Spanish sea shanties

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.