The last years
Soon another kind of predicament was added to the problems of Pastinha’s deteriorating health. In the early
1970s he lost his academy when the Foundation for the Artistic and Cultural Heritage (IPAC) required the old
colonial house for restoration. Upon the completion of the renovation, however, the building was handed over
to a school for cooking apprentices and their restaurant (the SENAC), which offered ‘typical’ Bahian food
for tourists. In that process Pastinha lost all the possessions of his school: 14 benches and other furniture
made of jacarandá wood, many instruments, his paintings, and the archives with the register of his students.
The old mestre never recovered from this traumatic experience. He received a small compensation, and,
due to the lobbying of his friend Jorge Amado, was granted a pension by the city of Salvador. Yet that
sum—one minimum wage according to most accounts, three according to other sources—was not enough
for him, his wife Maria Romélia de Oliveira and his three children (he had adopted a further 15 during his
life, most of whom were adults then). Maria Romélia sold acarajés (Bahian fast food made from beans fried
in palm oil, derived from West African cuisine) in the streets of Salvador to make ends meet, but Pastinha
could not afford to rent another space. They had to live in one squalid room in a deteriorating building
located at 14, Ladeira do Pelourinho, where dozens of families shared one single bathroom. In 1979, again
due to the action taken by some friends such as Vivaldo da Costa Lima, the city granted him another space
in the Rua Gregório de Matos to reopen his school at Ladeira do Ferrão, near the place of his former
academy. There his students João Pequeno, João Grande and Ângelo taught, while Pastinha was sitting on a
chair, eventually correcting some pupils by the sound produced when falling on the floor of the academy, or
lecturing students and visitors about the ‘foundations’ of capoeira Angola. Yet visitors did not fail to note
that his school was not any longer what it used to be.
At this stage Pastinha was already embittered by the lack of support: ‘The newspapers only want to make
headlines with me, but they don’t help me’. At the end of 1979 he suffered a stroke and went to a public
hospital for a year. After being discharged he spent his last months in a shelter for old people without
resources, the Abrigo Dom Pedro II, where he died 13 November 1981, aged 93. He was buried that same
day at the Campo Santo Cemetery, and his friend Caribé had to pay for the funeral. Because radio and
television did not immediately learn of his death, only about 40 people attended the funeral: the old people
from the Abrigo, some members of his family, his students, and three capoeira Regional mestres. The city
of Salvador was represented by its Health Secretary. Some chords of a berimbau were played inside the
cemetery as a last homage and a berimbau was laid next to Pastinha’s corpse.^86
Despite protection from a number of influential friends during his lifetime, M.Pastinha died in abject
poverty, just like M.Bimba had done seven years earlier. This resembled the way classic malandros often
ended their days, dumped by the powerful when they were no longer in a position to threaten others or to be
useful in any way. Pastinha’s sad end seemed to illustrate the uncomfortable truth that patronage was not a
perfect life insurance for the poor, and how Brazilian society and the state dealt with its popular heroes.
Pastinha’s death in poverty subsequently featured prominently in his life story as told in capoeira circles and
served as a further proof of the ‘betrayal’ of an unappreciative government.^87
Conclusion
Angelo Decânio, the editor of Pastinha’s main manuscript, wrote that ‘the Angola brought a body of doctrine...
the objective to perpetuate a social praxis...regional...Bahian...from Santo Amaro...added to a philosophy...
that Pastinha wisely injected since its origins...’^88 Even though I would argue that the Bahian vadiação
already had its own ethics, it is undeniable that Pastinha added a new spiritual and communal dimension when
he codified Capoeira Angola. That a social praxis was perpetuated thanks to Pastinha and the CECA is
PASTINHA AND ANGOLA STYLE 163