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The University of Chicago Recollecting Isleño

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The University of Chicago Recollecting Isleño THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO RECOLLECTING ISLEÑO DÉCIMAS: LOUISIANA’S LOST TRADITION OF SPANISH BALLAD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC BY WILLIAM D. BUCKINGHAM CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2018 Copyright © 2018 by William D. Buckingham All rights reserved. Table of Contents List of Figures.................................................................................................................................iv Abstract............................................................................................................................................v Acknowledgments..........................................................................................................................vi Introduction......................................................................................................................................1 1. Reimagining Isleño Music History............................................................................................21 2. Collecting Décimas: Samuel G. Armistead and the Isleño Heritage Revival............................60 3. Cleaning up the Corpus: Silencing, Aporia, and the End of a Tradition....................................94 4. Recollecting Décimas: The Shape of Musical Absence in Post-Katrina St. Bernard..............136 5. Décima Spatialities..................................................................................................................176 Epilogue.......................................................................................................................................216 Index of Song Texts.....................................................................................................................224 Works Cited.................................................................................................................................225 iii List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Lower St. Bernard................................................................................................6 Figure 2: "La muerte de Madero" tune excerpt.............................................................................22 Figure 3: Isleños at camp, radio visible in background.................................................................33 Figure 4: St. Malo and dice table...................................................................................................46 Figure 4: Paulina Diaz field tape excerpt......................................................................................55 Figure 5: Paulina Diaz field tape excerpt.......................................................................................55 Figure 6: “Nous n’iron plus au bois”.............................................................................................56 Figure 7: Paulina Diaz field tape excerpt.......................................................................................56 Figure 8: “El trabajo del welfare” field tape excerpt.....................................................................56 Figure 9: Excerpt of melodic transcription of "La décima de Wila".............................................85 Figure 10: Dorothy Benge with Ralph Gipson and portrait of Manuel Molero..........................106 Figure 11: 2015 Los Isleños Fiesta..............................................................................................147 Figure 12: Michael Martin at the 2015 Isleños Fiesta.................................................................148 Figure 13: Oil painting by Anthony Fabra...................................................................................151 Figure 14: Jerry Alfonso with carvings........................................................................................153 Figure 15: Jesse Alfonso (left) and Anthony Fabra.....................................................................156 Figure 16: Photograph with caption of Duggie Robin with father, John Robin..........................164 Figure 17: Duggie Robin and Charles Robin III..........................................................................166 Figure 16: Archbishop Gregory Aymond blessing a vessel.........................................................182 Figure 18: Joan and Thomas Gonzales dancing..........................................................................184 Figure 19: Joan and Thomas Gonzales........................................................................................187 iv Abstract This dissertation takes a fine-grained approach to the study of a unique local genre of Spanish- language ballad from southeast Louisiana, the Isleño décima. For over two hundred years, the distal marshlands of lower St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, have sustained a handful of small communities of farmers, trappers, and fishers, known as the Isleños. Isleños trace their ancestors back to colonists from the Canary Islands who settled here during the Spanish colonial period (1763–1802). Their ballads, décimas, provided the soundtrack for a unique way of life in this marsh frontier. These songs composed a unique local tradition, distinct from the widely distributed eponymous genre of Spanish verse. The central concern of this study lies in the dynamic, mutable, and polysemous musical meanings embodied by the genre over time. It begins with the early history of the tradition, from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s, situating the Isleño décima within a broad and diverse circum-Gulf of Mexico cultural milieu, and then narrates a history of the genre as it was collected, celebrated, and ultimately transformed into the icon of Isleño identity in the context of a local ethnic revival. The dissertation then turns to the ethnographic present, a present in which Isleño décimas are no longer sung or transmitted as an active musical tradition, asking how the genre might continue to mean in the absence of a living tradition. Engaging with a diverse range of interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological issues, this dissertation brings a new perspective to this little-known local genre, and brings insights gained from this local case to bear on issues of central concern in ethnomusicology and related fields, including historical and ethnographic methodologies, musical meaning, silence, absence, music sustainability, human ecology, and space. v Acknowledgments Initial research trips to Davis, California, and southeast Louisiana were funded by a generous grant from the Lowell C. Wadmond Fund, and the final year of writing was supported by a University of Chicago Mellon Humanities Dissertation Completion Fellowship. The archival and ethnographic research that forms the foundation of this dissertation was the result of the contributions and collaborations of many people over the past four years. In Davis, California, my research with the archive of Samuel G. Armistead was facilitated by Daryl Morrison and Jessie Ann Owens. Karen Olson very generously organized materials that were germane to my research and shared insights regarding her work with Professor Armistead. Annie Laurie Armistead welcomed me into her home, offering encouragement and sharing her thoughts on the subject as I worked with her late husband’s research materials in his study. I would also like to thank Israel J. Katz for sharing his views regarding this research. Further archival research was facilitated at Nunez Community College by Richard DeFoe, and at the University of New Orleans by Florence Jumonville and James Hodges. Mark DeWitt and Michael S. Martin invited me to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and arranged for me to conduct research at the archive of the Center for Louisiana Studies, where John Sharp and Chris Segura assisted in locating and accessing materials. William de Marigny Hyland offered guidance and unwavering support throughout this project. Ralph Gipson generously provided a place to stay in New Orleans during my initial research trips, shared documents from his own research in lower St. Bernard, and arranged my interview with Dorothy Benge. I would like to thank Donna Mumphrey-Martin and Michael vi Martin for their participation and encouragement. The contributions of Jerry Alfonso, Jesse Alfonso, Anthony Fabra, Dorothy Benge, John Robin III, the late Duggie Robin, and Joan and Thomas Gonzales will be evident in the pages that follow. My committee members, Philip Bohlman, Travis Jackson, Robert Kendrick, and Anna Schultz, shaped this dissertation first through the rigorous and stimulating courses and seminars I took with them at Chicago, and later, as I worked on the proposal and dissertation, through reading suggestions, critical feedback, editing, support, and encouragement. Many other friends and colleagues have contributed to this dissertation. Hannah Rogers and Mili Leitner Cohen invited me to share early chapter drafts during their respective terms as coordinators of the EthNoise! student workshop at Chicago. I would also like to thank the participants of those workshops, the participants of the Ninth International Doctoral Workshop in Ethnomusicology at the Center for World Music at Hildesheim, Germany, as well as the members of the Music and Sound reading group at Tulane University. I’m grateful to everyone who shared their thoughts on earlier versions of the chapters that follow and who contributed to the development of the ideas contained in them, including Michael Allemana, Samuel Araújo, Devon
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