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The Mexican Son

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

E. Thomas Stanford
E. Thomas Stanford*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
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Extract

The word son is a venerable one in the history of Mexican song and dance. The use of the term dates at least from the sixteenth century — in the Spanish-speaking world as a whole, although ample evidence of its currency is not to be found until the second half of the seventeenth. Gaspar Sanz, in his work commonly called Guitarra española, first published in Zaragosa in 1674, uses the term interchangeably with danza and sonada, the latter term also being found in Sebastian de Covarrubias Horozco's Tesoro de la lengua castellana (1611) in absence of the term son.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council , Volume 4 , 1972 , pp. 66 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 By the International Folk Music Council 

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References

Footnotes

1. Sebastian de Covarrubias Horozco, in his Tesoro de la lengua castellana … (Madrid, 1611), says: “Atambor de guerra, o caja … Los atabalillos, a cuyo son bailan en las aldeas con el sonido de la flauta; tamboriles …” As to what the same source has to say about the guitarra, see below.Google Scholar

Juan de Esquivel Navarro, in his Arte del danzado (Sevilla, 1642), refers to danzas de cascabel as street dances – presumably peasant – and as being unacceptable in dancing schools (f. 40 vso. ff.).Google Scholar

2. For more detail on this point, see E. T. Stanford, “La lírica popular de la costa michoacana,” (in press, 1973).Google Scholar

3. The following sources give more information regarding the prohibition of such dances: Archivo General de la Nación. Expediente contra el Jarabe gatuno, etc. Tomos 1178, 1297, 1391, 1410. (Cited in V.T. Mendoza, Panorama de la música tradicional de México [Mexico, 1956], p. 80.)Google Scholar

Gabriel Saldívar, Historia de la música en México (Mexico, 1934), p. 223, 225–228, 253ff, 258ff, 265–273.Google Scholar

Gabriel Saldívar, “El jarabe, baile popular mexicana,” offprint of Tomo II, Epoca Sa. of the Anales del Museo Nacional de México (Mexico, 1937), p. 6.Google Scholar

Robert Stevenson, Music in Mexico (New York, 1952), p. 29, 183ff.Google Scholar

4. E. T. Stanford, “The Villancico and the Mexican Corrido,” to be published in the Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, XXIII (1970).Google Scholar

5. This type of ensemble may be seen represented time and time again in paintings dating from before about 1730, as, for example, in those of Cristobal de Villalpando in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Mexico executed at about the turn of the 18th century. Harpists and guitarists were on the payrolls of the larger churches during this period, as church records attest. Toward the end of that century, the harp is not mentioned with much frequency in the sources, and must have become a rustic instrument during that interval. In the document dated 1786, beginning “Razon de los individuos de que se componen …,” cited in Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari, Reseña histórica del teatro en México (3rd. edition, Mexico, 1961), at p. 37ff., no harpist nor guitarist is mentioned even though peasant dances (“bailes de la tierra“) are specified.Google Scholar

6. Op. cit. Google Scholar

7. A different explanation is given by Frances Toor in her Treasury of Mexican Folkways (New York, 1947), p. 307.Google Scholar

8. Op. cit. Google Scholar

9. Ibid. Google Scholar

10. I owe this information to Hamza El Din, in a lecture given at the University of Texas in 1970, and from subsequent conversations. Regarding the use of this term in the early 17th century, Francisco del Rosal, in his Origen y etimología de todos los vocablos originates de la lengua castellana (ms. 6.929 in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, dated 1601), as cited in Samuel Gili Gaya in his Tesoro lexicográfico (Madrid, 1947), I have found the following description: “…specie de baile; introdújose en Sevilla por los negros, y así el vocablo es etiópico” (… a type of dance; it was introduced in Seville by the Negroes, and thus the word is Ethiopian). Exactly what may have been meant by “Ethiopian” would seem difficult to determine; it seems plausible, however, that it may have meant Northeastern Africa.Google Scholar

11. Gaspar Sanz, Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española (Saragosa, 1674 and 1697), at folio 41r.; and for the French form: folios 19r., 25r., 27r., and 36r. Also, Cuaderno de Música para Viguela (Mexico, Biblioteca Nacional ms. D 9950, dating from the mid-18th century), foliosGoogle Scholar

Robert Stevenson's article “The Sarabande,” in the Inter-American Music Bulletin, no. 30 (July, 1962).Google Scholar

12. Arturo Warman Gryj, La danza de Moros y Cristianos: Un estudio de aculturación, thesis presented for a master's degree in anthropology at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología (Mexico, 1968), p. 27ff.Google Scholar

13. Frances Toor, op cit., p. 307.Google Scholar

14. Eduardo Arcila Farias, Comercio entre Venezuela y México en los siglos XVII y XVIII (Mexico, 1950).Google Scholar