PRIMARY SCHOOL PARRANDEROS IN 2013

THE JOROPO IN TRINIDAD

Carlos García, an ethnomusicologist from Caracas and specialist in Eastern Venezuelan music enlightened me on the complexities of this type of music. He pointed out the many similarities between the parang of Trinidad and the folk music of the Oriente region of Venezuela. Old parranderos had often tried to educate me on the differences between sabana blanca and guarapo, estribillo and zumba que zumba. I was a dull student. I asked the same questions over and over again. However, I slowly undersood that while some older Venezuelan melodies and names were retained in Trinidad, there were a few which were either forgotten or applied differently in the two countries. I discovered that in Venezuela the joropo oriental was the generic name covering the joropo itself as well as the golpe and the estribillo. Each joropo was independent in melody and harmony. What was common to them were the rhythm and general musical pattern. Regino Noriega and Ciprian Ruiz had taken pains to explain that the difference between the sabana blanca and the manzanares, for example, was the toná I remember Ciprian Ruiz singing:
Morenita pelo largo
y delgada de cintura
ayer tarde en el paseo
me alabaron tu hermosura

He sang that stanza in one toná, calling it a manzanare, then changed to a different toná calling it a guarapo. Little by little I became aware that manzanares, guarapo, sabana blanca and even the less popular guacharaca or the paloma and gallina were traditional joropo melodies that had also been played in Venezuela. They derived their names from the central subject matter of the song. In each case the stanzas followed no specific order, and were measured in eight syllabic quatrains with a strict rhyming pattern. One always expected the assonance of second and fourth lines, and one was seldom disappointed. I listened to the manzanares which dealt with the river near Cumaná in Venezuela (There is also a Rio Manzanares in Madrid). In the most popular of its stanzas it tells of the man whose dying mother has sent to call him. The man has to cross the river to get home:

Río Manzanare
déjame pasar
que mi madre enferma
me mandó llamar.


RIO MANZANARES

This song has been claimed by both Venezuela and Trinidad and is included in the repertoire of most parang performers in Trinidad. Recently the winners of the Junior Parang Primary Schools Festival, Sacred Heart (Sagrado Corazón de Jesús) Boys RC School, performed for a visiting Cardinal at Presidents House in Trinidad. It was heartening to hear the boys sing the manzanares verses in such clear Spanish.




The above text is an excerpt from the book The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record. This book is now out of print. The author is anxious to have it reprinted since many persons have been expressing an interest in it.

PARANG IN LOPINOT
Papa Goon and Sotero invited me to come to Lopinot on the following Saturday. They were going to 'make parang' right there at Papta Goon's place. we prayed that it would not rain. They were going to make sancocho, cachapa and other special dishes prepared with grated corn. Without doubt Papa Goon was the leader in creating the atomosphere for fetes up there in the Lopinot valley. "I like my parang", he always said. He described the preparations in store for the weekend with glee. In anticipation he bellowed:'Se quema el pueblo. Is fire in the town!' Off we went to Papra Goon's house to rehearse,
as it were, for the great event!
As the afternoon progressed our lightheartedness increased. Papa Goon discovered that the young landy with us was the grand-daughter of a good friend of his. His compliments on the lady's beauty multiplied, becoming free and daring: She was Delfín Noguera's grand daughter. 'That is why you so pretty'. Then our private afternoon parang began with two cuatros, a marac and three old-time parranderos singing aguinaldos, joropos, estribillos and picón. Sotero explained that the aguinaldo and the serenal were the same song. A serenal was sung when serenaders arrived at the home; they also sang it upon leaving, but with a different tonada, a different air. The name serenal was associated with the well-known refrain 'Sereno, sereno, sereno será, estos son serenos de la madrugá'. Here reference was made to the night dew or sereno, to which the srenaders were exposed as they moved from house to house.
Aguinaldos consist of four-line stanzas. Each line is strictly measured to contain six syllables following the rules natural to Spanish prosody. Rhyming is in the second and fourth lines. In the aguinaldo, the parranderos sing of the whole cycle pertaining to the birth of Jesus Christ. Each stanza is an independent composition, a cameo. There is no specific order in which stanzas are arranged. However, they are thematically united.
Papa Goon and Sotero took turns to sing alternate stanzas:
El Angel Gabriel
le anunció a María
que en su vientre santo
un niño nacía

La paloma blanca
que tiene en el pico
una cinta de oro
para Jesu Cristo

Older parranderos place great emphasis on the accurate narration of the story of the birth of Christ, insisting on not mixing details of the Annunciation with the Nativity scene, or the Pssion and Death of the Saviour with the Christmas story. They criticize even more severely those who juxtapose sacred and profance elements in the same song. The strict adherence to the thematic development is probably a remnant of the dramatization that was simultaneous with the singing of the aguinaldos. In fact, there is still some measure of awareness among younger and newer parranderos that a particular format ought to be followed when engaged in 'making parang'.

Sotero apoligused for not havging the violin that day to enhance the quality of the parang being offered. He talked about having a bandol, a mandolin or even a bajón (bass), but promised that on the following day the music would be more complete. I didnt mind. The musicians were few, but the music was tuneful and the singers resourceful.

This was music that the old peons had brought with them from Eastern Venezuela


The above text is from The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record. It describes a spontaneous parang in the 1970s. The parranderos were Spanish speaking septuagenarians nutured in the Cocoa Panyol and Parang culture. Decades later we witness the staged parang involving young people who do not speak Spanish but are eager to be involved in the tradition. They participate in annual Parang Festivals, Competitions and Shows entertaining enthusiastic parang aficionados.

Caura in 1884

In modern Trinidad there has been a shift in the meaning of the term Parang (from Spanish parranda). It now refers to Hispanic music that is indigenous to Trinidad (and Eastern Venezuela), and by extension it is applied to all music of Hispanic origin played at Christmas time with string instruments and sung in Spanish. However, originally, parang was not a genre; it referred to an occasion. The parranda was spontaneous and was neither rehearsed nor performed. It occurred when a group of people made music together to have fun by playing typical instruments, singing anywhere and at any time of the year. Anyone in the community could participate. In addition, the language of the songs was understood and spoken by the community which was in fact Hispanic in nature.


To illustrate this assertion let us go back in time to the month of June in 1884. We are in rural Trinidad, in the village of La Pastora, a hamlet nestling in the mountains of north Trinidad, above Lopinot, seven miles from Arouca. Everyone in La Pastora speaks Spanish. A young couple, Andrés and Marcelina have just finished building their house with the help of family members, friends and neighbours. It is now time to eat and rest. Andres takes up a cuatro, also called guitarrilla. Teodoro, another villager and friend starts shaking the shac-shac or maracas, closes his eyes and begins to sing: Qué bonita muchachita … Andrés sings a second quatrain: Tus ojos son dos luceros …. The parranda has begun.

Later, in September, a baby is baptized in the church at La Veronica, Caura, the quintessential Spanish valley. The villagers must journey to Caura along mountain trails on donkey and on foot. Hours later, after the religious ceremony, when family and friends return home to La Pastora, they all continue to celebrate the occasion by playing their typical string instruments and singing guarapos, manzanares and other joropo songs. They have learned these songs from parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and other villagers. They have neither radio nor television, there is no internet nor youtube and they are unaware of the most popular songs currently heard in Venezuela, Chile, Spain, Colombia or Mexico. They just sing what they have always sung: and most significantly, they improvise. They contribute to the folk repertoire of compositions that they are also passing on to the young people, who will subsequently imitate them and do the same. This is happening outside of the Christmas season and the theme is not based on any of the events related to the Birth of Christ. For Christmas and specific religious occasions, there are appropriate songs to be intoned. Outside of those celebrations the community is familiar with other songs: ensaladillas, estribillos, sabana blanca, gavilan bombe, galeron, polo, and so on. The aguinaldo [note that the pronunciation is ahgheenaldo not agwinaldo] was on the Christmas theme and was sung at Christmas time. The language of all the songs was the language understood and spoken by the community: Spanish.

"Authentic" Parang

AUTHENTIC PARANG

WHAT IS AUTHENTIC PARANG?

PARANG is the Trinidadian interpretation of the Spanish word PARRANDA. Here are three ways the word PARRANDA is used:

1. General meaning: Boisterous merrymaking, especially referring to a group of people who at night time go from place to place with musical instruments and song for sheer enjoyment.
2. In Venezuela a parranda need not necessarily involve the group’s moving from place to place. The activity does not have to be at night time. It is often a spontaneous outburst of song to the accompaniment of traditional and other instruments; and it can take place anywhere.
3. In Venezuela a parranda has the additional special meaning of a group of persons singing and dancing around someone dressed up in a costume representing the theme of the song being sung, For example: La Burriquita, El Pajarito, etc.
In Trinidad a Parranda has had those three meanings.
Examples: 1. A parranda used to be formed at any time to entertain friends and neighbours, but particularly during the Christmas season when there was more time available from work and the participants could go to distant parts of the island visiting friends and relatives.
2. A parang could start after a gayap, that is, after cooperating in the building of a house, and on other celebratory occasions.
3. The third parranda was absorbed into the Trinidad Carnival, La Burriquita being the most popular costume and dance.

PARRANDA is part of Trinidad’s Hispanic heritage: It journeyed from Spain to the Spanish colonies; it travelled to Trinidad and Venezuela and was reinforced in Trinidad by the Venezuelan migrants who settled on the island during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. It might have been first introduced to Trinidad by the Spanish settlers, colonisers, administrators, missionaries and others. However, it must be remembered that during the Spanish colonial era the Spanish population in Trinidad was sparse and that the missionaries were in contact with the native population for just about twenty years. Furthermore, there is no documentation to attest to the music and songs introduced by the Spaniards during the Spanish colonial period. However, we do know that the Venezuelan ancestors of contemporary Trinidadians brought their music, language, customs and knowledge with them to the island.

"It may be presumed that Spanish songs were sung on the island during the Spanish colonial period in much the same way as they were on Tierra Firme (the Mainland). This was to be expected. There was contact between the islanders and the people on the mainland. Therefore there was probably no significant difference between the musical traditions of the Spanish settlers on the island and of those who resided on the other side of the Gulf. However we have no documentation on Spanish music for that era in Trinidad except for reference to a ballad, Romance muy doloroso. This ballad reconted the massacre of the Capuchin missionaries at the mission of San Francisco de Arenales in Trinidad in 1699. Apparently it was well known in the Sanish colonies."
From 'The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record' p.67

The Venezuelan immigrants to Trinidad sang aguinaldos. The aguinaldo is a Hispanic Christmas carol. The theme is the story of the birth of Christ and in it we hear about the Annunciation, the Birth of Christ as well as the Visit of the Magi and other episodes linked to Jesus' childhood such as the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight to Egypt. The word aguinaldo itself means 'Christmas gift':

Deme mi aguinaldo
aunque sea poquito
una vaca gorda
con su becerrito

(Give me my aguinaldo
no matter how small
a big cow
together with her calf)

Aguinaldo pido
Aguinaldo doy
y si no me dan
contento me voy

(I ask for an aguinaldo
I give an aguinaldo
and if you give me nothing
I'll leave just as happily

Here are some authentic traditional aguinaldo verses sung in Trinidad:

El Angel Gabriel
Le anunció a María
Que en su vientre santo
Un niño nacía

A la medianoche
Se le apareció
Gabriel a María
En sueños le habló

María concibió
Por obra y virtud
A los quince años
De su juventud

La Santa Familia
En Belén llegaron
Buscando posada
Y se la negaron

A la medianoche
El gallo cantó
Bien clarito dijo
Que Cristo nació


Sylvia Moodie-Kublalsingh

Parang! Parang!

Two controversies constantly surface whenever there is a discussion on Trinidad parang (From Spanish parranda: its origin, and whether the language of the traditional songs is Spanish or a 'broken dialect'. One theory is that parang can be traced directly back to the period of Spanish occupation (1498-1797). Daphne Pawan Taylor posited that the Spaniards, especially the missionaries, introduced their music into Trinidad, and that modern parang evolved from that original music. Others adhere to the belief that parang was brought to Trinidad from Spain via Venezuela. Francisca Allard (The Evolution of Parang,) notes that there is no evidence of music repertories that were distinctly Spanish/Trinidadian rather than Venezuelan/Trinidadian.

On the other hand, it is clear that in the nineteenth and early twentierh centuries, Venezuelan immigrants did bring into Trinidad their folk songs and music which are still in vogue today, and whcih are popularly referred to as parang. Most of these immigrants were rural agricultiural workers employed in cacao estates. They were subsequently referred to as cocoa panyols. Many wonder whether the language of the traditional Trinidad parang is authentic Spanish or a 'broken' variety. At a seminar on parang a participant once lamented that parang was being "taken away from the peasant" and associated with the culture of the "intellectuals". This person thought that just as it was unlikely that someone from rural Toco in northeast Trinidad would speak the same kind of English as a professional residing in west Port of Spain, similarly the structure of the Spanish spoken by rural folk whould have differed from the Spanish articulated by those of a higher socioeconomic level. Consquently it was felt that the language of parang was not Spanish but a local patois , very much like our Trinidadian English based Creole and French Patois. The Trinidadian Hispanic septuagenarians who were the subjects of my researcch forty years ago did not sound like graduates from the Universidad Central of Caracas, or the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela. However, they did indeed speak Spanish; the sturcture of their language was essentially the same as that of the most prestigious varieties spoken anywhere; but the intonation pattern and vocabulary were closer to the speech of the rural inhabitants of Eastern Venezuela. Nevertheless, as time went buy the children and grandchildren of those Hispanic Trinidadians became less competent in the language of their forefathers. In some cases the younger people understood but did not produce the language or they did so with difficulty. THey were semi-speakers of Spanish exhibiting illformed structures, limited vocabulary and lack of fluency.

So Spanish rapidly disappeared as a native first language of the local peasant or cocoa panyol. While the language languished, the music of the cocoa panyol flourished among the younger generations and across ethnic groups. Since the songs continued to be sung in Spanish, it became a challenge for non speakers to sing in a language which they did not masterm and learn songs that were only transmitted orally. The older members of the famiily and community taught the lyrics to the younger ones who did not fully comprehend their meaning. In many instances teacher and student were equally incompetent in Spanish. Words and phrases were often learned inaccurately, and some sounds were imitated incorrectly. The less audible words were omitted altogether, with the result that in several cases the Spanish of the new parang songs differed significantly from the original. The result was what Abdelkader Marquez termed a 'Parang Spanish':words distorted through the confusion o misundrstood consonants and vowels, change in stress pattern, final vowels not combined with the first vowels of the following word (that is, lack of synaloepha), misinterpretation, lack of meaning.
Examples of these phenomena can be seen in verses transcibed below.

The first two appear on the jacket of a vinyl record, the third is of more recent vintage and is printed for a compact disc recording:
Sample 1. Que bonita muchachita Si la madre me diera Bañaba y la pañaba Mi bonita si pusera Lines 3 and 4 are an approximation of the following: La bañaba y la peinaba muy bonita la pusiera

Sample 2. Después de la Anuncio
De el Gran impadrono
Gabrael hue a Egypto
Y Dios su nombre al trono
Lines 1 and 4 should read:
Después del Anuncio
...................
y dio su nombre al trono

Sample 3. Yo canto de las mujeres del gamuza están nacidas
Porque causa una muerte yo música me dio
Yo canto de las mujeres del gamuza están nacidas
Porque toda una mujer se dio se da me dio
Pascuales de hoy en día se cómo o va se corrido
No pueden llevar un plato si llaman como marido
Pascuales de hoy en día se cómo o va se corrido
No pueden llevar un plato llamar como marido
Un corazón de moderna tengo tema da la ser
En siempre en mi patencia y se paloma experien
Un corazón de piedra tengo tema da la ser
En siempre en mi patencia se paloma se experien

The transcription is evidence of a lack of comprehension. The suspicion that the Spanish of the parang and of the cocoa panyol is not truly Spanish is supported by this kind of misinterpretation of the original verses.

Sample 1. In the transcription new meaningless words are created (peinaba becomes pañaba),
Sample 2. Phrases are misinterpreted: dio su nombre (gave his name) is written as Dios su nombre (God his name)which is meaningless in the context.
Sample 3. The entire text is incomprehensible. According to my Venezuelan colleague. "It makes no sense at all!!" My colleague further stated that it was very daring on the part of the parranderos to actually put those words in print! Especially seeing that I had advised them not to do so!!

The Caura Valley

The valley of Caura is situated in the Northern Range towards the north of Tacarigua and El Dorado. In the 1880's it was described by Louis de Verteuil, a local French naturalist, as 'the most picturesque spot' in the whole of Trinidad. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spanish settlers had been recipients of between three and 120 acres of land. The Northern Range, between the Spanish capital, St. Joseph and Arima, was one of the first areas to be developed and settled for cacao cultivation. It seems that since the end of the sixteenth century there had been an encomienda at Caura with its white encomendero, or planter, and Amerindian labourers who most probably grew cacao. However, the exact location of the encomienda is not clear.  Between 1688 and 1762 the population of the encomienda was between 60 and 192. In 1785 a total of 632 Indians, including 185 from Caura were resettled at Arima. Father Pedro Reyes Bravo, the last cura doctrinero of the Indian mission village was transferred to Arima along with them. The place of worship at Caura continued in use until 1797.

In the early nineteenth centry the cacao estates at Caura were among the oldest on the island and the opoulation there must been mostly Hispanic. In 1840, Frederick Brown, a land surbeyor reported to the Burnley Commission that he had surveyed a number of estates in the heights of the valley of Caura at the source of the  Tacarigua River. He stated that 'the estate of Pereire, which I consider to be 2000 feet high consists of the most fertile land, producing luxuriant cocoa'. In the 1880's, according to Louis de Verteuil, Caura was cultivated in cacao, coffee and provisions,the inhabitants were mostlyh of Spanish descent and the Spanish language was universally spoken. In the eyes of de Verteuil, Caura was 'a perfect paradise'.  For J.H.Collens, a British educator residing in Trinidad and author of A Guide to Trinidad (1888), Caura was a 'lovely valley'. Collens, superintendent of the Boys' Model School in POrt of Spain, wrote the book for 'the use of tourists and visitors' to the island. He was ebullient in his praise for Caura's natural beauty: "To come to the island on pleasure without taking a ride up the Caura valley would be a downright sin".... Caura fitted in quite well with the Europeans' romantic vision of tropical exotica.

To this 'perfect paradise' had come scores of Venezuelan immigrant peons since the early nineteenth century. They settled there, acquired land, married the local Spanish people and became Caureros.