San Antonio ya se va / Abuela Santa Ana
Performed by Renacer Malagueño.
Recorded June 8, 2025 in La Plata, municipality of Buenaventura,
Valle del Cauca, Colombia (acquisition date: October 2, 2025).
Performed with shaker. Recorded by Rowan Glass on behalf of Derek Piotr.
Renacer Malagueño: Aura Nelly, Rosa Angulo, Marlin Valencia, Vanesa Morena.
San Antonio (Anthony of Padua) is an important figure in local folk Catholicism.
Like other Afro-Colombian communities, Bahía Málaga is characterized by syncretic religious traditions that evince the community's African heritage merged with the Catholicism they received from the Spanish.
Songs concerning San Antonio in particular were in the air the week these songs were recorded, as San Antonio's patronal feast day is June 13.
Versions of "San Antonio ya se va", a traditional bunde tune and alabao (both expressions of Afro-Colombian spiritual music with a ritual dimension),
are common throughout the Afro-Colombian Pacific. This song includes verses borrowed from a lullaby common throughout Caribbean Latin America,
"Señora Santana" (here rendered as "Abuela Santa Ana"). While some of the lyrics are adopted in modified form,
the melody of the traditional lullaby gives way to that of the Afro-Colombian bunde.
The combination of two songs centering Catholic saints, the latter being a lullaby, identifies this song as a typical arrullo,
a type of Afro-Colombian spiritual lullaby, performed in ceremonial contexts, that involves paying homage to the saints in return for favor.
Arrullos often depict saintly figures in mundane, human environments. The syncretic intertwining of spiritual practice with diverse musical genres,
and the juxtaposition of the sacred and the mundane, is typical of Afro-Colombian folk musics.
Mira qué bonito lo vienen bajando
Con ramos de flores lo van adorando
Mira qué bonito lo vienen bajando
Con ramos de flores lo van adorando
Oí-o-a San Antonio ya se va (x2)
Abuela Santa Ana, por qué llora el niño
Por una manzana que se le ha perdido
Y Abuela Santa Ana, por qué llora el niño
Por una manzana que se le ha perdido
Oí-o-a San Antonio ya se va (x2)
Abuela Santa Ana, qué dicen de vos
Que soy soberana y abuela de Dios
Y Abuela Santa Ana, qué dicen de vos
Que soy soberana y abuela de Dios
Oí-o-a San Antonio ya se va (x2)
Y Abuela Santa Ana, se quema el arroz
Déjalo quemar, que no es para vos
Y Abuela Santa Ana, se quema el arroz
Déjalo quemar, que no es para vos
Oí-o-a San Antonio ya se va (x2)
Abuela Santa Ana, por qué llora el niño
Por una manzana que se le ha perdido
Y Abuela Santa Ana, por qué llora el niño
Por una manzana que se le ha perdido
Y él no quiere una ni tampoco dos
Quiere su manzana que se le perdió
Y él no quiere una ni tampoco dos
Quiere su manzana que se le perdió
Oí-o-a San Antonio ya se va (x3)
