Barboza

Barboza was a capoeirista who practiced in Salvador, Bahia, during the 1930s. He was part of the legendary Sunday training gatherings at Matatu Preto—a lowland area in the Matatu neighborhood where capoeiristas would meet in an open square (terreiro) to train and play.

According to Mestre Canjiquinha's 1989 testimony about the Matatu Preto group: "On Sundays, all those capoeiristas would come—Onça Preta, Geraldo Chapeleiro, Totonho Maré, Creoni, Chico Três Pedaços, Pedro Paulo Barroquinha, the late Barboza, and this citizen called Antonio Raimundo, nicknamed by all Aberrê".

The reference to "finado Barboza" (the late Barboza) indicates he had already passed away by 1989 when Canjiquinha recorded this testimony. This is the only known documentation of Barboza—no records survive of his full name, his trade, his teachers, or the circumstances of his death.

Barboza trained alongside some of the most significant figures in capoeira history: Mestre Aberrê (who led the sessions and later trained both Canjiquinha and Caiçara), Onça Preta (who would go on to establish capoeira Angola in Rio de Janeiro), and Totonho de Maré (co-founder of Gengibirra and recognized as one of the finest capoeiristas of his era).

Like many capoeiristas of the pre-modern era, Barboza exists in history primarily as a name in an oral tradition—a figure remembered by his contemporaries but whose individual story was never recorded. His presence in Canjiquinha's testimony reminds us how much of capoeira's history was preserved only in the memories of those who lived it.