History
The popularity of this martial art was partly due to the demeanor of the northern folk, who valued personal and family honor enough to kill for it. It was also due in no small part to the relative ease of obtaining a staff as well as the versatility of such a tool: a staff or stick was almost universally present, used as a support for the long daily walks, to help cross the rivers, by the shepherds to protect the cattle from wild animals, and so on. There are references to this martial art being used by the guerrilla against the troops of Napoleon that were occupying Lisbon during the Peninsular War.
Read more about this topic: Jogo Do Pau
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We may pretend that were basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise OBrien (b. 1917)