# Material culture in Brazil's quilombos  
Various studies on communities of fugitive enslaved people in the Americas at the time of the transatlantic slave trade highlight only instances of rebellion or the upholding of an African culture alleged to be intact in the diaspora. In the case of Brazil, there are few analyses of quilombos and mocambos and their role in producing and redefining material culture. Despite the classic anthropological studies carried out on the maroon societies and their societal permanencies and reconstructions, particularly in Suriname, Jamaica and Colombia, little is known about the societies' own experience of identity, how they defined themselves and the microsocieties they created during the slavery regime and the struggle against it (Agorsah, 1994; Price, 1979). The nomenclature - both colonial and post-colonial - used in different areas suggests multifaceted ideas. A hemispheric phenomenon, the communities of fugitives were known under different names, such as cumbes in Venezuela and palenques in Colombia. In the English-speaking Caribbean region and southern United States, groups of fugitives were known as maroons. In various areas of the French-speaking Caribbean, the term used for the establishment of these communities was marronage, while in Cuba and Puerto Rico, it was cimarronaje. In Brazil, such settlements came to be known as mocambos and then quilombos, these terms being of African origin and referring to camps in many African languages and microsocieties. In both Kimbundu and Kikongo, the word mukambu may mean 'spinneret stick', a kind of vertical support resembling a pitchfork often used to build quilombos in camps.