Mestre Espinho Remoso

Elízio Maximiano Ferreira, known as Mestre Espinho Remoso, was born around 1910 in Teixeira de Freitas, Bahia. He learned the art of capoeira while working in the sugarcane mills of Santo Amaro, a city considered the cradle of Bahian capoeira.

In Santo Amaro, he met Mestre Cassarangongo (Antônio Elói dos Santos) at Engenho da Pindoba, located between Santo Amaro and Candeias. The two worked together in the sugarcane fields and would play capoeira after work, becoming great friends. They later reunited in Salvador.

His distinctive nickname originated from an incident during a capoeira game. A thorn (espinho) entered Elízio's knee, leaving it swollen. A man named Tiodé da Quibaca, who was watching as a spectator, removed the thorn but the tip remained stuck. Tiodé hit the knee and the tip came out. From that day, Tiodé suggested Elízio take the name "Espinho Remoso" (roughly "inflamed thorn" - "remoso" possibly being a corruption of "reuma," meaning something that attacks the body).

According to Mestre Zé do Lenço (a disciple of one of Remoso's students), Espinho Remoso was a short, Black, muscular man and a practitioner of Candomblé.

In Salvador, Espinho Remoso sold offal in the Retiro neighborhood and performed important capoeira work at Jaqueira do Carneiro (in the Fazenda Grande do Retiro neighborhood). Unlike formal academies, he operated a kiosk where, every Sunday, fellow capoeiristas would gather to play. These Sunday rodas attracted significant figures of Bahian capoeira in the 1950s, including Mestre Waldemar, Mestre Paulo dos Anjos, and Zacarias Boa Morte.

According to the Jornal Metropolitano (1960), he was considered one of the outstanding capoeiristas of the era in the Liberdade neighborhood, alongside Mestre Traíra, Mestre Waldemar, Cabeça de Bagre, Mestre Bimba, and others.

Espinho Remoso trained many students, including: Diogo, Fulô, Florzinho, Valdir, Loriano da Boca do Rio, Gerônimo, Raimundo, Antônio Catarino, Dario do Pandeiro, Buiu, Florisvaldo, Moisés, Valdomiro, Chico Zoião, and Firmino. His student Mestre Diogo carried out his funeral in 1960.

He is also listed among the teachers of Mestre Cobrinha Verde in Santo Amaro, placing him among the foundational capoeiristas of the pre-codification era.

His son Virgílio (Virgílio Maximiano Ferreira, later known as Mestre Virgílio da Fazenda Grande) was initiated in capoeira by him in 1954 at age ten. Virgílio was his only child with his wife Edite Isabel dos Santos. After Espinho Remoso's death in 1960, Virgílio continued his father's Sunday roda at Jaqueira do Carneiro and later received his mestre title from Mestre Paulo dos Anjos.

The memory of Espinho Remoso is preserved by the Associação de Capoeira Angola Relíquia Espinho Remoso, led by Mestre Zé do Lenço, with headquarters at Sete Portas and São Miguel market in Salvador.