Hatajo de Negritos in Peru

The hatajo de negritos are part of the Catholic Christian tradition as celebrated in the Afro-Peruvian community since the mid-17^th century.  The hatajos are groups of dancers to be found primarily in the coastal provinces of Chincha and Pisco, most famously in the towns of El Carmen, Chamorro, Caserio Guayabo and San José..  The celebrations in which they dance are those for Christmas and the subsequent celebration honoring the day in which the Virgin Mary in her form as the Virgin of Carmen is said to have appeared in this region.  These festivities begin on Dec. 24 and continue until mid-day on Dec. 28. 

 
Here, we see a part of the celebration performed by the family of Amado Ballumbrosio.

For several months preceding these celebrations, starting in October, images of the Virgin and of Baby Jesus are taken in procession from one town to another, as the Virgin and the Christ child of each community “visits” the others.  One purpose of these visits is to solicit funds to finance the subsequent celebrations.  Since the image of the Virgin carried from town to town is very small, these visits are sometimes referred to as the peoncita (little work).

At the same time, residents of the communities (in the past, mostly men and boys but now, girls are also included) practice and learn the elaborate, special dances and songs including elaborate footwork called zapateo, the performance of which is an important part of the repertoire of the hatajos.

The festivities begin around 10pm on the night of Dec. 24 with a Catholic mass in which there is a symbolic simulation of Christ´s birth.  Immediately following this mass, the hatajos dance briefly in front of the church.  Then, everyone hurries home to be with their family at the hour of midnight, the traditional hour at which Jesus is said to be born.   

This video of the Hatajo de Negritos of el Carmen was made by a Peruvian television station.  Non-Spanish speakers:  the part where you actually see the celebrations starts about 30 seconds into the video.  Hispano-hablantes--lo que dice el sacerdote de los origines de la celebración es solamente una interpretación.  Hay otras que dicen que es una mezcla de tradiciones llevado desde la África, y ritos enseñado por los amas españoles de esclavos que quierían catequisar a los negros.

It is worth pointing out that each hatajo has an image (or in some cases, two) of baby Jesus, which they carry with them as their performances are in honor of his birth.

On Dec. 25 (Christmas day), the groups of dancers are invited to visit private homes in the neighboring towns.  These homes will have set up an image of baby Jesus as part of their Christmas celebration.  The hosts welcome the hatajos and the family and friends who accompany them with open arms and offer them food, drink, and other refreshments.  The hatajos perform as a group, following which individual members often demonstrate their skill at zapateo, all done in front of the image of the Christ child as a way of honoring Him.   

As we see here, Peruvian zapateo (or more properly, Afro-Peruvian zapateo) has also moved to the stage but in the Hatajo de Negritos, it is only used as a means of praising the Christ Child.

In the evening of the following day, Dec. 26, the celebration of the Virgin of Carmen begins with a mass, followed by a cultural performance.  This celebration takes place exclusively in the town of El Carmen, where She is said to have appeared.  Beginning at 7pm the next day, Dec. 27, the Virgin is paraded through the streets.  The procession continues through the night until ending at 11am the following morning.  The hatajos de negritos accompany this procession and form an important part of it.

The procession stops briefly in front of the homes of those who want to venerate her.  Most often, these are the homes of people who provide special help in maintaining the hatajos, such the family of Amador Ballumbrosio and of Margarita Córdova.  The families so honored will offer flowers to the image of the Virgin, and refreshments to those who form part of the procession (especially to those who are carrying the image).

The celebrations end when the procession returns to the church were the image is housed.  The hatajos disband until the following year, and the town returns to its more normal life.

 NOTE:  I am grateful to Edith Maldonado Carillo of the Centro Cultural Afroperuano San Daniel de Carboni de El Carmen, Peru and to Carlos O. López-Schmidt of los Cimarrones del Perú for the information they provided me.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about the Son de los Diablos and an event in Zaña, Peru.

"Toro Mata," an Afro-Peruvian classic

Toro Mata is one of those performance numbers that nearly disappeared forever from the world, but was saved from oblivion just in time.  And I am so glad.

It has great rhythm, tells a great story, has really interesting costumes and the story of its background is so intimately tied to Afro-Peruvian history that you realize it is a treasure.

Now, where do I start?

Caitro Soto, recently deceased, was a leading figure in reviving Afro-Peruvian music and dance, and bringing it to a wider public.  He was able to do so in part because his grandmother and great-grandmother taught him many of the old, old songs when he was a boy.  And he was a boy who loved to sing, loved to play the cajón, and was proud of his culture.


Here, Caitro Soto sings Toro Mata, not long before he passed away.

Toro Mata is one of the music and dance selections that he learned from his grandmother and great-grandmother.  The great-grandmother in particular was only one generation away from the days of slavery, and knew many of the old songs dating from that time.

Toro Mata tells the story of two friends, both Afro-Peruvians at the time of slavery, who belonged to a man who raised bulls for bull-fights.  One of the friends had been drinking, and decided in his slightly inebriated state, that he´d like to try his hand at bull-fighting.

 
Here is a version of Toro Mata by Susana Baca.  There is a short commercial before she starts...SORRY!

The other people present agreed to this and gave him a bull, but his friend urged him to be cautious.

When he tried to fight the bull, the bull went after his black skin and not the red bull-fighter´s cape.  He couldn´t get away from the bull.  His friend tried to get him to stop, but it was no use.

We don´t hear the final outcome, but after all, the song´s title is Toro Mata, which means "the bull kills."  I think it´s fair to assume that this is what happened to him.

 
Gabriel Alegría´s interpretation of Toro Mata, 2009...all instrumental.  (He´s a jazz musician.)

The costumes for the dance, and the steps and movements in the first part of the dance, are a caricature of the minuet.   The Spanish slave-holders, at the time the song was created, loved the minuet, and Toro Mata not only tells the sad story of the would-be bull-fighter, but also makes fun of those slave holders.  This was one way that Afro-Peruvians found the courage to deal with their harsh lot...a resilient people.

The rhythm of Toro Mata is called the lando.  It´s close to what, when I was growing up in New Orleans, was referred to as "bump and grind" music.  It´s very compelling.  Great stuff to dance to.

Eva Allyón´s Toro Mata, performed a year ago.

We have one version of Toro Mata in our documentary, A Zest for Life, and also on our CD, Afro-Peruvian Rhythms.  But it is such an evocative and popular number that as we´ve seen above, many famous artists have their own version.

A couple of comments I´d like to make about these several artists and their versions of Toro Mata:  the one person among these that seems genuinely interested in pointing to this song as part of Afro-Peruvian history and the Afro-Peruvian tradition is Caitro Soto.  In addition, none of the versions I have here show the dance, which in my opinion is a shame.  (The version in our documentary includes the dance as well as the song.)

Want a free download of our version of the music?  Go to www.AZestforLifeCD.com.

And to see the dance as well, as performed by our artists, you have to wait until October when we release the DVD.  Again, SORRY!

OUR NEXT POST will be about the Hatajo de Negritos in Peru.

ANOTHER FESTIVAL for "A Zest for Life"

The Festival International du Film Panafricain of Cannes, France has accepted our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, for their upcoming (April 2013) festival.  This will be a nice event for us.  Not only will we get to know filmmakers from Africa and people interested in the African diaspora, but, well, I used to live in southern France so it will feel almost like a homecoming to me.

A homecoming of sorts, of course.  The French Riviera has changed tremendously since I was a teenager.  Now, what you find is huge hotels and wall to wall tourists on the beaches, whereas when I was young....

This is the view most people see of Cannes--a beach with wall to wall people.

This is a fairly young festival.  The 2013 fest will be its 10th edition.  Interestingly, both of the films I especially liked at the Black International Cinema, Berlin (Dar He and Africa:  the Beat) also were featured in this festival.

 In 2012, the festival showed six feature length films, six shorts, and seven documentaries.  It's clear that a lot of the filmmakers are originally from African countries but they did their filmmaking (and probably also went to film school) in France.  Another large batch of filmmakers came from, and filmed in, Moracco.

A more normal street where you're likely to see more French people.

The rest hailed from the United States, the West Indies, Switzerland...a very international bunch.
We DO anticipate screening A Zest for Life in the United States, but festivals here take a long time to make their selections.  In the meantime, this gives me a great excuse to go back to Europe after spending a few months in California.  I'm looking forward to it.

Tour de la Castre, in the older part of town.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Toro Mata:  the traditional song and dance, plus more modern versions.

Black Latinos' identity: black, Latino, or both?

On reading various articles and first-hand accounts, watching some relevant videos on YouTube, and otherwise investigating the topic, I’ve learned that black Latinos have as much and in fact probably greater problems in being accepted as do African Americans.  

According to people of African descent who come from Panama, Peru, Columbia and other countries of central and South America, in their native land they are not considered Latino, and are not felt to truly be a part of their homeland’s culture.  In the United States, they are asked to choose between being black and being Latino.

Jesús López dancing in the hatajo de negritos.  Photo:  Lidia López

In our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, I note that Afro-Peruvians have their own culture just as Peruvians from indigenous communities have theirs.  But although Peruvians from indigenous communities certainly have been discriminated against and marginalized in ways similar to the treatment accorded Afro-Peruvians, indigenous peoples are considered “Peruvian.”  Afro-Peruvians have sometimes had a problem convincing others that they, too, and “Peruvian.”

I want to distinguish here between the past and the present.  The current government in Peru is notable for its interest in providing equality to all Peruvians, and not only accepting but also celebrating the various different ethnic groups and their unique history, culture and contributions.  But this new government has only been in office for a very few years, and so there is still much left to be done before all Peruvians will receive equality of treatment and have equal opportunities.

And in many Latin American countries, the government is not so enlightened.  Furthermore, the ordinary man – or woman – in the street is often even less enlightened.  For many Latinos, skin color is considered pretty important, and the lighter the skin, the more acceptable the person.  This view is even held by many Latinos of African descent.

This kind of marginalization and lack of acceptance is something that many African Americans can relate to.  This is only one of the important parallels between black Latinos (including Afro-Peruvians) and African Americans.

OUR NEXT POST will be about the National Museum of Afro-Peruvian Culture in Lima, Peru.

A Menina dos olhos grandes/Girl with Big Eyes, final film from Black International Cinema, Berlin

A Menina dos olhos grandes/Girl with Big Eyes is the last film I'd like to mention that I saw in the Black International Cinema in Berlin.  Directed by Alexis Tsafas and Fonseca Soares, it's a feature length drama about a young girl of mixed parentage (Spanish mother, Cape Verdian father) who was born and spent her early years in Cape Verde, but then went to Spain for her schooling and only returned to Cape Verde as a young woman.

I was not able to contact either of the directors of this film, so have no photos to present.  But I can say that it is charming and complex.

The young woman, who left for Spain to live with her mother's family after her mother died, believes that the Cape Verdian woman who replaced her mother in her father's life, is a bad person who stole her father away and has too much influence on him.  Not an unusual thought for a young girl, especially one who has recently lost her mother.

Our heroine also believes the "new" woman is practicing witch-craft.

And, well, she is.  Witch-craft, in this context meaning something akin to voodoo, is an accepted practice in Cape Verde.

When our young woman returns, she finds her father dead and the "new" woman dying.  She learns, through talking to those who knew her father, that things can be very tough in Cape Verde.  For example, the "new" woman comes from an impoverished family.  Her relationship with the father is one of the ways she keeps herself AND her own mother and sister from starving.

Our young woman also learns that her leaving Cape Verde had a devastating effect on her father.

The movie ends with our young woman sadder but wiser.  The story is told in a convincing manner, the acting is fine, and the setting is appropriate.

But I found several flaws in the film.  The main one has to do with its reliance on flashbacks.  And the problem here is that it was not always clear to me what time period we were in.  This was especially true when we saw our heroine as a teenager and realized it was the same actress as our heroine as a young woman.  Using the same actress in scenes supposedly years apart made the context very confusing.

On the whole, however, I really enjoyed this and found that the story touching.  Three cheers to the filmmakers.

NOTE:  For those of you who, like me, aren't sure where Cape Verde is, it's two small islands off the coast of West Africa.  The principal languages are Portuguese (for years it was a Portuguese colony but is now independent) and Crioulo.  Most of the inhabitants are black.

OUR NEXT POST will be about black Latinos' identity:  black, or Latino, or both?

NEXT TO LAST FILMS from the Black International Cinema, Berlin

In addition to Dar He and Africa:  the Beat, there are three other films that I saw at the Black International Cinema festival in Berlin that bear special mention.  These are Askoo, a short film from Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Ali Hashemzehi:  Shahde Sang/the Nectar of Stones, another short from Iranian filmmaker Sattar Chamani Gol:  and A Manina Dos Ojhos Grandes/Girl with Big Eyes, a feature-length dramatic narrative by Cape Verdian filmmaker Alexis Tsafas.

Askoo is a 25 minute short fim that has been in several documentary film festivals.  It was shot in Baluchi with English subtitles.

It is about a man and his camel.  The man in question is a camel dealer.  Apart from his herd, he has one camel that is both his mount and companion, and that is Askoo.   

His relationship with Askoo is somewhat like what, in other parts of the world, you’d expect to develop with your dog, or perhaps more appropriately, with your horse in the days when horses were a primary means of travel.  Because the camel dealer spends most of his time alone in semi-arid regions with his camels, his relationship with Askoo is very important to him.

At work on "Askoo."  Filmmaker Mohammad Ali Hashemzehi is on the right.

And there is history involved in this relationship. As the film develops, we learn that there has been a major conflict between our camel dealer and Askoo.  At the very end, in an off-hand way, we are finally led to understand the reason for this conflict.

The movie is charming.  There is the interesting, “exotic,” side of seeing what life is like for a camel dealer in the backlands of Iran, but the hints dropped about the conflict are what really draw us in.  My one major criticism of the film is that there was something important lost in the translation.  (What in the world is “brambles?”)  As a parting note, Askoo the camel certainly has big, beautiful eyes.

A scene from "Ashkoo."

The second film, Shahde Sang/the Nectar of Stones, is also by an Iranian filmmaker.  It´s in Kurdishm, with English subtitles.

This 25 minute short film takes us up a steep, rocky, barren mountain with three men set on getting something that is, we are led to understand, still available on the cliff face.  It is a long journey they make, and at the end of it, one of them (who is doing this “for the last time”) must be hoisted up to the middle of the cliff face by the two others.   

Plenty of drama here:  will the two tire and let their friend drop down to certain death?  Will the bees (yes, halfway up the cliff’s face, he encounters a bee’s nest) sting him so badly that he lets go of the rope?  Will this, his last journey, end in his death or in his getting what they came after?

Askoo the camel with the films´lead, the very personable camel dealer seen from the back.

We only learn more than halfway through the film, and much of the way through the dramatic cliff-hanging part, what they are after:  honey, made by bees that have their nest… in a hole halfway up the cliff.  To cut to the quick, yes, he gets the honey without dying.  His companions lower him back down to safety, and the three of them…consume all the honey that they just spent most of the day getting, at the risk of the life of one of them.

It is quite humorous in sections, happily, by intention.  Would I ever go through all that for a feast of honey?  No way.  And in places, the drama was a little forced.  But:  did I enjoy the film?  Absolutely.

Note that I was unable to contact Sattar Chamani Gol, the filmmaker responsible for this film, and so don´t have any photos related to him/her or the movie Shahde Sang/the Nectar of Stones.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about a film from Cape Verde.  This will be the last film we´ll cover from the Black International Cinema, Berlin.

Africa: the Beat -- that other really fine movie from the festival

I mentioned that there were two films that really stood out in the Black International Cinema festival in Berlin.  Let me remind you that I did NOT see every entry, but I did see an awful lot.  This second film, Africa:  the Beat, is a truly fine and moving production, a documentary very skillfully filmed (with little in the way of fancy equipment) in Nzali, Tanzania.

The producers-directors are a cooperative called Samaki Wanne that consists of four people: a filmmaker, a painter, and two musicians.  The mover and shaker is Polo Vallejo (far right in the photo below), a musician who spent over 15 years visiting and learning about the Wagogo of Tanzania, and decided as a result of his research that it would be important to make a film about them.  The Wagogo are a tribe for whom music is an essential part of daily life, of the passing of the year, of the different stages of life, of their relationship to their environment...in brief, an essential part of their existence.

Samaki Wanne--Manuel Velasco, Javier Arias Bal, Pablo Vega & Polo Vallejo (Photo:  Carmen Ballvé)

The cooperative decided early on to make the film without the use of a voice-over or any other kind of detailed narration.  The Wagogo, obviously, are not speaking (or singing) in any of the language with which most viewers will be familiar.  So why did the cooperative decide against a narrative?

Their aim, and it is to their great credit that they achieve this aim, is to let the music and the images speak for themselves.  Polo Vallejo explained, for example, that every cut is dictated by the rhythm of the music.  Their are a few frames with a bare minimum of printed words (spring, the harvest...) but for the most part, we simply see and experience the  complex rhythm of the Wagogo´s life through their music, and their dance.

Aside from the wonderful vicarious experience that this provides the audience, I was interested to learn from Vallejo that only the Wagogo women are allowed to play the drums, and the drums are a very important part of their music.  In many forms of music, most or all of the drummers are men, so it is intriguing to find a peoples with such a different tradition.

A Wagogo musican with his dog.  Photo:  Carmen Vallavé

One of the aspects of this film that I found particularly attractive is the beauty of the music and the dance.  This is due both to the intrinsic merit of the music and dance, and also to the skill of the filmmakers.  I can easily imagine a film in which the music and dance could be made uninteresting by filmmakers unable to let them shine through.  My congratulations, then, to the Samaki Wanne cooperative.

In addition to its screening at Black International Cinema, Berlin, Africa:  the Beat has been accepted into film festivals in New York (USA), Montreal (Canada), Florence (Italy), the Canary Islands (Spain), Zanzibar (Tanzania) and others.  If you have the chance, I certainly recommend that you go to see it.

OUR NEXT POST will be about a few of the other films from Black International Cinema, Berlin--then, we will return to Afro-Peruvian music and dance.