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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2011
La Bomba es Vida (La Bomba Is Life):
The Coloniality of Power, La Bomba, and
Afrochoteño Identity in Ecuador's ChotaMira Valley
Francisco D. Lara
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF MUSIC
LA BOMBA ES VIDA (LA BOMBA IS LIFE): THE COLONIALITY OF POWER, LA
BOMBA, AND AFROCHOTEÑO IDENTITY IN ECUADOR’S CHOTA-MIRA VALLEY
By
FRANCISCO D. LARA
A Dissertation submitted to the
College of Music
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded:
Fall Semester, 2011
Francisco D. Lara defended this dissertation on November 3, 2011.
The members of the supervisory committee were:
Frank D. Gunderson
Professor Directing Dissertation
Michael A. Uzendoski
University Representative
Michael B. Bakan
Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members,
and certifies that the [thesis/treatise/dissertation] has been approved in accordance with
university requirements.
ii
For Diana and Noah
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation was made possible by the generous support of several institutions and
individuals in Ecuador and the United States of America. Pre-dissertation field-work in Ecuador
was funded in part by a Carol Krebs Award, a research-travel grant awarded through the
musicology department of The Florida State University College of Music. Institutional support
throughout the dissertation research phase was provided by the The Florida State University,
Fundación CIMAS of Ecuador, the Fulbright Commission of Ecuador, the Universidad Andina
Simón Bolívar, the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino, FECONIC, the Fundación Piel Negra, the
Centro Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriana, the Fundación De Desarrollo Social y Cultural AfroEcuatoriana “Azucar,” the Ecuadorian National Archive, the municipality of Ibarra. Many
thanks are also in order for the institutions of The Ohio State University and Monmouth College
in addition to those participating in the Illinois I-Share program (especially the University of
Illinois Champaign-Urbana and Knox College) for their generous academic support during the
writing phase of the dissertation.
I wish to thank my advisor, Frank Gunderson, and committee members Michael Bakan
and Michael Uzendoski for their input, patience, and support. Their challenging questions and
encouragement greatly informed and facilitated the course and completion of this dissertation. A
special thank you is also in order for Dale A. Olsen, whose input during the preliminary stages of
this dissertation and enthusiastic support during my tenure as a graduate student at The Florida
State University College of Music likewise proved invaluable to my continuation with and
completion of the dissertation.
I am grateful to the musicology faculty and fellow graduate students as well as faculty
and staff of the FSU College of Music for their support and help over the years, including Sara
Gross, Meghan McCaskill, Lauren Smith, Theodore Stanley, Seth Beckman, Denise Von Glahn,
Douglass Seaton, Charles Brewer, Benjamin Koen, Trevor Harvey, Robbie Frye, Jeffrey Jones,
Plamena Kourtova, Janine Tiffe, Stephanie Stallings, León García, Sara Arthur, Holly Wissler,
Mark Hertica, and Laura and David Pruett among others. Thanks also to Emily Walmsley,
Joseph Hellweg, Jean Rahier, Daniel Avorgbedor, Larry Crook, Welson Tremura, Gini
Gorlinski, Sarah McFarland Taylor, Ileana Rodriguez, Lucia Costigan, Terrell Morgan, Richard
Gordon, and Ignacio Corona among other academics for their inspiration, help, and
encouragement along the way.
A special thank you is in order for Dolores López Suárez and Dr. José Suárez, directors
of the Fundación CIMAS of Ecuador, as well as the Suárez family (José Ricardo, Luis, and
Gabriela) for their lifelong friendship and encouragement throughout my graduate school career.
Their emotional as well as logistical support made possible dissertation research in Ecuador. I
am also grateful for the support of numerous other family friends over the years, including
Cyntia and Pachi López, Joe Zachmann and John Bullough, and the Englund, O’Brien,
iv
Truchinski, Majerle, Tilsen, Weiss, Costain, Levins-Morales, Moreno, Lindstrom, Alemayehu,
Urbain, Ryan, and Curbelo families. My apologies to the numerous other lifelong friends whom
I have failed to mention in this list but whom have encouraged and inspired me no less.
I am grateful also to Karen Aguilar from the Fulbright Commission of Ecuador, Edison
León (director of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino), Renán Tadeo (then president of
FECONIC), Salamón Acosta (former president of FECONIC), José Chalá (director of CODAIE),
Juan Mullo Sandoval, Diego Chiriboga Ati (and family), Jhonny García, Mauricio Sanchez, José
Luis Narvaez, and Alex Schlenker for their support, encouragement, and feedback during the
research phase of the dissertation.
I am most grateful to the individuals and families of the Chota-Mira valley and of the
cities of Ibarra and Quito for graciously sharing their homes and lives with me during the
research phase of this dissertation, including “Billy” Lara Muñoz, Manuel Lara Muñoz, Viviana
and Romulo, Teodoro Mendez, Milton Tadeo, Plutarco Viveros and the Bomba group Marabu,
Plutarco Chalá, José Chalá, Oscar Chalá, Nelly Calderon, Fidel Calderon, Daniel Lara and the
members of Sol Naciente, Marisela Lara, Zoila Espinoza, Salamon Acosta, Renán Tadeo,
Cristóbol Barahona, Gualberto Espinoza, Roy Diaz, Karla Aguas, Segundo Isidro Yepez
Mendez, the members of the banda mocha of Chalguayaco, Milton Carabalí, Oswaldo Torres,
Neri Padilla, Iván Pabón, and Humberto Diaz and his family.
A special thank you is in order for Michele Aichele for notating the transcriptions
included in this dissertation as well as to Diana Ruggiero for editing my Spanish to English
translations.
Numerous friends have encouraged me along the way, including Trevor and Sara Harvey,
Charles Martinez, Scott and Rebecca Macleod, Fred and Nancy Witzig, Chris and Steph Annear,
José Ricardo Suárez, Daniel Williams, Peter Majerle, Benjamin Conwell, Christine Lattin,
Natalie Wozniak, Marisol Lara, Tim Lacy, Hannah and Martin, Michael and Clay, Dan and Terri
Ott, Tim Gaster and Claudia Fernández, and Bee and Marcus Schuman.
I am grateful to my family both here in the United States and Ecuador for their
encouragement and support. My interest in ethnomusicology stems from my upbringing, and I
am forever grateful to my parents for passing on to me a passion for the music and culture of my
father’s homeland, Ecuador. Their love, support, and encouragement helped keep me on track
and I am forever grateful for their belief in me and my abilities. I wish to also thank my siblings
Luke, Nicolette, Carmen, and Violeta for their love and support over the years.
The topic of this dissertation and my thoughts on the matters of race and racism in
Ecuador are likewise an outgrowth of my ongoing conversations with family in Ecuador. Many
thanks, therefore, go to my family in Ecuador, including but not limited to my grandmother
Maria Georgina and her sisters, my aunt Flor, cousin Mercedes, Jelma Gonzalón, Alfredo
Franco, and my numerous second cousins and other extended family residing throughout Quito
and the Chota-Mira valley.
Last but not least, I am most grateful to my wife Diana and son Noah for their love,
patience, and support throughout the dissertation research and writing phase.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix
List of Musical Examples ................................................................................................................x
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... xi
1.
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................1
Background ....................................................................................................................4
Literature Review...........................................................................................................6
Scholarship on Afro-Ecuadorian History and Culture .......................................6
Scholarship on Music and Music Making in the African Diaspora .................10
Music, Race, and Nation in Latin America and Ecuador ................................18
Music, Race, and Representation .....................................................................24
Theory ..........................................................................................................................27
Race, the Coloniality of Power, and Music .....................................................27
Music as the Colonial Difference ....................................................................30
Music as Process ..............................................................................................32
La Bomba es Vida: La Bomba, the Coloniality of Power, and
Afrochoteño Identity ........................................................................................35
Methodology ................................................................................................................37
Organization .................................................................................................................43
2.
THE COLONIAL DIFFERENCE AND CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATIONS OF
LA BOMBA AND AFROCHOTEÑO IDENTITY ..............................................................48
Interculturalidad and Etnoeducación ...........................................................................54
El Color de la Diaspora and Afrodescendientes ..........................................................59
El Color de la Diaspora ....................................................................................59
Afrodescendientes ............................................................................................63
La Bomba Tradicional (Traditional) and La Bomba Moderna (Modern):
Marabu and Sol Naciente .............................................................................................66
Marabu and Bomba Tradiciónal (Traditional Bomba) ....................................66
Sol Naciente and La Bomba Moderna (Modern Bomba) ................................69
Discourse about La Bomba and Afrochoteño Identity ................................................73
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................78
3.
VIGNETTES IN THE STYLE OF COPLAS .......................................................................80
vi
4.
LA BOMBA AND THE COLONIALITY OF POWER:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ......................................................................................106
The Coloniality of Power and Afrochoteño History: Origins and Development ......107
Black Presence and the Slave Trade in Ecuador............................................108
Slavery in the Chota-Mira Valley (1575-1854) .............................................111
Slave Manumission and Emancipation (1820-1854) .....................................113
Huasipungo Era (1854-1964).........................................................................115
Post Agrarian Reform ....................................................................................118
The Afrochoteño Experience of the Coloniality of Power ........................................121
The Colonial Period: Slave Treatment, Family, and Land ............................122
Huasipungo Period (1854-1964) ....................................................................125
Post Agrarian Reform (1964-Present) ...........................................................128
The Coloniality of Power and La Bomba: Origins and Social Significance .............129
Origins and Context .......................................................................................130
Function and Social Significance...................................................................131
Continuity and Change in Function Post Agrarian Reform ...........................134
Conclusion .................................................................................................................136
5.
LA BOMBA, HYBRIDITY, AND THE COLONIALITY OF POWER: A SOCIAL
HISTORY OF LA BOMBA, 1700-2007 ............................................................................138
Period of Origination (ca. 1700-1860): The Bomba Complex ..................................139
Period of Consolidation (ca. 1860-1970) ...................................................................141
Instrumentation ..............................................................................................142
Bomba Coplas and Song Texts ......................................................................151
Period of Commercialization, Decline, and Dissemination (ca. 1960s-1990s) .........157
Period of Revitalization, Bifurcation, and Transformation (ca. 1990s-2007) ...........163
Conclusion .................................................................................................................168
6.
LA BOMBA, COMPLEMENTARY DUALITY, AND THE COLONIALITY OF POWER:
A MUSICAL ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................170
The Bomba Drum and Complementary Duality ........................................................171
Complementary Duality in the Rhythmic and Tonal Organization of
La Bomba and La Bomba Moderna ...........................................................................176
Traditional Bomba .........................................................................................176
La Bomba Moderna .......................................................................................184
Bomba Coplas, Complementary Duality, and Encompassment ................................191
Listening Analysis .....................................................................................................196
La Bomba, Complementary Duality, and the Coloniality of Power ..........................203
7.
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................206
The Coloniality of Power, Music, and Agency in the African Diaspora ...................212
8.
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................214
9.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...............................................................................................240
vii
LIST OF TABLES
6.1 Tonal Areas for Sol Naciente Repertoire ............................................................................188
6.2 Guided Listening, “Sol y Luna” ..........................................................................................197
6.3 Guided Listening, “Aunque no Pienses” .............................................................................201
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 Map of the Chota-Mira Valley (from Noboa 1992b) ..............................................................2
6.1 Bomba Basic Rhythmic Patterns: Simple Duple Sol/Tierra
and Compound Duple Sol/Tierra.........................................................................................173
6.2 Bomba-Cumbia Basic with Variation .................................................................................175
6.3 Guitar Basic in Simple and Compound Duple Meter ..........................................................176
6.4 Scraper/Shaker in Simple and Compound Duple Meter with Variation .............................177
6.5 Bass Guitar in Simple Duple Meter with Variation ............................................................177
6.6 Bass Guitar in Compound Duple Meter with Variations ....................................................178
6.7 Bomba Rhythm Instruments in Simple and Compound Duple Meter ................................179
6.8 “Sol y Luna” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases...............................................181
6.9 “Sol y Luna” Instrumental Interlude ...................................................................................182
6.10 “Coplas de mi Tierra” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases ................................182
6.11 “Necesito” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases ..................................................189
7.1 Generative Model of La Bomba ..........................................................................................211
ix
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
1.
“Dueña de mi Corazon” by Sol Naciente. Used by permission .........................................185
2.
Untitled Instrumental Track 1 by Sol Naciente. Used by permission ................................185
3.
“Aysha” by Sol Naciente. Used by permission ..................................................................185
4.
“Aunque no Pienses” by Sol Naciente. Used by permission..............................................188
5.
“Necesito” by Sol Naciente. Used by permission ..............................................................188
6.
“Pienso en Ti” by Sol Naciente. Used by permission ........................................................189
7.
Untitled Instrumental Track 2 by Sol Naciente. Used by permission ................................190
x
ABSTRACT
In this dissertation, I present an ethnography, social history, musical analysis, and discussion of
Afro-Ecuadorian Bomba in its relation to afrochoteño identity based on ethnographic fieldresearch conducted in the Chota-Mira valley, and the urban centers of Ibarra, and Quito, Ecuador
between August 2007 and August 20008. La Bomba refers to a drum, rhythm, music and dance
genre, and sociomusical event unique to the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley: a
region straddling the rivers Chota-Mira and encompassing the provinces of Imbabura and Carchi
in Ecuador’s northern highlands. The afrochoteños, as many today self-identify, are the direct
descendants of enslaved Africans brought to labor the region’s sugarcane plantations in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their origin and sociohistorical trajectory distinguish them
historically and culturally from the coastal black population of Esmeraldas. La Bomba is today
thus nationally recognized as a prominent signifier of a distinct, highland black ethnic identity.
The conceptualization and projection of identity among Ecuador’s afro-descendant population in
terms of race and ethnicity, however, is a recent phenomenon. This study seeks to better
understand the relationship between La Bomba and afrochoteño identity beyond the question of
Africanisms and the issue of representation.
To this end, I situate La Bomba not in relation to race as culture, ethnicity, and heritage,
but to those historically situated dynamics of power structuring and embodied in the very
concept of race itself. Specifically, I consider the implications of Latin American postcolonial
theories of race and subaltern identity, namely Aníbal Quijano’s notion of the coloniality of
power and Walter Mignolo’s related concept of the colonial difference, for an understanding of
La Bomba’s function, development and form as a musical genre, formal musical characteristics
and structure, and, ultimately, significance in relation to afrochoteño identity. As I argue
throughout, La Bomba embodies and thus (re)constitutes and mediates the particular afrochoteño
experience of the coloniality of power in its negotiation and expression of the colonial
xi
difference. As such, La Bomba marks the coloniality of power in its development as a musical
genre, social significance, and its formal musical characteristics. Indeed, a musical analysis
sensitive to the relationship between the colonial difference and the coloniality of power reveals
the extent to which La Bomba embodies and constitutes the relational dynamics structuring the
potential expression of afrochoteño identity. In emphasizing the encompassment of duality in its
very rhythmic, tonal, and textual structure and organization, La Bomba illuminates the unspoken
truth about race and thus reveals its counterhegemonic potential.
In approaching race and music in terms of postcolonial theories of race and subaltern
identity, this dissertation contributes to a growing body of academic literature critically assessing
the relationship between music and identity in the African Diaspora. It also seeks to redress an
apparent lack of critical engagement on the part of black-music scholars with the formal and
structural elements of the musical sound object itself as they relate to the experience of race and
racism. That music of black communities in the African Diaspora emerges from and expresses
the difference produced by the power dynamics structuring and informing the development of
black identity is all the more reason to “listen” attentively to what the music itself communicates
about the experience of blackness in the Americas.
xii
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation presents an ethnography, social history, musical analysis, and discussion of
Afro-Ecuadorian Bomba in its relation to afrochoteño identity based on ethnographic field
research conducted in the Chota-Mira valley, and the urban centers of Ibarra, and Quito, Ecuador
between August 2007 and August 20008. La Bomba refers to a drum, rhythm, music and dance
genre, and sociomusical event unique to the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley: a
region straddling the rivers Chota-Mira and encompassing the provinces of Imbabura and Carchi
in Ecuador’s northern highlands (see Figure 1.1). 1 The afrochoteños, as many today self
identify, are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans brought to labor the region’s once
plentiful sugarcane plantations in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Their origins and
sociohistorical trajectory distinguish them historically and culturally from the coastal black
population of Esmeraldas. As such, La Bomba is today a prominent signifier of a distinct,
highland black ethnic identity. This study seeks to better understand the ways in which La
Bomba embodies and informs afrochoteño identity beyond the question of Africanisms and the
issue of representation.
Afro-Ecuadorians, as with other afro-descendant communities in the Americas, have a
long history of marginalization and exclusion extending back to colonial slavery. As this
dissertation will show, the power dynamics that are the legacy of colonialism circumscribe and
inform, though not determine, the development of afrochoteño identity and culture. This much is
indicated by the current dynamics of race and racism in Ecuador informing representations of
1
Within the context of this dissertation, specific reference to the bomba drum is distinguished
from Bomba as a song and dance genre and sociomusical event in the use of the lower-case letter “b” for
the sake of clarity.
1
Figure 1.1: Map of the Chota-Mira Valley (from Noboa 1992b).
2
afrochoteño identity, a relatively new construct within the nation’s racial imaginary speaking to
the current sociopolitical struggles of Ecuador’s afro-descendant population. La Bomba’s recent
transformation from an obscure and marginalized genre previously associated with a regional
pan highland identity to a celebrated symbol of highland black ethnicity and national diversity
may be understood, therefore, as the most recent manifestation of the greater underlying
sociohistorical and sociopolitical dynamics shaping perceptions and representations of blackness
in Ecuador. This dissertation, therefore, seeks to situate La Bomba not in relation to race as
culture, ethnicity, and heritage, but to the power invested dialectic constitutive of and embodied
in the concept of race: a historically situated relational construct the various manifestations and
transformations of which are the result of the continual dialogue between its polar opposites
(white/non-white; self/other; sameness/difference).
Drawing on Latin American postcolonial theories of race and power, namely Anibal
Quijano’s notion of the coloniality of power and its elaboration in Walter Mignolo’s conception
of the colonial difference, this study considers the implications of the above understanding of
race for the development, function, form, structure, and meaning of La Bomba. A close reading
of ethnographic and historical data alongside the extant academic sources on La Bomba, AfroEcuadorian history and culture, and Ecuadorian music reveal the extent to which La Bomba is
indeed implicated in the mediation of this dialectic as a sociomusical process enabling the
formation, transformation, and expression of collective identity in the Chota-Mira valley. La
Bomba’s perceived hybridity, the focus of previous studies on the subject, is no less than the
emergent quality of this transformative process made manifest. In such a context, the question of
cultural origins and change gives way to a consideration of the ways in which music, as social
activity and sound, constitutes identity.
An analysis of La Bomba suggests that the processual aspects extend beyond the social to
encompass the formal defining structural elements of the genre itself. The symbolic significance
of the bomba drum as a representation of matrimony indicates that a notion of complementary
duality is fundamental to the genre itself. An analysis of the characteristic rhythmic, tonal and
textual structures of La Bomba indeed reveals the pervasiveness of this symbolic dimension as
reproduced in homologous fashion throughout. Rather than understand this as a vestige of
African beliefs or the result of cross-cultural borrowing, I argue that La Bomba embodies and
thus constitutes in the very act of its performance that colonial difference today expressed as
3
afrochoteño. It is in this sense that, as one afrochoteño collaborator emphatically expressed, “La
Bomba es vida” (La Bomba is life).
This dissertation builds on and contributes in its topic and approach to a growing body of
academic literature on Afro-Ecuadorian, Afro-Andean, Afro-Hispanic, and African Diaspora
history and culture. As the following literature review shows, it presents the first dissertationlength ethnomusicological study of La Bomba and the first critical treatment of the genre as it
relates to afrochoteño identity beyond the issue of representation. The theoretical orientation
adopted in this dissertation, initially informed by observations, communication, and interpersonal
experiences in the field, reflects the need to approach the question of black culture in the African
Diaspora in a more thoughtful and creative way. In situating blackness in relation to the
historically constituted dialectic from which it emerges, this study seeks to move beyond the
issue of representation and engage more earnestly the ways in which music in both its social and
formal dimensions constitutes and mediates the experience of blackness in the Americas.
Indeed, the inability to circumvent the issue of representation has inadvertently led to a dismissal
of the music as sound in its relation to black identity. This dissertation thus seeks to redress this
problem and advance discussion on music and black identity in the African Diaspora in properly
recognizing race as a historically grounded and power invested relational construct. That black
musics in the African Diaspora emerge from and express the difference produced by this
dialectic is all the more reason to “listen” closely to the music itself for what it has to tell us
about the experience of blackness in the Americas.
Background
La Bomba is a genre of music and dance unique to the afro-descendant communities of the
Chota-Mira valley. As an oral tradition, its exact origins and development remain obscured,
though afrochoteños assert that it emerged sometime during the colonial period among the
region’s enslaved black population. Its ambiguity is exacerbated by a relative dearth of written
documentation on afrochoteño history and culture prior to the mid-twentieth century. What can
be known about La Bomba resides in the collective memory of the afrochoteño communities,
and in the extant documentation and contemporaneous manifestations and uses of La Bomba.
4
The term bomba today connotes a specific drum, rhythm, genre of song and dance, and
social event. The drum, which is constructed entirely of natural materials, is believed to
symbolize in its physical and sonic dimensions the cosmology of the afrochoteño communities.
As a genre of song, La Bomba is said to record the particular social and cultural dimensions of
afrochoteño history in its tendency to draw and comment upon local events, expressions, and
conditions of life and work. Similarly, the Bomba ensemble marks changing trends and ways of
life in the region in its continual adaptation of new musical instruments. A typical Bomba
ensemble consists of a bomba, a bass, rhythm, and lead guitar (typically played on a requinto), a
shaker or scraper, and lead and secondary harmony vocalist. Recent additions to the Bomba
ensemble include: electric keyboards, an indigenous style bombo, timbales, a drum set, congas,
and bongos.
Today, La Bomba is a central aspect of local and regional familial and communal
celebrations for afrochoteños in the Chota-Mira valley as well as in Ibarra and Quito. While its
use is most often associated with socioreligious contexts such as weddings, baptisms, Carnaval,
saint-feast days, and so forth, it is commonly heard, played, and danced to wherever a gathering
of friends and family occurs and whenever those involved may feel so inclined. It is also not
uncommon for Bomba to be heard in the nightclubs, buses, taxis, and tourist oriented hostels,
restaurants, and hotels, of the Chota-Mira valley, Ibarra, and Quito. The continued proliferation
of commercial recording and performing Bomba ensembles since the 1980s contributes to the
dissemination of La Bomba beyond the confines of the Chota-Mira valley. As a symbol of a
distinctive regional black ethnic identity, La Bomba is prominently showcased in local, regional,
and national social, cultural, and political events and festivities celebrating black culture and
cultural diversity in Ecuador. As a result, in part, La Bomba is today intimately associated with
the distinctive culture of the highland black communities among Afro-Ecuadorians, the
indigenous population, and urban mestizos alike.
Despite the association between La Bomba and afrochoteño identity evident today, little
is known about La Bomba’s history, development, and significance for local identity beyond its
representation of African roots and cultural heritage. Indeed, Afrochoteño testimonies, as well as
the extant academic literature concerning La Bomba, reveal that the connection drawn between
La Bomba and black ethnicity is relatively recent. This evidence suggests that a concept of black
ethnicity emerged sometime during the mid to late 1990s in response to greater social and
5
political dynamics shaping discourse and representations of national identity in Ecuador. As
such, this dissertation seeks to situate La Bomba not in relation to race and ethnicity per se, but
to the sociohistorical and sociopolitical dynamics structuring and informing perceptions and
representations of local identity. 2 Within the context of the Chota-Mira valley, this means
considering the ways in which afrochoteño identity indexes and responds to the particular
afrochoteño experience of subjugation, exploitation, and marginalization in Ecuador. How La
Bomba is informed by and informs afrochoteño identity relative these dynamics of power is the
primary question addressed by this dissertation. In the process, it considers the implications of
those dynamics for an understanding of La Bomba’s development, function, formal musical
characteristics, and meaning.
Literature Review
Scholarship on Afro-Ecuadorian History and Culture
Though academic scholarship on Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture did not begin until the
mid-twentieth century, there are a few notable and informative though anecdotal observations
recorded in nineteenth century travelogues. To his credit, Paulo de Carvalho-Neto (1964)
includes this non-academic literature among the known academic studies of the time in his
bibliography and anthology of Latin American black studies. Most relevant to this particular
investigation are the descriptions of a staged music and dance performance and Easter
celebration in the Chota-Mira valley provided by Frederic Hausserek (1868, 344-346) and E.
Festa (1909, 307-308) while passing through the region in the early 1860s and mid 1890s
respectively. A Viennese born U.S. diplomat to Ecuador, Hausserek is treated to a style of
festive music and dance typical of the region’s black population while visiting the hacienda
(plantation) of Chamanal. The musical event, referred to as bundi, involved a series of songs and
In the context of this dissertation, I critique the terms race and ethnicity in terms of their popular
and, until recently, uncritical academic use to connote and identify sociocultural differences perceived to
originate in and propagate through biological factors (i.e., genetics). It is against the reifying and
naturalizing tendency of this uncritical use of these terms that I employ the concepts of the coloniality of
power and the colonial difference. For critical perspectives on the term race as it relates to black music
and black music scholarship, see Paul Gilroy (1993), Ingrid Monson (2007), Ronald Radano (2000,
2003), and Radano and Bohlman (2000), to name a few.
2
6
dances performed in succession to the incessant rhythmic backdrop of a drum and shaker
specifically identified as a bomba and alfandoque respectively. Though the exact relationship
between the bundi and La Bomba remains uncertain, Hausserek’s detailed account of the event
in its social and musical dimensions bears striking resemblance to that of Festa and other later
descriptions of musical events involving the bomba drum (see De Costales and Costales 1958,
128-137). These accounts make evident from an historical perspective the centrality of music
and dance in the region as a participatory, communal, and process oriented activity closely
associated with socioreligious festive contexts. As will be explained in subsequent chapters, this
is significant in developing and affirming my approach to La Bomba and afrochoteño identity as
a sociomusical process intimately linked to sociohistorical circumstances.
Travelogues and cursory anecdotal accounts notwithstanding, earnest academic
scholarship on Afro-Ecuadorian music emerged during the late 1950s with the pioneering studies
of Piedad Peñaherrera de Costales and Alfredo Costales Samaniego (1958, 1959, 1961a, 1961b),
Paulo de Carvalho-Neto (1964, 1971), Norman E. Whitten Jr. (1965, 1974, 1975), Alberto Carlos
Coba-Andrade (1980, 1981), and Segundo Obando (1985). Carvalho Neto’s dictionary of
Ecuadorian folklore and bibliography/anthology of black studies in Ecuador, among other Latin
American nations, is a necessary launching point for any scholar interested in researching AfroEcuadorian history and culture. As Carvalho-Neto (1981, 249) notes, Piedad and Alfredo
Costales (1958) present the first major academic study of Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture in
their discussion of the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley. Their discussion of the
manumission process in Ecuador, the huasipungo system and its social and economic impact on
the communities of the Chota-Mira valley, and ethnographic description of a Christmas
celebration involving La Bomba are especially helpful in contextualizing La Bomba’s
development and in understanding its social significance during that particular period in time.
Addressing La Bomba specifically in terms of oral poetry, Coba-Andrade (1980) documents and
discusses highland afrochoteño Bomba and coastal afroesmeraldeño decima texts in relation to
the sociohistorical development and socioeconomic conditions of the respective black highland
and coastal communities. His documentation of fifty-five Bomba texts collected in the ChotaMira valley during the mid 1970s provides a crucial point of reference for comparative purposes
as they point to textual compositional practices today largely absent as a result of the increasing
influence of commercial music industry trends. Obando’s (1985) overview of afrochoteño
7
culture is likewise helpful in contextualizing present day cultural practices in the region. Most
useful is his inclusion of seven Bomba texts composed by Milton Tadeo and Fabian and
Euletorio Congo, many of which are still popular today. Though focusing entirely on the black
coastal population, Whitten’s (1974) ethnography and analysis of the afroesmeraldeño marimba
and its accompanying rhythms and dances is significant not only in terms of comparison, but in
its treatment of music as a social phenomenon (as opposed to the textual analysis of CobaAndrade). Though only Coba-Andrade (1980) approaches La Bomba specifically, these early
studies as a whole provide an invaluable historical record of the socioeconomic conditions and
cultural traditions of the afro-descendant communities during the time of their respective
publication.
Academic interest in and scholarship on Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture has
increased considerably since the 1990s. Though this literature reflects a diversity of disciplinary
methods and perspectives, they are fundamental to an understanding of the sociohistorical and
cultural development of Ecuador’s black communities and of the ways in which local
constructions and representations of blackness engage the nation and the greater African
Diaspora. This literature includes studies on the history and dynamics of colonial slavery and its
abolition in Ecuador (Martinez 1962; Mayorga 1999; Salmoral 1994; Tardieu 2006; Townsend
2007), Esmeraldas, the Chota-Mira valley, and other specific regions in Ecuador (Argentina
1992; De Polit 1992; Garay 1992; Gomezjurado 1999; Noboa 1990, 1992a, 1992b, 1995; Savoia
1992a, 1992c; Savoia and Ocles 1999), the sociohistorical and cultural development of the black
communities of the Chota-Mira valley and Esmeraldas (Batallas 2007; Chalá 2004; Chalá-Cruz
2006; Feijóo 1991; Jaramillo 1994a, 1994b; Kapenda 2001; Noboa 1995; Pabón 2007; Savoia
1992b), the literature, folklore, and cultural traditions of the highland and coastal black
communities (Bueno 1991; De Costales and Costales 1995; Fondo Documental 2003a, 2003b;
García 2006; García Salazar 2003a, 2003b, n.d.; Handelsman 2001; Peters 2005; Rahier 1999a;
Rodriguez 1992; Schechter 1992, 1994; Ruggiero 2010; Whitten 1998) and, more recently, on
the current social and political circumstances and mobilization of Ecuador’s black population
(Antón 2007a, 2009; Camacho 2005; Chalá-Cruz 2007; Girardi 1994; Handelsman 2008; León
and Restrepo 2005; Medina and Castro 2006; Tadeo 1999; Walsh 2006; Walsh and Santacruz
2007) and issues of identity (Basante 2005; Guerron 2000; Klumpp 1998; León and García 2006;
Pabón 2007; Walmsley 2004), cultural change (Chávez 2004; Medina 1999; Ruggiero 2010),
8
representation (Antón 2007c; Rahier 1999c) and race and racism (Antón 2005, 2007b; Merchán
2003; Rahier 2003, 1998; Ruggiero 2010; Walmsley 2004; Walsh 2004, 2009; Whitten 1999,
2007; Whitten and Quiroga 1998; Whitten, Quiroga and Savoia 1995). For the purposes of this
dissertation the studies of Julio Jaramillo, Lourdes Rodriguez, Iván Pabón, and José Chalá in
particular are most helpful in constructing a broader historical narrative of the development of
the afrochoteño communities while those of Julio Bueno, John Schechter, and Diana Ruggiero
inform my own understanding of and approach to La Bomba and its relation to afrochoteño
identity.
In all, four studies of varying scope and depth address La Bomba specifically. Bueno’s
(1991) article and Schechter’s (1994) chapter complement Coba-Andrade’s (1980) compilation
of Bomba texts in illuminating the genre’s musical characteristics while Ruggiero’s (2010)
dissertation contextualizes its current symbolic value as a positive signifier of highland black
ethnic identity. Bueno synthesizes the extant academic and non-academic literature on La
Bomba, afrochoteño oral testimonies, ethnographic observations, and academic perspectives on
oral tradition and genre in hopes of more clearly defining La Bomba’s distinctiveness as a genre
unique to the Chota-Mira valley. Unlike Coba-Andrade, Bueno does not restrict himself to a
discussion of the text alone, briefly addressing the drum itself in terms of its construction,
performance, rhythms, and its symbolic significance as well as the instrumentation of the
ensemble and dance. For this reason, Bueno’s study may be considered the first truly
ethnomusicological consideration of La Bomba despite its lack of critical engagement with the
oral testimonies and its cursory and descriptive treatment of the music itself. Schechter’s
thorough musical analysis of the repertoire of Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo therefore
marks a significant advancement in musicological knowledge about La Bomba. A specialist in
highland Ecuadorian indigenous musical traditions, Schechter illuminates the indigenous,
European-mestizo, and African influences that constitute La Bomba’s defining musical
characteristics while noting stylistic changes evident in Milton’s repertoire in the ten-year span
examined. Though Schechter concludes that La Bomba is reflective of a more generic regional
Ecuadorian highland identity in its shared musical characteristics with neighboring mestizo and
indigenous musical traditions than of a more specific notion of black ethnicity, his keen
observations concerning the phenomenon of bimodality and of the extensive use of paired
phrases greatly informs my own understanding of and approach to the formal musical
9
characteristics of La Bomba. 3 Schechter’s engagement with the music, however substantial, is
yet somewhat superficial in the sense that it serves solely to illustrate the ways in which La
Bomba comes to represent or manifest its various cultural influences.
Though Ruggiero’s dissertation fails to engage La Bomba at the level of sound beyond a
consideration of its instrumentation and stylistic trends, she nonetheless greatly advances
discussion of La Bomba in approaching the genre critically as a representation of black ethnic
identity inextricably linked to the shifting dynamics of race and racism in Ecuador. Ruggiero’s
deconstruction of afrochoteño discourse about La Bomba and afrochoteño identity, in its
sensitivity toward afrochoteño sociohistorical and sociopolitical struggles, provides a useful
theoretical perspective that resonates with current approaches to music and blackness in the
African Diaspora that understand music and identity to be dynamic, discursive, and indexical of
the dynamics of power referenced in the terms race and racism. It is in building on the
theoretical perspectives informing Ruggiero’s approach, discussed below, and in applying them
specifically to a more critical musical analysis of La Bomba itself that this dissertation seeks to
contribute to the above literature on Afro-Ecuadorian music and culture.
Scholarship on Music and Music Making in the African Diaspora
The extant scholarship on Afro-Ecuadorian music and culture, viewed from a historical
perspective, reflects broader shifts in theoretical and methodological orientation in the study of
culture and identity in the African-Diaspora. In general, this move can be characterized as one
from a positivist concern with the content of black culture and identity to a postmodern
consideration of its construction and representation. The former seeks to assess the relationship
between Afro-America (in the broadest sense) and Africa as made evident in the material and
expressive culture and cultural practices of Afro-American communities, while the latter
attempts to understand the ways in which representations of blackness implicate race as a social
construct and index the work of racism. Approaches to music in the African Diaspora have
responded accordingly from approaching music and music making as artifacts of culture—
3
Schechter (1994, 290) uses the term bimodality to refer to the phenomenon of modal mixture
(relative major/minor) observed in the harmonic and melodic compositions of Afro-Ecuadorian Bombas
and in the music of neighboring highland indigenous communities.
10
vestiges of an African heritage or manifestations of a new cultural identity—to understanding
them as dynamic and discursive constitutive elements thereof. The following traces the
intellectual trajectory informing approaches to music and music making in the African Diaspora
as a means of situating the present study.
It is by now well recognized that the origins and intellectual foundation of black studies
extends beyond the work of Melville Herskovits and the academic locus of North America (see
Yelvington 2006a, 11). The contributions of black scholars and activists such as W.E.B. Dubois,
Marcus Garvey, Zora Neal Hurston, E. Franklin Frazier, and those of Latin American and
Caribbean academics and writers such as Franz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Jean Price-Mars Fernando
Ortiz, Arthur Ramos, and Raymundo Nina Rodriguez, among others, are today recognized as
integral to the formation of a truly transnational and interracial dialogue on black culture in the
Americas (see Ibid. 2006b). That said, it cannot be denied that much of the academic literature
on music and culture in the African Diaspora to emerge from both hemispheres during the
greater part of the twentieth century engages either explicitly or implicitly the central ideas about
Afro-American culture and intercultural contact put forth by Herskovits; most notably those of
African cultural retentions and the process of acculturation.
During the early part of the twentieth century, Herskovits developed a culture area and
diffusionist approach to the study of Afro-America informed largely by his studies as a student
of anthropology under Franz Boas and his subsequent fieldwork observations in various parts of
West Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil (Raboteau 1978, 49). 4 Herksovits recognized that though
the dynamics of slavery made it difficult for any one particular sociolinguistic group to survive
intact in the New World, there were nonetheless shared or similar unifying cultural elements
between those regions from which the majority of African slaves were taken to constitute a
culture area. According to Herskovits, this homogenous cultural unit would serve as a baseline
for the development of black culture in the Americas. In applying the concept of culture
espoused by Boas, Herskovits sought to circumvent and undermine the prevailing and racist
biologically grounded assumptions of race informing studies of African American communities
4
For further information about Melville Herskovits, his life, career and contribution to the
anthropological study of African American culture, see Yelvington (2006b), Baron (1994), Dillard
(1964), Gershenhorn (2004), Jackson (1986), Mintz (1964), Stockings (1974), and Szwed (1972).
11
up to that point (Raboteau 1978, 48; Yelvington 2006a, 10; see Herskovits 1958[1941]). He
posited, in short, that contemporary African American culture, in its material and expressive
content, would, to varying degrees, exhibit identifiably African traits that could theoretically be
traced back to their point of origin in Africa. For Herskovits, these African retentions, the
survival and continuity of which are commonly referred to as Africanisms, are what endow
African American culture with its distinctiveness (see Holloway 1990; Raboteau 1978; Sydney
and Mintz 1992[1976]; Yelvington 2006a, 2006b).
Herskovits’ concern with the processes of intercultural contact and his notion of
acculturation arises as a result of his attempt to make sense of the disparities in African
retentions evident between black communities in the United States and the Caribbean and Latin
America (Rabateau 1978, 49; Brazil specifically). The particular context and conditions of
enslavement, determined Herskovits, prevailed in determining the degree to which such
Africanisms survived (Ibid., 53). Though later criticized for his static and homogeneous notion
of culture (see Mintz and Price 1992 [1976], 13), he himself acknowledged that a closer
examination of aesthetics, value systems, and social interaction could potentially yield such
survivals despite their absence in material cultural (Ibid., 11).
Seeking to build on and modify Herskovits’ ideas of intercultural contact, Sidney W.
Mintz and Richard Price (1992 [1976]) called for a more subtle approach to the question of
Africanisms that drew upon existing models in transformational linguistics. They suggested that
an emphasis be placed not on the formal and material aspects of culture and the generation of
and systematic categorization of trait lists, but on the underlying “grammatical” principles
informing social behavior as a means of better accounting for change and diversification (Ibid.,
9). This meant paying closer attention to social interaction rather than merely the materiality of
culture itself. An emphasis on social process, furthermore, allowed for the recognition and
celebration of the creativity and heterogeneity evident in Afro-American communities. Rather
than understand Afro-American culture as the homogenous product of a gradual loss or retention
of culture, Mintz and Price sought to foreground instead the ways in which black communities
forged New World identities (hence the title of their book, The Birth of African-American
Culture; Ibid., 18). As critics such as Paul Gilroy (1994, 31) would later contend, this shift,
though crucial in recognizing the heterogeneity and dynamism of black culture in the Americas,
would nonetheless result in an equally essentialized and uncritical notion of blackness.
12
Following Herskovits and Mintz and Price, scholarship on the music of Afro-American
communities for much of the twentieth century engaged in one form or another with the central
question first posited by Herskovits in his consideration of Africanisms: what, if any,
relationship do the afro-descendant communities of the Americas have with Africa, and how
might this be recognized? That this is the case within ethnomusicology is a direct result of the
field’s inheritance and application of the Boasian culture concept as transmitted via Herskovits
himself to Alan Merriam and Richard Waterman, among the founding members of contemporary
ethnomusicology (Radano and Bohlman 2000, 23). Indeed, it is the notion of culture and its
centrality in understanding music and music making that largely differentiated and came to
define ethnomusicology as distinct from its earlier comparative manifestation as well as from its
Western art music counterpoint, historical musicology (see Myers 1993; Merriam 1960, 1964;
Nettl 2005, 8). This much, as Helen Myers (1993, 7) notes, is evident from the various
definitions of ethnomusicology proffered in its formative years. 5 Whether conceived of as the
study of music in or as culture, ethnomusicology’s insistence on the notion of culture itself
allowed ethnomusicologists to contribute to the anthropological discussion on Africanisms.
Thus it is that the extant ethnomusicological literature is replete with studies attempting
to resolve the disjuncture created by the transatlantic slave trade and illuminate and affirm the
distinctiveness of Afro-American music and culture either with recourse to Africa or AfroAmerican creativity. Various studies, following Herskovits, attempt to identify and catalogue
African cultural retentions visible and audible in the material and formal aspects of AfroAmerican musics (e.g., Bettelheim 1976; Brandt 1994; Coolen 1982; De Carvalho-Neto 1962;
Epstein 1975; Evans 2001; Katz 1969; Kubik 1979, 1990; Lawel 2004; List 1980; Monsanto
1982; O’Brian 1982; Ping 1980; Smith 1985; Welch 1985; Wilson 2001), while yet others,
reflecting Mintz and Price’s focus on processes of social interaction, ethnographically document
specific music traditions and illuminate aspects of music making among black communities in
the African Diaspora arguably informed and differentiated by distinctly African derived
aesthetics, values, and beliefs (e.g., Ayorinde 2004; Burnim and Maultsby 1987, 2006; Daniel
2010; Floyd 1995; Fryer 2000; Gantt 2010; Jones 1963; Lewis 1992; Levine 1977; Lovell 1972;
5
For a concise overview of definitions of ethnomusicology proffered in the discipline’s formative
years, see Merriam (1977).
13
Maultsby 1990; Roberts 1974; Small 1987; Waterman 1948, 1952). Just as Mintz and Price,
critics of the former position take issue with the homogenous and static notion of culture
assumed in the trait list approach. They advocate instead a consideration of musical aesthetics
and approaches to music making as a link with Africa and unifying thread among the disparate
musical practices of the African Diaspora (e.g., Small 1987; Maultsby 1990).
The strength of the aesthetics approach derives not only in its consideration of New
World creativity and heterogeneity, but also in its recognition of agency. Indeed, though the
insistence on retentions itself implies resistance to cultural homogenization in its emphasis on
heterogeneity and subalternity, a focus on individual and collective creativity in the process of
the development of black culture allows for even greater emphasis on the possibility for black
resistance, hence the numerous studies dealing with music and resistance in the African Diaspora
(e.g., Crook 1993; Galinsky 1996; Lewis 1992; McAlister 2002; Floyd 1995; Fryer 2000; Gilroy
1994; Munro 2010; Small 1987; Suzel 2001). From the perspective of this literature, distinctly
African informed sensibilities to music making not only distinguishes Afro-America, but forms
the basis of its counterhegemonic potential. Molefi Asante’s notion of afrocentricity and other
Africa-centered projects hailing primarily from intellectual and activist black scholars throughout
the African Diaspora constitute an extreme expression of this very position (see Asante 1988;
Walker 2001, 7). It is to this equally essentializing move toward an understanding and validation
of Afro-America entirely with recourse to African origins that critics of the Africansisms
approach in both its formal and aesthetic standpoints object (see Adeleke 2009; Fox 1999, 368;
Rahier 1999a, 291; 1999b, xxiv; Walker 1991; Gilroy 1993; Monson 2000).
More recently, scholarship on music in the African Diaspora responds to two interrelated
positions that arise in response to the faults and shortcomings of the previous Herskovitsian
culture-centered approach to Afro-America. The first, reflecting the postmodern turn, seeks to
circumvent culture altogether and thus de-emphasize Africa in recognizing the constructedness
of racial and Diasporic identity (e.g., Averill 1994; Behague 1994; Bermúdez 1994; Brandt 1994;
Davis 1994; de Carvalho 1994; Duany 1994; Fox 1999, Walker 1991, Rahier 1999; Rivera 1994;
Rodríguez 1994; Romero 1994; Smith 1994), while the second likewise privileges Diaspora as
the site and means of transnational black creativity and recognizes blackness as a social
construct, yet differs in considering the place of race, as in the asymmetrical relations of power
which are the lasting legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, in the construction and representation
14
of racial subjectivities (e.g., Aparicio 2000; Averill and Yih 2000; Busdiecker 2006, 2009;
Brown 1998; Codrington 2009; Davies 1999; Dennis 2008; Erlmann 2000; Feldman 2005, 2006;
Fernandes and Stanyek 2007; Gaines 2000; Gilroy 1993; Guilbault 2000; Hunter 2000; Jackson
2000; Gerstin 2000; Harris 2000; Monson 2000, 2007; Moore 1997; Radano 2000, 2003; Radano
and Bohlman 2000; Ruggiero 2010; Scanlon 2000; Smith and Fiske 2000; Wade 1999, 2000,
2006; Waterman 2000). Both perspectives attempt to de-center Africa in foregrounding the
dynamic and discursive dimensions of blackness as represented by the concept of Diaspora while
simultaneously, and as a direct result thereof, direct attention toward the asymmetrical dynamics
of power circumscribing and informing the construction and representation of specific racialized
identities.
The first position is most evident in the work of cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall (see
1990, 1999) who seeks to foreground the concept of Diaspora and experience of disjuncture,
rather than Africa, as the foundation and reflexive point of departure for the development of
black subjectivities in their plurality. As Hall (1990, 235) notes, the “diaspora experience . . . is
defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and
diversity; by a conception of ‘identity’ which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by
hybridity.” Music, as Hall here suggests, thus becomes an expression not of a static essence, but
of the unique particularities of the differing experiences of Diaspora. The strength of this
position is in its ability to address musical change and meaning not in terms of culture contact
and African aesthetics, but in terms of the changing needs and circumstances of black
communities. In short, music comes to reflect and respond to a given social rather than
biological reality.
Paul Gilroy (1993), yet another cultural studies scholar, is a seminal figure in advancing
the second perspective of black culture in the African Diaspora. In the Black Atlantic, Gilroy
criticizes pluralizing notions of black culture such as the one espoused by Hall for being equally
essentialist in its evocation of a particular black sensibility as well as “insufficiently alive to the
lingering power of specifically racialized forms of power and subordination” (Ibid., 32). He
calls instead for an anti-anti-essentialist standpoint that acknowledges the discursive
transnational dimensions of the African Diaspora while firmly situating black subjectivity in the
work of race and racism (Ibid., 102). While Gilroy has been criticized by Latin American
scholars for de-emphasizing national differences in the formation of black identity (see Chivallon
15
2002; Lipsitz 1995; Lott 1995; Williams 1995), his position allows for a consideration of how
particular nationalist perceptions and representations of blackness are informed by intraDiasporic flows. Of significance is the fact that, for Gilroy, the primary mode and means of
Diasporic black creativity is music (Ibid., 36). 6
The reconceptualization of blackness as a social construct inextricably bound to race
rather than as that which is given in nature, as implied in the culture-centered approach, allows
music scholars to move beyond questions of origins, authenticity, and cultural change to address
instead the ways in which music and music making in the African Diaspora index particular
experiences of blackness and respond to local and global sociohistorical, and –political
circumstances. It also invites critical reflection on the history of Afro-American scholarship and
the ways in which racialized forms of power work in and through academic approaches,
interpretations, and representations of Afro-America (Yelvington 2006a, 4; e.g., Yelvington
2006b; Radano and Bohlman 2000). Examples of such anti-anti-essentialist approaches hailing
from musicologists specifically may be found in the edited volumes of Ingrid Monson (2000)
and Radano and Bohlman (2000).
Following Gilroy, Monson (2000) acknowledges the significance of the experience of
disjuncture and racial oppression as a unifying and formative factor in the constitution of black
identity in Diaspora and recognizes the centrality of music in its mitigation. Yet she takes issue
with the tendency often observed in cultural studies to over emphasize black music’s
counterhegemonic potential and thus generalize music in the African Diaspora as an embodiment
of black resistance. Indeed, though Gilroy (1993, 37) is keen to develop a truly anti-essentialist
perspective of black cultural identity in the African Diaspora, he nonetheless succumbs to a
homogenous and static notion of music in attempting to illuminate the counterhegemonic quality
of blackness. As Monson (Ibid., 2) notes, “the idea of a transnational black music has been
synthesized in opposition to racial subjugation,” resulting in an equally essentializing perspective
of blackness that fails to account for intracultural contestations. Monson therefore rejects any
such notion of a pan Diasporic black ethos in favoring, instead, specific practice and process
6
While Gilroy advocates a closer examination of musics’ distinctive counterhegemonic qualities,
no known musicologists to date have invoked or applied in any serious theoretical way Gilroy’s notion of
the politics of transfiguration and the politics of fulfillment (se 1994, 37).
16
centered models of inquiry, reflecting ethnomusicology’s persistent resistance to grand theories
and metanarratives. Authors contributing to the edited volume therefore situate their respective
discussions of music and music making in the African Diaspora within specific, ethnographically
and historically informed case studies illuminating the significance of music and music making
as a predominantly social and communicative activity responsive to “changing local, regional,
national, and global contexts and conditions” (Ibid., 10).
While Monson et al. seek to circumvent race and racism in focusing on process, Ronald
Radano and Philip Bohlman (2000) make a case for placing race at the forefront of
musicological considerations of music and music making. Radano and Bohlman (Ibid., 5)
understand race not as a “fixity, but as a signification saturated with profound cultural meaning
and whose discursive instability heightens its affective power.” In keeping with Gilroy, they
recognize the ways in which race works in and through music as that which is “at once
constituted within and projected into the social through sound” (Ibid.). As a “soundtext,” music
makes audible the work of race while discourse about music (both academic and popular)
similarly emerge from and reify racial categories inextricably linked to historically situated
racialized forms of power and knowledge. 7 Indeed, Radano and Bohlman (Ibid., 21)
convincingly argue that the occlusion of race from ethnomusicological discourse stems precisely
from its foundational premise on the notion of cultural (i.e., racial) difference, as noted
previously in this essay. Uncritical approaches to the concept of race, which use race merely as a
descriptive connoting cultural and ethnic heritage, overlook, argue Radano and Bohlman, the
ways in which race informs not only scholarship about black and other “ethnic” musics, but
European/occidental music as well (Ibid., 20). This shift from culture to race makes possible a
more nuanced understanding of the ways in which racialized categories are themselves
constructed by and help to maintain the apparatus of racism. Radano and Bohlman, as do the
contributing authors, conceive of their work as a form of activism which seeks to write against
the racial imagination. With this focus in mind, the contributing authors to Music and the Racial
Imagination seek to make evident how constructions of difference inform perceptions and
representations of music and racial subjectivity. In so doing, however, these studies as a whole
likewise fail to address music at a level beyond the social, historical, and aesthetic.
This position is exemplified in Monson’s critical reading of Jazz history relative the African
American experience of race and racism in Freedom Sounds (2007).
7
17
Music, Race, and Nation in Latin America and Ecuador
Until recently, Latin Americansists have resisted the framing of Afro-Hispanic studies in terms
of race and Diaspora, choosing instead to focus on national dynamics of racial identification
(e.g., Béhague 1993; Feldman 2005, 2006; Ruggiero 2010; Wade 1993, 2000; Walmsley 2004;
Whitten and Torress 1998). That this is the case speaks to differences in the sociohistorical
trajectory of Latin American and Caribbean afro-descendant communities and to the complexity
of ethnic and racial identification in Latin American nations evident in the nationally varied
spectrum of ethnic categorizations stemming from five-hundred plus years of race mixture.
Indeed, master narratives of national identity founded on biological notions of race mixture
(referred to as either mestizaje, criollismo, and mestizagem, depending on the nation) and
exercised throughout much of the twentieth century complicate the question of racial identity
(see Appelbaum, Macpherson, and Rosemblatt 2003; Wade 1993, 1997; Whitten and Torres
1998). Scholars such as Norman E. Whitten Jr., Peter Wade, Nancy Appelbaum, and Jean
Rahier, among others, have shown how these metanarratives betray an underlying ideology of
whitening as a means toward national social and economic progress. Until recently, the
internalization of this baseless equation of racial blending with upward social and economic
mobility by afro-descendant populations has had a detrimental impact on perceptions of and selfidentification with blackness. This has led to the systematic exclusion of Afro-Hispanics in
representations of national history and culture as well as to the persistent denial of racism. The
marginalization of Latin America’s afro-descendant population has led to the popular
misconception that, apart from Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic, Latin America is solely indigenous and mestizo in its ethnic and cultural constitution.
It is perhaps also for this reason that Latin Americanists until the mid 1990s failed to
recognize race and racism in ethnographic contexts (see Béhague 1993). John Schechter (1993,
300), for example, assumes the position informed by his fieldwork that there is no conception of
black ethnic identity in the Chota-Mira valley. This he corroborates with his analysis of La
Bomba wherein he shows the extent to which it shares features common to surrounding highland
indigenous and mestizo musical traditions. Aside from the “Africanate” drum, notes Schechter
(Ibid., 289), La Bomba in its formal musical characteristics reflects a pan-highland regional
identity encompassing European, indigenous, and African derived influences. Thus he concurs
with Coba-Andrade’s (1980, 185) characterization of Afro-Ecuadorian culture as an “Indo18
Hispano-Afroecuatoriana” hybrid (Schechter 1993, 289). While this certainly may have been the
case during the period in which Coba-Andrade and Schechter were conducting their field
research, it is clear that afrochoteños today conceive of and represent their identity specifically in
terms of race and ethnicity.
Since the 1990s, however, scholars of Afro-Hispanic music are recognizing and making
increasingly known the ways in which representations of blackness, and the lack thereof, engage
national ideologies of race and race mixture and the Diaspora-wide transnational discourse on
race and racism (e.g., Busdiecker 2006, 2009; Crook 1993; Davies 1999; Dennis 2008; Feldman
2005, 2006; Ritter 1998; Ruggiero 2010; Wade 1999, 2000, 2006; Walmsley 2004). Today,
Afro-Hispanic communities in the Andes and Southern Cone region that previously conceived of
their identity in terms of race mixture are increasingly re-imagining their identity along
ethnic/racial lines. This is in part due to local sociopolitical circumstances as well as greater
geopolitical forces. As such, black communities are now mobilizing around a conception of
black ethnicity that frequently draws upon Africa (the past) and transnational discourses and
representations of blackness in empowering local communities and sociopolitical agendas. The
increasing visibility of Afro-Bolivian, Afro-Ecuadorian, Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Colombian, AfroArgentine, and Afro-Uruguayan populations as manifested in the appearance of numerous local,
national, and international afro-specific cultural and political organizations has led many scholars
to address this phenomenon (see Andrews 2010; Busdiecker 2006, 2009; Feld 2005, 2006;
Jordan 2008; Handelsman 2008; Hooker 2009; Paschell and Sawyer 2009; Ruggiero 2010;
Wade 2000, 2006; Walsh 2009; Walsh and Leon 2005). No longer able to ignore or downplay
race, scholars are now forced to reflect on the ways in which contemporary representations of
Afro-Hispanic identity and culture strategically engage local and global dynamics of race and
racism. Indeed, the need to redress what scholars often refer to as the invisibility of Latin
America’s black communities as a result of racism has provided much of the impetus for recent
scholarship on Afro-Hispanic history and culture. 8
8
The term invisibility refers to the systematic exclusion of black communities in representations
of national history, culture, and identity, and alludes to the subaltern status of blacks within the nation
(see Phillips 1995, viii).
19
Most relevant for this dissertation among the above studies is the work of Whitten, Wade,
Rahier, Ritter, Walmsley, Feldman, and Ruggiero. Based on his research and experience in
Ecuador’s Esmeraldas province, Whitten posits that the invisibility of blackness in Latin
America stems from the racist ideology of whitening inherent in the concept of mestizaje (race
mixture; Whitten and Quiroga 1998, 78). When examined in terms of class, a stratified social
structure clearly emerges wherein white-mestizos occupy a place of social and economic
privilege relative indigenous and black populations. Whitten conceives of this social structure as
fluid, however, in recognizing the possibility of “improving,” as it were, one’s social and
economic standing through interracial mixing (Ibid.). Hence the myriad identifications
recognizing various degrees and types of race mixture (i.e., mulato, zambo, mestizo, criollo,
etc.). These categorizations, as Whitten and other scholars note (see Wade 1993, 8), have their
roots in the colonial period where the degree of racial purity and mixture likewise determined, in
large part, social status and its accompanying privileges or lack thereof.
Wade (1993, 21) modifies this model considerably, however, in recognizing that
mestizaje, in its structural dialectic (white/non-white), though ideally seeking to negate racial
difference, nonetheless necessitates a conception of otherness in order to construct any such
notion of racial and cultural superiority. Thus, a tension is created within this model between
homogeneity and heterogeneity which individuals can and do exploit, as he shows through
various ethnographic examples, in the pursuit of their particular socioeconomic agendas.
Furthermore, Wade makes clear that racial distanciation occurs not only along color lines and the
gradual biological erasure of blackness, but along cultural lines as well (Ibid., 23). This helps
explain how blacks in parts of Latin America can access certain social, political, and economic
privileges and be accepted by white-mestizos without negating the premise of white superiority
upon which mestizaje is founded. This also helps explain how music associated with blackness
in Colombia can be adopted by white-mestizos and take a place of privilege within the nation as
an international representation of Colombian national identity. Wade ultimately shows how
differing contexts allow for the negotiation of social positioning through various strategies of
cultural/racial approximation and distanciation. This introduces the possibility for individual
agency and for moments of seeming contradiction. As Wade makes clear, however, these
contradictory moments are in and of themselves part and parcel of the dialectic structuring and
structured by racial difference (Ibid., 22).
20
Rahier (1998), building on Wade, shows how this dialectic is mapped not only onto
physical bodies and the national imaginary, but onto the geocultural and geopolitical distribution
of the nation as well. The racial topography of Ecuador in particular makes this argument most
apparent, as black populations brought to the Audencia de Quito arrived to and became
associated with specific regions: specifically, the northwest Pacific littoral encompassing the
province of Esmeraldas and the highland region today referred to as the Chota-Mira valley (Ibid.
422). These regions are frequently constructed in opposition to the nation’s predominantly
mestizo urban centers and are thus commonly associated with the plethora of negative and
exoticized stereotypes commonly heard about black people in Ecuador. These regions are thus
typically conceived of as lacking in education and culture, dangerous, poverty-stricken, nonproductive, and charged with sexual potency (Ibid.; see also Rahier 2003; Walmsley 2004, 19).
Rural emigration to urban centers, a common occurrence in the Chota-Mira valley since the
agrarian reforms of the 1960s, may be explained, in part, by the conversely positive association
of urban centers with social and economic prosperity, reflecting Wade’s notion of a strategic
distanciation from blackness (Wade 1993, 23). Though blacks now occupy urban centers
throughout Ecuador, the association of race with place is evident even within cities such as Quito
where predominantly black neighborhoods such as Carapungo and La Bota along the margins of
the city are conceived of as in opposition to wealthy white-mestizo neighborhoods and are
becoming increasingly associated with these same stereotypes (personal correspondence).
Following Wade, Rahier (2003) shows how Afro-Ecuadorian women strategically play on these
stereotypes in pursuit of their individual economic agendas. A similar argument may be made
for the numerous Afro-Ecuadorian males who pursue careers in athletics and the armed services,
including the military, police, and private security.
Ritter (1998) and Feldman (2005, 2006) show how music reflects this strategic
positioning and informs notions of black identity in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and Peru respectively.
Just as with La Bomba in the Chota-Mira valley, the coastal marimba and its accompanying
rhythms and dances are today emblematic of coastal, afroesmeraldeño identity. Ritter
deconstructs this identity in problematizing the marimba’s relationship to Africa and in
contextualizing musical representations of afroesmeraldeño identity within the broader
sociopolitical and –economic struggles of the afroesmeraldeño population. In so doing, he
shows how the (re)presentation of certain traditions such as the marimba are themselves invested
21
in local struggles and reflective of local, national, and transnational discourses of race. As Ritter
shows, afroesmeraldeños represent the marimba in terms of its Africanicity as much because of
its marketability to tourists as because of its valence as a symbol of afroesmeraldeño cultural
difference and resistance to white-mestizo assimilation and domination.
Similarly concerned with discourse about race, Feldman reveals how the Afro-Peruvian
revival that began during the mid-twentieth century was itself reflective of the dynamics of race
and racism in Peru. Efforts to validate and reaffirm black identity with recourse to music and
dance on the part of Afro-Peruvian intellectuals and artists such as José Durand, Nicomedes and
Victoria SantaCruz, and Susana Baca and black dance and theatre companies such as the Pancho
Fierro company, Cumana, and Perú Negro sparked creative reinterpretations of once forgotten
music and dance traditions such as el son de los diablos (the song of the devils), the landó,
festejo, and zamacueca. Feldman (2006, 11), as Ritter, deconstructs these representations of
blackness not as a means of undermining the validity of certain claims to cultural authenticity,
but rather to illuminate the ways in which such claims respond to local struggles against racism.
Feldman and Ritter most significantly contribute to the literature on black identity in Latin
America through their consideration of transnational circum-Diasporic borrowing in the
construction of local black identities.
Building on the above perspectives on blackness as a strategic construct in the Andes,
Sara Busdiecker (2006, 2009) and Ruggiero (2010) consider how music is resourced in the
sociopolitical struggles of black communities in Bolivia and Ecuador’s Chota-Mira valley. In a
way similar to Feldman, Busdiecker shows how cultural music and dance organizations served as
a site and vehicle for positive constructions of blackness and the development of Afro-Bolivian
sociopolitical agendas. Though Afro-Bolivians, more so than in other parts of Latin America,
share strong cultural similarities with neighboring indigenous and mestizo communities, attempts
to reconceptualize Afro-Bolivianness in terms of its African heritage has led to a reinterpretation
of local culture and identity along afrocentric lines (Busdiecker 2009, 125). As Ruggiero (2010)
shows, this is equally the case in Ecuador where local black intellectuals, scholars, community
leaders, and sociopolitical organizations are currently pursuing a similar agenda of cultural
recuperation. The Afro-Ecuadorian movement and project known as etnoeducación
(ethnoeducation), instigated by Afro-Ecuadorian Juan García Salazar, is forthright in its aim to
validate and reaffirm Afro-Ecuadorian identity through knowledge and maintenance of local
22
history and cultural traditions primarily as a means to engage in the broader national
sociopolitical process and discourse known as interculturalidad (interculturality; Ibid. 79). 9 This
discourse, also operative in other Andean national contexts, represents the gradual move away
from the notion of a homogenous, mestizo nation-state toward a heterogenous conception of
pluri-nationality. 10 Within Ecuador, as in other Diasporic contexts, “ethnicity” thus constitutes
political currency at the national and international level. The veracity with which the issue of
cultural authenticity is debated within such political contexts as those of Boliva and Ecuador
reveal the extent to which such representations are implicated in local sociopolitical struggles
(see Mullings 2009, 6).
Moving beyond representation, Walmsley (2004) considers how blackness in Esmeraldas
is embodied through music, dance, and food. Though her primary concern as an anthropologist
leads her to focus her study specifically on gastronomy in its materiality, she, as her mentor
Wade, nonetheless recognizes the centrality of music and dance in the formation of black
identity. Following Wade, she observes how black identity is negotiated in part through musical
choice and the ability to dance. Focusing on the urban context, she notes how the association
between certain dance music such as salsa with blackness make it possible for urban youth
otherwise considered mixed or non-black along the race-mixture spectrum to be accepted as and
even become “black” (Ibid., 33). Thus race in Esmeraldas, notes Walmsley following Wade, is
not so much a product of one’s biology and phenotype as it is of cultural practices (Ibid., 30).
Most significant is her treatment of music as not so much a symbol of blackness but as an
embodying practice that, along with other similar embodying practices and discourses, shapes
and transforms physical bodies (Ibid.). This is significant in affirming blackness not as a
construct residing solely in the imagination, but as a physical and social reality grounded in
shifting and sociohistorically informed ways of knowing and being.
The above studies collectively affirm the need to consider both the nation and
transnational, intradiasporic flows in the constitution and representation of blackness. As
9
For further information about etnoeducación, see García (n.d.), Pabón (2007, 2009), Walsh
(2004, 2006), and Walsh and Santa-Cruz (2007).
10
For discussions of plurinacionalidad, interculturalidad, and their relationship to indigenous
uprisings in Ecuador, see Becker (2011), Clark and Becker (2007), Puente (2005), Viatori (2009), Walsh
(2006, 2008, 2009), and Pallares (2002).
23
Ruggiero shows, afrochoteño identity and its representation indeed responds to these overlapping
dynamics as is likewise the case in Esmeralda and Colombia. The recent strategic adoption of
racial identification in the Andean region by afro-descendant communities affirms the notion of
race as a dynamic and discursive construct responsive to specific sociohistorical and
sociopolitical contexts. As Wade notes, this allows for a more nuanced understanding of
mestizaje as a fluid and thus non-deterministic social structure allowing for individual agency
within an ideological space defined in terms of degrees of sameness and difference. That AfroEcuadorians identify variously as Ecuadorian, Afro-Ecuadorian, afrochoteño, afroesmeraldeño,
negro, mulatto, or mestizo based upon on the context of conversation speaks to the ambiguity of
mestizaje. Deconstructions of such representations with recourse to music, as those provided by
Crook (1993), Dennis (2008), Feldman (2005, 2006), Ritter (1998), Ruggiero (2010), and Wade
(1999, 2006), illuminate these underlying social and political dynamics and reveal the extent to
which music is both implicated and resourced in local struggles against racism. To speak of
music and race within such a context is to necessarily make reference to these underlying
sociohistorical and sociopolitical dynamics. While such deconstructions are a necessary point of
departure for understanding the complexity of the relationship between music and identity in the
African Diaspora, they are often employed as an end in themselves and thus fail to delve beyond
the issue of representation. As shown in the following section, this has implications for the ways
in which the music itself is addressed and treated.
Music, Race, and Representation
With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Gilroy 1993; Monson 2000; Radano 2003), there remains an
overwhelming tendency among academics of diverse disciplines to approach music and identity
in the African Diaspora in terms of representation. By this, I mean not only the ways in which
music reflects the particularities of afro-descendant identities in the Diaspora, but also indexes
the power laden historical, social, and ideological processes and dynamics informing the
perception, manifestation, suppression, manipulation, scholarly investigation, and academic,
popular, and commercial projection of blackness. While this trend in and of itself is not
problematic, and is indeed necessary considering the continued marginalization of black
communities in the African Diaspora and the conspicuous absence of race in academic
24
discussions of music (see Radano and Bohlman 2000), it does seem to have limited discussion of
music primarily to the social, historical, and political.
There is a surprising reluctance among music scholars to engage music in the African
Diaspora at the level of sound (i.e., the musical sound object). When invoked, it is often
discussed in terms of aesthetics and the signification of particular interpretations and
manipulations thereof (e.g., Averill and Yih 2000; Feldman 2005, 2006; Gilroy 1993). A
consideration of the deployment and subversion of style become a means of hearing the power of
race or, rather, of the racial imagination (see Radano and Bohlman 2000; Radano 2003). In yet
other instances, music is addressed in terms of its communicative and intersubjective aspects
(e.g., Erlmann 2000; Jackson 2000). The sonic structuring of time and space enables discursive
modes of communication between musicians, musicians and participants, and between all
participants with the past (tradition) and with the ideologies of race that condition and structure
that very musical experience. Most often, however, music in the Diaspora is discussed in terms
of its social and historical exclusion and acceptance (e.g., Wade 2000; Béhague 1994; Moore
1997; Quintero-Rivera 1994; Radano and Bohlman 2000; Radano 2000, 2003), its
transformation as an expression of the hybridity of blackness (e.g., Averill 1994; Bermúdez
1994; Rahier 1999a; Schechter 1994), its manipulation as a form of domination or resistance
(e.g., Crook 1993; de Carvalho 1994; Feldman 2006; Fryer 2000; Romero 1994; Ritter 1998;
Ruggiero 2010) and its communal and participatory aspects (e.g., Small 1987; Maultsby 1990).
Music as conceived in these studies takes its rightful place as a social activity central to the
constitution and contestation of cultural (including racial) identity, a position reflective of Alan
Merriam’s definition of ethnomusicology as the study of music as culture (rather than in culture).
Yet despite the move on the part of musicologists toward more critical perspectives on music and
racial subjectivity in the African Diaspora, there remains a lack of critical engagement with
music as it relates to black identity at a formal and structural level.
The apparent lack of critical attention devoted to the formal aspects of music and identity
in the African Diaspora on the part of black-music scholars is too wide spread to be a
coincidence of differences in individual specialization and research interests. This is not to say
that it is intentional, but that it may, in fact, be reflective of a more ideologically grounded
problem concerning the perceived relationship between musical analysis and a positivism
aligned with the project of colonialism (Radano 2003, 32). Ghanaian-born music theorist Kofi
25
Agawu illuminates as well as problematizes this issue in relating his own personal experience
submitting an article on West African drumming for publication in the journal Ethnomusicology
(2003, 175). Met with controversy, the article underwent several revisions in response to referee
concerns with Agawu’s application of analytical techniques culled from Western art music
theory. The major point of contention, according to Agawu, was the apparent lack of
ethnographic contextualization informing his analysis. When published in 1986, the article
appeared alongside an article by James Koetting offering a more conventional, ethnographically
informed ethnomusicological analytical perspective on African music, and a commentary by
Ruth Stone noting the irony in difference between Agawu and Koetting’s choice of analytical
tools. 11 This seeming contradiction, as Agawu contends in Representing African Music (2003),
speaks to the colonial origins and legacy of ethnomusicology as a discipline founded on the
production of difference (152). While the privileging of analytical techniques and theories
derived from local concepts and metaphors (i.e., “ethnotheories”) on the part of the journal
referees speaks to legitimate concerns with (mis)representations insensitive to the relativity of
cultural meaning, the tendency to represent non Western music, in this case West African as
Agawu argues, as wholly distinct in essence and meaning results in equally marginalizing
representations in the reification of cultural and racial differences founded and implicated in the
project of colonialism (154). As Agawu clarifies (196), his position is not that scholars should
randomly apply any given type of musical analysis for the sake of analysis itself, but to avail
themselves of the tools and techniques that music theory has to offer as a means of illuminating
the “sameness” of different musics and thereby undermine the colonial agenda implicit in
ethnomusicological representations (168).
Yet another possibility for the reluctance to engage music at the level of sound may lie in
the seeming incompatibility of musical analysis with the critical agenda of postmodern
approaches to race and the weighty issue of racism. There is little question that while music is
broadly recognized as central to discussions of blackness among scholars of a broad spectrum of
disciplines and fields, it is yet marginalized as a site for critical studies of race (Radano and
Bohlman 2000, 39). Indeed, in his introduction to Music, Race, and Nation, social
anthropologist Peter Wade (2000, viii) admits to fears of trivializing the issues of race and racism
11
See Agawu (1986), Koetting (1986), and Stone (1986).
26
in addressing them through the lense of music. And yet, as he himself concludes and other
scholars concur (e.g., Gilroy 1993, 36; Radano and Bohlman 2000, 5; Radano 2003, 13), music
is precisely where the work of race and racism is made audible and visible. While this line of
thinking has indeed opened new avenues and possibilities for studies of music in the African
Diaspora in the formulation of innovative questions and the application of contemporary critical
social theories as evident in the recent growth of academic literature on music and race, it falters
in its inability to yet reconcile its claims to anti-essentialism with the seemingly objectifying and
reifying practice of formal musical analysis. Music centered studies of race and racism thus
remain limited to the social and aesthetic.
The means to circumvent this problem may be found, however, in recent efforts among
Latin American postcolonial scholars such as Anibal Quijano and Walter Mignolo to write
against the colonial legacy that is the foundation of and is perpetuated by modern academic
discourse and representations of difference. Their recognition of race as a construct implicated
in the creation and maintenance of the New World and the modern world economic system,
along with the inequities of power implied therein, allows for a consideration of musics relation
not to race and culture per se, but to the sociohistorical and sociopolitical dynamics informing its
emergence, expression, and transformation. It is specifically in relation to Quijano and
Mignolo’s notions of the coloniality of power and the colonial difference that the present
discussion of music and identity in the Chota-Mira valley is grounded. The following explores
these concepts and how they inform the theoretical approach applied in this dissertation.
Theory
Race, the Coloniality of Power, and Music
As previously noted, the inability to connect music with blackness in a meaningful way beyond
representation is related to the ways in which we approach the question of race generally
speaking. Anibal Quijano and Walter Mignolo, in their treatment of race in its relation to the
legacy of colonialism in Latin America, provide a more constructive means of approaching the
relationship between music and identity in the Chota-Mira valley. In recognition of academia’s
role in the construction and maintenance of the power inequalities characterizing the modern
27
world and the modern world economic system, Quijano and Mignolo proffer various terms such
as the coloniality of power, the colonial difference, and modernity/coloniality that more properly
situate notions such as race and modernity in the historical moment of colonialism and the
unequal relations of power born thereof. These terms are useful in the context of this dissertation
as a means of moving the discussion of music and race beyond representation toward a
consideration of music, in its formal as well as social and aesthetic dimensions, as an
embodiment and, thus, mediator of the particular relations of power referenced in the term race.
The following introduces the concepts of the coloniality of power and the colonial difference as
well as considers their implications with regards to music and its relation to afrochoteño identity.
Mignolo and Quijano understand race as a product of colonialism and as the foundation
of the modern/colonial world (see Mignolo 2008). Drawing on Immanual Wallerstein’s
conception of the modern world system and its implications for race and racism (see Wallerstein
1974-89; 1983, 78), Quijano and Mignolo understand the hierarchical social/racial categories
that emerged during the sixteenth century onward with the creation of the New World formed the
basis and justification for European, now Occidental/capitalist, subjugation and exploitation
(Mignolo 2001, 433; Quijano 2008, 182; Quijano and Wallerstein 1992, 549). Simply put, terms
such as negro, mulato, zambo, indio, mestizo, and criollo constitute not just descriptive labels,
but markers connoting differential relations of labor and power. As Mignolo (2000, 43) and
Quijano (2008, 185) note, the very possibility of the New World and of, consequently, the
modern world in its division and relationship between first and third world nations and their
respective economic disparities is predicated upon this difference. Thus, though colonialism as a
historical moment ended in the nineteenth century, the asymmetrical relations of power upon
which the New World was founded continue to maintain the social and economic disparities
characterizing the modern world economic system (Quijano 2008, 188; Mignolo 2001, 433).
This is what Quijano refers to when he speaks of the coloniality of power (or more precisely the
colonial nature of power) and what Mignolo attempts to connote with the dual term
modernity/coloniality. 12 For Quijano and Mignolo, race is the difference in the relations of labor
Quijano and Mignolo develop these concepts over a series of publications (see Mignolo 1995,
2000; Quijano 1997, 2008; Quijano and Wallerstein 1992). For a succinct overview and definition of
Quijano’s coloniality of power and its implications for identity in Latin America, see Mignolo (2008, 228;
12
28
and power born in the historical moment of the creation of the New World. Mignolo captures
this dynamic in his expression the colonial difference (Mignolo 2008, 229, 2000, 12). Though
other scholars and black intellectuals have similarly pointed out race as a dialectic and as a
construct of asymmetrical relations of power (e.g., Du Bois 1989[1903] Fanon 1967[1952];
Gilroy 1993), they fail to account for its lasting endurance and continual transformation.
Quijano’s notion of the coloniality of power and Mignolo’s colonial difference precisely tackles
this problem in addressing the spatial and temporal aspects of coloniality as indicated in the
terms modernity/coloniality and the colonial difference.
The colonial difference is useful in the context of the present discussion in recognizing
race as a duality (white/non-white) not only the by-product of a specific historically grounded set
of power relations, but actively involved in its maintenance. Race is thus understood as neither a
biological fact nor a floating signifier, but as a manifestation of the shifting difference produced
by the continual dialogue occurring between the polar extremities of a power invested dialectic
established in the formation of the New World and the modern world economic system. From
this perspective, the recent radical change in the conceptualization and representation of AfroEcuadorian identity and the emergence of specific regional identities constructed along racial
lines may be understood not in terms of a newfound awareness of cultural origins among
Ecuador’s black population, but as a strategic manipulation of the tensions inherent in this
dialectic. With this in mind, signifying practices, such as music and dance, in their incumbent
form, aesthetics, use, and meaning must be understood not as mere reflections of cultural
differences given in nature, but as the colonial difference and, subsequently,the coloniality of
power embodied. With regards to the relationship between music and identity, the primary
question thus becomes not how music represents racial subjectivity, but how music and music
making at the same time index, constitute, and thus mediate the experience of the coloniality of
power from which race, as the colonial difference, emerges.
2001, 434). See also Catherine Walsh’s (2002) interview with Mignolo for further clarification and
thoughts on the coloniality of power and the colonial difference.
29
Music as the Colonial Difference
An emphasis on music as an embodiment of discursive relations of power calls attention to the
processual aspects of music as it relates identity. That music plays a significant role in the
mediation of identity is, by now, well accepted in ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicologists and
anthropologists alike have shown how music and music making articulate and structure social
relations (e.g., Becker 1992; Feld 1982, 1984, 1994; Kisliuk 2000; Lomax 1962; A. Seeger 1987,
1988, 1994; Turino 1989; Wissler 2009) and inform individual and collective identities relative
time and space (e.g., Shelemay 1998, Stokes 1994; Lucy Durán 2003; Olsen 2004). Music
making is given a place of prominence in the literature on music in the African Diaspora
precisely because of this recognition. As previously noted, scholars such as Portia Maultsby and
Christopher Small, among others, situate the distinctive sensibilities of black music specifically
in relation to social and communicative qualities, which they understand to be informed by
uniquely African aesthetics and values, observed in its performance. This sensibility toward
process, however, must be understood not so much as a vestige of Africa but as an index of the
sociohistorical conditions necessitating and informing the development of such an adaptive
strategy. Understanding afrochoteño identity as a manifestation of the colonial difference, as
previously suggested, allows for such a move.
As an expression of the colonial difference, La Bomba arises from and responds to the
particular experience of the coloniality of power informing identity construction in the ChotaMira valley since colonialism. As such, it marks that difference, perceived and represented
today in terms of race and culture (i.e., Afro-Ecuadorian and afro-choteño identity and culture),
while providing the means for its mediation as a sociomusical process. Indeed, an overview of
the development of the afro-descendant communities and, subsequently, cultural traditions,
including La Bomba as will be shown in subsequent chapters, reveals this to be the case. It was
in large part within the context of those minimal spaces allowed and circumscribed by plantation
owners in the colonial period and early republic that La Bomba first emerged. Not coincidently,
it was also within and through that very same intersubjective space encompassed by and
permeated with La Bomba that the collective identity of the enslaved and exploited population of
the region was first enabled, articulated, and mediated. Close reading of historical documents
and of contemporaneous ethnographic data suggest that La Bomba was, and continues to be,
significant for the people of the Chota-Mira valley first and foremost as a sociomusical event
30
wherein communal bonds are strengthened and negotiated. Furthermore, its recent development,
in its transformation from a marginalized regional genre little known beyond the Chota-Mira
valley to a nationally recognized signifier of afro-choteño identity, reveals the extent to which
traditions conceived along and that articulate the border of the colonial difference are
manipulated and resourced by such subaltern communities in the contestation of the coloniality
of power (see Busdiecker 2006, 2009; Crook 1993, Dennis 2008; Ruggiero 2010; Wade 2006).
Foregrounding La Bomba as a sociomusical process inextricably linked to the coloniality
of power in the articulation and mediation of the colonial difference allows us to circumvent, or
rather more properly situate discourses of origins and authenticity. As cultural studies scholar
Homi Bhabha (1994, 3) notes, difference production necessarily involves an act of creativity, of
a renewal and resignification of the past in relation to the social and political necessities of the
present. “Social differences are not simply given to experience through an already authenticated
cultural tradition,” he notes, “they are the signs of the emergence of community envisaged as a
project – at once a vision and a construction – that takes you ‘beyond’ yourself in order to return,
in a spirit of revision and reconstruction, to the political conditions of the present.”
Ethnomusicologist Kay Kaufman Shelemay (1998) illuminates the ways in which music and
memory allows for this act of (re)creation in the conflation of time and space and the musical
juxtaposition and inscription of otherwise disparate cultural elements (language, song texts,
melodies, etc.). Given the strategic creativity involved in the representation of difference,
discourses of authenticity and origins speak not to pre-given ethnic or cultural traits, but to the
underlying sociohistorical and sociopolitical circumstances informing their discursive necessity
(Bhabha 1994, 2; Stokes 1994, 7).
The notion of cultural and, subsequently musical, change in the context of this
dissertation must therefore be reconsidered as the manifestation of the tensions, or discursive
work, of the dialectic structuring the colonial difference today manifesting itself along afrocentric terms. Indeed, as will be shown in this dissertation, a social history of La Bomba reveals
the extent to which the genre, in its formal development, is linked to changing perceptions and
representations of identity in the region as informed by social, historical, and political
circumstances. Just as with many other afro-descendant musical genres in the New World,
hybridity characterizes La Bomba in its continual creative adaptation of disparate musical
instruments, rhythms, and song forms. Far from random, however, the trajectory of its
31
transformation indexes the underlying power dynamics conditioning its very existence and
expression. That La Bomba is today celebrated as symbol of afro-choteño identity and that
recent musical innovations draw primarily upon the African Diaspora whereas as recently as the
early 1990s the genre was more broadly associated with a pan highland, regional Imbabureño
(i.e., mestizo) identity (Schechter 1994) and more prominently exhibited national mestizo and
indigenous musical influences is most indicative of this relationship between music, identity, and
the coloniality of power. To speak of La Bomba and its development, therefore, is to speak not
of fundamental changes in music and culture among the afrochoteños, but to recognize the ways
in which the coloniality of power informs the shifting perceptions and representations of the
colonial difference.
In sum, music, as understood within the context of Latin American postcolonial theory,
constitutes the colonial difference, producing racialized bodies in the discursive act of mediating
those structures of power (the coloniality of power) of which it is part and parcel. What is
important is not the content of the manifestation of that difference, as it is necessarily in a
continual state of discursive transformation, but the process of transformation itself and the
structures which enable and are conversely mediated by that process. With regards to music, this
means paying particular attention to the structural/processual elements informing the form of the
sound object as well as of the musical event.
Music as Process
Recent academic approaches to music in the African Diaspora concentrate primarily on the
social aspects of music making, as previously noted. While this tendency makes possible the
recognition of the dynamic and discursive dimensions of black music and identity, it
unnecessarily marginalizes the musical sound object in failing to consider the ways in which
sound itself is implicated in this intersubjective process. That this is the case reflects in part
concerns among ethnomusicologists with the efficacy of musical notation in conveying the
nuances of identity in the African Diaspora and with the privileging of ethnography as a means
of problematizing and contextualizing meaning production and thus circumventing the latent
objectyfing, essentializing, and marginalizing potential of academic representations (see Agawu
2003, 173). Yet both ethnography and musical analysis are consistently poor conveyors of the
spatial and temporal dimensions of music and music making, no matter how experimental and
32
informed the description or analysis (Agawu 1995, 185; C. Seeger 1977, 22; A. Seeger 1992).
What is lost, in part, in this act of translation is the generative process which music as sound and
social activity entails.
Music theorists and musicologists alike have long recognized that music is experienced
not as an object given to being a priori, but as a process of creation—of coming into being—that
unfolds over the course of time and space (e.g., Agawu 1995; Blacking 1973; Berliner 1978;
Lerdhal and Jackendoff 1983; Merriam 1964; Schenker 1954; Schutz 1971, 1976; C. Seeger
1966). 13 Ethnomusicologists in particular recognize this process to be socially embedded and
thus discursively and inextricably linked to local values and beliefs (see Merriam 1978).
Ethnomusicological literature is thus replete with examples of different ways in which this sense
of movement and becoming is generated in music, whether through the tension created by the
interplay between stasis and motion as in traditional Japanese music, consonance and dissonance
as in Western art music and jazz, the fundamental and its harmonics as in Tuvan music, or
rhythmic density and silence as in the layered rhythmic and melodic ostinatos of many West
African, Caribbean, and Indonesian musical traditions (e.g., Malm 2000; Levin 2006; Chernoff
1981; Tenzer 2000; Bakan 1999; Manuel 2006). Where a consciously theorized belief system
informing these generating musical structures exists, there is a clear conception that musical
structure is symbolic of and, consequently, constitutive of local cosmologies (e.g., Baumann
1996; Becker 1992, Feld 1982; Wissler 2009). In the event that no such belief system exists,
however, the structural aspects of the music are often left unconsidered by ethnographers. This
tendency toward selective musical analysis and the privileging of native theories in the
construction of musical representations, however, runs the risk of naturalizing differences that
are, in the end, the product of interpretive methods and intersubjective constructions of meaning
(Agawu 2003, 164; 1995, 187). A recognition of the relative value, strengths and weakness of
all types of musical analysis, whether derived from local metaphors and concepts or Western art
music theory, may prove more beneficial, as Agawu (2003) suggests, than privileging one over
another as a matter of arguably misguided ethics.
That this is the case within ethnomusicology stems, in part, from the presupposition that music
and meaning emerge from and must be understood in relation to specific socio-cultural contexts (see
Merriam 1960; 1964).
13
33
With regards to this particular study, a more adequate approach to musical analysis,
though not unproblematic, may be found in generative models as they more adequately convey
the very manifold process of creation that is music. 14 Not surprisingly, given his training as a
music theorist, Kofi Agawu (1995, 7) ventures such a generative model of Northern Ghanaian
Ewe music premised on his understanding of local metaphors of rhythm, a concept for which
there is no single linguistic Ewe equivalent, as a “binding together of different dimensional
processes.” This leads him to a consideration of broader rhythmic dimensions constituting the
soundscape of Northern Ewe life, such as the greater rhythms of daily society and language,
providing the creative resources for musical production. Agawu posits a model wherein
rhythmic expression is generated via a sequential path of semiotic transfer, from gesture (of
which societal rhythms are a part) and spoken language to vocal music, instrumental music, and
dance back to gesture (Ibid., 27). Implicit in this model, and most important for the purposes of
this dissertation, is the recognition that rhythmic expression that begins in gesture, in the
broadest sense, and culminates in stylized gesture ultimately informs, renews, reproduces, and,
subsequently, transforms originary gestures (Ibid., 29). In other words, it is not only generative,
but synergistic as well as hermeneutic.
Music among the Northern Ewe of Ghana, as Agawu shows, is part and parcel of the
social world in which they live. The ritual enactment of that world through music, as a
microcosm thereof, not only serves to represent that world and its incumbent values, but to
actively (re)produce it as well. This resonates with ethnomusicological and anthropological
perspectives on ritual and performance, including but not limited to music, as related to local
cosmology and worldviews (e.g., Baumann 1996; Becker 1992; Feld 1982; Guss 1989;
Hocquenghem 1996; Kisliuk 2000; Levin 2006; Strauss 1963; Turino 1989; Turner 1967, 1995;
Uzendoski 2005; Wissler 2009). Collectively, this literature shows the extent to which
performative rituals, conceived of in the broadest sense, (re)enact social reality, (re)constituting
identities, social relations, social structures, belief systems, and values in the process. Implicit in
14
Generative models in music theory derive, in part, from linguist Noam Chomsky’s theories of
syntax, most notably his ideas about transformational grammar and its accompanying notions of deep and
surface structures (see 1957, 1965). Of interest is the similarity of Schenker’s thoughts concerning
fundamental tonal structures in music (the ursatz) and their transformation in the musical foreground, or
tonal motion made audible at the surface level of music (see 1954). For more information on Schenker
and Schenkerian analysis, see Forte (1959), Katz (1935), and Jonas (1982).
34
the prefix (re) is the dynamic and discursive nature of this process. In sum, to partake of music
is to participate in and experience a process of renewal and transformation that at once captures
and mediates the vicissitudes of social life. It is in this regard that music as sound must be
considered as an equally integral part of this socially embedded process.
La Bomba es vida: La Bomba, the Coloniality of Power, and Afrochoteño Identity
My analysis and interpretation of La Bomba is informed by metaphors of La Bomba and
afrochoteño identity encountered during field research. Most prominent and telling among these
metaphors is the expression “La Bomba es vida” (“La Bomba is life”). 15 This statement takes on
even greater meaning when considered in relation to the history of the afrochoteño communities
and the sociohistorical and sociopolitical dynamics informing the construction of afrochoteño
identity. More than a metaphor, as I came to realize, “La Bomba es vida” speaks to the intimate
relationship between La Bomba and afrochoteño identity and alludes to the particular relations of
power shaping social reality and perceptions and representations of the colonial difference in the
Chota-Mira valley since the seventeenth century. I suggest that for the afrochoteños, La Bomba
is life precisely because it embodies in both its social and musical dimensions the colonial
difference and indexes the coloniality of power in its origins and sociohistorical development.
As a sociomusical process of renewal and transformation, La Bomba thus constitutes and
mediates the experience of the coloniality of power.
As shown in this dissertation, this is evident in La Bomba’s function (Chapter Four),
hybridity (Chapter Five), and formal structural characteristics (Chapter Six). The particular
power dynamics that arose with the historical moment of colonialism and the transatlantic slave
trade conditioned the emergence and development of La Bomba. Necessitated by the
circumstances of colonial slavery and post-emancipation exploitation and marginalization, La
Bomba as a social phenomenon, arose as a significant means of enacting community within the
limited spaces provided and circumscribed by colonial slavery. Specifically, socioreligious
occasions prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church, such as days of worship, saint feast days,
Christmas, holy week, baptisms and weddings, were the predominant context for family and
communal gatherings. It was within these spaces that La Bomba first originated and developed
15
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
35
as an intimate expression of family and community. In this way, La Bomba historically
mediated the experience of the coloniality of power and enabled the formation and expression of
the colonial difference. That such socioreligious occasions continue to be the predominant
context for familial and communal gatherings and that La Bomba continues to pervade and
demarcate these spaces shows the extent to which this continues to be the case.
A consideration of the developmentof La Bomba since its origins in the colonial period
similarly reveals how the coloniality of power circumscribes and informs shifting perceptions
and representations of the colonial difference. Creative appropriation and adaptation of musical
instruments, song forms, rhythms, harmonies, and styles from neighboring indigenous, national,
and foreign popular song and dance genres is a constant and defining characteristic of La
Bomba’s development. In its hybridity and continual transformation, I argue that La Bomba
embodies the tensions inherent in the dialectic relations of power structuring the shifting
perceptions of the colonial difference. The recent and positive association of La Bomba with a
distinct regional black ethnic identity and the innovative adaptation of musical instruments,
rhythms, song forms, and styles predominantly from the circum-Diaspora reflect yet the most
recent manifestation and expression of the colonial difference. Local afrochoteño concerns with
the issues of authenticity and of cultural change as they relate to La Bomba must therefore be
understood as linked to current sociopolitical agendas in the struggle against the inequities
arising from the coloniality of power. As an embodiment of the colonial difference that is today
conceived of as afrochoteño, La Bomba is constant only in its continual state of flux and
transformation.
An analysis of La Bomba’s formal musical elements and text sensitive to the above
understanding reveals the extent to which the genre as sound and form is implicated in the
process of mediating the experience of the coloniality of power and constituting the colonial
difference. A structural duality, alluded to in the symbolic dimensions of the bomba drum,
characterized by its synergistic complementarity pervades the genre at the level of sound, text,
and practice in a homologous fashion. 16 While dualism may be attributed to an African retention
or cross-cultural borrowing as a result of contact with neighboring indigenous communities (see
16
Though left unexamined, Schechter (1994, 290) alludes to this structural duality in La Bomba
when he speaks of bimodality.
36
Chalá-Cruz 2006; Schechter 1994), it is more appropriate, considering the dynamics informing
the development of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity, to understand this phenomenon as the
manifestation of the structural, relational, and constructed character of the colonial difference. 17
The emphasis on complementarity and its synergism as an integral whole in particular suggests
an analogous relationship with the the coloniality of power in its encompassment of the dialectic
self-other structuring the colonial difference. In short, contained in and expressed through La
Bomba is the truth about afrochoteño identity as the manifestation of the particular relations of
power produced with colonialism and colonial slavery.
More than a representation of identity, La Bomba embodies that particular colonial
difference today expressed as afrochoteño in its sociohistorical, social, and formal musical
dimensions. As such, it simultaneously constitutes and expresses shifting perceptions of the
colonial difference while mediating the experience of the coloniality of power as a sociomusical
process of renewal and transformation. In its pervasive structural duality, La Bomba encodes
and reveals the relational nature of the colonial difference and thus exposes that which the
coloniality of power attempts to erase: the sameness, or fallacy, of racial difference. It is in this
regard that this dissertation understands the statement “La Bomba es vida” to be not a metaphor,
but an expression of a latent understanding of the coloniality of power and its consequences for
social reality and identity formation in the Chota-Mira valley.
Methodology
Ethnographic fieldwork, along with ethnography, the concept of the field, the disciplines of
anthropology and ethnomusicology, and academia in general are by now well criticized for their
role in the construction of difference and the subsequent reification of Occidental
epistemological, sociocultural, political, and economic hegemony (e.g., Abu-Lughod 1991;
Agawu 2003; Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Mignolo 1995, 2000; Mudimbe 1988; Radano and
Bohlman 2000; Said 1978; Trouillot 1995, 2003; Walsh 2004, 2006, 2009). Critical engagement
with research methods once taken for granted is thus a necessity in undermining this dimension
17
For a discussion of music and duality in the Andes, see Baumann (1996) as well as contributing
chapters in Baumann’s edited volume.
37
of academic representation and knowledge production. This is especially important in the
context of this dissertation considering the current dynamics surrounding representations of
Afro-Ecuadorian identity and my intent in developing a truly anti-essentialist approach to the
study of music and identity in the African Diaspora.
Afro-Ecuadorians are currently in the process of documenting, researching, and
representing their own history and culture in an effort to cultivate and preserve a sense of cultural
identity and rectify misrepresentations of Afro-Ecuadorians. This much needed work is being
organized, carried out, and led by Afro-Ecuadorians in Esmeraldas, the Chota-Mira valley, and
the major urban centers of Ecuador. The Federation of Black Communities and Organizations of
Imbabura and Carchi Provinces (FECONIC) and Fundación Piel Negra (Black Skin Foundation)
in the Chota-Mira valley and Ibarra, and The Centro-Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriano (AfroEcuadorian Cultural Center), Fundación De Desarrollo Social y Cultural AfroEcuatoriana
“Azucar” (Afro-Ecuadorian Social and Cultural Development Foundation “Azucar”), and the
Fondo Documental Afroandino (Afro-Andean Documentary Foundation) at the Universidad
Andina Simón Bolívar (Andean University Simón Bolívar) in Quito, are just a few of the major
local organizations and institutions generating and housing this local production of knowledge.
Any serious scholarly endeavor dealing with topics concerning Afro-Ecuadorians must
necessarily engage these institutions and scholars as well as the work they produce.
As might be expected, there is a sense of propriety among these institutions, local
scholars, and Afro-Ecuadorian community leaders with regards to the topic and representation of
Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture. Considering the history of marginalization and exploitation
suffered by Afro-Ecuadorians, there is good reason to distrust outsiders, especially scholars who
are often perceived to build lucrative careers on that which pertains to the Afro-Ecuadorians
themselves. It is not uncommon to hear afrochoteños grumble, for instance, of promises
unfulfilled by outsiders, whether academics, politicians, volunteers, or foreign non-governmental
organizations. In such an environment, local discourses of music and identity and of other facets
relating to Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture are politically charged. It became exceedingly
clear that I would need to grapple with my own subjective positioning in the process of
negotiating and making sense of the power dynamics surrounding and informing perceptions and
representations of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity.
38
Narratives of fieldwork are often framed in terms of an entrance into and exit from the
field. My ambivalence with this construction and the mythical space which it connotes stems not
just from my academic training and exposure to deconstructionist and postcolonial literature but
from my not so uncomplicated relationship to Ecuador and the Chota-Mira valley being the son
of an Afro-Ecuadoran now residing in the United States. Originally from the Chota-Mira valley,
my father emigrated from the region to Quito with his mother and siblings at the age of eight.
There, he would spend the remainder of his childhood until meeting my mother and leaving
Ecuador for the United States in the late 1970s. It is indicative of the sociohistorical and
socioeconomic circumstances in Ecuador that my grandmother, father, and subsequently his
siblings and other extended family members, left the Chota-Mira valley in search of greater
opportunities in the nation’s urban centers and abroad. With family in Quito, Ibarra, the ChotaMira valley, the United States, and even Europe, facile distinctions between field and home are
blurred, though not entirely negated.
As Jameson and Gupta (1997, 15) make clear, the field is not so much a geographic site
as a conceptual one that in this instance marks the boundaries of familiarity. Within Ecuador, I
found that this boundary continually shifted from one social (not geographic) context to the next.
Whereas I was at “home” and unquestionably an “insider” among my family in Quito, Ibarra,
and Cuajara in the Chota-Mira valley, I would be dismissed as an “outsider,” viewed curiously at
best and suspiciously at worst, in the context of other social networks in the same geophysical
locations. Even among family, the concession of “insiderness” frequently shifted depending on
the context of conversation, especially when drawn along racial/spatial lines (i.e., degrees of
“blackness” and proximity to the Chota-Mira valley). Needles to say, such distinctions just as
easily restricted as facilitated mobility and access to local individuals, resources, and other
sources of knowledge. Furthermore, perceptions of proximity implied corresponding
expectations, turning my project into a truly intersubjective site of knowledge construction as
family, collaborators, and friends freely vocalized their thoughts on the topic and direction of the
dissertation as well as on the relative value of specific sources and on their interpretation. As
such, I cannot and refuse to claim authority on this topic based solely upon my perceived
proximity to or distance from the people and cultural traditions of which I write based on my
heritage and academic training.
39
I say this in part to make clear my position on the matter of “native” scholars. My blood
ties to the Chota-Mira valley do not excuse me from dealing critically with problematic research
methods, contesting perspectives, and the interpretation of “ethnographic data.” This dissertation
does not pretend to be a representation in the authoritative sense. It is, for all intents and
purposes, an interpretation; one among equally valid others generated by Afro-Ecuadorian as
well as non-black Ecuadorians and outside scholars alike. As an exercise toward the
development of new ways of conceiving of, approaching, and talking about black identity and
culture in the Americas, it is intended primarily for students and scholars of music and culture.
If the content and interpretations may be of use to Afro-Ecuadorians and local scholars as a
source of documentation or as a launching point for further discussion, than I am all the more
grateful. I am also quite conscious of the fact that, as with all dissertations, this project is being
written in fulfillment of an academic degree with specific expectations and requirements. Within
these limitations, I hope to have produced something that yet challenges conventions within the
field and that advances discussion on the topic, or at the very least raises questions for future
scholars.
Problematics of subjective positioning aside, the research methods employed for the
purposes of this dissertation are predicated upon what is now considered a trueism in
ethnomusicology and anthropology: that music, like other material and expressive forms of
“culture,” is situated within specific social contexts within which meanings are produced,
contested, and negotiated. Grasping the complexities of meaning production thus requires upclose and personal observation and experience (i.e., participant observation) in order to fully
grasp the complexities of meaning production arising from that connection (see Geertz 1973).
As a participant observer, I therefore lived between the community of Chota in the Chota-Mira
valley, the neighboring urban center of Ibarra, and the capital city of Quito where I spent time
partaking of social life with collaborators and family, attending festivals and events featuring
representations, musical or otherwise, of Afro-Ecuadorian and afrochoteño identity, learning to
play the bomba with local musicians, observed Bomba performances, conducted formal and
informal interviews with local musicians, scholars, organization and community leaders, perused
materials and resources at Afro-Ecuadorian sociocultural organizations, collected recorded (often
pirated) Bomba cds and vcds, visited archives, and purchased relevant books at local academic
publishers such as Abya-Yala. As many afrochoteños, such as my father, have family residing in
40
multiple locations, this project necessitated involvement at various sites, though the primary site
for the majority of the field investigation was indeed the community of Chota located just off of
the Pan American highway approximately 35 kilometers north of Ibarra via Tulcán, Colombia.
Yet the participant observer model necessarily privileges certain voices and
representations over others. While this is more of a logistical and pragmatic problem for
scholars who frequently face constraints in time, finances, and contacts while conducting
fieldwork, it is nonetheless a problem generally overcome by either explicit or implicit
authorization of local sources of knowledge. This form of legitimization serves both parties. In
ethnomusicology, for instance, apprenticeship to “master” musicians is a source of authorship
that collaborators in the field are often well aware of and play into for various personal reasons,
such as for the prestige accompanying such outside recognition, monetary or other material gain,
or for matters of local boundary policing and gatekeeping. Ethnomusicologists likewise play
into this construct because such positioning sanctions and thus authorizes academic
representations (see Berliner 1978; Hood 1960; Kippen 2008, 125). This dynamic is
unfortunately and not surprisingly true in historically marginalized and exploited communities.
Recognizing these local sociopolitical dynamics, though certainly not a solution, goes a long way
toward mediating contesting voices.
Within the context of this dissertation, this means paying particular attention not so much
to the “what” of representations of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity, but to the “why.” This
follows ethnomusicologist Heidi Feldman’s (2006, 11) assertion, informed by her own research
experience in Peru, that discourse about and other representations of Afro-Peruvian history and
culture today reflect particular “memory projects” that speak not to an objective past, but to
present sociopolitical circumstances. Afro-Ecuadorians likewise have a vested social and
political interest in shaping representations of their identity. Local discourses, interview
statements, and performances are therefore here examined critically in relation to the particular
sociohistorical and political context from which they arise and to which they respond.
Problematization of afrochoteño self representations are not intended, however, as value
judgments with regards to the legitimacy of local perspectives. The purpose of such
deconstructions, rather, is to more fully expose the underlying social and political dynamics
informing the necessity of such representations.
41
This also means recognizing the limitations of formal research methods, such as recorded
interviews, live and mediated performances, and instruction or training in some aspect of local
music making. While these methods are indeed crucial to the formulation of any serious
research project, they but provide a partial perspective on local meanings as these are often
constructed in not so explicit ways. This realization is conveyed in the “participant” aspect of
the participant observer model. For ethnographers, this means becoming involved in some
aspect of social life, of the “doing” of culture, reflecting, again, the assumption that culture is
something that is actively (re)produced through human activity rather than that which is simply
given in nature. For ethnomusicologists, engagement in the life-world of musical subjects tends
to involve participation in some aspect of local music making. Indeed, such is the case in this
study, wherein I learned to play the bomba from a local musician in the community of Chota.
Yet, more so than from the actual content of the formal music lessons, it was the informal
conversations and moments of vulnerability that occurred between myself and such fellow
collaborators that most informed the development of my understanding of La Bomba’s
relationship to afrochoteño identity. As these moments constitute the intersubjective nature of
knowledge production involved in ethnographic research and representation, I include those most
relevant to the current discussion within in the body of the dissertation in the form of narrative
and self-reflexive ethnographies and vignettes.
While self-reflexivity itself is not new within the context of anthropology and
ethnomusicology, it is worth reiterating its value as I devote an entire chapter to short narratives
constructed of remembered conversations and reflective moments crucial to the development of
my theoretical orientation and interpretation. 18 Following the understanding that meaning
production is an intersubjective and hermeneutic process involving those intimate interpersonal
and introspective moments constituting ethnographic fieldwork and ethnography, I include these
vignettes as a means of conveying the extent to which my personal encounters and reflections
over the course of this project have informed my perception of, approach to, and representation
of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity. Individually and collectively, they reveal the
18
For discussions of self-reflexivity in relation to transparency, representation, and the production
of knowledge in ethnography (written and visual) and ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology and
ethnomusicology, see Bakan (1999), Barz and Cooley (2008), Clifford and Marcus (1986), Behar (1993;
1996), Behar and Gordon (199), Hastrup (1995), Hastrup and Hervik (1994), Hymes (1974), Ruby (1982;
2000), Tedlock (1983), and Tedlock and Mannheim (1995), among others.
42
pervasiveness of power in discussions of La Bomba and representations of Afro-Ecuadorian and
afrochoteño identity as well as problematize the notions of race, tradition, authenticity,
fieldwork, and authority. In so doing, they raise the pertinent questions either explicitly or
implicitly addressed in this dissertation as well as situate my interpretation as a product emergent
from within rather than from without those dynamics of power structuring perceptions and
representations of race in Ecuador. The juxtaposition of dates and locations not coterminous
with my actual fieldwork experience likewise more properly reflects the true nature of the field
as a mental construct extending well beyond the entrance into and exit from the geophysical site.
Permeating all aspects of this research project, from my subjective positioning to the field
experience and write-up itself, are dynamics of power that are difficult to ignore and seemingly
impossible to escape. Though Afro-Ecuadorians are indeed agents in mediating the coloniality
of power and the colonial difference, it cannot be denied that these dynamics, long after
colonialism, are very much present in the ways in which afrochoteños conceive of and represent
their identity, history and culture even while contesting institutional racism. It is in hopes of
exposing these structures, writing against them, and reaching a deeper understanding of and
appreciation for the significance of La Bomba as it relates to afrochoteño identity that I present
this dissertation.
Organization
This dissertation is organized into seven chapters, including the introduction and conclusion.
Chapters two through six follows the trajectory of my research and understanding of La Bomba
and its relationship to afrochoteño identity, starting with an ethnography of contemporary
representations of afrochoteño identity, and developing through a self-reflexive narrative
representing the equally important intersubjective and interpretive process that is ethnography
and ethnographic fieldwork, an overview of the history and development of the communities of
the Chota-Mira valley, an examination of the sociohistorical development of La Bomba itself,
and culminating in the resultant analysis of the formal structural aspects of La Bomba informed
by the previous chapters/stages of research. Though the chapters are intended to be read in
successive order, individuals interested in one or another aspect of afrochoteño history and La
Bomba may find individual chapters sufficient for their specific purposes.
43
Chapter Two presents an ethnography examining La Bomba and afrochoteño identity in
the present day as means of introducing readers to La Bomba and the current sociopolitical
dynamics informing representations of afrochoteño identity today. As noted above, this chapter
represents my initial point of entry as an ethnographer attending, documenting, and observing La
Bomba and other musical and non-musical representations of afrochoteño identity in Quito,
Ibarra, and the Chota-Mira valley observed during the course of my field-stay. Thus, events such
as festivals, museum exhibits, print sources, interview statements, and informal conversations
constitute the ethnographic “data” critically examined in this chapter. Following the notion that
such representations constitute discourse, in the broadest sense, linked to sociopolitical agendas
indexing greater underlying sociohistorical dynamics of power (e.g., Feld 2006), I situate these
ethnographic moments in relation to the current sociopolitical dynamics informing race and race
relations in Ecuador. This chapter thus links afrocentric projections of afrochoteño identity, a
relatively new construct in the national racial imaginary, in relation to the current social and
political struggles of the afrochoteño communities. La Bomba plays a significant role in this
struggle as a prominent national signifier of afrochoteño identity. Deconstructing La Bomba in
its current representation serves not to undermine this sociopolitical process nor to invalidate
individual actors in their self-portrayals, but to better situate the significance of La Bomba in
relation to that particular subaltern identity today known as afrochoteño.
Chapter Three consists of short self-reflexive narratives constructed from memories of
informal conversations, interpersonal experiences, observations, and correspondence drawn from
the course of my field experience informing my understanding of La Bomba and the
development of my theoretical and methodological orientation. The vignettes, though self
sufficient with regards to the stories and meanings respectively imparted, are arranged in
complementary pairs the synergistic relationship between which are intended to metaphorically
represent the coplas (paired verses) once typical of Bomba lyrics (discussed in Chapter Six). As
with the Bomba coplas, these pairs are juxtaposed in seemingly incongruous and non-narrative
fashion. Yet within the context of this chapter they ideally reflect the arc of my understanding of
La Bomba, afrochoteño identity, and the major issues dealt with in the course of this dissertation.
Meaning, therefore, may be constructed not only within and between the paired vignettes, but
also from the metanarrative emerging from the dialogue between the paired vignettes. These
layers of signification reflect the unending creative intersubjective and hermeneutic process
44
involved in the production of knowledge that is ethnography and ethnographic research. For this
reason, I situate these narratives not as interludes or as appended material to be read apart from
the more familiar formal representation of scholarly knowledge, but as an integral aspect thereof.
As memory (re)constructions, the vignettes, though based on actual occurrences and exchanges,
are not intended to be faithful reproductions. Important in the context of this chapter is not what
exactly happened or was said, but how I remember those moments and how my perception
thereof informs my understanding of the subject matter and issues in question. For this reason,
all conversations are presented in English regardless of the original language unless to convey a
linguistically pertinent meaning otherwise lost in translation. Lastly, Chapter Three is
intentionally left without additional analysis and contextualization as it is primarily intended as a
methodological tool problematizing the major issues either explicitly addressed in the content of
this dissertation or implied in its theoretical assumptions, approach, and form.
Chapter Four provides an overview of the sociohistorical development of the afrochoteño
communities from their origins in the seventeenth century to the end of the agrarian reforms as a
means of contextualizing the greater dynamics of power informing the development of La
Bomba and afrochoteño identity. This follows the premise, suggested by an afrochoteño
collaborator, that one cannot understand La Bomba without first understanding something of the
history and struggles of the afrochoteños. As such, this chapter synthesizes disparate sources
dealing with various aspects of afrochoteño history, including extant academic literature,
travelogues, other print sources such as textbooks and newspaper clippings, and afrochoteño
testimonies (the collective memory of the afrochoteño community). A close reading of these
documents reveals the extent to which the afrochoteño communities, and subsequently their
cultural identity and traditions, are circumscribed and informed by the asymmetrical dynamics of
power set into motion with colonialism and colonial slavery. With regards to La Bomba, this
legacy of colonial slavery may best be observed in the social context in which La Bomba first
emerged and continues to be used, namely socioreligious occasions. This has ramifications for
an understanding of La Bomba’s role in the expression of the colonial difference and the
mediation of the coloniality of power, discussed in greater detail in Chapter Four. As no such
comprehensive narrative of afrochoteño identity exists to date, this chapter serves the dual
purpose of bolstering the main thesis of this dissertation while constructing a useful social
45
history of the afrochoteño communities for students, scholars, and Afro-Ecuadorians interested
in afrochoteño history.
Chapter Five offers a concise social history of La Bomba from its origins in the colonial
period to the present day. As an oral tradition, much of what can be known about the early
history of La Bomba resides in the collective memory of the afrochoteño communities. It is
possible, however, to triangulate key moments in the early development of La Bomba using oral
testimonies in conjunction with academic literature on the history of Ecuadorian music and the
three known sources depicting Bomba in the Chota-Mira valley prior to the mid-twentieth
century: two travelogues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century respectively, and the
first monograph length study of the afrochoteño communities conducted in the 1950s. The story
that emerges suggests that La Bomba was significant first and foremost as a sociomusical
process enabling the formation and expression of local familial and communal bonds: the
building blocks of collective identity in the region. Furthermore, this early history reveals the
extent to which La Bomba lends itself to the appropriation of “outside” music and dance genres.
This is important considering La Bomba’s commoditization and continual transformation in the
wake of globalization during the last half of the twentieth century. Culled from interviews,
commercial recordings, ethnographic observations, and the extant academic literature on La
Bomba and the afrochoteño communities, La Bomba’s recent development reveals the extent to
which its seeming changes in its musical appropriations speak to the broader social significance
of the genre as an expression of the colonial difference and mediator of the coloniality of power.
Chapter Six presents an analysis of the formal structural elements of La Bomba,
including its rhythmic, tonal, and textual aspects. Taking the bomba drum in its symbolic
dimensions as my point of departure, I consider the ways in which the ideal of complementary
pairs pervasive in the drum expresses itself at various other levels of the genre’s formal
compositional characteristics. What emerges from this analysis is the realization that La Bomba,
at all levels of its formal structural elements, is homologous in its replication of the idealized
complementary pairs contained in the drum and its defining rhythms. The chapter concludes
with a consideration of the significance of this trait as it relates to afrochoteño identity as an
expression of the colonial difference. Considering the significance of La Bomba as a
sociomusical process and the development of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity as a
manifestation of the difference conditioned by the coloniality of power, I argue that rather than
46
an appropriation of indigenous Andean symbolism or a vestige of beliefs rooted in Africa, that
this dualism embodies the tension filled and meaning producing dialectic that is the coloniality of
power. Constituted and mediated in the performance and emergent sound of La Bomba,
therefore, is that particular colonial difference today expressed as afrochoteño.
Chapter Seven concludes with a synthesis of and commentary on the main points of the
previous chapters as they relate to the primary thesis and concerns of this dissertation. It also
briefly considers the implications of this study for the issue of black agency in the African
Diaspora.
47
CHAPTER TWO
THE COLONIAL DIFFERENCE AND CONTEMPORARY
REPRESENTATIONS OF LA BOMBA AND AFROCHOTEÑO
IDENTITY
February 3, 2007
Standing on the bridge overlooking the river Chota-Mira at the Westernmost end of the
community Chota, I survey the animated scene unfolding along the bank of the river at the other
end of town. A team of young men place the final touches on a large-stage erected at the
Southeast corner of a large, dirt soccer field. They’ve been working steadily since the early
morning, slowly transforming the dusty and rock strewn pitch into a concert venue worthy of any
professional touring musician. Sound and lighting technicians check lights and microphones
from a mixing booth in the middle of the soccer field. As they set-up a tent over the mixing
board, I wonder silently to myself whether or not it will be enough to protect the equipment from
the water fights that are the hallmark of carnaval celebrations throughout Ecuador. Meanwhile,
local families attend to their chosas, the conjoined wooden and straw-thatched booths lining the
perimeter of the soccer field that will serve as food and beverage vending booths. An estimated
40 families from Chota and surrounding communities are representing the gastronomy of the
Chota-Mira valley in this year’s celebration. Many have been preparing for weeks if not months,
procuring ingredients and supplies from Ibarra and stewing large pots full of guandules (a type
of pea), chicken, potatoes, corn, rice, and other foods commonly found at the dinner tables of
local households. As if drawn by the delightful scents wafting in the wind, the first vehicles
from outside the region pull off of the Pan American highway and into the community, making
their way to the makeshift parking lot alongside the river. A bulldozer had extended and
smoothed over the bank of the river days in advance, creating a levy with the remaining earth
48
and rocks. Curious as to the impact of this man made structure on the river-itself, I would later
observe that the levy and parking lot would succumb to the force of the river and ultimately
return to its original form. Even with the additional space, I found it difficult to imagine the
estimated thousands that would attend the event and transform this otherwise tranquil
community.
Carnaval Coangue is perhaps the largest and most well known carnaval (pre-Lent
festival) celebration in the province of Imbabura. Held annually since 2001 in the community of
Chota, the event prominently showcases afrochoteño culture and identity through music, dance,
food, and pageantry. The event is produced by the Fundación Piel Negra (Black Skin
Foundation) in conjunction with the municipality of Imbabura and involves the collaboration of
numerous families directly involved in the sale of food and beverages, some twenty different
music and dance groups providing entertainment, sound engineers, local policeman and
firefighters, and the residents of Chota who welcome into their community an estimated five- to
ten-thousand visitors over the course of three days. Carnaval Coangue attracts afrochoteños
living in other parts of Ecuador as well as curious mestizo and indigenous Ecuadorians from
Ibarra and Quito and international tourists from Korea, the Netherlands, the United States,
Canada, the United Kingdom, and Italy, among other nations.
With its diversity of people, music, and events, the festival in itself adequately captures
the eclectic and often times conflicting elements that constitute afrochoteño identity and the
reality of life in the Chota-Mira valley today. Among the live music acts scheduled for 2008, for
example, are Bomba groups ranging widely in style from more traditional to Bomba-salsa
fusions, local rap and reggaeton performers, salsa bands, the banda mocha of Salinas, a capoeira
troupe from Quito featuring afrochoteño jogadores (players), a Colombian vallenato band, and a
coastal afroesmeraldeño group. In addition, area youth Bomba dance troupes and an invited
Colombian folkloric dance troupe are scheduled to demonstrate traditional Afro-Ecuadorian and
Afro-Colombian dances. Interspersed are such events as a beauty pageant, aerobics, and a parade
of traditional African clothing.
Opening this year’s celebration is Milton Tadeo. Originally from the neighboring
community of Carpuela, Milton Tadeo was among the first Bomba musicians to commercially
record La Bomba and represent the region musically at the national and international level (see
Schechter 1994). His career as a professional musician spanned nearly thirty years (from the
49
1980s to the time of his death in 2009), during which time he produced several now famous
Bombas. Among them are “Carpuela Linda,” “El Puente de Juncal,” and “Zamba Zamba.” Of
these, “Carpuela Linda” in particular has risen to a place of national prominence and is today
widely recognized among black and non-black Ecuadorians alike as emblematic of La Bomba.
The song, which references a local historical event—the flooding of the river Chota-Mira—
speaks to the social conditions facing many families in Carpuela, namely the social and
economic devastation caused by their proximity to the unpredictable and turbulent river. So
popular has this song become that Milton, in response to the somewhat negative light in which
his beloved community of Carpuela was portrayed in the song and the defeatist tone of the lyrics,
wrote a second Bomba literally inverting the text. The famous line “Yo ya no quiero vivir en
este Carpuela” (“I no longer want to live in this Carpuela”) became “Yo si quiero vivir en este
Carpuela” (“I do want to live in this Carpuela”). As Milton explained in the liner notes to the
Bomba compilation CD titled Por el camino de los abuelos (FECONIC 2001), “’Aqui mismo en
mi tierra lucharemos, desde aqui demonstraremos que somos capaces de surgir’” (“Here in this
my land we shall struggle, from here we shall show that we are capable of
arising[overcoming]”). It is with this spirit that he and the community of the Chota-Mira valley
proudly celebrate the first day of Carnaval Coangue 2008.
Already approaching noon, the day’s events are off to a late start as cars and busses filled
with visitors trickle in slowly from the highlands. Within a matter of hours the single road
leading into and out of the community of Chota will be entirely congested. Mestizos arriving
from Quito, Ibarra, and even parts of Colombia wander to the river and survey the chosas and the
delicacies offered. Foreign tourists, with their backpacks and cameras, more boldly explore the
community itself, walking up and down the main street and interacting with the children who
delight in meeting outsiders and having their picture taken. Local afrochoteños linger in their
doorways and near the chosas, conversing and sharing beer while observing the incoming crowd.
Meanwhile, the first musical group, a local rapero (rapper) and turn-table duo who go by
the name of Rap City, takes to the stage and performs to their faithful fans and curious outsiders
gathering in front of the stage. The rapero dons a long black-sleeve tee shirt, red, baggy warmup gym pants, and a nondescript red and white baseball cap. In true rapper fashion, he also
sports a thickly braided gold necklace, several shiny rings, and a dazzling earing. Gesticulating
with his free hand, he lets loose a torrent of rhymes while leaning in close to his DJ who bobs his
50
head and busily adjusts his headphones with one hand while tweaking the knobs on his turntable
and preparing another record with the other. As people file into the field, they pause briefly to
admire the scene and continue on their way, either uninterested or turned off by the poor sound
quality rendering the lyrics indiscernible. The rapper seems unconcerned continuing his set
while sound technicians frantically adjust levels on the mixing board.
The musicians seem un-phased by the ensuing distraction in the crowd who between
watching and listening, eating, and dancing, are otherwise preoccupied with staying dry.
Grinning children with buckets of river-water and canisters of sticky pink foam-spray stalk
potential unsuspecting victims. The children are bested only by a firefighter who lets loose a
torrent of water into the gathering crowd from the hose of a fire-truck situated toward the far-end
of the soccer field opposite the stage. The cool water is a welcome respite from the hot midday
sun, and festival goers over the course of the festival take advantage of the proximity of the river
to wet their feet and heads despite its brownish tinge. The sound engineer protectively guards
his mixing board from the children hovering nearby seeking to catch him off-guard. He barks at
them sternly attempting to warn them that he and his equipment were somehow immune to the
unspoken rules of Carnaval water-play, that any and all are fair game. His concern was well
warranted and his warning little heeded as I later learned. The children’s right-to-play eventually
bested the vigilance of the sound technician by the second afternoon of the festivities. With
water-damage sustained by the mixing board, the organizers of Carnaval Coangue had little
choice but to cancel the remainder of the evening’s program.
The Rap City duo concludes their set and the substantially larger crowd begins to dance
as the DJ cues the set-change with a Bomba-mix CD. By the time Milton Tadeo takes the stage
nearly forty-minutes later (and some two hours after originally scheduled), the audience has
grown to full capacity, filling in the space enclosed by the stage and the chosas. At no other
point in the festival will the soccer field-remain this saturated for the duration of a single
performance. The six piece band takes their places and the audience settles in anticipation.
Milton’s band consists of a bombero (bomba player), bongo player, a guiro player, a bass
guitarist, an amplified acoustic guitar player, and a requinto player: a typical Bomba ensemble
arrangement he and other initial Bomba groups in the late 1970s and 1980s helped to make
popular and standardize through their many performances and recordings. In contrast to the
informal attire of Rap City, Milton’s fellow band members appear professional in their pressed
51
white pants, black leather shoes, and button down red satin long-sleeve shirts. As if paying
homage to the roots of the genre, the bombero alone and without introduction begins the familiar
rhythmic pattern that is the hallmark of La Bomba. As the percussive tones ring out over the
enclosed valley, amplified by the surrounding hills, the audience enthusiastically moves their feet
and hips in sync with the binary beat. The rest of the ensemble joins in unison vamping on the
intro as Milton, distinguished from the band by his button down black long sleeve satin shirt,
slowly makes his way up the stairs and onto the stage greeting fans along the way. He strides
confidently to the end of a long platform jutting from the center of the stage set-up especially for
his performance. A roar erupts from the crowd as Milton begins the opening lines of “Carpuela
Linda.”
Off to the side of the stage toward the back, an elderly afrochoteña wearing the typical
white embroidered head-scarf, light sweater, and multi-layered knee-length skirt dances in an
elegant and stately fashion as a young man in jeans and a T-shirt circles her in the traditional
manner.
***
La Bomba is a genre of music and dance unique to the Chota-Mira valley. The word Bomba
refers to a confluence of related constituent elements: a specific double-headed drum, a rhythm,
dance, and a social event. Its origins are thought to be with the enslaved African population
brought to the region during the seventeenth century. As the vignette above shows, its
development over the past three hundred some years has followed diverse paths in its
interpretation. Afrochoteños today strongly identify with La Bomba as both a tradition reflective
of local history and culture and as a contemporary art form speaking to their daily needs, desires,
and aspirations.
This chapter explores the relationship between La Bomba and afrochoteño identity today
in situating representations thereof in relation to the current dynamics of race and racism in
Ecuador and the sociopolitical struggles of the afrochoteño communities. The mobilization of
ethnic identitary movements among Ecuador’s subaltern populations (indigenous and afrodescendant) since the 1990s has led to considerable changes in perceptions and representations
of race and national identity. The notion of interculturalidad, in its challenge of the
homogenizing and racist ideology of mestizaje (race mixture), and the related Afro-Ecuadorian
52
project and movement known as etnoeducación (ethnoeducation), in its cultivation of local
ethnic identity, are responsible for the reconceptualization of local history and culture among
Ecuador’s black communities. Current representations of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity
must be understood in relation to these shifting sociopolitical dynamics as they emerge from and
respond to this context.
The following thus briefly outlines current dynamics of race and racism in Ecuador and
considers how they inform contemporary representations of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity
at the national and local level through an examination and discussion of two nationally touring
museum exhibits (Afrodescendientes and El Color de la Diaspora), two exemplary Bomba
groups from the Chota-Mira valley (Marabu and Sol Naciente), and local discourse about La
Bomba and afrochoteño identity. These representations, in their simultaneous emphasis on the
distinctive local and shared transnational Diasporic dimensions of afrochoteño history and
culture, index the afrocentric discourse and dual Africa/African Diaspora rhetoric espoused by
etnoeducación (ethnoeducation). This Afro-Ecuadorian led educative project and sociopolitical
movement seeks to socially consolidate and politically strengthen Ecuador’s black population in
its cultivation of black ethnic identity so as to engage in the national discourse on
interculturalidad (interculturality) and thus participate in the newly envisioned pluricultural and
plurinational state. In so doing, however, etnoeducación, in its construction of black ethnic
identity at the intersection of Africa, the nation, and the Diaspora, is allowing for the creative
appropriation of transnational Diasporic cultural elements otherwise incommensurate with the
sociohistorical reality of the afrochoteño communities.
Current manifestations of La Bomba, as exemplified by Marabu and Sol Naciente, reflect
this duality in the preservation of the genre as a local tradition and cultural heritage rooted in
Africa on the one hand, and, on the other, as popular culture expressive of and responsive to the
particular afrochoteño experience of blackness in Ecuador and the African Diaspora. Though
this bifurcation in the development of the genre has led to local debates concerning authenticity
and cultural change, this phenomenon is best understood as two divergent yet interrelated and
complementary expressions of the local/global duality inherent in the afrocentric rhetoric of
etnoeducación. Such a perspective exposes claims to authenticity and contemporary
representations of afrochoteño identity as power invested discourses employed in the service and
reflective of specific sociopolitical agendas. Within such a context, questions of cultural change
53
are rendered moot as the notion of black ethnicity and its relation to music in the African
Diaspora is problematized.
Though local discourse about La Bomba and afrochoteño identity likewise reifies the
roots and routes rhetoric of etnoeducación, it also reveals a means of approaching afrochoteño
identity beyond representation in its equation of La Bomba with life and blackness. This
suggests that La Bomba, rather than reflect ethnicity, embodies the particular afrochoteño
experience of blackness in Ecuador and the African Diaspora. The concluding section thus
argues that, given the sociopolitical dynamics informing the recent development and
representation of afrochoteño identity, La Bomba constitutes the colonial difference and indexes
the coloniality of power in its discursive and dynamic representation of afrochoteño identity
today.
Interculturalidad and Etnoeducación
Following the removal of Abdala Bucaram from the executive office in 1998, president Fabian
Alarcon convened a national constitutional assembly for the purpose of drafting a new
constitution, one that would better reflect the nation in its diverse constituency, common
humanity, and unity in social and political aspirations. 1 The resultant document, spurred by
growing unrest in the nation’s marginalized and disenfranchised indigenous and AfroEcuadorian populace, for the first time in Ecuadorian history recognized the existence and
relative autonomy of the nation’s diverse ethnic constituency (Walmsley 2004, 22; Van Cott
2002, 58-67). No longer a nation defined in terms of a singular homogenous social, cultural,
historical, economic, and political ideal (as expressed in the concept of mestizaje), Ecuador was
now a pluricultural and plurinational state. This is to say that within its boundaries coexist a
multiplicity of histories, social, political, and economic systems, epistemological orientations,
1
For further information about the 1998 revision of Ecuador’s constitution and the role of
indigenous uprisings in enacting constitutional reform, see Becker (2011, 57-60), Pallares (2007, 152).
See also Van Cott (2002, 58-67) for constitutional reform in the greater Andes region.
54
social and economic needs, and political agendas that converge, in conflictive as well as
harmonious ways, to constitute the nation in its plurality (Walsh 2006, 26). 2
The amendment to the constitution’s portrayal of national identity in its premise of unity
in diversity is founded upon the indigenous movement’s platform of interculturalidad
(interculturality), today a significant sociopolitical trope operative at all levels of government in
Ecuador. 3 As Catherine Walsh (Ibid., 24) notes, while the concept of interculturalidad itself is
not unique to Ecuador, its particular use and sociopolitical trajectory as a result of the efficacy of
the indigenous ethnic identitary movements makes it unique in relation to other manifestations
and uses of the term in other parts of Latin America. Within Ecuador interculturalidad emerged
with CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador) during the 1990s as a means of
unifying the diverse social and political interests and agendas of the various and competing
socio-cultural organizations representing the disparate social and political needs of Ecuador’s
numerous and distinct indigenous communities toward the creation of a plurinational state (Ibid.,
25). As CONAIE makes explicit, the ultimate aim of the plurinational state, whose principles are
founded on the ideals of interculturalidad, is to put an end to those social and economic woes
inherited from the colonial period that have maintained the marginalization and exclusion of
Ecuador’s indigenous and afro-descendant population (CONAIE 2003, 2: Walsh 2006, 27). As
an ideology, interculturalidad thus posits a vision of society distinct from and counter to that
characterized by mestizaje: an exclusionary and homogenizing model of citizenship premised on
the erasure of cultural difference (Whitten and Quiroga 1998; Walmsley 2004).
Just as in other parts of Latin America, mestizaje as a master narrative of national identity
arose in Ecuador from nineteenth century political concerns with the post-colonial project of
2
See Pallares (2002, 184-217, 2007), Becker (2011, 12-17), for a discussion of the meaning,
origins, development, and social, political, and economic implications of the concepts of pluriculturalidad
and plurinacionalidad in the context of Ecuador.
3
See CONAIE (1997, 12) for a definition of interculturalidad as conceived by the indigenous
organization. See also Puente (2005) on the implications of interculturalidad for the nation state, and
Walsh (2006) for further discussion of interculturalidad and its relation to the indigenous movement and
the coloniality of power. On indigenous movements in Ecuador, see Clark (2005), Clark and Becker
(2007), Becker (2011), Field (1991), Pallares (2002, 2007), MacDonald (2002), Van Cott (2002), Viattori
(2009), Yashar (2005), and Zamosc (2004). See also Walsh (2006, 41) for discussion of interculturalidad
as it relates to multiculturalism.
55
nation building. 4 The need to project an identity distinct from Europe and elevated from that of
the “Indio” (Indian) led to the idealization of the mestizo as a being of superior qualities. A
positive eugenic conception of race mixture thus resulted in a conflation of race with class
similar, not coincidentally, from that which existed during the colonial period. Upward social
and economic mobility, while not solely determined by, was nonetheless greatly influenced by
race within this social structure. Conversely, ethnicities constructed opposite of the whitemestizo suffered stigmatization and the devaluation of their cultural traditions, belief systems,
forms of knowledge, and ways of living. Following this logic, state modernization efforts
during the latter part of the twentieth-century focused on the implementation of social and
economic programs not reflective of and responsive to local values and needs, thus reifying the
ideals of whitening (Chalá 2006; Jaramillo 1994, 53; Pabón 2007). So persuasive was the
equation of whiteness with modernity that the indigenous and black populations were not
officially recognized as citizens per se under the constitution until 1998 (Walmsley 2004, 19).
To this day, the pejorative use of the terms indio and negro to connote that which is
unproductive, uncultured, uneducated, uncouth, and unsafe stem from this association.
The 1998 constitution thus marks an important social as well as political victory for the
nation’s subaltern populations. Indigenas and Afro-Ecuadorians since the 1990s have gained
considerable visibility, representation, and influence in the nation’s political arena. The previous
twenty years alone have witnessed the popular overthrow of three governments (Abdala
Bucaram in 1997, Jamil Mahuad in 2000, and Lucio Gutierrez in 2005), the election of a
progressive leftist president, Raffeal Correa, who champions, at the very least at the level of
rhetoric, the ideals of interculturalidad and plurinacionalidad, the drafting of a new constitution
in 2007 that would eventually include even greater recognition of indigenous and afrodescendant autonomy, and the proliferation of indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian sociopolitical
organizations at various levels of government (see Becker 2011). Though too early to tell
whether or not the adoption of interculturalidad is fundamentally transforming the social and
political structures that have long maintained the status-quo, it is certain that it has begun a
4
See Walmsely (2004) and Whitten and Quiroga (1998) for a discussion of mestizaje, its
development and social and economic implications in Ecuador. See also Appelbaum, Macpherson and
Rosemblatt (2003), Graham (1990), Radcliffe and Westwood (1996), and Wade (1997) for a discussion of
state co-option and implementation of mestizaje as an ideology of national identity in Latin America in
general.
56
process of validation and affirmation among the indigenous and Afro-descendant populations.
For Afro-Ecuadorians in particular, this means a burgeoning awareness of ethnic identity and
renewed interest in local history and cultural traditions.
As noted above, the internalization of the racist principle of whitening implicit in the
ideology of mestizaje led to the stigmatization of local cultural traditions and ways of life. Prior
to the 1990s, as Schechter (1994) observed, a conception of black ethnic identity was nonexistent
in the Chota-Mira valley. In the years following the 1960s agrarian reforms, afrochoteño youth
eager to advance socially and economically emigrated from the region to the nation’s urban
centers and shunned the traditions of their elders in favor of more “modern” forms of living.
Telenovelas, national and international popular dance musics, and urban commodities replaced
afrochoteño oral narrative traditions such as stories, riddles, games, and La Bomba, and material
culture. Likewise, knowledge of local history and traditions, passed down orally, gave way to
textbooks on the history and culture of Ecuador as told from the perspective of the white-mestizo
(see Pabón 2007). Local identity was thus conceived primarily in terms of place rather than race,
as in a pan-highland regional identity. Following the success of the indigenous movement in
changing the social and political vision of the nation from a monocultural to a plurinational state,
however, perceptions of local identity shifted from a negative to a positive association with
blackness.
Within the Afro-Ecuadorian communities, this transformation was enacted primarily
through an educative project and sociopolitical movement known as etnoeducación. 5 The
architect of etnoeducación in Ecuador, Afro-Esmeraldan educator Juan García Salazar began a
process of collecting, documenting, and imparting the history and cultural traditions of the AfroEcuadorian communities as early as the 1980s as a means of preserving and validating local
knowledge. In the context of the social and political changes of the 1990s, etnoeducación
assumed even greater significance as a resource in the sociopolitical struggles of the AfroEcuadorian communities. As García himself notes (n.d., 14) etnoeducación is a process of
identity construction involving the cultivation and inculcation of local history and culture toward
the successful participation of the Afro-Ecuadorian population in that social and political project
conceptualized in the vision of an intercultural and plurinational state (Pabón 2007, 96; Walsh
5
See Pabón (2007, 95-107, 2009), García (n.d.), and Walsh (2006, 17) on etnoeducación.
57
2006, 39). Oral history projects, workshops on various aspects of Afro-Ecuadorian history and
culture and on etnoeducación itself, educational materials such as textbooks, and the
development of an educational curriculum founded on the ideals of etnoeducación and speaking
to the needs of local communities thus helped revive interest in once neglected cultural traditions
and foster a sense of regional and shared national black ethnic identity (Pabón 2007, 101; see
FECONIC 2001, 2005).
The impact of etnoeducación on perceptions of black ethnic identity is evident in
representations of afrochoteño identity simultaneously celebrating its local as well as
transnational dimensions. Etnoeducación’s emphasis on cultural roots and shared struggles
situate afrochoteños within the greater transregional and transnational community of afrodescendants in the New World. As such, a truly transnational dialogue has emerged between
Afro-Ecuadorians and other black Diasporic communities in Latin America and the United States
as well as with Africa. The proliferation of local and national Afro-Ecuadorian and transnational
Afro-American sociopolitical organizations as well as the various conferences and congresses
through which they interact speak to the enactment of this community. These networks affirm
and lend support to local Afro-Ecuadorian struggles and sociopolitical agendas. They also, as
will be shown below, infuse local struggles with a transnational discourse of race and black
resistance founded on an afrocentric perspective of black ethnic identity. Consciously aware of
their position vis. a vis. the nation as both pertaining to and transcendent of its boundaries,
afrochoteños today resource Africa and the Diaspora in representations of local identity as
encouraged by etnoeducación in its sociopolitical agenda.
The following briefly examines the ways in which the afrocentric discourse fostered by
etnoeducación and fueled by transnational Diasporic links is manifested in portrayals of
afrochoteño identity as specifically represented in two national museum exhibits and
afrochoteño discourse about La Bomba and afrochoteño identity. The exhibits
Afrodescendientes and El Color de la Diaspora, respectively co-sponsored by the Banco Central
de Ecuador and the United States Embassy, and the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar and The
University of Tennessee, are significant precisely because they are the first two nationally and
internationally touring representations of Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture curated by AfroEcuadorians themselves. As will be shown, afrochoteños readily engage the afrocentric
58
discourse evident in these exhibits in local discussions about La Bomba and afrochoteño identity,
though often in contradictory ways.
El Color de la Diaspora and Afrodescendientes
El Color de la Diaspora
El Mate nos explicaron luego los mayores, es para sacar con cuidado el agua que es
Buena para beber, las piedras que están en el fondo son parte de la fuente, pero no se
pueden beber. Así es esto de la cultura, tenemos que aprender a sacar con cuidado lo
que es propio y dejar en el fondo lo que es ajeno. El calabazo—nos dijeron—es para
guardar el agua y tenerla a la mano, porque “no se puede ir a la fuente cada vez que se
tiene sed, el agua tiene que estar dentro de la casa para beber cuando se tiene sed.”
(Quoted in Leon and Garcia 2006, 27)
[The elders have explained to us that the gourd is to take with care the water that is good
to drink; the pebbles and stones that are at the bottom of the river are part of the source
but they cannot be drank. Culture is like this we have to learn to take with care that
which is ours and leave at the bottom that which belongs to others. The gourd—they
have told us—is to save the water and have it at hand, because “you cannot go to the
water source each time you are thirsty. The water has to be in the house to be able to
drink when you are thirsty.”]
La Memoria Colectiva es como una gran fuente, que siempre tiene agua para beber, pero
el que quiere beber de ella, tiene que traer su mata y su calabazo. (Ibid., 54)
[Collective Memory is like a great fountain that always has water to drink. He or she
who wishes to drink from the fountain has to bring his or her own gourd.]
July 27, 2006 (Quito, Ecuador): Soft white lights illuminate striking black and white
photographs tastefully arranged along the walls of a rectangular gallery. Rows of chairs, neatly
arranged before a table, occupy the center of the room while a set of musical instruments, long
conical drums known as conunos from the coastal province of Esmeraldas, huddle in a corner in
anticipation of a musical performance. The predominantly mestizo patrons, presumably
professors, intellectuals, and a few backpack wearing students of the Pontific Catholic University
of Ecuador converse quietly as they peruse the exhibit. Though early in the evening, only a few
Afro-Ecuadorians are present, including the curator and the musicians.
It is the opening night of “El Color de la Diaspora” (the Color of the Diaspora) at the
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Quito. A collaborative project involving the
59
Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar and the University of Tennessee, the exhibit conveys through
intimate photographs and personal quotes the diversity and vitality of the black communities of
the Chota-Mira valley and province of Esmeraldas. Curated by Edison León and William
Dewey and featuring photographs taken by León and Juan Garcia Salazar, “El Color de la
Diaspora” is scheduled for showings at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar and the Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Quito as well as at the University of Tennessee in the
United States over the course of six months (July-December 2006).
Pausing as I make my way around the gallery, I am drawn to a portrait of an elderly
woman, her head covered with a scarf in the fashion typical of afrochoteñas reclines against a
wall. I contemplate the stoic and resolute expression on her line worn face. Only her eyes,
weary and withdrawn, betray ever so slightly her thoughts and emotions. Moving on, I spot a
photograph of young man most likely from Esmeraldas with his eyes cast downward and a handcarved wooden pipe characteristic of the region clenched between his teeth. A broad smile parts
his lips. Yet another afrochoteño, a cigarette dangling from his lips, is captured feeding sugar
cane into a mill under a thatched roof. His torn and ragged collared shirt and the mildly annoyed
expression in his eyes indicate the intensity of the chore at hand. In contrast, a young boy
playing along the banks of what appears to be a river pauses to look at the camera directly, his
grinning smile lighting up his eyes with delight as he presents himself unabashedly to an
unknown audience of curious on-lookers. The images continue, juxtaposing the elderly with the
young, the past with the present, the stoic and stern with the playful and joyful, the coastal with
the highland region.
Interspersed throughout the gallery, select and poignant quotations from celebrated
authors and Afro-Ecuadorians from both the Chota-Mira valley and Esmeraldas give pause for
reflection and serve to contextualize the photographs and reinforce the concept informing the
exhibit. Attributed only to the collective memory of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities, the
quotations invoke the notions of individual and collective memory, oppression and struggle,
unity and difference, and pride and resilience. “El cura me bautizó como Zenón,” reads one such
quote “pero no me dijo quién soy, fue mi mamá la que cantando me dijo de dónde vengo y para
donde voy” (“the priest baptized me Zenon, but he did not tell me who I am, that was my mother
who in song told me from where I come and where I am going;” Leon and Garcia 2006, 19). Yet
another expresses the following similar sentiment:
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Mis mayores me dijeron que el ser que no conoce el razón de su diferencia y no aprende
de dónde nace esa diferencia, no puede saber para dónde tiene que caminar a la hora de
buscar la vertiente de su sangre y nadie puede vivir, sin beber de la vertiente de sus
ancestros. (Ibid., 31)
[My elders told me that the being who does not know the reason of his or her difference
and does not learn from where this difference is born, cannot know where to walk when
the time comes to look for the stream from where his or her blood comes. No one can
live without drinking from the stream of his or her ancestors.]
A common metaphor for vitality and cultural identity among Afro-Ecuadorians, water calls
attention to nourishing roots as well as fluid and often turbulent pathways. It also makes
reference to the vast body of water connecting the Afro-Ecuadorian communities of the ChotaMira valley and Esmeraldas with one another, Africa, and the greater African Diaspora. Indeed,
illuminating the differences between and interconnections among these afro-descendant
communities is the primary purpose of this exhibit. As the accompanying publication to “El
Color de la Diaspora” makes clear, “the exhibit is intended to build a more complete and
heterogeneous view of the African Diaspora, making clear that the construction of the African
Diaspora is not a finished totality, but rather is an emerging lived process” (Ibid., 5). At the
base of this diversity, as the text clarifies, however, is the unified history and experience of
slavery.
As if to underscore the diversity as well as unity of African Diasporic and AfroEcuadorian cultural expressions, renowned afroesmeraldeño musician and marimba specialist
Papá Roncón, accompanied by four young male percussionists, three elderly female vocalists,
and a group of mixed young male and female dancers, pause the evening’s informal viewing for
a performance of Esmeraldan arullos, and rhythms such as the bambuco typical of the coastal
Afro-Ecuadorian marimba repertoire minus the marimba itself. 6 Occupying the center of the
room now cleared of the chairs and table, Papá Roncón unceremoniously begins to play as the
other drummers and vocalists enter in accordingly. The patrons gather around, forming a semicircle around the ensemble. More than a few begin to move their feet and hips to the driving
rhythm of the guasá, a wooden shaker played with great force by the vocalists as they respond to
6
See Ritter (1998) and Whitten (1974, 124-137) on the coastal Esmeraldan marimba,
instrumentation, performance practice, and repertoire.
61
the lead singer. Papá Roncón and the lead vocalist seem unaware and unaffected by their
surroundings, performing as though to and for themselves and acknowledging the crowd’s
applause only briefly with an occasional passing nod. Responding to the rhythm of the conunos
(conical drums), guasá, and driving bombo (large bass drum rested horizontally and played with
two drum sticks: one on the drum head, the other on a wooden plank attached to the side of the
drum), the dancers move energetically, showcasing the playful dance between the male and
female typical of the coastal marimba dance repertoire (see Whitten 1974, 129). More cognizant
of the audience, the dancers improvise fanciful movements and dance with even greater fervor as
the onlookers enthusiastically cheer. By the end of the hour, the dancers are drenched in sweat,
out of breath, and smiling broadly. Papá Roncón says little to anyone else as he and his fellow
musicians quickly pack their musical instruments. He must be off to another performance, they
tell me.
In a corner of the room I see Edison León speaking with my father, a musician and AfroEcuadorian originally from the Chota-Mira valley now residing in the United States. Knowing
we would be present at the exhibit’s opening, Leon had asked my father to perform for the
remainder of the event. I grab the conga lent to us by a close family friend and adjust a chair
beside my father who tunes his guitar. A few patrons stop to listen and take photographs as we
begin to play a mixture of songs and rhythms from Afro-Ecuadorian Bomba to Afro-Colombian
cumbia, Afro-Cuban son, and Afro-Bolivian saya. I smile encouragingly as a mestizo couple
courageously begins to dance. My father, inspired by the event, sings a Bomba recalled from his
youth. Afterward, Leon approaches, and surprised comments on the obscurity of that particular
Bomba. He thanks us graciously at the end of the performance and we quickly join the rest of
the patrons as they began to take their conversations outside the gallery doors.
As a conscious representation of Afro-Ecuadorian identity to the Ecuadorian mestizo and
international intellectual communities, “El Color de la Diaspora” projects an image of blackness
that at once conveys its distinct regional and yet unified trans-regional and trans-national
character. This portrayal is consistent with the stated goals and objectives of etnoeducación.
That this is the case is not surprising considering the involvement of Juan García Salazar, the
founder of etnoeducación, and the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino (Afro-Andean Documentary
Foundation) whose purpose it is to “build and maintain a political affiliation with the collective
visual and oral memories” of Ecuador’s black communities (Ibid., 12). As will be shown in the
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following, this political agenda is made even more manifest in yet another nationally and
internatonally touring museum exhibit of Afro-Ecuadorian history and culture presented in 2007
and 2008.
Afrodescendientes
Ibarra, Ecuador 2008: A poster and an events board outside the entrance to the Casa de Cultura
in Ibarra advertise the recently arrived exhibit along with associated movie showings and lecturediscussions. I glance at the scheduled films, among them: “Tarjeta Roja,” an Ecuadorian
documentary about racism in soccer, and “Malcolm X.” Entering the enclosed courtyard, I
immediately catch sight of a raised wooden and thatched roof structure, representative of the
homes once typical of Esmeraldas. Hanging from the roof on one corner of the inside of the
home is a wooden-keyed xylophone. Two conical drums along with a large double-headed
barrel drum rest on the floor beneath the marimba. On the other side of the singular room hangs
a hammock. I rummage through my backpack in search of my camera when a security guard
calls out to me. I sign in as he warns me about their picture and video policy. I nod reluctantly
and pick up a program.
Afrodescendientes is a nationally touring exhibit sponsored by the Central Bank of Ecuador
and the United States Embassy. Curated by John Anton, an Afro-Ecuadorian scholar, it speaks
to the exclusion of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities in national representations of the history
and culture of Ecuador. In doing so, however, the exhibit also explicitly seeks to make social,
cultural, and political links with the broader African Diaspora and with the African American
community specifically. “In examining the relation between the afro-descendant communities of
Ecuador and of the United States of America it is possible to find outstanding interrelations and
common manifestations in the area of culture” asserts the brochure on the second paragraph of
the inside flap. “But, beyond those,” it concludes “there exists long links in the political scene.
One cannot ignore an Afro-American social movement shared in the struggle for the conquest of
civil rights, which has constituted in the most strong and fraternal lived experience.” Those
links, which encompass the cultural as an outgrowth and expression of this shared struggle, are
revealed in the exposition of the exhibit’s three main halls.
The first hall traces the history of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities. Timelines, graphs,
posters, maps, archival documents, and artifacts document the origins of the Afro-Esmeraldan
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and afrochoteño communities and the experience of slavery. Iron chains, cuffs, and whips are
displayed under clear glass cases, providing added depth to the illustrations of slave mistreatment
hanging on the walls. Countering the images of passivity, despair, and helplessness are
documented instances of slave rebellion and flight along with the names of local resistance
figures. The exhibit proceeds through manumission up to the agrarian reforms of the 1960s.
Here, the exhibit makes parallels with the abolishment of slavery in the United States and the
civil rights movement. Pictures and biographies of prominent Afro-Ecuadorian leaders and
educators advocating for social justice and for pride in local black culture are depicted alongside
African American leaders such Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson. The
hall ends with a picture of the starting line-up of the national soccer team posing on the pitch just
prior to their 2006 FIFA World Cup tournament debut in Germany: nine of the eleven players are
Afro-Ecuadorian.
The second hall contains displays showcasing and explaining various aspects of AfroEcuadorian culture. A wall of clay masks represents the artisanship of the afrochoteño
community of Mascarillas. Though this is a nouveaux tradition inspired by African mask
making techniques and instigated by the influence of a European artist residing in the region,
Mascarillas is today well-known throughout Ecuador for these masks, which can be found in
markets and shops catering to tourists in the nation’s urban centers. Hanging neatly on the
opposite wall are articles of jewelry and clothing typical of the coastal region: necklaces and
earings of pearly white tagua (a seed), a hair-tie and tobacco pouch most likely also made of
tagua, and a belt and pair of hats made from the fibers of a local tree. In one corner stands a type
of alter adorned with flowers. Three religious iconic figurines, two women most likely
representing Mary (one of which holds a child) and a monk cradling a child rest at its base.
Nearby, a plaque describes the procession of Saint Martin de Porres along the river Santiago in
the northern part of Esmeraldas. Yet another display diagrams the cosmology of the AfroEcuadorian communities. The depiction of an intermediary world between the natural and
supernatural world, described in Roman Catholic terms as heaven, hell, and purgatory, makes
evident the confluence of European and African belief systems in the development of AfroEcuadorian culture. Unfortunately, the display fails to mention that this particular view, or
cosmo-vision, pertains solely to the communities of the coastal region and not the highlands.
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The third and final hall contains interactive displays juxtaposing Afro-Ecuadorian and
African American music and dance. A marimba and an accompanying set of conunos and a
bombo rest against a wall alongside a flowing white and green dress. In a nearby corner, a bottle
partially filled with water hangs above a circular black platform. A small sign against the wall
reads “el baile de la botella” (“the bottle dance”) in reference to a style of dance associated with
La Bomba.
Listening stations with headphones are spread throughout the hall, each looping
examples of La Bomba, la banda mocha, marimba, jazz, and hip-hop. Displays with descriptions
of the genres depicted line the walls while a video-screen plays a short documentary on the
banda mocha. An entire wall devoted to jazz highlights the development of the genre, paying
tribute to the life and career of Louis Armstrong. Yet another display contains information about
the Harlem renaissance.
I look through the third hall once more, certain that I had missed something: could it be
that such an exhibit, which purports to represent the diversity of Ecuador’s afro-descendant
communities, not contain an actual bomba? I walk toward the exit in disbelief, catching a
glimpse once more of the words written above the station labeled hip-hop: “Today, various AfroEcuadorian musical groups dedicate themselves to the interpretation of Caribbean influenced
rhythms, like son, salsa, and guaguancó, or to genres of north American origin like hip-hop.”
***
As with “El Color de la Diaspora,” the exhibit “Afrodescendientes” references the Afrocentric
and Diasporic dimensions of the current rhetoric of etnoeducación and the greater socio-poltical
discourse on Afro-Ecuadorian identity in its representation of a heterogenous Afro-Ecuadorian
cultural identity yet unified transnationally with other black communities in the Americas
through common roots and struggles. This conception of Afro-Ecuadorian identity as distinctly
Ecuadorian while simalteanously Afro-American, as in both local and global, is evident also in
current manifestations of La Bomba in their representation of afrochoteño identity as will be
shown below. As noted previously, etnoeducación may be credited with the revival of once
neglected cultural traditions such as La Bomba. This has led to the conscious maintenance of La
Bomba as a tradition celebrated for its links to Africa and afrochoteño cultural heritage as well as
to its transformation as a popular music genre responsive to the lived experiences of
afrochoteños today. Indeed, renewed interest in the genre on the part of afrochoteño youth is
65
generating musical innovations reflective of a conscious awareness of an identity that is both a
part of and yet transcendent of the nation. While sparking debate among afrochoteños
concerning the issue of authenticity and cultural change, the current bifurcation between
traditional and what some have termed modern bomba (La Bomba moderna) is ultimately the
manifestation of the duality local/global (Afro-Ecuadorian/African Diaspora) referenced in the
rhetoric of etnoeducación. The following presents a brief examination of two Bomba groups,
Marabu and Sol Naciente, currently popular in the Chota-Mira valley exemplary of this duality.
La Bomba Tradicional (Traditional) and La Bomba Moderna (Modern):
Marabu and Sol Naciente
Marabu and Bomba Tradicional (Traditional Bomba)
April, 2008, Ibarra: Nearly three four and six bands into the Bomba marathon-like concert event
fittingly advertized as “El bombazo,” the venue, the coliseo (coliseum) located in Ibarra’s north
side, is only just beginning to fill with people in anticipation of the headlining band, Marabu.
The lead vocalist and band leader Plutarco Viveros walks casually around the open gymnasium,
occasionally pausing to greet and converse with members of the audience as his band-mates and
sound crew begin to set-up their equipment on stage. Plutarco slowly makes his way to the
stage, laughing and shaking hands as he does. His elegant button down silk red shirt, white
pleated pants, and shiny black shoes match those of his five band members: guitarist and vocalist
Patricio Viveros, bass guitarist Lester Viveros, bomba player and vocalist Gustavo Viveros,
bongo player Augusto Espinoza, and guiro player Estaban Borja. Exchanging only a quick
glance at his bandmates as he picks up his requinto, Plutarco briefly adjusts the tuning before
launching directly into a lively Bomba set in a compound duple-meter. With great force,
Gustavo accents the slap-tones played near the rim of the drum, producing a hemiola pattern
heard against the bass and propelling the song in a forward driving motion. The energetic and
attention grabbing introduction brings the audience to their feet and they quickly fill the space in
front of the stage as they dance and holler in approval. They join in song as Patricio begins to
sing:
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Vivencias
Lived Experiences
Con el permiso de los patrones
celebremos el santo de nuestra devoción
With the permission of our masters
Let us celebrate the saint of our devotion
Y les ofrecemos nuestra cultura
porque se siente que es nuestra identidad
And we offer you our culture
Because we feel it is our identity
mujeres negras danzando en procesión
sacando a flote lo que es la tradición
Black women dancing in procession
Bringing out what is our tradition
Y con vestuarios queremos demostrarle
que fueron vivencias de nuestros ancestrales
And with outfits we want to show
That these were the lived experiences of our
ancestors
***
I greet Plutarco graciously at the door of my apartment in Ibarra. As the band leader of one of
the more renowned and respected Bomba groups in Ecuador, Plutarco maintains an active
performing and touring schedule that has made arranging an interview a challenge. He begins to
apologize for the difficulty as I thank him for his time and usher him into the living room and
offer him a seat. Over six feet tall with an athletic build, the former professional soccer player
commands an authoritative presence offset only by his warm smile and congenial and humble
persona. I ask him about his involvement with Bomba and about the origins and history of the
group Marabu.
La Bomba has its heritage, he tells me, in the memory of the slaves. It was they who
recalled this tradition and why it was done. He explains that though not permitted to make music
other than on specific days designated for festivities, the slaves were allowed to hold their own
celebration apart from that of the slave-master. This, he notes, is where La Bomba first started.
He adds that his grandfather, a former slave who lived to be over 100 years of age, told him long
ago that La Bomba is a rich part of afrochoteño cultural heritage with which all afrochoteños
should be familiar. It was this sentiment that inspired the formation and mission of the group
today known as Marabu.
The original intent of the group, comments Plutarco, was not to make money, but to bring
people together and impart awareness among afrochoteños of La Bomba as a distinct part of their
cultural heritage. He explains that during the 1980s, many of his fellow peers gravitated towards
foreign commercial popular music and dance rhythms such as the music of Michael Jackson and
67
breakdancing. At the same time, contends Plutarco, existing recording Bomba groups became
more commercialized as concerns with money began to supersede those of maintaining and
sharing La Bomba as a cultural tradition. Thus, in 1980 at the age of sixteen, Plutarco, along
with Gustavo Viveros and Marcelo Acosta, formed a group called La bomba nueva generación
in their hometown of Mascarillas in the Chota-Mira valley. Throughout much of the 1980s while
Plutarco lived in Quito where he played soccer professionally with La Liga, the group would
perform cultural programs at local hostels and museums such as the Oasis and the Honka Monka
for tourists during the weekends. As the group grew in popularity, they were presented the
opportunity to play at local, provincial, and regional festivals and competitions that eventually
provided them with their first recording opportunity. It was in the context of one such regional
festival that the concept for Marabu was born.
As Plutarco recalls, the idea and name for the group Marabu emerged in 1990 during a
collaborative project involving indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian musicians and music. Weary of
the motives of the indigenous and mestizo producers, the group initially declined only to change
their minds after a successful performance at a celebration of Inti Raimi among neighboring
highland indigenous communities. It was at that moment that one of the producers of the project,
then director of the ministry of indigenous affairs, encouraged Plutarco and the other band
members to change their name to something more “African.” Consulting with local friend and
afrochoteño scholar José Chalá, they scoured the dictionary, eventually agreeing on the name
Marabu. As Plutarco explains, Marabu is the name of a large and today endangered bird native
to Africa. Though hesitant to adopt the name at first knowing that the bird in question is a
scavenger, the group decided that it suited their purposes nonetheless in making direct reference
to the continent of Africa. It was thus with the intention of foregrounding and sharing the origins
of La Bomba and afrochoteño culture that Marabu was conceived.
Since 1990, Marabu has continued to grow in popularity and has succeeded in its mission
of maintaining, sharing and imparting the significance of La Bomba as a cultural tradition with
African roots with audiences not only in the Chota-Mira valley itself, but at the national and
international level as well. Plutarco proudly notes that on every one of the five albums recorded
thus far there are at least a few tracks that speak to La Bomba as afrochoteño cultural heritage,
such as “Bomba Caliente” from their first album, “Bomba Bomba” from their second album, “A
Golpe de Bomba” from their third album, “Vivencias” from their fourth album, and “Coangue”
68
from their most recent album. As cultural ambassadors, the group was honored with an
invitation to tour and perform in South Korea during the summer of 2005. So enthusiastic was
their reception by the people of South Korea that their invitation was extended for yet another
three months. Plutarco recounts this experience with a mixture of awe and bewilderment as
though surprised by their success and the positive public response.
When he pauses to reflect on the differences between Marabu and the various other
Bomba groups active in the Chota-Mira valley today, however, Plutarco reaffirms his belief that
Marabu’s success lies precisely in its focus on their original mission of preserving and sharing
La Bomba as a tradition unique to the afro-descendants of the Chota-Mira valley. “¿Y esto, que
tiene de bomba?” (“And this, what does it have of Bomba?”) he states rhetorically in reference to
a newly acquired Bomba mix compact disc featuring many of the youth Bomba groups in the
region. Many of these groups, he notes, started as cover bands emulating the repertoire and style
of older generation Bomba groups like Marabu. Some of these groups even took on the name of
the original bands imitated, distinguishing themselves only with the prefix mini, as in mini-GDR
and mini Marabu. Though Plutarco admits that he is pleased that afrochoteño youth are learning
the music and continuing with an interest in La Bomba, he is afraid that they are blurring the
distinction between traditional Bomba and that which other groups like Sol Naciente profess to
be Bomba. Shaking his head, he states again even more firmly as if to leave no uncertainty, “eso
no es Bomba” (“that is not Bomba”).
Sol Naciente and La Bomba Moderna (Modern Bomba)
April, 2008, community of Chota, Chota-Mira valley: Another young women takes the stage and
proudly walks around the raised platform, posing every few moments and moving her hips to the
Bomba playing in the background much to the delight of the cheering audience. Barefoot and
hair covered with a scarf, she wears a pleated knee-length skirt and a beige blouse. The MC,
ushering the next model onto the stage, moves the program along while encouraging the
boisterous audience: “Muy bien, ahí tenemos una niña mas. Son vestimentas autenticas de la
comunidad, del ayer, como vestían las abuelitas! Que sigan!” (“very good, we have yet another
young lady. They are authentic clothing of the community of yesterday, as our grandmother’s
once dressed! May they continue!”). The parade of models continues for another twenty-five
minutes featuring girls and boys to young women and men donning both traditional and
69
contemporary clothing of the Chota-Mira valley: bare-feet give way to high-heels, modest skirts
and blouses to tight jeans and elegant dresses, button-down white collared shirts and indigenous
style hats to soccer jerseys, sunglasses, and sideways worn baseball caps as the event wares on.
By the end of the fashion show, the Coliseo in the community of Chota is filled with
people of all ages and from various neighboring communities and even Ibarra and Quito. They
stand huddled in groups or as couples, some purchasing and sharing beer in the customary
communal fashion, while others wait outside smoking or sharing the potent local homemade
sugar cane liquor known as aguardiente. The evening’s festive program and mood stands in
stark contrast to the otherwise somber events of Semana Santa (Holy Week) consuming the
community of Chota that week, and it is evident from the restless shuffling of feet that the
audience in attendance is ready to dance. They make their way toward the center of the hall in
anticipation as Sol Naciente, the only band scheduled to perform that evening, finishes their
sound check.
The eight-piece band crammed onto the rectangular stage features a drum set, electric
keyboard, electric bass, timbales, congas, bongos, guitar, and metal scrapers. With a brief
introduction, they set the audience to dancing with a fast paced song in simple duple-meter
reminiscent of a Bomba in its rhythmic foundation but with the melodic and harmonic
characteristics and lyrical content of a contemporary romantic pop ballad. Furthermore, the
addition of the timbales, conga, bongos, guiro and clave provide a generic tropical/salsa tinged
flavor that the audience immediately responds to in the adjustment of their dance movements.
Sol Naciente moves from the Bomba-salsa-ballad fusion to another song featuring the keyboard
mimicking in voice and style the sound and rhythms of the coastal marimba. This song quickly
transitions in tempo to a fast-paced musical fusion similar to the previous song. The audience
dances without pausing just as the band moves from one song to the next for the duration of the
evening.
Sol Naciente has a loyal following in the region and has grown in popularity especially
among youth as a result of their innovative compositions. Originating in the community of
Chota, the band in its entirety consists of Vladimir Borja on bomba, Alejandro Carcelen on
bongo, Fidel Chalá on congas, Jorge Calderon on the drum set and timbales, Luis Angel Acosta
and Elmer Acosta on auxiliary hand percussion (i.e., guiro), Andres on guitar, Vladimir Minda
on bass guitar, Jason Chalá on keyboard and voice, and Calixto Calderon on voice. Though they
70
do consider themselves purveyors of La Bomba and indeed often share the same stage with such
groups as Marabu, they are aware that their unique approach sets their music apart from what
may be considered more traditional Bomba. For this reason, they tend to informally distinguish
their music as La Bomba moderna (modern Bomba).
Daniel Minda Lara, a percussionist specializing in bomba and congas, explains the
perspective of Sol Naciente with regards to La Bomba and tradition in non-essentializing terms.
He notes that while they did indeed start by imitating the sounds of more conventional Bomba
groups such as Mario Diego Congo (from Oro Negro), they have consciously sought to keep up
with the changing trends over time:
Se mantiene la tradición, no? pero igual se hace algo diferente, marcar la diferencia, eso
es lo que hiso Sol Naciente: marcar la diferencia, no solo mantener en un solo género . . .
Obviamente si estamos haciendo con los instrumentos tradicionales, pero ahora están
implementados algunos instrumentos como son el timbale, congas, los gemelos que
llamamos los bongos, hacemos con batería, . . . por hoy lo estamos hacienda igual con el
piano, el teclado, antes, igual se hacía con el bajo, veras, la bomba tradicional se lo hacia
así, guitarra, requinto nada más. El bajo se lo hacía a base de un puro que lo tocan en la
banda mocha. Entonces hoy [se lo hace] a la moda, se puede decir. Pero uno no está
metido en la moda, no, si no que las cosas que uno debe, lo mejor, no. Entonces lo
hacemos con esos instrumentos que han salido y que son muy importantísimos para la
música que hacemos nosotros.
Sol Naciente esta en un género que no lo hace nadie. Es un género que es propio, que es
muy diferente al resto de grupos. Nunca hay que olvidarse de la tradición, de la cultura,
[Pero] estamos enfocados en no hacer lo solo La Bomba tradicional, si no que hacer lo
para que cada lugar a donde nosotros vayamos, esa gente se siente a gusto de la música
que a ellos le guste. Entonces hacemos bomba, obviamente, merengue, salsa, hacemos
hasta bachata, como obviamente la bachata se está dando, lo hacemos baladas, y así un
poquito de músicas que hay, no solamente estar en ese género de la música bomba.
[[Sol Naciente] maintains the tradition, right? But at the same time they do something
different, mark the difference, that what Sol Naciente does: mark the difference, not just
stay in one single genre . . . Obviously we are [making music] with traditional
instruments, but now we are implementing some instruments like the timbale, congas, the
twins as we call the bongos, we play with drum set . . . today we are doing it also with
piano, the keyboard. Even before [Bomba] was played with a bass instrument: traditional
Bomba was done with guitar, requinto and nothing else. The bass was done using a
gourd which is played in the banda mocha. So today, [we play] according to what is in
style, so to speak. But one is not into what is stylish, but rather those things that one
should be [concerned with], the best, right? So we do it [make music] with those
instruments that have come out and that are extremely important for the music that we
make.
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Sol Naciente is in a genre that no one else does. It is our own genre, which is very
different from the rest of the groups. One must never forget about tradition, about
culture. [But] we are focused on not doing solely traditional Bomba, but rather to make
[Bomba/music] so that each place that we go [to play], those people feel the pleasure of
that music which they like. So we make Bomba, obviously, merengue, salsa, we even
make bachata, as it is obviously very popular today, we make ballads, and in this way a
little of the musics that there are, not just stay within the genre of Bomba.]
As Daniel suggests above, Sol Naciente adapts to the interests, tastes, and desires of their
audience in an effort to maintain La Bomba not as a static tradition, but as a popular music genre
responsive to contemporary trends and needs. Sol Naciente is thus not concerned with the
preservation of tradition and the issue of cultural change, but is instead preoccupied with
engaging La Bomba as an integral aspect of life as lived in the Chota-Mira valley and Ecuador
today.
This resonates with the dynamic notion of tradition and culture referenced in the black
diasporic routes rhetoric of etnoeducación as evident in “El Color de la Diaspora.” The emphasis
on black heterogeneity in its national and regional dimensions despite common origins provides
the foundation for a conception of culture, tradition, and identity as fluid, dynamic, and
discursive: as responsive to time and place. Thus Sol Naciente reconciles their artistic liberties
with La Bomba with recourse to black diasporic creativity in its celebrated tendency toward
appropriation, juxtaposition, mixture, and fusion. Furthermore, the evident appropriation of
formal and stylistic musical elements of other black diasporic musics such as salsa, son,
merengue, bachata, cumbia, and afro-esmeraldan marimba, for example, speaks to the growing
awareness among afrochoteño youth of their place not only within the nation, but globally as part
of a greater transnational community conceptualized in terms of Diaspora.
What appears, then, to be two disparate and contradictory practices of La Bomba, one
traditional and the other modern, is no more than a manifestation of the dual national and
transnational notion of Afro-Ecuadorian identity referenced and reified in the rhetoric of
etnoeducación. The African Diaspora, as the museum exhibits previously discussed show,
simultaneously connotes unity and difference. While common origins and struggles define the
Diaspora, the diversity of cultural expressions which comprise it arises from the divergent
sociohistorical trajectories necessitating creative adaptation on the part of local communities.
That Marabu emphasizes cultural origins and regional diversity while Sol Naciente celebrates
72
black cultural creativity and the shared cultural unity of the African Diaspora reflects more
differences in perspective rather than degrees of authenticity. It also shows the extent to which
current artistic choices in the representation of afrochoteño identity are informed by the rhetoric
and discourse of etnoeduación and interculturalidad.
Discourse about La Bomba and Afrochoteño Identity
Cristóbol Barahona pulls out three drums of varying width and diameter from a small shed and
sets them on their side on the dirt before me. “Recién hechos” (“recently made”), he explains as
he taps one of the hides with his fingers. He nods approvingly at the resultant resonant tone as
he sits in a chair and proceeds to place a medium sized drum on his knee. The instrument
consists of two hides stretched taught over a cylindrical body made from a hollowed tree-trunk.
Securing the drum heads and providing the necessary tension is a green nylon cord threading the
supple wooden loops fitting the hides onto the body of the drum. Placing it between his knees,
he begins to play the duple-meter rhythmic pattern characteristics of La Bomba. He then
suddenly stops to hold aloft the drum and admire the craftsmanship. “Este es la bomba” (“this is
the bomba”), he tells me.
Residing in the community of Juncal, Barahona is a skilled bomba maker whose
instruments are regularly commissioned by commercial Bomba musicians such as Milton Tadeo
as well as foreign musicians, tourists, and scholars. He explains that the bomba is an instrument
unique to the Chota-Mira valley, and that its roots lie with their enslaved ancestors who brought
the memory of this musical instrument and tradition with them from Africa. Traditionally made
of all natural materials found in the area, the drum requires the hides of a male and female goat,
the trunk of a balso tree, a vine known as pigua, the fibers of a cabuya plant, and a cord made of
deerskin. The hides are rubbed with ash and buried for the duration of approximately two weeks
after which time the hair is removed by hand and the hides cleaned with water. The hides are
then fit onto the drum using two loops made of the pigua vines. The cabuya fibers provide
thread for tying the vines together and sewing the hides onto the inner or lower loop. A cord,
ideally deer-skin, is then threaded between the outer or upper loops of the two hides along the
circumference of the drum and back around the drum tying together the V shaped threads so as
to provide the necessary tension. With a hint of pride and melancholy, Barahona claims to be the
73
sole bearer of this traditional craft. Well aware of the changing trends among younger Bomba
musicians who now choose to use congas, bongos, and timbales in place of the bomba, he states
that when he passes, so too will this specialized knowledge imparted to him by his ancestors:
“Cuando me muero, se muere esto conmigo” (“when I die, this will die with me”).
Despite Barahona’s dour pronouncement concerning the potential fate of the bomba,
afrochoteños are more hopeful about the place and current state of the genre as indicated by the
conscious positioning of groups like Marabu and Sol Naciente relative the notion of tradition.
Indeed, as the foundation for La Bomba, the drum is regarded as a source of pride among
afrochoteños. Regardless of its physical presence, the bomba is lauded as a symbol of African
roots and afrochoteño cultural heritage as well as an expression of contemporary afrochoteño
identity. As previously noted, this reflects in part the local/global relationship inherent in the
rhetoric of etnoeducación. Local testimonies concerning La Bomba and its meaning, however,
reveal an intimate relationship between La Bomba and afrochoteño identity that goes beyond the
ideological and sociopolitical agendas of etnoeducación and interculturalidad. It is here that a
deeper understanding of the genre and its significance with regards to afrochoteño identity may
be approximated.
Discussions of La Bomba necessarily start with a consideration of the drum and its
symbolic significance. In its construction, the bomba is thought to convey the cosmovisión
(cosmology or world-view) of the afrochoteño communities. As Plutarco Viveros explains, the
use of both male and female goat hides in particular are thought to be of great symbolic value in
this regard:
[La bomba] tenía que ser exclusivamente de cuero de chivo y chiva porque allí se expresa
el matrimonio, la creación; se expresa la cosmovisión mismo de lo que viene siendo la
cultura afrochoteña.
[[La bomba] had to be exclusively of a male and female goat hide because therein is
expressed matrimony, the creation; is expressed the very cosmovisión that comes to be
afrochoteño culture.]
Though unable to fully articulate this world-view, Plutarco reaffirms the significance of the
bomba as an integral aspect of afrochoteño identity and culture in his reference to this frequently
expressed interpretation of the drum (see Bueno 1991, 175; Chalá 2006, 158). In its
representation of the union between man and woman, the bomba embodies the ideals of
74
complementary duality commonly shared among indigenous Andean communities. 7 It is a
notion that connotes both harmony and conflict, and that at once recognizes the relative
independent equality and mutual dependence of these opposing forces for the sustenance and
reproduction of life in all its manifestations. Implicit in this understanding is the realization that
the whole expressed in the union between the pairs, as a synergistic relationship, is greater than
its individual constituent aspects. Thus though individually potent forces, a man and woman
together make possible life both in the biological and social sense (i.e., produce a functional or
economically re-productive household). This is what Plutarco means when, borrowing language
from the Church, he speaks of matrimony as creation. For this reason afrochoteños, musicians or
otherwise, adamantly reiterate the necessity of using both male and female goat hides.
As Plutarco’s comments reveal, the bomba contains and expresses an integral aspect of
afrochoteño culture and identity. This sentiment is likewise conveyed in statements concerning
individual meaning in relation to La Bomba. For example, Karla Aguas, a young woman from
the community of Chota, explains the significance of the dance as such:
La Bomba es una música que nosotros bailamos para sentir lo de los ancestros, de los
antepasados, porque eso viene a consecuencia, van criando y van bailando La Bomba y es
para sentir, porque son bombas que uno no se baila por bailar, La Bomba es para sentirle
lo que, la letra, lo que dice.
[La Bomba is a music that we dance to feel that of our ancestors, of our forefathers,
because that comes as a consequence, they [afrochoteño children] grow and dance La
Bomba and it is so to feel, because they are Bombas that one does not dance for the sake
of dancing, La Bomba is to feel that which, the lyrics, what they say.]
As Karla notes above, La Bomba conveys a profound connection with the roots and cultural
heritage of the afrochoteño communities that goes far beyond the entertainment value of the song
and dance genre. Nelly Calderon, also from the community of Chota, corroborates this
sentiment and goes so far as to extend it to its racial dimension:
La Bomba para mi es vida, porque un negro que no baila Bomba o no se identifica con
eso no es negro, eso sí, lo único. Nosotros aprendemos a bailar La Bomba desde
chiquititos. Con eso incluso aprendemos hasta a hablar y a cantar pues.
7
See Baumann (1996) on duality and music in the Andes. See also Wissler (2009) and Turino
(1989) for duality and music in Peru.
75
[La Bomba for me is life, because a black person who does not dance Bomba or who
does not identify with that [Bomba] is not black, that much [is] for certain. We learn to
dance La Bomba at a very young age. Well, with that we also learn to even talk and
sing.]
The statements above situate La Bomba and its significance in relation to the physical body, its
racial essence, and even speech. They suggest that the essence of afrochoteño culture and
identity is imprinted onto the body through song and dance. Inferred from their comments is the
notion that this specialized knowledge, manifested physically and verbally, is what distinguishes
afrochoteños from other individuals, black or otherwise. For Nelly in particular, the distinctive
blackness of local identity is itself predicated upon the difference inherited and inculcated
through La Bomba. The ability to speak in this context connotes not only learned speech
patterns (i.e., local sayings and expressions) but also, and more significantly, a particular locus of
enunciation. According to Nelly’s logic, if one cannot “speak” La Bomba, than one is not an
afrochoteño. Conversely, to sing and dance La Bomba is to sing and dance the essence of what
constitutes afrochoteño identity and culture, a trueism reflected in Plutarco’s conception of the
drum in its symbolic meaning.
The significance of La Bomba as an embodiment of afrochoteño identity and culture is
made most evident in its conception as a social event. Local scholar Gualberto Espinoza, from
the community of Santa Ana, refers to La Bomba first and foremost as a communal gathering
integral to the formation and continuation of afrochoteño identity:
La Bomba como género musical específicamente negro aquí pues es algo que, o era, algo
que se sentía, se llevaba en el alma. Era algo que nos permitía establecer esas relaciones
de familiaridad, con la comunidad, con la familia. Porque era en los encuentras
familiares donde La Bomba emergía, afloraba. Y no la bomba solamente como un
instrumento, si no como todo un corpus, como todo un conjunto, como todo un universo
patrimonial. porque se entiende la bomba primero como un instrumento, que da también
el nombre al baile, da el nombre al música, da el nombre al momento: estamos hacienda
bomba . . . Otros dicen “a la cochita amorosa,” hacer relación a la bomba que es un
lugar, un momento, de encuentro comunitario. “Estamos en La Bomba.” Y si eso lo
llevamos al género musical, pues se hace todavía más interesante, porque ya no es
solamente un compartir ideas y intercambiar experiencias, si no también es negociar el
alma en conjunto, en comunidad.
[La Bomba as a specifically black musical genre here is something that, or was
something that one felt, that one carried in the soul. It was something that allowed us to
establish those relations of familiarity, with the community, with the family. Because it
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was in the family gatherings where La Bomba emerged, flourished, and not La Bomba
only as an instrument, but also as a whole corpus, as a whole ensemble, as a whole
hereditary universe. Because La Bomba is understood first as an instrument, which also
gives name to the dance, gives name to the music, gives name to the moment: we are
making Bomba . . . Others say “to the loving thing” making reference to La Bomba, that
is a place, a moment, a communal gathering. “We are in La Bomba.” And if we take this
[idea] to the musical genre, well it becomes even more interesting, because it is no longer
only a sharing of ideas and interchanging of experiences, if not also it is to negotiate the
soul in communion, in community.]
Gualberto’s interpretation foregrounds La Bomba’s role in the intersubjective negotiation of
afrochoteño identity. Inferred from his comments is the notion that La Bomba, as a social event
enabling the formation, expression, and mediation of familial and communal bonds, is not simply
cultural inheritance—a pre-given tradition passed down from some distant point of origin—but
the very means by which afrochoteño identity and culture persists. 8 This understanding places
emphasis on social action and process rather than on form and content, which provides a more
dynamic perspective of La Bomba as an act of renewal and transformation; concepts alluded to
in the symbolic value of the drum itself as creation embodied. Indeed, as Gualberto as well as
other afrochoteños note, it is the drum that gives name and meaning to the music, dance, and
event itself in its intimate association with afrochoteño identity.
The equation of La Bomba with local cultural heritage and black ethnic identity noted in
the above statements is consistent with the project of etnoeducación in its emphasis on African
roots and local black cultural creativity. The discourse of collective memory evident in the
exhibit “El Color de la Diaspora” is here invoked with recourse to ancestros, antepasados, and
abuelos (ancestors, forefathers, and grandfathers). In this way, La Bomba is reaffirmed and
validated as a tradition unique to the region and its people. This realization, in turn, fuels the
debate over authenticity and reinforces the notion expressed by Plutarco Viveros and Barahona,
among others, that La Bomba must be recuperated and preserved as distinct from more modern
and foreign cultural elements. To do otherwise, as Barahona suggests, would be to allow the
distinctive knowledge contained and expressed in this tradition (the essence of afrochoteño
cultural identity) pass into oblivion. Indeed, this belief that La Bomba is intrinsic to an
afrochoteño conception of self further reifies race as culture and biology as suggested by Karla
and Nelly’s perception that to sing and dance La Bomba is to be afrochoteño.
8
This perspective resonates with current ethnomusicological understandings of and approaches to
tradition (e.g., Bakan 2011, 27; Monson 2007, 10).
77
Yet in their metaphors of embodiment and creation, the above statements also go beyond
the rhetoric of etnoeducación and thus provide a window into the potential significance of La
Bomba beyond its sociopolitical value as a symbol of regional black ethnicity. Nelly’s reflection
on La Bomba as life resonates with the ideas of creation, reproduction, renewal, and
transformation evoked and alluded to in the bomba’s symbolism, Karla’s notion of dance as the
present embodiment of the past, and Gualberto’s interpretation of La Bomba as an
intersubjective social process of identity construction. As previously noted, these comments
concerning La Bomba and its relationship to afrochoteño identity collectively foreground the
processual aspects of the genre and bring attention to its dynamic and discursive dimensions. As
such, they suggest a more fruitful path for discerning a more critically informed understanding of
La Bomba as it relates to afrochoteño identity beyond representation.
Conclusion
The strategic resourcing of ethnicity and tradition among Ecuador’s subaltern populations in the
contestation of mestizaje and its implicit exclusionary ideology of whitening since the 1990s has
led to the envisioning and emergence of new collective identities at once a part of and
transcendent of the nation. The sociopolitical agenda of etnoeducación and the recent shift in
emphasis from region and nation to ethnicity and Africa/Diaspora in afrochoteño selfrepresentations is indicative of this trend. In fostering transregional and transnational Diasporic
linkages in the strengthening of local claims to social, economic, and political equality, the
rhetoric of etnoeducación inadvertently allows for the creative appropriation of cultural elements
from the circum-Diaspora otherwise incommensurate with the sociohistorical realities of the
afrochoteño communities. La Bomba’s current celebration and bifurcation as tradition and
African cultural heritage on the one hand and popular culture on the other reveals the extent to
which this is the case. That cultural authenticity and cultural change are today issues of concern
among afrochoteños such as Viveros and Espinoza speak to the social and political currency of
ethnicity and its representation in Ecuador today. Contained in and expressed through that
emergent hybridity represented as afrochoteño and Afro-Ecuadorian is thus not ethnicity as
cultural origins and heritage, but as a power invested construct strategically co-opted and posited
in opposition to whiteness and the process of ethnic erasure (mestizaje).
78
In this regard, current representation of afrochoteño identity in terms of black ethnicity
may be understood as the most recent manifestation of the colonial difference. As such, they
index and mediate the coloniality of power in their discursive engagement with the dialectic
structuring the colonial difference. The conscious co-option and manipulation of blackness by
Afro-Ecuadorians in the struggle for social, economic, and political equality, as evident in the
objectives of etnoeducación, reflects the relative agency of such subaltern populations in the
contestation of the coloniality of power. It also shows the degree to which the coloniality of
power structures and informs the limits and possibilities of identity construction in the African
Diaspora. As Walsh (2006, 55) notes, interculturalidad and etnoeducación constitute not
counter-hegemonic discourses, but enunciations from the border or limits of the colonial
difference. It is this aspect of the colonial difference, of being simultaneously of and along the
margins of the coloniality of power, as Walsh (Ibid.) and Mignolo (2000, 18) respectively note,
that endows them with their potential to disrupt, mediate, and potentially transform the terms of
the coloniality of power.
As argued in Chapter One and shown in this chapter, a recognition of identity in the
African Diaspora as an enduring yet discursive and dynamic power invested construct arising
from the coloniality of power allows for a more critical understanding of representations of
blackness. La Bomba, as an expression of the colonial difference, necessarily embodies and
makes manifest the tensions inherent in the coloniality of power informing the shifting
perceptions and representations of afrochoteño identity. This is most apparent in the current
bifurcation of La Bomba as well as in Sol Naciente’s reconciliation of the seeming contradictions
inherent in their music. It is also alluded to in afrochoteño discourse about La Bomba in its
intimate equation between La Bomba and life. As a metaphor, “La Bomba es vida” (La Bomba
is life) captures and conveys the understanding that, as an expression of the colonial difference,
La Bomba embodies the particular afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power. To
approach contemporary representations of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity is thus to examine
the shifting manifestations of the colonial difference arising from the contestation of the
coloniality of power.
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CHAPTER THREE
VIGNETTES IN THE STYLE OF COPLAS
Quito, Ecuador 2006
Quito is buzzing with excitement. The Ecuadorian national soccer team is about to play their
final game in the first round of the FIFA World Cup. That the opponent is a veteran world cup
champion and the host of this year’s tournament seems of little concern to Ecuadorian soccer
fans. Indeed, Quiteños are unusually optimistic about this particular match considering the
recent performance of their beloved team. Regardless of the outcome, Ecuador has already won
the honor of advancing to the next single elimination stage with two impressive wins. Their fastpaced, aggressive, and fearless playing style seems to have caught the attention of the
international press and that of the usual soccer powerhouses as well. Rumors of coveted
contracts with premier European leagues for individual Ecuadorian soccer players are beginning
to spread.
Quito will shut down for the duration of the soccer match and for much of the day
thereafter depending on the outcome. I take the opportunity to watch the game in the comfort of
the home of good family friends. Putting on my yellow, blue, and red soccer jersey, I join the
growing crowd of guests who likewise don the infamous tri-color. The players take the field for
the national anthem and the people settle in to get a good view of the projected image. As the
camera pans across the faces of the soccer players, an elderly woman shakes her head and quips,
“They will think this a nation of blacks!”
“So what if they do, so long as they win,” responds another individual.
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Tallahassee, Florida 2006
I begin my section on music in Latin America with a discussion of Brazil. Having just finished a
two week virtual musical tour of Africa, starting in South Africa and moving up through Uganda
and Tanzania to Mali and Ghana, I thought it only natural to follow the transatlantic slave trade
routes to the New World and its musical traditions. The students in my World Music course take
copious notes as I talk about the music and social significance of candomblé, capoeira, and
samba. I end the class with a discussion of Olodum, samba-reggae, and Paul Simon’s Rhythm of
the Saints album, which features Olodum. They listen attentively and say nothing as they walk
out at the end of class. A student hesitates as she walks toward the door and then turns around to
walk toward me. I glance up with an inquisitive stare as I shut down and unplug my computer
from the projector.
“I’m sorry professor Lara,” she says to me, “but I’m confused about today’s lecture.”
“Yes?” I reply.
“I thought we were talking about Latin America,” she says.
“Well, we are. Brazil,” I answer, looking at her sideways with some confusion.
“Oh, its just that, well . . . ,” she trails off now visibly embarrassed.
“Ohh,” I say as I begin to understand.
I purse my lips as I think about how best to handle the situation, turn back on my computer, and
show her a map of the slave-trade routes.
***
Guallabamba, Ecuador 2006
Family gatherings inevitably involve dancing, whether to recorded or live music. Today is no
different. My father is leaving for Minnesota in a few days and I will return to Florida in a
matter of weeks. A farewell party is the only way to convene and see those we otherwise would
not have the chance to see during our brief visits. To do otherwise would most certainly cause
resentment. Only twenty minutes north of Quito, my grandmother’s finca (small farm) in
Guayllabamba provides a refreshing location for the occasion. The fresh-country air contrasts
with the smog of the city and everyone seems content after what appears to have a long week.
81
Music, laughter, and conversation mingle in the open-air as the food is set aside and the crates of
Pilsener are brought out.
“Vivencias” by Marabu plays from a CD player placed outside the door of the house. I
dance with one of my cousins in the open air, smiling and making conversation. The sun is
starting to set and the air is getting rapidly cooler. My father calls to me as I excuse myself and
grab a light jacket. He is sharing a drink with a cousin of his and wants me to join in on the
conversation. My dad’s cousin wants to know about my summer research. I tell him I have been
working out of Peguche, an indigenous community just north of Otavalo, and that I am learning
Quichua in preparation for dissertation field-work in the area. He looks at me with a mixture of
surprise and curiosity. After listening politely, he says,
“That’s all fine and good, but why not do something with black music?”
Taken aback, I stammer as I assure him that I eventually plan to do so, just not for the
dissertation.
“This country,” he continues somberly “is made up of several ethnic groups, each equally
important. I’m not saying that we blacks deserve any more attention than others, but why is it
that when scholars come to do their research, when politicians institute policy, and foreign
organizations invest in local projects that it is always about the indigenous communities? What
about us?”
I avert my eyes feeling somewhat guilty and ashamed.
Grabbing my hand firmly and looking me directly in the eyes he says, “We are black.
You are black. This is who we are. Don’t forget your roots.”
Quito, Ecuador
“So, what will you discuss in your interviews?” asks my father’s cousin, Isabel one afternoon
while sharing a cup of coffee with her mother, my grandmother, and myself.
“Well, it will be about La Bomba, obviously, but I’m really hoping to use Bomba as a
way to examine pertinent social issues such as race, racism, and social relations generally in
Ecuador,” I respond as they politely nod.
Recognizing that the issue of race may be difficult to broach during the course of my
research, I seize on the opportunity to open a discussion among my own family whose reception
and honesty may be more welcome and candid than among others. I quickly test the waters by
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asking what, if any, discrimination they have personally suffered as Afro-Ecuadorians.
Hesitating before answering, my grandmother chimes in, “Look, we don’t really think of
ourselves in those terms, as ‘Afro-Ecuadorians.’” Catching my puzzled expressions she
continues, “We are who we are and don’t really make distinctions or relate to others differently
on the basis of skin color. Like hair color, it’s something that can’t be changed, something that
is simply a part of who we are. But it doesn’t come to define us. The term ‘Afro-Ecuadorian’ is
used by intellectuals and political leaders, but it has nothing to do with how we see or understand
ourselves on a daily basis.”
***
Carapungo, Ecuador 2006
“I don’t associate with whites, only blacks” says my cousin with pride as we ride past a few
friends of his standing near the edge of the park at the entrance to Carapungo. Sitting behind
him on his moped, I simply nod. I let slide the irony that Mauricio himself is by far the fairest of
our family and his friends, passing more for a white-mestizo than for a mulatto. I’m careful not
to anger him, however. This is the first time I’ve seen Mauricio in fifteen years. The rumor was
that he was spending time in jail for drug-related charges the last time I had passed through
Ecuador. Despite the lapse of time, he receives me warmly, and is eager to introduce me to his
friends and to his neighborhood.
Carapungo is among the communities constituting Quito’s northward urban sprawl.
Much of my father’s family live here, having settled in the area along with several other
predominantly Afro-Ecuadorian immigrants from the Chota-Mira valley during the 1970s and
1980s. It is among the most densely populated black communities in Quito and, perhaps for this
reason, is known among Quiteños for being a rough neighborhood. So much so that cab drivers
often refuse or charge extra for going into Carapungo after sundown. For me, Carapungo is and
always has been simply where my family lives.
“We need to stop by the house,” says Mauricio. His daughter, a beautiful three year-old
girl with dark brown eyes and braided hair, throws up her hands and loosens a big smile as we
enter the doorway. She’s sitting on the lap of Mauricio’s grandmother Magdalena who attempts
to get up as we walk in.
83
“Don’t worry, mother,” he says as he picks up his daughter. Magdalena, the eldest of my
grandmother’s sisters, is a woman of great strength who has spent much of her life raising the
children of the family, from her own daughter to her grandchildren and now great-grandchildren.
The handkerchief covering her hair, sweater and knee length dress betray her rural origins.
Motioning to his grandmother he says to me fiercely, “She raised me, you know. She is
my real mother.” Pride, bitterness and resentment resonate through his words and tone of voice.
His grandmother looks at him with sadness.
“You’re mother has sacrificed everything for you, don’t speak like that about your
mother.”
“You are my mother,” he repeats with tenderness this time and motions for us to go.
Mauricio’s story is all too familiar in Ecuador and among Afro-Ecuadorians in particular.
Since I can recall, his mother, Sara has worked abroad as a live in cook and maid for wealthy
families in Miami and now Spain so as to provide for her two children and now grandchildren.
Despite the transition from the sucre to the U.S. dollar following the 2001 economic collapse in
Ecuador, U.S. and European salaries still go a long way to providing a boost in local household
incomes.
As we hop back onto the moped, I can’t help but think about my own grandmother and
the sacrifices that she made for her own family. In fact, it was Magdalena who took care of my
father and his siblings in Cuajara as children when my grandmother went to work as a live-in
cook and servant for wealthy families in Quito. I also think about my aunt and uncle who today
similarly send checks back to their own respective families from Spain. I think about Mauricio’s
hardened but resolute and proud demeanor. It is a characteristic trait readily discernible in the
faces and postures of many in Carapungo, and one long reflected in the weary visage of the
elderly who first arrived to the community from their rural homelands.
“All my friends are black,” repeats Mauricio acknowledging three young black men
sharing a Pilsener (a local beer) outside an alley-way shop as we speed off toward the main road.
Quito, Ecuador 2007
My sister Nicolette and I cram into the backseat of a two door car along with my cousin.
Another cousin pulls up the front passenger seat to give us more room as her friend takes the
wheels. They are excited, having convinced us to go out dancing with them despite my sister’s
84
initial protests. This is only the second time she’s been to Ecuador, and having been in Quito
only a few days, she is having trouble adjusting to the altitude and food. Realizing there was no
way to get out of this adventure without causing offense, we decide to go and call it an early
night if nothing else.
My cousins are excellent salsa dancers and are eager to show us the town.
“So where to?” asks the driver.
“Seseribó?” I suggest. Seseribó is an up-scale and trendy salsa club in Quito on the
outskirts of the infamous mariscal district that caters predominantly to upper-middle class
mestizos, extravagant dancers, and tourists.
My cousin screws her face in disapproval, “I like Mayo 68 better,” she says.
I know Mayo 68. It is a tiny hole-in-the wall dance club directly in the heart of the
mariscal. Though the space is smaller, they do charge less and it is more down to earth than
Seseribó in the sense that it attracts a younger, local, and racially more diverse crowd.
“Sure, why not,” I reply sensing her discomfort with Seseribó.
Along the way our cousins fill in their friend on my family background. He seems
puzzled by the family connection.
“How are you related again?” he asks. My father, an Afro-Ecuadorian born in Cuajara in
the Chota-Mira valley, raised in Quito, and now living in the United States, is the cousin of their
mother, Isabel, they explain.
He smiles, “You’re black!”
“No, they’re mulatto, right?” responds my cousin as though defending me from an insult.
Technically she is right. My mother is Caucasian of European descent. I turn to Nicolette, but
she’s starring out the window, apparently lost in the misery of her stomach illness.
***
Minneapolis, Minnesota 2007
I leave for Ecuador in a matter of days to begin my dissertation field-work. I’m anxious and
uncertain as to how everything will turn out. Will I find what I’m looking for? Will I be able to
put together a good dissertation? I don’t know exactly what to expect and I’m trying to keep an
open mind. I know from previous experience in Ecuador that approaching fieldwork with rigid,
preconceived ideas can be counterproductive. Flexibility is crucial and the only thing I can truly
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expect is constant change. Still, navigating such tumultuous waters with only a vague idea of
where I want to end up is a bit unnerving.
In need of support and assurance, I call a longtime friend. I tell her about my anxieties
about the trip and about the dissertation in general.
“What about your family in Ecuador?” she asks, “this must be a very personal topic for
you to address.”
I tell her about my experience with my father’s cousin in 2006 who at that time expressed
to me a certain truth that led me to change my dissertation topic.
“But are you black?” She asks.
Taken aback, I respond, “Well, technically I’m mulatto.”
“Huh,” she says with genuine curiosity, “Ok. But do you consider yourself black?”
I hesitate before responding, “I don’t know . . . I don’t really think about myself in those
terms.”
Tallahassee, Florida 2007
I collect myself as I observe the students file into the stadium-style lecture hall. For a brief
moment I hesitate about the day’s planned lecture. Overall, I am having a good experience with
this particular class. Popular music in the United States is a course that naturally lends itself to
interesting topics and discussions and it is not difficult to understand why it would attract so
many students. Fortunately for me and my teaching assistant, only about 120 students are
registered for an otherwise 200 person capacity classroom. Though some teachers might
discourage discussion in such a large class, I try as much as possible to engage the students by
soliciting their thoughts on the course and lecture material. Today, however, I am a little
worried. The issue of race and racism is always a difficult subject to address no matter the class
size, and it crosses my mind that the discussion could potentially devolve if not facilitated
correctly.
My students are good kids, but I sense they lack a certain basic knowledge about history.
It comes across through certain innocent but naïve questions and comments and through the
blank or uninterested stares that I get when discussing black face minstrelsy, the history of Rock
n’ Roll, figures like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, and the social significance of Motown
and Stax Records, hip-hop, and gangsta’ rap. In my conversations with students on these issues
86
over the years, I am left wondering whether or not it’s me or the students who lack perspective.
Has race really become a non-issue for this younger generation only some 50 years removed
from the civil rights era? My observations, personal experiences, and my knowledge of history
tell me firmly no. It is an issue these students need to not only hear about but a conversation in
which they need to be directly involved. With resolve, I take a deep breath and approach the
center of the room as I glance at my watch. The class settles.
“What if I were to tell you I am black?” I ask addressing the class as a whole. From the
corner of the room an African American student stifles a laugh while another says under her
breath “uh-uh,” shaking her head as if to say ‘you could never pass as being black.’ I smile, not
at all surprised by the reaction.
***
Quito, Ecuador 2007
Trying to stay dry in the December rain, I cover my head with my jacket as I hop off the still
rolling bus and follow my cousin Mercedes who quickly makes her way to the sidewalk. She
glances back with a slight grin and quickens her pace as she heads up the steep hill. “It’s just
around the corner,” she tells me as I hurriedly catch up. We pass few people as we make a turn
onto an even steeper uphill road. I’ve never been to this part of Quito and though my curiosity
would normally compel me to look around and ask questions the dismal day and circumstances
of our visit discourage me from doing so. La Bota, as this neighborhood is known, is similar to
Carapungo in terms of its demographics and reputation for being a somewhat rough area. Much
to my grandmother’s disapproval, Mercedes is dating a young man who lives here. I’ve met
Jazz, as they call him, only once before. His family is originally from the community of Chota
in the Chota-Mira valley and he returns to visit often though he himself lives in La Bota along
with a roommate. “Here we are,” says Mercedes as we approach a door of one of the many grey,
square cinder-block structures lining the slope of the street. Mercedes assures me she’ll be quick
as she knocks on the door. I give her a reassuring look. Though Mercedes needs no help from
me, being an intelligent and street savvy young lady in her early twenties, I accompany her
nonetheless as a favor to our grandmother. Jazz glances out the window and then opens the door
motioning us to come in. The main living room is bare save a few chairs. A stereo somewhere
out of site is playing a familiar song by Dr. Dre. Jazz doesn’t offer us a seat as he disappears to
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the back room telling us he’ll be right back. Mercedes looks at me apologetically and distracts
herself with the puppy pit-bull lounging in the corner of the room. “I gotta say, today was a
good day,” I begin to sing along with the familiar refrain as a glance around. A poster of Bob
Marley and another of a famous U.S. basketball player are the only decorations in the room. The
smell of tobacco and marijuana linger faintly in the air. I make my way to Mercedes and the
puppy as Jazz walks back into the room donning a pair of baggy black jeans and a red baseball
cap with the logo of a U.S. basketball team. I can’t help but wonder whether or not it’s an
original.
Community of Chota, Chota-Mira Valley, Ecuador 2008
I excuse myself as I walk ahead through the door of the house and into the main living area. A
little girl rests on a couch on the opposite wall and an even younger toddler walks into the room
carrying a miniature guitar. I smile and mimic a strumming motion as he looks at me with
curiousity. I turn my attention back to the girl as the mother of the children, a neighbor and
friend of Nelly’s in the community of Chota, walks into the house carrying a glass of water, a
cigarette, matches, and an egg. Knowing I would be interested in observing, she had invited me
to watch her diagnose and treat her daughter using the traditional healing methods used in Chota
and in the neighboring indigenous communities. The young girl, who is otherwise very lively, is
visibly ill though she makes no protest about her condition. Her mother seems to think she has
mal de aire (bad or evil air), which is similar to mal de ojo (evil eye). The malady is the result of
negative, evil, or bad energy (definition dependent on with whom you speak) which can be cured
by the use of an egg and smoke, which absorb and dispel the negative energy and purify the
body. The girl takes no notice as the mother begins to pass the egg quickly over the body of the
girl, rubbing vigorously at times. Holding the egg gingerly as though hazardous, she breaks the
egg into the glass. As she does so, she explains that the way in which the egg settles in the water
will tell her whether or not her daughter was afflicted with the malady. Nodding with
satisfaction, she confirms the diagnosis as I continue to stare at the egg floating at the bottom of
the glass. She then lights the cigarette and takes a few shorts puffs before inhaling a mouthful of
smoke and blowing it steadily over her daughter’s head, torso, legs, back, and arms. Sending her
daughter off to bed, the woman, pleased with the treatment, smiles.
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Before leaving, I ask her about modern medicine and whether or not she would consider
taking her daughter to Ibarra. She explains that while she has and does go on occasion to the
hospitals and clinics in Ibarra, she prefers not to for two main reasons: the cost of travel and
medical treatment as well as discrimination. “Besides,” she adds, “why would we go all the way
to Ibarra to take care of mal de aire?!”
***
2008, Chalguayaco, Ecuador
I talk excitedly about my thoughts on the origins of La Bomba and the issue of African retentions
as I walk alongside my friend and companion Billy.
“To say that La Bomba is an African drum isn’t really tenable considering we can’t
really prove that it was physically transferred to this place from Africa. Still, there is no question
that African slaves brought with them the memory of such instruments and traditions, and, more
importantly, of their social significance.”
“Enslaved Africans,” says Billy sternly.
“Hm?” I ask with some confusion.
“You said African slaves when what you mean to and should is enslaved Africans.”
“Oh, right,” I say as though a minor oversight.
“You see, the African people were forcibly put in a position of servitude; they were not
given to that condition by their being African.” He explains. “This is a major problem that we
must consciously address and fight against in the valley: the notion that we are somehow in a
position or condition of inferiority and are therefore destined to be docile and servile as a result
of our mis-represented history as slaves.”
I nod, immediately recalling the impetus for much of the research and literature produced
by scholars such as Melville Herskovits in the United States.
“Unfortunately many afrochoteños have adopted this persona of humility and servitude,
this sense of inferiority which stems directly from this interpretation. So we are trying to fix this
by reclaiming our history and reeducating our youth about who they are and where they come
from.”
Feeling somewhat foolish for having made such a gross misjudgment in word choice, I
apologize and thank him for his correction. We continue our walk in silence as we approach the
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community of Chalguayaco. We are on our way to an interview with one of the orange-leaf
players of the banda mocha. I consider Billy’s words in relation to the mixed humility and
distrust many afrochoteños tend to exhibit toward outsiders such as myself. Indeed, the ChotaMira valley is known for being wary of outsiders. But among its communities, Chalguayco and
its inhabitants are especially famous for the fierceness of their guardedness. Such attitudes are
understandable considering the history of the region as well as of the inability of local, state, and
international governmental and non-governmental organizations to yet realize significant social
and economic changes for the communities of the region.
I am therefore elated and grateful to Billy for making this interview happen. An
afrochoteño from the community of Chota, Billy works in the ministry of culture and sport
through the municapility of Ibarra. As such, it is his business to know about and work with
many of the people with whom I’m interested in interviewing. His resourcefulness is matched
by his congeniality and easy-going demeanor which likewise serves him well in his line of work.
On this particular day Billy is serving more than just a friend and guide, but as a fieldwork
companion as well. He’s interested in my dissertation research as well as in putting together a
recording project of the banda mocha through the ministry of culture and sports. He later tells
me that there was no possible way they would have given the interview had I gone by myself.
Monmouth, Illinois 2010
I lightly knock on the door to the small upstairs room serving as my at-home office.
“Headache?” I ask my younger sister who is sitting on the floor beside the bookshelf.
“Yeah, I just don’t feel all that well,” she responds somewhat distracted.
Carmen is sitting on the floor beside my bookshelf engrossed in a little yellow book. I tilt
my head sideways trying to catch a glimpse of the title as I set the cup of water and Ibuprofen on
the desk. It’s a Lingala-Spanish dictionary by Jean Kapenda I’m using as part of my dissertation
research. Though the first part of the book is in fact a dictionary, the last half contains a brief
history of the Congo-Angola region, the Chota-Mira valley, and, most significantly, a list of
names commonly found among the Afro-Ecuadorian population in Esmeraldas and the ChotaMira valley with their probable origins. This book, written by linguist Jean Kapenda is much
cited by contemporary afrochoteño scholars like José Chalá seeking to validate afrochoteño
identity and culture in reaffirming its African origins and heritage. According to Kapenda (2001,
90
121-122), names such as Anangonó, Congo, and Chalá common in the Chota-Mira valley, for
instance, are thought to originate among the Mongo, Bakongo, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and other
tribes located along the Congo-river basin. It also contains a list of common surnames of
Indigenous and European origin. These names index the history of colonial slavery and serve as
a reminder of the painful origins and history of the afrochoteño communities.
“Interesting book, isn’t it?”
She looks up and nods distantly. I explain the premise of the book and then direct toward
the list of surnames appended at the end, scrolling through the columns.
“Look, there it is,” I tell her pointing, “Lara.” “You know how dad always jokes that we
can change our last names, that Lara really isn’t our real last name?”
She nods and looks up somewhat confused.
“Well, he’s right. It’s not really our last name. It’s a name inherited from the European
owners and masters of our enslaved ancestors. It’s a slave name.”
She says nothing as she turns back to the book and stares at the name.
“Carmen?” I say after a moment having expected some sort of response.
She nods as she looks up slowly, her eyes red and wet with tears.
***
Ibarra, Ecuador 2008
Shortly after Carnaval Coangue I have a chance run in with Milton Tadeo while walking past the
municipality in Ibarra. Though we’ve never formally met, he stops politely and greets me as
though a casual acquaintance as I approach him. Star-struck, I express my appreciation for his
work and career as the preeminent bombero of the Chota-Mira valley. He listens attentively, his
quite demeanor and short stature contrasting sharply with his commanding presence and
exuberant persona on-stage. I tell briefly about my dissertation research and share with him my
desire to conduct an interview and perhaps even take a few bomba lessons from him. “Sure,
sure,” he says, “we’ll be in touch.” A few days later my cell phone rings while on the bus from
Chota to Ibarra. It’s Milton Tadeo.
“About those lessons,” he tells me, “I need an advance on the payment.”
“Oh, well we still haven’t settled on the amount,” I begin somewhat warily.
91
“Don’t worry about that, I just need sixty dollars. Could you meet me at the hospital in
Ibarra?”
Confused and alarmed I ask him if everything is alright.
“Yes, I’m ok, I just need some money for my son who is sick in the hospital.”
Something about the tone of his voice makes me suspicious. Could it be that this
nationally and internationally recognized Bomba legend with perhaps the most successful
recording and touring career of any other bombero in history to date really needs monetary help
from a stranger he barely knows and only recently met?
Columbus, Ohio 2009
News-paper article clipping attached to an email correspondence received Jan. 31, 2009:
Gobierno entregará una casa a los hijos del fallecido compositor Milton Tadeo
El gobierno entregará una casa a los hijos del compositor imbabureño Milton Tadeo que
falleció el pasado jueves victimo de un cáncer terminal de próstata, anunció el Presidente
de la República, Rafael Correa, durante su enlace radial 106 desde El Quinche.
El Jefe de Estado manifestó su pesar por esta pérdida para la cultura ecuatoriana y se
solidarizó con los hijos y esposa del autor de Carpuela y el tradicional ritmo de “La
Bomba” en el valle Del Chota.
El mandatario dispuso que una delegación del gobierno integrada por los gobernadores de
Imbabura y Carchi así como el Ministro de Cultura, asista al sepelio de Milton Tadeo que
se realiza hoy.
Según el gobernante a pesar de que su administración está haciendo todos los esfuerzos
por cambiar el país, reconoció que aún falta más celeridad para actuar de ahí que recordó
la tradicional frase “ todo en vida", dando a entender que no se pudo hacer nada cuando
Tadeo aún estaba vivo.
El gobernante aseguró que ahora que Milton Tadeo ya no está más, el gobierno no
abandonará a su familia y que se está trabajando para entregar una casa a sus hijos como
un homenaje al compositor afroecuatoriano.
A pesar de que su deseo era ser sepultado en Piquiucho, en donde vivía con su esposa,
sus hijos decidieron que sus restos descansaran en la población de Carpuela, donde vivió
los primeros años de su vida y se inspiró para componer varias de sus canciones.
[Government to grant a house to the children of the deceased composer Milton Tadeo
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The government will grant a house to the children of Imbaburan composer Milton Tadeo
who passed away this past Friday a victim of terminal prostate cancer, announced the
president of the Republic Rafael Correa, during his weekly radio talk radio 106 from El
Quinche.
The Chief of State expressed his sorrow for this loss for Ecuadorian culture and he
reached out to the children and wife of the author of Carpuela and the traditional rhythm
of “La Bomba” in the Chota Valley.
The mandate disclosed that a delegation of the government made up of political leaders
of Imbabura and Carchi such as the Minister of Culture assist in the burial of Milton
Tadeo, which takes place today.
According to the governor despite the fact that his administration is doing all that they
can to change the country, he recognized that there yet lacks more speed in acting
recalling the traditional phrase “all in life”, meaning that nothing could be done while
Tadeo was still alive.
The governor assured that now that Milton Tadeo is no longer here, the government will
not abandon his family and that they are working to grant a house to his children as an
homage to the Afro-Ecuadorian composer.
Despite that his desire was to be buried in Piquicho, where he lived with his wife, his
children decided that his remains should rest in the community of Carpuela, where he
lived the first years of his life and was inspired to compose many of his songs.]
***
Chota, Ecuador 2008
It is the second day of Carnaval Coangue. I seek shelter from the children and their buckets of
river-water, finding a welcome place to rest in the kitchen of a dear friend, Nelly. Among the
first to welcome me into the community when I first arrived, Nelly and her family have been a
tremendous source of inspiration and information throughout the course of my research. From
her house, located up the hill between the main street of Chota and the Pan American highway, I
can see the festival goers playing in the river below and dancing in the soccer field and clearly
hear as well as feel the music reverberating from the loudspeakers. Nelly’s home and kitchen in
particular, which is adjacent to her home, has provided much warmth, respite and comfort for me
and many other visitors and Choteños over the course of the year. A middle-aged single mother
of four now young-adults, she works during the week as a cook in a restaurant in Ibarra only to
return home to feed any and all who walk through her door. I myself have spent many
93
memorable hours in this kitchen conversing with Nelly and other guests over coffee and
entertaining the children who scamper in and out of the kitchen with songs and games played on
the conuno (a conical drum from Esmeraldas) propped in the corner.
Being the weekend of Carnaval Coangue, Nelly’s house is more busy than usual. Such
celebrations in the Chota-Mira valley typically provide occasions for family reunions as children,
grandchildren, cousins, and siblings return from Quito, Ibarra, and elsewhere to their place of
origin. On this particular occasion, I am greeted by one of Nelly’s sons, Andres, who had
arrived that morning from Quito with his father, a well known and respected anthropologist
originally from the community of Chota. At twenty years of age, Andres takes after his father in
his intellect and curiosity and over the past few months, I’ve enjoyed engaging him on issues
such as race and racism in Ecuador. On this day, however, he decides to test my knowledge of
La Bomba.
Pulling up a chair across from me, Andres casually asks how my research is progressing.
As I begin to answer, he folds his arms, looks at me intently and interrupts, saying in a curious
though challenging tone:
“So, what is La Bomba? What have you learned so far?”
Taken aback, I stammer and begin to repeat a standard descriptive definition:
“Well, La Bomba refers to a traditional drum, rhythm, and dance of African heritage that
developed among the Afro-Ecuadorian communities of the Chota-Mira valley sometime during
the colonial period.”
“Yes, . . . ,” he says leaning in more intently, “but what is it?” he repeats.
Uncertain what he means, I go on to fill in a few additional descriptive details:
“The drum is made of material taken directly from nature, including the trunk of a tree
and pair of goat hides said to be male and female; the drum was often accompanied by a person
playing an orange leaf: the lyrics traditionally dealt with local topics and concerns; the dance
involves a male dancing in a circular pattern around a female who wears a wine or liquor bottle
atop her head . . . ,”
I trail off as a smile widens on his face. He shakes his head, laughs and says,
“You [foreigners/outsiders/scholars] will never understand.”
“Understand what?” I retorted defensively, “did I not answer your question?”
94
“Yes and no,” he tells me. “La Bomba is that in part, but it is so much more for us, the
people of this region: La Bomba is life,” he says, “and that is what you will never understand.”
Curious and eager to return the challenge, I ask him to explain what he means by that
expression, La Bomba es vida (Bomba is life). Smugly, however, he once again folds his arms
and refuses to share. By now a little upset, I argue that withholding such pertinent knowledge or
insight is counterproductive in combating academic misrepresentations. Andres merely shrugs,
looks as if about to say something, then pauses. After a moment, he looks me in the eye and
with a resolute tone he responds,
“My thoughts on La Bomba I am saving for my own book.”
Community of Chalguayco, Chota-Mira valley, Ecuador 2008
Billy turns off of the highway onto a rough gravel road just before the community of Juncal and
heads up the hill toward Chalguayaco. Though each community in the region shares a similar
history and culture, each one has a distinct characteristic for which it is locally recognized. The
community of Chota, for instance, is identified with commerce and education, while Carpuela is
associated with music, and Mascarillas with artisanship. Chalguayco, on the other hand, is
known for belligerence, or more specifically the proud and fiercely guarded character of its
people.
We are on our way to interview Segundo Isidro Yepez Mendez, an agriculturalist and
musician in the community’s banda mocha, an ensemble unique to the region reminiscent of a
community band and featuring instruments made of natural materials. Segundo, well known for
his ability to play the orange-leaf, has granted us an interview thanks largely to Billy’s
resourcefulness as an administrator and representative of the region in the municapility of Ibarra.
Billy glances anxiously about as we pull into the town square and park. He motions to a
familiar child walking past and asks him where we can find Segundo.
“Over there,” says the child pointing down a street off to the corner of the square, “but he
is not there now, he is tending crops at the garden.”
“Run and go get him, will you? Tell him we are here for that business I told him about
the other day.”
The child gives him a resentful look as he turns around and slowly makes his way down
the road in the opposite direction.
95
“Go, run!” yells Billy.
Turning to me, Billy comments, “We are lucky that Segundo agreed to do this interview.
The people of this town don’t care much for strangers. They want to have anything to do with
them. If you had not known me, he would have never agreed to give you an interview.”
This was not the first time I had heard Billy express such a sentiment. I nod recognizing
that such wariness reflects the precarious relationship afrochoteños in general have had with
“others” over the years, especially those otherwise well intentioned individuals and organizations
who are perceived to take much from the local communities while give little back in return.
We make our way over to his home and stand in the porch, waiting silently. Soon, the
boy returns with a tall, lean middle aged man with closely shaved and graying hair wearing jeans
and a sleeveless green shirt. He walks deliberately as the boy skips ahead to Billy who steps out
from the porch to greet them. I stand back a little ways observing as Billy and Segundo talk
quietly. Segundo nods as he listens and glances in my direction with a wary but not unkind
glance. I walk over them as Billy introduces me. Segundo’s firm handshake and rough palms
betray his vocation while his voice, raspy and with cough, and bloodshot eyes suggests his vices.
We exchange pleasantries, and then I explain to him about my research project and how I hope
he might be able to help me. After listening politely with his arms crossed, he tells me that he
values and supports the project and the questions I am asking, and that he will give me the
interview, but under the condition that I pay him. Glancing at Billy who was looking at me with
caution, I ask warily what sort of payment would be acceptable under the circumstances. A
carton of cigarettes, he responded to my dismay. Flustered, I turned to Billy for help as he
quickly jumped into the conversation and deftly bargained the terms of our meeting down to a
pack of cigarettes which Billy later purchased at a local stand.
Recognizing my ethical dilemma, Billy afterward shared with me his disapproval of
Segundo’s request for cigarettes.
“The people here feel entitled” he explains, “and they do have a right to demand some
sort of compensation or recognition, but not of that form. That is abusive as well as destructive
to the community. It gives others the wrong idea about us and it also tells you something about
the state of mind of the people here who do not know the true value and worth of their own
culture, that they would gladly give up their treasures and pride for cigarettes and liquor. That is
96
what the Spanish did to us and the indigenas. It is a mentality of those enslaved and colonized.
We need to teach our children and community better, to respect ourselves.”
I listen quietly and nod in agreement, still feeling uneasy somewhere deep in the pit of
my stomach for having partaken in an exchange intimately linking me historically to countless
other such exploitative arrangements between outsiders and locals of the region. It would be the
last formal interview I conduct during the course of my fieldwork.
***
Chota, 2008
I sit on the ledge of the second floor terrace of Zoila Espinoza’s home, tapping my fingers
absently on the head of the bomba resting on my knee as I wait. The first stars appear in the
evening sky and I allow my mind wander to the sound of the rushing river below. I begin to
question whether or not I made the right decision in passing up an opportunity to take bomba
lessons with Milton Tadeo. The general unspoken consensus among fellow ethnomusicologists
holds that one must apprentice with a “master” musician of a given genre or instrument to fully
understand the dynamics involved in the process of learning and transmitting a musical tradition
and the explicit or implicit body of knowledge it contains. While studying with such a renowned
professional as Milton Tadeo would no doubt lend me a certain amount of prestige and
credibility among afrochoteños and ethnomusicologists alike, I cannot help but wonder to what
extent such informal modes of sanctioning marginalize and silence contesting voices and
perspectives.
This question troubles me deeply as I further reflect on the rifts and factions between and
within the various afrochoteño communities and organizations evident in disagreements and
competition over projects, resources, funding, and representation. Afrochoteños in Carchi
complain that they are often neglected by FECONIC which they perceive to favor projects
benefiting the communities in Imbabura. Afrochoteño leaders and intellectuals vie for the ability
to represent their communities, history, and culture in the political and academic arenas.
Likewise bomberos contend for recognition as the sole guardians of La Bomba’s authenticity.
Interviews amongst them inevitably digresses to disparaging comparative statements intended to
at once discredit opposing perspectives and validate the speaker’s authority. Indeed, even the
very term “afrochoteño” is a point of contention for many in the communities of the valleys of
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Salinas and Carchi located on the Carchi half of the Chota-Mira valley. As a few notable critics
claim, the exclusionary label, which references only the Imbabura portion of the broader region
referenced by the regional label Chota-Mira valley, speaks to the specific agendas of a few
individuals with a great deal of social and political capital and persuasion at the moment. Such a
charged environment necessarily makes undertaking ethnographic fieldwork and reconstructing
the history of an oral tradition so intimately linked to local (racial) identity a political and powerinvested project.
As I come to terms with my decision, I’m quickly brought back to the present by a voice
below.
“Greetings!” shouts up a young man as he approaches the house.
“Hey!” I call back as I look at my watch, mildly surprised by his punctuality. Danny
makes his way up the steps along the side of the house as I approach him and shake his hand.
Dressed casually in blue jeans, a light brown t-shirt, and a light jacket, he explains that he rushed
home from work in Ibarra to stop by his home just up the hill to change clothes before meeting
me for my bomba lesson. He didn’t want to be late because immediately afterward he must rush
down the hill to practice with the band.
Danny is the conga player for the latest Bomba group to come out of Chota, Sol Naciente.
The group, which consists of five young local individuals in their twenties, has gained a
significant following since their formation in 2005 not only within Chota, but throughout the
region and even in Esmeraldas. Their success owes much to their innovative instrumentation
and fusion of Bomba with eclectic and popular dance styles from salsa to the rhythms of the
coastal marimba repertoire. The group is also distinguished by their use of a keyboard, and a
drum-set in addition to congas, bongos, a metal scraper, and occasionally an indigenous bombo.
Conspicuously absent from the groups instrumentation is the bomba itself. In its place, Danny
outlines and elaborates the basic bomba pattern on the congas. Though Sol Naciente is often
criticized by older and more established Bomba musicians for straying too far from the defining
characteristics of the genre, Danny maintains that Sol Naciente is merely adapting and
responding to the current circumstances and changes evident in their surroundings and daily-life.
Indeed, this much seems to resonate with their growing fan base who, though largely youth, also
consists of many adults, all of whom equally enjoy listening and dancing to the music of more
traditional Bomba groups like Marabu.
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“What we do,” notes Daniel referring to Sol Naciente in previous conversation on the
topic, “is adapt our music to the rhythms that most speak to our audience.”
When asked whether or not what they perform may be considered Bomba, he adds that
though aware of the importance of tradition, Sol Naciente distinguishes itself from other groups
in terms of their constant desire to innovate rather than remain static. When pressed, however,
he admits that though distinct in terms of sound, the music of Sol Naciente is as much Bomba in
spirit as the Bombas of Milton Tadeo or Mario Diego Congo.
I thank Danny in advance for the lessons as I pass him the bomba. He shakes his head as
if to say not to worry and examines the double-headed drum. He nods in admiration as his eyes
and fingers pass over the frame. He feels the surface of the drum, gives it a few taps with his
palms, and tests the tension of the nylon ropes.
“Cristóbol Barahona made this bomba, right?” he states more so than asks. “You can tell
by the quality. This is a very good bomba,” he acknowledges as if to reassure me.
Indeed, Barahona’s workmanship preceeds him, and many consider him to be the last
true bomba maker in the region. Whether or not this is actually the case is arguable, yet there is
little question that afrochoteño bomberos frequently commission bombas from Barahona.
“I was hoping that you could show me how to properly tune the bomba and that I might
videotape the process, if it’s alright with you,” I tell him.
“Certainly,” he says shrugging.
Danny places the bomba on the floor, loosens the knot at the end of single braided nylon
cord threading the loops holding the drum hides in place and commences to tighten the slack in
the rope throughout the drum using solely his physical strength. Once finished, he places the
drum between his knees and strikes the drum-head. The sound is notably higher in pitch and
tighter in sound. Without a word he commences to play the basic bomba pattern, alternating
between the two variations known as sol and tierra (sun and earth). I watch attentively and
within a matter of moments I begin to mimic the pattern on my knees. He nods in approval and
stops to explain the patterns.
He tells me there are two basic patterns, traditionally known as sol and tierra, though he
himself refers to them as sol and do, most likely in reference to the two distinct pitches produced
by the particular technique of the pattern and their solfege relationship of tonic and dominant.
He breaks down the patterns for me before handing me the bomba and then cues me by counting
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off what sounds like a two-three clave. Taken aback, I miss my entrance and look at him
inquisitively, uncertain as to how the clave-like pattern relates to the bomba.
“This is how we start our songs in Sol Naciente” he explains, taking the drum and
reciting the cueing rhythm before jumping straight into the otherwise unrelated bomba pattern.
Shrugging, I follow his lead and quickly adjust between the feel of the clave, which spans
a group of eight beats felt in four, and that of the bomba which spans a group of four beats felt in
two. Only later, in acclimating my listening between the two genres, did I realize that the basic
bomba rhythm corresponds with the bongo pattern in salsa. Considering the musical tastes of
many contemporary afrochoteño youth, it became apparent as to why Sol Naciente would choose
to begin their songs in such a way.
The lesson continues for yet another twenty minutes as I struggle with the variation of
tierra, which requires a sliding motion in the weak hand leading into the downbeat. This
technique serves to simultaneously bend the pitch of the open-slap tone and dampen that of the
subsequent one. He tells me that tierra should be used to vary and compliment the sol pattern,
alternating between the two in equal phrase lengths. He demonstrates by playing first sixteen
bars of each, than eight, four, and lastly two before concluding with a stock pattern ending on
beat one. When I ask him about the significance of these patterns and their use, he shrugs and
responds that it is mainly to add variety and that it is an aesthetic. Danny’s pragmatic
interpretation neither supports nor contradicts my previous understanding of these patterns as
somehow being related to the cosmology of the afrochoteño communities. I say nothing, simply
nodding in response as I try to make sense of the seeming contradictions noted to date.
Before leaving, Danny gives me a preview of other rhythms he intends to teach me.
Among them are various other patterns associated with and clearly identified as other genres,
such as a San Juan, Pasacalle, and Colombian Cumbia. He then proceeds to give me examples of
specific well-known Bombas which incorporate these patterns.
“But are those Bombas?” I ask him afterward now even more puzzled than before.
“Of course!”
Ibarra, Ecuador 2008
“Do you mind if I video-tape this?” I ask Gualberto as he reaches for the bomba next to his chair.
Taking his shrug of indifference as tacit approval, I connect the video camera to the tripod and
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adjust the microphone of my hand-held voice recorder. All the while I thank him profusely for
agreeing to make the trip to Ibarra for this interview. I’ve been anticipating this meeting ever
since I met Gualberto Espinoza in Quito, January of 2008. An afrochoteño from Santa Ana,
Gualberto is a bombero, a student of anthropology, and the founder and director of a local
afrochoteño publication known as El Griot. In his youth, he performed Bomba alongside his
father and uncle who were among the first to commercially record Bombas in the early 1980s as
Los Hermanos Espinoza. Upon meeting him for the first time, I was immediately struck by his
passion for and knowledge of La Bomba as well as his earnest interest and deep concern for his
cultural heritage and his fellow afrochoteños.
“Everyone likes to say that they were the first to bring Bomba to light,” he comments
during the interview, “but in fact Los hermanos Espinosa were.” Loading a flash drive into my
notebook computer, he shows me with pride the pictures of his father’s records. There are two
discs with one song on each side: “Adela” and “Maria Chunchuna” appear on one record dated
1984 and “Capital de la Bomba” and “Santa Ana” on the other dated 1985. Opening a .wav file
he plays “Maria Chunchuna,” a well-known traditional Bomba now widely attributed to the
Hermanos Espinosa, the text of which is cited in the Costales’ 1950s study of the huasipungo
system in the Chota-Mira valley.
“But this sounds like a san juanito,” I tell him somewhat surprised.
“Well, yes. You see, La Bomba has always been in dialogue with musical genres of
other ethnic groups. For this reason we cannot say or identify within a specific time period a
‘purity’ of La Bomba. Such a task results to be very complicated and adventurous.”
I nod vigorously in agreement. “Then what of the meaning of La Bomba and its relation
to afrochoteño identity?” I prompt.
“First, La Bomba is more than just an instrument, rhythm, and dance. It also refers to a
space, a moment, of communal gathering. La Bomba is, or at least was, something that was felt
and carried in the soul. It allowed us to establish those relationships of familiarity, with the
community and with the family. So, yes, La Bomba is, first, an instrument that then gives name
to the dance, the genre, and to the moment: ‘we are doing Bomba; we are in La Bomba.’”
I take in his commentary, briefly reflecting on my own observations before handing him
the bomba. Gualberto admires the quality of Cristóbol Barahona’s artisanship as I finish setting
up the video camera.
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I ask him to explain how the bomba is constructed and to discuss its symbolic
significance for the camera before demonstrating a few basic rhythmic patterns. He explains in
detail the type of materials used as I busily take notes in my journal.
“The body of the bomba is typically made of the trunk of a seibo tree. Pigua, a type of
vine, is used to fasten the hides onto the drum while these here were typically made from
cabuya,” he says, pointing at the nylon cord threading the drum hides and the metal wire holding
together the pigua loops and the trunk which notably has been shortened in diameter. “Now, the
drum heads should ideally be made out of a pair of male and female goat hides. They say this
represents the union between man and woman,” continues Gualberto.
“Yes, I meant to ask you about that. I’ve encountered this perspective in my research,
but I’m also hearing some conflicting accounts from some who claim that there is no such
meaning. There are also those who contend that this symbolism is reflected in the rhythmic
patterns, and yet others who tell me the bomba represents not only the union between man and
woman in its construction, but the elements of the natural world. In any case, nobody I’ve
spoken with who believes La Bomba is linked to the cosmology of the afrochoteño communities
can tell me exactly how, or even what this cosmology entails! How am I to make sense of this?”
Gualberto gives me a knowing smile. “They are all right.” He says with a slight chuckle.
Noting my look of surprise, he continues, “La Bomba is a conglomeration of things. From this
simple instrument, one could construct many representations, many imaginaries, and so all that
they say with respect to “cielo,” “tierra,” and so forth, is true: it is in accordance with the
sentiments of each group of people that assume La Bomba as a fundamental element within their
culture, their livelihood. You see, it is important that every group of people, every person,
individual, overall if they are a bombero, make their own interpretation of the elements that La
Bomba has.”
***
Community of Chota, Chota-Mira valley, Ecuador 2008
Chota is awash with sound. If not a radio or stereo system blaring Bomba, salsa, or reggaeton
from multiple doorways, than it’s the sound of roosters at dawn, dogs barking, children playing
in the street, buses and trucks roaring past on the Pan American highway, women washing
clothes and conversing outside, young men and women playing soccer in the dusty field, the
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roaring sound of the river Chota-Mira, the chiming of the church bell, and the all too frequent
laments sung during funerary wakes and processions.
Taking a cue from the general soundscape of the community, I turn up the volume on my
newly acquired portable speakers plugged into the head-set jack of my computer and playback a
field recording made the previous day:
Porque dejas a tu hijo
Crucificado, crucificado
Why do you leave your son
Crucified, crucified
En el alma me pesa
De haber pecado, de haber pecado
My soul weighs
For having sinned, for having sinned
A Calvario a llegado
Muy agitado, muy agitado
He has arrived in Calgary
Very agitated, very agitated
Shortly after, I run into Zoila standing outside the terrace of the upstairs bedroom I rent
from her. The puzzled and agitated look on her face prompts me to ask if anything is wrong.
She hesitates before asking me if I recently heard las viejas (the elderly ladies) singing.
“Has anyone died?!” she asks me alarmed.
Confused, it takes me a moment to realize she is referring to the field-recording of the
salve I played over the speakers in my room. Laughing, I explained to her that it was a recording
I had made during the Holy week procession. She seemed little convinced by my explanation,
however, and she walked back downstairs.
Community of Chota, Chota-Mira valley, Ecuador 2008
Not yet noon, the sun shines intensely in the cloudless sky as I walk to the small yellow church
overlooking the river Chota in the community of Chota. Already people are gathering around the
steps waiting to catch a glimpse of the procession that is scheduled to start from the top of the
hill in moments. I make ready my camera and digital audio recorder just as a small crowd of
variously costumed individuals make their way slowly toward us from the distance. Faint
singing carries with the wind and I strain to make out the melody. As the procession nears I
make out a group of young men wearing costumes of silver armor with feathered helmets and
swords reminiscent of those of Roman soldiers. They flank another young man naked from the
waist up and hunched-over carrying a wooden cross. Following them are five or six elder
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women singing in heterophony a liturgical text set to a somewhat melancholy and repetitive
melody. As the party approaches, they stop at a station to recite and recreate the passage
pertaining to that segment of the passion. The sweat dripping from the torso of the crosscarrying individual and the look of exhaustion on his face betrays the difficulty of the task
assigned him on this hot morning. The weight of the large wooden cross drawn over his
shoulder is too much for him and he kneels at the station with the help of some of those near
him. I begin to wonder whether or not the crown of thorns on his head and the red dots dripping
from his forehead onto the pavement are real. As the reading, enactment, and prayer are
concluded, the women, without warning or direction, begin again the local liturgical songs
known as salves:
Porque dejas a tu hijo
Crucificado, crucificado
Why do you leave your son
Crucified, crucified
En el alma me pesa
De haber pecado, de haber pecado
My soul weighs
For having sinned, for having sinned
A Calvario a llegado
Muy agitado, muy agitado
He has arrived in Calgary
Very agitated, very agitated
En el alma . . .
My soul . . .
Con las sogas al cuello
Le van arrastrando, le van arrastrando
With the ropes at the neck
They drag him, they drag him
En el alma . . .
My soul . . .
Traspasando la espalda
De crueles Dolores, de crueles dolores
Traversing the back
Of cruel pains, of cruel pains
En el alma . . .
My soul . . .
Al pie del cruz sacrosanta
Esta la madre doliente, esta la madre
doliente
At the foot of the sacrosanct cross
Is the sorrowful mother, is the
sorrowful mother
En el alma . . .
My soul . . .
Contemplando a su hijo,
A su hijo amado, a su hijo amado
Contemplating her son
Her beloved son, her beloved son
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En el alma . . .
My soul . . .
En el cruz fue arrasado
Su vestidura, su vestidura
On the cross was torn
His clothing, his clothing
En el alma . . .
My soul . . .
The women singing look as though in contemplative reflection and mourning as the group
processes down the street to the next station. Their concentration and intensity make me keep a
respectful distance as I follow along the side of the vocalists with my microphone pointed in
their direction. Captivated and drawn into the moment, I cannot help but wonder what relevance
this particular drama and set of salves as well as the events of Holy week in general have for the
lives of a people who have historically been exploited by this very same religious institution.
The image of a mother who watches helplessly and with sorrow as her son, torn from her, suffers
cruel injustice perhaps resonates with the people of these communities on a level beyond that
initially intended by the Church. When afterward I venture to ask a neighbor and friend, he
merely shrugs and tells me, “Those ladies, they always sing like that, whether for Sunday mass,
Holy week, or a funeral.”
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CHAPTER FOUR
LA BOMBA AND THE COLONIALITY OF POWER: A
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
As shown in the previous chapter, La Bomba at the turn of the twenty-first century constitutes
the colonial difference and indexes the coloniality of power in its (re)presentation of
(afro)choteño identity and strategic resourcing in the local struggle for social, economic, and
political equality. An appreciation of La Bomba in its relationship to that particular colonial
difference marked by the term afrochoteño beyond representation must therefore first consider
the ways in which the coloniality of power has informed the development of identity and culture
in the Chota-Mira valley. This chapter thus presents an overview of the origins and
sociohistorical development of the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley sensitive to the
afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power as a means of better understanding the
significance of La Bomba in its relation to afrochoteño identity.
Divided into three parts, this chapter illuminates the coloniality of power in the history of
the afrochoteño communities, shows how the experience thereof has informed identity formation
in the region, and considers the implications of this for La Bomba and its significance for the
communities of the Chota-Mira valley. As shown below, the afro-descendant communities of
the Chota-Mira valley mark the coloniality of power in their origins with colonial slavery and
their persistent sociohistorical struggle against exploitation and marginalization. These
experiences conditioned the possibilities for the development of collective identity in the region
and thus discursively informed the shifting manifestation of the colonial difference. Among the
limited spaces provided by the coloniality of power for the gathering of family and strengthening
of familial and communal bonds were socioreligious occasions proscribed by the church. As
revealed in afrochoteño testimonies and close readings of extant historical documents depicting
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La Bomba in its social dimensions, La Bomba not only emerged from this context, but played a
significant role in enabling and enacting the discursive and intersubjective negotiation of identity
thereby afforded. This suggests that the greater social significance of La Bomba resides in its
function as a sociomusical event and process wherein the colonial difference is constituted and
whereby the experience of the coloniality of power is mediated. The final section shows the
extent to which this remains the case today despite the addition of new performance contexts,
practices, and audiences as a result of the commodification and dissemination of La Bomba
during the latter part of the twentieth century. Viewed from this perspective, the greater
significance of La Bomba for the afrochoteño communities may be understood not in terms of
the specific content of its musical form, but in its value as a moment, space, event, and process
for the discursive and intersubjective negotiation and expression of the colonial difference.
The Coloniality of Power and Afrochoteño History: Origins and Development
As noted in Chapter One, the expansion of Europe into the Western hemisphere during the
fifteenth century and the subsequent development of a transnational economic system founded
and dependent on the exploitation of natural and human resources, arguably the foundations of
today’s modern world economic (read capitalist) system, created the conditions for the
development of an exploitative hierarchical and stratified social and economic system predicated
upon the classification and organization of people along the lines of labor and power. The
legitimization and thus naturalization of this system was constructed and maintained through the
invocation of race and racial difference: an artifice connoting, justifying, and reifying differences
of labor and power in the New World and modern world economic system. Despite the end of
the colonial period, postcolonial scholars such as Anibal Quijano and Walter Mignolo contend
that these dynamics of power, invoked in terms of racial identification and evident in the
continued subaltern conditions of Latin America’s indigenous and afro-descendant population
and developing third world nations, persist to this day. The colonial roots of this particular
configuration of labor and power lead Anibal Quijano to coin the term coloniality of power (as in
the colonial nature of power). From this perspective, the very possibility and respective
development of America’s originary black communities was and continues to be conditioned by
colonialism, colonial slavery, and the coloniality of power.
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The following provides a historical overview of the origins and development of the black
communities of Ecuador and of the Chota-Mira valley specifically as a means of illuminating the
extent to which the coloniality of power has conditioned the possibilities of their development.
As shown below, the continual struggle against subjugation, exploitation, and marginalization on
the part of Ecuador’s afro-descendant communities since the colonial period marks the enduring
form of racialized power connoted in the term coloniality of power. As will be shown in the
subsequent sections of this chapter, this is significant in understanding the development of
afrochoteño identity, its relation to La Bomba, and, subsequently, La Bomba’s relationship to the
coloniality of power.
Black Presence and the Slave Trade in Ecuador
According to census data taken in 2001, Ecuador’s black population is estimated to be 5% of the
total population with 604,009 individuals spread over twenty-two provinces and concentrated
primarily in the coastal and highland regions (SISPAE 2005, 8). 1 Though inhabiting the major
highland and lowland coastal and Amazonian basin cities of the nation, Ecuador’s black
population is situated historically and in the racial imagination of the nation in two distinct
though neighboring regions: the province of Esmeraldas in the Northwest Pacific Littoral, and a
region along the river Chota-Mira straddling the northern highland provinces of Imbabura and
Carchi known as the Chota-Mira valley. As means of distinguishing the area and communities in
question and contextualizing the present discussion, this section provides a brief overview of the
origins and development of Ecuador’s black population with an emphasis on the origins and
sociohistorical development of the Chota-Mira valley through the turn of the twenty-first
century. The significance of this history in the present collective imaginary of the afrochoteño
communities today resides in their continued struggle with the legacy of their historically
grounded subalternity.
As elsewhere in the Americas, the first blacks to set foot in Ecuador were enslaved
Africans accompanying Spanish explorers and missionaries. It is known, for instance, that in the
1
Statistics on the exact number of Ecuador’s black population have ranged anywhere from as low
as 5% to as high as 25%. The difficulty in discerning the exact number stems from the fluidity,
ambiguity, and changing perception of blackness in its discursive construction relative the nation (de la
Torre 34; Walmsley 2004, 19).
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years between 1524 and 1528 the Spanish conquistadors Francisco Pizarro and Diego de
Almagro brought enslaved Africans with them on their exploratory expeditions of the south
Pacific, which included excursions into the northwest region of Esmeraldas (Tardieu 2006, 15).
It is likely that at least some of the slaves brought aboard the ship set foot on Ecuadorian soil
during these excursions, as was typical of other such expeditions (see Ibid., 16). As historian
Jean-Pierre Tardieu (Ibid., 18) notes, detailed documentation of these enslaved Africans and of
their conduct is scarce save for a few brief descriptions of their heroism and bravery in the face
of battle and grave illness as in the case of Pedro de Alvarado’s expedition to Quito in 1534
wherein black slaves knowledgeable of local fauna, perhaps because of their likeness to those
found in their homeland, saved the expedition from dying of thirst. Enslaved Africans are also
known to have taken part in the civil wars of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the 1540s (Klein and
Vinson 2007, 23; Tardieu 2006, 19). Considering the time frame in question, 1524-1540, these
first enslaved Africans to arrive in what would become Ecuador would most likely have been a
mixture of ladinos, or “Europeanized,” Christian slaves and bozales, or those brought directly
from Africa or the Atlantic Islands (see Klein and Vinson 2007, 14).
The historical trajectory of Ecuador’s current black communities, however, begins in the
historical imagination with a shipwreck off the coast of Esmeraldas in 1553 and the importation
of slaves into the Viceroyalty of Peru in the 1550s. The coastline of Esmeraldas is historically
and even today notorious for its treacherous bays, dense and impenetrable mangroves forests,
unnavigable estuaries, and disease carrying mosquitoes (see Tardieu 2006 16-19; Whitten 1974).
Such conditions made the region a well suited environment for runaway blacks seeking refuge
within the otherwise inhospitable social world of the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru. Indeed, the
origins of Esmeraldas’ black population dates to the escape of twenty-three enslaved Africans
who fled a ship wrecked off the bay of Atacames in 1553 (Noboa 1995, 10; Pérez 1996, 15;
Ritter 1998, 36; Tardieu 2006, 35). One of the marooned slaves, a ladino by the name of Alonso
de Illescas, is credited with leading the group into the perilous region and establishing contact
with the local and not-so-friendly native inhabitants, the Cayapas. 2 Through negotiation,
intermingling, and force, Alonso and the surviving marooned slaves established what is now
typically referred to by historians as a free-zambo republic that existed within the viceroyalty for
2
For additional information about Alonso de Illescas, see Beatty (2009; 2010).
109
several years (Ritter 1998, 37). Indeed, so remote and impenetrable was the region that it
remained marginal to the political and economic center of the nation until the mid 1970s when
petroleum and logging became among the region’s predominant industries (see Ritter 1998,
Tardieu 2006, 29-119; Whitten 1974). Subsequent migrations of runaway and free blacks over
the course of the colonial period and newfound republic from both Colombia and the Caribbean
helped maintain the region as a predominantly black and mixed-black area (see Ritter 1998, 3639). The history and notoriety of the black communities of the northwest Pacific region is thus
known as that of escape, rebellion, and freedom, connotations which have implications for the
ways in which both black and non-black Ecuadorians perceive the attitudes, spirit, and essence of
the people of the region (Ibid., 48).
While the afroesmeraldan population represents a unique exception to the history of
slavery in the Americas, shared only with a few such Cimarron communities, they are by no
means representative of all Afro-Ecuadorians in terms of their history and culture. 3 Though
relatively few in number compared to Brazil, Mexico, and the Carribbean islands, the
importation of slaves in the viceroyalty of Peru was a significant and necessary aspect of the
colonial economy.
By the end of the eighteenth century, an estimated 8,000 enslaved Africans
were brought to the Audencia de Quito (Klein and Vinson 2007, 273; Salmoral 58). These
slaves were brought over land or by boat from Cartegena de Indias in Colombia to all regions of
the Viceroyalty, including the major colonial cities such as Lima, Quito, Guayquil, Ibarra, the
iron rich mines of Popayan and Barbacoa in the north and Zamora in the south, and the
sugarcane fields of the northern Andes (see Arellano 1992; Gomezjurado 1999; Noboa 1992;
Savoia 1992; Tardieu 2006; Salmoral 1994). 4 The inability to sustain indigenous slaves, thanks
to their abuse and demise and Spanish laws favoring their better treatment (Feijóo 1991, 85),
necessitated the purchase, importation, and use of black slaves. By the end of the colonial
period, an estimated 4,846 enslaved blacks, not including free blacks, are thought to have existed
in the Reino de Quito (territory pertaining to the present day nation state of Ecuador) alone
(Salmoral 1994, 59). Of those, approximately half were situated in the northern highland region
3
See Price (1973) for background and overview of maroon societies in the Americas.
4
See Mellafe (1959) for development of slavery and slave routes in the Spanish Americas.
110
now known as the Chota-Mira valley, making it, along with Esmeraldas, the largest region
inhabited by blacks in Ecuador.
Slavery in the Chota-Mira Valley (1575-1854)
The need for black slaves in the Chota-Mira valley was exacerbated by an inability to sustain a
local, native labor force (Feijóo 1991, 85). Once an important center of trade and for the
agricultural production of coca and cotton for the neighboring indigenous communities of the
region, the Chota-Mira valley gradually transformed into a major site for the production of
sugarcane over the course of the colonial period (see Feijóo 1991; Noboa 1992). This much was
due to the increased interest, influence, and economic resources and expertise of the Jesuits who,
recognizing the potential of the region, invested in the purchase of large tracts of land between
the years of 1620 and 1698 (Noboa 1992, 148). By the time of the Jesuit’s expulsion in 1767,
the Jesuits owned eight haciendas (plantations) spanning the valleys of Chota, Salinas, and in the
provinces of Imbabura and Carchi (the region now referred to generically as the Chota-Mira
valley). Among these haciendas were those of Cuajara, Tumbaviro, Carpuela, Santiago,
Chalguaycu, Chamanal, Concepcion, and Caldera (Feijóo 1991, 88). By 1659, less than thirty
years after the first hacienda was purchased by the Jesuits in the region, the Jesuits dominated the
production of sugarcane in the region (Feijóo 1991, 89; Noboa 1992, 148). Much of this success
was dependent on slave labor, for the work required on the sugarcane mills was labor intensive. 5
Though black slaves were not uncommon on the haciendas of a few private owners at the
time of the Jesuit’s arrival to the region in the late sixteenth century (Noboa 1992, 147), the
majority of the labor needs depended on the availability and compliance of local native workers
(Feijóo 1991, 77). As noted previously, the Chota-Mira valley was once the center of
agriculture, trade, and commerce for the neighboring indigenous communities. When the
Spanish introduced olives, sugarcane, and other crops, they began a process of transformation in
the local ecology and agricultural economy that led to the gradual demise and flight of the native
inhabitant population (Feijóo 1991, 41). The first black slaves in the region were brought by
private owners in 1575 (Ibid., 82; Noboa 1992, 147). The use of a mixed labor force, both
native mitayos and black slaves, was common even among the large Jesuit haciendas up through
5
See Barrett (1970), Cushner (1980), Colmenares (1969), Sanchez (2001), and Tardieu (1997),
for more information on slavery and the Jesuit haciendas in Spanish America.
111
the mid seventeenth century (Feijóo 1991, 85; Noboa 1992, 148). The dependence on slave
labor, however, increased throughout this period as a result of an inability to sustain the native
labor force. Illness and death among the highland native population unable to withstand the
climate and work conditions of the semiarid region as well as active resistance and flight
contributed to the increased need for slave labor (Feijóo 1991, 78). According to some
historians, so great was the loss of native life and so fierce was the resistance that the region
became known as el valle sangriento (the bleeding valley), or Coangue (Costales 1958; Feijóo
1991; Noboa 1992, 145). 6
The experience, financial resources, and contacts of the Jesuits allowed them to invest in
and import slaves en masse, making them the single largest importer of slaves in the Audencia de
Quito (Feijóo 1991, 87). These slaves were purchased either directly from Cartegana de Indias,
or from the mines of Popayan and even the neighboring urban center of Ibarra. As a result, it is
reasonable to assume that the majority of the slaves, if not all, were bozales as was the practice
of the Jesuits in sugarcane plantations in other parts of Spanish America. Recent studies of
surnames recorded during the colonial period shortly after the expulsion of the Jesuits and of
contemporaneous families in the Chota-Mira valley place the provenience of those slaves
brought to the Chota-Mira valley in West and Central Africa, mainly of Bantu origin (see
Kapenda 2001; de Pólit 1992, 168-169). As historians of the slave trade have noted, however,
such conclusions are speculative at best considering the practice of naming slaves after either
ports of origin or generically based on region without regard to specific ethnic and linguistic
differences (see Klein and Vinson 2007, 140). Yet other slaves assumed the surnames of their
masters, as was also typical during the slave trade (de Polit 1992, 168). Regardless of the issue
of exact origins, it is without question that the predominant surnames in the Chota-Mira valley
today, whether of African or Spanish derivation, reflect the afrochoteño experience of slavery.
The expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and the Spanish colonies in 1767 and the
subsequent administration and sale of the Jesuit haciendas by the Junta de Temporalidades
effectively halted the importation of black slaves into the Chota-Mira valley and began a process
6
The exact meaning and origin of the word Coangue is debated among scholars. While some,
such as the Costales (1958, 212) and Jaramillo (1991, 26) suggest its origins with the indigenous
communities of the region prior to the arrival of enslaved Africans, others such as Chalá (2007, 126)
contend the word is of African derivation. All agree, however, that the word comes to refer to the river as
well as to the region as a whole.
112
of the dissolution and redistribution of the existing slave population. The last known slaves
purchased by the Jesuits for destination to the region was in Portobelo in 1760 (Noboa 1992,
151). A period of eight years spans the time between the expulsion of Jesuits and the Junta’s
actual administration of the haciendas. Little is known of the former Jesuit haciendas and of
their slaves during this period save the escape a few slaves in 1779 from the hacienda of
Carpuela (Ibid., 152). It is more than probable that during this period of instability such flight
was more common than during the time of the Jesuits. What we do know are the exact number
of haciendas and slaves in the possession of the Jesuits in the years shortly preceding the Junta’s
administration, thanks to a commissioned inventory of the Jesuit’s assets in 1780. In total, the
report counted 2,615 slaves between the eight former Jesuit haciendas, including men, women,
children, and elders (Feijóo 1991, 88). Over half of these slaves, approximately 1,364, were
dedicated to the actual hard physical labor of handling and processing the sugarcane (Ibid.;
Noboa 1992, 152). Of particular significance, as Fiejóo (1991, 89) notes, is the realization
among the new administrators that there were a disproportionate number of slaves to actual
sugarcane yield. As a result, the Junta de Temporalidades continued to facilitate the movement
of slaves within the Audencia de Quito so as to maintain a balanced labor force on the hacienda.
The plantations, along with their slaves, were gradually sold to private owners between the years
of 1784 and 1800 (Noboa 1992, 152). During this transitional period, slave rebellion and flight
were not uncommon, further encouraging the sale of slaves from the haciendas (Ibid., 153). The
last known sale of slaves, or intent sell, in the region is documented in the year 1813 (Ibid.).
Slave Manumission and Emancipation (1820-1854)
The official abolishment of slavery in Ecuador during the mid 1800s was a result of a long and
complex process spanning the better part of a century and involving various social, historical,
and political factors. Among them, manumission, continued slave resistance, and the wars of
independence most significantly contributed to the demise of slavery as an institution in Ecuador.
It is important to note that slaves retained the ability to purchase their freedom throughout the
colonial period, leading to the growth of a substantial free black population by the late eighteenth
century (see Andrews 2004, 40; Salmoral 1994, 116-124). Though certainly marginalized within
the dominant society (see Andrews 2004, 40-51), these free blacks were nonetheless crucial in
establishing a social, economic, and political precedence for the integration of emancipated
113
blacks in the newly formed republics in the mid nineteenth century. Indeed, free blacks often
worked alongside enslaved blacks as wage laborers, or jornaleros, and were often instrumental
in helping purchase the freedom of other slaves, generally family (see Tardieu 2006, 333). This
was a common strategy for manumission long recognized within the Spanish colonies, though
not one easily attained if an owner was unwilling to relinquish the slave in question. Within the
Chota-Mira valley, slaves had the additional advantage of procuring a minimal income through
the sale of crops which they harvested from small plots of land loaned to slave families to work
during their spare time (Feijóo 1991, 110; Salmoral 1994, 119). Thus slaves would save money
or unite funds among family so as to purchase either their own or another family member’s
freedom.
Yet other forms of manumission came about toward the end of colonial period as political
and societal pressures mounted to stop the abuses associated with slavery, such as branding,
cruel forms of punishment, and the practice of enslavement by birthright. This much is evident
in the numerous forms of legislation intended to ease abuses and better regulate the growing
industry of slavery in the Spanish colonies. Included among these are the Codigo Negro of the
1780s which brought together all the disparate existing laws concerning slavery and set forth a
guideline for the handling and treatment of slaves, the Cedula of 1784 which banned branding of
slaves, and the Instrucciones of 1789, which specifically addressed the question of slave
treatment (see Salmoral 1994, 23-38). 7 Though handed down by the Spanish crown, these pieces
of legislation met with strong opposition by slave owners and traffickers who succeeded in
suspending the Codigo Negro and suppressing the regulatory aspects of the Instrucciones as
evident by the continued abuse and mistreatment of slaves (see Salmoral 1994). The
Instrucciones did, however, provide slaves with a legal outlet for protesting their abuse. Indeed,
there are several documented instances of complaints brought by slaves from the Chota-Mira
valley against their slave owners for abuse (see Savoia and Ocles 1992; Tardieu 2006, 320). As
might be expected, these cases more often than not favored the slave owners.
Despite the relative failure of these laws, their spirit and intent, however hypocritical,
nonetheless reflect the increasing social and political discomfort with the institution of slavery
7
For more on the black codes and their impact on the institution of slavery and treatment of
slaves in the Spanish colonies, see Andrews (2004, 33-37), Klein and Vinson (2007, 165-171), Malagón
(1974), Salmoral 23-47; Petit (1947; 181-269).
114
itself. 8 As Carlos Coba Andrade (1981, 50) notes, the rhetoric of the independence movement
encompassed a notion of freedom that precluded the abolishment of slavery. Thus, as historians
are fond of noting, Simon Bolivar and his army were known to free slaves who joined their
ranks. 9 In 1814 and 1821 two significant legislative reforms changed the status of children born
to slaves. These “womb laws,” as they are typically referred to, were intended to phase out
slavery by birthright and slavery altogether along with the illegalization of the act of enslavement
or of the importation of slaves into or out of Gran Colombia in 1819 (Coba Andrade 1981, 51).
This meant that children born of slaves were free and that blacks brought into the region with the
intent of selling into slavery were immediately freed. These laws, while significantly advancing
the position of blacks, did not grant freedom to those already enslaved within the borders of Gran
Colombia. In fact, full emancipation would not occur until thirty years later. In the year 1851,
President General Uribe officially declared the emancipation of all slaves in the new republic,
provisional upon the states’ ability to reimburse the slave owners for their financial loss. As a
result of this particular provision, however, the process of securing release from bondage
dragged on until a final decree, issued in 1852, set a limit for the release of all slaves by March 6
of 1854 (Costales 1958, 195-196). Thus it is that historians often consider the year 1854 as the
official end of slavery in Ecuador. For many afrochoteños, however, the history of indebted
servitude to white-mestizo land owners endured well into the twentieth century.
Huasipungo Era (1854-1964)
The abolishment of slavery changed little in terms of living and working conditions for the freed
blacks in the Chota-Mira valley. With no means of securing land and with few options for
earning a living post-emancipation, many of the former slaves turned to their previous owners
for work. Emancipation represented a significant loss for hacienda owners who depended on a
significant quantity of labor to maintain the hacienda and its production of sugarcane. In
response to the labor-crisis created by the end of slavery, plantation owners turned to a
combination of strategies, including the use of a permanent labor force maintained through a
system of debt-peonage as well as of part-time wage laborers employed during the more labor
8
For an overview of slave emancipation in the Spanish colonies, see Rout (1976).
9
See Andrews (2004, 53-84) on impact of wars of independence on slavery and slaves.
115
intensive periods in the plantation’s agricultural cycle (Jaramillo 1994a, 45). Thus the need for
work on the one hand and for cheap labor on the other produced the conditions for the
development of yet another, though more complex, system of exploitation that would last until
the dissolution of the haciendas and the redistribution of land in the mid 1960s. 10
During this period, the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley coalesced and
developed in tandem with the hacienda and its particular organization of land and labor. As
noted above, the hacienda made use of two distinct forms of labor: indebted and wage laborers.
The former group, known as huasipungueros after the particular nature of the work arrangement,
exchanged their labor for a small parcel of land, referred to as hausipungo or chagra (also
referred to variously as pongo, chacra, and pata), for their own personal agricultural use.
Huasipungueros typically lived on or around the haciendas along with their families and
constituted the primary work force for the haciendas, providing agricultural, domestic, as well as
construction and maintenance work for the hacendado (plantation owner; see Costales 1958;
Jaramillo 1994a, 45-50; Chalá 2006, 98-105). Part-time laborers, of which there were various
types, supplemented the work of the huasipungueros and were drawn from the neighboring
highland and immediate communities surrounding the haciendas. These wage laborers likewise
found themselves indebted to the haciendas as a result of exploitative practices such as poor
record keeping and advances in goods provided by the hacienda itself (Jaramillo 1994a, 49).
These debts were inevitably paid for in the form of work. Aside from wages and goods, the
autonomy of these neighboring communities was further compromised by a dependence on the
benevolence of the hacienda for access to water irrigation canals, firewood, and commonly used
pathways traversing the land of the hacienda (Chalá 2006, 99). While both blacks and mestizos
were employed on the plantations, the nature of the work and the previous work experience of
the free blacks ensured the predominance of black laborers on the plantations, specifically as
huasipungueros.
Though small, the hausipungo presented a viable though difficult means of sustaining a
family and was thus a much sought after arrangement (see Jaramillo 1994a, 47). While the
10
This system is generally referred to as huasipungo. See Costales (1958) for a detailed
discussion of the huasipungo system and its social implications for the communities of the Chota-Mira
valley. See also Jorge Icaza’s (1963) novel, The Villagers, for a literary account of the hausipungo
system and its social implications for the indigenous communities of Ecuador.
116
huasipunguero, often accompanied by his eldest son, fulfilled his obligations to the hacienda, his
wife and any other able child of the family would tend to the huasipungo. The huasipungo
yielded crops used not only for subsistence, but for profit as well. In some cases, however, a
portion of the harvest was taken by the hacendado as partial payment for the rights to the land.
With the additional income, families were able to purchase livestock which was likewise used
for both household consumption and sale. In this regard, the huasipungo was an outgrowth of
the previous colonial/slave system in which black slaves were similarly granted land for personal
use. As Jaramillo (Ibid.) suggests, the basis for the maintenance and reproduction of family was
thus the huasipungo.
Though the huasipungo system was a vital means of maintaining labor on the haciendas,
its limitations would ultimately contribute to its undoing over the course of the early twentieth
century. The practice of granting huasipungos depended on the availability of land, and thus
varied with the respective resources of each hacienda (see Jaramillo 1994a, 45-50). With time,
the huasipungo system presented a strain on the hacienda’s resources. Huasipungos, as
previously noted, tended to be small in size, between 1 and 4 hectares depending on the
hacienda, and of poor quality in comparison to the land of the hacienda itself (see Chalá 2006, 99
; Costales 1958; Jaramillo 1994a, 47). The continued diminution of the haciendas as a result of
sale during this time as well as the fracturing of the huasipungos as a result of inheritance further
exacerbated the problem of land availability. These factors contributed to unrest on the part of
huasipungueros on many haciendas and led to the formation of the region’s first syndicate
organizations and cooperatives during the 1950s and 1960s (Chalá 2006, 105; Jaramillo 1994a,
48-52) . These syndicates demanded access to better land and protested exploitative practices
such as the withholding of payment. Though not directly responsible for influencing the
expansive land reform enacted in 1964, these syndicates were nonetheless significant for
exposing the limitations inherent in the hacienda system and expressing a unity of communal
organization in the region.
The Agrarian Reform and Colonization Law of 1964 effectively ended the huasipungo
system with the dissolution and redistribution of the haciendas. This law sought to redress both
the abuses of precarious land ownership (i.e., huasipungos and arrimados) and the uneven
distribution of land in an effort to improve the living and working conditions of the small, rural
agriculturalists. It did so primarily by providing access to land either acquired by the state or, as
117
in the case of the huasipungueros and arrimados, land worked over an extensive period of time.
Its aim additionally encompassed the economic development of the marginal rural sectors and
their integration into the national economy through access to programs of assistance, the
formation of cooperatives, and the ability to participate in the nation’s social security program.
Instituted by the military Junta, the law reflected in part an increasing concern with impeding the
advance of communism in Ecuador as well as with the project of modernization (Gondard and
Mazurek 2001, 15-16). 11
By the end of the 1960s, a total of some 49,000 hectares were distributed to over 16,000
beneficiaries by the Ecuadorian Agrarian Reform and Colonization Institute (IERAC), which
was responsible for overseeing and executing the law. Of those, approximately 1,273 hectares
were distributed among 676 recipients in the province of Carchi and 5,233 hectares among 1,025
beneficiaries in the province of Imbabura (Costales 1971, 139-141). In the Parish of San Vicente
de Pusir, the former hacienda left to the Asistencia Social (Social Welfare) in 1945 and later
taken over by IERAC, approximately 990 hectares were distributed among 148 beneficiaries,
with an average of 6.6 hectares per family (Jaramillo 1994a, 52). Yet another former hacienda
and ward of the IERAC, Ambuqui, resulted in 556 hectares for 228 beneficiaries, averaging only
2.4 hectares a family (Ibid.). By 1969, the parceling of land had finished in the region and in the
early 1970s, the IERAC left the Chota-Mira valley.
Post Agrarian Reform
Though the agrarian reform indeed hailed the end of a long era of exploitation and servitude in
the Chota-Mira valley, it also served as a catalyst for many immediate economic and
infrastructural changes that would significantly impact the region’s social and cultural
development. Among them, the transition from a plantation to a household agricultural economy
based on the commercial production of short-cycle crops, the construction of the Pan-American
highway and the introduction of electricity, the formation of local schools in the region. These
state funded development programs further integrated the region into the national economy in a
11
For additional information on the Agrarian reforms in Ecuador see Blankstein and Zuvekas
(1973), Costales (1971), and Kofas (2001). See also Dorner (1992) for an overview of land reform in
Latin America.
118
way that further exacerbated local agricultural problems, encouraged emigration, and contributed
to the gradual stigmatization and loss of local culture.
The production of sugarcane up through the late 1970s remained a vital component of the
local agricultural economy despite the disappearance of the hacienda. This much was due to the
presence and demands of large sugarmills such as the Ingenio Tababuela, now IANCEM, lack of
access to water for irrigation, and the need to strategically diversify the local household economy
(see Chalá 2006, 106-109). State sponsored agricultural development programs operating in the
region during the 1970s, however, encouraged the production of short-cycle crops through the
introduction of new crops, enhanced seeds, chemical fertilizers, and modern equipment, as well
as through the construction of water irrigation canals and the implantation of other such
infrastructural projects (Jaramillo 1994a, 53-55). This had the effect of shifting the local
household economy from a dependence on the sugarmills to an independent relation with the
market economy as small agriculturalists (Chalá 2006, 108; Jaramillo 1994a, 52).
These efforts, however, failed to significantly improve the living conditions of families in
the region as a result of a lack of foresight in terms of the long-term impact of these programs as
well as of an understanding of how they would ultimately be adapted by the afrochoteño
communities (Jaramillo 1994a, 128). Commercial farming encouraged the intensive rotation of
crops and the overuse of chemicals, contributing to the decline in the quality of land as well as its
gradual intoxication (Chalá 2006, 120; Jaramillo 1994a, 77; see Pabón 2007, 33). The
instability of market prices obligated families to continue the diversification their household
economic strategies leading to a continued dependence on the sugarmills as well as to other wage
earning opportunities in urban areas (see Chalá 2006, 120). The problem of income was further
compounded by an increasing scarcity of land as a result of a rise in population and
unsustainable land inheritance practices (Jaramillo 1994a, 54). IERAC’s encouragement to form
cooperatives was met with resistance and opposition by some as in the community of Carpuela,
for instance, who were wary of the motives and altogether uncertain of the prospects for success
(Pabón 2007, 65). Yet others abandoned collective work altogether and invested little in the long
term development of their respective household, let alone community’s, economy immediately
after the agrarian reform. Furthermore, the household dynamic transformed as women became
119
the primary money earners through the sale of crops in the urban markets of Quito, Ibarra, and
Tulcan in Colombia (see Chalá 2006, 105; Klumpp 1998; Jaramillo 1994a, 105). 12
The transformation of the local agricultural economy as well as the demand for land and
work following the agrarian reform created the conditions for a dramatic increase in the
movement of people, goods, and capital into and out of the Chota-Mira valley. This was
facilitated by the construction of the Northern Pan-American highway in the 1970s which more
directly connected the once isolated rural area to the urban centers and markets of Ibarra, Quito,
and Tulcan in Colombia. Its completion in 1975 allowed ease of access to materials and
equipment necessary for agricultural production and infrastructural projects, provided
afrochoteños with a means of securing supplemental sources of income or of relocating in search
of new opportunities in the nation’s urban centers, facilitated rural/urban links as a result of
migration, and otherwise opened the region to outside cultural influences as a result of leisure
travel and tourism (see Pabón 2007, 70-75). These processes of intercultural contact were
further accelerated by the introduction of electricity in the Chota-Mira valley between the years
of 1975 and 1984 (Ibid., 84-94). As will be shown in subsequent chapters, the flow of people,
goods, capital, and ideas enabled by the highway and the introduction of electricity informed
perceptions of race and identity in the region with consequences for the development of local
cultural traditions.
While the end of the huasipungo system liberated afrochoteños from obligatory service, it
also entailed an abrupt end to a way of life that revolved around and depended upon the
patronage of the hacienda and hacendado. Left to their own devices, the ex-huasipungueros
quickly recognized the value of education for successive generations in facing the challenges of
modernization (Pabón 2007, 81). Thus the communities of the Chota-Mira valley organized and
petitioned for funds, earning regional, federal, and private support towards the construction of
educational centers (Ibid., 77). Education presented a means of overcoming marginality and
poverty, yet it also encouraged emigration and the stigmatization of local culture as educated
youth eschewed the oral traditions of their elders and sought work opportunities in the more
12
See Chalá (2006, 98-121) and Jaramillo (1994a) for an overview of the social and economic
changes in the Chota-Mira valley following the agrarian reforms. See also Medina (1996) and Jaramillo
(1994b) for community specific studies.
120
modern urban areas beyond agriculture (Ibid., 82). 13 It is in large part in response to the
stigmatization of local culture inculcated through the modern education system that the current
Afro-Ecuadorian led project and sociopolitical movement known as etnoeducación arises (see
Chapter One). Thus it is that, at the turn of the twenty-first century, education remains among
the primary concerns of black leaders in the Chota-Mira valley and comes to define the local
struggle for social, economic, and political equality in Ecuador.
As shown above, the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley mark the coloniality of
power in their very origins in the transatlantic slave trade and continued exploitation,
marginalization, and stigmatization within the nation since the abolishment of slavery. That
afrochoteños are aware of the enduring legacy of the power dynamics established in the wake of
colonialism and colonial slavery is evident in the very perception frequently expressed that
slavery and its social, economic, and political consequences persisted well beyond the official
end of slavery in Ecuador (see Chalá 2006, 113). As a means of more fully exploring the
significance of this reality for La Bomba and its relation to afrochoteño identity, the following
section considers more closely how the particular afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of
power conditioned and informed the development of local identity and culture.
The Afrochoteño Experience of the Coloniality of Power
As shown in the previous section, Afro-Ecuadorian and afrochoteño history specifically mark the
coloniality of power in their very origins and in their continued struggle against subjugation,
exploitation, and marginalization. This section examines more closely the particular afrochoteño
experience of the coloniality of power as it has informed the development and expression of
collective identity (i.e., the colonial difference) in the Chota-Mira valley. The particularities of
life and work conditioned by the coloniality of power provided the very possibility and means
for the emergence, maintenance, and development of a sense of community and collective
identity among the enslaved, exploited, and marginalized African and afro-descendant
population of the region. It is the particular (sub)alternity emergent of this experience that
13
See Lucas (2000, 2001) for a discussion of education and racism in the Chota-Mira valley. See
also Johnson (2007) for a similar discussion of education and race in Esmeraldas.
121
constitutes the colonial difference. While today manifested in terms of race and ethnicity as a
result of current afrochoteño responses to the coloniality of power (see Chapter Two), this
difference is historically grounded in and expressed most prominently through the struggle for
family and land as shown below. This is important in more properly situating La Bomba and its
significance for afrochoteño identity not in relation to race as cultural origins and heritage, but in
relation to those dynamics of power informing the development and expression of collective
identity in the Chota-Mira valley since the colonial period.
The Colonial Period: Slave Treatment, Family, and Land
Though archival documents reveal little about the details of slave life in the Chota-Mira valley
during the colonial period, it is possible to speculate that the particular organization and
treatment of slaves by the Jesuits fostered conditions ideal for the development of community
and a sense of communal identity among the slaves, one centered specifically around family and
land. The strategic separation of slave families through sale so as to deter communal bonding
and thus the chance of rebellion was practiced less frequently by the Jesuits in the Chota-Mira
valley. 14 Indeed, it is known that the Jesuits employed the exact opposite approach though for
many of the same reasons, keeping slave families whole and intact so as to incentivize them to be
more productive and docile. This was also done in part for more pragmatic purposes, to maintain
a sense of “familial morality” as Paloma Fernandez-Rasines (2001, 68) suggests, and to maintain
a constant labor force through the biological reproduction of slaves both through marriage and
breeding. Regardless of the intentions, the end result was the possibility for the initial
development of a sense of community among the black slaves of the Chota-Mira valley through
the integrity of the family, the basic social unit of the hacienda.
Apart from the hacienda itself, the economic base for the maintenance and reproduction
of the slave family was land. As previously noted, the Jesuits granted slave families access to
farmable land for their own agricultural use (Feijóo 1991, 111; Salmoral 1994, 100). While this
presented a means of potentially transcending their status as slaves, as suggested by the
possibility of earning money toward manumission, the reality was most likely such that slave
14
See Klein and Vinson (2007) and Andrews (2004) for an overview of slavery and the
conditions of slave life in Latin America. See also Chandler (1972, 1981, 1982) for a discussion of
conditions of slavery and Jesuit treatment of slaves in Ecuador and Colombia.
122
families had only enough resources in land and labor to subsist (see Costales 1958, Salmoral
1994, 100). Indeed, considering the state of the huasipunguero relative the land and the hacienda
post emancipation, the disposable land provided by the Jesuits was more than likely dismal in
terms of size, quality, and location in comparison to the extensive and fertile lands maintained by
the hacienda itself. The Jesuit practice of providing access to land helped subsidize the cost of
maintaining the slaves, which, depending on the size and particular activity of the hacienda
varied in number from 90 to over 260 according to data recorded by the Junta de Temporalidades
during the years of their administration, 1776-1779 (Chalá 2006, 87; Feijóo 1991, 88). 15 The
relatively high volume of slaves in the possession of the Jesuits at the time of their expulsion is a
testament speaks to their financial resources and the efficacious organization of their diverse and
mutually beneficial operations (Feijóo 1991, 87). 16 Thus while the less stringent treatment of the
Jesuits toward slave families presented enslaved Africans with the opportunity to establish and
maintain a household, it also arguably helped to sustain and propagate the practice of slavery in
the region. Regardless of the intentions, the Jesuit practice of retaining families and of granting
access to land was nonetheless beneficial and of extreme importance to the enslaved African
population in the region. This much may be inferred from the numerous documented acts of
slave resistance instigated by the sale of slaves and separation of slave families following the
expulsion of the Jesuits (see Savoia and Ocles 1999).
The abrupt transition in ownership and the subsequent parceling and redistribution of the
haciendas and their slaves threatened the integrity of the slave family and their tenuous ties to the
land. As previously noted, the Junta de Temporalidades immediately began the process of
downsizing the number of slaves, which was determined to be in excess through an imbalance in
a calculated ratio of land to labor (Feijóo 1991, 89). Unlike the Jesuits, the Junta and subsequent
private owners sold slaves with little regard as to the impact on slave families. The prospect of
sale additionally meant the loss of land, which though never truly belonged to the slave was
nonetheless significant for the relative autonomy it provided the slave family (Chalá 2006, 87).
The separation of families was met with considerable opposition by the slaves as the individuals
15
See Salmoral (1994, 64-69) for an estimation of slave prices in Ecuador.
16
See Feijóo (1991, 95-123) for a detailed discussion of Jesuit operations and their organizations
in Ecuador.
123
in question and their families often resisted in the form of flight, protests, legal petitions, and
even rebellion (Ibid.). Manuel Lucena Salmoral (1994, 157) recounts one such case, for
instance, involving the rebellion of 40 slaves transferred from the hacienda Cuajara to San
Buenaventura toward the end of the eighteenth century. These slaves, originally among a group
of 80 slaves sold by Don Carlos de Araujo of Cuajara to Don Gregorio Larrea of San
Buenaventura, refused to be transferred and marched back to Cuajara where they effectively
organized with their fellow slaves and indigenous jornaleros and refused to work. According to
this account, Larrea had great difficulty in suppressing the rebellion, eventually enlisting troops
to remove the leaders who were subsequently sold. Similar instances of slave resistance as a
result of the separation of families are noted by Jose Chalá (2006, 88-91), including the escape of
60 slaves, among them families, in 1789 from the hacienda of La Concepcion for fear of being
sold. According to Chalá, the owner of the hacienda, then Juan Antonio Chiriboga, had little
choice but to forcefully remove them from their place of refuge in the surrounding mountains
and sell them as families in Guayaquil.
These forms of resistance were also due to the increase and severity of abuse suffered at
the hands of the Junta de Temporalidades and the new, private owners. Various instances of
horrendous treatment are noted by the Costales (1958), Salmoral (1994, 124-153), and Tardieu
(2006, 320-324) among other scholars of afrochoteño history and culture. Suffice it to say that
though the mistreatment of slaves was present throughout the history of slavery in Ecuador and
the Americas, the severity of abuse as well as the rise in slave rebellion noted between the years
1780 and 1820 reflect the increasing tensions over the morality and place of slavery in the
Spanish Viceroyalties and newfound independent states at the turn of the century (see Coba
Andrade 1981, 50). This much is evident in the Spanish Crown’s attempt to regulate slavery and
the treatment of slaves in the New World colonies through such legislation as the Codigo Negro
Carolino and the Cedula of 1789 and its resistance by slave owners as well as in the incitement
of independence liberation ideology in legislative efforts aimed at limiting and eventually
abolishing slavery in the new states (see Coba-Andrade 1981, 35; Salmoral 1994, 23-46).
Regardless of whether the result of mistreatment or the separation of slave families, slave
resistance and its organization spoke to the significance of family and land for the dignity and
self-preservation of the slaves (see Chalá 2006, 91; Peters 2005, 150).
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Yet another additional factor in the treatment of black slaves on the Jesuit haciendas
during the colonial period informed the development of afrochoteño identity and culture:
instruction in the Roman Catholic faith. As elsewhere in the Americas, it was the responsibility
of the slave owners in the Audencia de Quito to provide their slaves with a foundation in the
church and to allow them to observe Sundays and religious feast days as days for celebration and
rest (Chandler 1982, 316; Coba-Andrade, 1981, 35; Salmoral 1994, 35). Though sometimes not
observed by slave owners as evident by formal complaints registered by slaves toward the end of
the nineteenth century, these days of rest were significant in that they provided a space not only
for worship, but for the formation of community away from the purview of the slave owners
whose religious worship and celebrations were set apart from those of the hacienda’s slaves.
These “spaces of liberty,” to borrow a phrase from Federica Peters (2005, 149), also allowed for
the development of new cultural expressions in part adapted from the church as well as from the
cultural traditions of neighboring indigenous and mestizo communities no doubt introduced
through the practice of mixed labor on the haciendas. These influences are today evident in the
predominance of the Roman Catholic faith, forms of worship such as the use of sung prayers,
sociodramas, and processions, as well as in the material culture, beliefs, practices, and linguistic
patterns of the afrochoteño communities.
Huasipungo Period (1854-1964)
As noted previously, the need to maintain labor and maximize profits following the abolishment
of slavery in Ecuador led to the development of complex and exploitative strategies of
employment wherein labor was ultimately exchanged for debt, whether in land, wages, goods, or
some combination thereof. Characterizing this arrangement was the huasipunguero, who worked
primarily in exchange for land. Depending on the hacienda, the huasipunguero lived along with
his family either on the hacienda itself, building their homes around the house of the
mayordomo, or in the immediate area surrounding the hacienda. These families would constitute
the foundation of the region’s present day communities. Conditions of life and work for
afrochoteños during the huasipungo period, however, changed little with the end of slavery.
Agricultural production in the region up through the 1960s benefited little from the
technological advancements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and remained as
arduous and labor intensive as during the colonial period. Piedad and Alfredo Costales (1958,
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81-82) provide a brief summary and description of the tasks and working conditions on the
sugarcane plantations of this period. Besides the daily obligations to the hacienda, the
huasipunguero rotated between various jobs related to the task of processing the sugarcane
during times of harvest, including cutting and deleafing the sugarcane stalks, transporting the
sugarcane either manually or by mule to the sugarmill, and the actual production of molasses and
other derivative products. The processing of sugarcane was labor intensive and involved
numerous workers performing a variety of tasks including grinding the sugarcane, overseeing the
cooking and distribution of the syrup, mixing the syrup, molding the syrup, and packaging the
raw sugar. This last task in particular was performed by the wives and children of the
huasipungueros. The physical demands of this work, which could last day and night for up to a
week depending on the amount of sugarcane, compounded by the daily obligations from which
the huasipunguero was not excused and the poor working conditions in the trapiche (mill)
resulted in chronic health problems such as respiratory ailments and premature death. This
reality led the Costales (Ibid., 83) to conclude that the conditions of the huasipunguero were no
different than during the time of slavery, a common perception held by many afrochoteños today
(see Chalá 2006, 98-103, Henry Medina 1996, 40; Jaramillo 1994b 27-32).
The need to maximize resources in both land and labor, however, led to an eventual crisis
for many haciendas. The ability to provide land in the form of the huasipungo depended on the
availability of disposable land. As it was in the interest of the hacendado to maintain the best
land for the hacienda, it was not uncommon to parcel not only small plots of land to
huasipungueros, but to parcel land of poor quality in parts of the valley unfavorable to
agricultural production such as along the river or on the rocky hillside. To become a
huasipunguero, however, meant the ability to establish and provide for a family. Huasipungos
were typically granted to those who have earned the trust of the hacendado through years of
work on the hacienda as a wage laborer. For this reason the eldest son of a huasipunguero would
work alongside his father or sometimes in place of his father when incapacitated as a means of
earning trust and securing a position first as a wage laborer then later as a huasipunguero. As
Jaramillo (1994a, 49; 1994b 31) notes, the ability to marry or formalize a union between couples
was predicated upon ones access to land. Yet while the huasipungo was a desirable arrangement
for the potential such precarious land tenure held for the ability to establish and maintain a stable
household, the reality was such that the huasipunguero gained little from the bargain as a result
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of the poor size, quality and placement of the land as well as of the actual work conditions
obliged by the arrangement. The growth of families, frequent flooding, and unproductive land
thus placed a strain on the huasipungueros.
The need on the part of the huasipungueros for access to more and better land for the
sustenance and reproduction of their families led to collective organization in the decade
preceding the agrarian reform laws (Jaramillo 1994b, 49). These labor syndicates based their
claims to land and compensation on existing labor and abandoned land laws, and were organized
with the help of members of the Ecuadorian Communist Party (Jaramillo 1994a, 32). Among the
organizations were La Colonia Agricola Carchense, La Federación Campesina Carchi, and La
Asociación de Trabajadores Agricolas La Esperanza in Carpuela (Jaramillo 1994b, 50-51).
Though these organizations did not directly influence the comprehensive state-wide land reform
enacted in the 1960s, they did provide a space for enacting and strengthening community within
and across the haciendas. La Federación Campesina Carchi, for example, brought together
several syndicates in the year 1956 representing numerous workers and families spanning the
Chota-Mira valley, including the haciendas of Caldera, Piquiucho, San Vicente de Pusir,
Mascarilla, Pucara, and San Gabriel (Jaramillo 1994b, 33). In the year 1958, the federation
organized a massive congress in San Vicente de Pusir amidst several strikes and protests it was
helping organize. As Jaramillo (Ibid., 35) notes, these organizations helped unite the workers in
their common struggle, creating a sense of common identity among them in the process.
The emergence of these organizations also illuminates the strength of the connection
between land and family for afrochoteños during this time, a bond originating in the colonial
period. While no longer enslaved and obligated to work the land of the hacienda, many
afrochoteños stayed and entered into such exploitative work arrangements in part because of a
sense of belonging, ownership, and attachment inculcated through ancestry and physical labor of
the land (see Chalá 2006, 120-121). The emergence and demands of the labor organizations
speak to the necessity and value of land for the huasipungueros and their families as well as to
their sense of identification and entitlement. This would manifest itself more concretely
following the agrarian reform as ex-huasipungueros and emigrating afrochoteños would identify
most strongly in the 1970s and 1980s not in terms of ethnicity, per se, but of place (see Pabón
2007, 69; Schechter 1994). As Jaramillo (1994a, 76) notes, it is the struggle of the afrochoteño
communities over land and its significance for daily survival that begin to define their identity as
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a community. As will be seen in the third section of this chapter, this has significant
ramifications for the development of Bomba.
Post Agrarian Reform (1964-Present)
The agrarian reform served as a catalyst for social, economic, and cultural change in the ChotaMira valley. As previously noted, state and local infrastructural, agricultural, and educational
development projects intent on modernizing and thus integrating the region into the national
economy and imagination significantly impacted cultural forms and ways of living in the ChotaMira valley. The transition to a household agricultural economy closely aligned to local,
regional, and transregional markets made possible by the newly constructed Pan-American
highway and advances in communication technology opened the region to outside cultural
influences. Emigration, the availability of national and foreign goods, standardized education,
and access to local and global sounds and images created a false dichotomy between that which
was considered traditional and thus impoverished and that which was modern and thus
progressive. As noted above, afrochoteño identity following the agrarian reform and up through
the mid 1990s was subsequently marked by an overt identification with place, as in a generic
regional highland identity, rather than race. As expected, this regional identity conformed to the
homogenizing ideology of national identity expressed in the image of the highland mestizo, or
person of mixed-raced heritage. Most decisive in this transformational process was not the
movement of goods and people themselves but the values and ideals that went along with them.
In his study of identity formation in the Chota-Mira valley, Ivan Pabón (2007, 85)
astutely argues that the move toward modernization fundamentally altered afrochoteño identity
in breaking with the traditional basis of its constitution, orality. This was supplanted with a
notion of history and a vision of social reality and upward social and economic mobility founded
upon values and ideals espoused and imposed by the ruling, white-mestizo elite. Rather than
through traditional modes of communication enacted within the family and community, such as
storytelling, riddles, music, and dance, notions of nationhood, personhood, and modernity were
being shaped by standardized education textbooks that occluded the history of slavery and
exploitation in Ecuador and by media which projected images and sounds consumed in the form
of soap operas and ballads entirely disconnected from the social reality in which the afrochoteños
lived. As noted previously, the internalization of whiteness as an ideal of national citizenship
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and social and economic progress negatively impacted perceptions of local customs and
traditions among afrochoteño youth eager to find their place within the modern nation-state.
This inevitably led to a stigmatization and devaluation of local traditions.
It is not surprising, then, that during the 1990s, amidst the gaining strength of the
indigenous ethnic identitary movements, conscientious Afro-Ecuadorian scholars and leaders
from both the Chota-Mira valley and Esmeraldas turned to education as a means of revitalizing
their cultural heritage and re-envisioning their identity. Etnoeducación, and the subsequent representation of highland black identity along Afrocentric terms, emerged as a grassroots
response and expressly counter-discourse to the discriminatory ideology and hegemonicdiscourse of mestizaje. In cultivating an awareness of and pride in local history and cultural
traditions, proponents of etnoeducación sought to strengthen the social and political claims of the
Afro-Ecuadorian communities and thus successfully engage as a distinct ethnic group with staterecognized rights in the national intercultural dialogue envisioned by the ideology of
interculturalidad.
The Coloniality of Power and La Bomba: Origins and Social Significance
As shown in the previous two sections, the afro-descendant communities of the Chota-Mira
valley mark the coloniality of power in the possibility of their origins with the transatlantic slave
trade and in the very development and expression of their collective identity. The dynamic
transformation of this collective identity since the colonial period reflects the shifting
afrochoteño experience of and response to the coloniality of power. As an expression of the
colonial difference, La Bomba likewise necessarily emerges from and responds to the
afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power. As such, the following section considers the
implications of La Bomba’s relationship to the coloniality of power for La Bomba’s function and
significance relative afrochoteño identity. As shown below, La Bomba originates precisely
within those contexts conditioned by the coloniality of power allowing for the development and
expression of familial and communal identity. Furthermore, close reading of existing historical
texts illuminates the greater function and social significance of La Bomba as a sociomusical
process enabling and enacting the intersubjective negotiation of communal identity. Thus while
allowing for the negotiation, constitution, and expression of the colonial difference, La Bomba
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serves to mediate the particular afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power in providing
spaces for the enactment of familial and communal bonds. As shown in subsequent chapters,
this is crucial in understanding the significance of La Bomba as a musical genre and musical
sound object.
Origins and Context
The collective memory of the afrochoteño communities asserts that La Bomba emerged among
the enslaved black population of the Chota-Mira valley. Despite this common knowledge,
situating La Bomba’s origin in the colonial period specifically is complicated by the lack of
written documentation as well as by the prolonged emancipation process in Ecuador, which
extended beyond the colonial period through the early formation of the Republic. It is likely,
however, that La Bomba originated sometime before 1854, the year slavery was effectively
abolished in Ecuador. This much is suggested by oral testimonies in which recollections of La
Bomba extend beyond three generations. A Bomba musician from the community of
Mascarillas, for instance, recalled that his great-grandfather, a bombero who lived to be over 100
years of age, learned to play the guitar as a slave at the encouragement of the patron for the
purposes of entertaining the slaves during times of celebration.
What is certain is that La Bomba had already been established and in popular practice by
the time Hausserek passed through the region sometime between the years 1861 and 1865.
Hausserek (1868, 344) describes the performance of a dance referred to as bundi curiously
similar to La Bomba staged in his honor while a guest on the hacienda of Chamanal:
While I was at Chamanal, the hospitable owner of the hacienda gave me the spectacle of
a negro dance, which is called bundi, and is exceedingly interesting. The negroes of the
hacienda, men, women, and children, assembled in the hall, bringing with them two
characteristic musical instruments—the bomba and the alfandoque. The former is
intended for a drum. It is a sort of barrel, over which a hide is spanned, and to beat which
no drumsticks but the fingers or fists are used to make the singers keep time. The
alfandoque is a hollow cane or reed, into which a quantity of buckshot, peas, or pebbles
is put, whereupon the openings are closed with cotton or a bundle of rags. By shaking this
queer instrument a noise is produced similar to that made in theatres to imitate the sound
of falling rain. It is, however, shaken to the time of the songs, and chimes in not at all
unpleasantly. But the main part of the orchestra consists of the voices of the women and
children, accompanied by the voice of the player of the alfandoque. Clapping their hands
continually, they sing a great variety of songs, to which the bomba and alfandoque keep
time.
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Though uncertain from the above description whether or not the term bundi is used in reference
to a specific dance or the dance event itself, the performance event depicted is otherwise a
Bomba as understood by afrochoteños today and as described in the Costales account of a
Bomba nearly a century later (see 1958, 128-143). 17 It is plausible, given that Hausserek
mentioned the bomba itself, that the word bundi may have either been the original or another
commonly used term at the time which then gave way to Bomba. It may also be that bundi
indeed referred to a particular genre or type of dance subsumed within the general category of
Bomba as is evident today with the pasacalle, san juanito, vallenato, and cumbia for instance (see
Bueno 1991, 190; Schechter 1994, 295). In either case, Hausserek’s observations show that an
established culture of music and dance revolving around the bomba and with characteristics akin
to La Bomba of the twentieth century existed shortly after the abolishment of slavery in Ecuador.
Regardless of the exact date of La Bomba’s origins, it is clear from contemporary
afrochoteño testimonies and from the conditions of work and life in the Chota-Mira valley during
the period of enslavement as discussed previously, that La Bomba first emerged within the
context proscribed by the Church. As noted previously, socioreligious occasions such as days of
worship, saint feast days, Christmas, Carnaval, Holy Week, and the celebration of Holy
Sacraments (i.e., baptisms, first communions, and weddings) provided moments of rest and
leisure for the enslaved black population. These occasions became the predominant contexts for
the gathering of family and community. As such, these limited spaces conditioned by the
coloniality of power enabled the development and expression of communal identity, or the
colonial difference, among the enslaved population. Arising from and central to this context was
La Bomba. As shown below, this alludes to the greater function and social significance of the
genre in its negotiation of the colonial difference and mediation of the coloniality of power.
Function and Social Significance
While bomba refers to a specific instrument, it broadly applies to a variety of song forms and
dance genres subsumed within the sociomusical event connoted by La Bomba. Hausserek (1868,
344-355) describes a lengthy performance event wherein a variety of songs and dances are
driven by the continuous sound of the bomba:
17
Based on Hausserek’s description, Bueno (1991, 182) asserts that bundi is a dance genre no
longer practiced in the Chota-Mira valley.
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. . . the main part of the orchestra consists of the voices of the women and children,
accompanied by the voice of the player of the alfandoque. Clapping their hands
continually, they sing a great variety of songs, to which the bomba and alfandoque keep
time. . . . They dance various dances, some of which are irresistibly comic. . . . The
partners keep on dancing without interruption, one pair at a time, until somebody else
steps in to relieve them ; but the change of performers does not interrupt the performance
for a single moment, nor is there an intermission of the song, Even the fellow who beats
the bomba never stops. When he is treated to a cup of rum, some one of the company
presents it to his lips, and he swallows it while his hands continue to beat the drum.
Perspiration pours down his face, but he has no time to wipe it off. With the agility of a
monkey, he keeps on beating his bomba as long as there is a pair not too exhausted to
keep up the dance.
Though a staged performance, the above description nonetheless reveals an intimate relationship
between the music and the dance that provides some indication as to the social significance of
the event during this period. Hausserek’s observations about the bombero are most telling in this
regard. The songs and dances may vary within the context of the performance, but it is clear that
they are encompassed by the continuous sound of the bomba and fluid exchange of dance
partners.
This description is nearly identical to that provided by the Alfred and Piedad Costales
(1958) nearly a century later. Over the course of ten pages, the Costales depict a Christmas
celebration featuring La Bomba in the Chota-Mira valley sometime during the mid 1950s. Just
as Hausserek, the Costales note the perpetual sound of the bomba and the continuous and fluid
alternation of songs and dance partners. A scene of conviviality is depicted with attendees from
the community passing through the performance space designated by the communal area of the
chosa, sharing in conversation and aguardiente, engaging with the music and dance partners, and
partaking in dance well into the night. As the Costales (1955, 127) note, the entire community
takes part, taking advantage of the brief respite offered by the occasion from the hardships of
daily life.
It is evident from both descriptions that though dance partners take turns the event
involves the participation of the whole through singing, clapping, and non musical interactions
with the dancers and bomber, such as shouts of encouragement and the offering of libations.
Enabling and pervading this convivial event is the music and the dance, or the sound of the
bomba in particular. This suggests that La Bomba emerged as a sociomusical event rather than
as a specific genre of music and dance per se that served primarily as a means of enabling the
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collective negotiation and expression of communal identity. That this is the case is corroborated
in contemporary afrochoteño accounts concerning the function and meaning of La Bomba. Most
telling in this regard is afrochoteño bombero and scholar Gualberto Espinoza’s interpretation of
La Bomba. Though previously quoted, his remarks about the social significance of La Bomba
are worth repeating as they take on even greater significance within the context of this chapter:
La Bomba como género musical específicamente negro acá pues es algo que, o era, algo
que se sentía, se llevaba en el alma. Era algo que nos permitía establecer esas relaciones
de familiaridad, con la comunidad, con la familia. Porque era en los encuentras
familiares donde la bomba emergía, afloraba. Y no la bomba solamente como un
instrumento, si no como todo un corpus, como todo un conjunto, como todo un universo
patrimonial. porque se entiende la bomba primero como un instrumento, que da también
el nombre al baile, da el nombre al música, da el nombre al momento: estamos hacienda
bomba . . . Otros dicen “a la cochita amorosa,” hacer relación a la bomba que es un
lugar, un momento, de encuentro comunitario. “Estamos en la bomba.” Y si eso lo
llevamos al género musical, pues se hace todavia mas interesante, porque ya no es
solamente un compartir ideas e intercambiar experiencias, si no tambien es negociar el
alma en conjunto, en comunidad.
[La Bomba as a specifically black musical genre here is something that, or was
something that one felt, that one carried in the soul. It was something that allowed us to
establish those relations of familiarity, with the community, with the family. Because it
was in the family gatherings where the bomba emerged, flourished. And not La Bomba
only as an instrument, but also as a whole corpus, as a whole ensemble, as a whole
hereditary universe. Because La Bomba is understood first as an instrument, which also
gives name to the dance, gives name to the music, gives name to the moment: we are
making bomba . . . Others say “to the loving thing” making reference to La Bomba, that
is a place, a moment, a communal gathering. “We are in La Bomba.” And if we take this
[idea] to the musical genre, well it becomes even more interesting, because it is no longer
only a sharing of ideas and interchanging of experiences, if not also it is to negotiate the
soul in communion, in community.]
Espinoza’s emphasis on the temporal, spacial, and intersubjective aspects of La Bomba as a
place, moment, and gathering enabling the communal negotiation of “el alma” (“soul”), by
which he means essence, in particular resonates with the perspective on the sociohistorical
development of afrochoteño identity outlined in this chapter and further illuminates the
descriptions recorded by Hausserek and the Costales. As shown previously in this chapter, the
development of afrochoteño identity and, subsequently, culture is conditioned by the coloniality
of power. The experience thereof marks afrochoteño history in terms of their sociohistorical
struggles. It was in part through the limited spaces afforded by the coloniality of power,
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however, that afrochoteño identity and culture (i.e., the colonial difference) was allowed to
develop. La Bomba, as the accounts above reveal, as a sociomusical event, provided the means
by which the colonial difference was negotiated and expressed. Thus, La Bomba, though itself
conditioned by the coloniality of power, served to mediate the experience thereof.
Collectively, the Huasserek and Costales descriptions in conjunction with contemporary
afrochoteño testimony suggest a continuity in La Bomba’s function from its origins in the
colonial period up through the end of the hausipungo era as a sociomusical event intimately
linked to the formation and expression of the colonial difference. This much is corroborated in
reading the afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power during this time period, which
changed little despite the abolishment of slavery in 1854. The stability in the conditions of life
and work and in the limited spaces afforded for leisure and communal gathering maintained the
relevance of La Bomba as a social phenomenon enabling the intersubjective negotiation of
identity. Following the agrarian reforms and the dissolution of the haciendas, however, the
context for the performance of La Bomba expanded to include purely secular and commercial
purposes, such as local and regional competitions and tourist oriented events. Despite this
change, however, the predominant context and function for La Bomba, as argued below, today
remains inextricably bound to socioreligious occasions and the gathering of family and
community.
Continuity and Change in Function Post Agrarian Reform
As noted previously, the dissolution of the haciendas and the huasipungo system with the
agrarian reforms of the 1960s wrought significant social and economic changes in the ChotaMira valley. The integration of the region within the national market economy in particular
allowed for participation in state modernization efforts that contributed to rising emigration, the
loss of local material culture and cultural practices, and the stigmatization of local beliefs,
traditions, and ways of living. It also allowed for the commoditization of La Bomba and its
dissemination beyond the Chota-Mira valley in the form of recordings and professional
commercial Bomba groups such as Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo (see Schechter
1994).
It is most telling that a conception of musicians as professionals did not exist prior to the
agrarian reforms. The first known commercial Bomba group to perform beyond the Chota-Mira
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valley is widely acknowledged among afrochoteños to be Los Romanticos del Valle from the
community of Chota. As former members Oswaldo Maldonado and Milton Carabalí recall
during an interview, the group performed locally under the name Los Tolemences until the mid
1970s when they began to perform for profit in bars, restaurants, hostels, and private parties in
Ibarra and Quito as well as the Chota-Mira valley. Carabalí notes that they consciously crafted a
professional image complete with uniform costumes in part encouraged by their training in stage
presence as participants in an activist theatre group in the Chota-Mira valley at the time. Though
paid performances supplemented their respective household incomes, the group was limited in its
ability to tour and ultimately disbanded in part due to conflicts with work. This speaks to the
unfeasibility of sustaining a living on the earnings of musical performances alone, an issue faced
by many professional afrochoteño musicians today. Though Carabalí’s claim that Los
Romanticos del Valle first recorded and set the standard for the performance of La Bomba is
disputed among afrochoteños, there is little question that they established a model for the
professionalization of Bomba groups and the commodification of La Bomba which would be
soon replicated by later groups such as Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo, Grupo Juventud
de Carpuela, Mario Diego Congo and Oro Negro, and Marabu among others.
While this phenomenon has certainly broadened the performance context and audience
and has introduced new aesthetics in the performance practice of La Bomba, it has not
fundamentally altered the genre’s greater social significance as a sociomusical process linked to
the process of identity formation in the Chota-Mira valley. That this is so is suggested in the
continuity of La Bomba’s association with socioreligious occasions and the subsequent
significance of such events for the strengthening, maintenance, and negotiation of familial and
communal bonds in the region as illuminated in the socioreligious celebrations of Carnaval
Coangue and Holy week. Among the two most significant occasions for the reunion of family in
the Chota-Mira valley, these much anticipated events draw afrochoteños now living in all parts
of Ecuador and prominently feature La Bomba, albeit in a more formal performance context and
through a mixture of live and mediated music.
Carnaval Coangue in particular illuminates the continued significance of La Bomba as a
sociomusical event as it is a celebration of local identity and culture permeated predominantly,
but not exclusively, by La Bomba. The convivial event brings family, locals, and outsiders alike
in a celebration and communion of local identity and culture encompassed entirely by the
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continuous sound and fluid juxtaposition of Bomba and other song and dance genres of the
African Diaspora. Whether live or mediated, music is a constant as attendees enter and exit the
space, share conversation, food and drink with one another, engage in water play, and participate
in music making by dancing, singing, clapping, and shouting in encouragement through the
duration of the festival. Though encompassing a broader audience, the Carnaval Coangue, in its
sociomusical dimensions, evokes the convivial and intersubjective event described by Hausserek
and the Costales and alluded to in Espinoza’s comments. That the community constituted and
negotiated by Carnaval Coangue encompasses both black and non-black Ecuadorians and
outsiders, rather than contradict La Bomba’s role in the formation of local identity, speaks most
aptly to the contemporary afrochoteño experience of and response the coloniality of power as
reflected in contemporary representations of the colonial difference (see Chapter Two). Thus it
may be said that La Bomba continues to function in its greater social role as a sociomusical event
enabling the formation and negotiation of identity and thus the mediation of the coloniality of
power.
Conclusion
The afro-descendant communities of the Chota-Mira valley mark the coloniality of power in
their very origins in colonial slavery and sociohistorical development as informed by their
continual struggle for social, economic, and political equality within the nation post
emancipation. Within the limited spaces conditioned by the coloniality of power, La Bomba
emerged out of necessity as a sociomusical event enabling the formation and negotiation of
communal identity among the enslaved and exploited black population of the Chota-Mira valley.
La Bomba thus allowed for the discursive mediation of the coloniality of power while marking
the colonial difference. Despite the changes evident in the Chota-Mira valley, the
commodification of La Bomba, and the introduction of new performance contexts and practices
following the dissolution of the haciendas and the huasipungo system, La Bomba continues to
serve as a context and space for the discursive and intersubjective formation, negotiation, and
expression of collective identity. As argued above, this much is evident in the intimate
association between La Bomba, socioreligious contexts, and family/community in the ChotaMira valley to this day. La Bomba’s persistent role in the mediation of the coloniality of power
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and in the constitution of the colonial difference reveals the greater social significance of La
Bomba not as a specific genre of music per se, but as a sociomusical event and process. The
following chapter considers the implications of this understanding for the form and development
of La Bomba as musical genre.
Given the relative continuity in the experience of the coloniality of power from the
colonial period up through the huasipungo period and the lack of documentation concerning La
Bomba’s development, scholarly and popular treatment of La Bomba’s history tends to approach
this period of the genre’s development as static. This leads to the erroneous assumption
expressed in many interview statements that La Bomba prior to the agrarian reforms represents
an authentic tradition. Such a perspective overlooks the fact that La Bomba appears to have
been a hybrid genre from its inception, as indicated by the Hausserek and Costales descriptions.
Indeed, as will be shown in the following chapter, an examination of La Bomba’s development
up through the present day reveals a continuity precisely in terms of its dynamism, which in
itself may be understood as a condition of the genre’s relationship to the colonial difference and
as a function of its greater social significance as a mediator of the coloniality of power.
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CHAPTER FIVE
LA BOMBA, HYBRIDITY, AND THE COLONIALITY OF
POWER: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF LA BOMBA, 1700-2007
As argued in the previous chapter, La Bomba arises from and mediates the afrochoteño
sociohistorical experience of the coloniality of power in providing a discursive space for the
intersubjective negotiation and expression of communal identity (the colonial difference). This
chapter considers the implications of this argument for an understanding of the musical genre
itself. An overview of La Bomba’s development from the colonial period through the turn of the
twenty-first century reveals continuity in terms of its dynamic and discursive transformation. A
hallmark of La Bomba, as shown below, creative adaptation and appropriation of outside musical
instruments and genres illuminates its innate hybridity. Close examination of these changes,
however, reveals the extent to which they reflect and respond to the particular sociohistorical
circumstances and conditions informing the development of identity in the Chota-Mira valley.
La Bomba’s ability to accommodate disparate musical elements as a hybrid genre may thus be
understood as a function of its greater social significance as a mediator of the coloniality of
power. Hybridity, in this context, therefore connotes not a descriptor, but the very condition of
the colonial difference.
This chapter is divided into four main sections outlining the development of La Bomba as
well as a brief conclusion. Four broad periods may be identified in La Bomba’s historical
trajectory: origination (ca. 1700-1860) consolidation (ca. 1860-1970), commercialization,
decline, and dissemination (ca. 1970-1990), and revitalization, bifurcation, and transformation
(ca. 1990-2007). Historical documents pertaining to La Bomba prior to the agrarian reform show
that from its very inception, La Bomba was conceived not as a musical genre per se, but as a
sociomusical complex accommodative of diverse and disparate musical elements. Its formal
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development up through the end of the huasipungo period reveals the extent to which its
hybridity facilitated the incorporation of European and indigenous musical instruments and
idioms. By the end of the huasipungo period, these elements had consolidated into that which is
now typically considered “traditional” Bomba. Though stigmatized and neglected in the years
following the agrarian reforms, La Bomba nonetheless continued to develop as expanding
opportunities and markets allowed for the commodification and dissemination of La Bomba.
The formation of professional and touring commercial Bomba groups and the production of the
first Bomba records during this time further standardized La Bomba while expanding its
repertoire with the continued appropriation of national mestizo, indigenous, and international
music genres such as the albazo, san juan, and the Colombian cumbia. While commodification
intensified through the end of the twentieth century, its impact on the development of La Bomba
reflected the nascent afrochoteño identification with black ethnicity in its transregional and
transnational dimensions as evident by the tendency toward the appropriation of instruments and
genres of the greater African Diaspora. A close examination of this history thus reveals the
extent to which La Bomba, in its hybridity as a musical genre, reflects and responds to the
contemporaneous sociohistorical experiences and necessities of the afrochoteño communities.
Period of Origination (ca. 1700-1860): The Bomba Complex
As noted previously, La Bomba emerged among the enslaved and exploited afro-descendant
population of the Chota-Mira valley out of necessity as a means of mediating the experience of
the coloniality of power and of negotiating and constituting a sense of collective identity. As
will be shown in this section and throughout this chapter as well as the next, the primacy of La
Bomba’s function informs its formal development as a musical genre as well as its musical
structure and organization. The following specifically considers the implications of La Bomba’s
great social function as a mediator of the coloniality of power and as an embodiment and
expression of the colonial difference for an understanding of its very origin and form as a
musical genre.
As an oral tradition with little known documentation, La Bomba’s exact origin and early
development as a musical genre remains obscure. No reference to La Bomba, or any other
cultural form pertaining to the enslaved black highland population during the colonial period is
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known to exist in the archival documents of the National Archive of Ecuador. The use of the
term piezas, or objects, in archival documents pertaining to the purchase and sale of enslaved
Africans gives some indication as to why this aspect of slave life was neglected by slave owners,
Europeans, and mestizos at the time. The continued marginalization of the afro-descendant
population of the Chota-Mira valley following emancipation likewise accounts for the lack of
interest in and documentation of afrochoteño culture by Ecuadorian nationals up through the mid
twentieth century. Indeed, it is most telling that the first written account of La Bomba and
afrochoteño culture appear in mid nineteenth and early twentieth century travelogues penned by
foreigners passing through Ecuador. 1 Oral testimonies concerning La Bomba’s history likewise
reveal little about the genre’s origins. No stories, myths, or legends about La Bomba, including
of the drum and dance specifically, are known to exist and though there are those who are
considered more knowledgeable about La Bomba than others within the afrochoteño
communities, the transmission of La Bomba follows no distinct, hereditary, class, or specialist
line. As such, oral testimonies about the genre’s origins and early development tend to be overly
general and vague. This said, it is certain, as asserted in the previous chapter, that La Bomba did
exist prior to the mid nineteenth century given Hausserek’s description of the bomba and
performance event among the black population of the hacienda of Chamanal in the early 1860s.
Given the conditions of slave life, it is probable that La Bomba originated either solely
with the unaccompanied voice, or voice accompanied by an idiophone (i.e., hand clapping,
shakers, or an ad hoc drum). As noted in the previous chapter, the physical demands of
plantation life left little time beyond that defined by the Church for leisure. The construction of a
drum, even one less sophisticated than today’s bomba such as the one described by Hausserek
(1868, 344), would have required time and resources such as animal hides possibly beyond the
means of many slaves. This is not to say that the bomba did not exist prior to emancipation, but
rather that its presence and use more than likely arose in conjunction with rather than prior to the
voice. Such a distinction is significant in clarifying the relationship between the bomba drum
and the song and dance genre by the same name.
1
See Hausserek (1868), and Festa (1909). Friedrich Hausserek was an Austrian-American
serving as U.S. minister to Ecuador in the years 1861-1865 (Carvalho-Neto 1964, 237), and E. Festa was
an Italian zoologist traveling through Ecuador between the years of 1895-1898 (Ibid., 205). Alfred and
Piedad Costales (1958) are the first known Ecuadorians to describe La Bomba in print.
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While bomba refers to a specific instrument and its characteristic rhythm, it broadly
connotes a sociomusical event subsuming a variety of song forms and dance genres appropriated
for and adapted to the occasion as argued in the previous chapter. Central to this complex is the
bomba itself. This much is suggested by the Hausserek, Festa, and Costales descriptions of
bomba performances prior to the agrarian reforms of the 1960s wherein the bomba sounds
continuously as various songs and dances are juxtaposed to the rhythm of the drum through the
curation of the event. It is also underscored by the common perception among contemporary
bomberos considered purveyors of traditional bomba and who are critical of current trends
among youth bomba groups that a Bomba without a bomba drum is not Bomba. Yet considering
the greater social significance of La Bomba as a sociomusical event enabling the negotiation and
expression of identity (the colonial difference) and the mediation of the coloniality of power, it is
more than likely that the drum arose concomitantly with this function. This is to say that the
drum emerged in conjunction with and as a result of the necessity for the greater complex
connoted by the term Bomba rather than prior to or after. Drum, song, dance, and the
encompassing event must be thought of as an integral and inseparable whole rather than as
individual and mutually exclusive elements. As such, the musical genre Bomba and its
development must be situated in relation to the greater Bomba complex and its social
significance. As will be shown in the following overview of La Bomba’s sociohistorical
development, this perspective is significant in recognizing and more properly situating the
genre’s innate propensity toward hybridity as a condition and mediator of the coloniality of
power.
Period of Consolidation (ca. 1860-1970)
Though only a partial reconstruction of La Bomba’s formal development from its inception
through the huasipungo period is possible as a result of the dearth of written documentation
pertaining to afrochoteño culture prior to the mid twentieth century, it is nonetheless sufficient to
illustrate La Bomba’s tendency toward hybridity. This is particularly evident in La Bomba’s
historical adaptation and appropriation of diverse musical instruments, song forms, rhythms, and
harmonies reflective of the afrochoteño sociohistorical encounter with indigenous and Europeanmestizo populations. The blending of these disparate elements—frequently invoked in the extant
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academic literature in terms of culture (e.g., Bueno 1991; Coba-Andrade 1980; Schechter 1994)
—in La Bomba’s formal constitution as musical genre over the course of the huasipungo period
indexes the afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power in its negotiation of the material
and sonic possibilities for the expression of the colonial difference as conditioned and structured
by the coloniality of power. This period of La Bomba’s formal development is thus indicative of
La Bomba’s greater social function and significance as a sociomusical complex intimately linked
to the negotiation and expression of the colonial difference. As the combination of these diverse
elements today constitutes what many consider traditional Bomba, the following provides an
overview of those musical instruments and song forms adopted and appropriated over the course
of this time period.
Instrumentation
Instruments incorporated in La Bomba during this period of the genre’s consolidation apart from
the bomba itself include the shaker, a jaw bone (of a donkey or horse), the orange leaf, the puro
(a hollowed-gourd aerophone used as a bass instrument), the guitar, and the requinto. These
instruments alone reflect the scope and depth of the afrochoteño encounter and experience with
European and Indigenous musical traditions. By the end of the Huasipungo period and the
formation of the region’s first formal Bomba groups, they will be considered standard
instrumentation in La Bomba. The following discussion situates these instruments in their
probable order of incorporation.
La Bomba. Throughout the development of La Bomba, the one constant element with
regards to the formal aspects of the genre is the drum itself. It is distinct from other drums in
Ecuador in terms of its construction, playing technique, rhythm, and meaning. Though the
intricate artisan work involved in the manufacturing of the bomba and the drum itself are being
slowly replaced by newer and more efficient materials and other types of drums by today’s
youth, it nonetheless remains an important symbol of afrochoteño identity and an identifying
marker of the genre itself. Indeed, as perhaps the most visible link with African ancestral
traditions, the bomba retains a place of prominence among the cultural traditions of the
afrochoteño communities and is today foregrounded in representations of afrochoteño identity
and culture.
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The bomba is traditionally made of all-natural materials and its construction requires a
great deal of skill, knowledge of the tradition, and time. The rim of the drum is made of a
hollowed tree truck, typically of balso, seibo, or meixico. As a result bombas will vary in size
anywhere between 12 and 20 or more inches in diameter depending on the type and size of the
material and on the preferences of the individual bomba maker, or bomba player if not one and
the same. Goat hides are used for the drum heads. Tradition dictates the use of both male and
female hides in the construction of a single bomba, one side being male while the other female.
The process of curing the hides involves burying them in the ground with a mixture of ash and
other substances for up to two weeks after which time they are removed and stripped of their
hair. Each hide is then fitted over and secured onto the frame with dual rim loops, traditionally
made of a flexible vine-like branch known as pigua, the outer rim of which is fastened to that of
the opposite hide using a chord made of either cowhide or cabuya. The fibers of the cabuya
plant are also traditionally used to fasten together the ends of the pigua so as to form a circle and
the goat hide to the inner rim loop. The manner in which the hides are secured also provides the
mechanism for tuning the bomba as adjustments are made by simply adjusting the tension of the
fastening chord. Subsequently there is no uniform tuning with regards to the tone of the drum. 2
That the bomba be pleasing in size and sound to the bomber (bomba player) and be distinctly
heard through the ensemble suffices for a good bomba.
Set between the legs, the bomba is played using both hands to strike, mute, and stroke the
head and rim of the drum to produce different tones and effects. Though the drum may be turned
over and played on either drum head (see Bueno 1991, 175), it is known to be played on only
one side at a time. Other parts of the hand and body such as the knuckles, elbow and even chin,
though now rare, are also known to have been used as noted by Huasserek (1868, 344) and
Bueno (1991, 174-175). Bueno (Ibid.) identifies four basic playing techniques (i.e., heel of the
palm, flat of the fingers, curved hand slap tone, and open fingers) and makes note of the peculiar
glissando effect produced by the combination thereof. The organization of the tones produced
by these playing techniques defines the basic rhythms and their variants today associated with La
Bomba discussed below and in greater detail in Chapter Six.
2
While Bueno (1991, 175) documents testimonies concerning the drum’s tuning relative the
guitar, Coba-Andrade (1992, 205-208) suggests that given the variety in size found among any given type
of membranaphone in Ecuador, pitch, and subsequently tuning, is relative.
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Two basic patterns characterize La Bomba and underpin the variety of song forms
appropriated within the musical genre. One is set in a simple duple meter while the other is
heard in a compound duple meter. Though similar in their organization of slap and open
resonating tones, the rhythmic pattern heard in a compound duple meter gives the impression of
a hemiola (sesquialtera) created between the slap and open tones. The question of which of these
rhythms constitutes the originary bomba pattern and which the variation is debated among
musicologists and bomberos alike. Schechter, for instance, contends that the compound duple
meter pattern and its inherent hemiola is similar to and is perhaps an appropriation of the mestizo
albazo and indigenous pareja. Similarly, and perhaps for this reason, Guerrero contends that La
Bomba is, in fact, a type of albazo. Yet other bomberos like Gualberto Espinoza and Plutarco
Viveros offer their personal opinions, though they readily admit that there is no way of known
for certain. Indeed, though the Hausserek, Festa, and Costales account confirm the existence of
the bomba and suggest a continuity of its function within the sociomusical occasions connoted
by La Bomba, they give no account as to the specific rhythms played other than general
descriptions of performance practice and subjective impressions of the rhythm, music, and event.
More significantly, however, is the recognition among contemporary bomberos, that both
rhythms constitute La Bomba and are thus both readily used in contemporary performances.
Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear the same bomba interpreted by different groups or even the
same group using both the simple duple and compound duple meter patterns. That this is the
case may stem from the organizational principles uniting the patterns and their relationship to the
symbolic dimension of the drum, as briefly addressed below and explained in greater detail in
Chapter Six.
Afrochoteños contend that La Bomba references the cosmology of the afrochoteño
communities in its representation of the union between man and woman. The paired malefemale goat hides as well as the use of paired rhythmic phrase variations known locally as sol
and tierra (sun and earth), or cielo and suelo (sky/heaven and ground), in particular are thought to
embody this duality. Indeed, this symbolism is pervasive in all aspects of La Bomba as will be
discussed in Chapter Six and is made visible in the dance now emblematic of La Bomba known
as the baile de la botella (bottle dance). This dance features a gendered competition wherein a
man attempts to grab a bottle of liquor balanced atop the head of a female dance partner who
attempts to knock off balance the male with her hip movements (see Costales 1958). The dance,
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which takes on a circular pattern with the man dancing around and following the female,
highlights the tension between and relative strengths of the individual male and female dancers
while underscores the unity and complementarity of their being through their union in the very
spectacle itself and the resolution of conflict: regardless of the outcome, the liquor is ideally
shared among all participants and spectators contributing to the conviviality of the communal
event.
Given the descriptions provided by Hausserek, Festa, and the Costales, it is clear that the
bomba has been consistently used to accompany a variety of popular song and dance genres
rather than a specific genre. The fluid exchange of songs and dances over the time keeping and
driving pulse of the bomba observed by the above authors lends support to the notion that La
Bomba connotes not a specific genre of music per se, but an overall event enabled by the drum.
Indeed, Bueno through his investigations of La Bomba (1991, 191) confirms that popular song
and dance genres are readily appropriated to the basic rhythmic patterns of the bomba by Bomba
ensembles and thus integrated within the existing repertoire of the genre Bomba. This much is
confirmed by Schechter’s (1994) own examination of the repertoire of Milton Tadeo and Los
Hermanos Congo and its development over the span of ten years. For this reason, Bueno (1991,
191) argues that the bomba, in its characteristic rhythm and in its function within the ensemble,
constitutes a unifying element within an otherwise disjunctive musical genre.
The alfandoque and cumbamba. Hausserek’s observations of the shaker known as the
Alfandoque in his mid 19th century travelogue reaffirms the notion that such idiophones were
present early in the genre’s development. Huasserek (1868, 344) describes the alfandoque as
follows:
The alfandoque is a hollow cane or reed, into which a quantity of buckshot, peas, or
pebbles is put, whereupon the openings are closed with cotton or a bundle of rags. By
shaking this queer instrument a noise is produced similar to that made in theatres to
imitate the sound of falling rain. It is, however, shaken to the time of the songs, and
chimes in not at all unpleasantly.
The construction of the alfandoque as described above is also evident among shakers used in the
coastal afrodescendent communities of Esmeraldas, where it is referred to most frequently as the
guasá, as well as among indigenous lowland communities (Carvalho-Neto 1964, 80). 3 This,
3
Coba-Andrade affirms that these terms are synonymous in Ecuador (1981, 296).
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along with the long history of intercultural exchanges documented between black and indigenous
populations in Ecuador (see Ritter 1998; Schechter 1994; Tardieu 2006; Whitten and Corr 1999)
problematizes the question of whether this musical instrument is of indigenous or African
derivation. As Carvalho-Neto (Ibid.) notes, this issue was considered and debated as early as the
1920s by scholars such as Raoul D’Harcourt who came to no definitive resolution. CobaAndrade (1981, 299) however, asserts that it is most likely of African origin considering the lack
of documentation of this instrument among the indigenous population on the part of Spanish
chroniclers and missionaries.
Similarly, the pervasive presence of the donkey jaw bone, referred to also as cumbamba,
in the music of mestizo, indigenous, and afrodescendent communities throughout Ecuador and
the Americas makes the assertion of definitive cultural origins problematic (Coba-Andrade 1981,
301; Aguirre 2005, 261). Given its simplicity, the prevalence of the jaw bone as a musical
instrument among afrodescendent communities throughout the Americas may well speak to the
sociohistorical conditions, or the experience of the coloniality of power, informing the
development of afro-American culture and cultural traditions. As Coba-Andrade concludes
(1981, 301) drawing on Raul Cortazar’s (1974, 27) thoughts on folklore and its relation to
culture, it is not so much the origins of the instrument that matter, but the fact of the instruments
intimate association with local identity and culture as a result of its appropriation.
The orange leaf and puro. Along with the bomba, these two instruments are unique in
that they are considered autochthonous to the Chota-Mira valley. This distinction supports the
notion that they represent New World continuities of African musical instruments. Yet their
association with and function in the Banda mocha implicates European musical influences in
their derivation and use. Considering this fact, it is probable that the orange leaf and puro may
have been incorporated in La Bomba sometime shortly after the colonial period, but perhaps no
earlier than 1818 with the arrival and influence of military bands in Ecuador (see Guerrero 1984,
16-17). Mariana Aguas, an afrochotena of over 100 years of age from Estación Carchi
interviewed by the Anthropological Institute of Otavalo between 1976 and 1980, testifies to the
presence of the orange leaf in the performance of La Bomba during the time of her grandparents
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(1992, 274). This would place the known use of the orange leaf within the time frame noted
above (approximately 1820 and above). 4 She does not mention, however, mention the puro.
The orange leaf, which may also be substituted by a lemon leaf, is played by forcing air
across the leaf stretched over the mouth, causing a distinctly high-pitched nasal tone likened to a
clarinet or trumpet. It is used as a melodic instrument which compliments and supplements the
primary melody line provided by the voice in La Bomba and in La Banda Mocha. In this regard,
it occupies the role today commonly played by the requinto or lead guitar in La Bomba and the
clarinet or trumpet in La Banda Mocha. Though little used by contemporary Bomba groups, the
distinctive sound of the orange leaf is featured in many early Bomba recordings of the 1980s,
indicating the popularity of its use in La Bomba up through the hausipungo period.
The puro, in contrast, is a hallowed gourd with a hole cut out of the side of the narrow
end and the base removed from the other. It is played by simultaneously sounding a pitch and
blowing air into the hole at the narrow end of the gourd, which has the effect of amplifying the
sounded tone. The puro acts more as gourd resonator in this regard than an actual horn and is not
unlike the African American jug in its sound, playing technique, and function. No known
Bomba group today features the puro, nor is it featured in any known recordings. It is likely that
the guitar supplanted the puro as a bass instrument well before the 1960s.
The guitar and requinto. The presence and use of the guitar in La Bomba is perhaps the
most visible and audible European influence on La Bomba up through this period. Its
incorporation in La Bomba represents a significant moment in the development of the genre as it
allowed for the appropriation of European and mestizo musical genres and their incumbent
harmonies, song forms, playing styles, and aesthetics. When exactly the guitar came into
popular use in La Bomba is uncertain. It is probable, however, given the circumstances and
conditions of slavery in the region that the guitar was not incorporated until the early nineteenth
century. Coba-Andrade (1992, 277), for example, relates an account of the use of the guitar
among enslaved blacks on a plantation in Colombia during their allowed day of rest sometime in
the early 1820s observed by a gentleman referred to only as Humboldt (cited in Aguirre 1822,
465). This is likewise corroborated by Maria Aguas’ testimony noted above in which she recalls
4
Generations calculated using an average 30 year time span working backward from 1905, the
year in which Mariana would have been between 30 and 34 years of age. Using this calculation, 1820 is
the earliest approximate year Mariana’s grandparents would have been five years of age.
147
the use of the guitar among other instruments in the performance of La Bomba during the time of
her grandparents (ca. 1820s).
Coba-Andrade (1992, 262-282) provides a detailed review of the history of the guitar in
his catalogue of Ecuadorian musical instruments in which he makes particular note concerning
the presence and use of the guitar in the Chota-Mira valley. As elsewhere in the Spanish
colonies, the vihuela (the predecessor of the modern day guitar) and other stringed instruments
such as the requinto, bandolin, violin, and harp were first introduced to Ecuador by the Spanish
from the onset of the colonial period (by 1552 to be exact; Ibid., 267). Coba-Andrade notes the
guitar had already been appropriated to the specific contexts and functions of the general
populace (i.e., the lower socioeconomic classes in Ecuador) by the early nineteenth century
based on written accounts by nineteenth century travelers like Alexander Holinski, W.B.
Stevenson, and Rene de Kerret. Stevenson writes about the popularity of the guitar among all
social classes in Guayquil in 1808 while Holinski observes the decline of the guitar among the
Ecuadorian elite in Guayquil and the passage of the guitar to the lower socioeconomic classes by
1851. Coba-Andrade notes that it is from within these lower classes and their adaptation of the
guitar that the popular guitar and string ensembles of the duo, trio, and estudiantinas arose (Ibid.,
272). Within the highland province of Imbabura, the guitar is known to have been in popular use
among the indigenous communities by the 1850s as documented in the travelogue of Kerret
(Ibid., 278). So adapted was the guitar in function, mode of playing, and musical style of the
indigenous communities that Kerret considered the guitar an instrument native of Ecuador (Ibid.,
279). These accounts concerning the prevalence and significance of the guitar in Ecuador along
with the aforementioned testimony of Maria Aguas lead Coba-Andrade to dismiss the notion that
the guitar was not present in the Chota-Mira valley at the time of Hausserek’s visit simply
because it was not used in the specific performance observed (273).
Though Coba-Andrade notes that the guitar and requinto are today ubiquitous in the
Chota-Mira valley, found among even the poorest of homes, it is probable that their presence and
use among enslaved blacks on the haciendas prior to emancipation was limited by the conditions
of slavery.
As noted previously, opportunities for leisure, music making, and celebration for slaves during
the colonial period were limited to days of worship and socioreligious festivities stipulated by the
Church. The use of musical instruments other than those produced by the slaves themselves
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during such occasions would have depended on their availability and ease of access.
Considering the extent of the musical instruments manufactured by the afrochoteños for their
personal use (i.e., the bomba, alfandoque, puro, and orange leaf) and the relative function played
by these instruments within the Bomba ensemble (rhythm, base, and melody), it is most likely
that the guitar and requinto were instruments if not entirely absent prior to emancipation, than
difficult to obtain and not as common as might be expected within the context of the hacienda.
Though it is plausible that slaves possessed the purchasing power to procure such stringed
instruments on account of their ability to raise a modest income through the sale of crops grown
on their designated plots of land, it is unlikely that they would choose to spend what little they
earned in this way considering the priority of saving toward manumission through purchase.
Thus it is likely that slave access to the guitar and requinto prior to emancipation would have
been directly through the slave owner or overseer.
These conditions persisted through the huasipungo period. The system of debt into which
huasipungueros and other plantations wage laborers entered limited purchasing power. As a
result, locally manufactured instruments such as the bomba and orange leaf would have remained
prevalent while stringed, brass, and wind instruments would have remained sparse unless
provided by the patron. Indeed, afrochoteño recollections attest that patrones were in fact known
to provide guitars to the huasipungueros so as to entertain themselves during times of festivity.
This gesture was more than likely intended as a means of placating and distracting the
huasipungueros who also lived on the hacienda. This was made clear in one particular interview
with a well-known Bomba musician who noted that his grandfather, who was also purported to
be over 100 years of age, had learned to play the guitar on an instrument furnished by the patron
precisely for the purposes of keeping the huasipungueros occupied and entertained during times
of celebration. By extension, it is likely that this practice may likewise have been observed by
plantation owners during the years prior to emancipation. Regardless of when, exactly, the
guitar was introduced, it is certain that its presence among the enslaved population of the ChotaMira valley marks the experience of slavery and exploitation, or the coloniality of power, in the
region.
How the guitar was first used in La Bomba, as in whether or not it provided more than
basic rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment, is likewise uncertain. Yet evidence of the use of
the tuning known as galindo among Bomberos of the huasipungo period suggests that the guitar
149
may in fact have been used as both accompaniment and vocal supplement simultaneously such as
commonly heard in highland indigenous uses of this same tuning (see Aguirre 2005, 252).
Though several variations of galindo exist, they typically share a characteristic doubling of
pitches between the bottom and top three strings of the guitar (i.e., mi, si, sol, si, sol, mi; re, la#,
fa#, re, la#, fa#; sol, la#, re, sol, la#, re; or re, si, sol, re, si, sol). The melody is played on the
bottom three strings of the guitar while the top three are allowed to resonate. Depending on the
specific variation of galindo, a limited range of major and minor harmonies can be produced
with the use of a bridge. This produces a homophonic texture between the melody and its
accompanying rhythmic/harmonic backdrop (see Guerrero-Gutiérrez 2002, 73-75). Aguirre
(2005, 252-253) also observes that among afrochoteño guitarists, the left hand is often used to
strike the body of the drum, providing yet another layer of rhythmic accompaniment. This style
of playing is unique to the afrochoteño communities and though no longer evident in modern
performances, reflects an adaptation of indigenous guitar tunings and modes of playing.
Though the guitar played a cursory role in the early development of La Bomba, it
emerged as an indispensible component of the bomba ensemble by the end of the huasipungo
period. This much is due to the rising popularity and influence of national mestizo popular
music genres such as the albazo, the pasillo, and the sanjuanito, which were predominantly
interpreted using the guitar trio format (bass, rhythm, and lead guitar) originating in the
estudiantina ensembles of the nineteenth century. These genres likewise emerged and
consolidated during the nineteenth and early twentieth century as expressions of the developing
national mestizo character of the newly formed Republic. Their popularity in Ecuador and
familiarity in the Chota-Mira valley specifically would have been greatly facilitated by the
construction of the ferrocarril in the 1930s, which linked the region to the nation’s urban centers.
Though difficult to say with certainty, it is thus probable that the guitar trio format was not
formally adopted until the mid-twentieth century following the construction of the ferrocarril.
What is certain, however, is that the adoption of the guitar trio format allowed for the expansion
of the ensemble as well as of the bomba repertoire, and introduced new song forms along with
more complex harmonic structures. As a result, La Bomba today shares similarities with many
national genres in terms of song form and harmony, leading some to erroneously consider La
Bomba yet another type of albazo (see Aguirre 2005, 176).
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In terms of playing style, the requinto, which has an extended melodic range, is often
used in place of the standard guitar as the lead and has taken place of prominence within the
ensemble as a virtuosic instrument (see Schechter 1994, 293). Most telling in this regard is the
tendency for requinto players to be band leaders as well as lead vocalists. The requinto supports
and supplements the melodic line, often responding to the vocal melody and interjecting
variations and improvised solos in appropriate sections. The second guitar provides a rhythmic
accompaniment complimenting the bomba pattern in its use of the muted strum on the metrically
strong beats (beats one and two ) and resonating strum on the offbeat coinciding with the opentone of the bomba (i.e., the eighth-note of beat two in standard Western notation). Meanwhile,
the third guitar picks out the bass-line (a style typically referred to as bordon) which typically
proceeds in an ascending motion in either a straight quarter-note or syncopated pattern
depending on the meter (6/8 or 2/4). The bass-line in 6/8 has the effect of producing a hemiola,
or a sesquialtera, heard against the bomba and rhythmic accompaniment of the second guitar. In
this regard, the rhythm and bass guitar compliment and highlight that which is latent in the
bomba pattern itself. In 2/4, however, the bass-line notably coincides with the bomba on the
downbeat and resonating open-tone on the offbeat of beat two.
Bomba Coplas and Song texts
The development of La Bomba’s song form and song texts during this period is even more
difficult to trace than its instrumental trajectory as a result of a lack of early song texts and the
absence of recordings or transcriptions. No existing Bomba song texts can be traced to the
colonial period with any certainty. Indeed, those first collected by the Costales and Alberto Coba
Andrade (1980) during the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s can be dated within the twentieth century
given the content and context of the song texts. Furthermore, the tendency within Bomba to
appropriate new genres, as was the case during the nineteenth and early twentieth century,
complicates the notion of an originary or authentic bomba song form. The only consistent in La
Bomba with regards to the structure and content of the songs up through this period it seems is
the use of paired couplets known as coplas and the tendency on the part of the song texts to
comment or draw on local incidents and affairs.
Copla, also referred to as canción or cantar (song or sing), connotes a brief sung poetic
form consisting of paired couplets conjoined using a variety of rhyme schemes. Heard
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throughout Latin America, the copla has its origins in fifteenth and sixteenth century Spain and is
thought to have been disseminated in the Americas along with other literary forms such as the
decima, romance, and romancillo as a result of missionary efforts to convert and educate the
indigenous as well as native born population (i.e., criollos and mestizos; Coba-Andrade 1992,
19). As Coba-Andrade (see Ibid., 38-54) notes with regards to Ecuador, such efforts established
a literary tradition which was soon appropriated by the lower socioeconomic classes as an oral,
or folk tradition. That the copla was likewise practiced by the black population of the ChotaMira valley during the colonial period is suggested by the presence of the dance known as the
alza que te han visto (lift that [which] they have seen) observed by Hausserek during the early
1860s. This genre of song and dance popular among the lower socioeconomic classes of the
colonial period lyrically consisted of coplas either entirely improvised or composed of existing
coplas by the singer to suit the given occasion. The singer was thus known to interject humorous
and humiliating commentary, adding to the vulgarity of the dance which was looked down upon
by the upper classes (Coba-Andrade 1992, 48-49). Though Hausserek makes no specific
comments on the lyrics in his observation of the dance, he does note the whimsical nature of the
song and the fact that it was composed locally using the dialect of the region. The presence of
the alza que te han visto among the black population of Chamanal along with Hausserek’s
general remarks concerning the nature and composition of the song suggests that the copla was,
in fact, in popular use in the Chota-Mira valley by the early 1860s.
Just as in the alza que te han visto, Bomba song texts were most likely originally
improvised coplas or composed from known coplas. As each copla in itself is known to contain
and express a singular thought or idea (Coba-Andrade 1992, 57), the juxtaposition of distinct
coplas through such compositional means would have resulted in a loose if not entirely absent
narrative structure. Indeed, an examination of the earliest known documented Bomba coplas,
compiled by Coba-Andrade during the mid 1970s, confirm this to be the case, as exemplified in
“Mete Caña al Trapiche” “La Chicha y el Trago,” “Toma, Toma,” “La Banda de Peñherrera,”
and “Versos Cantados” (see 1980, 185-226). “Versos Cantados,” for instance, consists entirely
of discrete coplas most likely familiar to the local population based on the content and
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construction of the coplas (i.e., their thematic type or classification; see Coba-Andrade 1992). 5
An examination of the first three stanzas will suffice to illustrate this type of construction:
Amor se llamó a la muerte
Si ella no quiere venir, (bis)
Parece que hasta a la muerte
Le gusta verme sufrir. (bis)
En tu puerta siembro un pino
Y en tu ventana una flor, (bis)
En tu cama tres claveles
Y una azucena de amor. (bis)
Atrasito de mi casa
Tengo una mata de arroz, (bis)
Donde raspan mis pollitos
Y sacan mierda para vos. (bis)
[Love was called death
If she does not want to come
It seems as though even death
Likes to see me suffer.
At your door I plant a pine-tree
And at your window a flower,
In your bed three carnations
And a white lily of love.
Behind my house
I have a plot of rice
Where my chickens scratch
And take out crap for you.]
While the first copla deals with death, the second is amorous and erotic, and the third is of a
burlesque and erotic type. As noted previously, each copla, made up of four paired verses,
expresses a self-contained idea which in and of itself may stand alone regardless of its relation to
the other coplas. The paired verses are conjoined, as are all coplas, using variety of rhyme
schemes as well as through the use of double entendre. The first copla exhibits a rhyming
5
Coba-Andrade (1992, 72) identifies over sixteen thematic types of coplas which he categorizes
as follows: epic, elegiac, satirical, lyric, tragic, erotic, burlesque, amorous, double entendre, patriotic,
religious romantic, sorrowful, judgmental, political, and festive among others.
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pattern of ABAB while the second and third that of ABCB. In all three instances, the rhyme
created between the final stressed syllables of the second and fourth verses serves to couple the
otherwise independent paired verses. The use of double entendre likewise serves to reinforce the
link between the first and second couplets in modifying the former, thus creating a complete idea
or thought. The second copla in particular is most exemplary of the efficacy of double entendre
in creating such a union of expression. While the first couplet may stand alone and is rather
innocent in its respective meaning, the subsequent couplet understood in its double-meaning
forces the listener to modify their interpretation of the first verses from an amorous to an erotic
significance (clavel and azucena may be understood to refer to the act of making love and to the
male reproductive organ respectively). This coupling and its implications for the meaning of the
copla as a complete expression is what is ultimately meant by the term copla, which as CobaAndrade notes (Ibid., 76), comes from the Latin term for union.
Yet other Bomba song texts of this earlier period may have contained a chorus and
exhibited a common theme underlying the otherwise disparate coplas. “Mete caña al trapiche,”
for example, consists of three separate coplas organized as two stanzas and a chorus. While the
first stanza makes reference to the work of processing sugarcane and the second to courtship, the
chorus makes reference to a conversation between a woman and most likely plantation
administrator during a festivity:
A la culebra verde
cholita no hagas caso,
mete caña al trapiche
saca caña bagazo. (bis)
(Estribillo)
Meniate, meniate
yo te daré un medio,
ele ya me menio
quierde pes el medio. (bis)
Anoche yo fui por verte
por el hueco del tejado,
salió tu mama y me dijo:
¡por la puerta condenado! (bis)
(Estribillo)
Meniate, meniate
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yo te daré un medio,
ele ya me menio
quierde pes el medio. (bis)
[To the green snake
Cholita do not pay attention
Put the sugarcane in the mill
And spit out the sugarcane pulp
(chorus)
Shake your hips, shake your hips
I will give you a [“mixed child”; i.e., a mulato]
Ele [local expression] [he] already [“shook my hips”]
quierde pes [local expression ] [“the half child”] 6
Last night I came to see you
Through the hole in the [thatched roof]
Your mom came out and told me
Through the door damn you!]
Though each copla is indeed distinct as in “Versos Cantados,” they are nonetheless loosely
unified through the use of a chorus and in their shared reference to various aspects of life on the
hacienda, from work and love on the plantation to the precarious relationship between black
women and the white-mestizo hacienda administrators. Perhaps more importantly than its
narrative function, the chorus also allows for audience participation in what would otherwise
constitute an individual form of expression. This aspect of Bomba song texts becomes even
more relevant when considering the greater social significance of La Bomba as a sociomusical
event allowing for the negotiation and expression of communal identity. Indeed, Hausserek
(1868) and the Costales (1958) testify to the significance of communal participation as enabled
by the chorus as described in their respective accounts of music and dance in the region.
Similarly, the use of dialect and local references along with improvisation in the composition of
Bomba song texts enables the singer to engage the participating audience in the specific moment,
or time and space, entailed by that particular Bomba event. Dynamic and discursive, bomba
texts thus speak and respond to the particular experiences and needs of the afrochoteño
communities.
6
The use of local dialect in the composition of Bomba coplas, as exemplified in this particular
stanza, renders translation of little use in conveying the actual meaning of the lyrics. Suffice it to say that
this copla, as Coba-Andrade notes (1992, 59), makes reference to a conversation held most likely between
an afrochoteña and an hacienda administrator during a festive context.
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As Coba-Andrade argues (1980, 1992), this tendency on the part of Bomba song texts to
draw upon, reflect, and comment on local events, places, and experiences of life and work,
makes Bomba coplas a form of oral poetry unique to the black communities of the Chota-Mira
valley despite the ubiquitous presence of coplas in Ecuador. Just as in “Mete caña al trapiche,”
many of the Bomba song texts collected by Coba-Andrade during the mid 1970s similarly make
reference to local events such as the flooding of the river Chota and increasing emigration,
specific places or communities in the Chota-Mira valley such as Carpuela and La Concepcion,
celebrate the joy of dancing La Bomba, and otherwise speak to personal experiences of love and
loss (see Coba-Andrade 1980, 185-226). Yet no known early Bomba song texts overtly protest
or provide critical commentary on the institution of slavery or the exploitation of afrochoteño
huasipungueros. Indeed, when posed this question, many afrochoteño collaborators noted that
music was used as means of domination on the part of slave owners and patrones. Yet another
reason for the lack of resistance evident in bomba lyrics of this period was made clear to me in
an interview with Gualberto Espinoza:
. . . it’s not that there aren’t songs that make reference to resistance, maybe there are very
few, but [La Bomba] hasn’t been a very prominent channel in that regard, rather La
Bomba has been used by some patronos to attenuate resistance. For example, my father
and my uncle Mario and Eliaser Espinosa were good friends with the patron, and so they,
as musicians, got together as interpreters while the patron wrote the bombas, so very
difficult would it have been to make protest songs. Very difficult. The role bomba
played in [my father’s] time, was to keep the people distracted, happy, content, but not to
protest, because actions of protest took place in other ways, not artistic ones.
As Espinosa notes, the circumstances of life during this period would have made it difficult to
cultivate La Bomba as an overt form of resistance. It is perhaps for this reason that bomba song
texts predating the agrarian reforms juxtapose seemingly disparate expressions often humorous
or melancholy in the images they conjure rather than topical songs with explicit political or
social commentary. It is also likely that the content of Bomba song texts would have responded
to the overall role which Bombas arguably played within the context of the Bomba event. The
tendency toward wit and humor in early Bomba song texts may thus be understood in relation to
La Bomba’s significance as a means of enacting community.
La Bomba’s development up through the huasipungo period, as shown in relation to its
instrumentation and song texts, illuminates the dynamic and discursive nature of the musical
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genre and underscores the primacy of La Bomba as a sociomusical event. Though afrochoteños
and scholars alike make frequent allusions to the authenticity of La Bomba prior to the agriarian
reforms, such claims are untenable when examined from an historical perspective as shown in
this section. As shown in the following sections, La Bomba, as a hybrid genre from its very
origins, is constant only in its dynamic ability to respond to the contemporaneous needs and
circumstances of its practicing community.
Period of Commercialization, Decline, and Dissemination (ca. 1960s-1990s)
Just as during the huasipungo period, La Bomba’s formal development following the agrarian
reforms of the 1960s indexed the changing afrochoteño experience of and response to the
coloniality of power. This is evident in its continued appropriation of national and foreign
musical instruments and rhythms during this period as well as in its simultaneous
commercialization, decline, and dissemination, as discussed below. Afrochoteño youth living in
the Chota-Mira valley, Ibarra, and Quito during this period began to shun La Bomba as an
outdated tradition ill-suited for their emerging sense of modernity and nationalism. Upbeat
dance music such as vallenato, salsa, merengue, rock’n’roll and hip-hop imported from
Colombia, the Caribbean, and the United States began to take priority for these youths in search
of an identity and upward social mobility. At the same time, the first formal commercial Bomba
groups and recordings emerged and brought the genre from its relative obscurity to the major
urban centers of Ecuador and even southern Colombia. This section addresses the reasons for
this seeming contradiction as well as the impact of these processes on the development of La
Bomba.
The seeming contradiction posed by the dual decline and dissemination of La Bomba
evident during this period is best understood in relation to the region’s integration within the
national imaginary following the agrarian reforms. As noted in the previous chapter, the agrarian
reform laws of the 1960s effectively ended a period of obligatory servitude in the region with the
dissolution and redistribution of the haciendas and the termination of the huasipungo system.
They also served as a catalyst for major changes in the region’s agricultural economy,
infrastructure, and education system that would have a lasting impact on the daily life and culture
of the afrochoteño communities.
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Agricultural developments altered the dynamics of local household economies, forcing
many afrochoteños to diversify their income-seeking strategies and seek work opportunities
beyond the Chota-Mira valley. Developmental organizations encouraged and provided funds
and equipment for the transition from long to short-cycle crops (i.e., sugarcane to tomatoes and
avacadoes) which linked the household economy directly to the national market rather than
indirectly through the hacienda. The instability of market prices, lack of irrigation water, and
soil erosion caused by chemical fertilizers and the rapid turnover of crops created the need to
supplement the household economy. This created the conditions for a new kind of dependence
and servitude as afrochoteños sought additional employment opportunities in the private and
state owned sugarmills of the region, and as household servants, cooks, policeman, guards, and
soldiers serving the mestizo elite in the nation’s urban centers.
Increased commerce and emigration, in turn, stimulated the need for improved
infrastructure. The construction of the northern portion of the Pan-American Highway in
particular allowed for even greater movement and trade between local communities as well as
between the Chota-Mira valley, the nation’s capitol, the coastal region, and southern Colombia.
Tomatoes and other products grown in Juncal, for instance, would be taken by a representative of
the household (generally women) to be sold in the major markets of Ibarra, Quito, San Lorenzo,
and Tulcán. Chemical fertilizers, farming equipment, modern construction materials (i.e., iron,
cement, and glass) and other goods previously absent from the Chota-Mira valley likewise made
their way into the region. This movement greatly impacted the development of local material
cultural and saw the abandonment of certain aspects of afrochoteño culture once considered
traditional, such as the practice of constructing a chosa (a house made of straw and mud), of
using large and hollowed gourds for carrying water, food, and clothing atop the head, and of
tying the bomba with cabuya fibers.
The arrival of electricity to the Chota-Mira valley during the 1980s likewise helped
integrate the region within the national imaginary as radio and television brought national and
international news and entertainment to the once isolated communities. Radio Mira, the first
radio station to broadcast in the Chota-Mira valley in the early 1980s, made readily accessible
national popular musics like the pasillo, Latin American and Spanish popular pop genres like the
bolero, the rock influenced rockolera, and North American dance music from Michael Jackson
to disco. Along with the radio, television brought news as well as commercials, soap operas, and
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other programs and images from the nation and beyond. As Ivan Pabon notes, oral traditions,
previously the only form of entertainment, communication, education, and socialization for the
afrochoteños was giving way to the mediated sounds and images provided by the radio and
television.
Lastly, the changing economy and modernization efforts created opportunities for formal
education as the first schools linked to the national curriculum and standards opened in the
region. These schools reflected the positive and progressive thinking of afrochoteños who
realized the value of education for the development of the afrochoteño communities and for the
upward social and economic mobility of their children. As Pabón notes, it became a means of
liberating themselves from the shackles of ignorance in which previous patrones and slave
owners kept them. The educational curriculum, disseminated through common history texts,
standardized exams, and national teaching and learning standards, likewise served to shape and
instill a sense of the national imaginary among the afrochoteños. The reality, as afrochoteños
realized soon after, however, was that the educational curriculum into which they were
integrating had little to do with their own particular history and culture.
The net result of the changes brought about by the above developmental projects was the
stigmatization and decline of local traditions and ways of living. As Pabón (2007) argues, a
fundamental break in the transmission of afrochoteño history, culture, and thus identity had
occurred with the increase in emigration, the arrival of electricity, and the establishment of
formal centers of education. Emigration broke apart families and the ability to transmit cultural
knowledge via traditional channels such as stories, games, and music and dance. The television
and radio threatened to replace local oral traditions as sources of entertainment and information.
The written word and national history textbooks supplanted orality and knowledge of local
history and culture. As Pabon suggests, the break with orality marked a fundamental shift in
afrochoteño identity as the region became subsumed within the national imaginary. The
devaluation and stigmatization of local traditions and ways of life betrays the insidious racist
undercurrents informing this national identity.
Thus it was that afrochoteño youth during the 1980s and early 1990s in particular showed
greater interest in music genres from outside the Chota-Mira valley than in La Bomba, such as
national popular music like the albazo and the pasacalle, salsa, merengue, Colombian cumbia,
Latin American pop-rock ballads, the music of Michael Jackson, and hip-hop. Pabón suggests
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(2007, 53) that these music genres, which were faster and featured amplified instruments, spoke
to the modern sensibilities of the afrochoteño youth of the time. Indeed, when confronted with
the question of why the ambivalence toward La Bomba during this brief period, afrochoteños
who would have been in their youth at the time in question merely shrug, saying little other than
that the sound and the rhythms of these other genres seemed more attractive. More explicit
offhand remarks, told partly in jest in informally broaching this subject with afrochoteño friends
and family, suggested that La Bomba pertained to the elder generation, recollecting their
perception at the time that La Bomba “era musica de viejos” (was old people’s music). Such
comments clearly indicate that La Bomba was then considered a tradition associated with a past
way of life seemingly incompatible with the contemporaneous afrochoteño experience of
modernity in post-huasipungo Ecuador. This perception reveals the extent to which the
socioeconomic changes following the 1960s agrarian reforms negatively impacted perception of
local traditions and their relation to identity in the region.
Yet the same processes that encouraged the decline of La Bomba also allowed for its
dissemination and continued development. During this time, the first professional Bomba groups
began to appear and the first commercial recordings of La Bomba were produced. Individuals
and groups such as Los Romanticos del Valle, Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo, Los
Hermanos Lastra, Los Hermanos Espinosa, Mario Diego Congo and Oro Negro, Grupo Juventud
de Carpuela, Neri Padilla and Los Hermanos Padilla, Grupo Bantu, Los Genuinos del Ritmo, and
La Bomba Nueva Generación (aka Nueva Generación de Mascarillas, later Marabu) formed and
played throughout the region and beyond during this time. This was facilitated by the ease in
mobility and communication between communities in the Chota-Mira valley and between the
valley and Ecuador’s urban centers enabled by infrastructural development. They also recorded
for major national commercial labels such as Estrella, ONYX, and Fuentes seeking to create a
niche market as well as for academics such as Carlos Coba Andrade and Julio Bueno
investigating afrochoteño cultural traditions during the 1970s and 1980s.
Marabu’s professional trajectory is typical of many of the commercial Bomba groups that
emerged during the 1980s. As Plutarco Viveros, requinto player and one of the founding
members of the group, explains, it was during the early 1980s that he and a group of musician
friends and family would gather on a street corner in the community of Mascarillas to make
music. Their original intent, Plutarco stresses, was not to make money, but to bring people
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together. Yet their abilities as musicians soon earned them local fame as they began to play and
make an impact at regional “encuentros” (gatherings), or Bomba performance/competition
events involving other known Bomba groups like Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo.
Thanks to their growing reputation, they were sought after and paid to perform for weddings,
baptisms, and other such occasions throughout the Chota-Mira valley. It was also during this
time that the group, then known as Grupo Nueva Generación de Mascarillas, began to play
regularly at various hostels in the region, including the Oasis near Carpuela, for a modest
stipend: approximately twenty-thousand sucres per person for each performance, just enough to
cover the expense of travel and uniforms, as Plutarco recalls. During the mid 1980s they were
presented with opportunities to perform at the provincial level and to record thanks to interested
commercial music labels eager to capitalize on a potential niche market. This, in turn, led to the
introduction of the group and their music beyond the Chota-Mira valley. By the late 1980s and
early 1990s the group had changed their name to Marabu, reflecting a growing self-awareness
concerning their role in representing local identity and culture, and was regularly performing at
the local, regional, and national level.
Marabu’s origins and trajectory above parallels that of other groups such as Milton Tadeo
and los Hermanos Congo. Ethnomusicologist John Schechter (1994, 285-287) recounts that
Milton along with German, Fabian and Segundo Euletorio Congo would likewise gather
informally to make music in Carpuela during the late 1970s and early 1980s. As Schechter
notes, there was as yet no concept of music as a profession in the region and the primary
occupation of Milton and the Congo brothers was that of agriculturalists. They too began
performing locally for events such as weddings and baptisms in their early years as Grupo
Ecuador. As their fame grew, they were likewise presented with recording opportunities and
gigs on national and even international stages. By the time of Schechter’s return to the ChotaMira valley in 1990, Grupo Ecuador had become a polished and professional Bomba group with
six records to their name. Unlike Marabu, however, their particular professional trajectory
allowed them to earn a living solely from their music making and recording endeavors. Indeed,
Milton Tadeo and the Congo brothers are synomonous with the word Bomba in Ecuador, and
their particular national and international success distinguishes them among other Bomba groups.
Without question, their fame and monetary success has inspired the formation of and provided a
model for subsequent Bomba groups.
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Indeed, as a newly realized source of income, commercial Bomba groups and recordings
provided yet another viable alternative in the diversification of household income earning
strategies. Groups like Marabu often maintained their original occupations while performing and
touring on weekends. Likewise, as Schechter relates in relation to Milton Tadeo, household
crops would be maintained and distributed amongst family while musicians would tour. Implicit
in this arrangement was the tendency among Bomba musicians to share monetarily in support of
the household, which would typically consist of extended family. Though difficult to leave
family and home for extended periods of time, as Plutarco relates speaking specifically of
Marabu’s six-month tour of South Korea, the additional income represented a significant
opportunity to alleviate financial strains. The economic incentive of professionalizing La Bomba
exacerbated by the particular socioeconomic situation of the time thus created the conditions for
the commodification and dissemination of La Bomba.
The commodification of La Bomba introduced innovations in the genre’s
instrumentation, song form and song texts, and interpretation. An examination of Bomba records
produced during this period reveals, for instance, the incorporation of amplified instruments such
as the electric bass guitar, the gradual decline in the use of the orange leaf, the use of a metal
güiro in place of the alfandoque and cumbamba, the guitar trio (lead requinto, rhythm guitar, and
bass), and the occasional use of bongos to supplement the bomba. This particular instrumental
configuration would become the standard for subsequent Bomba ensembles through the 1980s
and early 1990s as evident in subseqeuent Bomba recordings. The guitar trio as well as a
growing emphasis on the role of the requinto as a lead virtuosic instrument encouraged the
continued adaptation of highland mestizo genres such as the albazo and pasacalle, the highland
indigenous pareja and san juan, and international genres such as Colombian cumbia and
vallenato (see Schechter 1990, 292-297). This tendency, in turn, led to the continued
development of Bomba harmonies, song forms, and song texts as Schechter (Ibid.) reveals in his
analysis of the changing trends in the repertoire of Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo
during the 1980s. Though the use of coplas and the local nature of song texts remained an
integral part of Bomba during this time, a more cohesive narrative structure emerged as topical
songs became more common. The presence of a second vocalist providing harmony in intervals
of minor thirds, fourths, and fifths (harmonies commonly heard in highland Ecuadorian mestizo
musical genres), as well as a greater emphasis on vocal quality likewise speak to the growing
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influence of national popular and commercial musics. As Schechter astutely notes, the
adaptation of outside musical genres during this time period reflects the expansion of La
Bomba’s audience base as well as marketing concerns among commercial oriented Bomba
groups and recording companies (Ibid., 295).
As part of the same process, the stigmatization and dissemination of La Bomba during
this period reveals the complex relation between music and identity. While the internalization of
racist attitudes turned many afrochoteño youth away from La Bomba as a tradition ill-suited for
the expression of their emerging sense of modernity and national identity, the commodification
of the genre created the conditions for its survival and continued development. As a hybrid
genre, La Bomba, in its adaptations, marked the changing experience of the coloniality of power
and the shifting expression of the colonial difference as afrochoteños became integrated within
the national imaginary. As shown in the following section, La Bomba, in its most recent
bifurcation and development as both a tradition and commercial popular music, reveals the
extent to which the genre’s hybridity is conditioned by and responds to the afrochoteño
experience of the coloniality of power.
Period of Revitalization, Bifurcation, and Transformation (ca. 1990s-2007)
La Bomba’s development since the 1990s perhaps most dramatically reveals the extent to which
the musical genre’s form responds to the changing afrochoteño experience of and response to the
coloniality of power. The once neglected musical genre experienced a revival during the late
1990s and early twenty first century that, along with the intensifying social and economic
processes characteristic of globalization, led to its current fragmentation and development as a
patrimonial cultural tradition and popular commercial music genre. During this time, La Bomba
rose from its relative obscurity and marginality to a place of national prominence as a signifier of
an explicitly regional black ethnic identity. Afrochoteños concerned with preserving their
cultural heritage began to document and revitalize their history and cultural traditions such as La
Bomba as part of the Afro-Ecuadorian led educational project and sociopolitical movement
known as etnoeducación. Their efforts along with those of socially conscientious groups such as
Marabu inspired a whole new generation of afrochoteños now actively listening to, dancing, and
playing La Bomba. The renewed interest in La Bomba, however, is introducing even greater
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musical innovations sparking disputes within the afrochoteño community concerning cultural
authenticity and the cultural impact of globalization and commodification.
As in the previous periods, dynamic and discursive change—hallmarks of hybridity—
continue to characterize La Bomba in its recent revival, bifurcation, and transformation. The
current dual manifestation of La Bomba as tradition and popular culture as well as the recent
adaptation and appropriation of musical instruments, rhythms, and musical genres from the
greater African Diaspora index the most recent possibilities of expression for the colonial
difference conditioned and structured by the current afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of
power. This section briefly examines the recent trends in the development of La Bomba as well
as discourses of authenticity in relation to the changing experience of the coloniality of power.
Despite the perception that contemporary innovations to La Bomba are altering the musical
genre, its ability to negotiate and express the changing perception of the colonial difference, as
shown here as well as in Chapter Two, reveals the extent to which La Bomba’s hybridity as a
musical genre is linked to its greater social function as a mediator of the coloniality of power.
La Bomba’s revival and rise to prominence as a national symbol of afrochoteño identity
is intimately linked to the social and political impact of the indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian
ethnic identitary movements of the 1990s. As previously noted, Ecuador’s diverse indigenous
population began to mobilize during the early 1990s in response to their marginalization under
the existing exclusionary policies and ideology of the nation state. The consolidation of the
various indigenous groups and their respective protestations and demands with the formation of
the umbrella organization CONAIE significantly empowered the indigenous communities who
succeeded in their efforts to enact social and political change. Central to their platform was the
notion of interculturalidad, an inclusionary ideology of nationhood premised on the recognition
of the relative autonomy and contribution of Ecuador’s diverse ethnic populations in the
constitution of a pluricultural nation state. The influence of CONAIE and of their intercultural
vision manifested itself most profoundly in the 1998 revision of the Ecuadorian constitution
which for the first time recognized the patrimonial rights of its indigenous and afro-descendant
communities in its description of the nation as pluricultural. These events, in turn, provided the
impetus for Afro-Ecuadorian intellectuals, community leaders, and artists such as Juan Garcia
Salazar, Jose Chala, and Plutarco Viveros to likewise raise awareness among Afro-Ecuadorians
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of the value of their own cultural heritage and ethnic identity as a means of overcoming their
marginal status and contributing to the intercultural process idealized in the revised constitution.
Most effective in promoting a positive association with blackness among AfroEcuadorians was the complementary Afro-Ecuadorian led educational project and social
movement known as etnoeducación. Founded by Juan Garcia Salazar, an afroesmeraldan
historian long involved in the compilation of Afro-Ecuadorian oral traditions, etnoeducación was
conceived as a social and political process involving the revitalization of local cultural traditions
and the consolidation and fortification of Afro-Ecuadorian identity through the maintenance and
dissemination of the collective memory of Ecuador’s afro-descendant communities. This came
about as both a response to the discriminatory and homogenizing educational system imposed in
the years following the Agrarian reforms, and as a recognition of the currency of ethnic identity
in ascribing power within the contemporaneous Ecuadorian social and political milieu.
According to Garcia-Salazar, Afro-Ecuadorians first needed to become aware of their own
history and cultural heritage, or that which constitutes their unique ethnic identity, in order to
fully participate in and benefit from the intercultural dialogue taking shape in Ecuador at the
time. Thus it was that during the late 1990s Garcia and other Afro-Ecuadorians involved in this
sociopolitical process began organizing workshops and seminars in the late 1990s as a means of
educating fellow Afro-Ecuadorians on the goals, objectives, and methods of etnoeducación.
Their efforts resulted in the development of an educational curriculum and textbook that spoke to
the particular history, culture, and educative needs of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities. Such
projects had a tremendous impact on the identity formation of a whole new generation of
afroesmeraldan and afrochoteño youth who learned to embrace their cultural heritage and ethnic
identity. Thus it was that the regionally specific ethnic identitary label afrochoteño first emerged
in the early part of the twenty-first century.
The impact of etnoeducación and the subsequent revindication of afrochoteño identity on
La Bomba and other such afrochoteño traditions cannot be understated. Whereas La Bomba was
previously neglected beyond its value as a commodity, it resurfaced as an indispensible aspect of
afrochoteño identity during the late 1990s. This is evident in the proliferation of Bomba groups,
Bomba dance troupes, events and projects featuring La Bomba in the representation of
afrochoteño identity and culture, and Bomba workshops put on by sociocultural organizations
such as Azucar and the Fundación Piel Negra (The Black Skin Foundation) since the late 1990s.
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Today, over twenty Bomba groups are actively performing and recording in the Chota-Mira
valley, Ibarra, and Quito. Bomba dance groups are likewise abundant and are often linked with
either local schools or communities. Musicians and dancers alike are frequently featured in local
events, festivals, and competitions such as el Dia del Afroecuatoriano, Las fiestas del las nieves,
Carnaval Coangue, and El Bombazo. CD projects, films, and workshops such as Bomba: Por el
camino de los abuelos (Bomba: Toward the Path of the Grandfathers) produced by FECONIC
and PRODEPINE, the film Como poder olvidarte, (How Possible to Forget You) and the
documentaries Más allá del fútbol (Beyond Soccer) and Alpachaca prominently feature La
Bomba. In Quito, organizations such as Azucar provide spaces for maintaining and
disseminating La Bomba through workshops and concerts. This activity reflects an
understanding among afrochoteños of the value of La Bomba in cultivating and representing a
distinct, black ethnic identity.
Yet while the renewed interest in La Bomba helped to preserve and maintain La Bomba
as a tradition vital to the identity of the communities of the Chota-Mira valley, it likewise
contributed to its continued development as a commercial music genre. The process of
commoditization begun in the late 1970s and early 1980s intensified through the 1990s and the
early twenty-first century in part as a result of globalization and the growing marketability of La
Bomba not only within the Chota-Mira valley, but among the urban immigrant afrochoteño
population and curious tourists and non-black Ecuadorians as well. The arrival of the internet to
Quito and Ibarra in the mid 1990s and then later to the communities of the Chota-Mira valley in
the mid twenty-first century made further accessible to afrochoteños music from around the
world. By the turn of the century, hip-hop, pop, rock, and tropical music genres from Colombia
and the Caribbean islands such as salsa, reggaeton, merengue, bachata, cumbia, and vallenato,
were popular among afrochoteño youth living in Quito, Ibarra, and the Chota-Mira valley.
Capitalizing on the growing market for Bomba and the popularity of these imported dance
genres, bomba groups and small independent record labels aided by readily accessible pirated
audio recording and editing software began to produce and disseminate low-budget recordings
featuring innovations influenced from abroad. The result was a significant output of Bomba
CDs, including club mixes and remixes, featuring a broad interpretation of La Bomba from the
classic instrumentation and sound of the early 1980s bomba groups to salsa and hip-hop Bomba
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fusions incorporating keyboards, timbales, congas, and bongos. These CDs can be found
alongside other popular dance genres in pirated music stands throughout Ibarra and Quito.
As a result of the social, political, and economic processes currently informing
afrochoteño identity, La Bomba’s recent development diverges along two parallel paths: one of
preservation and maintenance as a tradition, the other of appropriation and transformation as a
popular music genre. Musicians in the former category consciously uphold La Bomba as a vital
link with their ancestral cultural heritage and thus tend to stay within certain stylistic parameters
considered definitive of the genre such as the use of the bomba and its associative rhythmic
patterns as well as of the complementary guitar trio and their respective function within the
ensemble and in relation to the drum. These musical and stylistic elements now considered
traditional are in reality those consolidated up through the end of the huasipungo period. It is of
no surprise, therefore, that musicians and groups pertaining to this strain of La Bomba most
notably include those emerging and recording during the 1980s and early 1990s such as the late
Milton Tadeo, Marabu, Oro Negro, Neri Padilla, and Grupo Bantu among others.
Those in the latter category likewise perceive La Bomba to be central to the identification
of afrochoteños today but differ from the former in terms of their innovations in musical
instrumentation and style. As noted above, congas, bongos, timbales, cowbells, the clave, and
even the indigenous highland bombo either supplement or entirely replace the bomba in
ensembles such as Roy Diaz and Los Soneros del Barrio, Sol Naciente, and Poder Negro heavily
influenced by salsa, son, cumbia, and merengue. Other musical instruments added more recently
include the keyboard and the drum set as heard in Sol Naciente and Mini GDR. As previously in
La Bomba’s development, these innovations at the same time follow and allow for the
appropriation of foreign musical genres and stylistic elements such as salsa, son, and coastal
Afro-Esmeraldan music. Of particular interest is Sol Naciente’s use of the horn and marimba
voice settings on the electronic keyboard to mimic salsa band horn sections and the sound of the
coastal Afro-Esmeraldan marimba and its performance style. Similarly, the adoption of new
genres also involves the adaptation of their incumbent song forms. Most notable in the
development of La Bomba song texts in this more commercial oriented strand of La Bomba is
the move toward topical lyrics dealing with universal themes commonly heard in commercial
popular music such as love and loss. The result is a broad range of interpretations from the more
salsa oriented music of Los Soneros del Barrio to the Bomba-fusions of Sol Naciente.
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The degree to which such fusions alter La Bomba is a topic of much debate among
Bomba musicians in both categories. While those in the camp of tradition perceive the recent
trends in the newer bomba groups as a corruption of the genre fueled by commercial interests,
those producing what they consider La Bomba moderna (modern Bomba) understand their music
as an expression of their current reality. Both, however, strive to produce music that inspires
people to dance. As such, they are both equally listened to and appreciated by afrochoteños
today.
While the current changes to La Bomba do indeed partially reflect commercial music
industry trends, they also reflect a growing awareness of an emergent sense of identity
transcendent of regional and national borders. Just as the incorporation of mestizo highland
genres in La Bomba during the 1980s and early 1990s reflected the region’s integration within
the national imaginary, the most recent innovations of groups such as Sol Naciente, which draw
primarily upon the musics of the African Diaspora, speak to the transregional and transnational
affinity and linkages engendered with the recent afrochoteño identification with black ethnicity.
The preservation of La Bomba as a tradition likewise reflects this positive identification with
blackness, as noted in Chapter One. In both instances, La Bomba’s ability to respond
dynamically and discursively to the afrochoteño’s experience of and response to marginalization
reveals the extent to which its hybridity, and subsequently the hybridity of afrochoteño identity,
is conditioned by the coloniality of power. It also further speaks to the genre’s significance as a
mediator thereof.
Conclusion
As shown above, La Bomba’s development as a musical genre may be characterized in terms of
dynamic and discursive transformation. From its origins in the colonial period with a drum and
improvised coplas to the gradual adaptation and appropriation of foreign musical instruments and
genres such as the keyboard and salsa, La Bomba’s continual accommodation and juxtaposition
of disparate musical elements reveals its innate hybridity. Far from random, however, the types
of innovations evident in La Bomba’s historical trajectory both reflect and respond to the
particular sociohistorical experiences of the afrodescendent communities of the Chota-Mira
valley and their impact on perceptions and representations of local identity. Indeed, as historical
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documents show, this much arguably stems from the greater social significance of La Bomba as
a sociomusical space enabling and enacting the intersubjective negotiation of collective identity.
La Bomba’s flexibility at the level of instrumentation and form may thus be understood as a
consequence and function of the greater social significance of La Bomba as a sociomusical
complex. Rather than a descriptor, hybridity in the context of La Bomba therefore marks the
inherently unstable condition of the colonial difference as well as provides the means by which
La Bomba as musical genre effectively mediates the coloniality of power.
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CHAPTER SIX
LA BOMBA, COMPLEMENTARY DUALITY, AND THE
COLONIALITY OF POWER: A MUSICAL ANALYSIS
Thus far, this dissertation has dealt with La Bomba in terms of its social and historical
dimensions, focusing predominantly on the significance of La Bomb as a mediator of the
coloniality of power and as an expression of the colonial difference. As shown throughout, La
Bomba gives rise to and makes manifest that which defines the collective experience of the black
communities of the Chota-Mira valley. The immediacy of this identity—felt, shared, and lived
among the participants in that moment and space defined by La Bomba—speaks to its unstable
and precarious nature as a hybrid conditioned by the coloniality of power. To take part in La
Bomba, as suggested by Gualberto Espinoza’s comments (see Chapter Two), is thus to
participate in a “happening:” an intersubjective process whereby the experience of the coloniality
of power is mediated and the difference thereby constituted expressed through song and dance.
This calls for a closer listening of sound itself and the ways in which it is implicated in this
process of renewal and transformation.
This chapter therefore presents an analysis and discussion of La Bomba’s rhythmic and
tonal aspects informed by local conceptions of the drum’s symbolic significance as an
embodiment of complementary duality. Though not exclusive to the communities of the Chota
Mira valley, the notion of complementary duality expressed in and through the bomba is
believed to articulate the particular afrochoteño conception of the world, or cosmovisión. As will
be shown below, an analysis of La Bomba reveals the extent to which this concept governs the
fundamental structure of its rhythmic and tonal aspects. The organization of rhythms,
harmonies, and melodic phrases in complementary and synergistic pairs reflective of those
contained in the drum itself pervade the musical genre throughout in a homologous fashion. As
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the primary generative principle constituting La Bomba at the level of sound, complementary
duality, when viewed in relation to the sociohistorical dynamics informing La Bomba’s
development and its significance for the communities of the Chota-Mira valley, arguably arises
from the relational nature of the colonial difference as structured by the coloniality of power.
This chapter is divided into four main sections and a brief conclusion. As a means of
introducing the concept of complementary duality in La Bomba, the first section explores the
various ways in which this idea is embodied and expressed in and through the drum’s
construction, performance practice, and sound. The second section shows the pervasiveness of
the idea of complementary duality in the rhythmic and tonal structure of La Bomba and La
Bomba moderna. Though recent innovations are indeed visibly and audibly modifying La
Bomba in terms of instrumentation and composition, an adherence to the basic structural
integrity of La Bomba as discerned in the first section reveals a fundamental continuity between
the two manifestations of Bomba. Both sections also illuminate the ways in which binary pairs
synergistically produce an integral whole. As a means of expanding upon the notion of
synergism and its potential significance for an understanding of La Bomba relative the
coloniality of power, the third section examines more closely Bomba coplas from the perspective
of complementary duality while the fourth section presents a listening analysis of two Bombas as
a means of illustrating the pervasiveness and significance of structural duality in La Bomba.
Finally, the conclusion briefly considers the significance of La Bomba’s evident structural
duality for afrochoteño identity. In the end, this chapter argues that La Bomba’s proclivity
toward complementary duality is in itself an embodiment of that power invested dialectic
referred to as the coloniality of power which structures the colonial difference.
The Bomba Drum and Complementary Duality
As noted in Chapter Four, the drum known as La Bomba is thought to reference afrochoteño
cosmology in its construction, associated rhythm, and subsequent sound as manipulated by the
playing technique of the bombero. While this aspect of La Bomba is often highlighted in the
extant academic literature and in conversations with bomberos and other afrochoteños, it is often
left unquestioned and unexplored beyond the assumed and stated connection with local beliefs.
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In this section, I briefly discuss this aspect of the drum as it provides some clues as to how we
might approach other aspects of La Bomba, musical and extramusical, and as a whole.
As noted in previous chapters, the double-headed drum is typically made of a malefemale pair of goat hides. According to numerous testimonies documented in this as well as in
previous studies of La Bomba, these hides represent man and woman and come to symbolize
matrimony through their union in the physical drum and its sonic manifestation. José Chalá
(2006, 158) suggests this idea of matrimony ultimately relates to notions of harmony and
balance. In such a conception of harmony, which are indeed prevalent in local indigenous as
well as in various African belief systems, paired elements such as male and female, night and
day, high and low, and heaven and earth are recognized to work together in a complementary
though not always conflict-free fashion to sustain order in the natural and supernatural world (see
Baumann 1996; Wissler 2009; Urton 1981). As Julio Bueno (1991, 176) astutely observes, this
relationship is evident in the drum pattern itself and in the very sound produced by the
accompanying playing technique.
Two similar duple meter patterns are commonly identified as the traditional rhythmic
basis of La Bomba: one felt in a compound duple meter (i.e., 6/8) and the other in simple duple
meter (i.e., 2/4). Both accentuate what in Western music notation are considered the metrically
strong beats (beats one and four in 6/8 and beats one and two in 2/4) with a slap on the edge of
the drum near the rim and allow the drum to resonate on the last tone of the pattern (beat five in
6/8 and the offbeat of two in 2/4) with an open slap toward the center of the drum. Both tones,
the slap and open tone, are played with the dominant hand of the bomba player while the other
hand rests on the drumhead with the fingers extended from the edge of the rim and functions to
mute the drumhead and bend the pitch of the open tone with a sliding motion toward the center
of the drum (initiated immediately after the open tone is sounded, thus producing a glissando
effect) in a variation known as tierra (earth). This variation exchanges the initial slap tone of the
pattern for a muted open tone, effectively weakening the downbeat and giving the impression of
an upward ascent as the open tone glides toward the higher muted tone in pitch. The original
pattern, commonly referred to as sol (sun) or even cielo (heaven), and the variation are ideally
exchanged in equal phrase lengths (see Figure 6.1: Bomba Basic Rhythmic Patterns: Simple
Duple Sol/Tierra and Compound Duple Sol/Tierra.).
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Figure 6.1: Bomba Basic Rhythmic Patterns: Simple Duple Sol/Tierra and Compound Duple
Sol/Tierra. 1
Just as in the aesthetic pairing of the male and female goat hides, the alternation of the
rhythmic variants sol (sun) and tierra (earth) as well as their incumbent sounds reveal a proclivity
for balancing paired opposites. This much is suggested in the very terms sol and tierra, which,
according to Bueno and Chalá, are also interchangeable with cielo (heaven) and suelo
(floor/earth). Whereas the sol/cielo pattern places emphasis on the metrically strong beats (beats
1 and 2 in 2/4 and beats 1 and 4 in 6/8) with a slap tone toward the rim of the drum, the
1
All musical transcriptions are by the author unless otherwise noted. Transcription notations
produced by Michele Aichele. Slap, muted, and open tones designated in capital letters above the staff.
The letter “T” designates a light tap, or touch. Hand designations are indicated below the staff with the
appropriate letter.
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tierra/suelo variation places the initial downbeat on an open tone. This exchange and alternation
in technique, tone, and pitch, from an accented comparatively higher pitched slap tone to a
relatively lower pitched open tone, conforms with the ideal of complementary-duality informing
the construction of the drum.
Indeed, this is evident even within each variation when examined at the level of pitch and
technique. Whether in 6/8 or 2/4, the basic bomba patterns consist of four different playing
techniques together producing three and arguably even four distinct tones: the high-pitched slap
tone played near the rim, the low and resonant pitch open tone played toward the center of the
drum, the rather neutral tone sounded by the time keeping-like tap of the weak hand, the higher–
pitched muted open tone likewise played toward the center of the drum, and the ascending
glissando leading into the muted open tone produced by the sliding motion of the weak hand
across the drumhead from the rim toward the center of the drum. If agogic accents are any
indication of the primary identifying elements of these respective patterns, than it may be argued
that, disregarding the neutral timekeeping tap of the weak hand, bomba calls attention primarily
to the alternation of high and low tones. Rather than understand the muted open tone of the
tierra/suelo pattern as a separate tone apart from the original slap tone it replaces, we can see this
as a practical need to produce a higher tone while differentiating tierra/suelo from sol/cielo. This
becomes even more apparent when considering the glissando, which serves to accentuate and
even perhaps suggest the connection between the low pitched resonant open tone and the
following high(er) pitched muted open tone. The rhythmic variants may therefore be said to
ultimately consist of only two sounds, high and low, with a practical variation in the muted open
tone substituting for the initial high tone in the tierra/suelo pattern.
Examining more carefully the bomba pattern in 6/8 likewise reveals this aesthetic in its
juxtaposition, or rather ambiguity, of time. The accentuation of the slap tone on beats one and
four creates a tension when heard against the timekeeping taps of the weak hand on beats three
and six and the resonant open tone on beat five. While the slap tones suggest a pattern felt in a
duple meter, the timekeeping tap and open tone suggest a pattern felt in triple meter. This
phenomenon, which in Western music is generally known as a hemiola and in Latin American
musicology is referred to as a sesquialtera, though not unique to the Chota-Mira valley, likewise
reinforces the concept of complementary duality its allusion to two distinct meters and their
union in the composite rhythm.
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Considering its similarity to the albazo and the tendency in La Bomba to appropriate
external genres, the exact origins of this pattern is contested among bomberos and scholars alike.
While some scholars simply consider this rhythm and therefore La Bomba to be akin to the
albazo, others understand the bomba to have appropriated this element of the albazo over time.
Yet others hold the opposite to be true, namely that this particular pattern and La Bomba may in
fact be the parent genre informing the presence of the sesquialtera in genres like the albazo. As
noted in Chapter Four, such questions may never be answered as a result of a lack of written
documentation. Yet, as mentioned above, this phenomenon, when considered in relation to the
evident aesthetic for paired opposing yet complementary elements raises relevant questions
considering its relevance and significance.
One other complementary pattern commonly heard and used in La Bomba acknowledged
to be an adaptation of the Colombian Cumbia is worth mentioning as it gives some indication as
to how La Bomba comes to adapt new rhythms. Referred to as “bomba-cumbia” by the
bomberos interviewed, this rhythm compliments the basic bomba pattern in 2/4 in its use of and
alternation between low and high pitched tones played using the same techniques found in the
basic rhythmic patter. This includes, as shown in Figure 6.2, the use of the muted open slap tone
produced in conjunction with the glissando. The high-low pitch alternation is here emphasized
in the isolated pattern produced by the strong hand itself as well as between the low pitched open
slap tone and the higher-pitched muted open tone heard within the pattern as a whole.
Figure 6.2: Bomba-Cumbia Basic with Variation.
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Complementary Duality in the Rhythmic and Tonal Organization of La
Bomba and La Bomba Moderna
Traditional Bomba
Though musical instruments and new genres have been incorporated in La Bomba over time, an
analysis reveals that, at its basis, La Bomba maintains a consistent rhythmic and tonal structure
informed by the principles of complementary-duality embodied in the bomba itself. In this
section, I analyze the basic rhythmic patterns of the rhythm section (guitar and bass guitar,
scrapers, shakers, and bongos) and the harmonic and melodic aspects of La Bomba with recourse
to several examples taken from representative Bombas in both simple and compound duple
meters and ranging from the time period between 1984 and 2007.
Rhythm. With the exception of the requinto and the orange leaf, the musical instruments
added to La Bomba since the initial commercial recordings of the 1980s compliment the basic
bomba rhythm and often play on the tension inherent in the version felt in 6/8. In both the
simple duple and compound duple meter patterns, for instance, the rhythm guitar supports the
bomba pattern while adding rhythmic density. Here, the slap and open tones of the drum are
mimicked and reinforced through the muted strums (beats 1 and 2 in 2/4; 1 and 4 in 6/8) and
sustained chords (the offbeat of 2 in 2/4; beat 5 in 6/8) of the guitar as shown in Figure 6.3.
Figure 6.3: Guitar Basic in Simple and Compound Duple Meter.
These are alternated just as the slap and open resonant tones of the drums. Likewise contrasted
in this pattern is the rhythmic motion provided by the continuous strums (beats 1 through 2 in
2/4; beats 1 through 4 in 6/8) and the stasis produced by the sustained chord (offbeat of 2 in 2/4;
beat 5 in 6/4).
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The patterns and sets of relations evident in the rhythm guitar are also heard in the
scraper or shaker and in the bongos commonly used in contemporary Bomba ensembles. The
accents of the various scraper or shaker patterns correspond with the muted strums of the guitar
and likewise emphasize the slap tones of the drum (Figure 6.4: Scraper/Shaker in Simple and
Compound Duple Meter with Variation).
Figure 6.4: Scraper/Shaker in Simple and Compound Duple Meter with Variation.
The bongos improvise around and embellish the basic bomba pattern while maintaining the
integrity of the high-low pitch distinction in playing the lower-pitched bongo in concordance
with the open resonant tone of the bomba. Though the bongo pattern is perhaps the most flexible
among the rhythm instruments in the bomba ensemble, it nonetheless serves to reinforce the
basic bomba pattern just as the rhythm guitar and the scraper.
The bass guitar further lends support to the basic bomba pattern. In the simple duple
meter the bass pattern often aligns with the initial downbeat and open resonant tone as shown in
Figure 6.5.
Figure 6.5: Bass Guitar in Simple Duple Meter with Variation.
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Figure 6.5 - continued: Bass Guitar in Simple Duple Meter with Variation.
The compound duple meter, however, allows the bass player to play on the tension inherent in
the bomba pattern. Variations of the bass pattern observed in the compound duple meter tend to
emphasize a pattern felt in three, whether syncopated or not (see Figure 6.6: Bass Guitar in
Compound Duple Meter with Variations).
Figure 6.6: Bass Guitar in Compound Duple Meter with Variations.
This provides a perceived contrast in meter when heard against the accented beats outlined by
the bomba and accompanying rhythm instruments. In some instances the driving accents of the
drum, guitar, and scraper along with the syncopation in the bass and the slightly swung feel of
the eighth-notes in the guitar and scraper creates an ambiguity with respect to the meter, which is
felt neither wholly in two or three, but somewhere in between.
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The intimate relationship between the rhythm and bass guitar, scraper and shaker, bongo,
and the bomba suggest that, more than extensions of the bomba, they are thoroughly enmeshed
within the rhythmic and symbolic framework of La Bomba. The rhythm instruments discussed
above not only reference and support the basic bomba pattern but in and of themselves and
across instrumental patterns manifest the dualities contained therein (see Figure 6.7: Bomba
Rhythm Instruments in Simple and Compound Duple Meter). As such, these instruments, in
their use and sound within the ensemble, reveal the pervasiveness of the dualities and tensions
contained in the bomba as well as the degree to which La Bomba allows for the appropriation
and incorporation of new instruments.
Figure 6.7: Bomba Rhythm Instruments in Simple and Compound Duple Meter.
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Figure 6.7 - continued: Bomba Rhythm Instruments in Simple and Compound Duple Meter.
Tonality. The binary relations noted above likewise inform La Bomba’s tonal structure.
This is most audible in the oscillation between the relative major and relative minor as well as in
the use of paired melodic phrases, and the interplay between the voice and melodic instruments.
It should be noted that though new musical genres appropriated by bomba groups are indeed
introducing innovations in terms of harmony, melody, and song form, as indeed has always been
the case, there nonetheless remains a tendency to interpret bombas within the framework
discussed below.
Though varying in complexity, Bombas from the 1980s to the present adhere to a relative
major and relative minor modal mixture in their harmonic and melodic composition. This
phenomenon, first commented on by ethnomusicologist John Schechter, is as much evident in
the music of present day Bomba groups such as Marabu, Los Autenticos del Valle, and Oro
Negro as in the early recordings of Milton Tadeo and Los Hermanos Congo. “Vivencias” by
Marabu, for example, remains in G minor for the duration of the verse but then abruptly changes
to B-flat major during the chorus. “El Pasado” by Los Autenticos del Valle is similar in that it
oscillates between the chords of G major and E minor, though with a brief excursion in the
subdominant of the relative major (C major) in the chorus. Of particular interest is the lack of
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tonal development in either the relative major and relative minor, hence the term bimodality used
by Schechter to describe the dual tonalities heard in La Bomba. The interplay between the
relative major and relative minor in all instances is facilitated by the predominant use of
pentatonicism in the melody.
The alternation between the relative major and relative minor often occurs at key
structural moments in the song form and melodic phrasing. As noted above, “Vivencias”
transitions between G minor and B-flat major between the verse and the chorus, thus reinforcing
a contrasting verse-chorus song form. “El Pasado,” likewise differentiates the verse from the
chorus with a brief excursion in the subdominant of the relative major, but differs from
“Vivencias” in that it oscillates between G major and E minor with each individual six-bar
melodic phrase within the verse section. When present, the chorus may not necessarily be
contrasted harmonically, however, as Milton Tadeo’s “Carpuela Linda” illustrates. Here, the
chorus remains in the relative major and the relative minor, alternating with each melodic phrase
as in the verse section. In this simple verse-chorus form, the chorus is differentiated solely by
textual repetition. Yet other bombas whose form may be considered strophic, such as “Sol y
Luna” by Fabian Congo, likewise tend to alternate with each melodic phrase. As shown in
Figure 6.8, the first six-bar antecedent melodic phrase in B-flat major cadences in F major and is
sustained for the duration of the second consequent melodic phrase until the cadence in D minor.
Figure 6.8: “Sol y Luna” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases.
The instrumental interlude similarly cadences in F major by the end of the four-bar antecedent
melodic phrase while it cadences in D minor in the subsequent four-bar consequent phrase (see
Figure 6.9: “Sol y Luna” Instrumental Interlude).
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Figure 6.9: “Sol y Luna” Instrumental Interlude.
Similarly, “Coplas de mi Tierra” by Segundo Rosero alternates between A-flat major and F
minor with the cadence of each respective antecedent and consequent melodic phrase (see Figure
6.10: “Coplas de mi Tierra” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases).
Figure 6.10: “Coplas de mi Tierra” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases.
The pairing of individual melodic phrases in balanced antecedent and consequent phrases
corresponds to the paired couplets that constitute the coplas. This is most evident in Bombas in
strophic form such as “Coplas de mi Tierra,” “Sol y Luna,” and modified versions of the strophic
form such as “Carpuela Linda” addressed above. In both “Coplas de mi Tierra” and “Sol y
Luna” the individual verses of the copla are set to melodic phrases contrasting slightly in terms
of contour, the chord/tonality suggested in its pitch content, and cadence. In “Sol y Luna,” for
instance, the initial melodic phrase underscores the accompanying chord of B-flat major in its
emphasis on the major third of the chord (D), which also happens to be the tonic of the tonality
initially suggested in the introduction (D minor). At the end of the fifth measure, however, the
phrase cadences in F major which then elides with the subsequent melodic phrase constituting
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the second verse of the copla. In this second verse, the melodic phrase clearly outlines the chord
of F major to which it is set, but contrasts with the initial melodic phrase in its counter and
cadence. Though rhythmically identical to the first melodic phrase, the second phrase moves in
contrary motion and culminates in a cadence in D minor. It is thus clear that the melodic phrases
are intended to complement one another as antecedent and consequent phrases which reinforce
the complementary binary structure of the copla. Indeed, when examined in relation to the text
itself, it is clear that the two verses constitute a single thought, or saying. The copla and its
musical setting must therefore be understood not as two separate conjoined verses and melodic
phrases, but as an integral whole.
The duality present in the harmonic structure of La Bomba may likewise be interpreted in
the interplay between the voice and musical instruments. While the use of instrumental
interludes indeed serves to provide contrast and thus delineate the particular song form of La
Bomba, as in “Sol y Luna,” it may also serve to complement the vocal section, or the song
proper, as an equal counterpart. This much is suggested by the relative length of the interlude of
Bombas such as “Carpuela Linda” and “Coplas de mi Tierra,” which encompass the duration of
an entire verse or verse-chorus section. In all instances, however, there is a clear dialogue that
occurs between the voice and the requinto or other lead melodic instrument such as the orange
leaf within the sung verse section. The requinto frequently interjects, complimenting the vocal
melody as though commenting or responding much in the same way as lead melodic instruments
do in North American blues and popular music genres informed by the blues. Of particular
interest is the fact that this manner of responding to the vocal part is not present in national
mestizo popular music genres such as the san juanito, pasillo, and albazo.
The tonal qualities of La Bomba briefly examined above reveal the extent to which the
dualities contained and expressed within the bomba pervade the genre as a whole. The
oscillation between the relative major and relative minor, the pairing of antecedent and
consequent melodic phrases, the integral relationship between the melodic phrase and poetic
structure, and the alternation and interplay between the vocal and instrumental parts all constitute
complementary pairs contained within the whole represented by the song (the Bomba) itself.
Just as the drum contains and embodies the dualities represented by the male and female goat
hide, so too the Bomba encompasses the structural oppositions of which it itself is constituted.
The notion of complementarity is particularly emphasized in the tonal relation between the
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relative major and relative minor, the lack of tonal development, the use of pentatonicism, and
the eliding transitions between the relative major and the relative minor. More than simply a
matter of aesthetics, these compositional techniques serve to interweave and encompass the
dualities expressed in the paired chords/tonalities, melodic phrases, and vocal and instrumental
parts. What this suggests is that these structural binary elements, taken individually and
collectively, constitute a single irreducible unity. La Bomba as a genre is therefore not only a
reflection but the musical embodiment and thus vessel of that unity of difference.
La Bomba Moderna
This section specifically explores an emerging branch of Bomba practiced and listened to
predominantly by afrochoteño youth. This Bomba, loosely referred to as La Bomba moderna
(modern Bomba), is audibly differentiated from more “traditional” Bomba in its appropriation of
musical instruments and genres from global popular music and the African Diaspora specifically.
These musical innovations owe to the changing circumstances of daily life in the Chota-Mira
valley and to the sensibilities of afrochoteño youth with regards to their shifting sense of self
(identity) and place within Ecuador and the African Diaspora. Though this style of Bomba is
criticized by some bomberos as purely commercial and therefore “inauthentic,” the afrochoteño
youth who perform and listen to this music maintain that it is Bomba nonetheless. Regardless of
whether or not these changes withstand the test of time, they speak to the current social,
economic, and political dynamics shaping the interpretation and practice of La Bomba today.
For comparative purposes and as a means of addressing the question of musical change,
the following presents an overview of the formal musical and textual characteristics of La
Bomba moderna as heard in the music of such representative groups as Sol Naciente, Raices
Negras, Percusion Latina, Mahoma, and Mague. Though these ensembles self-identify as
Bomba groups and often perform on the same stage as more traditional Bomba ensembles and
artists such as Marabu and Milton Tadeo, they recognize the diversity of genres within their
repertoire. Yet, in addition to the wholesale interpretation of distinct genres alongside Bomba,
these groups are fusing elements of different genres such as son and merengue with Bomba to
create what amounts to a distinct hybridized popular music genre. The following analysis
specifically considers this emerging Bomba fusion and its relation to previous manifestations of
La Bomba.
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Rhythm. Though the fusion of Bomba with the rhythmic and tonal elements of such
distinct musical genres as Afro-Cuban son to reggaeton and Latin pop ballads in what is loosely
referred to as Bomba moderna (modern Bomba) is indeed introducing innovations in
instrumentation, rhythm, melody, harmony, song form, and style, it is not fundamentally altering
the basic rhythmic and tonal structures of La Bomba as outlined above. As will be shown below,
the dualities pervasive in the “traditional” Bomba likewise manifest themselves in and across the
rhythm, melody, and harmony of La Bomba moderna albeit in more subtle and complex ways.
Indeed, an examination of the repertoire of Sol Naciente, representative of the current trends
among such contemporary Bomba ensembles, reveals the extent to which this is the case.
Though groups such as Sol Naciente are opting to replace the bomba with bongos,
congas, timbales, the indigenous bombo, and the trap set, the basic bomba rhythm in its simple
duple meter form is still implicitly maintained. This much is due to primarily to the similarities
between the basic bomba duple meter pattern and that of the bongo in salsa, the congas in
cumbia and vallenato, and the tambora of the Dominican merengue: genres often adapted by
contemporary Bomba groups. “Dueña de mi Corazon,” by Sol Naciente, for instance, adapts the
basic salsa bongo pattern in a composite rhythm heard across three rhythm instruments: the
conga, wood blocks, and damped cowbell (see Musical Example 1). While the damped cowbell,
which could also be played on the rim of the drum set or timbales, emphasizes the metrically
strong beats, the wood blocks, with their alternating high-low tones, mimics the actual composite
sound heard between the timekeeping left hand and the accented right handed slaps played on the
higher-pitched bongo (beats: 1 + 2; low-high-low). The lower-pitched conga drum, then, sounds
the open tone of the bongo pattern heard on the offbeat of beat two. Sol Naciente takes a similar
approach in their appropriation of the Dominican merengue tambora in an untitled instrumental
track, suggesting the bomba pattern through the composite rhythm formed between the tambora,
bass line and bass drum, and rim shots (see Musical Example 2). Indeed, in this specific
example, the tambora is juxtaposed over the bomba pattern heard faintly played on an indigenous
style bombo. Yet other compositions of Sol Naciente arguably in a more generic pop music
vein, such as “Aysha,” take care to demarcate, if nothing else, the final open tone of the basic
bomba pattern as heard in the tom drum of the trap set in Musical Example 3. Thus, while the
bomba itself is conspicuously absent, the basic bomba pattern appears to remain an integral
component of La Bomba moderna if only in a modified form.
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The extent to which the absence of the bomba and its dialogue with other related rhythms
is impacting the structural dualities heard in the bomba pattern and across the instrumental
ensemble depends on the relative degree to which the respective genres are fused. As in
previous decades, Bomba ensembles will often incorporate a variety of songs often identified
with respect to its genre despite its interpretation within the Bomba ensemble format. Many
groups today, such as Sol Naciente, however, superimpose and mix genres to the extent that they
are no longer identifiable as simply one or another. “Aysha,” noted above for example,
maintains the basic bomba pattern, though modified in the trap set, as well as its relationship to
the rhythm guitar and bass guitar while replacing the requinto with the keyboard and adding
additional percussion. The fast tempo, piano-playing style, and percussion improvisations
overlain on the implied bomba pattern is reminiscent of a merengue or salsa. Though fast
enough to be danced as such, it is nonetheless neither defined as solely a salsa, merengue, or
bomba by its formal musical characteristics alone. In contrast, “Recuerdos” by Raices Negras,
opens with a bomba outlining the basic bomba pattern in a simple duple meter which is then
subsumed within a son-style arrangement complete with its characteristic arpeggiated chords
heard on the piano, syncopated bass line, stratified and overlapping rhythmic ostinatos, and even
a steel stringed guitar reminiscent in sound of a Cuban tres. Though the bomba is prominently
displayed from the outset as if to establish the composition as a Bomba, the song itself is audibly
more identifiable as a son or salsa. It is not surprising, therefore, that audiences would interpret
such songs as salsa and adjust their dance steps accordingly as frequently witnessed at concerts
and dance clubs in the Chota-Mira valley, Ibarra, and Quito.
As evident in the above examples, the structural dualities pervading the Bombas of
previous generations are still present in contemporary Bombas if only in a modified form. This
is most evident in Bombas explicitly or implicitly grounded in and organized around the basic
simple duple meter rhythmic pattern characteristic of the genre. Compositions that approximate
too closely the rhythmic organizational scheme of genres such as the Afro-Cuban son and salsa,
wherein the rhythmic patterns of the respective instruments compliment the clave, tend to sound
less like a bomba: a recognition visibly noted in the adjustment in the dance steps of audiences at
concerts and nightclubs. When integrated within the rhythmic framework of the Bomba,
however, the rhythmic patterns of various genres can be made to compliment rather than
dominate the defining rhythmic pattern, as especially noted in the examples of Sol Naciente.
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Thus while the incorporation of new genres, instruments, and rhythms are indeed modifying
certain aspects of La Bomba as heard in La Bomba moderna, it does not necessarily constitute a
fundamental departure and change. If anything, the tendency toward the appropriation of other
and different musical forms represents a continuity in the development of La Bomba and not a
fundamental departure or change.
Tonality. The current trends in harmony, melody, and phrase structure in La Bomba
moderna likewise evince continuity with Bombas of previous generations, though in somewhat
modified form as a result of the appropriation and influence of popular music genres today
commonly heard in the Chota-Mira valley and Urban centers of Ecuador (i.e., son, salsa, bachata,
reggaeton, Latin rock and pop music etc.). As shown below, continuities are most prominent in
the emphasis on both the relative major and relative minor, the lack of tonal development in both
the harmony and melody which allows for this interplay, and the use of balanced paired melodic
phrases.
Though contemporary Bombas are commonly set in either solely a major or minor
musical key, there remains a tendency to exploit both the relative major and relative minor
within a single composition. The increasing composition of Bombas in single key areas is due to
the growing influence and appropriation of external dance music genres also generally set in
either a single major or minor tonality. Sol Naciente’s two instrumental tracks in the key of E
minor and B major respectively, for instance, most audibly resemble a Colombian mapalé and
Dominican merengue. An overview of the tonal areas of the repertoire of Sol Naciente,
however, shows an equal preference for songs in single major as in single minor and mixed
relative major and relative minor key areas (see Table 6.1: Tonal Areas for Sol Naciente
Repertoire). This suggests that while there is a diversification of compositional practices with
regards to the tonal setting of La Bomba, the use of bimodality yet continues as a favorable
option in the bombero’s toolkit.
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Table 6.1: Tonal Areas for Sol Naciente Repertoire.
Song Title
Tonal Areas
Aunque no Pienses
D major/B minor
Aysha
A minor
Dueña de mi Corazon
G major
Instrumental Track
B major
Necesito
E minor/G major
No Puedo Olvidarla
A major/ F# minor
Nunca Confíes
G major/E minor
Pienso en Ti
D major
Siento que estoy Moriendo
A minor
A closer examination of Sol Naciente’s “Aunque no Pienses” and “Necesito” reveals the
extent to which the practice of modal mixture is modified in La Bomba moderna. From the
outset, the musical key of “Aunque no Pienses” is obfuscated by the harmonic and melodic
oscillation between the chords of B minor and D major (see Musical Example 4). The key
temporarily settles in D major with the opening of the song proper only to return to the relative
minor and the D major/B minor oscillation with the reprisal of the introductory material in the
instrumental interlude. Just as in previous Bombas, “Aunque no Pienses” makes a brief
excursion in the subdominant of the relative major at the bridge before launching into a vamped
alternating D major/B minor section reminiscent of the montuno section of the Afro-Cuban son.
Of interest in this final section is the outline of a B minor seventh chord in the melody which
effectively links the relative major and relative minor just as the pentatonic scaler melody does
with Bombas of previous generations. Though the setting of the verse in a single key departs
from previous compositional practices evident in more “traditional” Bombas, there is a clear
continuity in the oscillation between the relative major and relative minor within the instrumental
and chorus/montuno section as well as in the alternation and use of the related modes to delineate
the song form.
“Necesito” similarly oscillates between E minor and G major, though more fluidly than in
“Aunque no Pienses.” The song in its entirety is composed of paired antecedent and consequent
melodic phrases which correspond to an alternation between G major and E minor in their
respective cadences (see Musical Example 5). As shown in Figure 6.12, the chord progression
moves from D to G with each antecedent phrase, frequently cadencing on the third of the chord
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in the melody, through B minor to E minor in the consequent phrase, which generally culminates
on the tonic of the chord.
Figure 6.11: “Necesito” Antecedent and Consequent Melodic Phrases.
Just as with “Aunque no Pienses” and other previous Bombas, the subdominant of the relative
major is here used to distinguish the chorus from the verse. The paired antecedent and
consequent melodic phrases conjoining the alternating relative major and relative minor in this
instance indicate a clear continuity with previous Bombas despite the apparent departure from
the use of pentatonicism in the melody.
Balanced and paired antecedent and consequent melodic phrases predominate even
among those Bombas today not exhibiting the bimodal mixture prevalent in the Bombas of
previous generations. Though set in G major to a vamped sequence consisting of three chords
(C-D-G) Sol Naciente’s “Dueña de mi Corazon” makes use of slight variation to distinguish the
otherwise monotonous melodic phrases. Similarly, “Pienso en Ti” and “Aysha” both use
variation as well as a call and response format across melodic voices to delineate paired phrases.
“Pienso en Ti,” for instance begins with a guitar and later keyboard playing antecedent and
consequent melodic phrases distinguished in contour and underlying chord progression. Though
the vocal melody initially appears to depart from this structure, a comparison with the
subsequent call and response section (that begins at 1’44”) suggests that the descending line
repeated in the first section of the song is the consequent pair of the initial melodic phrase (“y
pienos en ti”) whose antecedent phrase is implied (see Musical Example 6). In this case, the
apparent deviation plays on the expectation of the listener and thus constitutes an innovative
compositional technique on the part of Sol Naciente rather than an actual departure from the
paired phrase structure. Such a combination of variation and call and response in both the voice
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and instrumental part is likewise used by Sol Naciente to form paired melodic phrases in
“Aysha.” The initial paired melodic phrases heard in the opening vocal line though beginning
and ending on the same note and underlying harmony and maintaining the same melodic contour
are yet subtly differentiated by rhythm and by a single note. The guitar soon follows with a
paired antecedent and consequent melodic phrase which will constitute the melodic material for
a call and response in the vocal part and also between the guitar and keyboard later in the song.
The predominant, though modified, use of paired melodic phrases evident in the songs above
thus indicates a clear link with the melodic structure of previous Bombas.
The music of Sol Naciente examined above suggest that though global popular musics
are indeed influencing current trends in the choice of key, chord progressions, melodic pitch
content, and melody composition, the divide between La Bomba moderna and more “traditional”
Bombas may not be as great as popularly perceived. Just as with the rhythmic structure, where
contemporary compositions do indeed stray too far from the characteristic binary tonal structure
of La Bomba the song becomes less and less identifiable as a Bomba. Such is the case with Sol
Naciente’s second instrumental track which is readily discernible as an interpretation of a
Colombian mapalé in its rhythmic and melodic structural elements (see Musical Example 7).
This perception is supported by remarks made by older and more established Bomba musicians
as to which songs did or did not sound like Bombas. Though intuitive, unsubstantiated, and
certainly motivated by certain personal agendas, such statements heard in passing throughout the
course of this investigation, nonetheless tended to fall along the lines of those Bombas which
successfully fused distinct elements of other genres with those of La Bomba and those that
merely sought to imitate or interpret the rhythm and style of a different genre. In the former, the
foreign elements are subsumed within the prevailing structure of La Bomba while in the latter
the opposite results. Thus, it seems that conceptions of the genre as in what does and what does
not constitute a Bomba may be best understand not in absolute terms, but along a spectrum or
continuum that stretches between that which is considered “traditional” in all its structural
significations and that which is identifiable as “other,” such salsa, merengue, bachata, etc. Only
time will tell whether or not the innovations of groups such as Sol Naciente will hold and
influence future generations, thus constituting an integral part of La Bomba’s structural
composition. Yet it is certain that, just as La Bomba has for generations before, the genre will
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continue to develop and modify with time, subsuming aspects of other genres and slowly
transforming as it does so.
Bomba Coplas, Complementary Duality, and Encompassment
Bomba texts have changed greatly within the years of its documented history (1975-),
constituting paired verses to topical songs dealing specifically with local events and, more
recently, broader themes of love, loss, and celebration. This section concerns itself primarily
with what would be considered the more traditional Bomba texts which, as noted in chapter four,
most likely consisted solely of paired couplets (coplas) either improvised or composed of
existing coplas referencing and commenting upon local places, events, individuals, and
conditions of life and work. As suggested in Chapter Four, this is indicative of the significance
of La Bomba not as a musical composition, per se, with any particular textual importance in and
of itself, but as a sociomusical event enabling and enacting the negotiation and expression of
local identity. This is not to say, however, that Bomba coplas do not contribute in some
meaningful way to this process of identity construction. Indeed, given the dualities permeating
La Bomba’s formal musical content, it is probable that the content and structural composition of
Bomba coplas likewise exhibits and thus reinforces the concept of complementary duality and
encompassment already noted in the rhythmic and tonal structure of La Bomba.
The significance of the textual structure of Bombas, or of those consisting specifically of
coplas, has already been suggested in the analysis of the melodic phrase structure of La Bomba.
As previously noted, the phrase structure of La Bomba typically constitutes a pair of balanced
antecedent and consequence melodic phrases conjoined by the use of a harmonic elision and
encompassed within an overarching harmonic and melodic framework. A lack of tonal
development along with the use of pentatonicism serve to reinforce the balance between the dual
relative major and relative minor tonalities commonly heard in such Bombas. This structure
directly corresponds with and therefore supports that of the text as shown below.
Just as with the melodic and harmonic structure, the paired verses that constitute Bomba
coplas evince an aesthetic for complementary duality constituting and encompassed within a
singular whole. In this case, that whole is represented by the copla itself as it constitutes and
expresses a complete thought, idea, or saying. Taken alone, the individual verse pairs (couplets),
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though intelligible in their own right, represent only a partial thought, or an independent clause,
that when placed within the context of its paired couplet takes on new meaning. In “La
Choteña,” for instance, the second couplet of the first stanza modifies significantly the first
couplet which in itself stands alone without further contextualization:
Me enamoré de una choteña
Y no me supo contester (bis)
Agachaba la cabeza
Y yo le daba por detras (bis)
[I fell in love with a woman from Chota
And she would not respond
[she] lowered [her] head
And I gave it [to her] from behind]
As the above example illustrates, the meaning of the first couplet, which is often innocuous in
and of itself, often changes considerably when interpreted in relation to the second couplet. This
interplay can also happen between couplets of successive coplas. The first and second coplas of
“La Choteña” illustrate how Bomba texts can be humorously deceptive in this regard:
Me enamoré de una choteña
Y no me supo contester (bis)
Agachaba la cabeza
Y yo le daba por detras (bis)
Esto dijo la gallina
cuando la iban a matar (bis)
Ponga el agua a calentar
Que ese mal no tiene cura (bis)
[I fell in love with a woman from Chota
And she would not respond
[she] lowered [her] head
And I gave it [to her] from behind
This said the hen
When they were about to kill her
Put the water to the fire
For that malady has no cure]
The unexpected second couplet of the first copla, which elicits laughter from listeners for its
shock value, becomes even more humorous when heard in conjunction with the first couplet of
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the second copla, which, as a result of its grammatical structure, could be interpreted as a
continuation of the previous stanza. Reinforcing the continuity between the second couplet of
the first copla and the first copla of the second copla is the related melodic material, which
though shared between the first copla and the first couplet of the second copla abruptly changes
with the second couplet of the second copla. Though coplas within a bomba need not necessarily
relate to one another in terms of thematic content, the particular order in which they are arranged
by the vocalist/composer can provide an overall narrative as noted in this example. In either
case, the juxtaposition of otherwise discreet couplets in the composition of Bomba coplas results
in their recontextualization and resignification. As the example above illustrates, the emergent
images are often shocking and humorous.
Yet another exemplary Bomba in this regard is “Coplas de mi Tierra” by Segundo
Rosero. This Bomba, as the title suggests, is composed of various coplas whose meaning and
humor are derived from their witty construction and the relational nature of the respective
couplets. Just as in “La Choteña,” the meaning of the first couplet of these particular coplas,
though independent clauses, is significantly modified when reinterpreted in relation to the second
couplet.
The first couplet of the third copla, for instance, when situated relative the second couplet,
suggests that the protaganist in fact went to see not the woman herself, but her body, or that
which she was washing:
Anoche yo te fui a ver
y tu te estabas bañando
Lo que yo queria verte
te lo estabas habonando
[Last night I went to see you
And you were bathing
That of which I wanted to see you
You were soaping]
The fifth copla presents yet another such drastic alteration in the meaning of its first couplet:
Y una vieja y un viejito
se fueron de remolache
La viejita que se agacha
y el viejo que la desmacha
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[And an old woman and an old man
Went for a ride
The old woman bends over
And the old man steals her womanhood]
The suggestive text of the second couplet turns the otherwise mundane first couplet entirely on
its head, producing a scandalous image whose humor lies not only in its absurdity, but in its
unexpectedness.
Heightening the sense of anticipation and surprise between the first and second couplets
of Bomba coplas is the use of repetition. This technique, commonly heard in Bomba’s
composed solely of coplas, foregrounds the text in its reiteration and establishes a sense of
expectation in terms of both the text and melody. In “Versos Cantados,” for instance, the first
couplet of the second copla repeated raises a curious suspicion in the astute listener familiar with
bomba coplas as to what witty text may follow. Indeed, the second couplet delivers a clever line
suggestive and humorous in its use of double entendre:
En tu puerta siembro un pino
y en tu ventana una flor (bis)
En tu cama tres claveles
y una azucena de amor (bis)
[In your door I plant a pine tree
And in your window a flower (bis)
In your bed three carnations
And a white lily of love (bis)]
Repetition of the second couplet further drives home the humor of the line and the absurdity of
the image depicted in the copla as a whole. Similarly, the repeated first couplet of the third copla
of “Mete Caña al Trapiche,” creates an expectation among listeners that the second couplet will
readily capitalize on the suggestive scene setup in the first couplet:
Anoche yo fui por verte
por el hueco del tejado (bis)
Salio tu mama y me dijo
por la puerta condenado (bis)
[Last night I went to see you
Through the hole in the roof (bis)
Your mother came out and said to me
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Through the door damned one (bis)]
The second couplet, however, surprises the listener in delivering an entirely unexpected image
which, though not crass, is equally humorous in its unpredictability.
The tendency toward the ludic, commonly observed in many such Bomba coplas,
provides some clues as to the significance of Bomba texts as they relate to process. As shown in
the above examples, coplas express a singular image composed of two contrasting and otherwise
independent couplets. The juxtaposition of these couplets and the resultant relationship between
them endows the copla with its meaning and humor. Of significance is the fact that the structural
composition of coplas necessitates a reinterpretation of the individual couplets and thus
effectively renders the respective meaning of the individual couplets obsolete. The significance
of the coplas, therefore, is found not in the content and meaning of the individual couplets
themselves, but in the structural relation between them. The unexpected imagery that results in
Bomba texts serves as a reminder of the arbitrariness and relativity of meaning in foregrounding
its structural and relational construction.
In conclusion, each copla, in its structural composition and textual relation, presents a
microcosm of that which is contained and expressed through the drum and the rhythmic and
tonal structural aspects of La Bomba: a complementary duality encompassed within a greater
whole. The pairing of contrasting though complementary couplets within a unified tonal
structure conveying a singular image, thought, statement, or idea is what constitutes the copla.
Thus, as noted above, more important than the individual verse pairs themselves is the relational
context of the copla itself. This, along with the nonnarrative sequence of coplas within a Bomba,
draws attention not on the text itself, but on the relation between the paired-verses and the
unexpected images produced by their interplay and juxtaposition. Emphasized in Bomba texts,
therefore, is the process of meaning construction rather than content and meaning in and of
themselves. As shown below, this aspect of Bomba coplas, encompassment and synergy,
evident in the fundamental rhythmic and tonal building blocks of La Bomba, comes to define La
Bomba in its manifestation as a musical sound object. The significance of the principle of
complementary duality in the structuring of La Bomba becomes even more significant when
understood in relation to La Bomba’s relationship to afrochoteño identity and the coloniality of
power as suggested below and addressed in Chapter Seven.
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Listening Analysis
As shown in the previous sections, the rhythmic, tonal, and textual organization of La Bomba is
structured by the concept-metaphor of complementary duality and encompassment symbolized
and manifested in the physical construction, playing technique, and subsequent sound of the
drum. These dualities are evident in the pairing of and balanced alternation or juxtaposition
between opposing rhythmic patterns (i.e., sol/tierra), playing techniques (i.e., slap or muted/open,
stopped/open, and sound/silence or stasis/movement) meters (i.e., duple and triple as felt in the
compound duple meter pattern), tones (i.e., high and low, and muted and open), harmonies and
modalities (i.e., relative major and minor), and melodic phrases (i.e., antecedent/consequent). As
discussed relative Bomba coplas, the notion of encompassment implied in the concept of
complementary duality is likewise evident in the ways in which the pairing and/or juxtaposition
of the above individual elements work together in synergistic fashion to produce a singular
rhythmic pattern, melodic phrase, textual idea, and harmonic structure. As the following
analysis of “Sol y Luna” and “Aunque no Pienses” shows, it is ultimately the combination and
juxtaposition of these individual rhythmic and tonal paired elements that produce the sound
characteristic of La Bomba.
“Sol y Luna,” by Los Hermanos Congo (see Table 6.2), is exemplary of that which is
today considered traditional Bomba in terms of its formal musical characteristics. 2 It consists of
four coplas set in a compound duple meter strophic song form and structured melodically and
harmonically in a bimodal framework featuring the related tonal areas of F major and D minor.
Each copla is preceded by an instrumental interlude, which, though differs in its melodic content,
adheres to the same harmonic structure as the verse. The instrumentation heard in this particular
recording includes a bomba, scraper, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, and requinto. In addition to the
lead vocalist, this musical example also features a second, harmonizing voice. The following is a
listening guide highlighting the major characteristics of this particular example as they develop
over the course of the composition (Table 6.2).
2
As heard on the LP, A bailar la bomba, vol. 2, by Los Hermanos Congo (1986).
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Table 6.2: Guided Listening, “Sol y Luna.”
Time
Guided Listening
0:00-0:08
Intro
Requinto opens, immediately followed by rhythm instruments (bomba, scraper,
and bass guitar); requinto and bass guitar produce hemiola in juxtaposition with
bomba and scraper; melody consists of eight measures subdivided into equal
four bar antecedent and consequent melodic phrases in D minor
0:09-0:38
Interlude
Requinto solo (see Fig. 6.9) consists of two repeated eight measure melodic
phrases (antecedent and consequent), each subdivided into two four bar
antecedent and consequent phrases which cadence in F major and D minor
respectively; bomba alternates between sol and tierra.
0:39-1:00
Copla 1
Vocal melody begins in subdominant of relative major (B-flat major) and
cadences in F major by end of antecedent phrase; melody consists of twenty-four
bars divided into repeated six bar antecedent and consequent phrases cadencing
in F major and D minor respectively (see Fig. 6.8); melodic phrase structure
corresponds with that of copla (paired couplets); vocal rhythm, felt in triple
meter, further exploits hemiola evident within bomba pattern and between the
bass guitar and scraper, rhythm guitar, and bomba.
1:01-1:30
Interlude
Return of instrumental interlude discussed above; requinto line doubled,
harmonized, and embellished with addition of another guitar.
1:31-1:52
Copla 2
Return of vocal melody (strophic form); rhythmic and tonal structure and
organization same as outlined in Copla 1; requinto complements vocal melody
(interjects, embellishes, and responds to vocal melody); secondary harmony
added to vocal melody with second vocalist.
1:53-2:22
Interlude
Greater interplay between second guitar and requinto as melody doubled,
embellished, and harmonized even more freely than previously.
2:23-2:43
Copla 3
Return of vocal melody and accompanying rhythmic and tonal structure and
organization; requinto complements vocal melody even more freely.
2:44-3:13
Interlude
Return of instrumental interlude.
3:14-3:36
Copla 4
3:37-3:47
Conclusion
Vamp last line of copla 4 (antecedent melodic phrase beginning in F major and
cadencing in D minor) to fade out.
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“Sol y Luna,” from its constituent rhythmic and tonal elements to its overall song form, is
composed entirely of conjoined binary pairs. The song opens with a short introductory
instrumental melody in D minor accompanied by the bomba, scraper, and bass guitar. The
melody introduces the basic melodic construction evident throughout the remainder of the song,
namely balanced antecedent and consequent phrases. Though remaining in D minor, the scaler
material of the melody played by the requinto consists of the first two scale degrees of both D
minor and F major (d, e, f, a), hinting at the interplay between the two related tonal areas to
occur throughout the remainder of the song. While the requinto and bass guitar clearly outline a
pattern clearly heard in three, the bomba and scraper accentuate the binary subdivision of the
duple compound meter in which the song is set. The resultant hemiola, which occurs throughout
and is later accentuated by the vocal melody, mimics the rhythmic tension inherent in the basic
bomba pattern itself (see Fig. 6.1). The interlude and copla sections similarly consist of balanced
antecedent and consequent phrases conjoined through the use of a harmonic elision made
possible by the shared tonal area of the relative major and relative minor. In the case of the
interlude, this elision occurs at the D minor cadence concluding the eight bar antecedent phrase
leading into both the repeated antecedent phrase as well as into the subsequent eight bar phrase
(see Fig. 6.9). In the copla proper, this elision likewise occurs between the antecedent and
consequent melodic phrases corresponding with the first and second couplet of the copla
respectively. As noted previously, this serves to melodically and harmonically conjoin and thus
reinforce the complementarity of the paired couplets structuring and constituting the coplas. The
underlying harmonic motion, therefore, fundamentally consists of an alternation between F
major and D minor. That the copla, or verse section, begins in the subdominant of the relative
major (B-flat major in this case) reflects more an extension of this harmonic motion rather than
an exception therefrom. As a compositional device, such an embellishment serves to further
distinguish the verse, or copla, from the interlude material. Indeed, if considering the interplay
between parts and sections of the song, the significance of complementary duality becomes even
more apparent in the constitution of Bombas.
The interplay between the individual instrumental and vocal parts as well as between the
structural sections of “Sol y Luna” constitute on a larger scale the synergistic interplay between
the complementary dualities contained within and expressed through the bomba itself. Already
noted is the rhythmic tension resulting from the interplay between the scraper, rhythm guitar, and
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bomba on one hand and the requinto, bass guitar, and vocal melody on the other. The resultant
hemiola may be understood as a sonic manifestation of the synergy created in the pairing of the
perceived duple and triple meters inhering in the basic bomba compound duple meter pattern.
Similarly, the relationship between the vocal and requinto parts as well as between the interlude
and the copla sections suggests that these elements work in complementary fashion to produce a
unity of melodic expression and form. For instance, the requinto frequently complements the
vocal melody, embellishing or responding to the melody line with short riffs. This interplay is
also evident between the lead vocal and secondary voice as well as requinto and a secondary
guitar. That both the vocal and requinto melodic lines are embellished, doubled, and harmonized
by a second voice and guitar respectively undermines the individuality of the melodic line and
thus underscores and reinforces the notion of duality contained in and expressed through the
drum. On a larger scale, this interplay extends between the instrumental interlude and the verse
section. Considering the melodic material distinguishing the interlude and verse sections as well
as the relative length of the interlude (32 bars in total) and its balanced placement relative the
coplas (ABABABAB), it is likely that the interlude plays an integral rather than cursory role in
the structure of this bomba. Indeed, the interlude-verse pairs complement one another just as the
paired melodic phrases within each section in terms of their harmonic rhythm, melodic material,
and alternation of instrumental and vocal parts. Across the interlude-verse pair, the harmonic
motion moves from F major to D minor passing briefly through B-flat major. The D-minor
cadence at the end of the interlude likewise functions as an elision between the interlude and
verse, being a median relation between the chords of F major and B-flat major. As noted above,
the B-flat chord in this case serves to distinguish the verse as well as further reinforce the
connection between the two sections as an extended transition from the D minor to F major
sonority. The need for such an extension makes even greater sense considering the relative scale
of the elements connected, in this case entire sections as opposed to the individual melodic
phrases constituting the sections themselves. The interlude and verse thus constitute a
complementary pair (AB) the interaction and relation between which give rise to form and
harmonic motion to the overall song. Just as with the rhythmic patterns, melodic phrases, and
harmonic content, the interlude and verse combine to form a synergistic whole replicating at a
macro level the concept of complementary duality embodied in the physical and sonic
manifestation of the drum itself.
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The same conclusion may be drawn from modern Bombas that, though differing in
instrumentation and style, nonetheless conform to the structural and organization principle of
complementary duality evident in more traditional Bombas such as “Sol y Luna.” Sol Naciente’s
“Aunque no Pienses,” for instance, likewise reveals complementary pairs at various structural
levels of the composition (see Musical Example 4 and Table 6.3). In simple duple meter, this
particular Bomba consists of three coplas plus a refrain set in a binary, verse-chorus form
featuring a bridge and a concluding instrumental section (i.e., a coda, outro, or tag). The verse
section, which includes a complementing instrumental intro/interlude, alternates between the
keys of B minor and D major while the bridge and chorus are in G major and D major
respectively. The coda prolongs the tonality of D major through to the end of the song, which
concludes with an abrupt, direct cadence in B minor. As will be shown below, the contrasting
verse and chorus/coda constitute a complementary pair in terms of their underlying harmonic
motion as well as general tonal and textual content connected by the bridge in its harmonic
elision with the end of the verse section. Similarly, the verse and chorus/coda may in themselves
be divided into complementary pairs differentiated by their underlying tonal areas, voicing, and
textual content. Each of these pairs, in turn, may likewise be further subdivided according to
their harmonic, melodic, and poetic organization. As noted in the previous section, this
subdivision and pairing of element extends to the basic rhythmic and tonal patterns themselves as
well as to the interplay between the various voices. Just as with “Sol y Luna,” Sol Naciente’s
composition, though differing considerably in its instrumentation and song form, thus
nonetheless adheres to the underlying structural and organizational principle of complementary
duality.
As the listening guide indicates, the form of “Aunque no Pienses” arises from the pairing
and interplay of its individual constituent sections (intro/interlude, verse, bridge/chorus, and
coda). These sections are differentiated and paired in complementary fashion in terms of their
respective harmonic, melodic, textual, and voicing content. The instrumental interlude, for
instance, stands apart from and thus complements the verse section in terms of its contrasting yet
related tonality (B minor as opposed to D major) and its purely instrumental content, as opposed
to the textual material and new vocal melody distinguishing the verse. That these two sections
constitute a singular paired element is reinforced by the harmonic and melodic elision conjoining
them as well as the repetition of the interlude-verse pair. As noted above, the harmonic elision
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Table 6.3: Guided Listening, “Aunque no Pienses.”
Time
Guided Listening
0:00-0:19
Intro
Steel pan opens with ascending four note pattern outlining a combined B-minor/Dmajor chord (b-d-f#-a); bass guitar, rhythm guitar, drum set, congas, keyboard, and
scraper join; composite rhythm between bass drum, bass guitar, scraper, rhythm
guitar, and congas accentuate basic bomba pattern in simple duple meter; melody
consists of four bar antecedent and consequent melodic phrases; harmonic motion
(b-g-d-a) plays on relative major and relative minor mixture.
0:20-0:42
Verse
Opens in D major; harmonic cadence between the concluding A-major chord of
intro and D-major chord of verse elides verse with intro; textual material consists
of three couplets set to paired antecedent and consequent melodic phrases of four
bars each; descending marimba riff at end of each line, or antecedent and
consequent phrase, of text/melody elides textual/melodic material (as well as verse
section with subsequent interlude).
0:43-0:57
Interlude
Return of intro material in B minor; balanced voicing of antecedent and
consequent melodic phrase outlining B-minor/D-major chord between steel pan
and keyboard;
0:58-1:20
Verse
Return of verse; cadence between interlude and verse creates elision with
interlude; descending marimba line connects couplets, but does not appear after
last verse.
1:21-1:28
Bridge
Short section of repeated four bar antecedent and consequent melodic phrase in G
major (subdominant of relative major); keyboard embellishes and responds to
vocal melody (provides a countermelody); rhythmic cue emphasizing chord of B
minor and culminating in pause on G-major chord at end of eight bars signals
transition to chorus
1:29-1:44
Chorus
Chorus begins in D major; transition from G-major chord to D-major chord elides
bridge with chorus; textual material also connects chorus with bridge; modification
of textual material and antecedent and consequent melodic phrasing suggest call
and response in voice, though only one voice featured; keyboard continues to
embellish and add countermelody to vocal melody; concludes with rhythmically
emphasized cadential chord progression leading into vocal portion of coda (G
major-A major-D major).
1:45-2:07
Coda-vocal
Cadential sequence leading into opening D major chord of coda produces elision;
antecedent and consequent melodic phrase in vocal melody outlines first five notes
of D major; call and response in vocal melody.
2:08-2:30
Coda (cont.) instrumental solo
Coda continues in D major with instrumental solo playing on melodic material of
vocal call and response; concludes with cadential chord progression cadencing in
B minor (D major-A major-B minor).
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of the two interlude-verse pairs, made possible by the related tonality of the relative major and
relative minor, as well as the shared underlying harmonic material create a structural pair
between these which serves to distinguish the overall verse section from the chorus/coda. The
distinction between the verse and chorus is emphasized with the use of a bridge in the
subdominant of the relative major (G major), which, as the name suggests, also serves as an
elision, albeit on a larger scale, between the verse and chorus/coda. The emphasis placed on the
cadential harmonic progression leading into the chorus in D major at the same time distinguishes
and connects the bridge with the chorus. The pairing of the chorus with the bridge may likewise
be justified in terms of the shared textual and melodic material. A similar cadential harmonic
progression makes connects though likewise distinguishes the bridge-chorus pair with the
ensuing paired vocal-instrumental closing section, which is also in D major. Just as with the
interlude-verse pair, the vocal-instrumental closing pair subsumed within the coda complement
one another in their juxtaposition of vocal and instrumental melodies. That these subsections
may be considered a singular coda stems from their shared underlying harmonic and melodic
material. Thus the chorus/coda section as a whole contrasts with and complements that of the
verse (made up of the paired interlude-verse pairs). In their unity as structural pair, they
constitute the song proper.
Though “Aunque no Pienses” departs from the relative major and relative minor
alternation at the surface level of the melodic phrase, a consideration of deeper structural levels
reveals that it does, in fact, yet adhere to a bimodal, complementary duality. This is made
audible in the pairing of the B minor and D major tonality respectively emphasized in the
interlude and verse pairs. It is also evident in the structural harmonic motion from the bridge to
the concluding cadence. The G major tonality, which serves to elide the two macro sections of
the verse and chorus as well as further contrast the chorus/concluding section with that of the
verse, may be subsumed at the deeper structural level as an extension and elaboration of the D
major tonality, from which it emerges in the final subsection of the verse and to which it returns
in the chorus proper (D major-[G major]-D major). The prolonged D major tonality in the
chorus/coda section, which concludes abruptly with a cadence in B minor, serves to contrast the
chorus/coda with the tonal ambiguity of the verse as well as heighten the return of the relative
minor. In this regard, the compositional device observed here is similar to dominant or tonic
pedals in Western classical music, which likewise serve to signal as well as heighten anticipation
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of a key structural cadence. The underlying or overarching structural harmonic motion,
therefore, takes the listener from B minor—the structural tonality signaling and eliding the
interlude-verse pairs—through D major with the chorus back to B minor with the concluding
cadence. Considering the abrupt nature of the cadence, however, the structural tonality of the
chorus section must be considered D major. As such, the macro level verse and chorus sections
constitute a complementary pair in terms of their respective structural tonalities (B minor-D
major). While more elaborate in its development at the surface level, “Aunque no Pienses” is
thus ultimately composed of two main contrasting yet complementary sections, the verse and
chorus, whose structural tonalities constitute the relative minor and relative major pair evident at
the level of the melodic phrase in more traditional Bombas like “Sol y Luna.”
As the above analysis of “Sol y Luna” and “Aunque no Pienses” shows, Bombas,
whether traditional or modern, are structured as musical compositions and generated as sound
through the synergistic pairing of contrasting yet complementary rhythmic and tonal elements.
These complementary pairs pervade all levels of composition, from the surface and mid to
underlying structural level, and in their synergistic relationship give rise to specific rhythmic
patterns, melodic phrases, song forms, and ultimately the song itself. Thus, just as the drum
emerges from and embodies a structural duality, so too does each rhythmic pattern, melodic
phrase, song-form section, song form, and individual song. As suggested previously, it is the
very principle of complementary duality structuring and organizing the formal compositional
elements of La Bomba that endow the musical genre with its flexibility and adaptability as a
hybrid genre. The concluding chapter considers at greater length the relevance of La Bomba’s
structural duality for afrochoteño identity in relation to the coloniality of power.
La Bomba, Complementary Duality, and the Coloniality of Power
As shown above, the notion of complementary duality contained in and conveyed through the
construction, playing technique, and sound of the bomba constitutes the generative principle
structuring and organizing La Bomba’s rhythmic, tonal, and textual elements. Its homologous
expression within and between individual instruments and their respective rhythms, melodic
phrases and harmonies, and couplets and coplas illuminates and reinforces its significance as an
embodiment of holism, synergy, and creation. Just as the bomba drum simultaneously
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encompasses and is constituted by the complementary duality male-female, so too La Bomba
encompasses and is constituted by complementary binary structures themselves containing and
made up of paired elements. It is thus the synergy of these paired elements and structures that
gives rise to La Bomba at the level of sound.
It is also this aspect of La Bomba that arguably allows for its flexibility as a genre.
Though the compositions of newer Bomba groups like those of Sol Naciente do indeed differ
from older Bombas in terms of instrumentation and the types of genres appropriated, they
nonetheless maintain a fundamental continuity in adhering to the structural principle elaborated
in the basic bomba pattern. Indeed, Sol Naciente’s relative popularity and success in the region
may stem precisely from their ability to successfully integrate foreign popular musics within the
basic rhythmic and tonal structure of La Bomba as outlined above. That many afrochoteño youth
enjoy and identify equally with the music of Sol Naciente and Marabu, a more “traditional”
Bomba ensemble, testifies to this fact. The historical expansion of the Bomba repertoire through
the appropriation of musical instruments and genres otherwise not associated with La Bomba is
thus enabled by the structural parameters contained in and expressed through the bomba. While
its physical exclusion among more recent Bomba groups marks a change in the ways in which
afrochoteño youth relate to local material culture, the bomba remains an integral and unifying
element of the genre in its aural presence and the homologous replication of its symbolic
significance.
La Bomba’s hybridity as a musical genre, conditioned by the afrochoteño experience of
the coloniality of power as discussed in Chapter Four, is thus enabled and mediated by its formal
musical structural elements, which are themselves generated from the structuring principle of
complementary duality. While the notion of complementary duality, as noted previously, is not
unique to the Chota-Mira valley, it arguably assumes a unique significance within the context of
the afrochoteño communities as an embodiment of the structuring dialectic informing the
colonial difference. As previously argued, La Bomba arises in response to the coloniality of
power as a means of enabling and expressing local identity, thus mediating the coloniality of
power and constituting the colonial difference. La Bomba, as the colonial difference, thus
contains and expresses that historically situated dialectic generating the manifestation of
difference in the New World since the colonial period. As such, La Bomba, in its very sound
and musical structure, reveals the truth of racial difference and the experience of blackness in the
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African Diaspora not as that which is given in nature, but rather (re)constituted through the
continual dialogue (self-other) structured by the coloniality of power. It is this truth, embodied
in and mediated through La Bomba that provides such afro-Diasporic cultural expressions with
their counterhegemonic potential.
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CONCLUSION
To speak of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity is to recognize the intimate link between music,
identity, and power within the context of the African Diaspora. This point was dramatically
underscored during field research in a discussion with an afrochoteño friend who, with certain
defiance, refused to share his knowledge concerning the significance of La Bomba. When
pressed on the subject matter, he stated politely but firmly that such secrets were his and only his
to share. With a smile, he added that outsiders such as myself would never come to truly
understand what La Bomba means to the black communities of the Chota-Mira valley. The
expression “La Bomba es vida” (“La Bomba is life”), frequently heard in the region, is all that he
would disclose.
While initially frustrated by his apparent unwillingness to collaborate, I soon recognized
that his position spoke to the afrochoteño experience of and struggle against exploitation and
marginalization in Ecuador as well as to the significance of La Bomba in defining the boundaries
of that experience. Afro-Ecuadorians, as other afro-descendant communities in the Americas
with their origins in the transatlantic slave trade, have long suffered exploitation and
marginalization. As the ultimate other against which progress, prosperity, and nationhood was
defined, the afro-descendant population of the Chota-Mira valley has necessarily had to struggle
to define their place and identity within the nation. This struggle constitutes their history,
informs their sociohistorical development, and marks their very beliefs, language, cultural
traditions, material culture, and ways of life. As Andres’ above noted protestation made me
realize, it is precisely the difference emergent of and inscribed by this experience that La Bomba
demarcates.
Though this boundary may indeed mark epistemological limits, as Andres and other
scholars such as Walter Mignolo (2000) would suggest, it nonetheless presents an opportunity
for a more critical inquiry into the potential significance of music for identity construction in
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such power laden contexts as the African Diaspora. As afrochoteño scholar and friend Gualberto
Espinoza asserted during an interview, each individual must necessarily bring his or her own
interpretation to bear on La Bomba in order to make it meaningful within the context of their
own respective lives. Indeed, it is in this spirit that this dissertation has followed in its analysis
of La Bomba relative postcolonial theories of race and subalternity in the Americas.
The concepts of the coloniality of power and the colonial difference elaborated by Anibal
Quijano and Walter Mignolo have allowed for an exploration of the relationship between music
and identity in the Chota-Mira valley sensitive to the ways in which difference (i.e., cultural,
racial, and ethnic) and its articulation are dynamically and discursively negotiated and
constructed relative local and global transhistorical dynamics of power. The coloniality of power
emphasized the legacy of colonial slavery on the formation and expression of blackness in the
Americas while the colonial difference underscored the historical origins and relational nature of
that particular emergent subaltern identity. Shifting the focus from race as culture to race as the
product of that difference constituted by historically grounded relations of power has thus
enabled a more critical consideration of music and black identity beyond the usual questions of
cultural origins, change, and representation. These theories have called attention instead to the
ways in which music is engaged in the negotiation, constitution, and transformation of identity in
the African Diaspora as well as its subsequent role in the mediation of the subaltern condition
indexed by those identities.
As argued throughout this dissertation, La Bomba discursively (re)constitutes the colonial
difference in the mediation of the coloniality of power as experienced by the subaltern afrodescendant communities of the Chota-Mira valley. As an expression of the colonial difference,
La Bomba indexes the particular afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power in its
contemporary representation of afrochoteño identity (Chapter Two), greater social function
(Chapter Four), form and development as a musical genre (Chapter Five), and in its very
structure and organization as a musical sound object (Chapter Six). By way of summary, the
following threads the major arguments of Chapters Two, Four, Five, and Six as they relate to the
primary thesis of this dissertation.
As shown in Chapter Two, La Bomba today indexes the current afrochoteño experience
of and response to the coloniality of power in its strategic representation of black ethnicity. It
posits that its recent bifurcation and celebration as both tradition and popular culture, evident in
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the music of contemporary Bomba groups such as Marabu and Sol Naciente respectively, reflects
not cultural change but a realization of the dual roots/routes rhetoric inherent in the sociopolitical
project of etnoeducacion. As a means of engaging the emergent counterhegemonic discourse of
interculturalidad, etnoeducacion constitutes a conscious response on the part of Ecuador’s afrodescendant communities to their collective experience of marginality and social and economic
inequality within the nation. The resourcing of La Bomba in the representation of afro-choteño
identity thus indexes those power dynamics informing and structuring the construction and
expression of identity in the Chota-Mira valley today. As shown in this chapter and throughout
the dissertation, the relationship between music, identity, and power posited here problematizes
concepts such as authenticity, tradition, black ethnicity, as well as the immediate relationship
between La Bomba and afrochoteño identity.
Chapters Four through Six considered the implications of La Bomba’s relationship to the
coloniality of power and the colonial difference for an understanding of its social and musical
dimensions beyond representation. As shown in Chapter Four, La Bomba emerged among the
enslaved, exploited, and marginalized black population of the Chota-Mira valley as a
consequence of and as a response to their particular experience of the coloniality of power. The
dynamics of life and work in the Chota-Mira valley during the colonial period and up through the
end of the huasipungo period (ca. 1964) afforded limited spaces for the development and
expression of collective identity. The Jesuit practice of maintaining enslaved black families
united, granting land access to enslaved blacks, and of allowing slaves to collectively observe
and celebrate days of worship and socioreligious occasions such as Christmas, saint feast days,
carnaval, and Holy Week, ensured the possibility for the development of communal identity
among the enslaved population. Most significant for the development of collective identity at
the level of the hacienda and region were, and to this day arguably remain, those defined by the
Roman Catholic Church. As illuminated in afrochoteño testimony and historical documents
pertaining to afrochoteño culture prior to the mid twentieth century, it was within those contexts
afforded by the Church and conditioned by the coloniality of power that La Bomba emerged and
flourished not as a musical genre, per se, but as a sociomusical event enabling the negotiation
and expression of collective identity. As such, La Bomba’s very origins, emergence, and
function index the particular afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power.
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La Bomba’s form, structure, and development as a genre of music specifically emerges
from its greater social significance and function as a mediator of the coloniality of power and as
an expression of the colonial difference, as shown in Chapters Five and Six. La Bomba’s formal
development is characterized by dynamic change discursively linked to the shifting afrochoteño
experience of the coloniality of power. La Bomba’s adaptation and appropriation of mestizo and
indigenous musical instruments, rhythms, and song forms relative the bomba up through the
agrarian reforms, for instance, speaks to the sociohistorical realities circumscribing the
development of local identity in the Chota-Mira valley. Similarly, La Bomba’s development as a
commercial music genre and relative devaluation as a local tradition immediately following the
agrarian reforms marks the continued exploitation and marginalization of the afrochoteño
communities within Ecuador beyond colonial slavery and the huasipungo period as the region
became integrated within the national economy and national imaginary. Likewise, La Bomba’s
most recent development, in its revival as a local tradition and continued transformation as a
commercial popular music genre, illuminates yet the latest afrochoteño experience of and
response to the coloniality of power, as discussed at length in Chapter Two. The musical
innovations and appropriations evident in La Bomba today reflect the emergent sensibility
among afrochoteños toward black ethnicity in its historical, regional, national, and transnational
dimensions. In La Bomba’s sociohistorical development as a musical genre, then, is captured the
sum of the afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power as it has informed the
development and expression of the colonial difference. As argued in Chapter Five, La Bomba’s
hybridity may be thus understood as a function of its greater social significance as a mediator of
the coloniality of power as well as the very condition of the colonial difference itself.
Enabling La Bomba’s hybridity is the principle of complementary duality informing the
very structure and organization of the musical genre, as shown in Chapter Six. This principle,
embodied in the physical and aural presence of the bomba drum itself, emphasizes the
synergistic unity of structurally opposed elements such as male and female, sun and earth, high
and low, and so on. As the analysis in Chapter Six shows, this structuring and organizational
principle manifests itself in homologous fashion throughout La Bomba’s rhythmic, tonal, and
textual elements as well as throughout its formal structural levels. In complementing and
embellishing the basic rhythmic pattern of the bomba, for instance, rhythm instruments such as
the bass guitar, rhythm guitar, shakers, bongos, congas, timbales, and so forth, maintain and
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exploit the dualities inherent in the originary bomba rhythm as evident in the emergent hemiola
produced in the juxtaposition of the bass guitar, bomba, shaker, and rhythm guitar in compound
duple meter Bombas. Similarly, melodic phrases in Bombas are produced through
complementary antecedent and consequent melodies corresponding with the paired couplets that
constitute the coplas traditionally used in the composition of Bomba song texts. The use of
bimodality (the alternation between relative major and relative minor tonalities) as well as the
tendency to pair complementary tonal and textural (i.e., voicing) structural elements within and
across formal sections generates the overall structure and form of La Bomba. Thus, just as the
drum comes to embody and express the unity of numerous opposing elements (male/female;
sol/tierra; high/low tones; slap/resonant tones), so too, then, does La Bomba as a musical
composition. Though recent innovations are indeed modifying La Bomba in terms of its
instrumentation, song texts, and overall sound, they nonetheless adhere to the structural and
organizational principle of complementary duality. Indeed, as argued in Chapter Six, it is as a
result of this fundamental structuring principle that such dynamic change is enabled in La
Bomba.
As the mechanism enabling La Bomba’s hybridity, the principle of complementary
duality may be understood as more than simply evidence of African cultural retentions and
afro/indigenous cross-cultural borrowing. Instead, it may be understood as an embodiment of
that very dialectic structuring the expression of the colonial difference. As collectively shown in
the previous chapters, La Bomba constitutes the colonial difference as a dynamic and discursive
expression of that particular subaltern identity conditioned and structured in its sociohistorical
development from the colonial period to the present by those dynamics of power connoted in the
term coloniality of power. La Bomba, in terms of its greater social function, arises in discursive
relation to the afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power. La Bomba’s formal
development and musical structures subsequently emerge from and respond to its overall
function as a mediator of the coloniality of power. La Bomba, in its sociohistorical development
as a genre of music and in its formal musical structures, thus marks and embodies the shifting
afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of power in the dynamic and discursive reconstitution
and expression of the colonial difference. Following this interpretation, the expression La
Bomba es vida connotes not a metaphor, but an inherent understanding that contained in and
210
expressed through La Bomba is the sum of the afrochoteño experience of the coloniality of
power as it has come to inform the development of the colonial difference.
An attempt at a generative model of La Bomba based on the foregoing analysis of La
Bomba and its relation to afrochoteño identity and the coloniality of power would indicate how
La Bomba’s form, structure and meaning emerge from its function as a mediator of the
coloniality of power and mark La Bomba as an expression of the colonial difference (see Figure
7.1). The back pointing arrows in Figure 7.1 reflect the discursive and indexical relationship
between the elements of the model while the extended arrow connecting La Bomba’s structure
and meaning to the coloniality of power alludes to La Bomba’s embodiment of the structural
dynamics constituting and maintaining the coloniality of power. Thus we can see how La
Bomba’s structural duality arises from and serves to facilitate its hybridity of form as a musical
genre, how its hybridity arises from and serves to facilitate its function in relation to the
negotiation and expression of collective identity, and how its function emerges from and
responds to the experience the coloniality of power as a mediator thereof. The coloniality of
power is marked with each aspect of La Bomba represented in the model, and is revealed in its
structural dynamics in the very sound object itself.
Figure 7.1: Generative Model of La Bomba
As suggested in Chapter Six, it is in unmasking the relational nature of afrochoteño identity as
the colonial difference that La Bomba reveals its true counterhegemonic potential. The
following briefly considers the implications and limitation of this statement as a means of raising
further potentially fruitful questions concerning the relationship between music, identity, and
power in the African Diaspora.
211
The Coloniality of Power, Music, and Agency in the African Diaspora
The case of La Bomba and afrochoteño identity understood in relation to the colonial difference
and the coloniality of power illuminates the limits of the question of black agency in the African
Diaspora. As an expression of the colonial difference, La Bomba is necessarily implicated in the
power dynamics informing identity construction in the Chota-Mira valley. Though arising from
and thus integrally connected to the coloniality of power, La Bomba nonetheless serves to
mediate that experience. La Bomba may therefore be understood in terms of both hegemony and
agency: its very existence dually marks the hegemonic power dynamics structuring the colonial
difference as well as the subaltern response to the experience of the coloniality of power. As
such, La Bomba, as the colonial difference, in and of itself is not counterhegemonic.
This perspective contrasts those put forth by scholars such as Paul Gilroy (1993, 58) that
take black identity and black cultural expressions to be counterhegemonic by virtue of their
being both of and outside of modernity. While such identities and their expressions do indeed
connote distinct forms of knowledge and ways of living foreign to Occidental observers, they are
nonetheless subaltern and thus inextricable as a construct from the alter which they buttress and
help to maintain. Indeed, the recent appropriation and reaffirmation of black ethnicity among the
Afro-Ecuadorian communities and its impact on perceptions and projections of the colonial
difference in the Chota-Mira valley, as evident in the divergent strategies of Bomba groups like
Marabu and Sol Naciente, reveal the extent to which this is the case. The resourcing of ethnicity
and tradition as a signifier of ethnicity by such communities, while a form of agency, falls short
of unmaking the structural dynamics maintaining the hierarchical inequalities of power
characterizing race relations in the Americas. As La Bomba suggests, the limit of black music’s
potential as a form of agency within the context of the structural power dynamics connoted by
the coloniality of power is marked by the boundaries of the colonial difference itself.
Franz Fanon (1967, 231) most poignantly summarizes the limits of racial identity in
Black Skin White Masks when he states “the Negro is not. Any more than the white man.” As
Fanon implies, it is in the realization of this simple truth that the potential for unmaking racial
difference and the inequalities it implies reside. It stands to reason, therefore, that its revelation
in musical expressions of the colonial difference in the African Diaspora, such as La Bomba,
would give rise to the true counterhegemonic potential of black music. The bomba drum and La
212
Bomba are significant, in part, because they serve as a reminder of the relational and constructed
nature of the colonial difference and thus point the way to its undoing. In constituting the
colonial difference, it thus marks the coloniality of power. It is perhaps for this reason that La
Bomba is so jealously guarded by afrochoteños such as Andres.
213
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Francisco Lara holds a BM in music theory from Northwestern University and an MM in
musicology/ethnomusicology from The Florida State University College of Music. He
specializes in the music and culture of Afro-Latin America, Latin America, and the Caribbean,
and is interested in issues of identity and power in addition to theory and method in
ethnomusicology. Lara is also an accomplished musician specializing in Andean instruments
such as the charango, quena, sikus, payas, rondador, bombo, bomba as well as musical genres
and rhythms such as the san juan, tinku, huayno, yaravi, san juanito, albazo, pasacalle, AfroEcuadorian bomba, Afro-Peruvian saya, festejo, and landó, Bolivian and Chilean cueca,
Colombian cumbia, Argentine bailecito, carnaval, and samba among others. He has performed
alongside Leo and Kathy Lara, renowned folklore musicians, educators, and artists in residence,
at various schools and other performance venues throughout Minneapolis and Saint Paul,
Minnesota over the years. Lara currently resides in Monmouth, Illinois, where he teaches
introductory Spanish and music and culture courses in the department of modern foreign
languages at Monmouth College.
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