Danza Negra
The following poem is a rhythmic song that’s going to be a really fun piece. First, we are going to learn how to sing the song or poem using a certain cadence. Second, we will read the poem in that manner. Following this, you can read my translation. In translating the poem, I employed my beginner level Spanish skills as well as a heavy dose of artistic license. We will discuss my word choices and interpretation and your preferences in the commentary. Lastly, there’s a word about what I know of the origins of the poem and my perspective on the subject.
Okay! Here’s how the read the poem: As you read the lines in a rhythmic cadence, the bold text marks the syllable that gets the stress. The syllables in the middle are often squished together as in, “Es el sol de hierro q’arde’n Tombuctú”. So watch out for that. I put an asterisk (*) where I’m not sure how it’s read exactly. Other than that, after you get the rhythm, it should be pretty easy.
Let’s try a verse:
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Póo.*
El cerdo en el fango gruñe: pru-pru-prú.
El sapo en la charca sueña: cro-cro-cró.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
Great! Now let’s do the whole thing.
***
Danza Negra
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Póo.
El cerdo en el fango gruñe: pru-pru-prú.
El sapo en la charca sueña: cro-cro-cró.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
Rompen los junjunes en furiosa ú.
Los gongos trepidan con profunda ó.
Es la raza negra que ondulando va
en el ritmo gordo del mariyandá.
Llegan los botucos a la fiesta ya.
Danza que te danza la negra se da.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.
Pasan tierras rojas, islas de betún.
Haití, Martinica, Congo, Camerún;
las papiamentosas antillas del ron
y las patualesas islas del volcán,
que en el grave son
del canto se dan.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
Es el sol de hierro que arde en Tombuctú.
Es la danza negra de Fernando Póo.
El alma africana que vibrando está
en el ritmo gordo del mariyandá.
Calabó y bambú.
Bambú y calabó.
El Gran Cocoroco dice: tu-cu-tú.
La Gran Cocoroca dice: to-co-tó.
***
Jail and Cane
Cane and Jail
The boss man says: tu-cu-tú
The boss lady says: to-co-tó
It’s the sun of irons that burns in Timbuktu (Mali)
It’s the black dance of Fernando Póo.
The swine in the mud grumbles: pru-pru-prú
The stuffed-shirted toad in the pool dreams: cro-cro-cró
Jail and cane
Cane and jail
Beat those that gather in furious ú (ultimar – final, to kill, ultraje – outrage)
The gongs vibrate with profound ó
It’s the Black race that, undulating, goes in the fat rhythm of Mariyandá.
The big bosses gather at the party already.
Dance what you’ll dance, the black he gives.
Jail and Cane.
Cane and Jail.
The boss man says: tu-cu-tú.
The boss lady says: to-co-tó.
They pass the red lands, isles of tar.
Haiti, Martinique, Congo, Cameroon;
The Papiamento-speaking Antilles of rum
And the Patois-speaking Isles of the volcano
How burdened they are with the song they give.
Jail and Cane
Cane and Jail
It’s the sun of irons that burns in Timbuktu (Mali)
It’s the black dance of Fernando Póo.
The African soul is vibrating
In the fat rhythm of Mariyandá.
Jail and Cane
Cane and Jail
The big boss says: tu-cu-tú
The lady boss says: to-co-tó
***
As the Spanish experts out there can tell, I’ve slanted the interpretation toward the more political usages of the words in the poem. Calabó and bamboo are supposedly types of wood found in Africa and/or the Carribean and their selection could be purely cultural or for rhythmic effect but I believe that their use as terms of oppression fit better than neutral terms for mere musical aesthetic. The term calaboose is an old term in English for jail (calabo in Spanish) and I believe that bamboo in this sense probably refers to its use in administering punishment to those in the calaboose. Now that you know where I’m going with this, you can guess why I chose to interpret the poem the way I did.
The poem uses onomatopoeia and made up words called jitanjáfora to establish a beat. I don’t believe that they are meaningless words however; I think they reference a few things that add to the message. I came up with some good words for what I think the dangling syllables (tú, tó, prú, ó, etc.) allude to but only wrote down the juicy one(s).
Danza Negra was written by Luis Palés Matos’ who is from Puerto Rico. He was a prominent poet in the movement around Afro-Antille poetry, la poes’a afroantillana, in the 1920’s and 1930’s. I know next to nothing about this subject but I’m willing to suppose that this poetic movement had a lot of connections to Pan-African social movements at that time and therefore chose political double-entendres purposefully. In the case of this poem, I believe Palés Matos chose words that evoke the slave trade and class relations in the Carribean colonies. Any suppositions I have, however, were gleaned from just a quick glance over the material in these two links:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1997/1/97.01.03.x.html
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cultural_critique/v047/47.1colon.html
I can’t wait to hear your reactions and corrections. Hope this was fun!
Brad B said,
August 21, 2009 at 6:03 am
Just two comments on your translation. “papiamentosas” has nothing to do with the pope or papists. I believe it’s referring to papiamento, the only Spanish based creole. It makes more sense since the next line talks about patois. And there’s no stuff-shirted in the description of the toads. Where’d you get that.
thedialect said,
August 25, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Good work on the papiamento! I’ve never heard of that but here it is in my Dictionary of Linguistics!! “Papiamento: a creolized Spanish, spoken by the natives of Curaçao.” Brad, you’re a genius!
As for where I got ‘papist’, after looking back through my dictionaries I can’t exactly find how I got that. I wrote down a whole bunch of neat double entendres and then picked the one I thought was neat, I suppose.
As for ‘stuffed shirted toad’. In my Bantam New College Dictionary from 1968, it has for Sapo: toad; (coll) stuffed shirt; (Chile) little runt. Also, my Dictionary of Spanish Slang has for Sapo: gossipy and nosy. I liked the idea of a stuffed-shirted toad – someone who is overly formal and thinks they are important but is really just a frog in the mud. I like to use my older dictionaries because I suspect that they have ‘old people definitions.’
Thanks for the edits!
thedialect said,
April 11, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Hey everybody,
This is consistently the most searched-for and viewed post on The Dialect. It must be that people have to read this for school. I’d like to hear back from someone who discussed this poem in class or had to write about it. What is the reaction to my interpretation? What can you tell us here so that others will benefit from your research?
Thanks, The Dialect
2010 in review « The Dialect said,
January 2, 2011 at 4:19 pm
[...] Danza Negra August 2009 3 comments 3 [...]
Karen said,
March 13, 2011 at 11:23 am
El Gran Cocoroco is the head chief of an african tribe. He uses rhyme, musical effects, and sounds similar to that they use in the Caribbean. Fernando Poo= is an island in Guinea.