The material culture of Brazil's quilombos/mocambos may be considered an extension of slave culture. Although senzalas were constant sources of cultural backgrounds for the residents, the opposite was also true. In some situations, the demographical impact of the slave trade also undoubtedly led to the creolization of those living in mocambos and senzalas; the forced isolation of some resident groups perhaps sparked different cultural interactions. Generally speaking, the quilombos were not entirely removed from the senzalas and other enslaved, freed and black populations. It is therefore possible to perceive Africa as historically reworked along the various edges of the Atlantic. It is important to consider the formation of Afro-Brazilian material culture not only from the perspective of African reminiscences, but also in the context of the slave and post-emancipation worlds. Various African influences on the material culture of the quilombos may have equally been informed by aspects of the culture of various Indigenous groups, including home structure, defence strategies and economic practices. Emphasizing the verbs 'reinvent', 'redevelop' and 'recreate' means stating the way in which Africans and their enslaved descendants in the Americas forged an original culture, whether in the mocambos or the plantations, improvising a new world in spite of oppression. The term 'improvisation' is in fact key to understanding the nature of Afro-American culture. Owing to the legacy of a culture of improvised skills, Africans were better equipped for fighting cultural imbalance than any other immigrants with their own strategies for cultural retention (among various perspectives: Mintz and Price, 1976).