Nicaragua's culture


Hello, and welcome to our fourth section of podcasts called Nicaragua’s culture. My name is Arelys Davila and Today I am going to talk about our first episode which is Traditions and beliefs.

Traditions and beliefs are the representation of a country, or a group of people from a determined space. Each local town, community, or village has its own traditions and beliefs even if not all the individuals belong to the same country. Traditions and beliefs can be manifested in different ways, for example, music, gastronomy, people’s culture, and how people behave. In some situations, traditions and beliefs attract foreign people to visit cultural countries, maybe for the history or for its picturesque architecture that has a specific place.

From our viewpoint, it is pretty important to know about our culture (traditions and beliefs) that our country has but also other cultures. It is so embarrassing when someone asks us what do we know about our local place or the general culture of our country and we don't give relevant detail for the lack of culture and information that we manage about own gastronomy, music, dance and even religion that sometimes is one of the most outstanding representations in some local towns. It is so essential to get awareness about it, not only to strengthen our identity but also share our experience and knowledge with others when we have the opportunity to do a cultural exchange.

Some religious traditions are part of our culture where a lot of people like to be involved either for tradition or devotion. One of them is known in Spanish as ¨Las fiestas patronales” which is celebrated with religious processions in the cities, mechanic games for the youngest ones, and some sales of different items that can be found in a variety of fairs. Another of them is known as La Purisima, this is celebrated throughout the country in different ways, the main celebration takes place in Leon city and then in all the other local towns where catholic people carry out some processions and they give away different items such as packages full of traditional candies, packages of food, fruit, kitchen utensils and so on. Being said that, it is plain to see that Christianity is the main religion in our country as part of the culture too.

 

Thanks for listening.



Hi, and welcome to our second episode of Nicaragua’s culture. My name is Julio Davila, and today I am going to talk to you about Music and Folklore.

 

Nicaragua is known by the diversity in its music, one of the main music that represents is folklore famous for its lyrics that tell scary stories and it is tightly related to the legends that were inherited by our ancestors. Generally, each region of Nicaragua has its own music that represents the citizens from a municipality or department, for instance, the Caribbean region has its traditional “palo de mayo” and there are a lot of songs that are part of that music genre. Each folkloric music has its history or meaning which is part of the cultural heritage.

The educational system has tried for a long time to acknowledge the students about the music and folklore of Nicaragua, with the purpose that people do not lose their origins. Nevertheless, some people do not appreciate the importance of Nicaragua’s culture like music and folklore, a clear example of this is that in some cities, the local music is replaced by foreign music or it is only used in cultural movements.

On the other hand, some kinds of foreign music have lost the value by the lyrics, that is to say, it does not have educational value or something representative that helps or creates an attachment for the culture of our country for example urban music is the most popular music among teenagers, and in some cases, it is used in cultural events and we do not give the chance to stand out to our national music. If we survey teenagers about local and national music, a huge rate of them wouldn’t be able to respond about it. With this, we are not saying that it is bad to listen to urban music, but we must value even more the heritage that is spread through the national music and give it the place that it deserves.

Finally, as a reflectional issue, as young people, we must know and transmit about our culture taking into account our music and folklore that represent us, so we can be aware of who we are and where we belong to. In our country there are a lot of good artists who have not been taken into consideration for their types of music, in addition, all this music talks about our country; including our people, our heritage and real situations that as human beings we have passed through in daily life.

 

Thanks so much  for listening.



Hello and welcome to our last episode of Nicaragua’s culture my name is Katherine Toruño and today I am going to share with you about Legends and superstitions.

 

In Nicaragua there are a lot of legends and popular stories, mainly scary tales some of them are la carreta nagua, el padre sin cabeza, la Llorona, el cadejo and so on. Nowadays, these narratives are an important tradition, which are still told by grandparents to their sons or grandchildren. Legends have been handed down through generations and also, they identify us like Nicaraguan people.

 Moreover, we have to mention another important aspect that is part of our culture, these are superstitions or behaviors that Nicaraguan people have, one of them is, in many villages friends visit other Friends with their newborn wearing a bracelet with a red band and two seeds on the bracelet for them this bracelet means protection, besides some people think that number 13 have a malignant meaning, and black cat too. In addition, when some individuals have visitors and they want them to get out quickly, they may draw a salt cross underneath the seat, it is supposed that this should work. Another superstition is, when someone sweeps one’s feet, it is supposed that this person will not get married, and he or she will be single forever. Throughout our country, you can still find a lot of people who truly believe in these superstitions, and others that take them just as a kind of joke.

Legends and superstition also represent us as a cultural country not only for the meaning that they give us but also by whom tell us all those stories, it is a unique way to remember our ancestors or grandparents. According to some of them, they mentioned that they had lived some experiences, actually, as younger people, we think that it is incredible all of these kinds of legends or to believe on superstitions. However, one of the things that is fascinating is how they tell their experiences detail by detail. As researchers, one of us had the experience to investigate about ´´ La Mokuana´s legend ´´. It consisted of an interview based on what older citizens from La Trinidad knew about this legend. Almost the majority of people that were questioned showed themselves excited talking about La Mokuana. Some of them made sure that they had seen her walking in the city’s street when they were younger. Each region has its own legends that represent it as a town or city, as the case that we stated before about “La Mokuana” that takes place in La Trinidad municipality.

 That´s all for today, thanks for listening.

 


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