Engolo or NGolo (

Kikongo Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...

word meaning strength, power) is a performance of

ritual combat __NOTOC__ Ritual warfare (sometimes called endemic warfare) is a state of continual or frequent warfare, such as is found in some tribal societies (but is not limited to tribal societies). Description Ritual fighting (or ritual battle or ritual ...

by various ethnic groups around the

Cunene River The Cunene (Portuguese spelling) or Kunene (common Namibian spelling) is a river in Southern Africa. It flows from the Angola highlands south to the border with Namibia. It then flows west along the border until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. It ...

in southern

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

. The style of fighting involves various kicks, dodges, and leg sweeps, with an emphasis on inverted positions, i.e. with one or more hands on the ground. The first mention of Engolo in literature was made by Albano Neves e Sousa in a set of drawings demonstrating various techniques and their similarities to the Afro-Brazilian art form of

Capoeira Capoeira () is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatics, music and spirituality. Born of the melting pot of enslaved Africans, Indigenous Brazilians and Portuguese influences at the beginning of the 16th century ...

in the 1960s. Engolo is one of several African

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...

of the

African Diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

in the Americas. Neves e Sousa described Engolo as part of a rite of passage, Omuhelo, between young boys vying for a bride in the contest, and whose techniques derived from the peculiar way in which Zebras fight amongst themselves. Research carried out by Dr. TJ Desch Obi finds that Engolo itself is not strictly performed for any one ritual, but as an element in various public and private performances. In his book ''Fighting for Honor'', as well as his article "Combat and Crossing of the Kalunga", Desch Obi draws parallels between the circle space used in the Engolo and the inverted techniques with the

Kalunga The Kalungas are Brazilians that descend from people who freed themselves from slavery, and lived in remote settlements in Goiás state, Brazil. The Kalungas are one group of Quilombola, or people of African origin who live in hinterland s ...

cosmology, in which the spirit–ancestor world is inverted as a world of opposites: where men walk on their feet, the spirits walk on their hands, where men are black, the spirits are white, where men reach their peak physical abilities in life, the ancestors reach their peak spirituality. He states that men in performing Engolo with its inverted positions connect themselves physically and spiritually with the ancestors, and with specific ancestral warriors of the past.

See also

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Further reading