Cardenche resonances

Cardenche Resonances José Juan Zapata Pacheco Translated by Kaija Viitpoom

“La estrella del norte, llave del mundo…”1 “We actually learnt because we heard those before us and we asked them to teach us some of what they knew. They didn’t teach us everything – they ran out of time – but that’s how we learnt…”

Don Lupe Salazar has a deep and measured voice, and he takes a deep breath outside a house in the village of Sapioriz, in the state of Durango, in Northwest Mexico. April sun burns the unpaved streets of this ejido of Comarca Lagunera2, a village that seems no more special than any of the others in North Mexico. Yet, in the air, there is a scent of traditions at this last bastion of the cardenche song.

Sapioriz is the home of the last performers of a rural style of music that completely lacks instrumental accompaniment. It is a polyphonic song in 3 voices with long pauses which alternate in the musical phrasing. These are songs born from the long hours under the sun in the hacienda estates of La Laguna, which are now moving towards a very likely disappearance.

Because of their unique character in the landscape of Mexican traditional music, cardenche songs have been attracting the attention of ethnomusicologists since the seventies. The sound archives of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico (INAH, by its

1

Lyrics from the cardenche song “Los horizontes” (literally: “The Horizons”) from the repertoire of La Flor de Jimulco; literal translation of the lyrics would be “Northern star, key of the world…” (All footnotes in the article are the translator’s notes.)

2

Comarca Lagunera is the 9th largest metropolitan area in Mexico, situated between the states of Coahuila and Durango, named after the now dry lagoons that were once found in the area, also known as La Laguna.

initials in Spanish) produced the first known recordings of the genre in 1978 on the album Tradiciones musicales de La Laguna, la canción cardenche3.

Subsequently, the regional units of popular cultures in the northern states of Durango and Coahuila would resume the study, having thus far published a song book and some new recordings. Independent musicologists have explored these songs in their dissertations.

This has not stopped the cardenche songs from fading away when faced with the indifference of new generations, who have little interest in these folkloric songs of the “old folk”, born even before the Mexican agrarian reform of the thirties.

If one were to add the ages of Lupe Salazar, Antonio Valles, Genaro Chavarría and Fidel Elizalde, the result would easily exceed two centuries. The four of them lived in Sapioriz, a village in the municipality of Lerdo, Durango, one hour from the metropolitan area of Torreón.

At the beginning of the nineties, cardenche songs were still sung in the village of La Flor de Jimulco (also known as La Flor) near the state of Coahuila, in the municipality of Torreón.

Since the cardenche singers of this community, Quico Orona in particular, passed away, the old men of Sapioriz are the only ones who carry a record of these verses and melodies in their memories.

On 9 February 2008, they were awarded with the Mexican National Prize for Arts and Sciences4 in the category of Popular Arts and Traditions. This prize, awarded by the Regional Unit of Popular Cultures of Coahuila and its director Francisco Cázares, opens up new channels that allow thinking about the future. The effects of the award have created a stronger interest, not only on the national level, but also within the community of Sapioriz, where the cardenche singers aim to set up a museum and a cultural centre to teach their songs.

3

Literal translation of the title would be “Musical Traditions of La Laguna, the cardenche song”, not published in English 4

Monetary prize awarded nationally by the Government of Mexico every year in six categories

“Los horizontes son chiquitos y parejitos al caminar”5 Little, if anything, is known about the origins of cardenche songs. Musicologists have highlighted the baroque vocal ornamentation of European and colonial origin, embellished with more recent and truly mestizo melodic and lyric elements.

In his text that accompanies the album Tradiciones musicales de La Laguna, la canción cardenche, Roberto Portillo says: “It could be said that this genre originates from the colonial era. Yet, it is not possible to claim it categorically, since, while it does have the ornamentation characteristic to that era, and even complies with renaissance and baroque canon of interpretation in several ways, there is also a marked lyricism manifested through both melody and text, which is representative of the romantic expressions of the 19th century. This last characteristic is as important as those mentioned earlier, since it indicates either a closer origin or the last stage in a metamorphosis of an ancient genre whose origins we do not know.”6 Francisco Cázares, the director of the Regional Unit of Popular Cultures of Coahuila, has his own view about the origins of the songs and the repertoires.

“There is a matter that is considered by many people. They say that cardenche songs are songs of La Laguna. Actually, I believe we are talking about its bastion rather than its place of origin. In the 19th century, these songs were alive in the entire Northeast Mexico. They used to be sung in parts of states such as Nuevo León, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Zacatecas and Durango.

As time passed by, they gradually disappeared in these places, and here, they were preserved, so that now, it is only still sung here. But it is rather a matter of bastion than of origin.”

The immigration process that shaped the villages of the Comarca Lagunera, especially in the late 19th century, means that cardenche songs could be the result of merging traditions. The lyrics of one of the most famous cardenchas, “Ya me voy a morir a los desiertos” (literally: “I will go to the desert to die”), are identical to a popular song from the state of San Luis Potosí 5

Lyrics from the cardenche song “Los horizontes” which also appear in the song "Sale la luna y se mete el sol" (literally: „The Moon comes out and the Sun sets“) from the repertoire of Sapioriz; literal translation of the lyrics would be “The horizons are tiny and level while walking…”

6

Neither the album nor an official version of the accompanying text has been published in English

in North-Central Mexico, compiled by Mexican musicologist Vicente Mendoza in his canonical study of Mexican folklore. In San Luis Potosí, it is entitled as “El Álamo de Parras” (literally: “The Poplar of Parras”).

“There are many songs that are old, that you can find musically arranged in other parts of the country,” explains Francisco Cázares. “That’s why the cardenche song is not a genre; it’s a style of singing.”

The exception to this foreign origin could be the repertoire performed in the village of La Flor de Jimulco, in the state of Coahuila – the corridos acardenchados that draw from the histories and past events of this region, mentioning villages such as La Flor itself, Sombreretillo, Picardías and Hacienda de Avilés (now known as the city of Ciudad Juárez in the state of Durango).

For cardenche singers it is easy. It is a teaching they got from their elders, an oral tradition transmitted from generation to generation, whose next link is currently broken.

Don Antonio Valles is another one of the old cardenche singers. His grandchildren and greatgrandchildren come to greet him by kissing his hand or placing it on their foreheads. As we sit outside his house, time seems to slow down.

When he was a little boy, he was not interested in the songs. Yet, when sitting at home after work, he listened to his father carefully until he noticed something.

“Hey dad, where do you get so many songs from? One after another and another…,” he asked him one day.

“I sing cardenche songs to you every day and night without repeating a single one.”

Old Valles had a book where he used to write these songs down. But one of his daughters, Antonio’s sister, became a protestant (“took to the Gospel”) and, in an outburst of religious fervour, set these papers on fire. Another part of a region’s heritage was gone with the ashes.

“Anyway, I never read the book or knew what songs it had,” regrets Antonio. “But some did stick with me because I heard them from him. It ain’t easy to learn them; I heard lots of them but only two or three songs out of so many got stuck in my head.”

The previous generation of cardenche singers, the one that recorded in the seventies the above mentioned INAH’s album, used to know and sing about eighty songs. Antonio, Fidel, Lupe and Genaro, the current and the last generation, only know and perform a half of this repertoire.

Loss is a natural process that has been occurring since the agrarian reform of the thirties, when peasants stopped depending on hacienda estates for work and started to obtain mobility and freedom, thus transforming their everyday life. Access to education, access to technology, and land ownership began to change the life of these communities.

“How many years is it now since Don Bernabé Favela died?” asks Don Lupe Salazar suddenly.

“About four or five years, something like that,” says Antonio.

“That man was from La Loma (a village near Sapioriz) and he knew songs. He taught us one, and wanted to teach us some others. “Come, let me teach you more,” he used to tell us. To be honest, we didn’t pay him much attention; we never agreed on a time and we never went. At some point, we were taken to Veracruz and stayed for about three days, and during those days the man passed away, taking with him what he was going to teach us.”

Shepherds, Devils and Angels Shepherds must continue their journey towards the Stable of Bethlehem to worship baby Jesus in a world where devils and angels seek to hinder or ease their journey. Bartolo, the lazy shepherd, refuses to stop eating to continue the journey.

“Yo en todo soy muy violento / y en el comer mucho más.”7 “En todo eres muy violento / menos en trabajar / en el comer y dormir / ninguno te ha de ganar,”8 replies shepherd Gilda in humorous verses.

7 8

Literal translation of the lyrics would be “I am intense at everything / and even more so at eating”

Literal translation of the lyrics would be “You are intense at everything / except at working / at eating and sleeping / neither will earn you money”

Pastorela, which often has a relaxed tone, is a drama genre that arrived with the Spanish conquest, and it remains an essential part of Mexican Christmas traditions.

This scene is from the pastorela called Libro de pastores que contiene el nacimiento de Cristo (literally: “Book of Shepherds that Includes the Birth of Christ”) from Sapioriz, Durango. The text is not only old but it also used to rely on the particular feature of being represented in cardenche-style songs. It is yet another tradition that the loss of the songs has dragged along.

In the early nineties, The Regional Unit of Popular Cultures of Coahuila prepared and published a palaeographical edition of the old pastorelas of Sapioriz and La Flor de Jimulco, based on books that are still kept in the community.

Pastorelas used to be staged on 24 December and 6 January during Christmas Eve and Epiphany celebrations in the small village church. They were followed by canticles sung for baby Jesus at nativity scenes at homes. The celebrations could last all night.

Lupe Salazar recalls his youth, the time when he started singing at those night time celebrations. By four or five in the morning, he would start to nod off and lean on the walls.

“Hey, Lupe, make yourself comfortable,” Don Andrés García Antúnez, one of those old cardenche singers, would say to him.

“His feet were really numb, it was freezing there,” he now remembers. “And sometimes we never finished. Now, there’s only three or four households that invite us to sing for baby Jesus, and there’s only a few nativity scenes. It’s all coming to an end.”

The characters featured in the performances, such as the shepherds Gila, Bato and Bartolo, as well as the ever-present hermits and devils, emerge from the theatrical tradition of the Spanish Golden Age. Across the time and cultural transformations, new characters and episodes have been added to the texts.

In his book La region cardenche (literally: „The cardenche region“), chronicler Roberto Martínez García describes the actors’ outfits at the performance staged in La Flor de Jimulco: “Shepherds, whose hats are covered with white fabric and decorated with tinsel, with brims glued to the crown, and a flower. They carry a small oval bag or satchel that they call jato,

and a decorated cane, which goes by the name gancho, is covered with crepe paper, and has flowers and little bells on the top.”9 “Devils with black capes decorated with stars and moons; scary masks, sabres and pointy crowns. Of course, there is a hermit, whose hair is decorated with agave fibres, who has a mask of an old man, a staff, and is dressed in rags. The rancher carries a lasso, spurs, a charro hat and leather chaps. Archangel St. Michael is dressed in white, with a gleaming sword and cardboard wings coiled in white crepe paper.”

In fact, pastorelas were not that theatrical. It was necessary to have a prompter there with a text to keep reminding the actors of their lines. Some of them already knew the dialogues by heart but others needed the prompter to recite their verses. Therefore, the text is essential.

As such, old documents from ejidos and hamlets were tracked down. The most recent one is a pastorela from San Jacinto, a village near Sapioriz. The Unit of Popular Cultures got the book, transcribed it, and returned it to the community so that they could use a palaeographical edition, so as not to damage the original anymore.

Cardenche singers believe that pastorelas have come to en end. It has been several years since they stopped being staged in Sapioriz, not mention La Flor de Jimulco where they also disappeared with the death of the old cardenche singers.

“They’re not into it anymore, even though we’ve fought so hard to see if the lads want to,” explains Don Lupe. “Once, we got them to join in. We set up the pastorela, we made masks for them, got a cape and a sabre… On the same day, there was a dance nearby and they went to the dance, all dressed up like that, and left us. We lost everything we’d found for them,” he says between spurts of laughter.

Tragedies in the Nazas Valley La Flor de Jimulco is a small village in the south of the municipality of Torreón that rests on the right bank of River Nazas. It could have been a big city, but it never was.

9

No official translation of the book including this extract has been published in English

In the late 19th century it was a very important hacienda estate of the region, and, for a short time, it had the possibility to become the railway hub of the north of the country. The intersection was eventually moved a bit more towards the north, to the ranch of Torreón, promoting its later industrial and commercial development.

A considerable part of the fame and prosperity that La Flor came to have was thanks to the owner of the hacienda estate, “the patron” of Jimulco, Amador Cárdenas, who used to say (or it was said) that he was a very close friend of former Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz.

True or not, the fact is that General Díaz did often stay overnight in the manor house of the hacienda estate. Chronicler Roberto Martínez García collected the descriptions of one of those visits from the oral tradition, and included them in his book La region cardenche.

Cárdenas’s fame in Porfirian politics existed largely thanks to his contacts with generals who had supported the Revolution of Tuxtepec, the one that had raised Díaz into power. This was especially the case for Colonel Gervasio Breceda with whom he was connected through family ties, the latter being his father-in-law.

Breceda died in an ambush during this rebellion, when a group of soldiers loyal to President Lerdo de Tejada attacked him in the Potrerillos Canyon on 30 April 1876. In the forefront, there was a man known as Jacinto de la Cruz, who would later be attacked by the local overlord.

“Amador Cárdenas never forgot who had killed his father-in-law – Colonel Breceda had been someone highly valued by President Díaz and Amador felt obliged to punish the murderer,” Roberto Martínez tells.

The capture and the death of Jacinto de la Cruz in the hands of rural police known as the Acordada, gave rise to a famous Mexican corrido acardenchado which forms part of the brief repertoire of “tragedies” that the old cardenche singers still used to sing at the beginning of the nineties, a hundred years after the event.

The song begins like this: “En el nombre sea de Dios se los pido por Jesús

que me canten la tragedia de Jacinto de la Cruz.

Jacinto iba por el río con sus carretas de leña Lo agarraron prisionero en l’arroyo la Carleña”.10 The rest of the tragedy refers to the places to which Jacinto was taken by the Acordada before his execution by firing squad – hamlets and regions in the south of the Comarca Lagunera.

This corrido is a good example of how, unlike in Sapioriz, the repertoire in La Flor de Jimulco was complemented by pieces of regional origin – pre-revolutionary relics of the past, which would make them some of the oldest corridos of the Comarca Lagunera, if not of all Mexico.

“Al pie de un árbol mi alma se siente triste…”11 According to cardenche singers themselves, the name of the songs comes from a type of cactus that is typical of the region, one whose thorns hurt painfully if they pierce the skin, so they have a certain “set of teeth” which makes it painful to get rid of them.

There is a famous saying by a cardenche singer Francisco Beltran, later found by researcher Vicente Mendoza, which says “It is like love, like a thorn in the heart – although you can take it out, pain stays for a long time”.

The songs are also known as songs of rubbish dumps, of drunkards, or of work, due to the contexts in which they were born and performed, in the so-called “rubbish dumps” in the outskirts of village lands, during field labour and always in the heat of sipping Sotol.

10

Literal translation of the lyrics would be “On the name of God / I am asking you in the name of Jesus / that you sing to me about the tragedy / of Jacinto de la Cruz. / Jacinto was walking by the river / with his firewood carts / they took him prisoner / by the Carleña river”.

11

Lyrics from the cardenche song „Al pie de un árbol“, literal translation would be “At the foot of a tree, my soul feels sad…”

In one study, musicologist Montserrat Palacios has highlighted the relation between alcohol and the cardenche singers’ voice as an obvious association for singing these songs of “love and disdain”, as they like to call them.

“Pero trigueñita, cada vez que me acuerdo lloro / quién tiene la culpa / usted que me abandonó”12, goes the song “Al pie de un árbol”, whereas “A las dos de la mañana” (literally: “At two in the morning”) says “A las dos de la mañana salgo a buscar a mi amor / pero luego que la encuentro ella me dice que no”13.

Polyphony is a prominent feature of cardenche songs, given the fact that it is very difficult even for trained musicians to join together three voices of different heights.

“It’s not like grabbing a guitar and playing along to yourself, it’s not that, it’s harder work, it’s more difficult,” notes Lupe Salazar, whose voice is of the low register, known as “dragging” or “pig” because of the analogy with the noises of this animal. Don Antonio Valles sings the “first” or the “main” voice that in most cases guides the songs, whereas Fidel Elizalde or Genaro Chavarría are in charge of the high register, of the voice known as “countertenor” or “requinto”.

“These are songs of lament, of sadness, because their life wasn’t happy as ours now. They used to suffer a lot.”

There was a man who used to tell Lupe how a long time ago, he and his friends were coming down the hill at five in the evening after cutting down agave. One of them, with a scruffy voice, suddenly pulled out of nowhere a song that echoed back through all corners of the canyon.

“Oi, and why so happy? We haven’t even had any lunch ‘til now, and we won’t until we sell the agave,” they asked him.

“Well that’s why, to forget about hunger!”

12

Literal translation of the lyrics would be “Little tanned girl, every time I remember I cry / who is to blame / you who left me” 13

Literal translation of the lyrics would be “At two in the morning I go out to find my love / but then when I find her she tells me no”.

Other voices, other echoes On 10 June 1994, a now renowned orchestra Camerata de Coahuila started out with a concert at the Theatre of Isauro Martínez in Torreón. The first piece to be played was “Resonancias cardenches” (“Cardenche Resonances”), a work of Manuel de Elías, given to the orchestra as a gift for its foundation.

Cardenche songs have echoed beyond the steppes of Northern Mexico and become of interest to new composers of other genres.

As a tribute to the quartet from Sapioriz winning the Mexican National Prize for Arts and Sciences, Camerata de Coalhuila played “Resonancias cardenches” again at their concert on 13 March 2009. The cardenche singers themselves were present as guests of honour. It was a twofold tribute because Manuel de Elías was also celebrating his 70th birthday.

Although the musical piece is far from being influenced by the musical forms of cardenche songs, De Elías has often mentioned that the piece is about “memories of the imaginable” or “of what happened during [his] absence”.

The style has had a major impact on young jazz and rock musicians. The longstanding band Jaguares was one of the first to include a sample of cardenche music on their album El equilibrio de los Jaguares (literally: “The Balance of Jaguares”) (1997).

On the track called “El equilibrio (Parte 2)” (literally: “Balance (Part 2)”), the singer Saúl Hernández recites a poem whilst his friends accompany him musically, and an extract of the song “Al pie de un árbol” can be heard.

The singer Lila Downs and the experimental musician Juan Pablo Villa are the only ones who have embarked on the adventure of recording cardenche songs alone. This is not counting the Mexican musical institution Los Folkloristas, who have been including cardenchas in their repertoire live and on studio albums for quite some time.

Downs has included a very unique interpretation of “Yo ya me voy a morir a los desiertos” on her album La cantina (…entre copa y copa) (literally: “The Tavern (… between one drink and another)” (2006), where we can hear a formal training in the voices that sound together in coldness that has little to do with the essence of cardenche songs.

Juan Pablo Villa is more successful, leaving space for the interpretation of two cardenchas – “Yo ya me voy a morir a los desiertos” and “Al pie de un árbol” – on his experimental album La gruta de baba (literally: “The Cave of Slime”) (2008).

Villa’s dramatic approach and his way of using a loop machine to work with different registers of his voice make his versions interesting modern remakes of cardenche songs. This is because one hypothesis about the a capella character of this tradition is the poverty of the peasants and the intention of using voice to imitate the sound of instruments.

Finally, jazz trio Muna Zul has included cardenchas in their repertoire, without having so far recorded any version on any of their albums.

“Ya me voy a morir a los desiertos…”

Antonio, Lupe, Fidel and Genaro have had the opportunity to demonstrate their singing at various forums in Mexico and in the United States. On various occasions, they have been invited to Mexico City where, according to them, “their repertoire gets all exhausted”. They are also constantly present at Comarca Lagunera festivals, and even took part in the Universal Forum of Cultures of Monterrey.

“They used to mock us (in the village) because we were singing our songs. But we’ve been to places you can’t imagine, we’ve crossed almost the entire Mexico touring, eating well and sleeping in beds we’d never slept in before,” says don Antonio Valles, smiling.

Singing for the President at the official residence of Los Pinos is an experience that they remember fondly, but it was also an opportunity to bring up and publicly request something that had been going around in their heads for some time: the founding of a museum and a cultural centre in Sapioriz, where to store all their documents and awards, and where to teach their songs to new generations that may show interest.

“We wanted it because at home we’d lose them, and on the day we are no more, our children would throw them away or burn them, because that’s the way, that’s how things are: when something expires, it’s thrown out. We want a museum to prove that we were once around, that God helped us with all this, and we want it to be a pride for the entire Laguna.”

“You can also tell there’s some interest,” says Lupe. “We don’t know if it’s because of the tribute they gave us or not, but we do think Sapioriz will be filled with cardenche songs, we think there’ll be interest. Two or three days ago we were by the river and a group of boys approached us, wanting to learn. Hopefully at least one of them will pick it up, but it is hard to tell.”

Cardenche singers, countrymen who still work in the fields whenever they are not travelling somewhere around Mexico and singing, keep up the hope that this museum will be founded and that they will be awarded with some type of grant or pension that would allow them to pass their last years in peace.

“Just a little pension so we could live our remaining days, there’s not that many left anyway,” Lupe points out with a smile. Antonio also expresses his wish for cardenche songs to stay alive: “Right now, everyone’s paying attention to other things that they shouldn’t. There’s people who don’t know what music contains. They only hear it making a sound but don’t know either what it contains or what it means, but it entertains their mind… and so, young people can only think of pure laziness… and as we were saying, maybe now after what they’ve seen, they’ll be up for carrying on with the cardenche song tradition.”