Jíbaro () is a word used in

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

to refer to the countryside people who farm the land in a traditional way. The jíbaro is a self-subsistence farmer, and an iconic reflection of the

Puerto Rican people Puerto Ricans ( es, Puertorriqueños; or boricuas) are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants. Overview The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred t ...

. Traditional jíbaros were also farmer-salesmen who would grow enough crops to sell in the towns near their farms to purchase the bare necessities for their families, such as clothing. In contemporary times, both white-collar and

blue-collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...

Puerto Ricans are identifying themselves as jíbaros in a proud connection with their Puerto Rican history and culture in general.

Historical context

As early as 1820, Miguel Cabrera identified many of the jíbaros' ideas and characteristics in his set of poems known as '' The Jibaro's Verses''. Then, some 80 years later, in his 1898 book ''Cuba and Porto Rico'', Robert Thomas Hill listed jíbaros as one of four socio-economic classes he perceived existed in Puerto Rico at the time: "The native people, as a whole, may be divided into four classes: the better class of Creoles, who call themselves Spaniards; the lower class of white peasantry, known as gibaros; the colored people, or

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ...

s; and the blacks." Under

Operation Bootstrap Operation Bootstrap ( es, Operación Manos a la Obra) is the name given to a series of projects which transformed the economy of Puerto Rico into an industrial and developed one. The federal government of the United States together with what is ...

, in the middle of the twentieth century, Puerto Rico experienced an island-wide shift from an agrarian to an industrial society. Industries incorporated cheap labor, which led to the migration of many jíbaros from the mountain towns to the larger urban areas. Jíbaros had a significant impact on the culture, political life, and language of Puerto Rico. Jíbaros were viewed differently by different Puerto Ricans. In the political arena, when Luis Muñoz Marín ran for office, he often invoked the jíbaro as a means of uniting the working class of Puerto Rico under a populist party. To his own political gain, he sought to represent them as possessing ideals of hard-working Puerto Ricans. Muñoz Marín also adopted as the symbol of his party the silhouette of a Puerto Rican farmer with a '' pava'', the straw hat that field laborers often wore. It served to bolster their image as that of a proud people who worked and toiled the land to earn an honest living. Simultaneously, Muñoz Marín developed as his party's motto the phrase "''Pan, Tierra, Libertad''" (Bread, Land, Liberty). Muñoz Marín himself, in an attempt to court the votes of the large segment of the electorate represented by the jíbaro population, at times dressed like his portrayals of the Jíbaro. By idealizing the Jíbaro, Luis Muñoz Marín was also able to captivate the attention and goodwill of much of the cultural elite of Puerto Rico because many of them viewed Jíbaros as the "essence of the Puerto Rican soul". His campaign, in effect, portrayed the jibaro through a lens of whiteness, much like Manuel A. Alonso had done before. In 1941, Oscar Colón Delgado created ''Jíbaro Negro'' (black jíbaro) which represents a dark-skinned "jíbaro farmer". Andrés Jiménez, "el Jíbaro", a Puerto Rican troubadour, would work on changing that perception with his song describing "El Puertorriqueño" as having a dark skin tone.

Social, family and work aspects

The jíbaro values and way of life are oftentimes associated with the rich heritage and positive culture of Puerto Rico, as well as with the authenticity, resourcefulness and craftsmanship of the Puerto Rican people. These values and way of life include a sense of community, family, and hospitality. From young, children were taught to contribute to the family by, for example, assisting with cleaning and cooking family meals, and for older children, by ironing their own school clothes and polishing their own shoes. Some children were encouraged to look for ways to make money in order to buy anything that was not deemed a “need”. The values taught included respect for hard work, the importance of being resourceful, and an understanding of the values of unity, determination and integrity. A 1930

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ...

report on Puerto Rico stated, "In spite of his fatalism the is kindly, friendly and courteous, and hospitable to the last degree. He will ask you in to sit on his doorstep, and while you rest will hurry to boil you a cup of black coffee." Here is how ‎J. T. O'Neil described the 1850s jibaro in his 1855 book ''"The Spanish West Indies: Cuba and Porto Rico: geographical, political, and industrial"'':

Music

Jíbaro culture is also characterized by its own typical Puerto Rican folk music, commonly termed " jíbaro music". "Jíbaro music and dance was the principal musical expression of the humble and hardworking

mountain people Hill people, also referred to as mountain people, is a general term for people who live in the hills and mountains. This includes all rugged land above and all land (including plateaus) above elevation. The climate is generally harsh, with s ...

who worked the coffee plantations and inland farms of Puerto Rico." This genre of music goes by different names, e.g., typical music, mountain music, peasant music, Puerto Rican hillbilly music, or jibaro music.''Latin Roots: Jibaro Music is Puerto Rican Country Music.''
Quique Domenech. National Public Radio. 27 February 2014. Accessed 8 December 2018. Ramito is said to be the greatest proponent and interpreter of the jíbaro music. Odilio González, a singer of jíbaro music and originally from the mountain town of

Lares Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ''Lar'') were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these. Lares ...

, adopted the stage name of "El Jíbarito de Lares" (the Jíbarito from Lares), and recorded many

LPs LPS may refer to: Science and medicine * Lipopolysaccharide (Endotoxin) * Levator palpebrae superioris muscle Schools * Leighton Park School in Reading, England * Lexington Public Schools, a school district in Massachusetts, USA * Lincoln P ...

with his stage name proudly plastered prominently on their covers. Jíbaro music is characterized by the use of the

cuatro Cuatro is Spanish (and other Romance languages) for the number four. Cuatro may also refer to: * Cuatro (instrument), name for two distinct Latin American instruments, one from Puerto Rico (see Cuatro) and the other from Venezuela (see Cuatro ...

, its central instrument,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six string instrument, strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or Plucked string instrument, plucking the strings with the dominant hand, w ...

, and

güiro The güiro () is a Puerto Rican percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines (see photo) along the notches to produce a ratchet sound. The güir ...

Maraca A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...

s, bongos, and at times congas and

cowbell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are t ...

s, are also commonly used in addition to the three base instruments. There are three sub-genres of jíbaro music: ''

seis The seis is a type of Puerto Rican Jíbaro dance music closely associated with the décima. It originated in the latter half of the 17th century in the southern part of Spain. The seis is influenced by Spanish, African, and Taino cultures. The ...

'' (introduced by Spanish colonizers), '' aguinaldo'' (traditional Christmas songs), and ''

corrido The corrido () is a popular narrative metrical tale and poetry that forms a ballad. The songs are often about oppression, history, daily life for criminals, the vaquero lifestyle, and other socially relevant topics. Corridos were widely popular ...

s''. At present, música jíbara is most commonly heard during the Christmas season, but it is also played at weddings, birthdays, and at fiestas patronales throughout the year.

Food

Plantains Plantain may refer to: Plants and fruits * Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking ** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa'' * ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of floweri ...

were the jibaro's "daily bread", and its mature fruit could serve as bread and the unripe fruit could be eaten roasted or baked. Many other foods are derived from plantains, including today's ''

mofongo Mofongo () is a Puerto Rican dish with plantains as its main ingredient. Plantains are picked green, cut into pieces and typically fried but can be boiled or roasted, then mashed with salt, garlic, broth, and olive oil in a wooden pilón (morta ...

'', '' maduros'', and ''

tostones Tostones (, from the Spanish verb ''tostar'' which means "to toast") are twice-fried plantain slices commonly found in Latin American cuisine and Caribbean cuisine. Most commonly known as ''tostones'', Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Cuba, Fl ...

'', and plantains are also a base ingredient in ''

pasteles ''Pasteles'' (; singular ''pastel''), also pastelles in the English-speaking Caribbean, are a traditional dish in several Latin American and Caribbean countries. In Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, ...

''. Much of what is commonly considered authentic Puerto Rican food today actually had its roots in the foods typically prepared and consumed by the jíbaro Puerto Rican of the mountain countryside. "mountains in the countryside, authentic food and jíbaro music go perfectly together." The jíbaro mode of preparation also differed from how today's authentic Puerto Rican foods are prepared, as jíbaros prepared their food making regular use of stone stoves and rod-grilled (known as ''a la varita''). Some of the more common traditional dishes are ''asopao'' (a thick soup of rice and chicken),

and

. Some jíbaro songs tell of jíbaros consuming ''" viandas and bacalao"'' as one of their daily staples. When jibaros settled on coastal town, some variations of their original foods developed, for example, ''asopao'' was then also made with seafood instead of chicken. Plantain, a common cultivar in the jíbaro residential ''fincas'' (farms), was the basis of various dishes or side dishes, such as

Language

An 1887 document titled "Manifestaciones del elemento español de Puerto Rico con motivo de los sucesos de Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico 1887" (Instances of the Spanish element in Puerto Rico as it relates to the events in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico 1887), speaks of the jíbaro language when it states ''"...'Los Secos' querían matar a todos los peninsulares y que ese elestino Aponte, representative of the Republic of Puerto Rico in Aibonitoha recogido un documento escrito en jíbaro que no ha sido posible desifrar.'' (...'Los Secos' sought to kill all the Peninsulares and that him elestino Aponte, representative of the Republic of Puerto Rico in Aibonitohas picked up a document written in jíbaro which has not been possible to decipher.)

Clothing

Jose A. Mari Mut said the traditional clothing of jíbaro men consisted of a long-sleeved white shirt and white pants, a fringe-less hat, and no shoes. According to him, the jíbaro woman ("jíbara") would also usually dress in white with a long shirt, shoulders and neck often covered, and would sometimes wear a hat or a

bandana A kerchief (from the Old French ''couvrechief'', "cover head"), also known as a bandana, bandanna, or "Wild Rag" (in cowboy culture), is a triangular or square piece of cloth tied around the head, face or neck for protective or decorative purpo ...

as a hair cover. She, too, would wear no shoes. The custom of not wearing shoes was not associated with poverty. Many instances of jíbaros were documented by American photographer Walter B. Townsend—both in writing and via his photographs—who were adequately dressed but wearing no shoes. The custom is thus attributed to comfort and convenience. Young jíbaro toddler boys would oftentimes be seen at their home naked, even while the jíbaro family hosted visitors. But the notion that this custom was also true for girls, or that jíbaro boys went to school naked, was debunked by over 3,000 pictures that Townsend took throughout Puerto Rico in 1900.

Entertainment

A jíbaro's almost exclusive form of entertainment was

cock-fighting A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ente ...

. The pastime was performed mostly on Sunday afternoons, but saint days,

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does ...

s, or any other festive

holiday A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work including school, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tra ...

s would bring out particularly huge crowds to the event. Every town in Puerto Rico would have at least one cock-fighting pit. The upper classes of society would sometimes come to one of these events, but would not ordinarily be participants. Unlike the birds in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

which were outfitted with metal razor-sharp blades strapped to their legs, Puerto Rico jíbaros fought their cocks with their own

gaff Gaff may refer to: Ankle-worn devices * Spurs in variations of cockfighting * Climbing spikes used to ascend wood poles, such as utility poles Arts and entertainment * A character in the ''Blade Runner'' film franchise * Penny gaff, a 19th-ce ...

Occupations

Many jíbaros were self-subsistence farmers, but there were also those who owned no land but instead worked as agricultural land tenants, sharecroppers, and fieldworkers of various types. Some of those that did own their own plot of land were also farmer-salesmen who would grow enough crops to sell in the towns near their farms. Their crops would consist of whatever the land would grow, including bananas, plantains, avocados, ñames, yautías, batatas, yucas, malangas, and apio. However, hens, eggs, and charcoal were also traded.

Political participation

The jibaros were also the main component of many of the struggles against the ruling colonial powers in the Island. They were the primary driving force in revolutions in Puerto Rico against the Spaniards, including the well-known 1868

Grito de Lares ''El Grito de Lares'' (''The Cry of Lares''), also referred to as the Lares uprising, the Lares revolt, the Lares rebellion, or the Lares revolution, was the first major revolt against Spanish rule in Puerto Rico. The revolt was planned by R ...

(Cry of Lares). Even after that revolution failed, jíbaros were credited with keeping the spirit of Puerto Rican freedom alive through other revolts including the 1897

Intentona de Yauco The ''Intentona de Yauco'' (the "Attempted Coup of Yauco") of March 1897 was the second and final major revolt against Spanish colonial rule in Puerto Rico, staged by the island's pro-independence movement in the second half of the nineteenth ce ...

. After the Americans became the new colonial power in Puerto Rico in 1898, many jíbaros organized ''Bandas Sediciosas'' (Seditious Bands) to protest American colonial rule. They continued this struggle via the 1930s armed clashes of members of the

Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico ( es, Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, PNPR) is a Puerto Rican political party founded on September 17, 1922, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Its primary goal is to work for Puerto Rico's independence. The P ...

against the repressive police forces of the colonial regime and via the Nationalist Party island-wide revolt of 1950.

Modern domestic use

Since at least the 1920s the term "jíbaro" has had a more positive connotation in Puerto Rican culture, being now associated with a proud cultural heritage passed down to contemporary generations by the first brave settlers of the Puerto Rican interior mountains and countryside. However, the term occasionally also has a negative connotation. A jíbaro can mean someone who is considered ignorant or impressionable due to a lack of formal education, as are many country or "

hillbilly Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...

" people of several other nations. Despite this negative connotation, the primary image is now that of a person representing the idea of a "traditional Puerto Rican": simple but hard-working, independent but prudently wise. Colloquially, the jíbaro imagery serves as a representation of the roots of the modern-day Puerto Rican people and symbolizes the strength of traditional values such as living simply and properly caring for the family and the

homeland A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethni ...

In popular culture

There are many songs about the Puerto Rican jíbaro or, more dearly, the jíbarito, the diminutive of jíbaro. Lamento Borincano by Rafael Hernández is one of them. Others are "Aguinaldo Jíbaro" by Los Pleneros de la 21 y El Quinteto Criollo, El Jíbarito Bruto (Seis Villarán) and Un Jíbaro Bueno, both by Chuito el de Bayamón (aka El Decano de los Cantores); Jíbarita de Mi Tierra by Andrés Jiménez, and Un Jíbaro en San Juan and Negando Su Idioma, both by Odilio González.

Use in other countries

* In Cuba there exists a word similar to jíbaro, Guajiro.Enrique Vivoni Farage and Sylvia Álvarez Curbelo. ''Hispanofilia: Arquitectura y Vida en Puerto Rico, 1900–1950.'' San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. 1998. Page 258. . * In Colombia, Brazil and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in t ...

, Xivaro, or Gibaro, which is pronounced similar to jíbaro, was a name given to the mountain natives of mentioned countries by the

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ...

and

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

.Maurizio Gnerre
Jivaroan linguistic and cultural tradition: an Amazonian-Andean sedimentation
(Word Document)

/ref> * In

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Ekua ...

, givaro is the indomitable indigenous or country persons who are endlessly elusive to the white man.

Notes

References

External links

The Library of Congress photographs tagged with the word "Jibaros"

''La construcción literaria de la identidad de Puerto Rico: El país de cuatro voces.''
Lisa Ybonne Figueroa Parker. University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. Doctoral Dissertation # 15–2013. May 2013
Archived.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jibaro Puerto Rican culture Regional nicknames Stereotypes of rural people