“Entre Cíbolos CriadoImages of Native Americans in the Popular Culture of Colonial New Mexico” in “Reconstructing a Chicano/a Literary Heritage: Hispanic Colonial Literature of The Southwest”
Entre Cíbolos Criado
Images of Native Americans in the Popular Culture of Colonial New Mexico
Enrique R. Lamadrid
Nuevo Méjico insolente
entre cíbolos criado,
¿quién te ha hecho letrado
pa' cantar entre la gente?
Insolent New Mexico
raised among the buffaloes,
who has educated you
to sing among the people?
—From a nineteenth-century trovo ballad
The construction of the Native American in the consciousness of the elite culture of Spain was based on a projection of existing categories of cultural otherness already filled by the Moors, the ancestral opponents of Christendom (Said 1979). But the American natives also exhibited pristine, less-civilized traits that added a mythic and natural quality to their humanity. At the first encounter, Columbus marveled at their communalism, generosity, and seeming lack of private property (including clothing). Later, when this behavior was repeated with the possessions of Spanish sailors, he denounced the same people as inveterate thieves, punishing them by amputating ears and noses (Todorov 1984:40).
The false dichotomy of "noble" versus "ignoble" savage appears in colonial discourse from the beginning and pervades it throughout. The direct and daily contact that Spanish colonists in America had with the natives led to the evolution of an analogous dichotomy, modified by experience and assimilation and manifested in their popular culture. With time, the elite concept of "noble savage" gave way to a popular concept of "spiritual savage," which resulted in a new mestizo syncretism. The shadow side of "ignoble savage" in the popular tradition was softened and transformed into a burlesque and carnivalesque mode; the "dangerous" Indian became the "ridiculous" Indian. The dyadic structure of the European paradigm remained but was modified in new surroundings. The literature and folklore of colonial New Mexico provides one of the best illustrations of this process.
The Mestizo Heritage of New Mexico
Nostalgic attempts to distill and exalt New Mexico's links with the Iberian peninsula have overshadowed the region's unique contribution to Hispanic popular culture: its mestizo (i.e., Indo-Hispanic) folklore. To be sure, peninsular forms persist in the region: strains of old romances such as "La Delgadina" and "Gerineldo" can occasionally be heard, and age-old traditional coplas (couplets) and refranes (proverbs) are still exchanged. Secular and religious folk dramas are regularly staged, and the tale types and motifs of oral narratives are predominantly European. Yet, similar inventories could be made for any other region of Spanish America. New Mexico is obviously much more than Spain on the banks of the Río Grande, yet since before the turn of the century, the existence of mestizaje (cultural and racial mixing) has been deemphasized or denied by laymen and scholars, whether it be the Indo-Hispano combinations of the colonial era or the Anglo-Hispano amalgamations of contemporary neocolonial times (Limón 1987). The colonial caste term coyote, still in popular use, applies then and now to the person of mixed cultural or racial stock—Hispanic plus other. Coyotes de indio and coyotes de americano designate those intercultural mediators whose individual and collective experience was and still is more the norm than the exception in what has always been a pluralistic frontier society (Lamadrid 1990). Although the written record of mestizo or coyote popular culture before 1821 is sparse, much can be inferred from literary and historical sources, and more can be extrapolated backward from 1850, when the advent of literacy in the region brought the first documentation of oral traditions.
The upper Río Grande has always been a cultural crossroads. Both the enclave of Keresan and Tanoan pueblos clustered along the river and its tributaries, and the remote western settlements of Zuñi and Moqui were surrounded on all sides by roving, generally hostile bands of Athabascan and Shoshonean peoples. With the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 behind them, Spanish and Pueblos faced together the protracted siege of the nomads, which lasted through the eighteenth century. As the military alliance of Pueblos and Spanish strengthened, their cultural accommodation and mutual tolerance grew. The cultural environment of New Mexico was further enriched by an emerging class of genízaros, the captives, slaves, and orphans from nomadic tribes detribalized as they were taken from the enemy. As criados (servants) living in the intimacy of Spanish households, they became more thoroughly Hispanicized than the Pueblos. As they moved into society to populate assigned military buffer zones, these New World janissaries evolved their own unique style of Hispanicity and made a major contribution to the culture and folk Catholicism of the region (Atencio 1985).
The volatile historical circumstances and cultural dynamics of a remote frontier region like New Mexico are exactly what molded its unique popular culture. Elsewhere in New Spain the assimilation of Indian groups was often a ruthless project of cultural subjugation. The cultural mestizaje from such zones appears repressed and subliminal when compared with the more pluralistic forms that emerged on the upper Río Grande. Since cultural pluralism derives from cultural resistance, it is necessary to explore the elite and popular concepts of Indians and Indian culture that developed in New Mexico.
Noble and Ignoble Savages: Elite and Popular Views Before 1680
The ideological baggage that the first colonists and governors brought with them probably contained the same dichotomized preconceptions and stereotypes about Indians common in the rest of the colonies. Notions of the noble versus the ignoble savage are classic projections of the European imagination as it confronts cultural otherness. The articulation by social elites of these ideas is well documented from the first chronicles of Columbus through the famous debates of Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. The writings of explorers, churchmen, and intellectuals show a marked tendency either to idealize the Indians as noble savages or to denigrate them as ignoble barbarians. To the humanist royal counselor Sepúlveda, the Indians were only marginally rational beings. Only slightly better than beasts, they were slaves to nature, giving the Europeans the right to impose even despotic means such as servitude to oblige them to be authentically human—that is to say, virtuous, industrious, and Christian. On the other hand, Las Casas, the bishop of Chiapas, believed the Indians to possess great natural virtue, ingenuity, and intellectual capacity, with a love for freedom and an orderly political life. Like the ancient Greeks, they were simply human beings at a different stage of development. Once given the opportunity of embracing the true religion, they would soon become exemplary Christians (Hanke 1965).
In the colonization and Christianization of the northlands, the philosophy and practice of the Jesuit missions to the Yaquis in Sonora were consonant with Las Casas's ideals. Unarmed and without military escort or Hispanic colonists to deal with, the Jesuits reorganized Yaqui society according to utopian models and their respect for the Yaqui culture (Spicer 1969). In New Mexico the fundamentalist strategy of the Franciscans was further removed from the precepts of Las Casas. Often at odds with the civil and military authorities who supported them, their persecution of native religious practices was paid for in 1680 in martyrs' blood.
Franciscan reports and memorials prior to the Pueblo Revolt reflect their intolerant zeal. In his report of 1630, Fray Alonso de Benavides, chief custodian of the faith in New Mexico, consistently refers to the Indians of the province as bárbaros infieles (barbarous infidels) raised up in the very claws of the Devil and subject to the evil whims of their sorcerer priests:
Los traía el demonio engañados con mil supersticiones . . . desde que Dios los crió, sujetos al demonio y esclavos suyos hasta este tiempo, y rodo poblado de estufas de idolatría, adonde jamás no sólo no se adoraba el santísimo nombre de Jesús, sino que no le conocían, ni su santísima cruz.
The devil had deceived them with a thousand superstitions . . . since God raised them, subject to the devil and his slaves until these times, and covered everywhere with stoves [kivas] of idolatry, where not only has the most holy name of Jesus not been adored, but neither had his holiest Cross ever been heard of. (Benavides 1630:30—33)
It is difficult to determine how much of this zealous Franciscan spirit penetrated the popular consciousness of the colonists, but it must have had its influence. Soldier-poet Capitán Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá documents the enthusiasm of the colonists in the conquest dramas that were performed for the edification of the Indians (Pérez de Villagrá 1610; 1900: 87–91). lf the Juegos de Moros y Cristianos (Games of Moors and Christians) staged at the pueblo of San Juan de los Caballeros in the summer of 1598 at all resembled the contemporary spectacle of the same name in Chimayó, it certainly featured a good degree of religious and cultural chauvinism.1
The epic struggle between Islam and Christianity was still fresh in the imaginations of the colonists. Before Spaniards encountered American Indians, the Moors had occupied the role of cultural Other and enemy of the faith. Reveling in the defeat of Islam and triumphs of the past helped in facing up to the challenge of the present: the subjugation of the Indian. Thus the Spanish colonists reenacted the battles between Moors and Christians, galloping their horses back and forth and firing muskets as the Indians watched in fear and amazement. In the play Moros y Cristianos, the Moros deceive the Cristianos, stealing their cross by tempting a watchman with wine. In one scene a knight laments the theft of the cross while a sultan gloats over his prize:
Federico:
!Alarma, noble español!
Que ya el turco se ha robado la Santa Cruz
Y ya tiene el castillo amurallado
Con ochenta mil soldados
Sin la guarnición de adentro
Que es de quiniemos paganos.
Eduardo, borracho está,
Perdido y hasta descalabrado,
Riesgo corre de morirse.
Sultán:
Ya la prenda está ganada
Cautiva la prenda rica
Que entre los cristianos
Es la prenda de más estima . . .
Retírense a descansar y esta prenda
Como mía a cuidar.
Federico:
Sound the alarm, noble Spaniard!
The Turk has stolen the Holy Cross
And has the castle walled in
With eighty thousand soldiers
Not counting the garrison inside
Which is of five hundred pagans.
Eduardo is drunk,
Lost and undone,
And runs the risk of dying.
Sultan:
The prize has been taken
Captive the rich prize
That among the Christians
Is their most esteemed sign . . .
Retreat and rest and this prize
I will care for as my own.
(Lucero 1953:108, 109)
A furious battle follows and the cross is recaptured. The Moorish prisoners are freed by the merciful King Alfonso, and the sultan begs to become a Christian:
Don Alfonso:
¡Oh! soberano Estandarte.
¡Oh! triunfo de los cristianos.
Cautiva te veo ahora entre los moros
Pero ya ahora te veo entre mis manos.
Sultán:
Cristiano, ya tu valor
Me tiene a tus pies postrado.
Te pido por vuestra Cruz
Y por tu Dios venerado
Que me des la libertad
Que estoy desengañado—
Que sólo tu Dias es grande
Y Mahomá todo engaño.
Don Alfonso:
No me la dieron mis brazos
Sino la gran providencia de Dios
Y así por El por este Leño sacro
Te concedo libertad
A ti y a todos tus vasallos.
Don Alfonso:
Oh, sovereign Standard.
Oh, triumph of the Christians.
Captive I see you among the Moors
But now I see you in my hands.
Sultan:
Christian, your valor has me
Prostrate at your feet.
I beg you by your Cross
And by your venerated God
That you give me liberty—
Because I see the light
Only your God is great
And Mohammed is all lies.
Don Alfonso:
My arms did not give it to me
But rather God's great providence
And so through Him and this Holy tree
I grant liberty
To you and all your vassals.
(Lucero 1953:111–12)
The mercy bestowed by the Spaniards on their repentant foes did not go unnoticed by Indian observers. Those who did not submit to the true cross could expect the flash of cannons and the fury of the horses. Unlike the Indians in Mexico, the Puebloan peoples of the Río Grande were never interested in participating in Moros y Cristianos, which allowed the play to retain its intensely Spanish character. What is evident from these reported performances is the acceptance in the popular consciousness of the concepts behind the pontifical bulls Veritas ipsa, Sublimis Deus, and the brief proclamation Pastorale Officium of 1537, which affirm the capacity of the Indians as rational human beings to receive the blessings of the faith (Ortega y Medina 1987: 34). If the colonists really believed that the Indians by nature could not participate in their faith, they would not have made such an enthusiastic effort to impress them.
In attendance at the performance of Moros y Cristianos on that midsummer day in San Juan pueblo (in the poetic imagination of Pérez de Villagrá) was Qualco, a spy from Acoma pueblo who reported to his people that the dreaded Spanish cannons and firearms produced impressive but harmless explosions. Unfortunately, this news did reach the Acomans; several months later, in the siege of the natural citadel of Acoma pueblo, defending warriors dashed unafraid into the deadly gunfire, resulting in the bloodiest massacre in the history of New Mexico. In his epic poem Historia de la Nueva México Pérez de Villagrá documents, embellishes, and attempts to legally justify the punitive expedition against Acoma. However, his portrayal of the Indians is more a reflection of his classical education than the consciousness of his comrades in arms. The articulation of the classic noble-ignoble dichotomy in the poem is both complete and ingenious. Native nobility is personified in the character of Zutancalpo, while the ignominious aspect is embodied in Zutancalpo's father, Zutacapán. Here New Mexico's Homer speculates on the father's dark character.
Dime sobervia infame como ygualas,
El poderoso cetro y Real corona,
Con un tan bajo barvaro perdido,
De barvara, y vil barvaro, engendrado . . .
Digalo aqueste barvaro furioso,
De tan humilde sangre produzido,
Si como Luzbel quiere lebantarse,
Y el govierno de todo atribuirse, . . .
(Pérez de Villagrá 1610; 1900:113)
Behold here this untutored barbarian born of ignoble savages! . . . O, blind ambition for worldly power sought for alike by the high and the low, the worthy and unworthy! A good example is this bloody savage, sprung from such ignoble forebears, and who like Lucifer seeks to reach such heights of power. (R. Espinosa 1933:185)
Like Julius Caesar and Thucydides before him, Pérez de Villagrá invents rather than reports the speeches of his adversaries. The vile Zutacapán is driven by "envy, jealousy, and vain ambition," individualistic motives that were surely as alien to his culture as the ideals of liberty he flaunts in his harangue:
Escuchadme varones y mugeres . . .
Será bien que perdamos todos juntos,
La dulze libertad que nos dexaron,
Nuestros difuntos padres ya passados,
No sentis los clarines y las cajas,
De la sobervia gente Castellana,
Que a toda priesa viene ya marchando,
Qual es aquel que piensa de vosotros,
Quedar con libertad si aquellos Ilegan.
Estando como estamos descuidados,
Tomad, tomad, las armas y esperemos,
La intencion mala, o buena, con que vienen.
(Pérez de Villagrá 1610; 1900:98)
Listen, O men and women. . . . Shall we allow ourselves to be so deprived of that sweet liberty we have inherited from our forefathers? Hear the trumpets of these haughty Castilians who march toward us! Who among you for a moment dreams of liberty if once they come among us, unprepared as we are? To arms! Let us await them and meet them, come they for good or evil! (R. Espinosa 1933:164)
Zutacapán's handsome son, Zutancalpo, is always the first to oppose his father with statesmanlike words of measured moderation. He praises the "Castillas" (Spaniards) as great, just, and possibly immortal warriors, lending credibility to Governor Juan de Oñate's contention that the atrocities against Acoma were actions in a "just war" that was precipitated by the reckless deeds of the Acomans:
Nobleza de Acomeses valerosos . . .
Bien os consta que entraron los Castillas
Segun grandes guerreros en la tierra,
Bien prevenidos todos con cuidado . . .
Y en pueblos que han entrado conozemos,
Que en paz gustosa a todos los dexaron,
Pues si ellos alcanzasen que nosotros, . . .
Y si aquesta no bien nos sucediese,
Y estos son como dizen inmortales,
Qual disculpa sera la que disculpe,
El ser todos nosotros los primeros,
En encender la tierra que de suio,
Esta toda gustosa y sosegada . . .
(Pérez de Villagrá 1610:99)
Noble Acomans . . . we all know that these Castilians have come into our lands and proved themselves great warriors; and that they are always on guard and alert. . . . We know they have been received into many of our pueblos and have left our people in peace and well satisfied. . . . If, as is said, these men are immortal, who can ever forgive us the sin of starting a conflagration which we can never stop? (R. Espinosa 1933:165)
The inexorable course of events proves the truth of Zutancalpo's warnings. Idealistic and brave to the end, he is given a hero's funeral while his despised father's body is hacked to pieces by the distraught wives of his own countrymen.
True to the Renaissance ideal of armas y letras (arms and letters), Pérez de Villagrá not only immortalizes the battle in verse, he is one of its heroes. However, he leaves completely intact and unresolved the dichotomy of the noble versus the ignoble savage. Neither extreme in this conceptual dilemma has much to do with actual Indians because the dichotomy itself is a creation of the European mind. Even the Franciscan historian Lino Gómez Canedo can argue that the majority of the Spaniards who actually lived in New Spain had a "much less radical and much more realistic" view of the Indians that could come only from living among them (Gómez Canedo 1960: 30). If the colonists held any popularized notions of the noble-ignoble savage debate, the social and political reality of New Mexico was bound to alter them.
Pueblos and Comanches: The Popular Culture of Warfare
For a century after Don Diego de Vargas returned to New Mexico in 1693), the pragmatics of survival created a new cultural dynamic based on the enmities and alliances of the 1700s. Questions about the nobility or ignobility of the Pueblos vanished as they became trusted military allies. The political, social, and economic rapprochement was such that by 1812, the wealthy rancher Pedro Pino could write in his report to the Cortes de Cádiz that the Pueblos "casi no se distinguen de nosotros" ("are almost undistinguishable from us"), unusual words for a conservative monarchist (Pino 1812; 1849: 2). Pino had harsher words for the Comanches, for his home community of Galisteo, south of Santa Fe, had been a favorite target for the bloody depredations of the previous century. After the reconquest there was no more appropriate model for the ignoble savage in New Mexico than the Comanche. However, Pino's descriptions of the Comanches and their culture neither idealize nor denigrate them. In the same report, Pino writes with an awe tinged with respect:
El Comanche prefiere la muerte en vez de ser sujetado a la humillación. En la guerra nunca ataca a traición o con ventaja, sino siempre cara a cara y después de haber señalado con su silbato. Aunque su arma principal es el arco (o pacta), usa la lanza o arma de fuego como nuestros soldados, y con una cambiante táctica que impone a sus movimientos. Las guerras que han tenido con nosotros siempre han sido tenaces y sangrientas. (Pino 1812; 1849:85)
The Comanche prefers death rather than be subjected to any humiliation. Never does he attack in war at an advantage or with treachery, but always face-to-face and after having given the signal with his whistle. Although his principle arm is the bow (pacta), he uses the lance or firearm like our soldiers, and with a changing tactic he imposes on his movements. The wars they had with us have always been bloody and tenacious.
Beginning with their appearance in Taos in 1705 and the first major attack on the pueblo in 1716, the Comanches, fierce new "lords of the plains," alternately traded with and raided Spanish and Pueblo settlements at will, carrying off captives, animals, and whatever else they wanted. Pushed out of their northern homeland, the Comanches had also migrated to the southern plains to seek a more constant supply of horses (Thomas 1932: 15–25). Major military expeditions were led against them in 1719, 1747, and 1761 by Governors Don Antonio de Valverde Cosina, Francisco Marín del Valle, and Tomás Vélez Cachupín. The severe punishments inflicted on the Comanches only intensified the frequency and ferocity of their raids.
In 1774 Governor Pedro Mendinueta called the aging Indian fighter Don Carlos Fernández out of retirement in Santa Fe to lead a campaign of retaliation. The most feared Comanche of the era was named Tabivo Naritgante (Handsome and Brave), although he was known to the Pueblos and Spanish as Cuerno Verde, for the green horn that was part of his colorful costume. Pedro Pino himself fought in this campaign and is suspected by scholars to be the author of the heroic folk drama Los Comanches. Although Don Carlos Fernández and Cuerno Verde never actually met on the field of battle, dramatic license united them in the play as characters representing the experience and dignity of old age versus the reckless energy of youth.
In contrast to the erudite hendecasyllabic cantos of Pérez de Villagrá's poem, which was not yet known to the common people, the popular-style octosyllabic verses of Los Comanches entered the oral tradition by the same route as Moras y Cristianos. The spectacle, still performed in Alcalde, New Mexico, begins with a stirring speech that many older Hispanos in the north can still recite.2 Here, a young Cuerno Verde exults in brash boasts and bristling threats to inspire his warriors and intimidate his enemies:
Cuerno Verde:
Desde el oriente al poniente,
Desde el sur al norte frío
Suena el brillante clarín
Y reina el acero mío.
Campeo osado, atrevido,
Y es tanta la valentía
Que reina en el pecho mío . . .
.................................................
Ea, nobles capitanes,
Genízaros valerosos,
Que se pregone mi edicto,
Que yo como general
He de estar aprevenido . . .
...........................................
Que suene el tambor y pito.
!Al baile, y punto de guerra!
Green Horn:
From sunrise to sunset,
From the south to frigid north
My shining trumpet sounds
And my steel reigns.
I campaign fearless and bold,
And the valor which reigns
In my heart knows no limit . . .
.................................................
Hey, noble captains,
Valorous janissaries,
Proclaim my edict,
That I as general
Will be ready
.................................
Sound the drum and flute.
To the dance, and ready for war!
(Campa 1942:25)
Here there is no preoccupation with nobility and ignobility, no Zutancalpo or Zutacapán, no talk of liberty, barbarism, fortune, vain ambition, or the work of Lucifer. If the poet is putting words into Cuerno Verde's mouth, it is because he actually heard the screaming battlefield harangues (although he did not understand the Comanche language). The dauntless bravura of the character in the play marches the historical descriptions of the chief himself and the fearless tactics of Comanche warfare.
In a purely fictitious confrontation, a dignified Don Carlos Fernández taunts Cuerno Verde face-to-face, boasting of Spain's wide dominions. The historical record shows that Don Carlos surprised and massacred a large group of Comanche families on September 20, 1774, on the llano estacado (staked plains) fifty leagues east of Santa Fe.
Don Carlos Fernández:
¿Qué no sabes que en la España
El señor soberano
De los cielos y la tierra
Y todos los cuatro polos
Que este gran círculo encierra?
Brilla su soberanía,
Y ai oír su nombre tiemblan
Alemanes, portugueses,
Turquía y la Inglaterra,
Porque en diciendo españoles
Todas las naciones tiemblan . . .
....................................................
Siempre he pisado tus tierras
Aunque ya avanzado en años,
Y me veas de esta manera
Siempre soy Carlos Fernández
Por el mar y por la tierra,
Y para probar tu brío
Voy a hacer junta de guerra.
Don Carlos Fernández:
Know you not that in Spain
Is the Sovereign Lord
Of the skies and the earth
And all four poles
That this great circle encloses?
His sovereignty shines,
And on hearing his name do tremble
Germans, Portuguese,
Turkey, and England,
Because in saying Spaniards
All the nations tremble . . .
............................................
I've always stepped on your lands
Though I am advanced in years
And you see me in this way
I am forever Carlos Fernández
By land and by sea,
And to test your vigor
I will make a council of war.
(Campa 1942:27–28)
In a confrontation in another part of the battlefield, a Comanche warrior matches his valor against a Spanish soldier who mocks the (actual) Comanche practice of gorging on buffalo lard before going into battle. Around them the final battle rages.
Zapato Cuenta:
El oso más arrogante
Se encoge de mi fiereza
El tíguere en las montañas
Huye en la oculta sierra.
¿Quién se opone a mi valor?
¿Quién cautiva mi soberbia?
Don José de la Peña:
Yo quebrantaré la furia,
Que son la más alta peña
Soy peñasco en valentía,
En bríos y en fortaleza.
Esas locas valentías
Son criadas de la soberbia
Que tanto infunde el valor
En vosotros la manteca
Que coméis con tanta gula
Y con ella criáis la fuerza
De vuestras disposiciones.
Beaded Shoe:
The most arrogant bear
Shrinks from my fury
The lion in his mountains
Hides in the hidden ranges.
Who would oppose my valor?
Who would capture my pride?
Don José de la Peña:
I will break that fury,
That is the highest peak
I am a towering cliff of bravery,
In spirit and strength.
These crazy shows of bravura
Are the product of pride.
You get so much valor
From the buffalo lard
That you eat with such gluttony
And with it the strength of your
Dispositions grows.
(Campa 1942:35)
To provide some carnivalesque comic relief, an Indian camp follower named Barriga Duce begins to loot the battlefield, boasting of the booty he will take home to his wife and the green chile she will then cook for him.
Barriga Duce:
Que mueran, que para mí
Todos los despojos quedan.
Tiendas, antas, y conchelles
Para que mis hijos duerman.
Y la carne, a mi mujer
He de hacer que me la cuesa
Y me la guise con chile
Que es una comida buena.
¡Apriéntenles compañeros!
Que de eso mi alma se alegra.
Sweet Belly:
May all of them die
So the booty will be all mine.
Tents, hides and blankets
That my children can sleep in.
And the meat, I'll get my wife
To cook it for me
And prepare it with chile
Which is a good food.
Close on in, comrades!
That's what makes my soul happy.
(Campa 1942:40)
In the final scene, Cuerno Verde is vanquished, bringing the Comanche wars to their conclusion. The chieftain's death actually occurred below Pike's Peak five years later in 1779, when Tabivo Naritgante and fifty warriors charged headlong into the artillery fire of a Spanish force of over six hundred led by the newly appointed governor, Juan Bautista de Anza.
The touching scenes of repentance and forgiveness that characterize Moros y Cristianos are totally lacking in Los Comanches. Also lacking are the moral allegory and classical allusions that embellish Villagrá's siege of Acoma. Here the defiant Comanches are soundly defeated and the play is a victory celebration. Neither demon nor prince, Cuerno Verde appears as the haughty and formidable enemy that he truly was.
Because of its historical allusions, Los Comanches can be dated to approximately 1780. Also in this period can be found the origins of the indita (little Indian) ballads, so named by the people because the majority of the songs have to do with relations as diverse as warfare and love between españoles and índios. Some of the earliest and latest inditas are called cautivas (captives) because they sing of the travails of captive women on the frontier. In the continual depredations throughout the eighteenth century, captives were often taken and slavery was widespread.
In 1724 the Comanches decimated even the Jicarilla Apaches, carrying off half of their women and children and killing everyone else except for sixty-nine men, two women, and three boys (Bancroft 1889: 239). In 1777 the town of Tomé south of Albuquerque suffered a particularly merciless attack in which every man, woman, and child was killed. Since men were usually killed in battle, any captives were likely to be women and children. Their sad lament could be heard in ballads and songs such as "La cautiva Marcelina" (in the version of Virginia Bernal of Ratón, New Mexico), the pathetic woman whose fate it was to witness the murder of her children and wander the plains with her captors with nothing to eat but mare's meat.
"LA CAUTIVA MARCELINA"
La cautiva Marcelina
Ya se va, ya se la llevan,
Ya se va, ya se la llevan
Para esas tierras mentadas
A comer carne de yegua,
A comer carne de yegua.
Refrán:
Por eso ya no quiero
En el mundo más amar,
De mi querida patria
Me van a retirar.
La cautiva Marcelina
Cuando llegó ai aguapá,
Cuando llegó ai aguapá
Volteó la cara llorando,
"Mataron a mi papá,
Mataron a mi papá."
[Refrán]
La cautiva Marcelina
Cuando ya llegó a los llanos,
Cuando ya llegó a los llanos
Volteó la cara llorando,
"Mataron a mis hermanos
Mataron a mis hermanos."
[Refrán]
La cautiva Marcelina
Cuando llegó ai ojito,
Cuando llegó ai ojito
Volteó la cara llorando,
"Mataron ai Delgadito,
Mataron ai Delgadito."
[Refrán]
La cautiva Marcelina
Cuando llegó a los cerritos,
Cuando llegó a los cerritos
Volteó la cara llorando,
"Mataron a mis hijitos,
Mataron a mis hijitos."
[Refrán]
"MARCELINA THE CAPTIVE WOMAN"
Marcelina, the captive,
Now she's leaving, they're taking her
Now she's leaving, they're taking her
To those faraway lands
To eat mare's meat,
To eat mare's meat.
Chorus:
That's why I no longer
Want to love in this world,
From my beloved homeland
They are taking me away.
Marcelina, the captive,
When she arrived at the carrail marsh,
When she arrived at the cattails,
She looked back crying,
"They killed my father,
They killed my father."
[Chorus]
The captive Marcelina
When she arrived at the plains,
When she arrived at the plains,
She looked back crying,
"They killed my brothers and sisters,
They killed my brothers and sisters."
[Chorus]
Marcelina, the captive,
When she arrived at the spring,
When she arrived at the spring,
She looked back crying,
"They killed Delgadito,
They killed Delgadito."
[Chorus]
Marcelina, the captive,
When she arrived at the hills,
When she arrived at the hills,
She looked back crying,
"They killed my children,
They killed my children."
[Chorus]
(Lamadrid and Loeffler 1989)
Known all over New Mexico, this ballad was collected as far south as Mexico City as late as 1914, in a version in which the female character is named "la infanta Margarita" (the princess Margarita) and whose refrain includes the memorable mention of mare's meat:
Margarita ya se va,
Ya se va, ya se la llevan,
A la sierra de los indios
A comer came de yegua . . .
Margarita is already going,
She is going, they are taking her
To the mountains of the Indians
To eat mare's meat . . .
(Mendoza 1986:482)
There is no sure indicator of the direction of diffusion, north or south, but the ballad has all the indications of being of some antiquity. Many more recent captivity ballads still have enough points of temporal and geographical reference that they can be correlated with known historical events. "La cautiva Marcelina," however, is more regional than local in focus. In some areas it is sung with tragic overtones, while in others it has the same sarcastic or playful tone as a nursery rhyme (many of which are, in fact, fragments of old ballads). Since the focus of the ballad is on the individual suffering of la cautiva, there is no direct appraisal or particular condemnation of Indian cultures. What is significant about this particular ballad is its movement toward the first-person narrative style of the later inditas.
Eighteenth-century colonial records are filled with reports of captivity incidents, most involving women and children. The official documents are sparse, containing barely more than names of people and places. It is easy to imagine the multitude of personal captivity narratives that must have circulated. More difficult to determine are the attitudes that such anecdotes would express, since almost none were documented in any detail. Some later and better-documented oral captivity narratives from the nineteenth century suggest a marked tendency to interpret the experience of captivity from within a spiritual frame as an individual test of faith. The earliest North American captivity narratives from Puritans in New England and from French Jesuits in Canada are also spiritual. Subsequently, however, the stories of captives were consistently used for political propaganda to stir popular support and raise money for Indian campaigns (Levernier and Cohen 1977). In contrast, Hispanic New Mexican captivity narratives have consistently utilized a spiritual framework, right through the last Apache wars of the 1880s. Like "La cautiva Marcelina," New Mexican women seem to have been able to survive their ordeals and mourn their dead with faith and forbearance, somehow avoiding the condemnation or vilification of the Indians.
From Ignoble Savage to Funny Indian: The Comedy of Cultural Conflict
The elitist notion of the ignoble savage as an unfortunate, bestial, depraved being, worthy only of enslavement or extermination, disappeared quickly into the landscape. Villagrá's Zutacapán is the only character of New Mexican literature or folklore that even approaches ignobility. Despite all their real and legendary cruelty, not even the Comanches could fit this role. What emerged in popular culture was a comic portrayal of Indians that used denigrating sarcasm to express cultural conflict. The character of Barriga Duce in Los Comanches exemplifies this tradition. In performances, he plays both fool and coward, taunting the warriors, then hiding when the battles begin. In true Rabelaisian spirit, all he thinks about is his stomach and the goods he can pilfer from the dead. As the battlefield resounds with heroic speeches and combat, he makes lists of his booty and his wife's favorite recipes.
There are many popular verses that satirize Comanches in this vein. The following verso is sometimes used as a lullaby or to entertain children. The thought of the Comanche couple selling their child to satisfy their sweet tooth is both horrifying and humorous.
El Cumanchi y la Cumancha
Se fueron pa' Santa Fe,
Se fueron pa' Santa Fe,
A vender a sus hijitos,
A vender a sus hijitos,
Por azúcar y café,
Por azúcar y café.
The Comanche and his woman
Went to Santa Fe,
Went to Santa Fe,
To sell their little children,
To sell their little children,
For sugar and coffee,
For sugar and coffee.
(A. M. Espinosa 1907:20–21)
Trading fairs at Taos, Santa Fe, and Pecos were well attended because, besides trade goods, hides, jerky, and horses, captives were brought in to be sold or ransomed. Other lullabies were a bit less unsettling, although here the child's restlessness is associated with roving Indians.
El indito anda en la Sierra,
El Comanche en la montaña,
Este niño no se duerme
Porque ha'garrado una maña.
The little Indian goes in the sierra,
The Comanche in the mountains,
This child does not sleep
Because something has got into him.
(Mendoza 1986:468)
The military dominance of the Apaches by the Comanches is made light of in the following verse. Apache groups often complained to the colonial authorities about their suffering at the hands of the Comanches. Here the Apache is crying:
El Apache y el Comanche
Se citaron pa' la guerra,
Se citaron pa' la guerra,
El Apache gime y llora,
Y el Comanche se le aferra,
Y el Comanche se le aferra.
The Apache and the Comanche
Made a date for battle,
Made a date for battle,
The Apache groans and cries,
And the Comanche closes in,
And the Comanche closes in.
(A. M. Espinosa 1907:20–21)
After the Comanches were pacified, the task of Hispanicizing and Christianizing them began, a process that never reached completion. As this humorous stereotype shows, no matter how hard they try, the Comanches never succeed in practicing Christian religion in a convincing way. Confession is a waste of time for them, because they don't know how to pray.
El Comanche y la Comancha
Se fueron a confesar,
Se fueron a confesar,
Del camino se volvieron,
Porque no sabían rezar,
Porque no sabían rezar.
The Comanche and his woman
Went to confess,
Went to confess,
They returned by the same road,
Because they didn't know how to pray,
Because they didn't know how to pray.
(A. M. Espinosa 1907:20–21)
The family relations of Indians were also frequent targets of satire. Missionaries had great difficulty introducing new marriage customs. When El Comanche and La Comancha finally agree to accept the sacrament of marriage, they are denied because they are first cousins. Any attempt they make to Hispanicize themselves is thwarted.
El Comanche y la Comancha
Se fueron a presentar,
Se fueron a presentar;
Salieron primos hermanos,
No se pudieron casar,
No se pudieron casar.
The Comanche and his woman
Went to present themselves,
Went to present themselves;
It turns out they were first cousins,
They couldn't get married,
They couldn't get married.
(A. M. Espinosa 1907:20–21)
As traditional enemies of the Pueblos and Spanish, the Comanches and other nomads like Navajos and Apaches easily filled the category of cultural otherness that is so convenient to lampoon. However, even though the Pueblos were neighbors and allies of the Spanish, they did maintain a strong sense of cultural distinctness, mainly through religion. True syncretists, they added Christian saints and the Holy Trinity to their pantheon of deities but kept their sacred dances and ceremonies. Despite the strong alliance with the Spanish, they embodied enough otherness to also become targets of humor and satire, although never to the degree that the nomads did. Interestingly, much of the humor is erotic–expressive, perhaps, of the wish for a more intimate cultural relationship.
The "Indita de Cochití" is representative of a kind of raucous love song that is quite distinct from the indita ballads that speak of tragedies or the experiences of captives. The common point is that both types of inditas express experiences between Hispanics and Indians, although the aggressive role is reversed. In the cautivas Hispanas are carried off by Indian men. In the "Indita de Cochití" there is implied abuse of Indian women, with overtones of sarcasm rather than tragedy. In most of its many versions, the Indian girl is pregnant and is being abandoned not because she is Indian but because she "just isn't [right] for" the singer. The performance of this indita by José Domingo Romero of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is accompanied by peals of laughter and merriment.
"INDITA DE COCHITÍ"
Indita, indita, indita,
Indita de Cochití,
No le hace que seiga indita
Si al cabo no soy pa' ti.
Indita, indita, indita,
Indita del otro lado,
¿En dónde andabas anoche
Que traes el ojo pegado?
Indita, indita, indita,
Indita del otro día,
¿En dónde andabas anoche
Que traigas barriga fría?
"LITTLE INDIAN GIRL OF COCHITÍ"
Little Indian, little Indian,
Little Indian girl of Cochití,
It doesn't matter if you're Indian
If in the end you aren't for me.
Little Indian, little Indian,
Little Indian girl from the other side,
Where were you last night
That your eye is battered shut?
Little Indian, little Indian,
Little Indian girl from the other day
Where were you last night
That your belly is so cold?
(Loeffler 1992)
There may be love and erotic interest, but the Pueblo girl is an "indita del otro lado" whose otherness prevents the crossing of cultural boundaries; not because she does not want to cross them but because the singer does not. There is a sense of caste superiority expressed here, because if the Spanish man does agree to marry his indita, his status on the caste scale declines, while the status of his wife and child improves. In at least one version of "Indita de Cochití," however, love prevails, the boundary is crossed, and the indita becomes a lullaby to the coyote (mixed-breed) child of the union (Chávez n.d.).
In the popular culture of colonial New Mexico, the elitist concept of ignoble savage was transformed by historical experience into the ridiculous savage. The castigation of otherness through humor and sarcasm is one of many indications of the degree to which cultural boundaries were at least observed if not respected. New Mexican mestizaje occurs in a setting of cultural pluralism rather than cultural homogenization. "Los cañuteros" ("The Reed Game Gamblers") as sung by Abade Martínez of Alamosa, Colorado, is an erotic indita from the early nineteenth century or before that exemplifies this distinctive regional style of mestizaje. When Comanches came to the Río Grande valley community to trade, they often stayed for weeks. Ample time was spent striking bargains and deciding prices, and gambling and horse racing were favorite pastimes. The Comanches and many other Indian groups played a semisacred gambling game called the "bone game" whose sessions could last for days. In their enthusiasm for the game, bettors often wagered everything they owned. El cañute is a Hispanic adaptation of the bone game that was played through the beginning of the twentieth century. The game was played in winter, indoors, by two teams of four players. Each team would bury four hollow sticks, the cañutes, in a pile of sand; one of the hollow sticks had a smaller stick inserted into it. Each team alternated draws to find the cañute with the stick in it (R. Espinosa 1933). The chorus of "hállalo, hállalo, el palito andando" ("find it, find it, the little stick goes around"), repeats the object of the game, which has obvious erotic overtones.
"LOS CAÑUTEROS"
Allí vienen los cañuteros
Los que vicnen por el mío,
Pero de allá que llevarán
Rasguidos en el fundillo.
Estribillo:
Hállalo, hállalo,
Cañutero sí, cañutero no,
El palito andando.
Parece que viene gente
Hay rastros en la cañada,
Parece que se lo llevan
Pero no se llevan nada.
[Estribillo]
Padre mío, San Antonio,
Devoto de los morenos,
Es verdad que alzamos trigo,
Pero todo lo debemos.
[Estribillo]
En el año de la nevada
Me enamoré de una tetona
En una teta me acostaba,
Con la otra me cobijaba.
De lo a gusto que dormía
Y hasta en la cama me meaba.
[Estribillo]
"THE REED GAME GAMBLERS"
There come the reed game players
Those that come for mine
But from there they'll only get
Scratches on their behind.
Chorus:
Find it, find it,
Cañutero yes, cañutero no,
The little stick goes around.
Looks like people are coming in,
There are signs in the canyon,
Seems like luck is with them,
But they don't have anything.
[Chorus]
San Antonio, my father,
The dark skinned are beloved to you
It is true we raise wheat,
But we are in debt for everything.
[Chorus]
In the year of the big snow,
I fell in love with a big-breasted woman,
On one I lay down, and covered up with the other.
I slept so well
I even wet the bed.
[Chorus]
(Lamadrid and Loeffler 1989)
Large groups of people would gather to bet, sing, and drink while watching the cañuteros. Personal items as well as sacks of beans or wheat would be bet. As it expresses with erotic humor the enthusiasm for this popular diversion, this indita also reveals the pride of the mestizo wheat farmer. He may be a poor mixed-blood, but at least he raises wheat, the staple that is as closely linked to Hispanic culture as corn is to Indian culture. The New Mexican mestizo is intimately nourished by both cultures, as evidenced in the following popular poem.
Pluralism is the product of resistance, which expresses itself culturally as confrontation, argument, and debate. A favorite popular form to express the competition of ideas, from philosophical to economic, was the trovo, or poetic duel. "El Trovo del Café y el Atole" expresses the competition between the native and the foreign. Mr. Coffee is sophisticated, stimulating, and worldly, but he is expensive. Ms. Atole finally wins the duel because she is both a popular beverage and she nourishes the people who use the sweat of their brow and not money to enjoy her.
"TROVO DEL CAFÉ Y EL ATOLE"
Por mi gracia y por mi nombre
Yo me llamo Don Café.
En las tiendas más hermosas
Allí me hallará usted.
A la América he venido
Y es claro y evidente,
Desde mi país he venido
A conquistar a tu gente . . .
Atole:
Yo también soy el Atole
Y te pondré mis paradas.
¡Qué bien mantengo a mi gente
Con tortillas enchiladas,
Con esquite bien tostado
Ahora te daré noticias.
Café, por comprarte a ti
Ya no se alcanzan pa' camisas.
Café:
Yo soy el Café
Y de todos conocido
En la América del Norte
De todos soy preferido.
En el mundo soy distinguido
Con satisfacción completa
En tacitas todos me usan
Bebiendo mi agüita prieta.
Atole:
Yo también soy el Atole
Y aquí te hago la guerra.
¡Qué bien mantengo a mi gente
Con sólo labrar la tierra!
Y tú, Café orgulloso,
Que sepa el mundo entero,
Sacrificas a mi gente
De comprarte con dinero.
"DUEL OF MR. COFFEE AND MS. CORN GRUEL"
By my grace and my name
I call myself Mr. Coffee.
In the most beautiful stores
There you will find me.
I have come to America
And it is clear and evident,
I have come from my country
To conquer your people . . .
Atole:
I am also Corn Gruel
And I will give you my points.
How well I maintain my people
With tortillas and chile,
With corn well toasted
Now I will give you news.
Coffee, in order to buy you
Nothing is left for shirts.
Café:
I am Coffee
Known to all
In North America
Of everyone I am preferred.
In the world I'm distinguished
With complete satisfaction
People use me in little cups
Drinking my dark water.
Atole:
I am also Corn Gruel
And here I give you battle.
How well I maintain my people
Only for working the land.
And you, proud Coffee,
May the whole world know,
You sacrifice my people
From buying you with money.
(Arellano and Atencio 1972:13–15)
In the trovo, the popular consciousness can be seen at work. Atole, the native product, wins the argument. She nourishes rather than impoverishes her people. All she requires in return is hard work and devotion. Atole, which is made with blue corn meal, is not only a contribution of indigenous culture, it represents a spiritual value within it. The mestizo may be proud to grow wheat, but he knows that his corn has the power to heal.
The Spiritual Savage: The Emergence of Hispanic Syncretism
The only classic European-style noble savage to appear in the literary and popular culture of New Mexico sprang from the imagination of Gaspar Pérez de Viliagrá, who created Zutancalpo to add a Homeric touch of tragedy to the otherwise unthinkable massacre of Acoma. The young warrior's mouth was wishfully stuffed with generous and naïve expressions of tolerance, charity, and acceptance of the Spaniards. Pérez de Viliagrá needed to create a balance and foil to the implacable Zutacapán, Zutancalpo's father. For every ignoble savage a noble one is needed to balance the scales of justice.
In New Mexico, some colonists may have shared Las Casas's belief in the natural virtue, ingenuity, and intellect of the Indians, but to invest too much trust in them in the dangerous new colony was to risk one's life. Besides, if the Indians really possessed an innate love for freedom and an orderly political life, then the shaky colonial institutions like the encomienda were bound to make them unhappy enough to protest the diminishing quality of their life.
The genuine affective links with Indian culture were made when the Spanish, by reason or necessity, came to identify with the Indians who surrounded them on all sides. This identification was hardest earned with Pueblo neighbors because it had to grow out of the respect the Pueblos had earned for themselves with an act of resistance and religious affirmation: the 1680 expulsion of the intolerant Spanish from the land. Times of privation or hardship lent themselves to the establishment of new bonds. Until very recently, in years of drought Hispanics living near San Juan pueblo would approach the Indian elders with petitions to ir y traer la lluvia (go and bring the rain); that is, to initiate a sacred rain pilgrimage to local mountain shrines to bring down the needed moisture (Ortiz 1981:8–17). Such practices are undoubtedly rooted in remote times. In many communities the saints, especially San Isidro, served as spiritual intermediaries between Pueblos and Spanish. The regional Matachines dance drama also has played a central symbolic role in expressing spiritual bonds between the cultures.
The omnipresence of diverse Indian groups in New Mexico was also a compelling reason to cling to Hispanicity as a matter of self and group definition. Cultural tenacity is strengthened in an isolated and threatening environment. The survival of peninsular forms in the folklore is proof of this factor. Unconsciously, the people knew who they were; they grew wheat, they were Christians, the body of Christ is made of wheat. They prayed to santos (saints) who favored them and brought them blessings. They had a strong code of honor, hidalguía. and the images and archetypes of these values were deeply embedded in the old Castilian songs they sang. Sabían quiénes eran (they knew who they were). Part of their identity was bound up in the land. As colonists, one of their dreams was to possess the land and pass it along as inheritance, to become hidalgos, hijos de algo (sons of something of great value). In New Mexico a transformation occurred in which the material commodity of land took on a deeper, more spiritual value. Colonists soon discovered their querencia, or newfound attachment to the land, which could not be defined in any less than spiritual terms. From their Indian neighbors they had learned that the land is sacred, la madre tierra (mother earth), the mother of us all.
On a spiritual plane, this subtle new fusion of New Mexican cultures can be seen at the shrine of the Santuario de Chimayó, where the sanctity of earth and the appreciation of its healing power are one. The faithful come as grateful pilgrims from all directions in search of the sacred earth of Chimayó, a Tewa (Pueblo) shrine with a sanctuary built on top, the most venerated spot in New Mexico. The local Penitentes, or penitent brothers of the Hermandad de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno (Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus the Nazarene) include this prayerful promise as part of an entrance ritual: "Vesare esa Santa Cruz y vesare esta Santa Tierra de Rodias [sic]" ("I will kiss this Holy Cross and this Holy Earth on my Knees"; Steele and Rivera 1985: 17). The shrine at Chimayó is intimately linked to the beginnings of the Penitentes in New Mexico. The special vencration of San Francisco is also widespread in the region, and the Franciscan concept of seeing God revealed in Nature is also in harmony with the basic landscape. The light of day is sacred, as praised in the alba, or song sung at daybreak, especially after velorios (all-night prayer vigils). This hymn is also associated with the ángel de guardia (guardian angel). Similar albas are sung in related ritual contexts in Spain, an indication that at least on some fronts, colonists were prepared for the more intense veneration of nature that they would find in Native American religions.
"CANTO AL ALBA"
Viva Jesús,
Viva María,
Cantemos todos
En este día.
Coro:
Cantemos al alba,
Ya viene el día.
Daremos gracias,
Ave María.
Bendita sea
La luz del día.
Bendito sea
Quien nos la envía.
[Coro]
Bendito sea
Su claridad,
Bendita sea
Quien nos la da.
[Coro]
Bendito sea
Sol refulgente,
Bendito sea
Sol del oriente.
"SONG TO THE DAWN"
Long live Jesus,
Long live Mary,
Let us all sing
On this day.
Chorus:
Let us sing to the dawn,
The day is already coming.
Let us give thanks,
Hail Mary.
Blessed be
The light of day.
Blessed be
He who sends it to us.
[Chorus]
Blessed be
The clarity,
Blessed be
He who gives it to us.
[Chorus]
Blessed be
The sun resplendent,
Blessed be
The sun of the east.
(Lamadrid et al. 1991)
The Hispanic identification with non-Pueblo Indian cultures developed more easily, in part because of the more intimate social relations they experienced with Indian captives who joined Spanish households and families as criados (servants). Pueblo Indians were allies and trusted neighbors, but a genízaro with Comanche, Navajo, or Apache roots could be living under the same roof, taking care of the children and singing them native lullabies. Besides social intimacy, Hispanics also impersonated Comanches in secular and religious drama as well as in the Comanche dance, which is a true regional tradition enacted in the winter cycle of "enemy dances" in every Pueblo from Taos to Hopi (Clews Parsons 1939: 1077).
After hostilities with the Comanches were resolved by the end of the eighteenth century, the Comanches continued trading and visiting the pueblos and plazas of the Río Grande valley. There is a flair and vitality in Comanche culture that both Pueblos and Hispanics recognized and admired in them as enemies and later as devoted trading partners. When the Comanches were reduced by the U.S. Army in 1875 and put on reservations, the yearly visits ceased. Ever since then, both Pueblo and Hispanic New Mexicans have emulated and honored them in their Comanche dancing.
Pueblo dancers who impersonate Comanches are allowed much more individual expression, both in the dances, which are similar to Pow Wow dances, and in the costumes, which use buckskin, beads, feathers, and horn and vary according to the personal tastes of the dancer. One dancer might have an eagle feather headdress while another wears horns. This individualism stands in sharp contrast to sacred Pueblo dancing, in which movements are collective and synchronized and costumes are uniform.
In the Hispanic Comanche dance found in western and northern New Mexico, Indian impersonators encounter Christianity in true Comanche style, by kidnapping the Christ Child on Christmas Eve from the house of the mayordomo (steward).3 In a procession somewhat reminiscent of the Mexican Las Posadas (The Inns) ritual, the Indians dance in procession from house to house, finally entering the house where the Santo Niño is kept. In most performances a symbolic entrance ritual is performed at the door of the mayordomo's house, or at the threshold of the church in others. The Comanche chieftain sings:
Soy de la Sierra Nevada
Donde fui pintado león.
Vengo en busca del niñito
Y no hay quien me dé razón.
I am from the Sierra Nevada
Where I was painted as a lion.
I come in search of the little child
And there is no one who can tell me.
(Hurt 1966)
The entire group of Indian impersonators in buckskin and feathers then sing verses which include the following. The music, in true indita style, combines chromatic with pentatonic melodies, punctuated with shouts and syllable chanting, a Hispanic attempt to reproduce or at least emulate Indian music:
A las doce de la noche
Le hemos venido a buscar
Nosotros los Comanchitos
Le hemos venido a bailar.
Ya consiguimos la entrada;
Con gusto y coo buen cariño
Pasaremos los Comanches
A ver a ese hermoso Niño.
Buenas noches les dé Dios
A toditos por igual,
Si nos reciben coo gusto
Hemos venido a bailar.
No se asusten, caballeros
Porque venimos bailando;
Es promesa que debemos
Y ahora andamos pagando.
At twelve midnight
We have come to look for him
We the little Comanches
Have come to dance for him.
We have gained entry
With joy and loving
The Comanches will pass through
To see that beautiful Child.
May God give you good night
To every one the same,
lf you receive us with gusto
We have come to dance.
Do not be afraid, gentlemen
Because we come dancing;
It is a promise that we owe
And are now paying.
(Hurt 1966)
The suspicious inhabitants of the house reluctantly offer the Comanches their hospitality. Once the dancers enter the house, they proceed to the altar and steal the Santo Niño. They flee, pursued by members of the audience. In the mock battle that follows, la Cautiva (the Captive Girl), the daughter of the chieftain, and other Comanches are captured and later ransomed. Additional music and verses accompany the various desempeños (bargaining sessions) in which the Santo Niño is recovered and mayordomos are chosen for the next year. The plot in this religious drama is loose, and it varies from community to community. The indita previously mentioned, "La cautiva Marcelina," is often sung during Comanche dancing. In other communities such as Ranchos de Taos, the dancing occurs on New Year's Day and uses music that is entirely pentatonic with syllable chant singing (Lamadrid 1992).
The practice of dancing to fulfill a promise and ask for miracles and blessings is done in the name of several saints. Matachines dancers make promises to dance for San Lorenzo if they are from Bernalillo or to San Antonio if they are from a community that celebrates his feast day. When their wives were in labor, nervous husbands used to dance and sing to San Ramón Nonato for a safe delivery and a healthy child.
Even though it dates from the end of the nineteenth century, nearly eighty years after the end of the colonial period, the "Indita de San Luis" is an excellent example of mestizo folklore. It was written to commemorate the final termination of colonial Spanish power in the Americas, the Spanish-American War. In 1898, many New Mexicans enlisted in the fight against Spain. The irony that the sons of conquistadores were now fighting Spaniards was not lost on the people of the day. Popular poet Don Norberto M. Abeyta from Sabinal, New Mexico, wrote the poem as a petition to San Gonzaga de Abaranda and the Virgin to intercede for a merciful end to the war (A. M. Espinosa 1985: 131–32). The poet's source of inspiration was the report of a miracle on the high seas in which a ship of New Mexican soldiers on the way to fight Spain was saved by San Gonzaga, who quelled a terrible storm. When this poem entered the oral tradition, San Gonzaga de Abaranda transposed to the more familiar San Luis Gonzaga, and the poem became the "Indita de San Luis," complete with indita chorus and a growing reputation for bringing milagros. People make devout promesas (promises) to dance for this patron saint of youth in return for blessings and miracles, which include everything from bringing rain to curing sickness and protecting soldiers. Manuel Mirabal of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the singer of this particular version of the "Indita de San Luis," is especially devoted because years ago the indita and the sacred healing dance that accompanies it cured his son, who was suffering from rheumatic fever.
"INDITA DE SAN LUIS"
De mis casa he venido
A pasear este lugar,
Dénme razón de San Luis
Que le prometí bailar.
Coro:
Yana heya ho,
Yana heya ho,
Yana heya ho.
Yana heya ho,
Yana heya ho.
En el marco de esta puerta
El pie derecho pondré,
Denme razón de San Luis
Y luego le bailaré.
[Coro]
San Luis Gonzaga de Amarante
Aparecido en un puente,
Esta indita te compuse
Cuando mi hijo andaba ausente.
[Coro]
San Luis Gonzaga de Amarante
Aparecido en la mar,
Concédeme este milagro
Que te prometí bailar.
[Coro]
Dicen que la golondrina
De un volido pasó el mar,
De las Islas Filipinas
Que acabaron de pelear.
[Coro]
Santo Niñito de Atocha
Tú solito no más sabes,
El corazón de cada uno
También todas sus necesidades.
[Coro]
"BALLAO OF SAINT ALOYSIUS"
From my house I have come
To visit this place,
Tell me about Saint Aloysius
I promised to dance for him.
Chorus:
Yana heya ho,
Yana heya ho,
Yana heya ho.
Yana heya ho,
Yana heya ho.
In this doorway
I will put my right foot,
Tell me about Saint Aloysius
And then I will dance for him.
[Chorus]
Saint Aloysius Gonzaga of Amarante
Appeared on a bridge,
I composed this indita for you
When my son was absent.
[Chorus]
Saint Aloysius Gonzaga of Amarante
Appeared on the ocean,
Grant me this miracle
I promised to dance for you.
[Chorus]
They say the swallow
In one flight crossed the sea,
In the Philippine Islands
They have stopped fighting.
[Chorus]
Holy Child of Arocha
Only you know
The heart of each of us
And all our needs.
[Chorus]
(Lamadrid and Loeffler 1989)
The musical style of this indita juxtaposes chromatic European melodies with pentatonic Indian choruses. There is no better musical demonstration of the unique New Mexican style of pluralistic mestizaje. This kind of code switching and cultural borrowing is nothing new to Iberians, who for centuries tolerated each other's religions and cultures. The ancient jarcha and Mozambic haragat lyrics were sung bilingually with Arabic or Hebrew verses interspersed with refrains in the Ibero-Romance dialect (Hall 1974: 117). That the power of a miracle that saved New Mexican soldiers fighting Spain on behalf of the United States would come home to combine with mestizo spiritual healing traditions to heal the sick and bring rain to the desert is a tribute to the syncretic power of popular culture in New Mexico.
After the elite culture of Spanish intellectuals, clergy, and bureaucrats was done idealizing and denigrating the natives of the New World, the popular mestizo culture of Hispanics in Aztlán learned not only to laugh at the otherness of the Indians but to share in and benefit from their spirituality. With a history of this kind of cultural adaptation, there should be little concern for the coyotes de americanos of contemporary times and their search to evolve and validate yet another layer of mestizaje under the new lords of Aztlán.
Notes
A short version of this article was presented at a symposium held at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, October 15, 1991.
1. Moros y Cristianos is performed on horseback by a company of players from Chimayó, New Mexico, forty miles northeast of Santa Fe, for the Fiesta de la Santa Cruz, May 3; the Fiesta de Santiago, July 26; and on other special occasions.
2. Once performed in several communities involved in the Comanche hostilities, notably Ranchos de Taos and Galisteo, today Los Comanches is performed for the Fiesta de San Juan Evangelista, December 27, in Alcalde, New Mexico, thirty-five miles north of Santa Fe. Ranchos de Taos still has traditional Comanche singing and dancing, especially on New Year's Day.
3. The Comanche nativity play is said to have originated in San Mateo, New Mexico, sixty miles west of Albuquerque, and was performed extensively in that area, in Albuquerque, and in Taos until recent times. Contemporary performances are still found in the Estancia valley, forty miles east of Albuquerque.
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