[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he word cumbia orginates in West Africa and derives from “cumbé,” which means “celebration.” It reached Colombia’s shores with slaves and took root in the backwaters of the Magdalena River, Sinú Valley, and foothills of the Bolívar department.
It evolved into a traditional dance, performed by candlelight with gaita flutes.
Cumbia is not only a traditional Colombian dance. It is the physical manifestation of the racial assimilation that took place during colonial times between the black man and the indigenous woman.
In towns along the Caribbean coast, cumbia is still performed by musicians wearing emblematic red scarfs — often in the shade of a mango tree — while barefoot women sway in embroidered dresses across a sandy floor.
Though cumbia remains an iconic sound in this country, it has also reverberated around the world and can be heard with the same passion in Manchester, England, as in Mompós.
The town of Guamal in the Magdalena department lies in the cradle of cumbia. But it was only 35 years ago, in the restaurant of Mary Luz Saucedo, when Maximiliano Guerra, Jhon Alvarado, Orlando Ramos and José Ignacio Mejía — after having attended a parranda street party in a nearby village the night before — decided to host their own celebration of this musical tradition as an excuse to integrate the village folk.
They named their gathering “La Cumbia del 30” in honor of the small, motorized canoes, the “Johnsons,” which moor on the riverbank every Dec. 30 laden with alcohol, fruits and the musical instruments of the roving cumbia troubadors.
The celebration begins with the wake-up of the village roosters. Then the streets are cleared for the dancers, who emerge at dusk holding tradition in their hands: stalks of plantain leaves and burning candles that help punctuate dance moves that originated in Africa and have become embedded into Colombian heritage.
Photo by Carlos Bernate
