It was not possible to study all Jarocho rhythms, so the group selected one traditional song, La Iguana. In January 2005, S-Ankh met with Jaguara. He listed to the group perform several dances acapella.  The most prevalent African rhythm that he heard, was the rhythm of Kakilambe.

Although the Afro-Mexican rhythms and traditions of Eastern Mexico are known as Yanga (after an African hero see below), the Kakilambe rhythm is not from Yanga's country of origin, Gabon. Kakilambe is a rhythmic tradition of the Baga people of Guinea.  African slaves from many ethnic groups passed through the seaport of Veracruz.

Baga Women and Drums

Traditionally Baga women did not play the dun-dun or dejembes  as shown above.  Members of the Baga women’s association known as A-Tekan (ah-te-khan), played a drum called a-ndef (ah-endeaf) a large drum which required its player to stand.  The drum in the shape of a woman was carved from a single piece of wood. The drum symbolized female power. Initiation into A-Tekan and other institutions of female solidarity and cohesion was generally restricted to women who had bore children. The a-ndef was played at annual initiation ceremonies, as well as for funerals and marriages. While an A-Tekan officer played the a-ndef other female members sang, danced, and played other instruments.
 

The Nimba Mask

The Kakilambe rhythm was sung to call the spirit of Nimba from the forest. The spirit of Nimba was symbolized by a massive mask representing  the Goddess of fertility to the Baga people. Nimba is one of the most massive masks used in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Nimba mask represented an abstraction of the Baga's ideal of the female in society. The flat, pendant breasts conveyed ideals of womanhood-- giving  birth to many children and selflessly nurturing them to adulthood. The intricately braided hair on the mask  is representative of the patterns of agriculture, the planting of fields, and the nourishing the community.  Nimba appeared at weddings, funerals, and harvest celebrations.

Indigenous dancers enter representing the mixing of cultures. Spanish dance costumes were also to have been worn.

www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/legacy/almthird.html

African Slaves in Mexico

Historians vary in their estimates. It is believed that 250,000 and perhaps as many as 500,000 Africans were brought to colonial Mexico. In 1537, the first shiploads of slaves were hardly off the boat when a slave uprising occurred in Mexico City. At this time only about a fifth of Mexico was in under Spanish dominion.

During the 1540s there were two uprisings of Blacks near Mexico City. In the period between 1560-1580, Afromexicans who had fled the mines in Zacatecas kept the area in turmoil with raids on haciendas and roads. During this period, a group of Blacks escaped from the silver mines of Zacatecas and formed a union with the unconquered Chichimec Indians northwest of the city. Together they waged a brutal war upon the settlers. Also in the late 1500s, slaves from the Pachuca mines rose up and fled the city. They found refuge in an inaccessible cave from which they conducted raids to steal cattle and other necessities.

Geography

The  sugar plantations in coastal Vera Cruz produced great profits for the Spanish Empire. The slave masters employed chains and other cruel measures to control the slaves. Nevertheless, the mountains behind the Vera Cruz lowlands became the home of fiercely independent marooned communities of both Black and Indigenous people. The mountain range rises to 12,500 feet on the south, to 18,300 at Mt. Orizaba and 14,000 ft. at Cofre de Perote in the center. The 10,000 foot northern ridges are covered with jungle. This is where slaves and Indigenous natives hid away from the Spanish. A small city that had been part of the Aztec tributary state lay hidden in a small canyon. The Spaniards never discovered the city. The town remained occupied until the 1700s. The city's was not discovered by the outside world 1994.

Gaspar Vanga

In 1570, Gaspar Yanga lead a bloody slave rebellion in the sugar fields of Vera Cruz.  Gaspar Yanga was believed to have been a Dinka descendant of a royal family from  the African nation of Gabon.  Yanga led the  rebels into the mountains, where they found an inaccessible locale where they could settle and create a small town of about 500 people. To secure provisions, the Yangans conducted raids upon the Spanish caravans bringing goods Veracruz. Yanga established relations with neighboring runaway slaves and Indians. For more than thirty years, Yanga and his followers lived free. The growing community alarmed the Spanish. A royal war party left the city of Puebla in January of 1609 with the intent to crush Yanga.

In 1609, Yanga was an old man, "the revered ancient one."  Yanga had General de la Matosa gather fighters for a defense. The General dressed in clothing fitting a commander. He hoped to instill military decorum on troops which had little weaponry and nothing in the way of a military uniforms. Their combat had been guerrilla raids. Their army had a hundred fighters with firearms (some of which were old muskets of the conquistadors) and an additional four hundred others prepared to fight with rocks, poles, machetes, and bows and arrows. The Spanish war party of 550 marched into the mountains with 100 troops, as well as a  mix of adventurers looking for spoils, conscripted Mexicans including Indians and "mulatos."

Yanga must have considered a retreat further up into the wilderness. After living in the mountain for 39 years, Yanga had an intimate knowledge of the routes in and out of the ravines, around the 200 foot waterfalls, and through the forests of 150 foot high vine and fern covered trees.  Yanga decided to make a show of force in hopes of negotiating for peace. He considered that any free "homeland" would soon be crammed with runaway slaves.  Yanga, therefore offered the Spanish to return any new slaves who sought asylum in his free territory.

In early February 1609,  word reached Yanga that the Spanish war party was near. Yanga sent a captured Spanish prisoner to carry a message that offered the terms of a treaty and a warning that it would prove costly to take on the Yangans.

The Spanish rejected the treaty and a fierce engagement cost both sides heavy losses.  The Yangans retreated through their settlement. The Spanish troops entered and burned the settlement. After considering the prospect of chasing the Yangans further up the mountains, the Spanish instead sent a priest to  convince Yanga to surrender.  Yanga restated his terms: In return for a grant of farmable land and the right of self-government, he and his followers would return to the Crown authorities any of the slaves who, in the future, might flee to such a Black refuge. In addition to their own town, the rebels wanted it in writing that all the slaves who had fled before 1608 should be free; that only Franciscan friars should attend to their people; and that Yanga should be their governor and that the succession should go to his descendants. The Spanish did not accept the treaty. Before he died, Yanga would have in hand a treaty with the Spaniards that granted freedom to his followers and established their own "free town."  Although  the slave holders of the sugar plantations were fiercely apposed, the Crown finally acceded to Yanga's petitions.

The news of the agreement was greeted with great alarm among the Spanish residents of Mexico City. Slave owners considered the agreement a breech of private property rights. They wanted assurances that such a massive release of slaves would never happen again.

Rumors reached a boiling point on Easter week 1612. All parades and celebrations were canceled in fear that the activities would spark an uprising among the Afro-Mexicans. In the middle of the night on Easter a butcher paraded a pack of pigs into Mexico City. Something bothered the pigs. They began to squeal. Hysteria broke out as shutters were flung open. Shouts were heard. The populace assumed the Blacks and mulatos were rising up. By mid-day 33 Blacks (29 men and 4 women) had been rounded up for execution. As the Blacks were paraded by the Spanish authorities to the gallows they were beaten by a hysterical mob. The mass hanging did not satisfy the mob. Tearing the bodies to pieces, they placed the heads and other body parts on poles which were left hanging until the authorities determined that the stench was too foul. The body parts were then buried.

Yanga had requested better farmland. His town  was moved to better farm land in the lowlands. The Viceroy considered it preferable to have the Yangans live near the newly built military base than up in the mountains. Today the military base has become the city of Cordova. At the time of Mexican Independence Yanga's town then known as San Lorenzo de los Negros, had 719 people. Today the city has a population over 20,000 residents. The majority of the people are from the highlands rather than from the Afro-Mexicans of the region. Nonetheless, since 1986 the city has celebrated its founder in an annual August "Festival of Negritude."

Yanga, National Hero

Five decades after Mexican independence, the work of Riva Palacio made Yanga into a national hero.Riva Palacio was the grandson of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's first Black President.  In the late 1860s he studied the moldy Inquisition archives accounts of Yanga and of the Spanish expedition against him. His research brought Yang's story to the Mexican public in an anthology published in 1870. A separate pamphlet was published in 1873. Reprints followed, including an edition in 1997. Others have written about Yanga, but none have matched Riva Palacio's flair in bringing images of proud fugitives who would not be conquered to life.

Conclusion

While we cannot say definitively that Kakilambe gave raise to the rhythms in the song La Iguana. After learning to play the West African Kakilambe rhythm and after comparing it to the rhythm in   La Iguana the similarity is obvious. We can conclude that the rhythm in Kakilambe and the rhythm in La Iguana  are indeed the same rhythm. 

New Questions

 1. Yanga was from Gabon. Are there rhythms from his native country present in the Jarocho music and dance of today?