8. Sephardi Orature and the Myth of Judeo-Spanish Hispanidad

Historically scholars have linked Sephardi orature as a straight and unique line to Spanish literary culture. Beginning in the late nineteenth-century, philologists studied Sephardi oral literature as a vestige of Spanish medieval memory which they presented as almost “frozen” in time after the expulsion (Menéndez Pidal (1956, 1973), Benichou (1968), Alvar (1969, 1971), Armistead & Silverman (1973, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1986), Pomeroy (2005) etc.). Three generations of studies on Romances present an almost completely homogeneous picture of Hispanidad as the driving force behind a rich and dynamic singing tradition, mainly transmitted by Sephardi women throughout the Mediterranean diaspora. Quoting examples from 16th and 17th century printed romanceros, as well as the remaining oral tradition in Spain, the Spanish link is undeniable. However, the Spanish colonial project used this tradition and its “hispanidad” to buttress their colonial expansion in various geographic locations, most notably in northern Morocco. The fact that it was Sephardi women’s orature that was used to support the ideology behind this colonial project is telling in itself.

The reality of what Sephardim sing, conserve and transmit is a layered interweaving of local, multilingual oral repertoire built over traces of historic material gathered by the community throughout its migrations, plus newly adapted pieces from current cultural influences. This reality is wider than the one presented by most scholarship which often restricts it to the romancero tradition, playing into World Literature hegemonic tropes which link romance texts to philology and Spanish literature. The remaining non-Romance oral repertoire from this community is generally confined to anthropological and ethnomusicological study, not reaching the status of a valuable literary contribution. This chapter deconstructs and analyses the asymmetries inherent in the ways Moroccan Sephardim see and interact with their orature compared with the manner in which Western academia has studied and written about it.