Vélez Location

This section provides contextual information about the main sites of this music tradition, the community of Vélez, in the department (province) of Santander, in Colombia; for this section, I mainly draw on the work of Agudelo (2016) Caceres (2012) Ramirez (2013) and the 2020-2023 Plan de Desarrollo Municipal Vélez (Vélez Municipal Development Plan). This section starts with a brief contextualization of Colombia, Santander and the Santander’s provincial divisions, and will continue with a more detailed explanation of the location and history of Vélez.

Colombia is located in the northwestern part of South America, neighbouring with Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Panama (these countries are identified in yellow on Map 1); its capital city Bogotá (see red circle in Map 1). Colombia is divided into 32 departamentos (departments), the equivalent of provinces in Canada and states in the United States. Each department is subdivided in municipios (municipalities) that might refer to cities, villages, and towns. For some departments, such as Santander, the municipios can be organized by provincias (provinces). The provinces are intermediate territorial divisions between departments and municipalities. This structure seeks to facilitate the formulation and localization of projects and to manage resources more easily.

The department of Santander is located in the northeast region of the country and its capital city is Bucaramanga (highlighted in orange on Map 2). Santander is divided into 87 municipios, including Vélez (number 861, circled in red on Map 2). At the left bottom corner in the little map of Colombia, the department of Santander is highlighted in red.

As with other departments, Santander is internally organized by provinces. In 2019, after receiving the approval of 84 municipalities, the governor of Santander at the time, Didier Tavera, restructured the organization of the provinces (Governacion de Santander, 2019). Map 3, shows the seven provinces of Santander (Yariguíes, Soto Norte, Metropolitana, Garcia Rovira, Guanentá, Comunera, Vélez) and their corresponding capitals (Barrancabermeja, Matanza, Malaga, San Gil, Socorro, Vélez)

This project focuses on the Vélez province (See on map 3), located in the southwest of the department of Santander, but more specifically the municipality of Vélez, the capital of this province. The municipio of Vélez, is located five to six hours driving distance from Bucaramanga and four hours from Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. It neighbours with the municipalities of Barbosa, Puente Nacional and Guavatá to the south, Bolívar and Landázuri to the west, Puerto Parra and Simacota to the north and Santa Helena del Opón, La Paz, Chipatá and Güepsa to the east (Plan de Desarrollo Municipal Vélez 2020-2023, 25). In most of the neighbouring municipalities, traditions similar to Vélez folklore are present and some also have festivals around the Torbellino, la Guabina and el Requinto. Examples include Puente Nacional, where the Festival del Torbellino [Torbellino festival] takes place and Bolivar’s Festival Nacional del Requinto y la Guabina “Jorge Ariza Lindo” [ National festival of the “Jorge Ariza Lindo” Requinto and the Guabina].

In 2011 at the 50^th anniversary of Vélez’s Festival de la Guabina y el Tiple, the festival committee presented a compilation of videos, photos, and documentaries about Vélez and the history of the Festival de la Guabina y el Tiple since its inception in 1964. This audiovisual production provides an idea of how the festival changed over time, the type of music, clothing, and different type of activities of the Vélez people. Referring to the history of Vélez, the narrator of this documentary states:

Los conquistadores españoles penetraron por la selva del Carare coronando la cordillera de los Yariguíes hasta descubrir una serie de valles habitados por indígenas Chipataes, Agataes y Opones. En un sitio que domina el paisaje Martin Galeano fundo a Vélez el 3 de lilio de 1539 al sur del actual departamento de Santander.

[The Spanish conquerors penetrated the Carare jungle crowning the Yariguíes mountain range until they discovered a series of valleys inhabited by indigenous Chipataes, Agataes and Opones. In a place that dominates the landscape, Martin Galeano founded Vélez on July 3, 1539, south of the current department of Santander]. (Original text extracted from the video on minute 8:07)

Importantly, this information acknowledges the Indigenous peoples present in the territories as well as the Spanish influence brought with colonization. As described by Gardante in his article “Colombia” in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, “musical traditions developed that in many places combine aspects of native and colonizer religious events and similarly combine their musical forms and performances.” (1998, 66). In the case of Vélez, the traditions prior to the creation of the festival were to commemorate the Virgen de las Nieves [virgin of the snow]; commemoration to this saint reflects the influence of colonizers, resulting in changes to the religious and/or spiritual beliefs of local Indigenous peoples. Although there is still a strong influence of Catholicsim in Vélez, the festival has started to acquire a more cultural and musical purpose rather than a religious one. As a result of Spanish colonialism in the region, the population in Vélez is mostly mestiza, meaning that people have Spanish and Indigenous ancestry.

The understanding of this mix of cultures is highly relevant to this project as it contributes to the appreciation of the music and the culture of Vélez from a sociological and historical point of view. It also challenges conceptions about music ownership as well as “originality” and the appropriation of the music by local people. Different markers of colonization can be observed in Vélez music like the use of string instruments, the use of religious figures in their clothing (as explained in the traje típico section) and even the similarities of the musical genres such as the Guabina with the plain chant and the Torellino with the Gallarda Napolitana. However, I consider that musical traditions and culture go further than discourses about ownership and origins as at one point, the people who have built and preserved the traditions and culture of a place become the writers of their own history.