Ricardo Chibanga

Ricardo Chibanga , called El Africano , (born November 8, 1942 (according to other information 1946) in Lourenço Marques ; † April 16, 2019 in Golegã ) was a Mozambican bullfighter. He was the first African and the first black bullfighter and in the 1960s one of the most famous in the world. He worked mainly in Portugal and Spain .

Life

Ricardo Chibanga was born in a poor district of the city of Lourenço Marques, today Maputo, the capital of the then Portuguese province of Mozambique. He was a childhood friend of Eusebio . Already as a child there was an enthusiasm for bullfighting and he regularly visited the bullring in Lourenço Marques. In 1962 he came to Portugal as an assistant for a well-known torero . First he did his military service when his talent as a bullfighter was recognized and he was trained in Golegã and Badajoz .

He began his career as a torero in Portugal, where he fought in Lisbon in the legendary Campo Pequeno or, for example, in Viana do Castelo . He later moved to Spain, where he worked as a torero for years and enjoyed great success in Seville and Madrid . He has also had celebrated guest appearances in other countries, such as Mexico , Great Britain , Venezuela , Canada , the USA , Indonesia , China , Angola and in his home country Mozambique. Numerous celebrities saw him, including Pablo Picasso , Salvador Dalí , Orson Welles and Christiaan Barnard , the world-famous cardiac surgeon.

In total he worked as a torero in Portugal and Spain for a good 20 years. At the end of his career he retired to Golegã, where he lived to the end and a street is named after him. After his active days, he romped through Portugal with a mobile bullring.

Ricardo Chibanga died on April 16, 2019 in Golega of complications from a stroke.

Web links

• culturaderibatejo.no.comunidades.net. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original 
• cm-golega.pt. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original 
• Faleceu Ricardo Chibanga, toureiro de Moçambique. In: delagoabay.wordpress.com. April 17, 2019(Portuguese). 
• Tilo Wagner: The matador from Mozambique: The bullfighter Ricardo Chibanga. (PDF, 89 kB) In: Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Das Feature”. May 22, 2012 . 
• Thomas Behrens: Documentário centrado na figura de Ricardo Chibanga, o primeiro africano matador de touros em toda a História. In: Rádio e Televisão de Portugal . 2011 (Portuguese). 
• gabitogroupo.com. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original