Montalago Verses (Versos de Montalgo)
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 17/09/2020

Day 182 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series (One Half of a Year!)

OK. I cheated on this one. I could not fit the English into the tune, so it's a story song. Best I could do.

Here's more info behind the story:

Sandburg writes: "In the year 1900, Encarnación Garcia waylaid and killed another Mexican in Cameron County. Montalgo, a Mexican deputy sheriff, rode up on Encarnacion as the latter was burying his victim. Encarnacion resisted arrest, or at least Montalgo always so claimed, and Montalgo killed him. Ten years later to a day, Encarnacion’s gente got their revenge by killing Montalgo."

"Thus Frank J. Dobie, of the Texas Folklore Society, gives in brief the facts leading to this ballad in its opening verses. As to the closing stanzas he notes, "Sandoval had a little ranch and herded goats. He sang this song to rny brother and presumably had composed it, certainly the last three stanzas. Sandoval came up to the Granjeno gate while the crowd were viewing the rests of Montalgo. Hinojosa, a deputy sheriff from Brownsville, came up, did nothing about the murder but arrested poor old Sandoval for killing the venadites" . . .

“These people of Manoa” refers to a family of Mexicans that owned a little ranch near by; they were in sympathy with the sisters of the murdered Montalgo; authorities at Brownsville deputized the head of the Manoa family to act as sheriff. . . . Edal in the first stanza "seems to be a Mexicanisrn not recorded in the dictionaries," Dobie notes. Almazan is a ranch west of Lyford. El puerto (masculine) is irregularly used for la puerta (feminine) in the fourth and sixth stanzas; there seems to be authority for such interchange of usage in Spanish manuscripts dating as far back as 1760. . . .

""Versos" Dobie also notes, "as understood and used by Texas Mexicans, are songs or verses, of folk composition in contradistinction to canciones* songs derived from more or less literary purveyors, though cannon (song or ballad) is also frequently applied to verses of local composition. For Versos de Montalgo I am indebted to my brother, Elrich H. Dobie, who learned them while he was caporal (boss of a cow outfit) on the King Ranch in South Texas,1916-1917. He says the vaqueros frequently made up songs on local happenings. A white maverick bull killed two or three horses and had to be shot. A Mexican made up a song on the subject and for awhile it was widely sung by the King Ranch Mexicans. A raid, a killing, a ladino (outlaw) horse or steer, a stampede, a daring rider these are characteristic themes for vaquero improvisation.” . . .

"The following is one of several stories of Lost Ballads that Frank Dobie tells: "In the summer of 1921, I was with Captain Will Wright's rangers, when they raided a band of tequila smugglers on the Nueces River in La Salle County. It was an interesting raid; one smuggler had to be killed and over a thousand quarts of tequila were captured. I am told that a very long song was composed on the subject, in which certain gringos, including myself, are not very well spoken of. Much to my disappointment, I have been unable to hear the song or secure a copy of it."