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

introducing Adelita

Continued from:  спутник

If you haven't read the foregoing article, its better if you go read it first and come back here.  If its been a few hours hours or days since you read it, please go back and review it before you continue.  If you were distracted by the "technological" matters or even the religious matters, please go back and read it again.  Its about a word - a single word:  Sputnik.  What that word  signifies.  Without understanding that one word and its ramifications there is very little use in continuing with the present article.

Adelita was a real person.  My father's second cousin six times removed (whatever on earth that means) knew her and spoke of her.  Marijan was his name.

There are some people around who wish to say that Adelita is just some folk fable.  Not so.  Adelita was a living breathing soul.  She was born on the fifth of February, Saint Adele's day which is in the Spanish calendar of saints though it is outside the Croatian calendar.   Had she been Hrvat, her imedan would have called for her to be named Agata or Dobrila or Jagoda.  Whatever her ancestry, Adelita was simply Adelita, a Mexican woman born in the north.  What year Adelita was born remains beyond my knowledge probably forever.

Marijan spoke well of Adelita. He rode with her.  He rode into battle with her and he himself said that, like the sargento in the common version of the song about Adelita, he would have ridden into the bowels of hell beside her. 

No, Marijan was not Mexican.  Marijan bore my surname and was a citizen of the United States.  Must I remind you however that the ancestors of some of us came to these regions long before there was a United States, long before there was a Mexican Republic too.  Its our land.  Its a big land with lots of room so we have no problem with all these other people who have moved in beside us as long as they don't get too pushy.  

Lots of Mexican folks in the North of Mexico feel pretty much the same way.  Its further from the southernmost part of Mexico to the most northern part of Mexico than it is from Poland to Bulgaria.  The folk in the north are satisfied to be Mexicans as long as the folk from way down south don't come around to tell them what to do all the time.  Besides, the folk down  south talk funny too, they tend to be more urban (Mexico City is one big big place) and their life experiences are very different from the people in the north.  Can you see the picture I'm trying to draw?

The Porfirio Díaz regime had a lot of good ideas.  They weren't all bad at all.  In some ways, if you like "liberal" notions, like the Emperor's ideas, the Porfiriato thoughts were a lot more liberal than the regimes which followed.  But there was some big mistakes.  Number one mistake was the central government in the south telling the folk way up north how to be and how to live. 

Number two mistake was giving land to the peasants.  Huh?  How can that be a bad idea?  "Land and liberty" became the slogan in the uprising that began in 1910.  Ok, the right hand passed out land to the people.  The left hand took a lot of it back to build railroads. The idea was that the railroads would bring industry and jobs and prosperity to the people.  It was a good idea.  The railroads accomplished that, no doubt, but lets look at Juan and Juana who spent a season plowing and planting virtually by hand and then before they can harvest the first crop some high and mighty someone from down south comes and says to them that they don't live on their farm anymore because a railroad is coming through. 

"Where will we go?"  Juan asks the high and mighty someone.

"That's your problem," answers the high and mighty someone.

"How will we eat?"   Juana asks.

"You will be very prosperous when industry comes and you have jobs." answers the high and mighty someone.

"What will we eat tomorrow?"  Juana asks.

The high and mighty someone doesn't answer.  He just tells them to pack their stuff and get out of the way.  There is a party of pistoleros with señor high and mighty, so Juan and Juana have no no choice but to leave.

Juana's mother lives with Juan and Juana.  Juana's mother is very old and feeble.  She dies on the trek across the winter desert to the next town.  Juan becomes ill from the worry and frustration of trying against all odds to care for his family.

Now ask yourself the question - how do Juan and Juana feel about this central government who was killing them so they could become prosperous?  But that's not the half of it.

Oh yes, there's the little matter of the Russian communists using Mexico to learn how to do the revolution thing.  Marijan spoke of being trapped in the cross fire between the "reds" and the "whites" several times.  His solution was apparently to kill every one and ride away safely himself.  Must have worked too.  He lived to be a very old man.

Finally though, the revolution of 1910 was not about economics or politics, nor was it about "land and liberty."  There was an even more serious issue - an issue so close to Juan and Juana's hearts that they had no choice but to rise up in arms.  More about this next time ...

to be continued

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

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
9 studenog 2011

спутник

One outstanding tragedy of the human condition is how words become bastardized through usage or more accurately through mis-usage.  One of the most precious words in any language is спутник.  The word means one who pilgrimages together with another, one who travels together with another.  Please notice the emphasis here on "together with."  This is zajedno.  People have such trouble with zajedno, literally "for one" or "as one, "together." Not one leading another and one following, nor one dominate and the other dominated, nor one more and the other less, but zajedno с путник. 

God said.  Jesus said "I go so that the спутник will come."  In this context Sveti Duha is the спутник and certainly no human should think he can dominate Sveti Duha , never.  The twisted logic of the  human condition now is to jump forward and say "if I can not dominate Sveti Duha then He must come to dominate me."  Since humans really do not like to be dominated by any one they begin to hate Sveti Duha and they turn away from God and God's ways entirely.

There is a serious flaw in this reasoning which leads to this result.  This reasoning perhaps describes how the human would behave but it does not describe how Sveti Duha is behaving.  Read:  "Но говорю вам истину, Я ухожу ради вашего же блага. Если Я не уйду,  то  Утешитель не придет к вам, но если Я пойду, то пошлю Его к вам."  For those of you who do not read Russian, that's from the Gospel of John 16:7.  You are on the internet, Google it up right now and read it in your own language.  I'll wait right here until you get back from reading this and then we will continue this discussion. 

Sveti Duha no comes to be some Tsar, heaven knows we have enough of those.  Sveti Duha comes to be то  Утешитель, which is to say, наш спутник, наш путник, naš Putnik zajedno s nama, fellow wayfarer on life's pilgrimage with us.  This is what Sveti Duha says about himself.  Is what Jesus says about Sveti Duha .  Sveti Duha s putnik nama.

It's really no difficult to understand this is it?  Does it take a rocket scientist to understand?  I don't think so.  I don't think so because I believe that God has purposefully and carefully put His words for us in clear human language easy for us to understand.  Most of the time when God's words become difficult to understand it is because we are substituting our own words and our own thoughts for God's words and God's thoughts.  In other words, we are the one's who screw everything up.

Very often the church doesn't help.  I am very sorry for that.  It's the church's job to stand against the misuse of precious words and keep the message simple and clear and comforting, but oh no, too often the church, catholic, orthodox, protestant, or whatever,  obfuscates and muddies the water for the people.  If the church doesn't screw up the people, the people screw up the church and sometimes the people and the church walk hand in hand together making a mess of things.

Let's see, an example:  the role of the "pastor" is to speak about Sveti Duha who comes to be naš Putnik zajedno s nama.  That's his only task, nothing more, nothing less.  Somehow then we humans with our sense of order have to have ranks of pastors and soon there are bishops and archbishops and popes and what not.  The popular assumption then is that the pastor himself must be one rank above the people and pretty soon we have Sveti župnik.  Ajjjjjjjjjjjjjjj!!!!  And now Sveti Duha is no where any longer mentioned except in passing like when we make the sign of the cross and think  "oh yeah,  U ime Oca, i Sina, i Duha Svetoga. Amen" as if by saying the words we've done something.  But where in this is Sveti Duha?  I can tell you where He is.  He is shaking His head in sorrow and weeping for us because He really did come to be naš Putnik zajedno s nama and we have kicked Him off the bus. 

I repeat, one of the most precious words in any language is спутник, s putnik, which is to say literally on english a "with traveler."  The politicians in eastern Europe understood this well when they called the nations in eastern Europe not directly in the Soviet sphere sputniks.  The word was supposed to paint a picture about fellow traveling on a joint enterprise.  That painting was later vandalized in the minds of the people in the West when Soviet troops occupied Praha and Budapest but that came later.  The day when the real meaning of спутник was destroyed in the West, and perhaps everywhere, was on Friday, the fourth of October, 1957. 

From Hajden, a Croat who lived on the estates of a Slovak noble in Hungary, with a lot of  help from CJ, comes a little production  which is unlisted on Canoval's YouTube channel.  Its our first attempt at merging music long distance, something totally unheard of not so many years ago.

Surprise!!! Yes, that's from Hajden's 94th or Surprise Symphony, otherwise widely known as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and that's CJ's voice you've just heard but that's not her picture on the video - CJ is a lot prettier :)

twinkle twinkle little czar
how I wonder what you are
high above us there you fly
twinkle twinkle in the sky

Friday, the fourth of October, 1957.  The press and the propagandists in the West could not have s putnik meaning anything nice.  S putnik could no longer mean something or someone naš putnik zajedno s nama.

From that day came the fall of the Eastern European civilization.  From that day began the fall of the West.  From that day forward came chaos.  No, the fall of civilization on earth did not begin that day.  The fall began much earlier but that day, Friday the fourth of October 1957, marks the day the world ended.

to be continued ...


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

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
9 studenog 2011