This post is also available in: Spanish
Some 300 years ago, ‘El Güegüense’ was born in Nicaragua. It’s a lively satirical play with lots of dance and music, celebrated by Nicaraguans and honored by the UN (UNESCO) list of “intangible cultural heritage”. El Güegüense’s origins are somewhat unclear; it seems to have grown out of oral tradition among indigenous people in the area during the colonial era.
The story centers around an wily, elderly indigenous man, who is El Güegüense. At the beginning of the story, the Governor, the local Spanish authority, asserts his control by banning music and dancing while lamenting not having nice enough clothes, furniture, and such. He blames el Güegüense for his situation and summons him.
When el Güegüense arrives, along with his son and step-son, he faces the Governor’s various complaints and accusations. El Güegüense feigns ignorance at times, boasts at times, and generally spins any point that he can to his favor. Through distraction, deceit, and dances, el Güegüense convinces the Governor that he should desire his friendship because of el Güegüense’s status and wealth (all a bluff). Before they are done, el Güegüense even manages get the Governor’s daughter to marry his son. And when the Governor asks them to bring the wine to celebrate, el Güegüense and his son respond to the request by mischievously using someone else’s wine.
A traditional performance of El Güegüense in Diriamba, Nicaragua. Photo by Jorge Mejía Peralta
Nicaraguans draw various meanings out of this story. To some it is about Nicaragua’s culture of humor and resilience, finding joy or laughter even in difficult circumstances. It is also something of an origin story in the narrative of Nicaragua’s struggle against imperialism. It is a symbol of protest, a mockery of the oppressor. As the El Güegüense is acted out, there is significant use of masks. This is a symbol of its own, hiding an identity for both art and laughter, as well as safety and resistance. The symbolism of el Güegüense has shown up in the streets in times of protest during the Somoza dictatorship and again during the 2018 protests.
The primary plot or conversation in the play is between the governor and el Güegüense, but tucked into the story is also a level of conversation between the el Güegüense, his son, and his step-son. The son is on great terms with his father, consistently giving and receiving affirmation. However the relationship between el Güegüense and the step-son is a hostile one, as step-parent/step-child relationships often are in folk tales from other cultures.
This is an interesting layer in the story that is much less discussed. The conversation between el Güegüense and his stepson is full of satirical insults and manipulation, similar to the conversation with the Governor, but in this situation el Güegüense is the one with more social status. El Güegüense is at the center of the story, and maybe this is simply showing how his character interacts with everyone around him. It might also suggest that the same skill or person who challenges and takes power from an oppressor can also be abusive, transferring injustice. At all these levels, the interaction between the powerful and the powerless in the play is literally and symbolically a dance.
Photo by Jorge Mejía Peralta
I had the symbolism of el Güegüense in the back of my mind as I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book ‘Talking to Strangers’ (thanks to parents-in-law for the book!). In his past books and his podcast, I’ve enjoyed his storytelling and ability to question the history we tell ourselves. This latest book probably spent too much time on high-profile criminal cases to try to understand ordinary human interactions or misunderstandings, but the questions he was looking to answer and some of his observations are still worth considering.
In our world, we inevitably interact with “strangers.” We overlook the importance of location, contexts/background, and misread one another’s communication/gestures. And sometimes in trying to pay attention to one aspect of misunderstanding, we get it wrong or inadvertently cause other problems. Through all of this fumbling along, Gladwell observes that there is a tendency to cast the blame on the stranger.
In the stories of breakdowns in understanding that Gladwell tells such as police abuse or sexual assault, the play ‘El Güegüense’ might suggest he under-emphasizes the impact of asymmetries of power and differences in cultural communication. In many of these stories it seems the person who holds power projects his understanding or interest onto the other, which ended badly in these stories. As dramatic as Gladwell’s stories are, “listening but not understanding” is an everyday challenge (Mark 4:12).
Try as we may to be in solidarity with the vulnerable, as U.S. citizens here in Nicaragua, we are still outsiders. We mistakenly assume we’ve understood someone or that we’ve been understood. We miss cultural cues or miss the humor around us. As we fumble along, how do we avoid becoming the jaded expat, blaming culture or institutions around us that we have not fully understood?
Caution and humility, Gladwell suggests, are important first steps in talking to strangers. There are many values we could add, including time, listening, value/interest, sharing, play, lament, grace…
If we are going to be part of a process of making right our world of inequality and injustice, we need to work at understanding. El Güegüense seems to suggest that we need to see the ridiculousness of our society’s brokenness and also how we’re wrapped up in it.
Sometimes we need to ask again (and again) to understand the joke. Maybe we can laugh together, and sometimes it means a willingness to laugh also at ourselves.
Derrick Charles is MCC Co-Representative for Nicaragua. This post was originally published on his family blog, Searching for the Word.
Photographs by Jorge Mejía Peralta used under Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).