Besourinho

Besourinho was a capoeirista active in Salvador in the early 20th century. His name means "little beetle" in Portuguese - a diminutive form, perhaps indicating he was smaller in stature, or a term of affection.

What little is known of Besourinho comes from the testimony of Mestre Onça Preta (Cícero Navarro, 1909-2006), who listed him among the masters under whom he trained as a boy in Salvador. "I had not one, but many mestres", Onça Preta recalled in a 1972 interview. "Still a boy, I jumped with Samuel, with Pastinha, Besourinho, Vitor Agaú, Gasolina, Aberrê... and many others, who today are deceased".

Tragically, Besourinho was among those who did not survive the brutal persecution conducted by Police Chief Pedro de Azevedo Gordilho, the infamous "Pedrito", who assumed command in 1920. Pedrito's cavalry squadron conducted a systematic massacre of the old capoeira mestres. The killings were not in open combat but through assassination after capture - bodies would appear days later, thrown into the forest, their backs opened by knife cuts.

When Onça Preta recalled the fallen, Besourinho's name came first: "Besourinho, Doze Homens, Mãozinha, Antônio Galindéu, Geraldo Chapeleiro, Finado Manteiga, Nagé, Paulo César de Moura, Gasolinha, Juvelino, and many others". With the death of these men, one chapter in the history of Bahian capoeira closed. A new generation - including Onça Preta himself, Mestre Bimba, Dois de Ouro, Juvenal, and Waldemar - rose from the silence, at the cost of much blood.

Nothing else is recorded about Besourinho - not his full name, his birthplace, his family, nor the specific circumstances of his death. He exists in history only as a name in an old man's memory, a master who helped train one of the bridge figures between capoeira's persecuted past and its legalized future.