Despite the lack of analyses, it is interesting to note that records on the construction technologies, material organization and intangible dimension of quilombos can be found among the sources of information on repression and complaints. Even so, little is known about the self-identification of the residents of the thousands of mocambos and quilombos which spread across Brazil. In the mid-seventeenth century, the earliest descriptions of the internal structure of the buildings in the large quilombo of Palmares (in the state of Alagoas) mention 'houses', including 'a church, four forges and a large council house'. In this large colonial mocambo, 'all sorts of artifices' were said to exist among its residents, suggesting interrelated construction techniques, material structures and internal organization. Built by various generations of Africans and their descendants, Palmares was certainly one of the finest examples of a community in the diaspora, uniting African cultural permanencies and transformations.  
Descriptions also emerged of the clothes which were worn by the palmaristas (as the residents were known) and which were made 'almost entirely from tree bark'. They may thus have adapted techniques to the local natural landscape (trees, jungle, flora and fauna), as it was said that they also made 'their homes', 'beds' and 'fans for fanning the fire' from 'alleys of palm trees', by 'eating the insides of coconuts and fashioning them into pipes'. ${ }^{2}$