THE

'HE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE (Quarterly: Editor, Franz Boas), issued by the American Folk-Lore Society, is designed for the collection and publication of the folk-lore and mythology of the American Continent. The subscription price is three dollars per annum.

The American Folk-Lore Society was organized January 4, 1888. The Society holds annual meetings, at which reports are received and papers read. The yearly membership fee is three dollars. Members are entitled to receive The Journal of American Folk-Lore. Subscribers to the Journal, or other persons interested in the objects of the Society, are eligible to membership, and are requested to address the Permanent Secretary to that end.

Authors alone are responsible for the contents of their papers.

Officers of the American Folk-Lore Society (1918).

President. C. M. Barbeau.

First Vice-President.-G. L. Kittredge.

Second Vice-President.-J. Walter Fewkes.

Councillors. For three years: J. R. Swanton, E. K. Putnam, Stith Thompson. For two years: R. B. Dixon, E. Sapir, A. L. Kroeber. For one year: Phillips Barry, S. A. Barrett, A. M. Espinosa. Past Presidents: John A. Lomax, Pliny Earle Goddard, Robert H. Lowie. Presidents of Local Branches: Charles Peabody, A. M. Tozzer, D. L. Thomas, Miss Mary A. Owen, Haywood Parker, Reed Smith, Clyde G. Glasscock, John M. Stone, John Harrington Cox, Alexander Fraser, Ernest Myrand.

Editor of Journal.-Franz Boas, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

Associate Editors. — George Lyman Kittredge, Aurelio M. Espinosa, C.-Marius Barbeau, Elsie Clews Parsons.

Permanent Secretary.-Charles Peabody, Cambridge, Mass.

Treasurer.-Alfred M. Tozzer.

Officers of Local and State Branches and Societies.

BOSTON.-President, Charles Peabody; First Vice-President, A. V. Kidder; Second Vice-President, Helen Leah Reed; Secretary, Mrs. J. W. Courtney; Treasurer, Samuel B. Dean.

CAMBRIDGE.-President, A. M. Tozzer; Vice-President, Mrs. E. F. Williams; Treasurer, Carleton E. Noyes; Secretary, Mrs. W. Scudder.

KENTUCKY.-President, D. L. Thomas; Vice-Presidents, Mrs, Fannie C. Duncan. Miss Tosenhine McGill; Secretary, Miss Myra Sanders; Treasurer, John F. Smit

MISSOURI.-President, Miss Mary A. Owen; Vice-Presidents, } Case, Miss Jennie M. A. Jones, Mrs. Edward Schaaf; Secretary, Williams; Directors, A. E. Bostwick, Miss Jennie F. Chase, Leal

NORTH CAROLINA.-President, Haywood Parker; Secretary and Treasurer, Frank C. Brown. NORTH DAKOTA.—Secretary, George F. Will.

SOUTH CAROLINA.- President, Reed Smith; Vice-President, Henry C. Davis; Secretary and Treasurer, F. W. Cappelmann.

TENNESSEE.-Secretary, Henry M. Wiltse.

TEXAS.-President, Dr. Clyde G. Glasscock; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Adele B. Looscan, W. S. Hendrix; Secretary, W. P. Webb; Treasurer, Stith Thompson; Councillors, Mrs. Lillie T. Shaver, L. W. Payne, Jr., Miss Dorothy Scarborough.

VIRGINIA.-President, John M. Stone; Vice-President, Miss Martha M. Davis; Secretary-Treasurer, Walter A. Montgomery; Archivist, C. Alphonso Smith.

WEST VIRGINIA.-President and General Editor, John Harrington Cox; Vice-President, Robert Allen Armstrong; Secretary-Treasurer, Walter Barnes.

MEXICO.-President, Manuel Gamio.

ONTARIO.-President, Dr. Alexander Fraser; Vice-Presidents, Lawrence J. Burpee, W. H. Clawson, W. J. Wintemberg; Secretary, C. M. Barbeau; Treasurer, F. W. Waugh.

QUEBEC.-President, Ernest Myrand; Vice-Presidents, E. Z. Massicotte, Victor Morin; Secretary, C. M. Barbeau; Treasurer, F. W. Waugh.

Entered as second-class matter, July 6, 1911, at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pa., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE.

VOL. 31.-JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1918.-No. 121.

PORTO-RICAN FOLK-LORE.

DÉCIMAS, CHRISTMAS CAROLS, NURSERY RHYMES, AND OTHER SONGS.

BY J. ALDEN MASON.

EDITED BY AURELIO M. ESPINOSA.

In the last Hispanic number of this Journal1 we gave a brief account of the abundant collection of Spanish folk-lore brought together through the efforts of Dr. J. Alden Mason, of the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago, as part of the survey of Porto Rico undertaken by the New York Academy of Sciences. The folk-tales, which constitute the most important and abundant part of the collection, are now being prepared for publication with the co-operation of the New York Academy of Sciences. The riddles, which made the second best collection of its kind in Spanish America, were published in the Hispanic number of this Journal above mentioned. There remain two more important branches of folk-lore in the Mason collection, the popular coplas, which number some six hundred or more, and the material which we are now publishing under the title "Décimas, Christmas Carols," etc.2

The poetic material now published has extraordinary importance and interest. Its importance lies in the fact that such an abundant number of compositions of this nature exist in Porto Rico, showing the great vitality and vigor of that class of poetical compositions among

129: 423-425.

2 A fifth important part of the material, the traditional ballads, has already been prepared for publication, and will appear shortly in the Revue Hispanique. There are some twenty traditional ballads in thirty-five versions. The collection is in all respects one of the best from Spanish America, and is a very valuable addition to the SpanishAmerican collections of traditional ballads already made in Chile (Vicuña Cifuentes, Romances Populares y Vulgares [Santiago, 1912]), Cuba (Chacón y Calvo, Romances tradicionales en Cuba [Habana, 1914]; and Carolina Poncet, El Romance en Cuba [Habana, 1914]), Santo Domingo (Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Romances de América, Cuba Contemporánea [December, 1913, Habana]), and New Mexico (Espinosa, "Romancero Nuevomejicano" [Revue Hispanique, Paris, 1915]).

the people. The décimas, all classes, are real poetry. The popular poets have often been under the influence of real poetic inspiration. One suspects in some cases semi-learned influences; but, even so, they are considered anonymous, have no known authors, and are in every respect the poetry of the people. These décimas deal with all phases of human life, and the ideas of the people are involved in them. In all Spanish countries, Spain and Spanish America, the popular poetic form, par excellence, is the copla or octosyllabic quatrain in assonance. The redondillas and cuartetas are developed from the older copla, and may be considered in the same class. In Porto Rico it is clear, from Dr. Mason's collection at least, that the popular octosyllabic copla has a worthy rival in the décimas (with the title of "aguinaldo" in the case of the hexasyllabic décimas, and also other cases). The folkpoetry of other Spanish countries known to me does not share this dual rivalry of poetic forms. Everywhere, to my knowledge, the copla holds undisputed sway, with the single apparent exception of Porto Rico. In New Mexico the décimas are well known, but are not abundant. They are all in octosyllabic metre, and deal, as a rule, only with love, adventure, and ballad material. Hexasyllabic décimas dealing with love and adventure and especially with biblical tradition, many being beautiful Christmas carols called "aguinaldos," all so abundant in the popular tradition of Porto Rico, are not well known in New Mexico. A close examination of all my published and unpublished New-Mexican Spanish folk-lore would not reveal all together more than a score of popular compositions of any kind in hexasyllabic verse.1 A comparison between the exact forms of New-Mexican, Porto-Rican, and other décimas, is given later in Part I of this article.

Since most of the décimas are evidently modern, or at least modern adaptations of old models, if any, and they are anonymous, this class of poetry is popular in all respects. The poetas or cantadores, as they are called, who compose and recite or sing them, are as a rule men of humble walks of life, who have no pretensions of any kind. I suspect, however, that in Porto Rico, and perhaps also in other countries, the décima is cultivated by more pretentious poets; and it is not unlikely that many of the compositions that have attracted our admiration and attention are the product of learned poets, who composed them for the people and abandoned them to their fate. A few of the décimas and so-called aguinaldos had the names of the composers in the manuscript copies; but since much of the material was signed by the chil

1 See my "Romancero Nuevomejicano" (Revue Hispanique, 1915: 67-92). There are twenty-three décimas published in the "Romancero Nuevomejicano," all in octosyllabic verse. In the popular pastorelas mentioned in another part of this publication, however, there are many popular selections in hexasyllabic verse. In a few of the semilearned sacred hymns or Cánticos Espirituales of the New-Mexican collection of Father Ralliére (Las Vegas, 1913), we find several compositions in this metre.

dren of the schools, who collected a large part of the material, it was not thought wise to give the names of composers. Whether some of the décimas and longer Christmas carols are printed in Porto Rico in the local newspapers, or privately, I do not know. In New Mexico many of the popular modern ballad-like compositions and décimas that treat of deaths, public calamities, and the like, are frequently printed in the local newspapers, and thus become popular.1 In Chile the décimas are also well known; but most of those collected and published by Lenz are of known authorship,2 and seem less popular than in Porto Rico. As in New Mexico, however, they adhere more closely to a fixed traditional form, as we shall show in another part of this article.

The extraordinary interest which one finds in the poetical compositions under consideration, including also the aguinaldos, lies in the metrical problems involved. We have already stated that the hexasyllabic metre, so popular in Porto Rico, is by no means the most popular Spanish metre. From early times to the present day the popular Spanish metre, both in learned and popular poetry, has been the octosyllabic. It seems to be the metre of the lost epics, and appears in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the ballad metre. From the ballads it passed to the classic drama, and since the end of the sixteenth century it has reigned supreme in learned and popular poetry alike. The reasons for the popularity of other metres in modern Spanish folk-poetry are to be found in the isolation or close contact of the various regions of the Spanish-speaking world, as the case may be. It is clear to me that the great popularity of the octosyllabic verse in New Mexico is quite in line with the strength of Old-Spanish tradition there in all matters. The ballads from New Mexico, the riddles, and other materials, show greater signs of archaism than the ballads and other materials from any other place, for the simple reason that Spanish tradition in New Mexico represents an older stage. In fact, New Mexico has been isolated, and has lived independently of Peninsular-Spanish tradition, for over three centuries. In the South-American countries and Mexico the case is quite different, and in Porto Rico it is safe to assume that modern Spanish tradition has been in continual contact with that of the mother country to the present day. The ballad of Alfonso Doce, for example, an adaptation of an old Spanish ballad of the sixteenth century, is found in Mexico, Cuba, and Porto Rico; but the version from New Mexico has nothing to do with these, and is a real traditional version of the old ballad. The old

1 "Romancero Nuevomejicano" (op. cit., 66 and 79).

* Lenz, "Über die gedruckte Volkspoesie von Santiago de Chile" (in Tobler, Abhandlungen (Halle, 1895], 161–163).

2 "Romancero Nuevomejicano" (op. cit., 33).