Juan Bobo: A Folkloric Information System - how the controversial work of anthropologist J. Alden Mason, who collected Puerto Rican folklore, underscores the problem of authenticating folklore artifacts

Library Trends, Wntr, 1999 by Sarai Lastra

SITUATING THE PUERTO RICAN CULTURE

   And they firmly thought that I, with those ships and people, came from
   heaven and, in that mindset, they received me in every corner, after they
   lost their fear. And this did not happen because they were ignorant, they
   are of subtle intelligence, and men which sail all those seas, it is
   marvelous the way they tell us about everything, except that they had never
   seen people dressed like us nor ships like ours.

      --Cristobal Colon, 1493(1)

Taino Indians saw Christopher Columbus as he arrived in Borinquen in 1493. But in 1898, when the U. S. troops arrived, the Tainos were absent from the welcoming celebrations. Spain's influence lingers, however. One hundred years have passed since the Hispanic-American war, and Spanish is still the island's main language. A preference toward certain kinds of food such as rice and beans, an ability to feel Latin musical beats, and family lore and political allegiances are considered, by many, as significant cultural identity markers. Unlike other Spanish-American ethnic groups migrating to the United States, Puerto Ricans do not process immigration papers since they are U.S. citizens. Literally speaking, the Atlantic Ocean is all that separates Puerto Rico from "America."

Although Spanish is the people's dominant language, English has been accepted by the government as one of its official languages. Latin music may reign on Caribbean airwaves, but English radio stations command their place, too. "Who do you feel is your Mother country, Spain or the United States?" is a question asked of some children in local schools. Many question the analogy by replying: "Well, if Spain is my mother, is the U.S.A. my father?" Jose Luis Gonzalez (1980) says the Puerto Rican cultural identity is a complicated matter, since the nation-state has been constructed on "four floors." Gonzalez's book, titled El Pais de Cuatro Pisos (The Country of Four Floors), describes the national identity as being composed of four others: Indians and blacks (floor one); European immigrants, specifically Spaniards (floor two); North Americans (floor three); and an urbanized racial mixture (floor four).

THE ORAL VOICES

   I must add, however, that the inhabitants are very loyal to the King, and
   display an innocence and candor which I have neither seen nor heard of
   elsewhere in America.... In all the island, there are only two schools for
   children; outside of Puerto Rico [San Juan] and the villa of San German,
   few know how to read. They count time by epochs of government, hurricanes,
   visits of the Bishop, arrivals of ships, or funds from Mexico. (Alejandro
   O'Reilly, 1765, as cited in Wagenheim & Wagenheim, 1996, p. 31)

Following Gonzalez's metaphor, it is possible to argue that Puerto Rico's oral history is one that has been composed of unique, distinct and, in many cases, contradictory voices. A joke I heard when growing up in Puerto Rico was about a woman who had fallen in a river. As the townspeople ran to her husband yelling about the accident, the husband replied: "Let us look for her up-stream." "But, Sir, the river flows downward," the people replied. "Yes, I know. But my wife always goes against the flow." In a polyphonic society, nothing conveys contradictions better than its folklore.

When describing the essential quality of Puerto Rican folklore, scholars are usually at a loss for words since it is difficult to explain such cultural richness, complexities, and tensions. For example, Tio Nazario de Figueroa (1967) says: "Puerto Ricans are great friends of dancing. The origin of their dances has been traced to the great Indian Areytos and the primitive rhythms of Congo and other regions of Africa.... However, we don't want to imply that all dances are Afro-Indian since we also have Spanish and Arabian influences" (pp. 27-28).(2)

Interestingly, Nazario de Figueroa's statement is footnoted with an editorial comment stating that Indian influences in Puerto Rican dances have not been verified, therefore, for possible origins, the reader should investigate the traditional dances from Spain. This narrative shows the difficulties encountered when trying to situate folklore based on blurred classifications. However, the blurred classifications are not consequences of attaching incorrect semantic labels, but the result of fluid margins because of the nature of this folklore community.

Nonetheless, it is possible to ascertain that Puerto Rican folkloric expressions, in one way or another, reflect influences or elements from Indian, black, and Spanish traditions (Manrique Cabrera, 1969, p. 408). Structurally, some of the popular oral modalities use complex lyrical forms such as: "decimas [which are] (10-stanza couplets) of the anonymous popular poets, who still improvise their chants and play the traditional instruments: the guiro, the cuatro, the tiple, and the guitar" (Babin, 1983, p. 320). In addition to the decimas, Rivera de Alvarez (1983) describes other types of oral expressions used in Puerto Rico, such as the romances and romancillos (short narratives or lyrical poems in octosyllable meters), coplas (ballads), cantos (songs), rimas infantiles (nursery rhymes), refranes (proverbs), adivinanzas (riddles), and cuentos (folktales) (pp. 59-91).