Zacarias Boa Morte
5 Nov 1923 – 3 Nov 2000 • Salvador, Bahia

Quiet smile, sharp game. Mestre Zacarias Boa Morte grew up in the current of Liberdade’s capoeira and learned to ride it without raising his voice. He began in 1942 with Mestre Waldemar at Corta-Braço, the backyard school that forged so many angoleiros. Early photos fix himthere—Pierre Verger caught him in the roda on 11 April 1948—alreadylight on his feet and precise with time.

By the 1950s Zacarias was part of the scene that drew cameras and microphones to Salvador. He appears in Alexandre Robatto Filho’s film Vadiação (1954), on the 1955 LP cover produced by Simone Dreyfus-Roche, and in João Martins’s images at Mário Cravo’s house. João Grande remembered the heat of Waldemar’s hut in 1953—“only snakes there”—and named Zacarias among the ones who set the tone.

What set Zacarias apart was elegance carried low and light, sometimes on the tips of the toes, old style. He kept that humility and grace into later decades as Angola reorganized. You find him at Circo Voador in 1984 with Mestre Camisa, Mestre João Pequeno, and Mucungê. Then at GCAP workshops in 1986, 1987, and 1997, and at the ACANNE gathering in Fazenda Grande do Retiro(25–29 March 1998), where his ladainha still circulates on tape and memory. In 1999 a school bearing his name opened on Avenida do Peixe in Pero Vaz—aneighborhood tribute to a neighborhood master.

Those who knew him speak of an easy conversation and a demanding roda. Mestre Barba Branca called him “the most beautiful thing,” and dreamed of a tribute that showed Zacarias playing on his toes, the old Bahia way. That is the image that remains: a player who could lower the game without lowering the art.

Selected milestones

• 1923 — Born (5 Nov)

• 1942 — Begins with Mestre Waldemar at Corta-Braço

• 1947 — Birth of son Arival (26 Apr)

• 1948 — Photographed by Pierre Verger in Waldemar’s roda (11 Apr)

• 1953–55 — Present in Waldemar’s hut; appears in Vadiação (1954) and on 1955 LP imagery

• 1984 — Plays at Circo Voador with leading mestres

• 1986, 1987, 1997 — Participates in GCAP workshops

• 1998 — Sings ladainha at ACANNE’s Encontro in Fazenda Grande do Retiro

• 1999 - Zacarias Boa Morte founded school (Av. Peixe, Pero Vaz)

• 2000 - Dies (3 Nov)