I wanna share something different but that is very personal to me here.
I won’t go on about the details of my life, but I was adopted as child, and my adoptive father comes from Reunion Island, a French island in the Indian Ocean that was home to slaves brought from Mozambique and later to several different populations (mostly Chinese and Indian). Reunion has a very vibrant local culture, most notably a very typical cuisine between chinese, indian & créole (grew up on that stuff it’s DELICIOUS), prominent music styles called sega and maloya (the latter being unique to the island)... and martial arts !!
Réunion has two prominent martial arts : La Croche, a form of folk wrestling that exists only on the island (and that is similar to most wrestling styles found around the world), and the subject of this video : Moringue.
Moringue is incredibly similar to Capoeira, and some modern Moringue group actually linked it to Capoeira Angola, but it’s something completely unique to Reunion. It’s half dance and half actual fighting, mostly with kicks, that look like an incredible crossover of usual front kicks / side kicks and acrobatic, capoeira-like kicks. Actual full contact competition exist, from the video it looks like the goal is to get your opponents out of bounds through kicks. Kicks are mostly used because, similarly to Capoeira, Reunionese slaves wore chains on their hands and had to use their legs to do anything.
In this video (where people speak a mix of Reunionese creole and french), the guy sitting behind drums with his hair tied explains he is a scientist who is working on Moringue and its history, and mentions concepts like Afro-descendence, something relating to the common cultural heritage of former slaves that explains how places that are as remote as Brazil and Reunion end up having similar traditions. He mentions Moringue evolved from the original slaves, included Chinese and Hindu influence (probably kung fu and kalaripayattu, some of the kicks look A LOT like kalaripayattu) and later more European influences. Reunion moringue is done exclusively to the rhythm of maloya, the one typical musical style of Reunion, which participates to its unique character (Moringue has similar styles in Madagascar and the surrounding islands, but the Reunion one is unique).
It is a fascinating art on so many aspects. Another testimony of African culture that was passed down from former slaves.
My adoptive father was a maloya musician, playing a kayamb, that he had brought from his island and kept like one of his most treasured possessions. It sat on the walls of the house for years. I’m estranged from him now but I can absolutely picture him playing to moringue and i’m pretty sure he did, and that’s where his fascination for martial arts started.
The town I live now has a HUGE Reunionese population. Hell, three of my most regular musical collegues are Creole. I wonder if some of them brought Moringue to the mainland ? I’m gonna look into this when I have time.
