Call for papers - Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean V

Note: I really recommend this conference! I've attended 3 of the previous 4 and always have an amazing time. It's one of the few conferences that includes musicians, dancers, and journalists alongside music scholars on an equal footing, which makes for much more interesting discussions. Also it's a great opportunity to meet Caribbean scholars you don't see at other international conferences. So just submit a proposal already!!

Call for Proposals

V International Conference

Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean (MIC)

“Caribbean Musical and Dance Folklore in the Age of Globalization”

April 12, 13, 14, 2013

Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.

The Institute of Caribbean Studies (INEC), the Eduardo León Jimenes Cultural Center (Centro León), and the Dominican Republic’s Department of Culture announce the Fifth International Conference Music, Identity, and Culture in the Caribbean (MIC-V). The conference aims to gather together researchers, educators, leading figures, and scholars of social and humanistic disciplines (musicology, ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, education, cultural management, journalism, economics, political sciences, law, information technology, and others) interested in Caribbean musical folklore, dance traditions, and culture to exchange knowledge of the various aspects of these pillars of the region, and to foster policies that strengthen national and regional cultural identity with a comprehensive approach. The Conference is a critical, multidisciplinary and reflective space for socializing research, experiences and findings around the central topic. It fosters an atmosphere that is favorable to the development of new ways of thinking about and acting on Caribbean and Latin American musical and cultural identity both within and outside of the region.

The MIC-V Conference centers upon twenty sessions comprised of presentations and debates in four parallel workshops, as well as several plenary sessions with keynote speeches, special panels, presentations of innovations, and a new Artists’ Discussion Group. There will be a variety of preparatory activities including research, socio-cultural entertainment activities, and meetings with musicians, scholars, educators, and music lovers, film and documentary series, among others.

The topic of the MIC-V Conference is: Caribbean Musical and Dance Folklore in the Age of Globalization.

As a result, the event is dedicated to studying the development of musical and dance folklore in the countries and territories of the Greater Caribbean’s various linguistic regions, including the Caribbean contribution to different world regions and vice versa, from a perspective of glocalization.

The Conference will explore the origins, history, and evolution of Caribbean musical and dance folklore in different spheres; its presence, diffusion, and assimilation in different geographic, socio-economic, political, and socio-cultural contexts in Caribbean society and on different continents (in the context of migration, urbanization, industrialization, modernization, mass communication and culture, among others). The Confernece will consider folklore’s role in identity processes in the region’s countries (in both the insular and continental Caribbean); and in cultural syncretism, transculturalization processes, and the preservation of transnational identities, especially with regards to cultural heritages of the Caribbean “Diaspora” in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

The Conference will also be based upon the ideological aspects of musical and dance folklore: its ethnic, gender, and class characteristics; its role in the mental representations in the region; its links to Caribbean literature; and particularly how it is reflected in different literary genres; its relationship with the region’s linguistic contexts; media’s role in spreading and socializing music as a form of musical folkloric preservation; radio, print publication, television, and Internet in their disseminating and internationalizing role; and the study of recording, editing, and dissemination technologies and their application to traditional Caribbean music and dances and their ties to glocalizaiton processes; discography and other documentation and recording processes in the digital era.

Additionally, the Conference will discuss the creation of community cultural heritages; copyright questions, both in theory as well as their treatment in national and international legislation; the impact of UNESCO’s proclamations of several Caribbean musical and dance traditions as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and their inclusion in the Representative List of that heritage; and specifically, what work is being done by regional nations to protect and disseminate their musical and dance folklore as a result of centuries of cultural construction and cultural interweaving of several continents (America, Europe, Africa, Asia); this includes a review of the related state strategies being enforced and budgetary investments dedicated to that end.

Other topics that may be included with regards to Caribbean musical folklore include but are not limited to:

• ·         Their styles, transformations, and innovations, and the musical and dance histories of communities, creators, and transmitting groups, as well as the life stories of archetypal figures representing these traditions.
• ·         Their instrumentation and related classification. Their impact and presence in the musical cultural of the Greater Caribbean, including academic music.
• ·         The external influences in Caribbean and Latin American music, as related to musical and dance folklore (heritage or traces from Europe, Africa, and so on). 
• ·         The relationships among traditional musical genres and the so-called generic complexes.
• ·         The choreographies and performance styles associated with Caribbean musical and dance folklore; the role of the so-called folkloric groups and ballets in their preservation and dissemination.
• ·         Their economic aspects: commercialization, record market, festivals, show business, the manufacture of instruments, and their relationship with cultural industries.
• ·         Pedagogical experiences in the transmission of knowledge about musical folklore.
• ·         The ties between local musical and dance traditions and regional and national cultures, as well as the relationship with the cultural ecosystems in which they unfold.
• ·         Terminologies, nomenclature, and conceptualizations of the traditional: lectures that assist with the conceptual clarification of meanings, approaches, shades, and relationships among frequently used concepts such as “folkloric,” “traditional,” “heritage,” “legacy,” “inheritance,” traces,” “roots,” “Identity,” “memory,” among others, and that propose new conceptual developments.

The participants in the MIC-V are challenged to cross theoretical boundaries to propose strategies to address musical folklore as a means of cultural identification and citizen education, and for its promotion through educational programs, socio-cultural entertainment, research, and other fields, based on theoretic and methodological criteria.

Finally, the conference will explore the possibilities of national and regional cooperation on the subject.  

Guidelines for proposals

Presentations in Spanish, English, and French will be accepted. Other translation needs will be evaluated according to the organizers’ ability to provide them.

Individual Proposals – The conference’s central approach is to offer presentations of high conceptual quality; comparative studies (among traditions, nations, or other variables) will take priority, as will those based on fieldwork.

Panel Proposals – The conference will also accept proposals for panels composed of up to four panelists. The panels should treat similar, related, or complementary issues and should revolve around a common main topic. Proposals should contain: the general topic of the panel, connections to other presentations, and the proposed panelists. The presentations will be evaluated individually by the Reading Committee to assure that they meet the formal requirements and are of the required quality.

The deadline for proposals is December 15, 2012. Proposals shall only be accepted by email at inec97@yahoo.es. Proposals should include: 1) The presenter’s personal and professional contact information, institutional affiliation, and a brief resume of no more than 100 words that includes research, presentations, and publications related to the topic; 2) the title and a 200 word summary of the presentation, including a brief bibliography. Acknowledgment of receipt will be sent by email, and the final decision will be sent by email no later than December 30, 2012.

Submission of Final Papers – The final papers shall be submitted in Microsoft Word or a compatible format and will include a bibliography and other references. The final document and confirmation of conference attendance shall be sent by email to inec97@yahoo.es no later than March 5, 2013.

The Organizing Committee will evaluate the submitted proposals based on their theoretical and methodological contributions, and it reserves the right to publish those that it considers most relevant to the understanding of the Conference topic. Those presenters whose proposals are selected will be provided with regulations for submission of their texts for publication. Those papers published will be edited for form and style. 

Honorary Committee – The Organizing Committee will designate an Honorary Committee for the MIC V Conference that includes well-known researchers of Caribbean musical folklore and of indisputable merit and international and national renown, individuals who are relative to the region’s culture, as well as representatives of the primary sponsors.

Convocatoria al V Congreso Internacional Música, Identidad y Cultura en el Caribe (MIC-V)

Convocatoria al V Congreso Internacional Música, Identidad y Cultura en el Caribe (MIC-V)

Tema: “Folclore musical y danzario del Caribe en tiempos de globalización”

12, 13 y 14 de abril de 2013

Santiago de los Caballeros, República Dominicana

En Instituto de Estudios Caribeños (INEC), el Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes (Centro León) y el Ministerio de Cultura de República Dominicana, convocan al V Congreso Internacional Música, Identidad y Cultura en el Caribe (MIC-V) con la finalidad de reunir en un cónclave mundial de tres días a investigadores, educadores, protagonistas y académicos de distintas disciplinas sociales y humanas (musicología y etno-musicología, antropología, sociología, educación, gerencia cultural, periodismo, economía, ciencias políticas, derecho, tecnologías de la información y otras), interesados en el folclore musical, las tradiciones danzarias y la cultura del Caribe, para intercambiar conocimientos en torno a los diversos aspectos de estos pilares de la región, y propiciar políticas que fortalezcan la identidad cultural en los ámbitos nacional y regional con un enfoque integral. El Congreso es un espacio crítico y multidisciplinario de reflexión para socializar las investigaciones, experiencias y hallazgos en torno al tema central. Se propicia un ambiente favorable al desarrollo de nuevas formas de pensar y actuar sobre la música y la identidad cultural del Caribe y Latinoamérica, dentro y fuera de la región.

El Congreso MIC-V se desarrollará con veinte sesiones de ponencias y debates en cuatro mesas de trabajos paralelas, así como varias sesiones plenarias para conferencias magistrales, paneles especiales, presentación de novedades y una novedosa Tertulia de los Artistas. Habrá un variado programa de actividades preparatorias que comprende: investigaciones, acciones de animación sociocultural y encuentros con músicos, estudiosos, educadores y amantes de la música, ciclos de cine y documental, y otras actividades.

El tema del Congreso MIC-V es: El folclore musical y danzario del Caribe en tiempos de globalización.

En consecuencia, el evento se dedica a estudiar el desarrollo del folclore musical y danzario en los países y territorios de las diversas zonas lingüísticas del Gran Caribe, incorporando la aportación caribeña a las diversas regiones del mundo, y viceversa, asumiendo una perspectiva de glocalización.

El Congreso explorará los orígenes, historias y evolución del folclore musical y danzario del Caribe en diferentes ámbitos; su presencia, difusión y asimilación en contextos geográficos, socio-económicos, políticos y socioculturales disímiles en las sociedades del Caribe y en los distintos continentes (en contextos de migraciones, urbanización, industrialización, modernización, comunicación masiva y cultura de masas, entre otros factores); su papel en la identidad de los pueblos de la región (en el Caribe insular y continental), y en el sincretismo cultural, los procesos de transculturación y conservación de identidades transnacionales, especialmente en las herencias culturales de la “diáspora” caribeña en Estados Unidos, Europa y otras partes del mundo.

El Congreso también se centrará en los aspectos ideológicos del folclore musical y danzario: sus rasgos desde las perspectivas étnicas, de género y clase social, y su papel en las representaciones mentales de la región; sus nexos con la literatura del Caribe, particularmente sus reflejos en la escritura en los diversos géneros literarios, y sus relaciones con los contextos lingüísticos de la región; el papel de los medios de divulgación y socialización de la música en la preservación del folclore musical; la radio, las publicaciones impresas, la televisión y la Internet en su difusión e internacionalización; y el estudio de las tecnologías de grabación, edición y difusión, su aplicación a las músicas y bailes tradicionales del Caribe y su vinculación con los procesos de glocalización; la discografía y otras formas de registro y documentación en la era digital.

Además, el Congreso discutirá la creación de patrimonios culturales comunitarios y la problemática de los derechos de autor, tanto en la teoría como su tratamiento en las legislaciones nacionales e internacionales; el impacto de las declaratorias de la UNESCO de varias tradiciones musicales y danzarias del Caribe como Obras Maestras del Patrimonio Oral e Intangible de la Humanidad o su inclusión en la Lista Representativa de dicho patrimonio; y concretamente, qué labor están haciendo los Estados de la región para proteger y difundir su folclore musical y danzario, siendo este resultado de una construcción cultural de siglos y de entrelazamiento de culturas de varios continentes (América, Europa, África y Asia); esto incluye revisar las estrategias estatales aplicadas en ese sentido y las inversiones presupuestarias destinadas a ese propósito.

Otras cuestiones que se pueden abordar en torno al folclore musical caribeño son (pero sin limitarse a):

• Sus estilos, transformaciones e innovaciones, y las historias musicales y danzarias de comunidades, creadores y grupos portadores, así como historias de vida de figuras prototípicas de estas tradiciones.
• Su instrumentación y los aspectos organológicos relacionados. Su impacto y presencia en la cultura musical del Gran Caribe, incluyendo la música académica.
• Las influencias externas en la música del Caribe y Latinoamérica, relacionadas con el folclore musical y danzario (herencias o huellas europeas, africanas, etc.).
• Las relaciones entre géneros musicales tradicionales y los llamados complejos genéricos.
• Las coreografías y los modos perfomáticos asociados al folclore musical y danzario caribeño; el papel de los denominados grupos y ballets folclóricos en su preservación y difusión.
• Sus aspectos económicos: comercialización, mercado discográfico, los festivales y el mundo del espectáculo, la manufactura de instrumentos, y su relación con las industrias culturales.
• Experiencias pedagógicas en la transmisión de conocimientos del folclore musical.
• La vinculación de las tradiciones musicales y danzarias locales con las culturas regionales y nacionales, así como en relación con los ecosistemas culturales en que se desenvuelven.
• Terminologías, nomenclatura y conceptualizaciones sobre lo tradicional: disertaciones que ayuden a esclarecer conceptualmente los significados, enfoques, matices y relaciones entre conceptos de uso frecuente como “folclórico”, “tradicional”, “patrimonio”, “legado”, “herencias”, “huellas”. “raíces”, “identidad”, “memoria”, entre otros, y proponer nuevos desarrollos conceptuales.

Los participantes en el MIC-V tienen el desafío de traspasar las fronteras de la teoría para proponer estrategias de abordaje del folclore musical como medio de identificación cultural y de educación ciudadana, y para su fomento mediante programas de educación, animación socio-cultural, investigación y otros ámbitos, basados en criterios teóricos y metodológicos.

Finalmente, el congreso explorará las posibilidades de cooperación nacional y regional en la materia.

Directrices para proponer ponencias

Se admitirán disertaciones en español, inglés y francés. Otras necesidades de traducción serán evaluadas según las posibilidades de los organizadores para suplirlas.

Propuestas individuales – El congreso se enfoca en ofrecer disertaciones de alta calidad conceptual; tendrán prioridad los estudios comparativos (entre tradiciones, naciones u otras variables), así como las basadas en investigaciones de campo. 

Propuestas de paneles  –El Congreso también acepta propuestas de paneles compuestos por hasta cuatro panelistas. Los paneles deben tratar cuestiones similares, afines o complementarias, alrededor de un tema principal común; las propuestas deben contener: el tema general del panel, vinculación de las ponencias con este, y panelistas propuestos. Las ponencias serán evaluadas individualmente por el Comité de Lectura para asegurar que cumplan los requerimientos formales y de calidad exigidos. 

El plazo para proponer ponencias vence el día 15 de diciembre de 2012. Se recibirán propuestas únicamente por el correo electrónico inec97@yahoo.es, debiendo contener: 1) Datos personales, profesionales y de contacto de proponente, afiliación institucional, y breve currículo de no más de 100 palabras con las investigaciones, ponencias y publicaciones realizadas sobre el tema; y 2) título y resumen de la ponencia en unas 200 palabras, agregando la bibliografía mínima. Se dará acuse de recibo, y por la misma vía se notificará al remitente la decisión resultante, a más tardar el 30 de diciembre de 2012.

Presentación de trabajos finales  –Los trabajos finales deben presentarse en formato de Microsoft Word u otro compatible, e incluir bibliografía y otras referencias. El documento final y la confirmación de asistencia al Congreso debe ser enviados vía electrónica a inec97@yahoo.es a más tardar el 5 de marzo de 2013.

El Comité Organizador evaluará las disertaciones presentadas en base a sus aportaciones teóricas y metodológicas, y se reserva el derecho de publicar aquellas que considere más relevantes para el conocimiento del tema del Congreso. A los ponentes seleccionados se les proporcionará una normativa para presentar sus textos con fines de publicación. Los trabajos a publicar serán previamente revisados de forma y estilo.

Comité de Honor –El Comité Organizador designará un Comité de Honor del Congreso MIC-V integrado por reconocidos investigadores del folclore musical del Caribe, de mérito indiscutible y de proyección nacional e internacional, personalidades relevantes de la cultura de la región, así como representantes de los principales patrocinadores.

The devil at the crossroads

While doing research for my recent presentation on the limp as a motif in Caribbean music and movement, I looked into legends about the devil at the crossroads. This is a frequent folkloric motif around the Caribbean region (in which I include the US Gulf Coast region), and it's been tied to the West African deity Eshu (Fon) or Elegguá (Yoruba) - a very interesting character.

Since this section is too long to fit into my article on the topic, I'll post it here instead! Enjoy...

The devil at the crossroads

Eshu has been syncretized with or explained as the devil throughout the New Worl. This practice occurred even in the Old World through the influence of Christian missionization, so that Muslim and Christian Yoruba may also interpret Eleguua as being the devil (Cosentino 262). In Cuba too, Eshu, represented as a rather frightening old man with a cane, is sometimes believed to be the devil, and it is said that “he speaks backwards” (Benítez Rojo 227). The devil is therefore a common motif in Caribbean folk culture, and here it is important to consider African American culture of the Southern US as part of the greater Caribbean. All around this region, the devil is tied to the crossroads, which, as noted, is a place inhabited by Eleggua. IN this discussion, it is important to recall that although devil iconography appears in Afro-Caribbean relation as a representation of Eleggua, neither are interpreted as being “evil,” only ambivalent and sometimes scary.

The similarities between Legba and the devil are easy enough to see: they share the colors red and black, the symbols of the cross or its inversion, the presence of horns or other animal-like features, hypersexualization, tricksterism, perhaps even the limp. Europeans and Euro-Americans misinterpreted these symbols and the lwa’s playful, sexual movements. Spencer writes, “Just as early Christian missionaries to the Fon taught their African converts that Legba was Satan, so did the semi-dualism of Christianity, imposed upon the holistic cosmology of the Africans brought to America as captives, force Legba (in the minds of the enslaved who remembered him) into the satanic role” (Spencer 1993:28). And we must not forget that Caribbean carnival characters like the Dominican lechón are also "devils," although they may not look like one.

The syncretization of these two figures explains the widespread appearance of stories and beliefs involving the devil, or other frightening and morally suspect figures, at the crossroads throughout the Caribbean. In Haiti in the 1950s, a folklorist reported witnessing a magical rite in which a man goes with a bocor houngan, or magic practitioner, to the crossroads at midnight to sacrifice a chicken: “Soon they hear a great wind and suddenly in the middle of a whirlwind a man so tall that he seems to reach the sky appears. As he comes nearer he becomes smaller and smaller until he takes on dwarflike size” (Simpson 1954: 397). The union of opposites here invokes Eleggua’s oppositions. And writing of the Southern US equivalent religious practice, hoodoo, Spencer writes, “it was at the crossroads that one could find not the devil but Legba,” and thus the devil at the crossroads was “unquestionably an African religious retention” (Spencer 1993:28).

In music, too, Eshu as the trickster and the limping “devil” make frequent appearances. For instance, blues fans will be familiar with the tale of 1930s guitarist Robert Johnson, who reportedly gained his talent by selling his soul at a crossroads. One must note, however, that Johnson himself sang of meeting not the devil but God at the crossroads, which again underlines the ambivalent rather than evil character of this mythical figure (Thomas 2009:73). Yet the belief that a devil might teach music or other skills to aspirants who invoke him at a crossroads had a long history in the American South even prior to Johnson.[1] The “devil” who shows up is generally described as a “big black man” or a “rider,” indicating a perceived connection with African heritage as well as, perhaps, the way that spirits like Legba “mount” or “ride” their devotees at ceremonies through possession.

The connections may go deeper still. Smith argues that blues singers assume the trickster persona and its liminal characteristics in order to signify, or utilize indirect, figurative, or double speech (190), and that blues’ signifying hearkens back to Eshu’s mediating function in “the limen between text and interpretation” (183). Furthermore, blues, like many other African American styles, involves “troping” repetitions that comment on the original, which is never reproduced in exactly the same way. The intersection of the “original” and the new version is itself a kind of crossroads. Thus, Smith explains, “In the blues, the crossroads are …the locus of an American Esu. The interpretational uncertainty represented by the crossroads creates a spatial and temporal realm of ambiguity. This is the realm of the trickster figure. In the blues tradition, this trickster figure is often represented as the devil” (Smith 184).

Sometimes, the limping devil appears alone with no musical component. In the African-origin towns on Colombia’s Pacific coast, there are stories of a limping devil called “Patasola” with whom one can make pacts, although these are not generally connected with music (Pedrosa n.d.). Patasola is also known in Cuba (Pedrosa 73). It is noteworthy that Patasola sometimes appears as female, sometimes male, since Eshu him(?)self can also appear in art as male, female, or both (Gates). Also in Cuba, practitioners of African-derived religion tell stories of the limping San Lázaro, as well as of one-legged African deities including Aroni, Osain, Obatalá, Odudúa, and of course Elegguá. And in Haiti, beliefs about limping devils still exist: one states that a one-legged child will kill its parents (Pedrosa 74).

Elsewhere, the devil appears without a limp, but in conjunction with both music and the crossroads. I have already noted the well-known association of blues with the crossroads devil. Zydeco musicians in Louisiana also recount stories of a musician of yore who met the devil at the crossroads, the “tallest man he had seen in his life.” The devil asked the man to play a waltz, and in the morning, he could play all instruments beautifully (Tisserand 43-44).

Throughout the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, stories are told about devil-tricksters appearing in music competition, although either the limp or the crossroads may be missing as a motif. The recent Colombian film Los viajes del viento and the German- Colombian production El acordeón del diablo both depict current takes on an old story in which vallenato musician Francisco Moscote wins an accordion duel with the devil at a crossroads. The Dominican Republic offers its own story in this framework, as ethnomusicologists Aretz and Ramón y Rivera explained after a collection trip in 1963:

In La Vega, there is a tradition about a black singer who was the devil and who was vanquished by a celebrated improviser of the region. Francisco Trinidad was his name and he was famous for his agile mind. One time he sang with the black man and said:

Negrito, you are the devil

What do you think about that

And just in case you are:

Magnificat anima mea!

They say the black man ‘disappeared’ in a cloud stinking of sulfur. (Aretz and Ramón y Rivera 1963:204)

They further note that an identical story, even to the detail of the verse quoted above, is found in Venezuela, where it describes the improvising singer Florentino (ibid; also appearing in a recent film, Florentino y el Diablo, and a similarly-titled novel). These anecdotes echo both the Colombian tales and those from the Southern United States, although the crossroads themselves are missing from this retelling.[1] In Cuba, where, as mentioned, limping devils are common, Fernando Ortiz even wrote that the appearance of the scandalous colonial-era dances zarabanda (sarabande) and chacona (chaconne) was attributed to the limping devil (in Pedrosa 73).

These stories all serve to place Eshu-Eleggua in Caribbean music. He lives on today through the limp as a stylistic principle, a pleasing rhythmic unevenness in sound and movement, that unites music and dance practice in the region. Although outsiders may have trouble even detecting its existence, the importance of this aesthetic feature is clearly noticed and sometimes debated by merengue musicians and dancers as well as carnival participants, who frequently go so far as to come up with origin myths to explain its presence.

And you'll be able to read more about those in my article. :-)

WORKS CITED

Aretz, Isabel and Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera. 1963. “Reseña de un viaje a la República Dominicana.” Boletín del Instituto de Folklore [Caracas] 4(4):157-204.

Benítez-Rojo, Antonio. 1996. The repeating island: The Caribbean and the postmodern perspective, 2^nd ed. James Maraniss, trans. Durham: Duke University Press.

Cosentino, Donald. 1987. “Who Is That Fellow in the Many-Colored Cap? Transformations of Eshu in Old and New World Mythologies .” Journal of American Folklore 100(397):261-275

Gates, Henry Louis. 1988. The signifying monkey: A theory of African American literary criticism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Pedrosa, José Manuel. S.d. “Leyendas de Timbiqui (Cauca, Colombia): Etnotextos y estudio comparativo.” Revista de Folklore [Fundacion Joaquin Diaz] 21a(245):168-175. Available online at http://www.funjdiaz.net/folklore/07ficha.cfm?id=1946 (Accessed June 1, 2011)

Pedrosa, Jose Manuel. 2001. “El Diablo cojuelo en América y Africa; de las mitologías nativas a Rubén Darío, Nicolás Guillén y Miguel Littin.” Revista de filología e letterature ispanische IV:69-84.

Smith, Ayana. 2005. “Blues, Criticism, and the Signifying Trickster.” Popular Music 24(2):179-191.

Tisserand, Michael. 1998. The kingdom of zydeco. Arcade Publishing.

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[1] The Venezuelan and Dominican stories have another shared characteristic. In Dominican folklore, the devil is frequently depicted as having a gold tooth (Andrade); thus, a popular merengue called “El diente de oro” or “The gold tooth” probably refers to the devil. The diablo appearing in Florentino stories also appears with golden teeth, as in the following verse:

Entra callado y se apuesta

para el lado de la música.

Dos dientes de oro le aclaran

la sonrisa taciturna.

"Oiga vale, ese es el Diablo"

[He enters silently and positions himself/ near the music. Two golden teeth light up / his taciturn smile. / ‘Listen, that’s the devil.’] (Arvelo Torrealba)

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[1] Newbell Puckett's "Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro" (University of North Carolina Press, 1926; reprinted by Patterson Smith, 1968)