Where are the blacks of Argentina?

¿Por qué no hay negros en Argentina al contrario que en Brasil, Colombia o la vecina Uruguay? La raíces africanas del país austral permanecen ocultas para la mayoría de los ciudadanos, aunque diversos estudios sociológicos dan cuenta de que entre el 4% y 6% de la población tienen componentes negros en su genes. Las epidemias y las guerras, que se llevaron a buena parte de los hombres negros, enviados al frente como carne de cañón, derivaron en un gran mestizaje que blanqueó a una etnia que hasta el siglo XIX fue muy relevante. La única fiesta creada y conservada por afrodescendientes hasta hoy es San Baltasar, celebrada en la provincia de Corrientes (a casi 1.000 kilómetros al norte de Buenos Aires) y en conmemoración al rey de Arabia que el mundo occidental hizo famoso por la fábula de los Reyes Magos. EL PAÍS participó de este encuentro religioso que encuentra en el chamamé un factor de cohesión con el resto de las culturas.

"Celebrates its San Baltasar function on January 6, the most candombero saint who can imagine.For being those of this holy the function of the Cambá, the little dance already armed those of the Camba neighborhood, how much ".The poetry of folklorist Osvaldo Sosa Cordero, who died in 1986, is the anthem of a coqueto neighborhood of the city of Corrientes, heart of the Argentine coast that bathes the waters of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers.The Guaraní Language - poster influence in this region - thus baptized the place to describe a cave of blacks, according to the literal translation, or what until the beginning of the 20th century was a suburb of tapas and hamlets that concentrated the most important redoubt of African Americans of the province.It was a hostile terroir, crossed by two streams and very close to the river, aspects that make it an flood zone, even today, despite the tubing of the channels.200 years ago the feast of San Baltasar, the black magician King.

The signs of that presence can be reduced to the Molina house, named for being the house of Raimundo Molina, a Spanish landowner who had a large number of slaves.Anthropologist María Belén Zaninovich is the one who studied housing, already in modern times.“I found angular pipes that are from North America to Argentina, differ from those used by the original peoples and in Brazil they are called Cachimbos.The symbolism of those pieces that realize that there was African culture, such as the Congo Cross, herbal impressions and faces, ”Zaninovich's to El País explained to El País.

"The skin is one of the most quick features, but you have to look at the curly hair - which the Guarani call Capichaí - and the lobes of the ears to recognize the black inheritance in Corrientes," warns the anthropologist.Osvaldo Caballero walks through the neighborhood dressed in red and yellow, the colors of the saint, which also use the lottery of the province and Boca Unidos, one of the most popular football clubs.The man is not black, but responds to the signs that Zaninovich refers."My last name is very common in Paraguay.In 1820, when Artigas Deja Uruguay, he goes to Paraguay crossing Argentina, with about 40 blacks.One of them was my grandmother.Corrientes has bleached and if you wonder why, think that everyone is proud when it descends from Germans or French but nobody means that they come from black slaves, because that does not give them status.That is why blackness is very hidden, ”says the man.

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Caballero was the one who took the party to the park from 1994, so that everyone takes their figures to an impromptu altar, although some neighbors of Camba Qué -todayof more than two centuries of antiquity.His custodians, gathered in the brotherhood of San Baltasar, open their doors every January 6 so that the drum rope between the houses and pay tribute to the particular sanctuaries in which there is also a place for the Gauchito Gil (who was devotedof the Black Saint), the Virgin of Itatí and even San La Muerte.

Juliana Rodríguez is 71 years old and every January the sanctuary weapon with the oldest figure in the entire neighborhood, which is already 260 years old.The woman inherited the image of her aunt, who preserved her for 2 decades, when the popular festivals were prohibited during the military dictatorship."My great -grandfather was a Brazilian black who detention from the war against Paraguay and came to Corrientes," the woman explains to this newspaper.The image, a statuette of about 20 centimeters made with walnut wood, traveled from Brazil to Corrientes, from there to Buenos Aires and in 1982 it was already installed in Camba.Los Rodríguez's house is in full celebration when the country arrives: Juliana and her husband Miguel celebrate her 48th Anniversary of Married, a grace that also attributes to the saint.

The historian Felipe Pigna agrees that the causes that ended with the blacks in Argentina must be sought in the use of the male population such as “cannon meat” in the wars of independence, the civilians who came later and, finally, the offensiveAgainst Paraguay (1865-1871), to which the epidemics of anger (1861) and yellow fever (1871) that caused great death among the poorest, including Afro-Argentinos.“But, in addition, birth was very low, even compared to other Latin American societies.The masters avoided the marriage of a slave, as well as the pregnancy of a slave, with the argument that this prevented him from providing all the services so that it was bought, in addition to the risk of dying in a bad delivery, ”he assumes.The miscegenation made the rest.

The other epicenter of the celebration is the city of Empedrado (distant 50 kilometers from Capital Corrientes) where the historical and only drum of two patches with which the Charanda or Zemba is touched, the typical rhythm of this party and only style and only style is still preservedAfro -Argentine.It measures 1.13 meters long, it is made in one piece of ahueed trunk and its two mouths are covered with dog or goat patches, hairless.But when the candombe or the charanda ends, the typical rhythm of the coast arises, the one that amalgams to every festive soul of Argentina: the chamamé.

Norberto Pablo Cirio is also an anthropologist, works at the National Institute of Musicology and studies the phenomenon of San Baltasar for 30 years.He believes that understanding the celebration as “the feast of blacks without blacks is inaccurate and leads to stereotypes of many years where the question is presented in a dichotomous way and the miscegenation is neglected that is what fertilized Latin America”.“Chamamé is the music that Correntinos recognize as distinctive but some years ago the upper class Correntina did not want to know anything with that rhythm.In this celebration, drum is added, it is Africanized, in what is another process of cultural appropriation, ”he adds.Argentina's blacks changed their skin but exist in all that soul that decides to overcome prejudices and ties to simply release the drum rhythm.