The Present State of Folklore Studies in Colombia

Author(s): Luis Alberto Acuña and Frank Goodwyn

Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 251 (Jan. - Mar., 1951), pp. 104-107
Published by: American Folklore Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/536107
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 THE PRESENT STATE OF FOLKLORE
STUDIES IN COLOMBIA

By Luis ALBERTO ACUA

T HE CULTIVATION OF FOLKLORE AS A SCIENTIFIC discipline

devoted to the investigation of the expressions of the culture of the
people has its source at present in the National Ethnological Institute,
with central office in Bogot4 and branch institutions in other Colombian cities
like Santa Marta, Baranquilla and Popay4n. Folklore forms a part of their
activities. For only eight years has the study of Colombian folklore and
popular art been controlled by rigorous scientific method. Before then, it was
in the hands of sporadic and curious amateurs or costumbrista writers. Eugenio
Diaz in his Rejo de Enlazar, Cordovez Moure in his Reminiscencias de Santa
Fe', TomAs Carrasquilla in his entire work, and many other costumbristas
have enriched our national literature and saved a multitude of popular ex-
pressions which would have otherwise fallen into oblivion. Occasionally also
there have appeared such important works as that of General Rafael Uribe
regarding Gallicisms, provincialisms and corrections of the language, in which
the folkioristic element is treated with special attention. There existed, more-
over, a compilation of Antioqufan coplas by Carrasquilla. However, none of
these were undertaken scientifically.
There was need of an organization in which the study of Colombian folklore
could be systematized. This need was filled by the National Ethnological
Institute, with its section on folklore. The initial step involved the formation
of research projects, archives and shelves, the establishment of an intensive
course and the publication of a journal. Also, the foundations have been laid
for the formation of a museum, a photo collection, a record collection, and a
library especially devoted to folklore. A portable sound-recorder has been
installed. This makes possible the recording of music and regional speech at
their source, an important item in the study of language and phonetics.

ARCHIVES AND FILES

The investigation carried out in the year 1942 among the teachers of all
the public schools of the country, who answered satisfactorily the questions
formulated in the questionnaires, was the basis for the formation of a rich
archive, catalogued by departments, intendencies and commissariats. Based on
this archive, the files have been set up, which in a paractical manner con-
stitute the classification of all the data contained in the products of the in-
vestigations. The principal compilation of files made up to this moment refers
especially to the study of proverbs, semantics, and popular verses.

LIBRARY

The studies of costumbrista nature, the popular chronicles and other works
of this kind published in Colombia and dealing with its inhabitants, constitute

104

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 Folklore Research in Latin America105

the basis of the Library. Later, the acquisition of works treating universal
folklore, which have been obtained by recent purchases and by exchange with
other similar institutions, has come to augment these holdings. With a view
to its own profit, the Institute endeavors to acquire all those publications
which are constantly appearing, produced by Colombian authors and based
on themes which are concerned with national and tradition customs. Among
the most recent acquisitions of this type, we permit ourselves to mention the
following: Mitos de Antioquia, by Arturo Escobar Uribe; Haciendas de la
Sabana, by C. Pardo Umafia; Cantemos, by Dario Benitez; Aires Guamalenses,
by C. Rangel; Avejas de mi colmena, by Camilo Forero; Cosas de Paisas, by
Euclides Jaramillo; Colombianismos, by Father Tob6n Betancur; Cantares del
departarnento de Nariiia, by Sergio Elias Ortiz; Memorias de Simoncito, by E.
J aramillo Arango; and Nuestra Gente, by Gregorio Hernandez de Alba. These
works mentioned constitute the most recent Colombian literary production in
the field of our folklore. The number of volumes which, within the already
extensive library of the National Ethnological Institute, are devoted to folklore
has risen to seventy-five.

PUBLICATIONS

For the last four years the Ethnological Institute has included in the plan
of its publications an organ exclusively devoted to treating all aspects of
Colombian folklore and popular art, as well as to informing the public of the
state of studies regarding this science which are being undertaken in this
country. This publication, which is entitled, Revista del Folklore, has now run
through five issues and the sixth is at present in the process of being edited.
The journal is distributed without charge among the scientific institutions and
persons interested in this kind of studies, the scope of its distribution now
being worldwide, as is general the good acceptance which it has encountered.
For the purpose of furthering the work of dissemination and stimulating the
authors who undertake important investigative studies in Colombia, the
Institute began also the publication of a series of volumes under the title,
Biblioteca del folklore colombiano. The studies of this series published so far
are the following: Interpretaci6n de la poesia popular, by Octavio Quinones
Pardo; Refranero Colombiano, by Luis Alberto Acufia, and Cantas del vaile
de Tenza (3 volumes) by the priests Joaquin Medina and Jose Vargas Tamayo.
These publications, the same as the Revista, serve as a basis for the exchange
of materials, and their distribution is absolutely free of charge.

INTENSIVE COURSES

In addition to the public lectures regarding archeology, ethnography,

anthropology, linguistics, etc., which the Ethnological Institute schedules an-
nually, and among which are customarily included some exclusively folkioristic
themes, the direction of the Institute has included within the scope of its
courses of study in ethnography and social anthropology an intensive one Gf
folklore. Space does not permit an outline of the curriculum, but it includes
work of a philosophic and programmatic nature, as well as a survey of the
materials and methods of folklore science.

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io6 Journal of American Folklore

DISC COLLECTION

The recent acquisition made in Washington, D. C. by the Director of the

Ethnological Institute, Professor Luis Duque Gomez, of a disc recorder and
reproducer, remitted by the Pan American Union through exchange for an
equivalent quantity of Colombian books, has given to the section of folklore
studies the opportunity to enlarge its disc collection, by means of direct
recording of the popular Colombian airs, of the cantares and tonadas, and of
the rural and regional speech with its characteristic accent and inflections.
This recorder is now fully installed in a special annex within the locale of the
Institute.

MUSEUM

The lack of space in the building dedicated to the national museums has
prevented the directors of the Institute from carrying out their purpose of
installing the Museum of Colombian Folklore. Nevertheless, in an uninter-
rupted manner, all kinds of important objects for that end have been accu-
mulated, with the surety that in a short period the ground floor of the In-
stitute can be adapted to giving to the public the services of the museum, to
which will be added the vast collection of documents of the folklore of Mexico
which that sister country gave the Institute some years ago.

Collaboration
Up to now in this article we have spoken only of the undertakings which
on behalf of folklore studies in Colombia are being developed by the National
Ethnological Institute. In spite of the fact that that official Institution is the
only one which at present accomplishes the patriotic task of encouraging
studies, guiding them down pathways of rigorous investigative method, as an
organized science and not as a mere hobby or curious pastime, we must point
out that also in Colombia there exist many private persons, scholars and
amateurs who of their own accord cultivate the science of folklore in a form
more or less methodical and disciplined. Such persons are usually found con-
nected with the Institute or with its subsidiaries, to which they send their
works, fruit of their personal investigations; a commission studies these con-
tributions and passes judgment on the desirability of their publication, since
they are here dealing with spontaneous collaboration whose value generally
resides in their purely informative and documentary portions.
Thus it is that the Institute has succeeded in increasing its field of action,
joining with its work all those persons in Colombia who concern themselves
with this type of study. As an encouragement in their work, authors receive
the printed works published by the Institute. Frequently by seeing the fruit
of their own investigations published by the Institute, and patterning after
models of other scholars, they are able to build on the solid base of the scientific
method. For its part, this official institution gladly lends its advice and also
its direct material collaboration in the work of installing and the functioning
of other institutions of cultural character which in some form are related to
Colombian folklore. It is thus that, for instance, the Institute recently partici-

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 Folklore Research in Latin America 107

pated in a very active manner in the installation of the museum building

dedicated to the memory of the Liberator, Sim6n Bolivar, at Bucaramanga,
capital of the Department of Santander, and that at present it oversees and
superintends the installation of a school of ceramics of the popular type in
the flowering town of Malambo in the Department of the Atlantic.

[Translated by Frank Goodwyn.]

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