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Jácaras and Narcocorridos in Context: What Early Modern Spain Can Tell Us about Today’s Narco-culture

2015; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/rmc.2015.0026

2165-7599

Ted L. L. Bergman,

Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism

Jácaras and Narcocorridos in Context: What Early Modern Spain Can Tell Us about Today’s Narco-culture Ted L. L. Bergman Characterizing the entirety of “narco-culture,” let alone any culture, is quite difficult, but by analyzing a discrete musical-literary genre, the narcocorrido – a ballad-form mostly popularized in Mexico, the Borderlands, and the Southwestern United States – one can more easily characterize the culture’s principal artistic manifestation. In its simplest definition, the narcocorrido is a song that recounts the exploits of narcos, meaning drug smugglers and their bosses.1 Since the narcocorrido’s existence as a specific genre is dependent on specific historical and social circumstances, the study of the genre also tends to focus on these. It is perhaps for this reason that comparative studies of the narcocorrido are relatively rare; and yet a brief comparison between the narcocorrido of the last several decades, and a very similar genre, the seventeenth-century Spanish jácara (or romance de germanía), can be very useful. By making a parallel selective taxonomy of both genres, I hope to provide enough material to create a general backdrop that can be used for further study to examine whether a generic element is the product of a zeitgeist or is perhaps inherent in songs about criminals in the Hispanic world. Long before the word jácara became a common term in Spain, the form existed as part of the romance tradition. In the late medieval period, alongside musical stories of martial heroes, there were songs about outlaws, the sort that occurs throughout much of Western culture, from Icelandic sagas (Barraclough 368) to Calabrian canto di malavita (Deaglio 359). What eventually made jácaras distinct from other Spanish ballads in the seventeenth century was their use of criminal jargon, called germanía. In 1609, this distinction [End Page 241] was formally announced when Juan Hidalgo published his compilation of anonymous works titled Romances de germanía. In the vocabulario (glossary) included at the end of the collection, Hidalgo defines “jacarandina” as “rufianesca o junta de rufianes, o ladrones” (Hill 116). The individual who most firmly established the genre’s popularity, and whose works were called “jácaras” after his death, was the master satirist Francisco de Quevedo. While he was not included as a named poet in the Romances de germanía collection, his sarcastic criminal ballads were likely circulating in manuscript form around the same time (Pedraza Jiménez 84). Within the next twenty-five years, “jácara” would become a generic designation quite separate from any old-fashioned romance. This is reflected in Lope’s Gatomaquia, published in 1634, as Gilard has pointed out (27): y en medio de lo grave del romance suave, les dijo con despejo, pareciéndole versos a lo viejo, que jácara cantasen picaresca. (335) In similar fashion, the narcocorrido is a ballad tradition transformed. Its very name reveals it as an offshoot of the traditional Mexican corrido, a ballad-form that shares many striking similarities with the late-medieval Spanish romance, just like the jácara 300 years before.2 Also like the jácara, much of the form and content for the narcocorrido existed many decades before that designation came into use. In Mexico, the revolutionary heroes of historic corridos were replaced by Prohibition-era smugglers, and eventually by traffickers in stuff harder than alcohol. Leading up to the consolidation of the narcocorrido as a genre in the 1970’s, some mid-century corridos came closer to the jácara in their content than in their later manifestations. These two works below, separated by about 300 years, have been placed side-by-side for ease of comparison: [End Page 242] Voy a cantar un corrido, Atención, señores míos, ¡escuchen con atención! que un jaquezón de la hampa de las mujeres galantes, os sale a glosar su vida, viciosos y malhechores, sin olvidar las pasadas. de Juárez hay de a montón. Yo nací donde Dios quiso; A unos los han desterrado, fue mi madre la Solana, otros dejan la carrera, mujer de ciencia, pues tuvo otros que por mala suerte diez cursos de Salamanca. han encontrado...