Tango y Payada Jstor
Tango y Payada Jstor
Tango y Payada Jstor
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
University of Northern Colorado is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Confluencia
SyLwiw . Pooxoyv
McNeese State University
When looking at the History of Argentina and the birth of this country in the nineteenth
century, one is puzzled by the fact that not all the people who have participated in the
nation-building have been taken into consideration. From Vicente Fidel L?pez and
Bartolom? Mitre to the well respected historians of the Academia de h Historia Argentina,
the accounts about Blacks' participation in Argentine s society are merely caricatured if at
all mentioned. However it is not a mystery that Blacks have been living in Buenos Aires
and its provincias since they were debarked on the shores of the R?o de la Plata in the
sixteenth century as slaves for the benefit of the Spanish Crown. Since that period until
their disappearance from Argentinas social map, African peoples have contributed to all
aspects of the society in which they were brought up. Encompassing both political and
cultural contributions, the presence of Blacks is felt and remains evident up until now,
despite the intention by both positivists and nationalists alike to wipe them out of
Argentines History books. One will remember the concerns of the Generation of 1837
that blamed Blacks (and native Indians) for being one of the reasons the country was still
barbaric and underdeveloped. The generation 'dandy of 1880 (generation of the
positivists) also created social frames in which Blacks had to be dissolved. Deeply
convinced by the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, the generation of 1880 had
facilitated, encouraged and designed policies in which Blacks would slowly disappear over
the years. Race mixing was highly encouraged and black women were finding themselves
giving birth to mulattos whose future in Argentinas society was brighter than that of their
black parents. Miscegenation was a national policy and the rulers were so proud of it that
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (who was President of the country from 1868 to 1874) had
to say in 1883, that one would have to go to the nearby Brazil to see Blacks in their pure
originality.1 Also, the great number of immigrants who came to Argentina reshaped the
social layers of the country. Between 1880 and 1930, more than three millions immigrants
debarked in Buenos Aires, creating a shift in the way race played a role in Argentinas
society. But in spite of all those efforts, Blacks have not disappeared from Argentina. The
blackness of their skin may have disappeared from the society but their contribution to
87
In the texture of the choreography of the early tango, threads of African heritage
can be found in the famous belly bumping, umbilical bumping, stomach
banging, pelvic bumping, frontal pressing. All action in which the man bumps
against the female's stomach [...] all done in the way to have the body appears
like an "S," all these were characteristic of dances of Africa as well as the African
originated dances of America in general. (La Prensa, Dec.9, 1979)
Although more than a century keeps them apart, the similarities in the topic are
striking. This may suggest that there is a tradition in the 'trovo' genre that has spread well
beyond the frontiers of Andaluc?a. Here, one can say that the payada is not an African
originated cultural piece but rather a cultural phenomenon in which Afro-Argentines have
played a significant role. This role was felt strongly in the last decades of the nineteenth
century when black payadores like Gabino Ezeiza (1858-1916), Antonio Caguiano (1881
1955), Celestino Dorrego, Federico Curiando (1878-1917), and many more took the
stage to show their talent as great payadores.
Gabino Ezeiza was the most famous of them. Nicknamed the "payador of the
payadores" by his fellows Argentine singers, Gabino gained national recognition thanks to
his sharp contrapuntal songs and other musical compositions. In her Diccionario de
payadores, Amalia S?nchez Sivori wrote a long and complimenting entry on him, showing
Gabino: Si es que ha encontrado m?s fuerza If you have found more strength
ya var?a la opini?n; that changes everything;
fuerza puede hallarla ahora you may have found strength now
pero no tener raz?n. and still be wrong.
The real meaning beyond the contrapuntal duel between Gabino Ezeiza and Pablo
V?zquez is more political than just simple entertainment. It is a duel between the White
man and a Black man, between the oppressor and the oppressed. When V?zquez states that
he has found strength and new faith to fight against Gabino, one can allude to the
possibility that this new strength' is none other than a new positivist and social Darwinist
ideology rampant among the white social class. This ideology started back with the
But when Alberdi called for Europeans to come and populate Argentina, he was not
thinking about Spaniards and Italians, because they were considered to be too africanized.
Ironically, it turned out that, out of the almost four million immigrants who came to
Argentina between 1880 and 1930, forty three percent were Italians, thirty four percent
were Spaniards and the rest were split between French, Turks and other minorities (Helg
43). The presence of those immigrants has created a resentment among lower class citizens
and especially among Blacks whose jobs were taken away by the newcomers. But the
presence of those immigrants was felt long before 1880. In 1876, a carnival song was
already criticizing the overwhelming presence of the Italians:
Tus hechos y tus glorias esplendentes your marvelous and glorious deeds
se cantan en tu patria como aqu?. are sung in both your country and
mine. (140)
Ezeizas insistence on being part of a country may prove that he completely belongs to it
not as an immigrant but as a real Argentine who bears in his soul the culture and meaning
of Argentineness. He did not define himself as "Negro" versus "Blanco" but rather as
Argentine versus non-Argentine. Those who were coming from Europe not knowing the
culture and language of Argentina could not pretend to be as Argentine as he was. He was
a product of a Creole culture that defines Argentina; and that Creole culture could not be
found among the immigrants. His payadas and other compositions look more like a
contrapuntal duel between him and the authorities, between the White man's discourse
and the Black man's answer.
In general, Blacks in nineteenth century Argentina have held two very awkward
positions?producers of a fragment of Creole culture and victims of that same culture.
Their contribution to tango and the gauchesque genre brought international recognition
to Argentina and yet they have remained victims of a society that did not see them as part
of the creolization of the country. Creolism as a product of the combination of Europeans,
Africans and Native Indians was completely transformed in the later part of the century
because those who were in charge of the nation were more eager to resemble the Europeans
than to preserve the unique trait of culture they have gained through the mixture of the
mentioned three races. In other words, the transformation from Black culture to White
culture was an attempt to annihilate completely the remnants of the old colonial regime
characteristics and embrace a new era of progress, defined by Western civilization
standards. But did the elite reach its goal?make Argentina an European nation ? The
answers could be mixed. The color of the skin may show one's racial background but the
true racial traits will be buried deep in the soul of the individual. There are in Argentina,
and surely somewhere else in the Americas, individuals as white as Europeans who are
practicing a cultural heritage that belongs to the supposedly inferior race?the African
race. Is Argentina's miscegenation policy a political success or a social failure ?
3 All those African dances were seen as lascivious and provocative by the white cre?les.
4 Actually this was said by Concolorcorvo in his famous Lazarillo, but his view sums up the whole
perception that the white elite has on the African dances.
5 African communities known as naciones have multiplied under Governor Juan Manuel Rosas, who was
using them for political reasons against his liberal rivals. His daughter, Manuelita, eventually became the
patrona of those naciones africanas.
6 The discussion on this topic was well carried out by Donald Castro in his book on Afro-Argentine culture.
Unfortunately he did not acknowledge the nationalistic view of Borges on the subject.
7 From a series of poems published in Argentina's newspapers by Luis P?rez and put together by Emilio
Ballagas (250).
8 Elena de Studer writes: "Ni se les permit?a educarse a s? mismos y en Catamarca se lleg? a azotar a un
mulato por haberse descubierto que sab?a leer y escribir" (333).
9 This translation is from Donald Castro and it shows the lack of understanding in the drumming itself.
10 Translation: "I dance therefore I am. "Cited by Ren? L. F. Durand in "la figura del negro en el Martin
Fierro de Jos? Hern?ndez," (175).
11 This theory is hard to accept. It would mean that the guitar is African too, which of course is far from the truth.
12 Esteban Echeverr?a s view can be fully perceived in his short novel El matadero, op. cit.
Work Cited
Alberdi, Juan Bautista. Bases y puntos de partida para h organizaci?n de h rep?blica argentina. Buenos Aires, 1852.
Ballagas, Emilio. Mapa de h poes?a negra americana. Buenos Aires: Pleamar, 1946.
Becco, Horacio Jorge. Cancionero tradicional argentino. Buenos Aires: Hachette, 1960.
Castro, Donald. The Afro-Argentine in Argentine Culture. El negro del acorde?n.M??en Press. Forthcoming.
Conclorcorvo: Ellazarilb d?los ciegos caminantes. Buenos Aires: solar, 1942.
Criado, Jos?. De trovo con Candiota, 1985?1987. Almer?a (Spain): Centro de documentaci?n Musical de
Andaluc?a, 1991.
Echeverr?a, Esteban. El matadero. New York: Las Americas Publishing, 1959.
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Athntic. Modernity and Double Conscience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Hallar, Abrahim H. El gaucho y su originalidad ar?biga. Buenos Aires, 1963.
Helg, Aline. "Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880-1930: Theory, Policies, and popular Reaction." The Idea
of race in Latin America, 1870?1940. Austin: University ofTexas Press, 1990.
Hernandez, Jos?. Mart?n Fierro. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962.
Mansilla, Lucio V. Una excursi?n a los indios ranqueles. Buenos Aires: Biblioteca de la naci?n, 1905.
Niangoran Bouah, Georges. Introduction a h drummobgie. Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) Universit? Nationale
de C?te d'Ivoire, 1981.
Rodr?guez Molas, Ricardo. La m?sica y U danza de los negros en el Buenos Aires De los siglos XVIIIy XIX.
Buenos Aires: Clio, 1957.
Rossi, Vicente. Cosas de negros. Buenos Aires: Hachette, 1958.
S?nchez Sivori, Amalia. Diccionario de los payadores. Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1979.
Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Conflicto y armon?as de las razas en Am?rica. Buenos Aires: la cultura
argentina, 1915.
Studer, Elena de. La trata de los negros en el R?o de la PLta durante el siglo AVZZ/.Montevideo: Libros de
Hispanoam?rica, 1984.