El merequetengue is a Columbian rhythm like the cumbia and el vallenato. The three rhythms grew favourite on the Costa Chica of Guerrero y Oaxaca and the coastal groups and orchestras compose their own versions such as “el poquilín” and famous covers such as “La golondrina”. El merequetengue is also very popular in the Mexican North East among groups of Northern Huapangos.

GROUPS AND REPERTORY

Small groups of wind bands still exist supported by local municipalities, these have variable instrumentation including trumpets, saxophones, trombones, bass drum or floor tom, cymbal and snare drum. These bands have become tropical orchestras having included an electric bass guitar, keyboards, congas and scrapper.

Since the 1960s many of the coastal musicians have joined tropical music groups or Trovador duets or trios who have ventured to look for work in the infamous and tourist port of Acapulco. Others tried their luck in the dance centers of Mexico City. These were very formative experiences for musicians who were incorporated into the world of popular music, and who, in turn, influenced traditional music back home.

Santiago Llano Grande “la Banda” adopted this name in memory of the most famous band of music in the region called “La barredora”, directed by the maestro Ignacio Velasco. The band played in patron saint festivities, social dances, weddings, baptisms, birthdays and other diverse musical occasions. Don Cliserio López Hernández, the last of 12 members of the band told us that in the beginning they mainly played the popular repertoire of danzones, boleros, corridos and pasos dobles only later including mambos, rumbas, chachachas and cumbias. To the international popular Latin repertoire Coastal bands also satisfied local tastes playing chilenas, merequetengues, gustos, palomos, malagueñas, peteneras, jarabes and sones. The dance of la tortuga and the Toro de petate were also danced to this music. Examples of these types of groups include la Banda Costa Chica de Higineo Peláez, Los Magallones, Los multisónicos de Juan Morales, Mar Azul, and the extant Oaxacan group la Furia Oaxaqueña.

String instruments tradition is also extant in the region as has been mentioned referring to La Chilena genre. For the past decades the traditional instruments of the fandangos de artesa included the harp, the bajo quinto, the cajón or rectangular drum and the guacharasca (idiophone or tubular maraca made with the hollowed out trunk of the guarumbo with seeds of the platanillo tree inside). Fandangos were performed for weddings and other special occasions.

The repertoire of the above mentioned string group which nowadays is sadly almost extinct include the sones de artesa, the minuets for the funerals of children or “little angels”, the gustos, malagueñas, palomos, peteneras, corridos, and oaxacados. These are also traditional genres shared in neighboring areas like Tierra Caliente of the states of Guerrero and Michoacán. Within the string ensemble tradition, guitar duets and trios also became very popular imitating the bolero trovadores adding a distinct regional coastal flavor and lyrics to these romantic genre and ensemble. These trios became very much rooted in Mestizo society feeding the repertoires of boleros, bambucos, huapangos and chilenas. These are all played at the Chilena festival, an annual event in Jamiltepec, Oaxaca that, since its inception in 1983, became an important forum for musical competence among Chilena music lovers.

DANCES

The dances in México are musical, dance and street theatre shows organized by the religious confraternities mayordomías and enthusiastic youth who rehearse the dance and perform it during the town´s main fiestas. The publics´ participation often provoked by the dances jocular characters is necessary for the show to be considered a success. The dances are usually about real events or practices, myths or parodies about the present with the intention of making a critical social commentary, (Victor Turner, The Anthropology of Performance, New York, PAJ Publications, 1986).

The three most emblematic dances of the black people in the coast region are the Devil dance, the Cowboys dance also called Toro de petate and the Turtle dance (see mini documentary videos on this website). Two central joking characters of these dances, the “Pancho” and the “Minga” represent White, or Spanish society. the “Pancho” is the cruel and punishing hacienda owner with a devil´s mask, rags as clothes and a whip in his hand and la “Minga” a short name for “Dominga” is the White woman with a mask of a white lady, big breasts and buttocks who is the object of sexual desire for men.

GAME OR DANCE OF DEVILS

The Devils game is a dance of working gangs of youth baring devil masks decorated with horsehair and deer antlers. It is choreographically composed of two parallel rows of 12 or more devils dancing bending to the front, swinging their arms and stomping their feet. Their movements represent Black workers who labor under the foremans, the main devils called El Pancho o El Terrón´s threats, and whippings. A woman “la minga” or “Dominga” the foreman´s wife baring the mask of the White Spanish, and playing at seduction of the rest of the devils and with the spectating devils, is taking care not to be caught by her husband´s whip. Each music piece has a distinctive step for its dancers who sing picaresque couplets:

Rub my stick

That makes the drum sound

Rub my stick

That makes the drum sound

Men and women

Turn their eyes round

Men and women

Turn their eyes round

The music of the Devils dance is a set of old musical pieces called sones. These are played with the harmonica, called “flute,” an arcuza, bote or tigrera, which is a drum with a stick attached to the skin and rubbed with the hand to produce a deep vibrating sound. This instrument may be substituted by a bucket (which is struck like a drum with a mallet), and a charrasca, a donkey´s jawbone with its loose teeth which is played by scrapping the teeth with a deer antler and banging or stroking the side of it (see photos and listen to audio track with instrumental description in this section of the website).

This dance is performed on the day of the dead where the devils go to the cemeteries on the 31^st of October bringing the souls of the dead back to town and then returning them to the cemetery at the end of the fiesta on the 2^nd of November.

COWBOYS DANCE

The toro de petate or Cowboys dance is a performance illustrating the life of a cowboy and their bravery for confronting untamed brave bulls. The plot is developed around the problem of cattle rustling or stealing which has caused conflict between cattle raisers for centuries. The Bull is made of a large structure comprised of a straw mat and horns with the branding of the cattle raisers who supposedly robbed the cattle and then imposed a symbolic fine which they use to buy alcohol for the dancers.

The dancing cowboys are a large group comprised of pairs of 20 or more participants organized hierarchically and are under the command of foreman or head of the gang of cowboys and their helpers, a puntero and a caudillo. All the cowboys work for the hacienda owner who is also the Pancho or terrón, and his wife the minga. These characters appear in the three dances, they make the public laugh with the sexual provocation of the minga and the castigating whip of the Pancho. The dance moves throughout the town stopping at houses who solicit their dancing, households can choose between a normal dance or a ring where the cowboys pass to the center of the ring to confront the bull and as they do so they recite verses of devotion to the Virgin del Rosario asking for protection against the bull. An example of the relación or décima verses recited the Foreman Cowboy confronting the bull is the following:

In the most distinguished Hacienda

I became the Foreman

Free me from all evil

all my love is to you

To serve you without rest

With the rein of my horse

I will confront the bull

God bless me

And the Rosary Virgin too.

(information and texts obtained in an interview with Mr. Agustín Carmona Serrano representative and leader of the dance in the town of Lo de Soto. See video Toro de petate dance in this section).

The music that accompanies this dance can be a small band comprised of a trombone or trumpet, drum and drummer or simply an accordion, the type of group varies but the repertoire is always chilenas and sones.

TURTLE DANCE

This dance has neither dialogues or relaciones nor central arguments above and beyond that of sexual games played between men and women. The turtle has a large shell structure with a wooden pole head that protrudes and withdraws imitating a penis that equally pursues both men and women. The Pancho is the husband of the “main minga” and the lover of a group of women “minor mingas”. All of the women are dancing in search of a sexual partner as they play with the enormous penis of the turtle. They interact with the public seducing the male members, dancing and playing sexually among them. There are two additional characters including machomula who is a cowboy seated on top of a pole with a horse head and tail and another cowboy who tries to control this cowboy and his horse with a chord. The chord also serves to stop the mingas straying among the audience as if they are at the service of Pancho who wants to control all of the mingas. The relationship between Pancho and many women is notable because it directly alludes to the common practice of men who have a wife and mistresses. It paints a picture of a significant daily problem among the Black population where men control women and often end up competing and fighting over the same woman.

The music that small ensembles of alto and tenor saxophones, a drum which can be a floor tom or a proper Caribbean ketlledrum play to accompany this dance are merequetengues and cumbias.

Bibliography:

Moedano Navarro, Gabriel. Atención pongan señores…. El corrido afromexicano de la costa chica”, Serie de la fonoteca no.38, INAH, CONACULTA, 2000:7

Ruíz Rodriguez, Carlos. Versos, música y baile de artesa de la costa chica. San Nicolás guerrero y El Ciruelo, Oaxaca. El Colegio de México CONACULTA, 2004.

Ruíz Rodriguez, Carlos. “Entre el mar y la montaña. Cultura afrodescendiente y diversidad musical en la Costa Chica de Oaxaca”. Ensayo de ECMO (en proceso de publicación).

Saldivar, Gabriel. Historia de la Música en México. Ed. Facsimilar, Gobierno del Estado de México 1980: 229-244

Stanford, Thomas. El son mexicano, col. Sep 80, FCE, 1984:38-43