A Bardic Tale of Changing Seasons on South American Paths - Part 2

A Bardic Tale of Changing Seasons on South American Paths - Part 2 - "The 1st Celtic Festival in the 80's, Celtic Communities and other aspects" by Eliseo Mauas Pinto

By those days grew up my interest on celtic history and literature, but found few traditional activities within communities in Argentina, except an independent group of irish girls called ‘Celtic Argentina’ who danced tape-wired jigs under the direction of a local teacher. What to the Scots refer, they held three Piping Bands and Dancing Corps, they’ve allways loved what they do, but found few who considered themselves as celts, nevertheless, they did preserve some ‘sense of belonging’ to Alba and held activities (not the case of the irish, who had no uillean piper performing among them; maybe that’s why we can still find irish pipers and dancers as members of scottish centers).
Welsh people are almost settled down in the Patagonia -Southern Argentina-.Cities like Trelew, Gaiman, Trevelin are crowded with descendants since 1834. Luckily they preserved their language and tradition -specially those lovely puddings!..gee…. They have no harp players (neither the irish or the scottish have) but do preserve an unstrunged tripple harp at a musem in Gaiman and they love choruses. On each Eistedffod some nice songs in welsh can be heard in Trelew.
Galician and Asturians people came from Spain, and have many descendants in Argentina. My roots are galician based, and many Bands of Dancers and Pipers from Galician Centers are often to be heard performing, they also have lectures, teaching of the ‘galego’ language (romanic language with over 100 words in ancient celt) As for the Asturians, they held only two Bands of Dancers and Pipers. Either way these people are conscious of their celtic heritage and teach youth followers.
These brief aspects of communities above related hadn’t changed too much since my first contact in 1984. Maybe this fact accords to a theory of my own, which considers two kinds of emigration. The emigration with hate, that tries to forget its terrific past; and the other, the emigration with sorrow, which tries to settle down in foreign lands an extent of a beloved culture they’ll never forget. We should also consider at this point, that none is a prophet within his own circles, and some celts are reluctant to accept thoughts or even teachings given by celts who belong to a different branch (e.g.: irish/galician).
Anyway, due to the upcoming of Celtic Festivals in the 90’s many young celtic music fans began to line up some folk based bands, some with celtic blood on their veins, others just keen to music.Long ago remained my days of pen paling and ordering vinyl records from abroad…internet widespreaded and the chance to be approached to celtic culture rose. Somehow I felt that my humble seed had grown up interest at local circuits.