Meaning and symbolism of the Salamanca rite in Argentinean popular culture

Abstract

Abstract:The aim of this presentation is to analyze an aspect of the Argentinean Cultural Heritage connected with oral traditional lore, transmitted from one generation to another according not only to the natural environment but also to the cultural landscape dealing with social beliefs which conform its cultural identity. Belief, understood as a modal certainty, whose true value depends on a personal agreement or a social consensus (Greimas & Courtés 1982) can be expressed in nightmares such as the one of the coven, which makes room for black rites as the one we deal with. Considering the rite as a praxis, whose distinctive feature is the sequential repetition of actions with performative effects on the context (Rappaport 1991), we deal with the ―Salamancarite‖, as worshiped in the Argentinean provinces of La Rioja and Santiago del Estero, which generates both legends, folktales and songs whose main topic is the deal with the Devil. As the Grimms have pointed out long ago, legends are folktales historically grounded, which cross the boundaries of reality towards the modal arenas of belief (Dégh 1976). Even grounded in local times and spaces, local rites such as the ―Salamanca‖ share symbols connected with universal folk narrative patterns, such as ATU tale type No. 330 ―The smith and the Devil‖.We focus the attention in the verbal explanation and iconic representation of this rite by the Argentinean craftsman Marino Cordoba, author of a series of ceramic statuettes regarding the Salamanca, exhibited both in the Argentinean folk museum of La Rioja and in the Devil Museum of Kaunas, Lituania as examples of Argentinean cultural heritage. We pay attention to how Cordoba narrates this rite with synechdotic logic of fragmentation (Briggs 2002) and visual metaphors connected with rhetoric of mystery belonging to the vernacular quechua-diaguita culture, which is part of Argentinean cultural heritage.