ADELITA - Jorge Negrete

Please note this is part three of a three part series.  The reader is requested to begin with part one and part two before continuing.  These will each open in a new window.  
     Part one - спутник  ,  Part two - introducing Adelita

I  can not speak about what is taught in other regions of the world.  I can speak about what the Roman Catholic Church teaches in this region of the world - the region on either side of the Rio Bravo.

"Sex," they say, "is a vile but necessary evil."  Its a sin for a wife to cohabit with her husband and vice-versa.  Evil. Wrong. Vile.  Ugly. This is what is taught here by the "princes" of the church.

What is taught is that one who remains entirely celibate throughout his or her life is then therefore "holier" than someone who does not remain so.  A priest or a nun therefore is thought to be somehow more holy than regular people. Families used to be taught that if they gave a daughter to be a nun this sacrifice gained them some years off their punishment in purgatory.  Similarly if a son entered the priesthood the parents gained relief from the punishment for their sins.  All this business also somehow feeds the nationalist Guadalupana cult.

Sex has one valid purpose, the Roman Church teaches.  Procreation.  Sustaining or increasing the population.  That's it.  Nothing more. 

According to them, its a sin to enjoy sex.  Never mind that Holy Writ has else to say on this topic, the people aren't supposed to be reading what God has to say.  The people are supposed to be doing what they are told.

According to this scheme, a woman's value consists only in being a repository for sperm and in raising children.  In this scheme, a woman has no worth beyond being a hole into which the man injects protoplasm.

The woman is forbidden by the teaching of the church to be s putnik with her man.  She is forbidden to enjoy her time with him.  When the family has a sufficiency of children, hopefully the man will be killed in war or perhaps a rattlesnake will bite him and he will be blissfully absented from the life of the home.  Of course a proper man should have accumulated a great deal of wealth before he dutifully dies.  If this seems to you that all this would lead to a grasping greedy and violent society - look at the facts, it has.

Should the man survive war, rattlesnakes, and barroom brawls, and should he wish companionship, he will not seek this from his wife.  His wife, you see is a good woman who does not enjoy his presence for any reason at all, much less ... So.  The man seeks companionship from a woman is not quite so restrained by the tradition she has been taught at church and by even her own mother or grandmother.  In short, he takes a mistress. 

Sometimes the wife is so very proud of the quality of the mistress with whom her husband is consorting.  Somehow this is seen to reflect favorably upon the wife's status in the community.

This how many in the upper classes or would be upper classes have conducted themselves for generations.  For the men, loving one's wife is just not au current.  There is little a man can do about any of this because perversely this scheme is enforced by the women.  A woman who wishes to  break from this mold has often been ostracized by the society in which she lives. 

That's the upper classes.   

Juan and Juana are a different story, thanks be to God.  First of all, Juan and Juana are poor and so the church hasn't cultivated them nearly as heavily.  The church does not want their daughter to be a nun because parents who send a daughter to be a nun are supposed to support her in the convent.  Juan and Juana cannot do this.  The church does not want Juan and Juana to send a son to be a priest - if they do, who will pay for his seminary?  Not Juan and Juana, they barely have enough to eat in their own household so there is no way they can support a seminarian and no way they can fatten up the monks who teach him.

Juana did not have her husband chosen for her by her parents.  She met Juan by the well or in the fields or somewhere in the normal course of life as they were scratching out a living.  Juana actually likes Juan.  Juan actually likes Juana.  Neither Juan nor Juana would ever consider a mistress in the mix of their family.  They have each other.    They enjoy each other's companionship, each other's bodies and every thing there is about one another and they nurture and care for one another the best they can.  They might even hold hands together sometimes in the evening.

Our Juan and our Juana are s putnik.  Certainly biology dictates that Juana will bear the children, but she is more, much much more, than a repository for Juan's sperm.  They are companions, mutually supportive in nearly all things. They enjoy each other in every way there might be to enjoy one another.  They are s putnik.  They don't know this word and they certainly can not to spell it on cirilica but they know what it means. 

Juana thinks the "upper class" woman and her code of behavior for women is stifling and simply un-natural, even perhaps un- Godly   The "upper class" woman thinks Juana is an animal.

Adelita was one of our Juanas.  For her men had a greater value than as simply a source of sperm so that she could carry out her purpose as a brood sow for the community.  War was not a way to kill off men once they had served their procreative purpose.  She saw that men had more value than being a source of sperm.   

Adelita did not see herself as a brood sow for the community either.  She saw herself as a human being worthy of and deserving of  s putnik with a man if she chose.

Adelita saw that the women of the upper classes were attempting to suppress her God given rights.  The rights of s putnik.  The right for two people a man and a woman to be mutually supportive and nurturing finally outweighed politics and economics.  This is why the power of the Roman Church was severely restricted by the Revolution.  Now you understand why it is illegal until this day for any priest or any pastor to wear a clerical collar in public in Mexico.  

Adelita took up the banner and led the charge.   Porfirio sailed away to Europe before the battles began.  The word is that his heart too was with Adelita.   The perverse and un-natural evil autocrats fell.   And yes, Marijan would have followed her into battle by land or by sea.  And he did.  And they won.  And that's the story.

спутник.  A hundred years have passed and we have forgotten this word.   Until we know again what means спутник, the wrath of Almighty God is upon us.

Here is the text of "Adelita" as sung by Jorge Negrete on spanish jezik:
Si Adelita se fuera con otro
la seguria por tierra y por mar
Si por mar en un buque de guerra
Si por tierra en un tren militar.

toca el clarín de campaña la guerra
sale el valiente guerrero a pelear
correrán los arroyos de sangre
que gobierne un tirano jamás.

Y si acaso yo muera en campaña
y mi cadaver en la tierra va a quedar
Adelita por Dios te lo ruego
que tus ojos no vayan a llorar

Ya no llores querida Adelita
Ya no llores querida mujer
No te muestres ingrata conmigo
ya no me hagas tanto padecer.

Ya me despido querida Adelita
ya me alejo con inmenso placer
Tu retrato lo llevo en el pecho
Como escudo q me haga triunfar

Soy soldado y la patria me llama
a los campos que vaya a pelear
Adelita Adelita del alma
no me vayas por Dios a olvidar

Por la noche andando en el campo
oigo el clarín que toca a reunión
Y repito en el fondo de mi alma
Adelita es mi único querer

Ya me despido querida Adelita
De ti un recuerdo quisiera llevar
Tu retrato lo llevo en el pecho
Como escudo q me haga triunfar

On english this says approximately:
If Adelita would leave with other
he would follow her by land and by sea
if by sea in a ship of war
if by land in train military

sounds the clarin of campaign of war
out comes the valiant warrior to fight
running streams of blood
that govern  a tyrant always

and in case I die in the campaign
and in the land will be lain
Adelita by God I pray
that your eyes will not cry

Now no cry dear Adelita
Now no cry dear woman
no you look ungrateful on me
Now I don't make much suffering

Now I say goodbye dear Adelita
and I go with immense pleasure
your portrait is in my chest
as my triumphal shield

I am a soldier and the country calls me
to the fields that go to fight
Adelita Adelita of the soul
Not me you by God to forget

In the night walking in the fields
I hear the bugle that calls the reunion
and again in the depth of my soul
Adelita is my only wish

Would I follow Adelita by land and by sea?  Before I leave this life, I wish  once again to kneel at her tomb and lay a few flowers.   Here at last is a song commemorating Adelita, a decent and valiant woman worthy of honor and glory as long as the sun rises on this earth. 

The year - 1910.  War!  Meksiko!  Women!  One Woman! - Adelita!

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
9 studenog 2011