Cardenche Resonances José Juan Zapata Pacheco Translated by Kaija Viitpoom
“La estrella del norte, llave del mundo…”1 “We actually learnt because we heard those before us and we asked them to teach us some of what they knew. They didn’t teach us everything – they ran out of time – but that’s how we learnt…” Don Lupe Salazar has a deep and measured voice, and he takes a deep breath outside a house in the village of Sapioriz, in the state of Durango, in Northwest Mexico. April sun burns the unpaved streets of this ejido of Comarca Lagunera2, a village that seems no more special than any of the others in North Mexico. Yet, in the air, there is a scent of traditions at this last bastion of the cardenche song. Sapioriz is the home of the last performers of a rural style of music that completely lacks instrumental accompaniment. It is a polyphonic song in 3 voices with long pauses which alternate in the musical phrasing. These are songs born from the long hours under the sun in the hacienda estates of La Laguna, which are now moving towards a very likely disappearance. Because of their unique character in the landscape of Mexican traditional music, cardenche songs have been attracting the attention of ethnomusicologists since the seventies. The sound archives of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico (INAH, by its
1
Lyrics from the cardenche song “Los horizontes” (literally: “The Horizons”) from the repertoire of La Flor de Jimulco; literal translation of the lyrics would be “Northern star, key of the world…” (All footnotes in the article are the translator’s notes.) 2
Comarca Lagunera is the 9th largest metropolitan area in Mexico, situated between the states of Coahuila and Durango, named after the now dry lagoons that were once found in the area, also known as La Laguna.