Quiscaloro: seizing opportunity

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I was lucky to hear an Argentinian recently sing this song at the Wilderness tango event in Devon.  

He said quiscaloro is a fruit and that this was one of the the songs we usually sing.  Whether he meant in his folk group or just with people is unclear.  

Our voices and the tinpot guitar we borrowed must have drifted upstairs and out through the window to the garden.  Come and perform at the milonga! we were asked, but we demurred.  It was just kitchen music, fireside music. Yet that was exactly what I had wanted.  When I had sung with dad harmonising, it was often, just doing the washing up.  Music just to accompany the rest of life. Beto didn't even want to play in the sunny garden.  No, no hablan castellano... but more was implied.  It wasn't just the Spanish., the cultural gap, the mindset was vast between Britain and folk songs from Argentina. He was right. Although my Spanish was good, I knew my understanding of the culture, despite years of attention was hugely limited.   What then, for people without the language or even that limited knowledge?  In folk songs, you hear Argentinians, Latin Americans are often proud of where they are from, whereas we are often ashamed.  We don't call women with slanty eyes "little chinese".  We don't think of women having masters or being prey in a good way.  Or, generally that adultery is a cute thing [Coplas pa'l pata 'i lana]. How do you go about explaining that all that stuff is not necessarily what it seems?

I called this post "seizing opportunity" but given how very spiky the thorns on these fruits appear, I find another Argentinian song raises yet another irony or contradiction.  

The man encouraged me to sing  - what else do you know? - while on the guitar he accompanied the songs he didn't know from across Latin America including what he called Centroamérica.  To  my surprise this seemed to include Colombia and Venezuela.  When I asked about it my sense of the answer was that they were  "near enough" Central America to be included, at least at that moment, in that region.  I think the idea is that they were "less like us" though I am not sure who "us" might have been - Uruguay,  I suppose and maybe Chile; Paraguay too perhaps, although no-one ever talks of Paraguay.  I think I've only ever met one Paraguayan.  It is the hidden country of South America. But for that matter what what has Chile got to do with Uruguay?  

It caused me to reflect further though, on the musical differences across the continent.  The idea crystallised that of course, the chacareras, chamamé and zambas of Argentina are nothing like the cumbia of Colombia, the son or guajiras of Cuba, or Mexican / Cuban boleros. So why should I be surprised if a porteño musician didn't know them or not know a song from north west Argentina, 1000 miles away. A Colombian musician I knew didn't rate bullerengue, from the Carribean coast, much, and mixed it up with currulao, which is underpinned by marimba and comes from the Pacific coast.  Folk music, by definition tends to be regional. People grow up with the music that tends to be played or listened to in their family, or the people around them which in turn is usually defined by the region they come from. 

With hindsight I only wish I had heard more from him of the songs he knew but we passed another morning in chat and missed that opportunity.

As in Coplas pa'l pata 'i lana, things in Quiscaloro may not be quite as they seem.  Here, the man is the main protagonist and yet the old woman somehow dominates the song even while he soon forgets her. How? Maybe just through that phrases "llena de malicia" [full of cunning] and "muy advertida"  Advertida here is in the context of her punishing the girls but it doesn't mean harsh, so much as astute, or aware.

So is she mean?  Is she crafty?  Does she just want to spoil things or does she set set up the scene for the boy to meet the girls? . Does she adhere to social mores, deliberately undermine them or just accidentally not keeping a tight rein on the young people? She invites him along, seems to make a fuss when one of the girls dawdles and yet she leaves boy and girl alone later while she goes for firewood.  Why didn't she send one girl for water and the other for firewood? Did she even tell one of the girls to go for water so the other would be left alone with the boy? Then she punishes both girls and yet he later finds the opportunity to "console" them.  

So is the old woman a bit dotty and distracted or manipulative and with what intent? It is hard to think of a folk song in which a mother deliberately lets her daughters dally with a man so how does engineering that situation makes sense?  And yet, it is stated she has an awareness of what is going on. The questions only occured to me later but the ambiguity as well as someone, or perhaps everyone, taking advantage of the situation struck me as very Argentinian .

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Para juntar quiscaloro¹  una vieja me invitó

To gather some prickly pears, an old lady invited me
Tenía dos chinitas² lindas y la cosa me gustóShe had two cute girls, and I liked the idea
Agarramos a la siesta³ con rumbo que ella nos dioWe headed out in the afternoon, following her lead

Las tres iban adelante y más atrasito⁴ yoThe three were ahead, and I was trailing behind
Vieja llena de malicia⁵ cuando una se le quedóThe old lady was cunning, when one of them got left behind

Empezó a gritar de apuro la madre que la tiróThe mother started yelling in a panic, when the girl was left behind⁶
Quiscaloro, quiscaloro ese tiempo ya pasóQuiscaloro, quiscaloro, that time has come and gone

Olvidé pronto a la vieja pero a las chinitas noI quickly forgot the old lady, but not the girls

En una paila⁷ de fierro para arrope preparóIn an iron pot, she prepared some syrup
Las chinitas las pelaban el fuego soplaba yoThe girls were peeling the fruit while I blew on  the flames
The old lady went for firewood, one went for waterLa vieja salió por leña una por agua se fue
La otra se metió en el rancho vaya a saber para quéThe other slipped into the cabin, who knows what for
La vieja muy advertida a las dos las castigóThe old lady, very sharp, punished both of them
Y después una por una me las consolaba yoAnd then each in turn I consoled them
Quiscaloro, quiscaloro ese tiempo ya pasóQuiscaloro, quiscaloro, that time has come and gone
Olvidé pronto a la vieja pero a las chinitas noI quickly forgot the old lady, but not the girls

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1.  I think we know the fruit as prickly pear.  A good picture here on a page relating to the Argentinian Chaco region says it is Tuna Opuntia although this is native to the Caribbean. Here is the fruit, cut open. The few pointers on the web suggest quiscaloro is this fruit.
However, Harrisia pomanensis is a rare high-growing cactus bearing a similar fruit found exclusively in the province of Catamarca. 
2.  During a chacarera lesson Beto explained to the group that china, a common term for a girl or woman in Argentina is because the country women can have almond shaped eyes, as he said has one of his relatives.  This led to the term "china" though the origin of the term he said has been largely forgotten. The same diminutive "ita" is used here as we saw employed to such powerful effect in Coplas para el pata 'i lana.  It adds to the idea of the girls being young, sweet, attractive, maybe vulnerable.
3.  Agarrar is usually to grab, catch or take but here means to set off.
4. The use of the diminutive maybe suggests that his lagging behind was a little bit contrived, but also makes it harmless. The more I see the diminutive in use, the more I admire it as a flexible and subtle device. In Colombia and some parts of Spain [map] they say "ico/a" instead of "ito/a".  E.g. En un ratico, un momentico.
5.Malicia can mean malice, but here is more likely to mean  cunning, shrewdness.
6.  I asked what this was. No, not a sartén (frying pan) and not an olla (cooking pot), but something inbetween.
7. Deliberately or inadvertently?