202557(en)/29 - We Have Come to Adore this Beautiful Child Who Comes to Set Us Free: Afro-Descendant Evocations and Imaginaries in the Pascua de los Negros Festival, Tarapacá
WE HAVE COME TO ADORE THIS BEAUTIFUL CHILD WHO COMES TO SET US FREE: AFRO-DESCENDANT EVOCATIONS AND IMAGINARIES IN THE PASCUA DE LOS NEGROS FESTIVAL, TARAPACÁ
VENIMOS A ADORAR A ESTE NIÑO HERMOSO QUE NOS VIENE A LIBERTAR. EVOCACIONES E IMAGINARIOS AFRODESCENDIENTES EN LA PASCUA DE LOS NEGROS TARAPAQUEÑA
Jean Franco Daponte Araya, Nicole Cortés Aliaga y Alberto Díaz Araya
In the foothills of the Tarapacá Region of Chile, the Epiphany festival—also known as “Pascua de los Negros” (Black Easter)—is celebrated. As part of this festivity, twelve songs are performed, three of which allude to the enslaved Africans who once lived in this territory. Through ethnohistorical and musicological study, we address the presence of Africans and their descendants in the region, along with their respective cultural contributions to the celebration of Pascua de los Negros. This research has allowed us to delineate a sociocultural territory we call “Afro-Mestizo” and to demonstrate that imaginaries of slavery are still preserved in the collective memory. These are expressed in the lyrical, musical, and dance components of these three Epiphany songs. Despite the coercive forces exerted by Chileanization policies, as well as their current invisibilization due both to the “Andeanization” of this festival and to the spread of contemporary Afro-Chilean music—which reclaims Afro-Latin American drums and sounds—these three songs continue to be a living testimony to the presence and persistence of an identity long rendered invisible. Through music and dance, they evoke the Afro-Tarapacans and their contributions to the social history of northern Chile.