Mestre Índio

Carlos Roberto Gallo was born in 1963 in Várzea da Palma, a municipality in the northern region of Minas Gerais near Pirapora, Brazil. He began practicing capoeira at age twelve, around the same time he left his hometown and moved to Belo Horizonte.

At fourteen, Índio left home and began working as an artisan while traveling through various Brazilian cities. By sixteen, he had crossed his first international border into Bolivia. At twenty-one, around 1984, he moved to Europe and began his life as a traveling capoeirista. Over the following twenty-five years, he lived and worked across Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Italy, and traveled as far as India and Nepal.

During his time in Belo Horizonte in the mid-1980s, Índio encountered the nascent Capoeira Angola community in Minas Gerais. He began training and eventually developed a relationship with Rogério Soares Peixoto, who had founded the first Capoeira Angola school in Belo Horizonte after receiving his mestre title from Moraes (GCAP) and Cobra Mansa (FICA) in 1989.

In May 1990, Índio invited Mestre Rogério to travel to Germany. This invitation proved transformative for both men and for Capoeira Angola in Europe. Rogério accepted and settled in Kassel, where the two would establish a formal organization two years later.

In 1992, Índio and Rogério co-founded the Associação de Capoeira Angola Dobrada (ACAD) in Kassel, Germany. The organization's name references the "Angola Dobrada" berimbau toque, a doubled variation of the traditional Angola rhythm. ACAD became one of the first Capoeira Angola organizations established on European soil, and its mission is "to cultivate, spread and maintain the art and rituals of Capoeira Angola in accordance with the tradition"—without distorting its essence.

In 2004, twelve years after co-founding ACAD, Índio received his mestre title from Rogério. This titling confirmed the lineage continuation from Moraes and Cobra Mansa through Rogério to Índio.

Today, ACAD has expanded to include locations across three countries: Germany (Frankfurt, Freiburg, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Kassel), Italy (Bologna, Cesena), and Brazil (Belo Horizonte, São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, Curitiba). Mestre Índio currently lives in Italy, where he leads the ACAD nuclei in Bologna and Cesena alongside Contramestra Alcione.

Beyond his capoeira teaching, Índio has applied his practice to humanitarian work. In 2015, at age 52, he became the first Brazilian capoeira instructor at the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan, volunteering with the British NGO Bidna Capoeira. The organization, founded in Syria in 2007, uses capoeira as a tool for psychosocial development with children and youth in conflict zones.

At Azraq, Índio taught three classes daily to Syrian refugee children, adapting his methods for the context. He transliterated capoeira songs from Portuguese into Arabic and incorporated phrases relevant to the refugees' experience, such as "I'm going back to Syria, because that's my place." He worked alongside Italian capoeirista Chiara Monzali.

Índio's philosophy reflects capoeira's universality. As he told Estado de Minas: "Capoeira não tem cor, não tem raça" (Capoeira has no color, has no race), noting that Mestre Pastinha himself exemplified this through his mixed heritage.

After returning from his humanitarian work, Índio settled in São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, a small colonial-era village in the Serro district of central Minas Gerais. There he works with alchemy and herbalism, teaches courses, and provides community services. He has a daughter, born around 2001.

The lineage from Pastinha through Moraes and Cobra Mansa to Rogério and now through Índio represents an important transmission of Capoeira Angola tradition from Bahia to Europe and back to Brazil.