Carnival and Other Christian Festivals

«fiery dragons and a clawed, bare-breasted serpent danced with devils, punctuating the night with fleeting visions of a world that we’ve been trained to think is hellish.» — el libro abre con la escena, no con la tesis: Harris describe el *correfoc* de Manresa como aparición fugaz de un mundo que, dice, nos enseñaron a tener por infernal.

«Manresa has three patron saints, Agnès, Fruitós, and Maurici, jointly known as els Cossos Sants (the Holy Corpses).» — los tres mártires romanos cuyas reliquias dan la *festa major* de Manresa.

«In 1431 Manresa’s guild of wool dressers, weavers, and tailors were given permission to celebrate the anniversary of that date with ‘‘dances, games [or plays], illuminations and other things that may occur to them to solemnize the festival.» — el permiso de 1431 al gremio de pelaires, tejedores y sastres: Harris lo cita para datar la fiesta en danzas, juegos e iluminarias, no en devoción.

«dozen adversarial devils; a winged, black, fire-breathing dragon; an ‘‘ox of fire’’ (bou de foc); and a giant mule (mulassa). All these, with the exception of Saint Michael, carried pyrotechnics. Additional fireworks were discharged along the route. Other traditional figures, of a less explosive nature, were a large, papier-mâché eagle, originally representing Saint John the Evangelist; giants, at first on stilts but later carried by an actor inside a huge wooden frame draped with oversized robes; dwarfs, with large papier-mâché heads; skirted hobbyhorses; and stick dancers.» — el inventario de figuras tradicionales de Manresa, que sigue tras el corte de chunk a *Saint Michael and a*: *doce diablos, dragón negro alado, buey de fuego y mulassa*, todas con pirotecnia salvo san Miguel, y las menos explosivas —águila, gigantes, enanos, caballitos y bastoneros—.

«The last procession of the holy relics through Manresa was in 1966. The Corpus Christi procession, first held in 1322, ground to a similar halt in 1978. The correfoc was introduced in 1982.» — las tres fechas con que Harris mide el relevo: la última procesión de reliquias en 1966, el fin de la del Corpus en 1978 y el *correfoc* estrenado en 1982.

«There had been, he said, ‘‘a change in the attitude of the people, a lessening of faith. People simply stopped coming out for the procession or they’d arrange to be away» — según Harris, el archivero y pirotécnico Marc Torras explica la mutación por un cambio de actitud y una merma de fe: la gente dejó de salir a la procesión.

«Televisions and cars had compounded the problem. Before television, outdoor festivals had been the only entertainment. Now people had slick, fast-paced entertainment beamed into their homes. ‘‘And everybody has a car now. It’s so much easier to leave town for the beach.» — según Harris, Torras añade la televisión y el coche: antes la fiesta al aire libre era el único entretenimiento.

«‘‘Under Franco,’’ he said, ‘‘attendance at Catholic holidays was obligatory and much Catalan folklore was banned. People avoided the religious processions if they could and, once they were no longer mandatory, ignored them. After the processions disappeared, we tried to revitalize the festa with profane elements that belong to Catalonia. Now, although some still go on vacation at the end of August, more are staying.» — según Harris, Torras cuenta la cadena: obligatoriedad franquista, folclore catalán prohibido, huida de las procesiones, y la revitalización posterior con elementos profanos catalanes.

«Manresa’s festive license of demons and dragons is no celebration of darkness. If Franco claimed the mantle of Catholic light, then to party as Catalan devils is a happy celebration of freedom.» — la lectura de Harris: si Franco se puso el manto de la luz católica, hacer de diablo catalán no celebra la oscuridad sino la libertad.

«Demons and dragons are a customary feature of saints’ days and Corpus Christi festivals throughout Spain and its former empire.They are also common in Carnivals.» — Harris nota que diablos y dragones no son propios del Carnaval: están en las fiestas patronales y en el Corpus de España y su antiguo imperio.

«It is harder than it might seem, however, to draw a clear dividing line between such ‘‘Christian’’ festivals as Corpus Christi and patronal saints’ days, on the one hand, and such ‘‘pagan’’ festivals as Carnival, on the other hand. A shared repertoire of masked characters and dramatic narratives and a common festive inclination to enact disorder makes for greater similarity than» — la objeción de Harris a la frontera entre fiesta cristiana y fiesta pagana: el repertorio de máscaras y el desorden escenificado los parecen más que los separan; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente con *difference*.

«Indeed, one of the ironies of festival studies is that a patronal saint’s day whose official rhetoric is pious may in some respects be less constrained than a Carnival whose public rhetoric invokes the excesses of a pagan Bacchanal. Precisely because it claims to oppose civil and ecclesiastical authority, Carnival invites more determined diversion by those authorities (and their commercial backers) into nonthreatening channels than do patronal saints’ days and such overtly religious and even triumphalist festivals as Corpus Christi. The latter, precisely because they claim to uphold official hierarchies, are sometimes freer to oppose them.» — la paradoja que Harris enuncia: la fiesta patronal de retórica piadosa puede quedar menos vigilada que un Carnaval que se proclama contrario a la autoridad, porque proclamarse contrario invita a la desviación.

«In Oruro, Bolivia, devotion to the Virgen del Socavón (Virgin of the Mineshaft) migrated from the fixed festival of Candlemas (2 February) to the movable feast of Carnival. By delaying their public devotion to the Virgin until the four-day holiday before Ash Wednesday, Oruro’s miners were able to enjoy a longer fiesta than if they had confined it to a single saint’s day.» — el caso con que Harris muestra la fusión de Carnaval y día de santo: la devoción a la Virgen del Socavón se mudó de la Candelaria fija al Carnaval móvil, y los mineros ganaron así cuatro días de fiesta.

«Evidently, the festive connotation of devils is not always demonic. In Manresa, the demons and dragons celebrate the restoration of liberty after a brutal civil war and subsequent dictatorship. In Oruro, as we shall see, the masked devils protest exploitation of indigenous miners by external forces and devote themselves to a Virgin who blesses the poor and marginalized. Festive disorder generally dreams not of anarchy but of a more egalitarian social order.» — la tesis sobre el diablo festivo: en Manresa celebra la libertad recobrada y en Oruro protesta la explotación de los mineros; el desorden festivo, dice Harris, sueña con un orden más igualitario, no con la anarquía.

«The gradual dissociation of Carnival from Christmas, its confinement by the authorities—wherever possible—to the few days before Lent, and its demonization as a survival of pre-Christian pagan seasonal rites were the consequence of many forces, including the Renaissance penchant for imitating Roman festive practices, the sixteenth-century Reformation of the churches, the rise of a fastidious bourgeoisie, and the Romantic inclination to find pre-Christian seasonal rituals in peasant customs everywhere. It is a process that Burke calls ‘‘the triumph of Lent.» — Harris enumera las fuerzas del divorcio entre Carnaval y Navidad —afición renacentista a lo romano, Reforma del siglo XVI, burguesía escrupulosa e inclinación romántica a ver rito pagano en toda costumbre campesina— y le da el nombre que le puso Burke.

«Marta Ibañez writes, ‘‘It is a remnant of the festivals of inversion, typical of the winter season, that culminate in Carnival.» — según Harris, Marta Ibañez sitúa el obispillo de Montserrat como resto de las fiestas de inversión invernales que culminan en el Carnaval.

«Carnival, condemned by the fundamentalist Caribbean preacher as ‘‘devil worship,’’ may have its roots in the doctrine of the Incarnation.The festivities of Corpus Christi and patronal saints’ days may, in some respects, be less restrained than Carnival. And all three provide a festive space for demons and dragons that may be symbols not of evil but of freedom.» — el resumen de Harris antes de entrar en método: el Carnaval condenado como culto al diablo puede tener raíz en la Encarnación, el Corpus y el santo patrón pueden ir menos ceñidos que él, y los tres dan espacio a diablos que simbolizan libertad.

«In an earlier book, I studied the widespread tradition of moros y cristianos ([mock battles of] Moors and Christians) in the light of James Scott’s distinction between public and hidden transcripts.» — Harris declara de dónde viene su instrumento: su libro anterior sobre moros y cristianos, leído con la distinción de James Scott.

«tween dominant and subordinate groups, the public transcript is what each may say and do in the presence of the other. The hidden transcripts of each side are what each may say and do in the absence of the other.» — la definición que Harris da de las dos transcripciones —el tramo empieza en la plana anterior con *In the relationship be-*—: la pública es lo que cada grupo dice y hace en presencia del otro; la oculta, lo que dice y hace en su ausencia.

«The public transcript of Mexican mock battles between Moors and Christians is ordinarily the triumph of pale-skinned Catholics over dark-skinned heathens. This victory explains the early introduction of the theme to Mexico by the conquistadors. The hidden transcript is often that of reconquest: the expulsion of invading foreigners by the native owners of the land. This eviction explains the widespread adoption of the tradition by the indigenous peoples of Mexico: as Spanish Catholics drove out Moors, so might Mexican Indians drive out Spaniards.» — el ejemplo mexicano: la transcripción pública es el triunfo del católico de piel clara sobre el pagano oscuro, y la oculta la reconquista —los indios expulsando al español como el español expulsó al moro—.

«The hidden transcript can be variously signaled. The dancers’ masks may be reversed so that the Christian warriors have dark skin and the heathen villains have beards and rosy cheeks; the victorious Christian troops may be identified as Aztecs by decorative emblems sewn into their costumes; or the marginal actions of the ‘‘clowns’’ may undermine the scripted Spanish victory.» — las señales por las que Harris dice que se reconoce la transcripción oculta: máscaras invertidas, emblemas aztecas cosidos en los trajes del bando cristiano, o los payasos socavando la victoria escrita.

«I have learned to look for those details of performance that are quietly at odds with the public transcript, for it is amid these dissonances—just because they are apt to be regarded as innocuous, garbled, or irrelevant by scholars and others in authority—that folk performers are most likely to insinuate their hidden transcript into the public square.» — el método declarado: mirar los detalles que desentonan con la transcripción pública, porque es en esas disonancias —tenidas por inocuas o irrelevantes— donde el intérprete popular mete lo suyo.

«It is not a matter of bringing prescriptive theory to the understanding of fiestas. The fiestas themselves take precedence over theory, but Scott’s distinction helps me better explain what many years of participant observation of fiestas have taught me.» — Harris acota el uso de Scott: la fiesta manda sobre la teoría, y la distinción solo le sirve para explicar mejor lo que años de observación participante le enseñaron.

«In each of the first five chapters of this book, I offer an account of a particular patronal saints’ day festival and use that account to introduce another principle that has helped me in their interpretation. My first concern is to understand the particular fiestas and, at the end of Part One, to come to some sort of general conclusion about such days of saints and virgins, but it seems kinder to the reader to scatter theory lightly through the opening chapters than to serve it in one dense initial lump.» — la estructura declarada: cada uno de los cinco primeros capítulos cuenta una fiesta patronal y de ella saca un principio, y la teoría se espolvorea en vez de servirse en un bloque inicial.

«Having partied with saints and virgins in Part One, we turn our attention in Parts Two and Three to Corpus Christi and Carnival. In the process, we travel as far north as the lowlands of Belgium and as far south as the Bolivian Andes, passing along the way through various regions of Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru.» — el itinerario del volumen: de las fiestas patronales al Corpus y al Carnaval, de los llanos de Bélgica a los Andes bolivianos pasando por España, el Caribe, México y Perú.

«Unlike Manresa, Vilafranca still celebrates its patron saint with gusto. But it does so without prejudice to demons and dragons. Afterwards, in the square outside, a suited dignitary told us that the festa promotes the unity of the sacred and the profane.» — el contraste con Manresa: Vilafranca sigue festejando a su patrón sin renunciar a diablos y dragones, y un notable le dice a Harris que la fiesta promueve la unidad de lo sagrado y lo profano.

«The mayor and his guests watched from the balcony of the town hall, which was draped with a prominent banner proclaiming the town’s sympathies in the Balkan conflict: ‘‘Vilafranca per Bosnia’’ (Vilafranca for Bosnia) (Fig. 1.4). Spanish Christians rooted for the Muslims.» — el detalle que Harris subraya del *cercavila* de 1995: la pancarta *Vilafranca per Bosnia* en el ayuntamiento, con cristianos españoles hinchando por los musulmanes.

«Leading the procession, as it had for centuries, was the dragon. A single man, carrying the eight-foot-long body of a black winged dragon on his shoulders, spun on his feet while the dragon sprayed bright fire from its wing tips, back, mouth, and tail (Fig. 1.3). The dragon was accompanied by a large group of devils in horned and hooded costumes of brown sackcloth painted with flames, reptiles, and infernal monsters. The devils, too, scattered fire. In their midst walked a young girl in white, carrying a toy sword and shield. Like many a folk Saint Michael, she made no effort to restrict the progress of the devils.» — la procesión nocturna de San Félix va encabezada por el dragón y los diablos, y el san Miguel —una niña de blanco con espada de juguete— no estorba su paso.

«After the relics of Saint Felix arrived in Vilafranca (1700) and he was named co-patron of the town (1776), festive emphasis shifted from Corpus Christi to the saint’s annual feast day. The dragon first danced for Felix in 1779; the devils followed in 1816.» — la cronología documental de Vilafranca: llegadas las reliquias en 1700 y nombrado copatrón en 1776, el énfasis pasa del Corpus a la fiesta del santo; el dragón baila para Félix desde 1779 y los diablos desde 1816.

«That the dragon and the devils were among the first traditional elements to accompany Saint Felix in procession indicates their popular appeal. Saint Michael’s subsidiary role was to recall—but rarely to enact—the necessary public transcript of archangelic victory. The popular appeal of demons does not lie in their official defeat.» — la lectura de Harris: que dragón y diablos fueran los primeros en acompañar al santo mide su arraigo popular, y san Miguel queda para recordar —rara vez para representar— la derrota que exige la transcripción pública.

«There are, of course, practical reasons for beginning a procession with demons and a pyrotechnic monster: they clear the streets for the less threatening acts that follow, and they start the festivities with a spectacular bang rather than a pious whisper. But there are other reasons for the popularity of so many undefeated devils in Catalan festivals. Devils are thrice damned» — Harris concede la razón práctica —despejan la calle y abren con estruendo— antes de dar la suya; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente enumerando por qué el diablo está *tres veces condenado*.

«by those in power: they are the enemies of God; their very mode of representation in fiestas has long been condemned by church and state as a remnant of pagan ritual; and they embody human desires and behaviors that the church represses.» — las tres condenas del diablo festivo, en continuación de *Devils are thrice damned*: enemigo de Dios, forma de representación tenida por resto de rito pagano, y encarnación de lo que la iglesia reprime.

«To dress as a devil and run unimpeded through the streets is to step outside the authority of the church, to challenge its claims to absolute moral wisdom, and, in modern Spain, to distance oneself further from Franco’s Catholic triumphalism.» — lo que Harris dice que hace el disfraz: salir de la autoridad de la iglesia, discutirle la sabiduría moral absoluta y, en la España moderna, alejarse del triunfalismo católico de Franco.

«It is not that Spaniards really want the devil and his minions to win the cosmic battle (if they still believe in such a thing), any more than they wish the Moors (whom they also love to act) had won the territorial war. But to play the devil grants a certain festive freedom and enacts a mild resistance to authoritative power.» — el límite que Harris pone a su propia lectura: nadie quiere que el diablo gane la batalla cósmica, como nadie quiere que hubieran ganado los moros; hacer de diablo concede libertad festiva y resistencia leve.

«The procession stretched for a mile or more from the dragon to Saint Felix. In between, in careful gradation from profane to sacred, defiant to compliant, came the dances. Immediately following the devils was the ball d’en Serralonga, a traditional street play celebrating the escapades of the local bandit hero Joan de Serralonga and his wife, Joana de Torrelles. Some thirty bandits marched with Joan and Joana through the streets of Vilafranca, repeatedly firing their arquebuses. The bandits also went undefeated.» — el orden del cortejo, graduado de lo profano a lo sagrado: tras los diablos, el *ball d’en Serralonga* con treinta bandidos arcabuceros que tampoco son derrotados.

«Once the symbol of Saint John the Evangelist, the eagle is now more likely to denote local autonomy.» — el desplazamiento de sentido del águila: de símbolo de san Juan Evangelista a marca de autonomía local.

«Vilafranca is justly proud of its castellers, according them an almost religious status as markers of commu» — los *castellers* como marcadores de identidad comunal con estatuto casi religioso; la palabra se parte en el cambio de plana y sigue allí como *nal identity*.

«The towers form a striking image of communal interdependence, involving male and female, young and old, in a complex series of movements in which there is no room for individual flamboyance and each part must depend on all the others.To be a casteller is to submit to the good order of the whole.» — la torre humana leída como imagen de interdependencia: hombres y mujeres, viejos y niños, sin sitio para el lucimiento individual, y ser *casteller* es someterse al orden del conjunto.

«And yet the goal of all this order is a striking image of the reversal of conventional social hierarchy: the tower is supported on the backs of adult males hidden in the base and at its visible pinnacle is a small child, often female.» — el vuelco que Harris señala en el mismo objeto: todo ese orden desemboca en la inversión de la jerarquía social, con los adultos varones ocultos en la base y una criatura, a menudo niña, en la cima visible.

«This Felix, the best known of the sixtysix who share that happy name in the pages of the Roman Martyrology, was a Roman priest martyred under Diocletian, ca. 304. On his way to execution, the priest was joined by an unidentified stranger who volunteered to join him in death. The pair are known in the literature of sanctity as Felix and Adauctus (the added one).» — la identificación del santo: uno de los sesenta y seis Félix del Martirologio Romano —el troceo parte *sixty-six* a fin de renglón y `span()` lo devuelve pegado; el impreso lleva el guion—, sacerdote romano martirizado bajo Diocleciano hacia 304, con el desconocido que se le sumó camino del suplicio.

«Harris, Max, 1949– Carnival and other Christian festivals : folk theology and folk performance / by Max Harris. p. cm. — (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin American and Latino art and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index.» — la ficha de catalogación de la Library of Congress, que da el título completo, la serie y la fecha de nacimiento del autor.

«My thanks are due, first, to the many thousands of folk artists who each year give so much to preserve, sustain, and develop the festive performances about which I write.» — el primer agradecimiento, a los artistas populares que sostienen las fiestas que el libro describe.

«Their work is far more important than mine.» — Harris pone el trabajo de esos artistas por delante del suyo.

«Milla Riggio invited me to go to Carnival in Trinidad. Stacy and Kevin Landon showed an early and encouraging interest in festive theology.» — los agradecimientos consignan de dónde le vino el Carnaval de Trinidad —invitación de Milla Riggio— y quiénes le animaron el interés por la teología festiva.

«Julio Caro Baroja, the father of Spanish Carnival studies, scorned the antiquarian notion that the masked figures and seasonal inversions of Carnival were ‘‘a mere survival’’ of ancient pagan rituals.Carnival, he argued, was first nurtured by the dualistic oppositions of Christianity.Where it survives—for when he wrote it had been banned in Spain by Franco—it still enacts those old antagonisms. ‘‘Carnival,’’ he concluded, ‘‘is the representation of paganism itself face-to-face with Christianity.» — Caro Baroja, a quien Harris llama padre de los estudios españoles del Carnaval, niega la idea anticuaria de la *mera supervivencia* pagana y sostiene que al Carnaval lo nutrieron primero las oposiciones dualistas del cristianismo; la última frase es la que Harris le cita como conclusión.

«Peter Burke, one of the more lucid historians of popular culture, has proposed that ‘‘there is a sense in which every festival [in early modern Europe] was a miniature Carnival because it was an excuse for disorder and because it drew from the same repertoire of traditional forms.» — Burke, presentado por Harris como uno de los historiadores más lúcidos de la cultura popular, propone que toda fiesta de la Europa moderna temprana era un Carnaval en miniatura por la excusa de desorden y el repertorio compartido.

«a bishop or abbot of the fools would be elected, there would be dancing in the church and in the streets, the usual procession, and a mock mass in which the clergy wore masks or women’s clothes or put their vestments on back to front, held the missal upside down, played cards, ate sausages, sang bawdy songs, and cursed the congregation instead of blessing them.» — Burke resume la Fiesta de los Locos; el tramo arranca en la plana anterior con *Burke summarizes: ‘‘Dur-* y sigue aquí: obispo o abad de los locos electo, baile en la iglesia y en la calle, misa burlesca con máscaras o ropa de mujer, vestiduras del revés, misal boca abajo, naipes, salchichas, coplas verdes y maldición en lugar de bendición.

«‘‘Its legitimation,’’ Burke explains, ‘‘was a line from the Magnificat, Deposuit potentes de sedes et exaltavit humiles; He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.» — Burke da la justificación teológica de la inversión: un verso del Magníficat, que la obra reproduce en latín y en inglés.

«Burke points out that the whole Christmas season was once ‘‘treated as carnivalesque, appropriately enough from a Christian point of view, since the birth of the Son of God in a manger was a spectacular example of the world turned upside down.» — Burke sostiene que toda la temporada de Navidad se tuvo por carnavalesca, y que el nacimiento del Hijo de Dios en un pesebre es ejemplo espectacular del mundo al revés.

«In a brilliant essay, first published in 1983, Leo Steinberg drew attention to the previously unremarked fact that in Renaissance art Christ’s penis was not only portrayed— as had rarely been the case in medieval art—but that attention was drawn to it and, most astonishing of all, that it was frequently erect.» — Leo Steinberg, en el ensayo que Harris trae como apoyo desde la historia del arte, señala que el arte del Renacimiento no solo representa el sexo de Cristo sino que llama la atención sobre él.

«He argued that this was not just a matter of increased naturalism but that it advanced a theological argument for the full humanity and sinlessness of Christ. Chastity without ability would have been impotence, not commendable restraint.» — Steinberg sostiene que eso no es mero naturalismo sino argumento teológico por la humanidad plena y la impecabilidad de Cristo: castidad sin capacidad sería impotencia.

«In defending his argument against the generally skeptical and the specifically prudish, Steinberg had to wrestle with the fact that there was little contemporary textual support for his position. He did so by pointing out that, in the nature of the case, writers and preachers could discreetly avoid the issue of Christ’s genitalia but painters, when representing him as a human baby» — Steinberg responde a la falta de apoyo textual contemporáneo diciendo que escritores y predicadores podían esquivar el asunto y los pintores no; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente.

«He went further, acknowledging that one of the secondary motives of his study was ‘‘to remind the literate among us that there are moments, even in a wordy culture like ours, when images start from no preformed program to become primary texts. Treated as illustrations of what is already scripted, they withhold their secrets.» — Steinberg declara un motivo secundario de su estudio: recordar a los letrados que hay momentos en que la imagen arranca sin programa previo y es texto primario, y que tratada como ilustración de lo ya escrito guarda sus secretos.

«According to Peter Brown, the cult of the saints began ‘‘when Mediterranean men and women, from the late fourth century onwards, turned with increasing explicitness for friendship, inspiration and protection in this life and beyond the grave, to invisible beings who were fellow human beings and whom they could invest with the precise and palpable features of beloved and powerful figures in their own society.» — Peter Brown data el culto de los santos desde fines del siglo IV: hombres y mujeres del Mediterráneo se vuelven, para amistad y protección, hacia seres invisibles que eran congéneres suyos y a los que podían dar los rasgos de figuras amadas y poderosas de su propia sociedad.

«Alegría (and all who rely on him) claim that the fiestas draw their strength from a syncretic mixture of Spanish mock battles between Moors and Christians, on the one hand, and imported Yorùbá deities and masks, on the other.» — la tesis de Alegría que Harris va a objetar: la fiesta saca su fuerza de una mezcla sincrética de moros y cristianos españoles con deidades y máscaras yorùbá importadas.

«Even Alegría admits that ‘‘no visible traces of the worship of African gods survive in Loíza today: the names of Shangó and Ogún have no meaning for its current inhabitants.» — Alegría concede que en Loíza no sobrevive traza visible del culto de los dioses africanos y que los nombres de Shangó y Ogún no significan nada para sus habitantes actuales.

«In the absence of present evidence, he concocts a mythical history. ‘‘It would be natural to suppose,’’ he writes, that the early black population of Loíza, when required to fight with the Spaniards against invading Carib Indians and European pirates, ‘‘identified the warrior Saint [of Spain] . . . with the African war gods.’’ A similarity of attributes ‘‘could well have led to a fusion of the two conceptions.’’ ‘‘But,’’ he concedes, in a final twist of circular reasoning, ‘‘if such a process of syncretism took place in Loíza . . . , the only affirmative evidence that remains is the devotion of the present population to the Saint.» — Harris llama historia mítica a la reconstrucción de Alegría y reproduce su razonamiento circular: *sería natural suponer* la identificación del santo guerrero con los dioses africanos de la guerra, y la única evidencia afirmativa que quedaría sería la devoción presente.

«Manuel Álvarez Nazario, in his exhaustive study of African vocabulary in Puerto Rican Spanish, finds little evidence of Yorùbá influence. ‘‘It is possible,’’ he writes, ‘‘that an appreciable number of Yorùbá arrived in Puerto Rico in the last third of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, just as in Cuba. Nevertheless, during this period, and indeed for as long as the slave trade endured into the nineteenth century, the bulk of the slaves imported into [Puerto Rico] . . . seem to have been of Bantu origin, . . . as can be seen from the etymologies of the great majority of African words that have survived in popular Puerto Rican Spanish.» — Manuel Álvarez Nazario concede posible un número apreciable de yorùbá a fines del XVIII pero sostiene que el grueso de los esclavos importados parece bantú, por la etimología de las voces africanas del español puertorriqueño.

«Herskovits, in an article cited by Alegría, makes the general point that African Catholics in the New World syncretize Catholic saints and African gods but finds Shangó identified with Santa Barbara rather than Santiago. Bascom, in his study of Shangó in the New World, finds links between Shangó and Saints Jerome, John, Michael, Barbara, Peter, and George but not James (Santiago).» — el detalle que, dice Harris, no ayuda a Alegría: Herskovits encuentra a Shangó identificado con Santa Bárbara y no con Santiago, y Bascom lo enlaza con Jerónimo, Juan, Miguel, Bárbara, Pedro y Jorge, no con Santiago.

«Judith Bettelheim writes, ‘‘There is no tradition of wood sculpture resembling this manner of depicting Shangó in either Cuba or Puerto Rico.’’ Henry Drewal adds, ‘‘There are representations [in Cuba] of Shangó on horseback, but these are linked to images of Santa Barbara on horseback, in armor, in front of a castle.» — Judith Bettelheim niega que exista en Cuba o Puerto Rico tradición de talla en madera de ese tipo, y Henry Drewal precisa que las representaciones cubanas de Shangó a caballo se ligan a Santa Bárbara a caballo, armada y ante un castillo.

«Although Alegría admits that ‘‘it is no longer possible in Loíza to prove the existence of an artistic tradition that derives its elements from the vigor of African art,’’ he proposes that the style of the vejigante masks was influenced by traditional Yorùbá masks.» — Alegría admite que en Loíza ya no puede probarse una tradición artística de raíz africana y aun así propone que las máscaras yorùbá influyeron en el estilo de las de *vejigante*.

«Once again he argues from an assumed resemblance to a mythical history: ‘‘Like the Yorùbá masks, those from Loíza represent grotesque faces showing extreme expressions, are polychrome, and the details are painted with great elaboration.» — el procedimiento que Harris le imputa: argumentar de una semejanza supuesta a una historia mítica, comparando caras grotescas, policromía y detalle elaborado.

«Making a characteristic leap of the imagination, he concludes, ‘‘It is possible to believe that in Loíza . . . the influence of the African sculpture was maintained in the slave descendants and manifested itself in the artistic opportunities which the fiesta offered.» — el salto que Harris le imputa: *es posible creer* que la influencia de la escultura africana se mantuvo en los descendientes de esclavos y se manifestó en las ocasiones artísticas de la fiesta.

«After a visit to Loíza, Drewal wrote, ‘‘Yorùbá do not use coconuts for carving, and there is no widespread tradition of [placing] horns on Yorùbá masks. . . . [I saw] no clear or explicit links to Yorùbá masking» — Drewal, tras visitar Loíza, niega que los yorùbá tallen cocos y que haya tradición extendida de cuernos en sus máscaras, y dice no haber visto vínculo claro con el enmascaramiento yorùbá.

«‘‘It would appear,’’ he writes, without offering any evidence for his suggestion, ‘‘that formerly the caballeros were the Saint’s escort and performed certain pantomimes representing battles between themselves and Santiago Apóstol on the one hand and the Moors on the other.’’ These may, he adds, have resembled the fiestas de moros y cristianos ‘‘still celebrated in Mexico.» — Alegría supone, sin dar evidencia, que los *caballeros* fueron escolta del santo y representaban batallas pantomímicas contra los moros, parecidas a las fiestas mexicanas de moros y cristianos.

«And Louis Bonafoux, in 1879, reported seeing in Puerto Rican Carnivals ‘‘companies of vejigantes, whose humor consists of lashing with large bladders the first biped they meet.» — Louis Bonafoux describe en 1879 compañías de *vejigantes* en los Carnavales puertorriqueños cuyo humor consiste en azotar con vejigas grandes al primer bípedo que encuentran.

«According to Alegría, the caballero’s costume is more expensive than the vejigante’s, restricting the former role to ‘‘those who can count on greater economic resources,’’33 but the reverse was true of the masks and costumes that I priced in the Ayala family store in Medianía.» — el dato que Harris contrasta en el terreno: Alegría dice más caro el traje de caballero, y en la tienda de los Ayala encontró lo contrario.

«According to the sixteenth-century Franciscan ethnographer Bernardino de Sahagún, Tepeyac was the site of a preconquest temple where the Mexica worshiped Tonantzin, whom he called ‘‘the mother of the gods.’’ Recent scholars have questioned the existence both of the temple and of Tonantzin, but Sahagún’s assertion has been so often quoted that it is widely believed.» — el dato y la duda que lo sigue: Sahagún sitúa en Tepeyac un templo prehispánico de Tonantzin, *madre de los dioses*, y Harris consigna que estudiosos recientes ponen en duda tanto el templo como la diosa, aunque la afirmación se repita tanto que se cree.

«They are far from authentic. ‘‘As well developed as we know it was both before and after the conquest,’’ James Lockhart has concluded, Aztec dance has left too little ‘‘tangible evidence’’ to yield any certain reconstruction.» — el dato con que Harris lo sostiene: James Lockhart concluye que la danza azteca, por desarrollada que fuera, dejó demasiada poca evidencia tangible para una reconstrucción cierta.

«Louise Burkhart has recently proposed that Tonantzin (‘‘our honored mother’’) was nothing more than a postconquest Nahuatl name for the Virgin Mary: ‘‘The Indians were not perpetuating memories of pre-Columbian goddesses but were projecting elements of their Christian worship into their pre-Christian past, conceptualizing their ancient worship in terms of Mary.» — Louise Burkhart propone que Tonantzin no era más que un nombre náhuatl posconquista para la Virgen María, y que los indios proyectaban su culto cristiano sobre su pasado prehispánico en vez de conservar memoria de diosas precolombinas.

«According to Sahagún’s informants, the first nomadic Chichimeca to arrive in the region of Lake Texcoco ‘‘settled in the place that is now called Huexotla,’’ a claim supported by a published list of Huexotla’s rulers that extends for more than five hundred years before the Spanish conquest.» — los informantes de Sahagún dicen que los primeros chichimecas nómadas se asentaron donde hoy se llama Huexotla, y una lista publicada de sus gobernantes abarca más de quinientos años antes de la conquista.

«Latrobe called Huexotla an ‘‘ancient but decayed town . . . , now reduced to a mere Indian hamlet.» — el viajero inglés Charles Latrobe llama a Huexotla, en 1834, pueblo antiguo pero decaído, reducido a mera aldea india; el nombre del viajero queda al pie de la plana anterior.

«Regina Schwartz, in her thoughtful study, The Curse of Cain, has drawn attention to the insistence of the Judeo-Christian tradition that God can only bless Abel or Cain, that Isaac must choose between Jacob and Esau.» — Regina Schwartz señala la insistencia de la tradición judeocristiana en que Dios solo puede bendecir a Abel o a Caín, y en que Isaac ha de elegir entre Jacob y Esaú.

«Schwartz argues that the stories of Cain and Esau have been used to promulgate a cultural law of scarcity, justifying violence against the other who threatens our possession of a limited blessing.» — Schwartz sostiene que los relatos de Caín y Esaú han servido para promulgar una ley cultural de escasez que justifica la violencia contra el otro.

«Thus, as Jáuregui observes, the ‘‘non-verbal languages’’ of costume, action, music, and dance challenge the view of history inscribed in the written text.» — Jáuregui observa que los lenguajes no verbales del vestuario, la acción, la música y la danza discuten la visión de la historia inscrita en el texto escrito.

«Gabriela Urquiza Vázquez is right when she says that Huexotla’s danza de los santiaguitos is ‘‘the folkloric expression of an extraordinary syncretism’’ but wrong, I believe, when she sees in that syncretism a ‘‘reduction’’ from the high goals of the ‘‘didactic religious plays’’ first taught to the villagers by Franciscan friars.» — el desacuerdo con Gabriela Urquiza Vázquez, repartido: Harris le concede que la danza es expresión folclórica de un sincretismo extraordinario y le niega que ese sincretismo sea reducción de los autos didácticos franciscanos.

«‘‘The stable is approached by a long narrow stair that descends between two buildings on the plaza. A line begins to form there an hour or two before the salt de plens, and you approach, step by step, the low door. Inside, you climb in darkness to the upper level, where a face looks over a half-door—the porter of hell. He murmurs something to voices behind, and, after a pause, gives you a devil suit and a mask.» — Dorothy Noyes describe el vestidero de los *plens* desde dentro: la escalera angosta, la puerta baja, y el portero del infierno que asoma la cara y entrega traje de diablo y máscara.

«One of the dressers puts on your boxwood wreath, wraps your ears and forehead tightly in white bandages, then places the mask over your face. Then begins a tying and a tightening, a poking of itchy vidalba in all your exposed places.» — Noyes sigue con el vestido: la corona de boj, las vendas apretadas en orejas y frente, la máscara y el atado que va metiendo la vidalba en todo hueco descubierto.

«Now, wound about like a corpse or swaddled like a newborn and almost blind inside the mask, you are taken by the arm and led back up the long stair to the plaça.» — y la figura con que lo resume: envuelto como cadáver o fajado como recién nacido, casi ciego dentro de la máscara, lo llevan del brazo escaleras arriba a la plaza.

«When the music starts, ‘‘you begin to jump for your life, the crowd pressing, the sparks falling on your hands and inside your mask. You hear explosions above your head; the texture of the plaça changes beneath your feet; a second of open space and air is too quickly resubmerged in smoke and crowd for you to catch your breath.» — Noyes describe el salto: se salta por la vida, con la multitud apretando, las chispas cayendo dentro de la máscara y un segundo de aire libre que el humo y la gente vuelven a tapar.