Fiesta time was a fine time for a drifting youngster from Nebraska inclined to lie about his age, to land in the cobbled town of Mazatlan.
In a series of rattlely, smashed-windowed buses, I was traveling among a dozen or so Mexican pueblos. It was the first interior trip to Mexico for me. There were no other foreign passengers on those buses.
Armed with noticeably slight Spanish, I bumped through a number of towns along the west coast. And tumbled into “Carnival” then sweeping the languid port of Mazatlan. That port town was then a small, dusty place dreaming of blossoming into a resort for game fishermen from the United States. But for a brief period that February, Mardi Gras turned it into a rough national resort center, its cobbled and dirt streets becoming an impressive tangle of musicians and dizzying crowds.
Carnival excitement swept through adobe buildings lifting and caressing thousands of Mexican visitors in a pressing rush through the town. (Later, in the hard-used 1950s, this rawness would be worn off by the tourist trade and the film industry.)
But for that brief slice of February, Mardi Gras turned into a colorful influx attracting a huge number of Mexican visitors from various areas of the Republic. Most colorfully attention-getting were musicians both from Mazatlan and other sectors of Mexico, including Jalisco.
This influx of musicians included mariachis, jorochos from Veracruz, marimba bands from Tabasco and Oaxaca, and polka-playing norteño bands from Chihuahua.
Late one afternoon, I wandered into a small, sultry restaurant teaming with odors of jalapeños, cerveza, mole, carnitas. Though I never figured out what the man who said he was from Seattle did in Mexico, it was soon apparent that he knew the country and its music. And in that tiny single room of the restaurant there was plenty of music. A mariachi conjunto played at the behest of a table near the back, while in front of the large glassless windows opening onto the street, a marimba band played for the rest of us.
Between blasts of “La Negra” from the mariachis and the tinkly thunk of the of the marimba playing “La Llorona,” the man – whose first name was Teo, the Spanish nickname, for Theodore – patiently answered my questions about Mexican music. I figured that if I was ever going to understand anything about this intense, dark-eyed and then exotic country, I’d better begin with what was readily at hand.
As Teo talked, I drank cerveza and took notes – a habit I was assiduously cultivating – which amused Teo’s wife greatly. “So serious,” she would say, pointing at me, laughing.
Teo’s surprising, scholarly knowledge and gentle encouragement would have kindled enthusiasm for Mexican music in almost anyone. And though I couldn’t then even hum well in the shower, he prompted a curiosity for musical techniques that I still remember.
Music, singing and dancing was an important element in pre-Hispanic Mexican life. In his “Historia Chichimeca,” Ixztlilochtl talks about early, intricate and organized academies of music. (Chichimeca was the name given to those Indians who inhabited Jalisco and other parts of western Mexico when the Spanish arrived.) But most of this original indigenous music was obliterated by the Spanish, since they interpreted it as an expression of “pagan” Indian religious beliefs. The bits of Indian music that did survive were quickly merged with the dominant Spanish influences to eventually form the foundation of mestizo-musical expression. (Many of the pre-Conquest dances have survived in such forms as “La Danza del Volador” and “La Danza de los Quetzales.”)
Spanish music had an overwhelming effect on the Indians of Mexico, since, in their efforts to convert the empire to Roman Catholicism, the Spanish friars prohibited indigenous musicians and substituted European forms. Pedro de Gante established a “school for the teaching of European subjects” at Texcoco. European instruments were both imported and made here, and the Indians were taught the techniques of plainsong and polyphonic music. They quickly adapted in a nimble, subversive way to celebrate their old traditions under the guise of Christianity. Even today there are few traditional Indian fiestas that have a pure Catholic significance in fundamental religious terms. And several of the most ancient fiestas have, in many parts of Mexico, escaped significant Spanish influence altogether.
One of the most enriching “outside” elements of Mexican music was, of course, the African traditions introduced in the 16th century, when black slaves were imported to beef up the dwindling Indian labor pool. The quite obvious African influence, which is often vehemently denied by many Mexican historians, had been a deep and lasting one. The reason for this is obvious when one looks at the population figurers at the time when the foundation of Mexican society was being planted. In 1580, when there were approximately 18,5000 African blacks in Mexico, the number of the Spaniards was around 15,000.
While Spanish authorities tried to destroy the traditions the blacks brought with them, they failed to stop the Africans from putting their stamp on the church’s most important holidays, which they were encouraged – indeed, coerced – to celebrate. (These slaves adopted the cultures of their masters, who converted them to Catholicism.) The black influence spread as slaves were sent throughout New Spain – to Mexico City, Guanajuato, Morelia, Guadalajara, Pachuca – although it was most vigorous in the gateway of the land, Veracruz. Much of the black music was critical and hospitable to New Spain’s rulers, and as such coincided with the ideas of national independence gradually becoming popular among mestizos at the end of the 17 century.