Memories of Indigenous Music

Today I turned on a CD recording by a South American group named Atahualpa. The bouncy, joyful rhythms accented by pan pipes, drums and string instruments infused my cells with life. I forgot my self and danced about the room.

Later, while listening to the CD once more, my dad started and asked me if he could see the CD case. He looked it over, remarking that it wasn't the same band, but that the songs were familiar. He proceeded to remind of a place and time long past, when I was little and my parents and I were at a fair. I was still in a stroller. The three of us were at a sidewalk corner where four men, apparently from Colombia as the brochures read, played their celebratory compositions from their native lands.

The four musicians played on for us, without interruption save to explain to us their instruments and the names and stories of the songs. I enjoyed their music, and I remember the bright yellows of their costumes or at least I think I do. My mom purchased a cassette from them after much time had passed.

I have a terrible memory for my childhood. I remember only a handful of events before the age of 8 and I surmise that I only began to create lasting memories when I first got glasses and was able to see. However, I do remember this. My dad said I was around a year old when the episode of the Colombian musicians occurred.

It's kind of funny now. As an infant I took a keen interest in their music, probably because it was cheerful and the kind of tune that would accompany any multicultural children's program. My dad said that the four musicians enjoyed my reaction to their music, and that after the first few songs it was obvious that the group was playing for our entertainment alone.

As I said, it's kind of funny now, because over Thanksgiving I found out through genetic testing that I have indigenous Colombian ancestors, however displaced from the Magdalena river and the Guajira peninsula they must have been. I also found out that I'm of Spanish, Armenian and Tunisian descent, all of which add to my previously-known Sicilian and Italian background and my dashes of French, German and Greek. I turned out to be a lot less Greek than I thought I was, and not Polish or Irish at all.

But what matters is this: the earliest memory that I can currently pinpoint is that of a quartet from Colombia playing music for us one sunny afternoon in Chicagoland when I was a year old, it is fascinating to know that some distant family members of mine once came from their tropical homeland to Europe, and at long last I have discovered that lost connection.