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Technology and Culture Change: The Development of the "Berimbau" in Colonial BrazilAuthor(s): Richard GrahamSource: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Vol. 12, No. 1(Spring - Summer, 1991), pp. 1-20Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/780049

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Richard Graham Technology and Culture

Change: The Development

of the Berimbau in Colonial

Brazil

Technology exists in a sea of social currents

that determine its form and direction. Technological advancements are

the oysters born of social pressures, the products of culture change. In a

cyclical fashion, technological gains can then become the agents for still

further culture change. Here, new technology creates new social needs that

are fulfilled through even greater technological advancements.

The survival, development, and social ascent of the Afro-Brazilian

musical bow known as berimbaude barrigacan also be understood in these

terms. In the cultural crucible of colonial Brazil, divergent cultural expres-sions of the African diaspora were reinterpreted to produce Brazilian

national cultural institutions such as the escolas desamba, the terreiros e Can-

domble,and the academiasde capoeira.As social and ethnic differences beganto relax in nineteenth-century Brazil, specific West and Central African

cultural cells began to fuse through interpenetration, resulting in a more

homogeneous Afro-Brazilian culture. Within this new social framework,

music, dance, language, religion, and plastic arts were reinterpreted in

more Brazilianized terms. Forpure

Africantraditions,

a kind of cultural

Darwinism took effect, and only the fittest survived.

In the new contexts of this pan-African society, the berimbaude barrigawas spawned from an organological pool that included several related

Kongo/Angolan musical bows. The berimbautruly owes its origins to a

number of these African prototypes, some organologically, to others per-

haps indirectly, through the virtue of cultural reinforcement. In this

respect, the berimbau'shistory, like that of the banjos, needs to be under-

stood as a richly creolized product of the black world that included several

prototypes on both sides of the Atlantic. In colonial Brazil, many CentralAfrican musical bows and their creole progenies fell by the wayside to

create the sociological conditions that eventually produced the pan-African

LatinAmericanMusicReview,Volume 12, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1991?1991 by the University of Texas Press



2 : Richard Graham

berimbau.In this case, demand, experimentation, and technology sharing

produced objectsof

popularculture that were venerated as

being quintes-sentially representative of the cultures that created them.

Of the many Kongo/Angolan musical bows present in colonial Brazil,

the two most important contributors to the development of the berimbau

were the hungu of Luanda and the mbulumbumba f southwestern Angola

(Kubik 1979:34, 1987:187; personal communication: 7/88; Pinto 1986:

151). Both of these Angolan monochords are gourd-resonated braced bows

struck with a thin stick. Another important Kongo/Angolan instrument

was incorporated into the berimbau'splaying technique around the mid-

nineteenth century, the caxixi basket rattle. Despite an ongoing debateregarding its exact provenance, I feel that sufficient evidence of the caxixi's

Kongo/Angolan origins can be found in the literature, and I will deal with

this thorny issue later in this article.

In the following section I shall present a timetable culled from the litera-

ture tracing first the historical descriptions of several Kongo/Angolan

gourd-resonated musical bows contemporaneous with the nineteenth-cen-

tury slave trade, followed by the chronological appearances of these instru-

ments in Brazil.

Kongo/Angolan Bows

Monteiro, a Portuguese adventurer in Angola, noted in 1875, "A musical

instrument sometimes seen is made by stretching a thin string to a bent

bow, about three feet long, passed through half a gourd, the open end of

which rests against the performer's stomach. The string is struck with a

thin slip of cane or palm leaf stem held in the right hand, and a finger of

the left which holds the instrument is laid occasionally on the string, and

in this way, with occasional gentle blows of the open gourd against the

stomach, very pleasing sounds and modulations are obtained" (1968:139).As we shall see later, this early reference to an African musical bow is com-

pletely consistent with descriptions of the berimbaun colonial Brazil. A cane

stick called vaquita s still employed by contemporary berimbauplayers, and

the "wha-wha" modulations implied by Monteiro are a staple of Brazilian

performance technique.In his Aus West Afrika, 1873-6, Soyaux wrote of the NKungu musical

bow: "Between the ends of a weakly bending switch, about 1.20 m. long,is stretched a cord twisted from plant fiber, and towards the thicker end the

string is drawn tightly towards the bow. A gourd resonator is added to-

wards one end. The player holds the NKungu upright in the left hand, so

that the gourd rests on the left hip, and presses with the forefinger of the



Technologyand CultureChange : 3

left hand harder or softer upon the string whilst he causes it to vibrate with

a small stick held in theright

hand"(1879, II:176, 177).Other than the unlikely positioning of the resonator against the hip,

Soyaux could just as easily have been describing a Brazilian musical bow

of that same period. The vegetable-fiber string of the NKungu is perhapsremarkable as well, for oral tradition among contemporary Brazilian per-formers attests to its use on berimbausn the colonial period (Shaffer 1982:22).

A revealing illustration of a Ba-Ngala musical bow appears in Capelloand Ivans' From Benguellato Yacca(1882:326). Although it seems to be an

unbraced bow, the resonator being affixed only to the bow itself, in all other

respects it neatly mirrors depictions of colonial Brazilian bows. Most strik-ing is the playing technique, the right hand percusses the string with a small

stick while the left hand pulls the string with the index finger inward againstthe thumb nail. This Kongo/Angolan fretting technique was the predomi-

nating one used to stop the colonial berimbau'sstring. A major difference

between this Angolan example and later Brazilian instruments is size.

Capello and Ivans' bow seems to be a good deal smaller than those depictedin nineteenth-century Brazilian paintings, smaller still than contemporaryberimbauswhich are usually over four feet in length. This growth in size

increased the instrument's volume, and can be calculated by comparing anextant nineteenth-century berimbau in the Museum of Mankind that is

3' 6" in length, with Bahian bows in the author's collection which are 4'

9 1/2" and 4' 5".

Ladislau Batalha mentions Angolan musical bows in two separate pub-lications. In his 1889 Angola, the Portuguese traveler wrote: "The Humbo

is a kind of string instrument. It is normally formed of half a gourd, hollow

and very dry. A hole is made in the center (of the gourd) at two close points,in addition an arc is made like a bow with an adequate string. To the

extremity of the bow the gourd is tied with a small string which passes

through its two orifices; then resting the instrument to the skin of the chest

which serves as a resonating box, the string is vibrated with a small hay-stick" (1889:57).

Of course Batalha exaggerated the resonating contributions of the per-former's bare chest, the gourd resonator actually accomplishing this. The

method of attaching a gourd resonator to the bow with a small loop of stringis still practiced in Brazil today. This ingenious innovation has a four-fold

purpose in the acoustics of the berimbauand other braced musical bows.

First, the string loop serves as a bridge that divides the string into two

sections; secondly, the string loop forms a handhold for the performer to

grip the instrument. The longer part of the string above the gourd reso-

nator constitutes the playing area, the shorter section underneath it pro-vides sympathetic resonance (Kubik 1979:32). Thirdly, the string loop



4: Richard Graham

serves to attach the resonator to the bow stave, and its fourth function is

realized by the ability to tune the instrument by sliding the gourd resonator

up or down the bow, raising and lowering its pitch.

Writing on the humboagain in his 1890 CostumesAngolenses,Batalha tells

us of "A little Negro who plays his Humbo, a kind of Guitar with a single

string for which the naked body of the musician serves as a resonatingchamber" (1890:117).

Although Batalha once again overestimates the resonating capacity of the

performer's body, he nonetheless leaves us another good account of an

Angolan antecedent of the berimbau.Also noteworthy is his reference to a

shirtless player. Recordings I have made playing the berimbauwith a heavysweater on completely lacked the presence of a shirtless performance.

Clothing tends to absorb a lot of the berimbau'sdecibel output. The capo-eiristas like to perform shirtless for this same reason. What should be

understood here is that gourd-resonated bow players actively manipulatethe resonator against the stomach to shade the timbre of the instrument.

Pitch change occurs when the space between the gourd's opening and the

player's stomach is altered, isolating select harmonies of the string's fre-

quency swing. The performer's stomach operates similarly to a trombone

mute,its lesser

resonating capacity being only secondaryin

importance.In his excellent Etnografiae historiatradicionaldospovos de Lunda, de Car-

valho notes many Angolan instruments in vivid detail. While traveling

along the Angolan/Zairean border, this early ethnographer encountered a

musical bow called rucumbo,which also appeared in colonial Brazil and

Peru. Of the bow, de Carvalho reported: "This is very well known in our

province of Angola. You take a stick made out of a flexible wood, applyinga thick cotton thread to the ends which is kept well tensed. At the lower

part of the bow is fixed a small gourd with an opening big enough to obtain

good vibrations. The opening of the gourd is turned towards the musicianwhen the instrument is played, the string facing away (from the musician).The bow is held between the body and the left arm, the left hand securingit at a certain height. With a little stick in the right hand playing at different

heights of the string, good sounds are made which remind me of a viola,the combination of which is pleasant. The Loandas call it Violam. They

play it in the cubatas. It is a portable and (henceforth) very convenient

instrument" (1890:370).Because the presence of the rucumbo n the New World has been docu-

mented in Brazil by Rodrigues (1932:259) and Ramos (1935:156) and inPeru by Romero (cited in Liscano 1950:111), it is safe to say that as an

associated phenomenon of the slave trade this instrument may have con-

tributed to the development of the berimbau.Ramos in particular gives the

term rucumboas an alternative name for the berimbaude barriga 1935:156).Carvalho's description reveals another important link between the




rucumboand the berimbau'splaying technique. By striking the bow's stringat different heights, subtle variations in both pitch and timbre are obtained,

a technique expertly demonstrated for me by berimbaumaster Nana Vas-

concelos of Recife, Brazil (personal communication, June 1978).The presence of a variety of African musical bows is attested throughout

the literature of colonial Brazil. The majority of these were gourd-resonatedbows from the Kongo/Angolan music cultures. These formed the organo-

logical spawning pool that eventually produced the Brazilian berimbau.

Mouthbows from both West and Central Africa were also present in nine-

teenth-century Brazil. The benta, described by Kerst (1833:20) came to

Brazil with Ashanti slaves; the berimbaude boca(berimbauof the mouth) bow

played by Shaffer's informant (1982:18) using a knife to stop the string,could have a number of Central African antecedents.

Musical bows and zithers called berimbaude bacia (berimbauwith wash

basin resonator) are sometimes played by children and street musicians in

northeastern Brazil. These instruments utilize a slider, usually a pipe or

bottle to gliss the string. Like the berimbaude barriga,these instruments were

exported to Brazil with the Kongo/Angolan slave trade (Kubik, unpub-lished fieldnotes, October 1975; Shaffer 1982:19; Richard Graham, The

DiddleyBow in a Global

Context,ExperimentalMusical

Instruments,in

press).Although some of these instruments do resemble the berimbaude barriga, bynow it is obvious that the Portuguese term "berimbau" has increased its

semantic field to include a variety of musical instruments.

The rapid-fire assimilation of African mouthbows by Brazilian Indian

tribes is provocative as well. Despite the faint persistence of a few scholars,

the Africanicity of these musical bows is quite apparent. This is nowhere

more obvious than the case of an Angolan friction bowed mouthbow called

umgunga which reappears in Brazil as an "Indian" bow called umcunga.

In many cases, as African musical bows fell into disuse in the New World,they entered Indian cultures where their creole names alert us to Bantu

origins.The strong presence of these African musical bows in colonial Brazil

proves that there was both a social demand for these instruments as well

as a cultural context for innovative technological advancements and crea-

tive performance practices. Of all the African chordophones present in

nineteenth-century Brazil, only the berimbau ontinues to enjoy mass popu-

larity. In this section I hope to explain the resilience of the berimbauthrough

a thorough examination of its social history.One of the most important factors in the development of the berimbau

was the Luso-Brazilian rechristening of divergent Kongo/Angolan musical

bows under a single blanket Portuguese term. The instruments' new name

"berimbaude barriga," or "Jew's Harp of the Belly," imposed a Portuguesecultural perspective to designate an African phenomenon. This appellation



6: Richard Graham

was destined to supersede all of the Kongo/Angolan terms for these instru-

ments, includingthe once

ubiquitous "urucungu"and its variants. The

impetus for this reinterpretation was the Luso-Brazilians' recognition of

acoustical similarities between the Jew's Harp and the musical bow, both

instruments creating melodies through the reinforcement of select har-

monics of the corpral pitch (Kubik 1979:33).The new blanket term "berimbau" helped to relax Afro-Brazilian inter-

ethnic resistance to the technology sharing which eventually produced a

single, pan-African musical bow. During this cultural process of Braziliani-

zation, the individual musical bows began to lose their specific African

ethnic identities, resulting in an organological homogeneity. Althoughthis metamorphosis insured the emerging berimbau higher social status as

a Brazilian national instrument, the days of diverse musical bows drew to

a close as a result. By the end of the nineteenth century, the berimbauhad

shed its initial association as a beggar's instrument, re-emerging in the

socially powerful context of the capoeirawrestling game. In the followingsection I shall trace these events using evidence culled from the literature

as well as iconographic sources.

Brazilian Bows

Joaquim Guillobel's 1814 painting, Vendedores mbulantes, is an excellent

depiction of a slave vendor attempting to attract customers with the sound

of his urucungumusical bow (Dos Santos 1941:219, 231). Musical vendingwas a common practice in colonial Brazil. Slave owners would send their

slaves out into the streets to hawk food, firewood, and textiles. Free to

express their creative gifts in an acceptable social context, the subjugated

Africans played their musical bows and lamellophones to entice customers.

The musician depicted in the Guillobel painting holds his urucunguob-

liquely in the left hand, using his left index finger to stop the string againsthis thumbnail. Between the thumb and fingers of his right hand he gripsthe vaquitapercussion wand so that it rises upwards at an angle. Using this

method the slave musician swings the vaquitaagainst the urucungu'sstringin the same motion one uses for a hand-held fan. From the appearanceand playing technique of this musical bow, it seems a close relative of the

mbulumbumbamusical bow Kubik recorded in Angola in 1965 (1975-6:100).

Unfortunately, a positive identification of this musical bow as an Angolan

export is complicated by the etymological similarity of the name urucunguwith a number of Kongo bow names recorded by de Hen in Zaire (1960:136, 137). Another consideration is the possible projection of a Kongo bow

name onto a variety of Angolan bows present in colonial Brazil. Given the




later acceptance of the blanket Portuguese term "berimbau" for African

monochords, it does seem plausible.In his Travelsin Brazil, Henry Koster tells us the following: "The slaves

would also request to be permitted to dance; their musical instruments are

extremely rude. One of them is a sort of drum, which is formed of a sheepskin stretched over a piece of the hollowed trunk of a tree; and another is

a large bow with one string, having half of a coconut shell or a small gourd

strung upon it. This is placed against the abdomen, and the string is struck

with the finger, or with a bit of wood. When two holidays followed each

other uninterruptedly, the slaves would continue their noise untill day-break"

(1966:122).Unfortunately Koster is unclear whether the drum and musical bow are

played in tandem. If so, such an ensemble would predate the orchestration

of the contemporary rodasde capoeiraby some seventy years, the berimbau

being introduced in this context only after emancipation. In Africa, the

musical bow is usually a solo instrument played for the performer's own

enjoyment, the capoeirawrestling game being one of its rare appearancesas an ensemble instrument on either side of the Atlantic.

Another ambiguity is Koster's reference to the instrument's playing

technique. Did he mean that the bow string was struck with a stick andthen fretted with a finger? Or was he actually writing about two separatemusical bows he thought were too similar to make a distinction? Ortiz

depicts a finger-percussed musical bow of probable Angolan extraction

called burumbumba in his survey of Afro-Cuban musical instruments

(1952-55, 5:21). Another gourd-resonated musical bow that is played with

this unusual technique was noted by Balfour, who quoted Featherman's

description of a BaLunda instrument, "the string either being struck with

a stick or snapped with the fingers" (1899:21). Experiments I conducted

with this technique on berimbausn my collection did not produce sufficientvolume to be effectively played with a hand drum. More successful were

my acoustical experiments with coconut shell resonators. As they produced

satisfactory amplification, Koster's reference to this aspect seems apt

enough.In 1817, L. F. Tollenare recorded in his Notas Dominicaes: "A cord of

distended gut stretched across a bow and placed over a cavity formed bya gourd. I didn't observe if the music served to dance, and I say the same

about the berimbau"(cited in Shaffer 1982:12). This is our first reference

to the Brazilian gourd resonated bow as a "berimbau."

In her 1824 Journal of a Voyage o Brazil, Maria Graham noted a number

of African chordophones. Here she erroneously refers to them collectivelyas "Gourmis," the plural form for a Hausa lute which she also discovered

in colonial Brazil. Of the musical bow, this British expatriate wrote: "One



8: Richard Graham

is simply composed of a crooked stick, a small hollow gourd, and a single

string of brass wire. The mouth of the gourd must be placed on the naked

skin of the side; so that the ribs of the player form the sounding board, and

the string is struck with a small stick" (1824:199). Further on Graham

compared this musical bow with one displayed in Donnanis' 1722 Gabinette

Armonica. There is little that is remarkable about her account except the

reference to a brass wire, our first indication of its use on a berimbau.Prob-

ably by this time, slaves had access to a variety of raw materials as well as

sufficient free time to construct their musical instruments, so it is not too

surprising that acoustically inferior gut and vegetable fiber strings became

archaic. The brass wire on Graham's example, would, of course, producea louder, more sustaining tone than a natural string.

The French painterJean-Baptiste Debret leaves us two important depic-tions and an excellent description of the oricongomusical bow in his Voyage

pittoresqueet historiqueau Bresil (1965:39,129). While residing in Brazil

between 1816 and 1831, this observant artist recorded the following: "This

instrument is formed by half a calabash attached to an arc made with a stick

curved by a taut string of brass wire on which one lightly strikes. One can

at the same time study the musical instinct of the player with his hand sup-

portingthe front of the calabash on his bare stomach to obtain

throughthe

vibrations a sound more solemn or harmonious. This harmony, when

peppy, can only be compared to the sound of the Timpano's (an earlyFrench term for the Hammer Dulcimer) string. This he obtains by striking

lightly on the cord with a little stick held between the index and middle

finger of the right hand. This picture (Le vieil orpheeAfricain Oricongo) epre-sents the misfortune of an old Negro slave reduced to begging, his little

conductor carries a sugar cane destined for their common nourishment."

Examination of this painting reveals that although the instrument is a

braced bow like the contemporary berimbau,the old slave musician doesnot utilize the brace as a handhold, an Angolan technique still practicedin Brazil today. Instead, he grips the bow stave itself, a few inches above

the brace with his left hand thumb. A variation of the Kongo/Angolan

pincing technique is used to stop the string. In this case the index finger

merely curls over the string to mute it, the slave's thumb being solely

employed to secure the oricongo.Because Debret's example is strung quite

closely to the bow stave, this unorthodox technique is possible. Experi-

menting with this technique on a specially restrung berimbaun my collection,

I found it an adequate pitch-altering method, although not as distinctsounding or facile as employing my thumbnail or using a dobrdo(a coin).

Still another technological advancement apparent in Debret's painting is

the vaquitagrip, which is identical to that of contemporary players. Seen here

for the first time, the vaquita s held like a pencil between the middle and index

fingers, resting against the thumb. This new grip allows the player the




freedom to manipulate the vaquitato produce subtle timbre and dynamic

changes as it bounces off of the berimbau'sstring. Later, when the caxixi

basket rattle was integrated into the berimbau's playing technique, this

vaquitagrip would provide even greater musical possibilities, allowing the

performer to alternate strokes which sound the rattle with those that do not.

In other respects, Debret's oricongomusical bow displays organologicaltraits which link it to Kongo/Angolan instruments such as the ba-ngalabow

depicted by Capello and Ivans. The oricongo'sshort length, pointed stave

ends, and method of string attachment are reminiscent of these bows, and

it is apparent that Debret's painting arrests the development of the berimbau

in a pivotal stage.

A second painting by Debret, Negro Trovador,merely reproduces the old

oricongoplayer and his young friend with the addition of a lamellophone

player. This lamellophone is strikingly similar to the uba-akaplayed by the

Igbo people of southwestern Nigeria. Whether or not Debret's painting is

a factual representation of pan-African musical practices in colonial Brazil

is debatable. If it is accurate, then the Brazilian musical bow emerges in

an ensemble context well before its inception in the orchestration of the

capoeirawrestling game. The syncratic effects of the interpenetration of

African culturesmay

also be measuredmusically,

and thisprovocativeillustration certainly points to a reinterpretation of specific ethnic musical

practices into a homogeneous Afro-Brazilian whole.

In both of Debret's paintings, the vertical playing position of the oricongois noteworthy as well, for this is not only the method employed by con-

temporary berimbauperformers, but by Angolan performers of the Hungumusical bow. Because many of the Kongo/Angolan and early Brazilian

musical bows were held obliquely in performance with the vaquitastrikingthe string upwards at an angle, the Debret paintings hint at a restructuring

of the kinetic approach to the instruments in nineteenth-century Brazil.These emerging attitudes may be attributable to the acculterative effects

of the Hungu in Brazil. Irregardless, this technological fusion opened new

pathways in berimbauperformances that insured its status as a worldclass

musical instrument.

British expatriate Lieutenant Chamberlain also leaves us an excellent

description and depiction of a braced gourd-resonated musical bow called

madimba lungungo. In his Views and Costumesof the City and NeighborhoodofRio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1819-29, Chamberlain published the following

description of his painting, A Market Stall: "The Negro with a leaded basketon his head, though arrested in his progress by what is going on, does not,

however, cease playing upon his favourite Madimba Lungungo, an

African musical instrument in the shape of a bow, with a wire instead of

a string. At the end where the bow is held is fixed an empty calabash or

wooden bowl, which being placed against the naked stomach enables the



10 : Richard Graham

performer to feel as well as to hear the music he is making. The manner

of playing is very simple. The wire being stretched, is gently struck, pro-

ducing a note which is modulated by the fingers of the other hand pinching

the wire in various places according to the fancy; its compass is very small

and the airs played upon it few; they are generally accompanied by the

performer with the voice and consist of ditties of his native country sung

in his native language" (cited in Kubik 1979:65).

This scene is typical of Rio at that time. The slaves often acted as vendors

for their masters. Within this interdependent society an acceptable frame-

work for African musical practices was found in the street vending of the

slaves. The masters doubtlessly realized that the exotic musical instruments

of the Africans were attention-getters in the cosmopolitan streets of Rio,

and encouraged their use. In this context, sales increased and the slaves

had a ready outlet for self-expression that is so vital to mental health.

The madimba ungungodepicted in Chamberlain's painting bears a strong

resemblance to the urucungu n Guillobel's 1814 painting, as well as to the

Angolan mbulumbumbamusical bows recorded by Hambly (1934:225, pl.

XXII), Boulton (1972:10), and Kubik (1975-76:98). Wisely, Kubik also

alerts us to some possible Kongo precursors, citing de Hen's list of morpho-

logicallysimilar bow names such as the mbala

lungungu.In a

telephoneconversation (March 1990), Robert Farris Thompson of Yale University

echoed similar concerns. Despite scholars' best intentions, both creolization

and the interethnic projection of African bow names has, unfortunately,

sufficiently blurred these distinctions to a point where positive identifica-

tion of colonial Brazilian bows is cautionary at best.

One peculiarity displayed in Chamberlain's A MarketStall is the position

of the madimba lungungo. The bow stave is nearly turned sideways in the

loop that holds it to the resonator. I have observed a similar "collapse"

on poorly tied berimbausduring vigorous play, and wonder if this per-former, who is carrying a loaded basket on his head, is not experiencing

this difficulty. To verify the validity of this theory, I experimented with

this unusual playing position on berimbaus o eliminate the possibility that

it was a legitimate nineteenth-century approach to the musical bow. What

I found was that although it is possible to play the instrument in this awk-

ward position, little articulation was obtainable. Holding the vaquitain the

Kongo/Angolan fangrip depicted by Chamberlain was an ineffective tech-

nique to sound the downward positioned string, and the pitch changed

produced by the pincing technique was indistinct. I conclude that eitherChamberlain's depiction is inaccurate in this instance, or more likely, that

he has arrested an overburdened performer in mid-gaffe.

Chamberlain's reference to the performer pinching the string "in

various places" is provocative as well. This technique would serve to in-

crease the compass of the madimba ungungobeyond that of the contemporary




berimbau,which utilizes a coin or a stone to stop the string in a more or less

fixed position. Perhaps Chamberlain's musician was sounding the har-

monic series with this technique. I learned a similar technique from Nana

Vasconcelos, although he uses his right hand, the left hand merely support-

ing the berimbau.Although Vasconcelos maintains that this is not a tradi-

tional technique (personal communication, June 1980), the possibilitythat other players in the past discovered it should not be discounted, espe-

cially in light of Chamberlain's account.

Yet further evidence of the colonial bow's technological ascension can

be deduced by Chamberlain's emphatic notice of "a wire instead of a

string," confirming again the switch to superior, man-made materials.

He also leaves us with our initial notice of a singing Brazilian musical bow

performer. As to the "ditties sung in his native language," it seems un-

fortunate indeed that this observant military man did not include a sample,for hard linguistic evidence would certainly enable us to localize the musi-

cian's African origin.Robert Walsh gives us another excellent reference to the Brazilian

musical bow in his 1830, Notices of Brazil. Traveling through the Brazilian

countryside on horseback, Walsh and his party came to a venda(tavern),where "there stood in the hall a

poorblack minstrel

boy,who

playeda

very simple instrument. It consisted of a single string stretched on a bam-

boo, bent into a arc, or bow. Half a cocoa nut, with a loop at its apex, was

laid on his breast on the concave side; the bow was thrust into this loop,while the minstrel struck it with a switch, moving his fingers up and down

the wire at the same time. This produced three or four sweet notes, and

was an accompaniment to dancing or singing. He stood in the porch and

entertained us like a Welsh Harper, while we were at breakfast, and was

so modest when we praised his music, he actually blushed through his

dusky cheeks. It was the first time that a branco, or white, had ever paidhim such a compliment" (1830:175, 176).

Again many of the organological traits associated with the Angolanmbulumbumbamusical bow are discernible in Walsh's account of a Brazilian

monochord. Both bamboo and rafia stalks are employed to manufacture

Kongo/Angolan bows, and the availability of these raw materials in Brazil

insured for a time the faithful reproduction of these instruments alongtraditional designs. The use of increasingly heavier man-made stringsnecessitated another innovation, the introduction of dense woods such as

biribd to replace the lighter rafia. As lighter woods tend to crack whensubjected to the tension of heavier strings such as piano wire or those

derived from automobile tires, I assume Walsh's musician employed a

lighter string than those currently in vogue. The coconut resonator is cer-

tainly efficient, as I mentioned after the Koster example, but vexing still

is the fretting technique used on the Walsh bow. After a good deal of



12: Richard Graham

practice, I could only obtain two distinct pitches using the Kongo/Angolan

pincing technique, and only when holding the berimbau n a vertical posi-

tion. Because the mobility of the left hand is limited by its dual use to

support the instrument, the Walsh example, like that of Chamberlain's,

is problematic in this particular case. By assuming the grip employed by

Debret's oricongo performer, greater mobility is achieved, and by sliding

the left hand up and down the bow stave, an increased compass is obtain-

able. Walsh, however, gives no notice of such a technique, and Chamber-

lain clearly depicts the utilization of the madimba lungungo's brace as a

handhold. The author's inability to reconstruct this nineteenth-century

technique does not rule out its possible implementation, and it is hoped that

future research will yield a definitive answer.

In 1837, we find a much less sympathetic informant inJohann Emanuel

Pohl, who however leaves us a valuable description and painting of a

musical bow in his Reise im Innern von Brasilien. He writes: "The Negroes

like music very much from the monotonous screams of the lead singer to

the response of the chorus, equally monotonous. Or that of a cord tensed

on a small bow that rests over an empty calabash that produces three tones

at most" (cited in Shaffer 1982:11).

Despitehis

negativeassessment of the musical bow's

range,Pohl never-

theless included it in his 1832 painting, Rio deJaneiro, perhaps to acknowl-

edge its importance in Afro-Brazilian culture. In the far left corner of this

painting is a group of Afro-Brazilian vendors, one of whom holds a berim-

bau. Although this painting is not as detailed as the others I have studied,

and the musician is depicted merely carrying the berimbau,a few important

details are discernible. The end of the bow stave is unpointed, being equally

thick from the middle section, the string passing directly over the flat end

of the berimbau.The surplus string is then wound around the stave and

secured with a short piece of cord. This method of string attachment con-tinues to be employed on the berimbauand is acoustically superior to the

Kongo/Angolan method of tying the string to the stave a few inches from

the end. On Pohl's model, with the string reaching the apex at two hard

contact points, it is freer to vibrate when struck, transmitting a strong

signal to the gourd resonator. All of the earlier Brazilian models depictedwere strung directly to the stave, suggesting lighter string materials.

Natural strings comfortably facilitated the Kongo/Angolan pincing tech-

nique, a blistering proposition on today's heavier berimbau trings.

The use of heavier strings and their new mode of attachment representtwo more important advancements in the technological development of the

berimbau.Comparing Pohl's berimbauwith a photograph of an Angolan

hunguplayer published by Kubik suggests a possible connection with these

organological innovations (Kubik 1987:179, 180). By the 1840s it is evident

that the berimbau ad greatly benefited from pan-African technology sharing,



Technology nd CultureChange : 13

boasting traits of a variety of musical bows exported to Brazil with the slave

trade. Viewed in this light, the hungu, like the mbulumbumba, s a likely

antecedent of the contemporary berimbau.

Two important additions which were integrated into the berimbau'

playing technique in the mid-nineteenth century increased its volume,

colored its timbre, and opened new horizons in performance practices.These elements were the caxixi basket rattle and the dobrdofretting coin.

Both are controversial subjects in the literature documenting the berimbau's

development, for their exact provenance and dates of introduction are

cause for an ongoing debate. New evidence should clarify particulars of

these anomolous additions.

The caxixi basket rattle first appears in James Wetherall's 1860 StrayNotesfrom Bahia. Here, the British author noted, "I think that I have not

named before one musical instrument of the Blacks. It is a long stick made

into a bow by a thin wire, half a gourd to serve as a sounding board is at-

tached to this bow by a loop, which, pushed up or down, slackens or

tightens the wire. The bow is held in the left hand, the open part of the

gourd pressed upon the body. Between the fingers and thumb of the righthand is held a small stick with which the wire is struck, producing a tinkling

sound;on the other

fingersis

hunga kind of rattle of basket

work,confined

in which are small stones which are made to rattle as the hand moves to

strike the string. A very monotonous sound is produced, but, as usual,

seems to be much appreciated by the Negroes" (1860:106, 107).This important document dates the inclusion of the basket rattle into the

berimbau's playing technique some thirty years prior to its introduction

into the wrestling game. In this respect, when Kubik wondered in 1979 if

the caxixi was adopted to enhance the berimbau'sbeat carrying capacity after

it was introduced in the capoeiracontext, Wetherall has provided an answer

(Kubik 1979:35). In this case it would seem that the egg has proceeded thechicken, with the berimbau'stechnological development being independentof the social context of capoeira. Perhaps the berimbau'sincreased volume

at this developmental stage made it a viable candidate to accompany the

capoeiragame, a social need that reinforced the instrument's recent organo-

logical changes.

By eliminating capoeiraas the catalyst for this metamorphosis, we must

now ask what social forces stimulated these changes. Keeping in mind the

ongoing development of the berimbauduring the first fifty years of the

nineteenth century, and the radical reorganization of specific Africanethnic cultural expressions into a homogeneous Afro-Brazilian whole, a

variety of possibilities present themselves. Easily divorced from the capoeiracontext social scientists stringently adhere to, the historical developmentof the berimbauneeds to be viewed in a new light. Perhaps the availabilityof European chordophones stimulated the growth of the berimbauas an



14 : Richard Graham

Afrocentric reaction to increasingly acculturative forces, insuring successive

generationsof Afro-Brazilian bow

performers. Bythe end of the colonial

period, oral tradition linked the berimbau o the capoeiragame, where it was

introduced to disguise the martial aspects as a harmless dance to the au-

thorities, who vigorously opposed it (Almeida 1983:71, 72). Since then,

the berimbauhas been perceived in a romantic paradigm quite removed

from its reality.As I mentioned earlier, the exact origins of the caxixi has caused a small

debate, with Kubik arguing a West African genesis (1979:35), and wa

Mukuna a Central African one (1979:134). After carefully weighing the

facts, I prefer wa Mukuna's theory for a variety of reasons. When JamesWetherall returned to England, he donated a colonial berimbauthat he

collected in Bahia for the British Museum. This remarkable instrument

includes a caxixi which is identical to the Luba rattle dikasa, which wa

Mukuna suggests as a prototype. Slightly shorter and more bulbous than

the contemporary caxixi, Wetherall's specimen also features an elongated

handle, organological traits of many Kongo/Angolan basket rattles.

In areas of Brazil with a significant Kongo/Angolan population, similar

basket rattles called angoiaare found. Like the Wetherall caxixi, these instru-

ments strongly resemble the Luba dikasa, being slightly less bulbous.Another possible precursor of the caxixi is the Umbundu basket rattle osanguwhich Boulton reports in her Angolan fieldwork (1972:25). Although this

rattle is without the plaited handle found on most caxixi, it is similar in all

other respects of its construction.

Linguistic evidence also swings my opinion towards a Kongo/Angolan

origin of the caxixi. In his A InfluenciaAfricana no Portuguesdo Brasil, Men-

donca claims the term "caxixi" has a Quimbundo etymology (1948:216).Cascudo notes a Bantu term "mucaxixi," as an alternative for caxixi (1954:

168). Carneiro gives us this term as well, asserting "that the basket wenow call caxixi, and yesteryear was (called) Mucaxixi" (1974:148). As the

Luba plural form for dikasa is makasa, I cannot help but to notice the pho-netical similarity to the term, mucaxixi. With all the attendant complicationsof Brazilian creolization, the possible interethnic projection of African

rattle names is once again cause for a cautionary approach. Still, the trail

seems warmest here.

Kubik disagrees, and invites our attention to similar basket rattles he

recorded among the Kutin people on the Nigerian/Cameroonian border

(1979:35, 36). Although their organological similarity to contemporarycaxixis is certainly noteworthy, they are nonetheless larger. Furthermore,

it is already evident that like the berimbautself, the caxixitoo, has undergonea metamorphosis, the Wetherall specimen leaning heavier towards the

Central African theory. Also, I can see no reason why Kongo/Angolan




Brazilians would adopt a West African rattle to fulfill a social need that

instruments from their own culture wouldprovide

for.

Inarguable is the caxixi's inclusion as an integral part of the berimbau ince

1860, another major technological advancement in this instrument's sin-

gular history. From that time on, the berimbau ecame a compound chordo/

idiophone, with the caxixi increasing its volume, allowing it to be played

in ensembles with hand drums. By utilizing the vaquitagrip first depicted

in Debret's paintings, skilled performers can alternate strokes that sound

the berimbaustring and caxixi together, the string alone, or the caxixi alone.

The addition of the caxixi obviously opened even greater musical possi-

bilities in berimbauperformance. Of the caxixi's importance in contemporaryberimbautechnique, master performer Nana Vasconcelos insists that "it

makes the sound of the string clearer" (personal communication, 1980).

Returning to Wetherall's description, it is remarkable that he leaves us

without a reference to the fretting techniques employed by Bahian bow

players. As the berimbauhe donated to the Museum of Mankind is extant

and does not include a noter of any kind, I assume the Kongo/Angolan

pincing technique was still in vogue in 1860. Subsequently, experimentsI conducted using the caxixi while stopping the string with the Kongo/

Angolan pincing technique were satisfactory, although the pitch changewas less audible. If this was, hypothetically, the developmental stage of

the berimbau n 1860, then the technological advancement represented by

the inclusion of the caxixi lead to the adoption of the distinctive dobrdonoter,

the new technology filling social needs while simultaneously creating new

ones.

Although our first direct reference to the dobraonoter does not occur until

Querino mentioned it in 1916, Mestre Pastinha (Vicente Ferreira de Silva),the great capoeirista,remembers it from his youth at the turn of the century

(Querino 1916:75). Yet the question remains, where did it come from?

Perhaps the indefatigable Kubik has found the answer in the hungumusi-

cal bow played by the Kimbundu-speaking people of Luanda, which he

describes as "The closest relative to the berimbaude barrigaof Brazil" (per-sonal communication, 5 August 1988). Kituxi, a hungu performer, was

recorded by Emanuel Esteves in the barrio of Marcal, Luanda on Jan. 10,

1981. Like contemporary berimbauperformers, Kituxi held the hungu ver-

tically, but most remarkable was his use of a glass bottle neck finger stall

worn on his left thumb to stop the string. In his Das Khoisan-Erbe m Siiden

Angola, Kubik draws our attention to the possible introduction of this

technique in Brazilian bow traditions (1987:188). This seems quite plau-sible when one considers that Luanda was a major slave port, contributingthousands of Angolan captives to colonial Brazil. Yet how far back in time

can we project the stability of this facet of hungu performance technique?



16 : Richard Graham

Certainly a few gourd-resonated musical bows from East Africa utilize

finger stalls in performance, but as none of the historical references to this

aspect of the hungu's playing technique have thus far surfaced, we must

once again proceed here with caution. It should also be remembered that

both the berimbaude boca and the berimbaude bacia employ noters in their

playing technique, just as their Kongo/Angolan antecedents did. In this

vein, an Afro-Brazilian intracultural borrowing may also be a possibility.If the hungu was among the organological spawning pool of colonial

Brazil, why was the noter not adopted earlier? The answer may be that the

need for such a technology sharing did not arise until the combined im-

petus of heavier strings and the addition of the caxixi

produceda social need

for it. Certainly the noisier context of the capoeirawrestling game would

have necessitated such a change, yet, without further evidence we maynever really know just when the noter was integrated into berimbau ech-

nique.The cultural changes which unified disparate Kongo/Angolan musical

bows into a single high tech berimbaude barrigaeventually lead to a new

social context for its performance, the capoeirawrestling game. Here the

technological gains of its increased volume and range were aestheticallymelded with the

atabaqueand

pandeirohand

drums to produce some of themost beautiful music in Brazil. This is not to imply that organologicalholdouts and other musical contexts do not exist. In Recife, for example,

young boys still construct their berimbaus rom bamboo, a readily available

material. The persistence of the name "urucungo" and associated Kongo/

Angolan playing technique is reported by Araujo, who published a photoof a performer of this archaic instrument (1964, 11:23). The continued use

of the berimbau n the sambade roda, and the advent of solo virtuosi such as

Nana Vasconcellos and Onias Comeda, indicate musical possibilities re-

moved from the social context of capoeira.Our last reference to the berimbau n the colonial era is also the least sig-

nificant. Sir Richard Burton, a noted adventurer of the nineteenth century,leaves us this confusing footnote in his The Highlands of Brazil: "The Pan-

deiro is a gipsy kind of instrument-a bow and calabash, derived from

Africa. The wild men, as might be expected, greatly enjoyed its music;hence the name (Pandeiro) has been given to many places in the back-

woods" (1969:255). This author seems to be confusing the Portuguesename for the tambourine with the berimbau.The two instruments are asso-

ciated in the context of capoeiraand the sambade roda, although not at thisearly date. For a short description of the pandeiro, see my article on Frame

Drums (1985:48).At this stage in the berimbau'sdevelopment, the available nineteenth-

century sources abruptly end, suggesting that the instrument was too fa-

miliar to most Brazilians and foreign observers to warrant further notice.




The trail does not seem to pick up until the early days of Afro-Brazilian

ethnology as espoused by Querino, Ramos, and Rodrigues.

Conclusion

With the social presence of Kongo/Angolan musical bows in colonial Brazil

so firmly established, the creolization of African cultures can be measured

metaphorically using the emerging berimbauas a barometer. By studyingthe technology sharing that produced the pan-African berimbau,one can

also trace the cooperation of social forces that resulted in Brazilian nation-alism. In this respect, the Africanicity of the berimbaudimmed in the

national consciousness as it was increasingly perceived as an element of

Brazilian folklore. Today the berimbauoccupies a similar social office as

the banjo in the United States, that is, one divorced from its ultimate

African origins, being embraced by peoples from divergent ethnic and

socioeconomic groups.The most salient factor in the cultural changes that spawned the berimbau

is its technological and acoustical superiority to its Kongo/Angolan ante-

cedents. With the switch to denser strings, the adoption of the dobrdonoter

and caxixi basket rattle came new performance techniques, resulting in

the most sophisticated musical bow anywhere. As a result, the berimbaude

barrigahas emerged as a worldclass musical instrument, enjoying popular

acceptance not only in Brazil, but in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Having survived some twenty-five years as a percussive novelty in

popular music, the berimbauwill doubtless continue to surface in a varietyof musical contexts. The instrument has already been scored for, appearingin composer Mario Tavares' Gan Guzama. Because of its musical versatilityand global mobility, the perception of the berimbauas a traditional instru-

ment in the fixed social context of the capoeiragame now seems dated, and

in a sense is unhistorical. Continued organological change produced bystill new social demands can also be expected, and the advent of the electric

and the double string berimbaus s certainly indicative of this. With these

continuing technological innovations, the social history of the berimbau

promises to extend far into the future.

References

Almeida, Bira

1983 Capoeira. A Brazilian Art Form. Berkeley: North Atlantic

Books.




Hambly, Wilford Dyson

1934 "The Ovimbundu of Angola." Field Museum of NaturalHistoryAnthropologicalSeries21(2).

Kerst, Joachim1833 "Etwas uber Musik und Tanz in Brasilien." Allgemeine

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Koster, Henry1966 Travels in Brazil. [1816]. Carbondale: South Illinois Uni-

versity Press.

Kubik, Gerhard

1975-76"Musical Bows in South-Western Angola, 1965." AfricanMusic 4.

1979 Angolan Traits in Black Music, Games and Dances of Brazil.

Lisboa: Estudos de Antropologia Cultural.

1987 "Das Khoisan-Erbe im Suden von Angola." In Erich

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technology & culture change: the development of the berimbau in colonial brazil richard paul...

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