Page 328 - Arte e Historia

Danilo De los Santos
African and Native Taino expressions, especially the to-
ponymic ones. These linguistic voices are crisscrossed in
our speech as the sounds of musical instruments, in the
same fashion that beliefs and rituals interact. However,
the Castilian language and the Catholic religion are im-
posed from the beginning of the colonial period due to
their institutional weight.
Regarding language, Rodríguez Demorizi writes: «For
a while there are three languages in roughly equal nuclei in the
colony: indigenous, Spanish and African. That confusion of voic-
es will later appear in Tirso de Molina verses alluding to things
of Santo Domingo, where he resided at the beginning of the sev-
enteenth century: How do you pick-up cocoa? Handsome? What
is it among slaves? What fruits you get from guava trees? What is
cassava and what Jaojao?». Later on other voices will be add-
ed: French, English, Italian, Chinese, Arab… as a result of
an increased ethnic and cultural accumulation.
The Englishman William Walter, in an article pub-
lished in 1810, focuses on the entertainment in the is-
land, including the running of the bulls, cockfights and
«national» dances like bolero, fandango and the dance
of the mulattoes, which he considered voluptuous and
obscene. «Low class Spanish black people accompany their vul-
gar dances with shouts and music produced by sticks and lofty
woods, or by a ridged gourd, which they swiftly brush using a
thin bone. The baujo, sort of maracas made by filling a gourd
with pebbles and played with a horse jaw with teeth attached,
brushed with swift movement and accompanied by drums. The
steps are strange and obscene. All the accompaniment and style
seem to be derived from a mixture of African Congo and indig-
enous din, and are the ceremonial ritual for a death relative,
which becomes a solemn occasion with dancing and musicians
like the gypsies in Spain. The greatest compliment that a man in
love makes to his courted lady, for having granted the privilege
of dancing with him at the party, is taking off his hat and put-
ting it on her for the rest of the evening. Later on she will return Cross of the Holy Hill, planted there by the same Discoverer,
it, often along with a lit cigar that she has rolled herself.»
The concentration of blacks in many villages, espe-
cially in Santo Domingo, gave rise to beliefs and Neo
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African practices such as the brotherhoods that syncretized
deities and religious practices from their land of origin
disguised with Catholicism. The brotherhoods with invo-
cations to St. Cosmas and St. Mary Magdalene, among
other religious images of faith, extended a magic-religious
type of transformation whose celebration involves pealing
of drums, singing and dancing. The white settlers, when
they did not had their own brotherhoods, they were admit-
ted to the creolized black fraternities, which are involved
in official commemorative ceremonies. On the occasion
of the monarchic ascension of Ferdinand VI in 1747,
great celebrations were scheduled in Santo Domingo.
María Ugarte reported that she threw coins and cheered
their majesties at the end of a liturgy. At the ceremony,
«the brotherhood of San Juan Bautista danced a contra dance
and in the afternoon men and women paraded through the city
singing, chanting and dancing. It was a courtship that included
the «Calenda,» a dance and song of African origin accompanied
by applauses from the spectators». Bernarda Jorge, refers to
the popular religious singing related to pilgrimages, «little
angels wakes» called baquiní, and other popular religious festi-
vals and ceremonies associated with the Catholic tradition or
magic-religious rituals (…). In some devotional celebrations, as
the ones named the Cross, the Holy Spirit, or that of some saints
that matches the voodoo mysteries, they sing salves that blend
Catholic and Voodoo invocations. (…). However, (…) there are
salves which are strictly devoted to the mysteries or luas…»
Songs, devotions, miracles, and pilgrimages dating
from the beginning of the colony are related to numer-
ous altars from convents, chapels, parish churches, urban
housing and the peasants hut or bojío, which recalls the
speech of the Tainos. The hut was a construction covered
with boards and palm leaves, as in the beginning were the
sanctuaries like the virgins of Altagracia and Mercedes,
which are related to miraculous apparitions and pilgrim
devotions. Bishop Polanco Brito writes: «The miraculous
polished as a strong Dominican tradition by the appearance of
the Virgin of Mercy, gave rise to a series of miraculous stories.