Collection Summary
AFC 1940/002
Rael, Juan
Bautista
Juan B. Rael Collection
1939-1999
1940
1939-1999
1940
3 boxes: 21
folders of manuscripts, 36 sound recordings, graphic images, published
materials, and computer disks.
Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife
Center, Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
Sound recordings and manuscripts that document
the musical heritage and cultural traditions of the Hispano residents of the
portion of the Northern Rio Grande region of northern New Mexico and southern
Colorado, collected by Juan B. Rael in 1940.
English
Spanish.
Collection material in
English and
Spanish.
Collection Concordance by Format
Quantity
Physical Description/Version
Location/I.D. Numbers
Manuscript
Materials
21
folders
Sound Recordings
36
12-inch acetate-on-aluminum discs
AFS 3905-3940 (original field
recordings)
5
10-inch DT reels
LWO 4872: reels 255-259 (preservation
copies)
4
DAT Tapes
Made in the digital conversion
process
Graphic Images
1
black-and-white photoprint
AFC 1940/002:P1
1
copy negative
AFC 1940/002:P1-p1
Electronic Media
6
3.5-inch computer diskettes
Documents generated during collection
processing as well as documents/files used to build the online presentation
plus backup copies
1
CD-ROM
Scanned images of manuscript items used in
the online presentation
Provenance
Juan B. Rael Collection was given to the Archive of American Folk Song
(now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center) by Rael in 1940.
During the digital conversion process in 1998 and 1999, additional materials,
including reprint journal articles, transcriptions, translations, and
contextual essays by Enrique R. Lamadrid, were added to the collection.
Processing History
Robin Fanslow arranged and processed this collection. She curated the
online presentation and prepared the collection guide for all original and
additional materials in June 1999. Nora Yeh encoded this finding aid under the
guidance of Mary Lacy.
Location
Although American Folklife Center is the custodial division of this
collection, the original 36 12-inch acetate-on-aluminum discs (AFS 3905-3940)
and the 5 10-inch preservation reel-to-reel tape copes (LWO 4872: reels
255-259) are stored in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound
Division, Library of Congress. Reference copies of audio materials and all
other collection materials are housed in the AFC.
Access
Listening and viewing access to the collection is unrestricted.
Listening copies of the recordings are available at the Folklife Reading Room,
many are also online.
Restrictions
Restrictions may apply concerning the use, duplication, or publication
of items in this collection. Consult a reference librarian in the Folklife
Reading Room for specific information about this collection.
Online Content
An online version of this collection, including essays in English and
in Spanish and a bibliography and glossary, titled "Hispano Music and Culture
of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection" is available as an
online resource compiled by the American Folklife Center and
the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress.
See
[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/collafc.af000001].
Preferred Citation
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the
following information: Juan B. Rael Collection (AFC 1940/002), Archive of Folk
Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
The Collector
Linguist and folklorist Juan Bautista Rael, highly regarded for his
pioneering work in collecting and documenting the Hispano folk stories, plays,
and religious traditions of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, was born
on August 14, 1900, in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. His bachelor's degree, from
St. Mary's College in Oakland in 1923, led to a master's degree from the
University of California at Berkeley in 1927. After deciding on a university
career of teaching and research, Rael relinquished his family inheritance in
land, cattle, and sheep to his three brothers and his sister. He had realized
that the wealth in northern New Mexico that most interested him was the vast
repertory of folk narrative, song, and custom that had scarcely been
documented.
While teaching at the University of Oregon, Rael returned to Arroyo
Hondo in the summer of 1930 to begin compiling his famous collection of over
five hundred New Mexican folk tales. By then his work had attracted the
attention of pioneer Hispano folklorist and mentor Aurelio Espinosa, who
invited Rael to Stanford in 1933. Rael completed his doctoral studies in 1937
with a dissertation on the phonology and morphology of New Mexico Spanish that
amplified the dialectological work of Espinosa with the huge corpus of folk
tales, later published as
Cuentos Españoles de Colorado y Nuevo Mexico: Spanish Folk Tales
of Colorado and New Mexico
.
Well-versed in the historic-geographic theory of transmission and
diffusion of motifs, tale types, and genres, Rael set out on the formidable,
almost quixotic task of gathering all the possible versions and texts of the
tales, hymns, and plays he was studying. The vast majority of tales are of
European provenance, with only minimal local references. He meticulously traced
the shepherds' plays to several root sources in Mexico, and his study
The Sources and Diffusion of the Mexican Shepherds' Plays
is a standard reference on the subject. His ground-breaking study of the
alabado hymn,
The New Mexican Alabado
, is also a prime resource.
Inevitably the text-centered historic-geographic approach led more to
collection building than to analysis. It has been left to later generations of
scholars to develop performance-centered studies, but the collections of Juan
B. Rael continue to be an indispensable landmark in the field.
Note: This biography was excerpted from an essay by Enrique R.
Lamadrid. For further information on the collector and the collection, see the
framing essays written by Lamadrid to accompany the online presentation
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan
B. Rael Collection
. See Folder 16 below.
Selected Search Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
People
Anaya, Ernestina
Anaya, Nieves
Archuleta, Ricardo
Arellano, Esequiel
Arellano, Narciso
Cantú, José Ignacio
Chávez, Adelaido
Chávez, Adolfo (Musician)
Espinosa, Rosabel L.
García, Pedro (Guitarist)
Lamadrid, Enrique R.
Lamadrid, Enrique R.--Correspondence.
Lobato, Julián
Lobato, Salomé
Lomax, Alan, 1915-2002--Correspondence.
Mares, Remigio
Martínez y Lavadi, Samuel
Medina, Esteban (Singer)
Montoya, Luis (Singer)
Rael, Juan Bautista
Rael, Juan Bautista--Correspondence.
Rael, Juan Bautista--Ethnomusicological collections.
Romero, Alfredo (Singer)
Romero, Alfredo (Singer)
Trujillo, Amado
Organizations
American Folklife Center.
Archive of Folk Song (U.S.)
Library of Congress. National Digital Library Program.
Subjects
Alabados.
Christmas plays, Spanish--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Coplas--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Dance music--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Decimas, Spanish American--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Fiddle tunes--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Field recordings--Colorado.
Field recordings--New Mexico.
Folk drama, Hispanic American (Spanish)--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Folk music--Colorado.
Folk music--New Mexico.
Folk music--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Folk songs, Spanish--Colorado.
Folk songs, Spanish--New Mexico.
Hispanic American Catholics--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)--Social life and customs.
Hispanic Americans--Colorado--Music.
Hispanic Americans--New Mexico--Music.
Hispanic Americans--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)--Music.
Hymns, Spanish--Colorado.
Hymns, Spanish--New Mexico.
Marches--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
New Year music.
Posadas (Social custom)--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Recitations.
Spanish Americans--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)--Music.
Spanish Americans--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)--Religion.
Waltz--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Wedding music--Rio Grande Valley Region (Colo.-Mexico and Tex.)
Titles
Hispano music and culture of the Northern Rio Grande.
Form/Genre
Correspondence.
Field recordings.
Manuscripts.
Photographs.
Sound recordings.
Scope and Content Note
Juan B. Rael Collection comprises multi-format ethnographic field
documentation of religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of
rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. It contains correspondence,
administrative materials, recording logs, song transcriptions and translations,
and materials generated in the process of creating the online presentation.
In 1940, Juan Bautista Rael of Stanford University, a native of
Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, used disc recording equipment supplied by the Archive
of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife
Center) to document alabados (hymns), folk drama,
wedding songs, and dance tunes in Alamosa, Manassa, and Antonito, Colorado, and
in Cerro and Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. These efforts resulted in approximately
650 pages of print material including correspondence, recording logs, song text
transcriptions, excerpts from publications, and 8 hours of audio recordings on
36 12-inch acetate-on-aluminum recording discs. A later effort added one
graphic image: Rael interviewing Manuela "Mela" Martínez of Taos, New Mexico,
circa 1930, and a corresponding negative. In the process of digitizing the
collection for online presentation, materials including six computer diskettes
containing digitized LP liner notes, book excerpts, journal articles, as well
as digitized framing text, and one CD-ROM with digitized images were
generated.
Catalog Record: [http://lccn.loc.gov/2004695185]
Collection Inventory
Container
Contents
SERIES I: MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS
Administrative Materials
1
Collection guide
2
Correspondence. Between Rael and library officials
(particularly Alan Lomax and Harold Spivacke) about the collection, written
from November 27, 1939, through December 1, 1941
3
Recording log for AFS 3905-3940
4
Log of recordings made in Antonito, Colorado, with
equipment borrowed from Adams State Teachers College, Alamosa,
Colorado
Song Transcriptions and Texts
5
Song transcriptions/translations by Enrique R.
Lamadrid for the online presentation. In numerical order by AFS
number
6
Alabado texts from
The New Mexican Alabado,
by Juan B. Rael,
published by Stanford University Press, 1951. In alphabetical order by
title
Rael's works resulting from the field
project
7
"New Mexican Wedding Songs," by Juan B. Rael,
originally published in
Southern Folklore Quarterly,
Vol. IV, No. 2,
June 1940.
8
"New Mexican Spanish Feasts," by Juan B. Rael,
originally published in the
California Folklore Quarterly,
Vol. I, No. 1,
January 1942.
9
Introduction to
The New Mexican Alabado,
by Juan B. Rael,
published by Stanford University Press, 1951. (Includes map of the
region)
Library of Congress publications
10
Excerpts from Lomax, Alan, ed. Liner notes to
Ethnic Music of French Louisiana, the Spanish Southwest,
and the Bahamas from the Archive of Folk Song
. From the series "Folk
Music of the United States." Library of Congress Recording Laboratory AFS L5
(Contains excerpts pertaining to songs in the Juan B. Rael Collection
only.)
11
"Juan Bautista Rael, 1900-1993: Pioneer Hispano
Folklorist" and "Nuevo Mexicanos of the Upper Rio Grande: Culture, History, and
Society," by Enrique R. Lamadrid,
Folklife Center News
, Winter 1999, Volume XXI,
Number 1.
Online presentation of the collection
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The
Juan B. Rael Collection
12
Consultant: Enrique R. Lamadrid curriculum vitae;
correspondence; audiography
13
Copyright/permissions Information. Letters of
permission to reproduce materials online; consultant's opinion regarding
material; memo from National Digital Library Program legal advisor regarding
online dissemination.
14
Documents pertaining to work done by Systems
Integration Group, Inc. Correspondence regarding scanning and SGML conversion
of collection manuscripts; file directories; parser report.
15
Publicity/press releases. Official LC press release;
The Library of Congress Information Bulletin
,
Vol. 57, No. 2 (February 1998).
16
Biographical information provided by Rael Family for
online framing text
- Correspondence with Enrique R. Lamadrid regarding
biographical details of Juan B. Rael
- Stanford University resolution on the occasion of Rael's
death
- "Literary Life of Juan B. Rael," unpublished paper
written by Althea N. Oakeley, the great granddaughter of Rael's eldest brother
for a college course
17
Framing text documents
- Homepage Text
- About the Collection Text
- Essays in English
- Juan Bautista Rael, 1900-1993: Pioneer Hispano
Folklorist
- Nuevo Mexicanos of the Upper Rio Grande: Culture,
History, and Society
- La Música Nuevo Mexicana: Religious and Secular
Music from the Juan B. Rael Collection
- Hispano Folk Theater in New Mexico
- Essays in Spanish
- Juan Bautista Rael, 1900-1993: Folklorista
Hispano
- Los Nuevo Mexicanos del Río Grande del Norte:
Cultura, Historia y Sociedad
- La Música Nuevo Mexicana: Tradiciones Religiosas y
Seculares de la Colección de Juan B. Rael
- El Teatro Popular Hispano de Nuevo México
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- How to order audio and photographic reproductions
- Copyright and other restrictions
18
Manuscript material database report, hard
copy
19
Audio database report, hard copy
Related collections at other
institutions
20
Collection guide for Rael manuscript materials at
Stanford
Bibliographic records for Rael material at New Mexico
State Library
SERIES II: GRAPHIC IMAGES
21
One b/w photographic print and one negative made from
the print (AFC 1940/002:P1 and AFC 1940/002:P1-p1). Image depicts Rael
interviewing Manuela "Mela" Martínez, Taos, New Mexico, circa
1930.
SERIES III: SOUND RECORDINGS
3
Four DAT tapes created in the digital conversion
process
Note: Original acetate disc recordings, AFS 3905-3940, are
housed in MBRS, as are the 10-inch preservation reels; reel-to-reel listening
copies of the field recordings are available through the Folklife Reading
Room.
SERIES IV: ELECTRONIC MEDIA
3
Six computer diskettes: Contain documents generated
during collection processing as well as documents/files used to build the
online presentation (plus backup copies)
Note: Disk directories can be found in Folder #1 with the
Collection Guide.
One CD-ROM: Contains scanned images of manuscript items
used in the online presentation.
Appendix A: Glossary of Spanish Genre Terms,
including Dances, from the Juan B. Rael Collection
Excerpted from the online “Glossary of Spanish Terms from the Juan
B. Rael Collection ,” compiled by Enrique R. Lamadrid at University of New
Mexico for:
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan
B. Rael Collection
.
-
"Adán y Eva" - "Adam and Eve," one of
the cycle of Nuevo Mexicano religious folk plays portraying the first family in
the Garden of Eden, the temptation of Eve, and their expulsion into the
world.
-
Alabados - from the Spanish
alabar, literally hymns of praise, from a
repertory practiced by the Penitente Brotherhood,
used genealabarrically to refer to all hymns, but
specifically to the hymns on the topic of the Passion of Jesus Christ and the
suffering of his Mother.
-
Alabanzas - also from the Spanish
alabar, but referring to hymns of praise to the
saints and the celebration of the Virgin Mary.
-
"Apariciones de Nuestra Señora de
Guadalupe" - "The Apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe," one of the
cycle of Nuevo Mexicano folk plays relating the
experience of the Indian, Juan Diego, and his encounter with the Virgin.
-
Autos Sacramentales - allegorical
plays dating to Medieval times whose function it was to teach basic doctrines
of the Church.
-
Bailes - social dances, a major
institution in Nuevo Mexicano village life. Whole
families would attend and socialize. After World War II, dances are more
age-segregated.
-
Canciones - literally "songs," this
term is used generically for almost any composition that is sung, and
specifically for the lyric song tradition whose themes are love and death.
-
Chotiz - Schottische, the
internationally popular music and dance associated with, but not necessarily of
Scotland.
-
Coloquio - colloquy or conversation,
as in "Segundo Coloquio de los Pastores."
-
"Los Comanches" - the "Comanches," a
regional Indo-Hispanic tradition of dances, music, and folk plays celebrated by
Hispanos and Pueblo Indians who dress in the style
of the Comanches, a plains tribe who raided the Rio Grande valley in the
eighteenth century.
-
Coplas - couplets, the most common
unit of verse sung in the Spanish folk tradition, an octosyllabic four-line
quatrain with assonance or vowel rhyming in the second and fourth line in the
ABCB scheme. Spanish coplas can be improvised on the spot, but hundreds of them
are centuries old and can be found all over Spain and Latin America.
-
Corridos - contemporary narrative
ballads, from the verb correr (to run), because
they are sung straight through with no choruses or refrains. Short for
romance corrido, literally "running ballad."
Themes of natural and human disasters predominate.
-
Cuadrilla - the quadrille, a kind of
square dance with its own distinctive music that originated in the courts of
Europe.
-
Cuna - the cradle, a folk dance found
only in Nuevo Mexico in which sets of two couples
face each other and join hands, forming a "cradle." Danced to waltz tunes.
-
Décimas - the most complex form of
popular poetry with strophes of ten lines with assonant or vowel rhyming in a
variety of schemes.
-
Despedimiento - literally taking
leave, the solemn hymns sung at funerals, specifically at the grave side. The
despedimiento in the Rael Collection is called
"La Encomendación," in which the departed soul is
commended to the Lord.
-
"El Encuentro" - the Fourth Station of
the Cross in which Mary encounters Jesus, who has already been tried,
condemned, scourged, and is on his way to Calvary with the Cross on his
shoulder. "El Encuentro" is dramatized by the
Hermanos Penitentes and their families in
Nuevo Mexicano villages.
-
"Entrega de Novios" - "The Delivery of
the Newlyweds," a Nuevo Mexicano folk wedding
celebration in which the bride and groom and their families are "delivered" to
each other in song. Dates to the times when there was a shortage of priests to
perform marriages.
-
"Estaciones de la Cruz" –
“Stations of the Cross,” a fourteen-part prayer service and meditation on
the Passion of Jesus, introduced by Saint Francis of Assisi. In
Nuevo Mexicano villages, the Estaciones are also recited outside the church on the
way to the local Calvario hill.
-
Inditas - literally little Indian
girls or a type of song, a broadly defined genre of Nuevo
Mexicano folk music and song which includes everything from narrative
ballads and hymns to saints to a ballroom dance. Thematically,
inditas have to do with the relations between
Hispanos and Indians, including warfare and love.
Often sung to the syncopated rhythm of the Afro-Caribbean habanera, many inditas have
choruses sung in vocables, the syllable singing typical of North American
Indian music.
-
"La Marcha" - the wedding march, a
particular march which was used by wedding parties in procession to the bride's
house after a wedding ceremony. Now, la marcha is
a triumphal wedding march danced by couples who separate into lines and circle
around to recombine in a kind of tunnel made by grasping and raising hands for
the newlyweds to pass through.
-
"Los Matachines" - the
Matachine dance, a regional Indo-Hispano tradition of dance drama representing the
spiritual conquest of the Americas. Danced in several parts to violin and
guitar music: two lines of dancers twirl, kneel, exchange places, and form a
cross as their monarch, Monarca, and a little girl, Malinche, preside. On the
fringes Torito, a little bull, encounters the
Abuelos, ancestral spirits who vanquish and
castrate him.
-
"Moros y Cristianos" - an equestrian
folk play that portrays the struggle of Christians and Moors before the final
reconquest of Spain in 1492.
-
"El Niño Perdido" - "The Lost Child,"
one of the cycle of Nuevo Mexicano religious folk
plays that treats the biblical episode of Jesus as a lost child who is later
found debating with rabbis in the temple.
-
"Los Pastores" - abbreviation of
"Segundo Coloquio de los Pastores," the "Second
Colloquy of the Shepherds," the most famous of the Nuevo
Mexicano Nativity plays. A group of shepherds hears the angels
announcing the birth of Jesus and tries to make it to Bethlehem despite the
interference of Lucifer. Main characters include Bartolo, the lazy shepherd;
Gila the beautiful shepherd girl; Ermitaño, the hermit; Lucifer, the devil;
the Archangel Saint Michael; and the Holy Family.
-
Plainsong - a type of religious music
with roots in the Medieval church, like the alabados it uses modes and lacks time signatures.
-
Polcas - Spanish for polkas, the music
and dance craze which started in Poland and swept Europe and the world in the
nineteenth century.
-
"Las Posadas" - "The Inns," a
processional musical folk play that represents the journey of Mary and Joseph
to Bethlehem and the problems they had in finding lodging. Performed on the
nine nights leading up to Christmas. In the last verses of the song, the people
finally recognize Joseph and Mary and invite them joyfully into their house,
where all the participants enjoy refreshments.
-
Redondo - circle dance in the
repertory of nineteenth century Nuevo Mexicano
folk dances.
-
"Los Reyes Magos" - "The Wise Kings,"
the Nuevo Mexicano folk play that ends the
Nativity cycle on Epiphany, January 6, or Epiphany eve the night before, when
the Three Kings arrive in Bethlehem and bring the Holy Child their gifts.
-
Rogativas - hymns that express
entreaties for divine intercession and mercy, for the souls in purgatory, and
to urge the faithful to confession.
-
Romancero Nuevomejicano - the
collection of old romance ballads which Aurelio Espinosa collected in New
Mexico and published in 1915.
-
Romances - old Spanish ballads dating
back to medieval times and the fragmentation of epic poetry. Spanish Historical
ballads disappeared in New Mexico, leaving the Novelesque ballads with their
themes of love and death, and the Burlesque ballads which were used as
political satire and children's songs.
-
"Los Texanos" - "The Texans," is a
secular folk play celebrating the defeat of the 1841 expedition from the
Republic of Texas to explore and take command of their western borderlands or
New Mexico.
-
"Tinieblas" - Spanish for the Tenebrae
service that represents the darkness and chaos following the Crucifixion of
Christ. In the morada, a candelabra with thirteen
candles is gradually extinguished, and prayers for the dead are recited,
followed by three periods of deafening noise.
-
Trovos - dueling songs of the
troubadours that describe encounters of famous poets trying to outdo each other
with their verbal virtuosity, a moribund form in New Mexico.
-
Valses - the waltz with its sweeping
triple-meter music and scandalous dance, which swept Europe and the world in
the nineteenth century. Before the waltz, couples danced apart.
-
Vaquero - cowboy, or more
specifically, the nineteenth-century Nuevo
Mexicano folk dance that only occurred in New Mexico, along with the
indita dance, and the cuna or cradle dance.
-
Varsoviana - "Girl from Warsaw," the
music and dance that celebrated the first Polish revolution, known in English
as "Put your little foot" and mispronounced in Spanish as "Varceliana."
-
Versos - verses, the term used to
refer to couplets, or octosyllabic quatrains with alternating assonance or
vowel rhyme. See also coplas.