for various uses pointing to
could be a Bantu cumu- (also as concussion sticks). Angola cul
lative prefix. including e
up to Kata
II. DANCE AND organization and motional centres occurences

ITS NAME social function gada" (bel
"Batuque" - two rows divided - emphasis on pelvis/ - characte

by sex; individuals leave abdomen area; unspecified the semba o
their row and approach a relation to Central African performanc
person of the other sex. dance styles. du-speaking
Other person repeats this Luanda.
pattern on his/her turn.
Most convincing parallels:
kamundondadance game
(southeastern Angola) and
comparable Angolan
dances.
176 : GerhardKubik
Acknowledgments
This article was prepared from field material recorded in Brazil in 1979 in
the context of an invitation by the Departamento de Ciencias Sociais,
Universidade de Sao Paulo (director: Prof. Joao Baptista Borges Pereira).
Equally involved in the organization of my activities was the Centro de
Estudos Africanos of the same University (director: Prof. Fernando A.
Mourao). In preparing for fieldwork I enjoyed the invaluable help of the
late professor Rossini Tavares de Lima, who recommended me to Benedito
Caxias and his "batuque" association; of Dr. Haydee Nascimento; and of
Senhora Julieta de Andrade, all in Sao Paulo. Most instrumental in the
success of my endeavors was the Afro-Brazilian folklorist Guilherme dos
Santos Barbosa, who volunteered to accompany me to Capivari and drove
me there. He also did the text transcriptions in the Caipira dialect of
Caxias's interview.
In 1980 a preliminary evaluation of some of the data collected became
possible with financial assistance from the Foundation for the Advance-
ment of Scientific Research, Vienna, in the context of a larger Brazilian
research project in that year (project no. 4210/G. Kubik).
When writing this paper during 1988 and 1989, I often took advice from
Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, then a doctoral student in West Berlin. He was
kind enough to help me interpret Benedito Caxias's idiomatic Brazilian.
He also gave me many worthwhile suggestions on an earlier version of
this article.
To all those who have assisted me in this work, I would like to express
my gratitude.
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Drum Patterns in the "Batuque" of Benedito Caxias

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According to Lufs da Camara Cascudo

Latin AmericanMusic Review, Volume 11, Number 2, December 1990

Rossini Tavares de Lima collected invaluable material on "batuque"

Ill. 1. F. Rossini Tavares de Lima's photograph of "Batuque drumming" in the

Sta. Maria-Capital. Although the photograph is undated, it is likely from

Fig. 1. Araijo's Sketch of the Organization of a "Batuque" Performance

4A, " - V0-4

O "...----~.-.....A ^ Homem preto

i^^-*, Mulher preta

dance figures when compared to other dances such as "jongo," because

Fig. 2. The "Batuque" Zone in the State of Sao Paulo.

Field Research Data from Capivari, 1979

Benedito Caxias's Environmentand Family

Eventually, we were able to record a lengthy interview with Caxias,

Fig. 3. Benedito Caxias's Family Tree (condensed from Guilherme dos

According to Barbosa's notes, the paternal grandparents were Manoel

Ill. 3. Neighbors of Benedito Caxias: One of the Families of African Descendants

1. "Tambu": a long, cylindrical, single-headed drum with a deep tuning.

2. "Quinjengue": a smaller, goblet-shaped, single-headed drum with a

The "quinjengue" was played by our guide, Kleber Heraldo de

Obviously, it is considered essential in "batuque" that the pattern

This was the standard instrumentation of Caxias's "batuque." The

Ill. 7. "Guaia." (Arch. No. B 152)

Ill. 8. Benedito Caxias warms up the skin of the "quinjengue" at a fire

Film Documentationand Kinetic Analysis

In the documentation of Benedito Caxias's drumming, one of our aims

Applying cinematographic transcription to Caxias's drum patterns, we

oLi---- ~_o ----- -8-o---* -

0IO io I I I11 11II 11

Fig. 6. Playing Positions and Notational Symbols.

Playing Positions Notational Symbols

The two percussion sticks hit the body of

An "open" stroke; the flat

A "closed" stroke; pro-

* An "open" stroke with

O A tap with the front part of the right

A somewhat more forceful (accentu-

* A tap with the front part of the left

md\ A stopped stroke produced by striking

Return of the hands to a "waiting

The performer hits the centre of the

A slackened tap with the right hand

0 A stroke with the right fist into the

The African and the Non-African Heritage in Caxias' s

The study of Brazilian music almost inevitably leads the researcher to

requires passing a threshold. Slavery and colonization, which denied

In addition, organological features themselves are to be considered as

African Parallels to the Organologyand Designations of the "Batuque" Instruments

A comparison of Caxias's percussion instruments with African in-

"Quinjengue." Some organological characteristics of this drum type point

(Arch. No. B 1079)

Goblet-shaped drums with a long, solid column projecting from the

"Tambu." It is easier to identify the African connections of the second

The word "matraca" does not sound Bantu-African, mainly because