Juego de maní

Juego de maní ('game of war') often simply called maní or mani, sometimes referred to as baile de maní ('dance of war') or bambosa, is a combined martial art and dance that was developed in Cuba by African slaves. It has its roots in the Kongo-Angola culture and is still kept alive today in Cuba by folkloric groups. Practitioners are referred to as maniseros.

The word mani (or accented maní in Spanish to indicate stress on the final syllable) is said to mean 'war', in an indeterminate African language, and is not a reference to 'peanuts', which the word maní can also refer to in Cuban Spanish. Its longer Spanish names, juego de maní, ('game of mani' or 'maní game') and baile de maní ('dance of mani' or 'maní dance') would thus mean 'war game' or 'war dance', respectively, when fully translated from both languages.

An even longer name recorded is juego de maní con grasa (loosely, 'maní greased game' or 'war game with grease') because of its smooth and slippery qualities.

In English, some modern practitioners call it simply mani, with no accent. The descriptive term mani stick-fighting may also be encountered.

Cuban juego de maní is related to Brazilian capoeira in its African roots, as both derive from the Kongo-Angola culture. As with other similar dance and martial artforms arising in the 16th century onward among African slaves in European colonies in the Americas, juego de maní developed initially as means for the slaves to disguise fighting practice as a form of dance, in their scarce free time from labor. Some of their masters would recognize it as fighting competition and gamble on the outcomes. It is thought that sometimes slaves were made to fight to the death for their masters' sport.

The distinct Cuban juego de maní form had emerged clearly by the 19th century on Cuban sugar-cane plantations, by then staffed by free people of mixed Afro-Cuban ancestry.

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