Asunción

A melody and two poets

In the 1920s, José Asunción Flores brought new music to Asunción’s Bar Polo Norte, at Palma and Alberdi. He had grown up in the city’s Punta Karapã neighbourhood and learned music in the police band. His experiments became known as guarania.

One melody, “India”, acquired more than one set of words. Rigoberto Fontao Meza wrote an early text; the poet Manuel Ortiz Guerrero later wrote another. Flores met Ortiz Guerrero at the poet’s home and printing workshop in Asunción. Their collaboration produced other guaranias including “Panambi vera” and “Ne rendápe aju”.

Ortiz Guerrero’s version of “India” describes an Indigenous woman through images of the forest and the Paraná River. Flores’s melody has travelled through vocal and instrumental arrangements. The recording identified with him on Joyas musicales offers one way to hear it; the story of its words leads back to the meetings and workshops of Asunción.