 In the 19th century, Capoeira was played mostly by African slaves who had been brought from West Central Africa, making them the original capoeristas and making the art a complex form of social interaction, expressing the participants' physical skills and spiritual essence, involving the gods and the spirits of the ancestral fathers.The participants played during festivals and holidays, jumping and leaping in front of musical bands, military troops, and religious processions.This dance “game” was considered dangerous to public order and was eventually criminalized in the late 19th century.