The Rosary: A Partial View of Puerto Rican Folklore
introduction by Nestor Murray Irizarry
followed by the book, and three video lectures discussing the book
El Rosario: Vista Partial del Folklore de Puerto Rico by Pedro Escabí and Elsa Escabí
Center for Social Research, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. Published online in 2020 by the Puerto Rican Folklore Research Center, Inc., as submitted to our institution by Elsa Escabí Agostini.
This publication is part of a comprehensive study and systematic investigation of our folklore, which has rarely been attempted in Puerto Rico. It is compared with the work carried out on the island between 1914-1915, by the American anthropologist John Alden Mason, edited by Aurelio M. Espinosa.
The study in question was carried out with scientific rigor. The planning, training of personnel, selected bibliography, questionnaire, sample used, classification of materials, recordings of open interviews, and publications, also represent a useful template for carrying out similar work. It is clear that both investigative works sought to demonstrate the richness of our folklore. In honor of this special effort, both by the Escabí brothers and by Mason and Espinosa, we must emulate with dignity and pride the strength that inspires us to continue fighting to rescue our Puerto Rican cultural heritage. The conclusions reached by Pedro C. Escabí Agostini in El Rosario are fascinating, if not revealing. He points out that:
The initial analysis demonstrated that our rosary music is of indigenous American origin and that “[…] among the 27 modalities found, 2 and 22 are modalities known as Andalusian Arabic. We know that these are of African origin. Modalities 28, 29, 30, and 31 are the major scale, and the three minor scales that are attributed in our Western culture to Europe […]. We can state in advance that the Gozos Cantaos a las Ánimas, which are customarily performed after the Rosary, whether recited or sung, have only been collected in communities whose population is predominantly Black […]. Regarding the rhythmic patterns, I am not prepared to commit to whether they are white, Black, or indigenous to the Americas. We know that the indigenous peoples of the Americas had drums with leather-covered ends, just like the Africans.
Escabí clarifies that he was not trying to diminish the importance of African cultural values and that he resisted believing that every type of rhythm found in America had African influence. Furthermore, his research concluded that “the Christian symbolism of the Holy Cross is a vegetative symbol of the Virgin Mary.”
To read the book, drag the image up or down, or click on the arrows to turn the page.
Three prominent professors react to the book
Dr. Roberto Fernández Valledor
Dra. Noraliz Ruiz
Dr. Emanuel Dufrasne
Some notes by Emanuel Dufrasne González, ethnomusicologist, on the book
Rosario: Vista partial del folklore de Puerto Rico
By Pedro Escabí Agostini, pp. 188-218
I have had many opportunities to listen and participate in the fiestas or Rosaries to the Holy Cross on countless occasions. I have been to Holy Cross fiestas in Ponce, Carolina, Río Piedras, Guayama, and Santurce. I have listened to recordings of those events in New York. I was able to listen to recordings made by the ethnomusicologist, Luis Manuel Álvarez, in San Juan, Río Grande, and Río Piedras.
I have also been able to participate in Rosaries to St. James the Apostle in Loíza. In the Torrecilla Baja neighborhood of Loíza, they sang to me fragments of the Holy Cross festival as was done in that area in the past, before the adoption of the so-called Ponce style of the tradition. I have also witnessed carols of promesas in the Quebrada Negrito neighborhood in Trujillo Alto. My experiences have been different from those of Pedro and Elsa Escabí because I worked in different places and at different times. They worked in a time before mine.
The extensive and meticulous treatise on the rosary in Puerto Rico by the late research professor Pedro Escabí Agostini and his sister, Elsa, is a comprehensive study that explores the psyche of prehistoric human beings. It includes an in-depth exercise in philosophical anthropology as it applied to homosapiens since the Paleolithic. It explores the knowledge accumulated by observation and experience on the part of those ancient peoples. They delve into themes of mythical or symbolic-metaphorical wisdom while exploring aspects of the psychology of our species. It discusses mythical, or pre-scientific thought, and its gradual evolution towards scientific thought (or scientificity). They associate the lunar calendar and the cycles of the Earth with women's menstruation and ovulation. They work with the ancient calendars of past civilizations to highlight the relationship between the lunar calendar and the rosary, which is itself an abacus. "Keeping the accounts" of the rosary is also following the accounts of the abacus to specify the lunar calculation, Escabí affirmed.
Within that same discussion in the wonderful field of philosophical anthropology, Professor Escabí discussed the different Paleolithic Venuses, the different representations of voluptuous women or goddesses, or perhaps pregnant women. They are possible representations of the earth-mother-goddess, women, and fertility. According to the document discussed, this is related to women and their reproductive calendar, the menstruation cycle. It is a cycle like the lunar and solar cycles. In short, they are all cycles that influence nature or are nature itself, the nature of women, of the planet, and of the heavens. The idea that devotion to the Virgin Mary is a product of the development and evolution of the cult of the earth-mother-goddess is provocative. Professor Escabí discussed this topic in his treatise. In addition, he presents the idea that the cult of Jesus Christ is a transformation of the solar cult. He discussed these issues as part of the evolution or transformation of thought in the West.
Professor Escabí wrote about the important matter of keeping accounts. The paragraph in which he explains the relationship between the lunar calendar and the rosary is very interesting. Escabí wrote:
When the people call the process of running the ritual "keeping the accounts" they are making a transfer in the collective memory of the calendrical scientific act, although the collective mind of the present does not see a direct relationship between the ritual instrument and the calendrical one.
Escabí discussed the parts of the rosary and its variants. He described the different types of rosaries and how they are celebrated or presented. He commented on the promesas and their fulfillment. He listed the activities necessary to perform the rosary as well as their importance in the past. The rosary has five sections of ten beads for a total of fifty beads that represent the Hail Mary prayer. Each section of these is a house. There is an account between each house to add four accounts that anticipate a different house. Those four beads, Escabí describes, is a Pater referring to the prayer Pater Noster or Our Father. There is another account for an additional Pater Noster. Three Hail Marys are also added to the rosary for a total of fifty-three. One bead represents the prayer called the Hail. Then the Litany is sung or prayed. This prayer contains nine prayers to the Holy Trinity, forty-seven praises to the Holy Mary and three prayers to the Lamb of God. Escabí broke down the rosary in a profound way and with the most detailed and correct analysis from a theological point of view and from a popular approach. Professor Escabí explained that the promesa had to be paid on the eve of the saint's day for the time promised. If the three rosaries were made with their fifteen Mysteries (a fifteen) that ritual would last all night until after 6:00 in the morning of the next day. There are five Joyful Mysteries, five Sorrowful Mysteries, and five Glorious Mysteries. Between rosary and rosary, seises and aguinaldos are sung to the divine or on religious theme. Christmas carols are also sung to the saint of a particular devotion.
This study is very comprehensive. Escabí even described the preparation process required to fulfill the promesa or the devotion. The professor explained that first they looked for musicians of cuatro, guitar, guiro, and singers. As a second step, gifts were prepared for those who came to participate in the promise. The third step was to get the rezador and the first and second choirs. The fourth step is prepare the altar. Escabí also explained that when the rosary is for a saint other than the Virgin Mary, the ten Hail Marys are replaced by a prayer to the saint of that devotion. That sentence is called the word. He listed different prayers incorporated into the rosaries for other saints: the Alabado, The heavenly voice has spoken, We are going to give you thanks, and Appease, my God, your anger, as well as indeterminate Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
There is much more that can be said and written about the text that we have summarized. I met and talked to both of them. I had the honor of advising Elsa Escabí on the musical terms used on pages 358 to 391. The Escabí Agostini siblings did not neglect any aspect of the study of the rosary in Puerto Rico. They included the texts prayed or sung. This extensive treatise, in turn, requires much study and reflection. This study offers the opportunity to place much of the information collected by the Escabí Agostini siblings in the broader context of popular Catholicism and its various manifestations on the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America. It is the product of a thorough, deep, and comprehensive investigation. It is an invaluable document about a very important Puerto Rican tradition. It is also a major scholarly document on a unique aspect of Latin American music. There is no doubt that these practices persist today just as they were described. They cited a copla de seguidilla that I consider very interesting:
To go up to heaven
Is needed
A big ladder
and another small one.
In the aforementioned treatise, its authors analyzed this copla within biblical and rosary contexts, even though it is included in the Veracruz folk song, La bamba. In a way, this important treatise is a large ladder and a small one, serving as a link to other times, both distant and recent. The book is a bridge between the time of the Escabí Agostini siblings' arduous work and that of researchers from later and present times.
May both Elsa and Pedro rest in peace.