Folklife Spotlight: Colombian town keeps 400-year-old traditions alive
By hola | Published | 2 Comments
Kamentzá drummer Adris Padilla Julio
Kumo, ¿Kusa a tá?
It’s a familiar phrase spoken every day in the village of Palenque de San Basilio, a small but vibrant Afro-indigenous community on Colombia’s Caribbean Coast.
The translation: Hola, ¿Cómo estás? (Hello. How are you?), says Adris Padilla Julio, a Kamentzá drummer and musician from a village founded 400 years ago by escaped slaves who formed some of the first free communities of Black people in South America.
“We all know one another. We have only two neighborhoods (Barrio Arriba and Barrio Abajo), a plaza, health center and one school,” says Padilla one of 3,500 inhabitants of Palenque.
He is part of a group of palenqueros taking part the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which this year includes a focus on endangered cultures and languages around the globe.
Palenque, a mixture of Creole, Spanish, Portuguese, and African Bantu, is one of more than 7,000 languages in danger of extinction, according to the Smithsonian.
-Story & audio by Ashley Luke
-Photo by Francesca Gaudio
Palenque 101:
Pronombres de la lengua palenquera | Pronouns in the Palenque language
i = yo = I
suto = nosotros = we
Bo = tú = you
ele = él, ella = him or her
ané = ellos, ellas = them
enú = ustedes = you (plural)
Lengua Ri Palengé | Lengua de Palenque | Common words + phrases in Palenque
kombilesa = amigo/a = friend
mae = madre = mother
tatá = padre = father
¿Kumo, kusa a tá?| ¿Hola, cómo estás? | Hi. How are you?
I sindi ugongoroko pó Bó. | Yo siento amor por ti. | I love you.
The Folklife Festival continues July 3 to 7. Read Hola Cultura’s festival preview.
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