Spanish sea shanties

Subject: Spanish sea shanties
From:
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 04:17 PM

If anyone knows of any Spanish Shanties songs from Spain or/and the Caribbean please email me at [e-mail]. Thank you

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 09:35 PM

Does The Golden Vanitie count, or would you rather ones where the Spanish aren't the Enemie?

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Padre
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:45 AM

Caliz07, there is a Spanish shanty (of sorts) in 'Admiral of the Ocean Sea' the biography of Christopher Columbus by Samuel Eliot Morison. I don't have the book here in front of me, but I bet it is in your local library.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Dead Horse
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 07:55 AM

Hows about
"In 1558 our armada it set sail
Then we sank to the bottom of the sea"

Got French sites by the dozen, but can't find a single Dago one.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Snuffy
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 09:22 AM

There's the Kipper's Hairdressing shanty "As we combed the Spanish mane"

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 11:01 AM

And "Farewell Spanish Ladies" offers a cameo appearance by the ladies of Spain....maybe under the Pope and all they didn't feel encouraged to make up jolly songs?

A

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:23 PM

Mars for Evermore?
JohnB

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:42 PM

I'm sure there are plenty of sea shanties in Spanish. All we have to do is do some serious looking. Of course, I'm handicapped by not having learned Spanish but I guess that now that I'm shooting my mouth off I'll have to try to dig some up from Hugill et al.

Hmmmm. None listed in Hugill's SONGS OF THE SEA. Maybe there aren't any!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Naemanson
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 02:44 PM

I've been looking for some for the last several years. My brother-in-law, who is Mexican, assures me there are some but he has yet to bring me any. Another friend, Jose Rubio, who is from Guatamala, told me he'd heard some but was also not forthcoming with the songs.

There may not be any.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 02:47 PM

Those in the threads here and in the DT are English or American sea songs that mention the Spanish, but are not Spanish. See thread 7339, Spanish ladies: Spanish Ladies Some discussion here.

For a very old (18th century) version of "The Spanish Lady's Love to an English Sailor," go to the Bodleian Library: Bodleian
Click on Browse/Search and enter part of the title. Look especially for Douce Ballads 3 (86a) for the copy printed by Dicey, London, 1736-1763, which is clean and readable.
I think there are other versions in the Bodleian as well. These old versions have not been posted here.

If you have some Spanish examples (in Spanish) please post for us.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 02:52 PM

Oops! have to enter ballads twice.: Bodleian Library

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:12 PM

Surely there must be some Spanish in some of the nonesense choruses. Not to mention Santy Anna, Rio Grande etc. cf John Kanaka two lie eh? Kanaky patois of French from New Caledonia.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 06:28 PM

Kanaka is Hawaiian for man. Also an adjective for manly. Kánaka means the people.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 08:00 PM

Come on, lads, let's hunt for the real stuff, not some gringo sailor's idea of what Spanish is. If I wanted to offer that kind of stuff it's available by the bushel-full: i.e., "Serafina", "Round the Bay of Mexico", and "Salt Petre Shanty".

No luck here at finding the real stiff.

We'z the Boat,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 08:11 PM

Saloma is the Spanish word for chantey. Spanish dictionaries that I have all equate shanty with shack.
Unfortunately, saloma is a rather common name as well so it is hard to find saloma=chantey in Google.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 09:17 PM

I vaguely remember Barry singing a chanty at Old Songs that he had picked up from a South American/Caribbean shanty group. Barry?

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 09:59 PM

Tried canto marinero and got a few poems but no chanteys.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Dead Horse
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 07:01 AM

I dont speak Spanish, but I found this music site that probably contains songs of the sea.
Whether they be shanties or no.
http://www.ingeb.org/cates.html

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 10:35 AM

Not a thing! Well, not a real thing; there's this song which loosely translated says "I am the boat, you sail in me, and I sail in you."

Charley Noble, who's still looking

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Barb'ry
Date: 11 Oct 04 - 05:01 PM

Anyone had any luck finding Spanish shanties? I'm still looking too.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 11 - 11:39 AM

I'm still looking and it's 2011,,,,,,,,I need 16th century Spanish shanties

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Dalillama
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 11:01 PM

I am looking for the same thing as the above poster- 16th century Spanish shanties, if anyone's found anything since then.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 14 - 01:25 PM

Here is a Spanish song El novio de la muerte himno de la Legion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtRR3-xQWWQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtRR3-xQWWQ

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 14 - 01:48 PM

Himno de la escuela Naval not a sea shanty but.. its related.. kinda.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 09:38 PM

Joining the group trying to find 16th century Spanish shanties that might have been sung onboard ships.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Feb 20 - 11:04 PM

Still searching for Spanish shanties in 2020.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Feb 20 - 04:09 AM

Not shanties, but there are a lot of Basque fishing and whaling songs. The isiom is rather like Welsh choruses.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Feb 20 - 12:13 PM

Why would there be Spanish chanties? Serious question. The Chanty as we know it had its heyday from about 1830 to about 1860 and was of North American origin almost always in English, or occasionally pigeon English. The crews of merchant ships were multinational with English as the dominant common language. There aren't actually that many 'English' chanties.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 20 - 05:30 PM

I speak Spanish, I searched "Canciones de Marineros"(Literally 'Sailor Songs') There was only a few things. I eventually found "Cancion de Trabajo"(Work songs)It mentions sailor songs, but is not exclusive to Spain, so it talks a lot about U.S. Slave songs. My completely honest guess would be that they sang religious Catholic songs due to the fact they were often transporting Franciscan Monks to Mexico, South America and California. That is my best and only guess.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Monique
Date: 07 Mar 20 - 03:05 AM

As you can read on Wiki in Spanish, the article about shanties doesn't mention any Spanish one. I found Marinero al agua mentioned here but it's a song about a sailor, not a shanty. If you know Spanish you can read that the article only mentions shanties in English and French, must be for some reason. You can find many versions of "Marinero al agua" here.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 08 Mar 20 - 06:26 PM

Even if there were some shanties in Spanish, they would surely be from the same era cited by Steve Gardham (heyday from about 1830 to about 1860) or a bit earlier or later, but certainly nowhere near as long ago as the 16th century.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: cnd
Date: 08 Mar 20 - 09:13 PM

In Spanish, Shanty = "Saloma"

Searching "salomas español" in Google brings up only 1 result:

https://www.naosantamaria.org/es/blog/cr%C3%B3nica-de-luis-barqu%C3%ADn-n20 - article appears to be about a Spanish shanty group but doesn't say if they actually perform in Spanish -- given the dearth of information on the subject, I'd assume they sang in English, but I could be wrong. Unfortunately, the article doesn't give the name of the Spanish shanty group.

Searching "salomas españolas" (proper conjugation) gives 3 links but they are all dead.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Monique
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 04:23 AM

The blog at the link above is not about a shanty group, it's about a trip with a copy of Colombus' ship La Santa María. I browsed all the articles and there's no mention of any Spanish shanty. In Spanish you can find El marinero borracho which is a Spanish version of "The Drunken Sailor" and this one but if you read the lyrics, they mention Microsoft, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings -no comment!
On this page there are lyrics written in 2017 and no sheet music.
If you read the 28-09-2009, 08:52 post on this link, it reads "…from Spain, you can't find anything." "…but nothing of shanties i.e. work songs, but of after work.", "…in Spanish I don't find anything."

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Monique
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 04:41 AM

Here is a page titled "Canción de marineros". I have no time right now to check them, sorry.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 09:41 AM

Chanties were born out of necessity, competition and greed. The 1830s to the 1860s, the great days of sail, when the capitalists were trying to squeeze every last drop out of the wind. Britain and America were vying for supremacy in sea-borne trade. Nearly all the merchant ships were undermanned and run on draconian rules. Round about 1830 the skippers in the Gulf had checquerboard crews. They spotted that the black watches were completing their jobs in half the time the white ones were. It's easy to guess why. Chanties move from the dockside onto the ships. English by then was the dominant language among the workers even in the Gulf ports where many spoke a form of French.

Oversimplified? Perhaps. Pick holes in this theory by all means. I would suggest that as other nations were not heavily involved in the competition at this time they didn't need the chanties as much. I can't account for the lack of them in other languages in any other way.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 07:52 PM

'Spanish' is an english word.

'Standard' shanty is mid-19th century, Anglo-American, merchant marine &c.

Saloma (salomar, salomador) is the non-standard “maritime work song in general” definition. L. celeusma, celeustes &c.

There were Roman/Hiberian maritime corporations & unions (codicarii & helciarii), and martime work songs (chorus helciariorum) in the year zero.

Monte Testaccio

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 07:54 PM

The Anglo-shanty era uses a non-standard kalenda for the 'Golden Age of Sail,' offset from naval science by +1-3 human generations. The following saloma references should cover both:

“SALOMA, s.f. L'action de crier des matelots, dans leurs manœuvres. L. Nautica opera canendo acta.

SALOMAR, Crier tons ensemble. Se dit des matelots qui, dans leurs manœuvres, jettent des cris pour s'avertir de tirer ou de pousser en un même tems. Lat. Nauticam operam canendo agere.
[Nuevo Diccionario Espanola-Francesa y Latina, 1st ed, Vol.II F-Z, Cormon, 1789]


“SALOMA. He a cantiga, ou gritaria, que fazem os marinheiros , quando alão algum cabo, cujo salomear he prohibido nos nossos Navios de Guerra.”
[Vocabulario Marujo, Campos, (Rio De Janeiro, 1823, p.93)]


“cantar, to sing (mec.) to sing out (mar.) to pipe.
— el braceaje (mar.) to call the sounding.
— el gobierno, — el timón (mar.) to con.

DAR, to deliver, to give || to hit, to impact || to stroke, to beat (card.) to deal (arc.) to open.
— la voz (mec.) to sing out.

Saloma (mar.) singering out.
*Salomador (mar.) singer.
Salomar (mec.) to sing out.

*Words having an asterisk are not found in the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy.”
[Diccionario Tecnológico, Vol.II, Españo-Ingles, De Leon, 1893]

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 09 Mar 20 - 10:25 PM

@Steve Gardham. From whom did these faster sailors get their songs, then? Did the skippers "mediate" anything,then, to the others? Traditional song of all kinds extends beyond the rather constricted ambit of admittedly the best known collectors &c., such as, oh, Child, for example. What do people think?

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:26 AM

Skippers had very little to do with it. The black crews were mostly ex-slaves most of whom would have previously been stevedores which is where they got their songs, on the river and working the ships in the Gulf ports. The white watches would naturally pick up the usage from their much more efficient black watches.

Agree with your last statement ABCD.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:25 PM

So, the watches composed of people who didn't themselves have Shanties "naturally" picked up the songs from these other watches? It seems, then, that no "mediation" was required ( you'll know what I'm getting at here). And what did those watches sing before learning these work-songs? Where did the Shanty-singing watches get their Shanties? Were these composed by persons more educated, literate, leisured &c. than the ordinary sailors? I wish I knew how to do that "link" thing at bottom right to a couple of other posts.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 12:55 PM

Hugill's book (despite all the self-censorship) makes it pretty clear what was going on. Lots of crews were multi-ethnic and they muddled through performing each others' songs as best they could. If that meant German words added to an English song, sung by rote by a Tamil monoglot, you got something rather interesting that would have been impossible to write down.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 02:46 PM

Some of them were, ABCD, Chanties evolved from a wide variety of sources. We were talking here about how they started out. Some of them were rowing songs, stevedore songs, slave songs, minstrel songs, shore songs from the theatres, but most were probably started off by the chantymen themselves, and if we are to believe the few contemporary accounts the actual chantyman's lines were extemporised after the first couple of verses.

If you're referring back to the black watches who brought them onto the ships these particular ones were already being sung on the docks by the stevedores. Once the whole idea took off, pretty quickly I'd imagine, the basic outlines came in from all sorts of sources.

This is just an opinion but I'd imagine the simple short-haul and halyard chanties would easily have been made up by anyone aboard. The more complex capstan chanties would be more likely to have been based on existing shore songs. Amsterdam for instance is an adaptation of an English folk song. (not the one Hugill refers to).

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 04:33 PM

Yes, all this makes perfect sense. It seems in this context the "spontaneous" creation of songs by ordinary people (perhaps without much narrative, for the most part) is accepted without difficulty, argument or acrimony. Why is it different with regard to other anonymous, even communal songs? Just a thought which I consider relevant to other threads which have seen much activity recently and indeed currently.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: RTim
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 04:58 PM

I have often wondered about the Ships of the East India Company - built in India and crewed by Indians.......Did they sing on board???

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 06:16 PM

Interesting thought, Tim. Worth trying to follow up. Ah, no, the East Indiamen were always well manned and run almost on RN lines. I would imagine there would be no call for chanties. Remember chanties were born out of necessity.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: RTim
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 06:23 PM

I think I came to the same conclusion..The East India Company was the de facto British Government in India in earlier times and the ships were likely to be run on the British Naval lines...therefore No shanties....

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 06:31 PM

The chanties were very different beasts to the mainly ballads sung on shore and in the foc's'le. Totally different conditions. A worksong is a tool, not a piece of entertainment. Nobody I know of (well okay one, who keeps distorting everything anyone posts) would suggest that ordinary people did not create songs, they obviously did. The situation in nineteenth century England was that they were swamped with mass-produced songs just like today and the few locally produced songs in rural areas didn't stand much of a chance of becoming part of oral tradition. Or if they did only a few of the them survived to be recorded in oral tradition.

What do you mean by 'communal songs'? the chanties weren't communal in the sense that it was one man making it up, the chantyman. The crew knew the chorus and tune, but didn't take part in the creation as far as we know.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 06:48 PM

An interesting comparison actually ABCD. The relatively small percentage of folk songs that didn't come from urban commercial sources do have characteristics in common with the chanties. They tend to be the simpler repetitive catalogue type songs as opposed to narrative or lyrical songs.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 10:12 PM

Not disagreeing in any significant way, at all. I thought about "communal" for a while, since mention of "work songs" in several threads brought to mind Waulking Songs, with a solo line given out by one singer followed by all the other women. There are certainly old B&W newsreels of Hebridean women at this work. The word is, I thought, sufficiently broad to cover that "choral" sense as well as implying songs known in a community. Not intending to set up or challenge definitions or anything, just intrigued by the different kinds of "atmosphere" encountered in different discussions despite there being some similarities with regard to materials and ideas, in my view at least. Good Luck. ABCD.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 11:01 PM

es.wiki: Saloma

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 05:35 PM

Still, different usages of the word 'communal' as you say. I could quite imagine the waulking songs being communal in that as they were doing that task it would easily lend itself to different persons involved in making up the verses. In that case I would say 'communal' would cover it. However, we are led to believe that the chantyman was the soloist and the others doing the work and singing the chorus, that's the nature of the beast.

The problem with this in our sphere here, there were endless arguments in the early 20th century amongst largely American scholars some of whom tried to claim that the ballads were made up communally, until the theory was eventually thrown out of the window. One of Child's students, Francis Gummere, was one of the first proponents and then the studies of Albert Lord and Parry in the Balkans lent weight to the theory. So 'communal' is a bit of a dirty word in folk research circles.

However I have come across songs that would qualify for 'communal composition', though a single person would still have come up with the tune and chorus. We have a very widespread and popular 'bothy' song in my neck of the woods that has so many wide-ranging verses involved that it must have been the composition over time of many people. I imagine at least some of the NE bothy ballads must have originated in this way. Also you could easily imagine that some of the more basic catalogue type rugby songs were created in this way.

Nowadays we only think of communal composition in terms of these songs having been passed through many voices and having been altered so many times that in that sense the latest version has been communally composed.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 11 Mar 20 - 07:05 PM

Again, in broad agreement, and thanks for taking the time to expand upon what was admittedly a bit of a throwaway expression. The Bothy Ballads, or "Cornkisters", tend not to figure very often in the kind of discussions I've been following with interest over the last month or so,though they're surely of some relevance, even if they don't feature in the collections most often cited. Anyway, not Spanish shanties, so an end to "drifting".

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 May 20 - 12:21 PM

I have just been listening to Mateo Flecha's "La Bomba" ("The Pump"), a sort of madrigal/cantata/mini-opera from the early 16th century - he called it an "ensalada", meaning salad, and it may have been performed as a Christmas play.

It's a wild and complicated piece, describing a ship foundering in a storm. Flecha used a lot of folk material, much of it brought back by sailors from Africa or the Americas, and there are African rhythms everywhere. But they give up on pumping fairly early on and take to desperate interjectory prayers before they get rescued. You might find genuine pumping shanties somewhere in that frantic Africanized texture, but the prayers seem to me a much better bet as a source of 16th century maritime folk material.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Herr Señor Sir Monsieur S
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 07:03 AM

This article gives an overview on the music in the Spanish Armade from the XVI until today

https://abcblogs.abc.es/espejo-de-navegantes/otros-temas/la-musica-y-la-armada-en-los-siglos-xvi-xvii-y-xviii.html

However it only briefly mentions shanties, they say that the few attested songs are just regular popular songs that can be found in "cancioneros" from that time. Also that it was in many times standard for the spanish armada to have musicians in the crew so it can also be that shanties never truly developed since music was available. But that is just a hypothesis. I will search a historian in spanish naval history, maybe that will help.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 08:08 AM

Manpower in previous centuries was always a very cheap commodity. Slavery and shanghaiing were common so that particularly any service force like a navy would have an endless supply of labourers. In such circumstances singing at work would be unnecessary and bad for discipline. Needles in haystacks!

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,s
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 11:22 AM

Some songs are mentioned here:

https://armada.defensa.gob.es/archivo/rgm/2011/10/cap03.pdf

the link is in spanish

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 04:07 PM

I've been meaning to get back to Maritime work song in general.

Which do we think came first, the end of The Spanish Inquisition or the start of The Steam Age? Hint: The Jesuits were never into WASPy maritime pop tunes. What Shall we do with the Drunken Sailor? was a question one didn't want to see answered.

One of several functions of the celeusma, saloma, shanty is cadence. Does the military make use of the cadence? Yup and, in proceleumatic terms, it's generally agreed their utililty increases with the size and diversity of the labour cohort, not the other way around. Lyrics are always optional but only if one can afford a musician.

For early martial/naval usuage of the nautical celeusma (saloma) see Polybius. It didn't begin or end there.

The Basque whaling fleet made up a very large portion of the Spanish Armada. Discinctions between military, merchant and religious practices are going to be difficult to make.

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 04:56 PM

Two references on the formal end of the State shanty era in Catholic navies posted earlier in Chanteys in Royal Navy?:

"Tous les travaux de peine, toutes les manœuvres de force étaientf aites à bord — et cette habitude se conserva en France sur les navires de guerre jusque vers 1820, — au bruit d'un chant rhythmé ou d'un cri cadencé, auquel l'excitation du sifflet a fini par succéder."
[Review des Traditions Populaires, Vol.XV, 1900, pp.202-203]

“SALOMA. He a cantiga, ou gritaria*, que fazem os marinheiros , quando alão algum cabo, cujo salomear he prohibido nos nossos Navios de Guerra.”
[Campos, Mauricio Da Costa Campos, Vocabulario Marujo, (Rio De Janeiro, 1823, p.93)]

*Note: Gritaria - Same Latin root as the so-called Afro-calypsonian griot.

Spongebob's Victory Screech in 10 Languages

Subject: RE: Spanish sea shanties
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Jan 21 - 07:14 PM

Lyr Add: Howe! Hissa! (Shanty) is from a 14th century pilgrimage to Galicia.

It's part of the general body of rhythmic sounds watermen used when going about tasks in unison.

The relationship to shanties depends on consumers of popular culture, not naval science or recorded history.