In Venezuela, the infusion of African, indigenous Indian and Spanish influences have combined to create a new, evolving culture. And this month, the celebration of the multicultural Festival of San Antonio mirrors this process. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
“This festival was brought to the Americas by missionaries who had no way of communicating verbally their ideas. So what they did is they used theater.”
David Guss is a professor of anthropology at Tufts University. He tells us that Saint Anthony was credited with bringing Christianity to Africa, and the celebration of his feast day in Venezuela has come to symbolize a form of cultural conquest and change.
“The drama that they used was showing the triumph of the Christian world over the world of the infidels. This comes into the Americas and gets twisted and turned and appropriated in many, many different ways. In Venezuela, part of the story is San Antonio with his drum and with his song, conquering the Moors, who are also seen as being the Indians, which translates into a parable of the founding of the new nation, the bringing of civilization to the wilderness. And this becomes elevated into a national parable, in which not only does civilization and culture conquer the savage and wild, but all of these different elements are brought together — the black, the native, the European — into a new culture itself.”
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.