Coca leaves sprinkled backstage in Las Vegas.

Miami Herald/Tropical Life.
LAS VEGAS- The Colombian group Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto is most likely the only Latin Grammy award winner ever to appear before millions on television after traveling from a hometown without running water.
And Eduarde Cabra --Visitante of reggaeton duo Calle 13 -- must be the only winner of the same award ever to have an indigenous leader sprinkle his palms with coca leaves before going onstage to perform at the Grammys.
Television viewers didn't see the story behind those who play the gaita, or indigenous flute, and the Arhuaco natives who chew coca and use it for ceremonies like Cabra's
The unexpected and in some ways jarring images produced by their presence at Thursday night's event in Las Vegas were the result of a singleminded and offbeat plan Calle 13 cooked up months ago, after a trip to the Caribbean coast of Colombia.
Cabra and his half brother, Rene Perez, were in Colombia this spring for a documtary filmed with Colombian producer Alexander Posada and director Marc de Beaufort.
The idea, said Perez, was "to connect with the other part" of Latin culture, or South America. So they traveled to Ecuador and Venezuela, meeting indigenous people and hearing the regions music.
In Colombia, they landed in Palenque, a fabled place where escaped West African slaves settled, conserving their drums and marrying them to gaitas.That was the origin of cumbia. It was all new to Calle 13.
Posada and crew also took them up the Sierra Neveda de Santa Marta, the worlds steepest-rising coastal mountain range and home to four native people, including the Arhuacos.
"Their way of thinking, of respecting nature, made an impact on me" Perez recalled after the Grammy craziness had subsided Thursday night. So in August, after the Latin Recording Acadamy announced that a Smithsonian recording of the Gaiteros de San Jacinto was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the category of traditional music, Perez had a a-ha! moment.
He decided to bring some of his new friends -- the gaiteros, whose music is centuries old, and the Arhuacos, whose traditions are under siege in Colombia's on going violence.
Of course, they needed visa's. But how do you fill out forms for musicians who live in houses with dirt floors that everyone in town knows how to get to -- but no one remembers the address?
As for addresses, with the Arhuacos, it's the mountains. And then there's birth dates -- don't remember. Or occupation -- another tough question. Luckily, de Beaufort was able to convince the embassy that he would bring them all back safe and sound.
But then there was another hitch, One of the gaiteros -- Manuel Antonio Garcia -- shares the same name of a guerrilla leader the U.S. considers a terrorist." This was a little complicated". Garcia, who's 77, said with mirth. He sat in his Caribbean white cotton clothes, under the wide brimmed sombrero vueltiao typical of the region.
But $400 and a FBI check later, the United States determined that this Garcia was no danger to Homeland Security. A few days after, all were on a plane to Las Vegas -- where the gaiteros couldn't play their music, since they only had tourist visas.
But Calle 13 brought them and the Arhuacos to the steps of the stage while they sang, Pa'l norte. The Colombians sat in mute symbol of something deeper in Latin culture that Perez wants the rest of the world to discover.
This, he said, was a "first step"

By b bruce on Nov 17, 2007, 09:44 in Friendly Talkzone.

oldbongo says on Nov 17, 2007, 11:27:

great post.
oldbongo has visited and patronised san jacinto since 1972,
and now his commandante is a san jacintera.
too bad about the situation there

oldbongo says on Nov 17, 2007, 13:26:

sure would like to know the documentation that permits the arhuacos to enter u.s.
with coca leaves for ceremonial purpose. can they bring la mona mona too?

Sam Salmon says on Nov 17, 2007, 15:15:

I wonder about that too-sounds like pendejada.

' a la orden!'

b bruce says on Nov 18, 2007, 00:02:

Documentation? When I visit my friends in Santa Marta, they always hook me up with a hand full of emeralds. No documentation there either. Just roll them up in a pair of pants in my backpack and go with the flow. Documentation? We don't need no stinking documentation!

lampltr says on Nov 18, 2007, 05:18:

Fantastic article...thanks

msaucey says on Nov 19, 2007, 08:14:

Nice article.... Good to see that there is some light shining on some of the old, old ways that are truly disappearing...

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. - CS Lewis