Nacimiento (Nativity Scene)
From the Spanish word nacer, nacimiento is the name for a Christmas nativity scene. In the Southwest the creation of nacimientos has been a tradition since the seventeenth century. A nacimiento may resemble a religious altar in that it is an assemblage of many articles and objects, all depicting the recent birth of Jesus Christ in the manger, but a nacimiento can also include other Christmas-related images, biblical scenes, and possibly artifacts relating to the life experiences of the creator. The set of the nacimiento can vary in size from a small table to half a room, or to the whole front yard of a home. Outdoor nacimientos will have life-size figures of Mary and Joseph and various other biblical characters and animals. This custom is not particular to the Chicano community, and nativity scenes can be found throughout the country during the Christmas season. It is thought that Saint Francis of Assisi is the saint responsible for much of the veneration of the infant Jesus, and the custom of creating nativity scenes or monuments to the birth of Christ has been going on for hundreds of years.
In private homes nacimientos are usually set up for the first night of Las Posadas, which starts on December 16 and continues until December 24. A nacimiento is left in place until El Día de los Reyes, Epiphany, on January 6, when the three kings arrive to visit the Christ child.
See also Las Posadas
References Griffith 1988; Heisley and MacGregor-Villarreal 1991; Kitchener 1994; Sommers 1995
Naranja Dulce (Sweet Orange)
A very popular old children’s game and song frequently recited in novels and poems. Children form a circle with one child in the center and they sing this song:
Naranja dulce
Limón partido
Dáme un abrazo
Que yo te pido.
Si fueran falsos
Mis juramentos,
En algun día se olvidaran.
(Sweet orange
Sliced lemon
Give me a hug
That I ask of you.
If my promises were false
Someday they will be forgotten.)
After this verse is sung, the child in the center of the circle chooses one from the group that is forming the circle and embraces that child. The child picked enters the center and the other child moves out. While this is going on they keep the circle moving around, and clapping hands, they sing the following verse to a fast beat:
Toca la Marcha
Mi pecho llora
y adiós Señora
Yo ya me voy.
(Play the march
My breast [heart] cries
Good-bye my Lady
I am leaving.)
For many generations mothers have sung this little verse to their babies as they lull them to sleep. Girls play this game in Mexico also, with a boy as the center player, which Inez Cardozo-Freeman interprets as a portrayal of betrayal and abandonment preparing little girls for marriage.
References Cardozo-Freeman 1975; Gonzáles 1974; Writers’ Program 1976
Nativity Scene
See Nacimiento
Neighborhood
See Barrio
New Mexico Folklore
Of all the areas of the Southwest where Chicanos have settled and lived, it is New Mexico’s culture and folklore that has been historically studied the most. Aurelio M. Espinosa was the first Hispano (a person of Spanish heritage born in New Mexico) to conduct research into the culture and language of New Mexicans. His most important work was published during the early part of the nineteenth century, 1910–1916, with a series of publications in the Journal of American Folklore. He collected folktales, folk songs, proverbs, superstitions, riddles, children’s games, and much more. Students who were trained by Espinosa and who later continued folkloric work in New Mexico were Arthur Campa, Juan B. Rael, and Espinosa’s son, Jose Manuel Espinosa, who published Spanish Folk-tales from New Mexico in 1937. Rael published Cuentos Españoles de Colorado y Nuevo Mejico in 1957, which is considered by Américo Paredes to be one of the best collections of Mexican folk narrative. Campa’s work includes collections of folk poetry, riddles, folk songs, and folk drama from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, published mostly in the 1940s and 1950s.
John Donald Robb (1892–1989) collected folk songs throughout New Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s using wire recorders. He came to the University of New Mexico as chair of the music department in 1941. He was a composer and educator but always had an interest in folk music. The John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music is located at the university’s library. His two books on New Mexico are Hispanic Folk Songs of New Mexico (1954) and Hispanic Folk Music of New Mexico and the Southwest: A Self Portrait of a People (1980).
Hispanic women have always been involved in creative and artistic work in New Mexico even up until contemporary times. Although there have been many publications about the santeros (saint makers), wood-carvers, tinsmiths, and other male artists, very little has been written about the work accomplished by women. Women have created religious folk art, such as santos (saints), retablos (religious paintings), straw appliqué crosses, and tinwork. Women wove blankets and embroidered colchas (blankets). Whitewashing and plastering of homes have always been women’s work. Those who do it are called enjarradoras, and today they continue this work, also making adobe hornos (ovens) and fireplaces for the International Museum of Folk Art located in Santa Fe. Marianne Stoller writes of the work of New Mexican women artists and why they have been left out of history.
Several New Mexican women who descended from the early Spanish settlers of the region wrote personal life histories that incorporated the traditional way of life of the Hispano community of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, Nina Otero-Warren, and Cleofas Jaramillo each produced several books that present the folklore, rituals, and customs of the New Mexicans. Rebolledo discusses how these women used their writings as “narrative strategies of resistance” because they saw their culture and way of life slowly eroding away and being assimilated by a dominant and foreign culture. Because they all came from upper-class families, they were educated in Spanish traditions and language and consequently ignored the mestizo (mixed-race) and indigenous aspects of the culture, often depicting their past in romantic pastoral terms. Nevertheless, they all wrote of the loss of land and loss of culture, and sought to preserve the folklore, customs, and stories of their grandparents, close friends, and those who worked for them.
The Penitentes, the ancient religious brotherhood, have attracted much research and been scrutinized by many writers and journalists. De Cordova, Henderson, Sprott, and Weigle have conducted the most perceptive and sensitive writing on the Penitentes. The popular arts of colonial New Mexico, particularly the santos and santeros, have received a lot of attention by such researchers as E. Boyd, Marta Weigle, and William Wroth.
In recent years Chicano writers from New Mexico have collected folklore from their ancestors and friends. Nasario Garcia has published several collections depicting the way of life of the elders of the Rio Puerco Valley, and Rudolfo Anaya has written several children’s books that bring forth the folklore of the region. Because of its long history New Mexico will always be a bountiful reservoir for the serious folklorist.
See also Adobe; Hispano Culture; Los Penitentes
References De Cordova 1972; Espinosa, A.M. Jr., 1947; Henderson 1937; Rebolledo 1993, 1994; Sprott 1984; Stoller 1986; Weigle 1976; Weigle and White 1988
Nichos (Niches)
A nicho is a nook or niche built into a wall that is similar to a shelf inside of a home. It can be as small as six inches or as high as one foot or even three feet. Anything can be placed in a nicho, from books to knickknacks, but the usual purpose is to house a holy picture or statue of a saint. Consequently in some Chicano homes the word carries almost the same meaning as altar or shrine. A nicho decorated with votive candles and saints becomes the site for daily devotional prayers. Nichos are also constructed as part of yard shrines to house a favorite saint or La Virgen de Guadalupe or another Madonna. Yard shrines that incorporate a nicho are set up as a place of worship in the yard to commemorate a deceased relative or as a fulfillment of a vow. In some parts of the Southwest these outdoor shrines are also called grutas, “grottos,” and the two words are often used interchangeably. A cemetery shrine may also incorporate a nicho or a gruta. Since a gruta is primarily outdoors it can be constructed as a yard or cemetery shrine. Nichos that are found in front yards may be constructed of cement or wood, and may appear as a small house, chapel-shaped, or as a small cave. A wrought-iron door may be installed for privacy or to prevent vandalism. Yard nichos can vary in size from one foot to six or eight feet high. Invariably they are decorated with plastic flowers and plants, and are often painted in pastel colors.
See also Altars; Grutas; Yard Shrines
References Cash 1998; Griffith 1992; Ramos 1991; Vidaurri 1991; West 1991
Nun’s Habit
See Hábito
