Origins of the Bagpipe Zuliana

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· 05 Aug 2022

Origins of the Bagpipe Zuliana

#history
The gaita, that traditional genre that in Zulia has been imbued with that characteristic flavor that reminds us of the joy of the Christmas festivities, is a multifaceted expression currently used to sing love, to exercise a claim, to sing to the things of life, in short, to refer to any song that the composer well want to write, a source in its origins of many cover artists who threw themselves into the ring with their improvisations to stimulate the enjoyment of the party.

The Zulian gaita, like many other manifestations of Latin American costumbrismo, is mestizo. It has a multi-ethnic genetic influence, its essence being Hispanic, although Hispanity is preserved in very different progressions to the gaita maracaibera (also called gaita de furro), a song of city creole, in whom it survives strongly, compared to the bagpipe of tambora and the perijanera, in which blackness leaves one more mark intense.

According to historian Rafael Molina Vilchez, the gaita is Spanish, but over time two divergent tendencies emerged: “The maracaibera gaita and the black bagpipes. This opinion has generated controversy, however it is quite shared, since the term “gaita” has Galician-Portuguese roots: it comes from the Gothic “gaits” which means “goat”, because the bellows of the Galician gaita is made of goat leather. From Spain through the Arab African countries he reached Turkey, in whose language it is translated as “shepherd's flute”, which would be in accordance with the drawing that Agustín Pérez Piñango found with the Glorioso San Sebastián bagpipe, which dates from 1668, according to a document located in the former National College of Maracaibo, which brings the lyrics and the music in Gregorian characters. It would be the oldest known bagpipe. However, other scholars, including Juan de Dios Martínez, argue that the bagpipe began with black slaves in the haciendas of the South of the Lake, in protest and evoking their festivities in the African areas where they came from.”

The rivalry between the neighborhoods of yesteryear El Empedrao and El Saladillo is well known, which were vying for the emergence of the bagpipe as we know it in its bowels, there are several musical themes that refer to that fact

The Empedrao bagpipe
Piper Train
-chorus-

From a high enlosao

Someone hums a chorus

The Impromptu Verses

They line up like a stantillo

The Empedrao's Bagpipe

It rumbles in the saladillo

-verse I-

I don't know where they got it from

Such a hubbub

I bet my life

The bagpipe is from the cobblestone

-verse II-

That evil rooster acobo

Palo Fiel Empedraero

I kill a hundred saladilleros

And that was one-eyed and lame

-verse III-

The Empedraera neighborhood

No dagger or executioner

Challenge the Saladillo

Let's sing the good bagpipe

Source: LyricFind

http://saborgaitero.com/gaita/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSf3MLogxqE&list=RDCSf3MLogxqE&start_radio=1