IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 120

of the “Paseo de las Dos Culturas”
[Two Culture Way] to “Paseo de las
Tres Culturas [Three Cultures Way]
(which includes the Afro influence), on
a stretch by the “Juan de Garay” Ethnographic Colonial Museum, at San Martín and 3 de Febrero streets, by the
Franciscan complex. April 17th was
declared Colonial Afro-Argentine Day,
as a symbol of the State’s important and
never-before-seen acknowledgment of
its historical black population (Molina
2011). The local municipality had already acknowledged it; its institution at
the national level has been discussed in
Congress since 2012. 6

Finally, some Afro-Santafesinos do hiphop. In keeping with rap’s strongly
challenging and critical stance, they
tend to deal with local Afro issues
(Cirio 2007b).
Paraná, the capital of Entre Ríos, had a
large Afro population. They lived in the
San Miguel neighborhood, primarily, a
peripheral, flood prone place, till the
beginning of the twentieth century. Today, it is part of the urban center, and
has a church by the same name right at
its center. Little is known about the music that was played there, except for a
few references—most anecdotal—by
contemporary historians and memoirists, who use choice quotations from a
few lyrics, but never with the music. I
carried out the only field work ever, in
2007, which was circumscribed to a
limited study:

This community’s musical life is limited; there are three possible. La Casa is
carrying out research to recover the
local Candombe tradition, which was
active till about 1950, the last year the
Sociedad Coral Carnalesca Negros
Santafesinos (created in 1900 and directed by Demetrio “El Negro Arigós”
Acosta, from Paraná) participated in
carnivals. Its membership was composed primarily of blacks; at one time,
it had more than 200 members. Its quality was such that repeatedly received
prizes (López 2010). Thanks to a number of past and still living informants,
Casa’s plan already includes about a
dozen theatrical pieces from its repertoire, most, unfortunately, lacking their
musical scores.

1) The Afro-Paranense population is
fragmented and seriously lacks documented ethnographic evidence about its
music.
2) Despite this, it is possible to know
that it included songs and dances,
among them a sort of native Candombe
that was played with hand played drums
and drums played with jawbones, and
unisonous songs in African languages,
Spanish, or a combination of the two
(this agrees with what the few, available
written testimonies say).

The second source is the three children
produced by the López-Molina marriage (all in their 30s) and other members of their generational cohort who
are (re)learning local Candombe. Since
2011, the institution has its own group,
Balikumba, which recreates local Afro
music.

3) Since 2001, this music has been undergoing a sustained and growing process of revitalization through the efforts
of Pablo Suárez, a local, white musician
and researcher. The Tangó de San Miguel CD-ROM (2008) (Cirio 2008) and
Zemba DVD (2009) about the origin of

120