Caxangá has several meanings, but not a game. It can be a crustacean (similar to a crab), a hat worn by sailors, and there is even an indigenous definition: according to the Tupi-Guarani-Portuguese Dictionary, by Francisco da Silveira Bueno, caxangá comes from caá-çangá, which means “kills extensive”. But none of this has to do with gambling and even less with Job, the biblical character who lost everything he had (including his slaves), except his faith. This has experts puzzled. “I’ve already looked for caxangá, caxengá and caxingá, with ‘x’ and ‘ch’, and I haven’t found anything that makes sense as a game”, says etymologist Cláudio Moreno. “If this game existed, it would be almost impossible to explain how it went unnoticed by all the anthropologists and ethnologists who study our popular traditions.” What may have happened is a kind of “cordless phone”: if the verse originally read “gathered caxangá” instead of “played”, we might think of slaves catching crabs instead of playing a game. Another hypothesis is that caxangá is a meaningless expression, like “a tonga da mironga do kabuletê”, from the song by Toquinho and Vinícius – the separate words even make sense (they are African words), but not with the meaning they have in the song .
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