Today I’d like to share a website which has been online for some years, while not a lot of people seem to know it. I am talking about CapoeiraGens, a site where you can discover the lineage of hundreds of capoeira Mestres. In the sidebar you can enter the name of a Mestre (the search seems to be very specific, so don’t forget any special characters or accents), or you can browse by letter.

When clicking on the name of a Mestre, a simple visualization of the Mestre’s genealogy is displayed. You can also click on the black square next to a name to traverse up and down the tree of a Mestre. For example, you can search for “Cobra” to find Mestre Cobra Mansa. Clicking on his name reveals how he is related to Mestre Pastinha and even Besouro Mangangá. When clicking on the icon next to his name, you can traverse further down the tree to learn the names of his more prominent students.

Of course not all Mestres that exist today are in the database. Chances are that you won’t find your Mestre. But if you happen to know the name of his mentor, you’ll have a better chance of getting some results.

Big props to Teimosia for the fantastic work he has put into this!

The full link to CapoeiraGens: http://capogens.appspot.com/html/index.html

— Vinho