This text was taken from the book "Merengue, Dominican music and Dominican identity", published by Temple University Press in 1997, written by Paul Austerlitz.
Origins of merengue
We will probably never know with certainty the true origin of this music,
but theories about it express deep-rooted feelings about Dominican identity.
One theory links merengue to the Haitian mereng. Although they differ in important
ways, the Dominican Republic and Haiti shar many cultural
characteristics. Like merengue in the Dominican Republic, mereng (in Haitiean
Creole, méringue in French) is a national symbol in Haiti. according to
Jean Fouchard, mereng evolved from the fusion of slave musics such as the chica
and calenda with ballroom forms related to the French contredanse
Mereng's name, he says, derives from the mouringue music of
the Bara, a Bantu people of Madagascar. That few Malagasies
came to the Americas renders this etymology dubiou, but it is significant
because it forgrounds what Fouchard, and most Haitians, consider
the essentially African-derived nature of their music and national identity.
Dominican merengue, Jean Fouchard suggests, developed directly from Haitian mereng.
Dominicans are often disinclined to admit African and Haitian influences
on their culture. As ethnomusicologist Martha Davis points out,
many Dominican scholars "have, at the least, ignored African influence in
Santo Domingo. At the worst, they have bent over backwards to convince
themselves and their readers of the one hundred percent Hispanic content
of their culture. This is not an uncommon Latin American reaction to the
inferiority complex produced by centuries of Spanish colonial domination".
According to merengue innovator Luis Alberti, for example,
merengue "has nothing to do with black or African rhythms.
The Dominican proclivity to deny connections with Africa is related to
anti-haitian sentiment, and relationships between the national musics of
Haiti and the Dominican Republic have often been ignored or downplayed
in Dominican merengue scholarship. In several standard Dominican
sources that mention merengue in Puerto Rico and other countries,
competent scholars neglect to acknowledge even the existence of Haitian
mereng. In fact, for Esteban Peña Morel, one of the few Dominicans
to admit a connection between merengue and mereng, this link
tenders merengue inappropiate as a Dominican symbol; he suggests another
genre, the mangulina, as more representative of national culture.
Such views met with considerable criticism. When Dominican folklorist
Fradique Lizardo discussed the African influence on Dominican culture
and asserte that "merengue's origin is in Africa," the respected dance
music composer Luis Senior described himself as "horrified" by Lizardo's asertion
and claimed that it was "unpatriotic" to call merengue African.
Lizardo's theory of merengue's origin resembles Fouchard's, for he writes that the Bara of Madagascar perform
a dance called "merengue," adding that they play a drum similar to the tambora
prominent in Dominican merengue. Lizardo suggests that Bara and other
African musics were combined with a Cuban form called the danza to
produce Caribbean merengue. However,
knowing that few Malagasies came to the Americas, that drums similar to the
tambora are distributed widely in Africa, and that several styles of
merengue do not use the tambora weighs against Lizardo's theory that merengue derives
specifically from the Bara.
Whatever their differences, almost all of the origin theories point to connections
between merengue and European-derived ballroom dance musics such as the danza. Flérida de Nolasco
believes that merengue's association with these forms indicates
that its origins are in Europe. Although Manuel Rueda
acknowledges the possibility of some African influence on merengue, he also believes that
its European influences demonstrate merengue's Euro-American
nature, and he discedits the idea that merengue is Afro-Caribbean.
Julio Hernández, however, points out that European-derived musics came
under African influence in the Americas, arguing that while merengue developed
from European forms, it is a syncretic, Afro-Hispanic genre.
Singer Joseito Mateo, the "king of merengue", concurs; he pointed out
to me in an interview that racias amalgamation naturally produces syncretic
music: "Dominican whites and blacks had their own musics, just
as in the United States the blacks have their own music. But gradually, what
is called a fusion of the two races came about, the blacks and the whites. And
so, a música mestiza was formes, that is, a mixed music. The white contributes his part, and
the black contributes his drums".
For most dominicans, then, to discuss merengue's origin is to discuss Dominican
national and racial identity. Eurocentric thinkers emphesize
merengue's European elements, Afrocentric scholars emhasize its African
elements, and those who celebrate racial amalgamation point to its syncretic
nature. Yet while they may disagree on the nature of Dominicanness, all
come together on one point: merengue expresses Dominican identity.
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