Chapter 3: Agustn Barrios as Cacique Nitsuga Mangor

Historical origins of Mangor

In considering the origins of Mangor it becomes apparent that this episode in Barrios
career has a diverse lineage relating not only to Barrios personal experience but also to
broader trends in Latin American cultural history of the early twentieth century. In a
personal sense, it seems clear that Mangor, far from springing fully formed from
Barrios imagination in August 1930, actually grew from his own much earlier
experiences, including those connected with the harsh realities of earning a livelihood as
a guitarist in Latin America in the first decades of the twentieth century. As early as
1910, Barrios had articulated the concept of an alternative performing identity through
the idea of Cacique (Chief) Nitsuga, thereby reversing his first name. At this stage
Barrios can be seen as tentatively moving towards this alternative persona, without the
concept of the actual historical figure, Mangor. In that same year and on the advice of
his friend, the intellectual Viriato Diaz Perez, Barrios moved to Buenos Aires to further
his career. While playing incidental music for silent films and for dramatic performances
he met the actor Pavricini, from whom he absorbed aspects of costume and make-up,
skills which would be fully realised twenty years later in the construction of his alterego, Mangor.
In the Profeson de Fe Barrios depicted his association with the guitar in
mythological terms. The divine representatives of Indian culture represented above all
by Tup present to Barrios the guitar as the vehicle with which to express the musical
spirit of Latin America. Barrios use of the word Tupa is most likely a variation of Tupi,
the historical leader of the Tupinamb people of Brazil. As Suzel Ana Reily observes,

the figure of Tupi occupied an important place in the artistic imagination of Brazilian
artists in the twentieth century, in particular the depiction of the lute playing Tupi, as
1
captured in Mario de Andrades poem I am a Tupi Indian Playing a Lute. In Reilys

analysis, the Tupi image emerged at various critical stages in the development of
modern Brazilian music in which the guitar itself assumed a central place. The guitars
role as a vehicle of truly national significance lay in its capacity to move between
popular and high culture, and between country and city:
The symbolic value of the guitar for the ideologues of Brazilian modernism
hinged upon its potential to mediate between cultural spheres on both horizontal
and vertical axes. Horizontally, it could mediate between the rural and the urban,
the regional and the national, the national and the international; vertically, it
provided a link for integrating popular cultural and high art as well as the
racially defined social classes related to these social spheres. 2

As discussed in Chapter 2, the presence in Brazil of visiting Latin American and Spanish
guitar virtuosi capable of demonstrating the guitars artistic possibilities was also crucial
in facilitating this process of mediation.

And as the pre-eminent Latin American

guitarist-composer, Barrios own contribution was recognised as vital to this process, as

was Segovias in his role as the international representative of the Spanish guitar.
Barrios performances offered a syncretisation of what Reily refers to as these universal
aesthetic ideals of high art, with the purely national character of the guitar. In the4

Suzel Ana Reily, Hybridity and Segregation in the Guitar Cultures of Brazil, Andy Bennett & Kevin
Dawe (eds.), Guitar Cultures (Oxford & New York: Berg, 2001), 168. For a discussion of Andrades
contribution to Brazilian musical nationalism see the same authors Macunamas Music: Identity and
Ethnomusicological Research in Brazil, Martin Stokes (ed.), Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical
Construction of Place (Oxford: Berg, 1994), 71-96.
2
Reily, Hybridity and Segregation, 170.
3
Chapter 2, 77-78.
4
Reily, Hybridity and Segregation, 170. Although, as Reily also observes, the guitars supplantation of
the piano as the national instrument of Brazilian culture and of modernism, was not properly achieved
until the bossa nova movement of the late 1950s. It was the image of the bossa nova guitarist/singer, softly
crooning his message of love to gentle syncopated rhythms which finally realised the vision of the lute
playing Tupi; Hybridity and Segregation, 172.

91

process of cultural exchange and mediation which characterised Brazils musical

development in the early twentieth century, Barrios was supremely well placed to make
a crucial contribution. The very nature of his concerts, with their bipartite structure of
classical works and transcriptions, followed by original and popular compositions,
illustrated the unique qualities of the guitar as a vehicle of universal appeal, supported
and reinforced by his Indian persona. In his metamorphosis from classical virtuoso to the
Indian figure of Mangor, Barrios gave a concrete demonstration of the tremendous
versatility, expressive qualities and communicative power of the guitar to the Brazilian
public, and to audiences throughout Latin America.
Yet Barrios was Paraguayan, not Brazilian, and his adoption of the historical
figure of Mangor, together with his compositions derived from Paraguayan themes
5
bespeaks a proud expression of his native culture. Why
then did he depict, in poetic

fashion, the origins of the guitar in terms of Brazilian culture rather than in the context
of Paraguayan musical history? In part this could have been a nod in the direction of
Brazilian music as an aid to his performances in that country. For Barrios, the
presentation of Mangor outside Paraguay was facilitated by its mediation through the
symbols of national culture. In that sense, for Brazilian audiences the references to Tupi
doubtless facilitated the reception of the remarkable figure which Barrios, as Mangor,
offered.
But Barrios was also aware of the powerful significance of the Tupi figure in
Latin American culture associated with plucked instruments. For Barrios, the guitars
6
realisation of this marvelous symphony of all the virgin voices of America posited
the

5
6

Diana Guaran, Danza Paraguaya, for example.

Profeson de Fe; refer Introduction, 2.

92

instrument as the authentic musical voice of the entire continent. In this way the guitar
also offered salvation from the dilemma in which centuries of European cultural
dominance had placed the countries of Latin America. Barrios was therefore the true
messenger of the iconic nature of the guitar in Latin America, demonstrating in masterly
and expressive fashion its unique status as the medium of cultural nationalism. In that
way also, his depiction of the origins of the modern guitar and its central function in
representing an entire culture looked forward to the role which Segovia promoted for the
guitar in combating what he, Segovia, saw as the dangers of musical modernism.
Segovia regarded the guitar, by virtue of its quiet, sincere means of communication, as
having a crucial redemptive role in rescuing music from experimentalism, indeed in
rescuing all art which had been corrupted by the temptations and dangers of
modernism. 7
Brazil was also central to the formation of Mangor in another way. It was here
that Barrios first began to adopt his alternative identity, testing its reception in Bahia in
August 1930, where he was advertised as Agustn Barrios portraying the caricature of
Nitsuga Mangor. 8And it was during the journey which Barrios then undertook into the
northern reaches of Brazil to regions such as Recife, Pernambuco, Aracuju, Maceio
and Fortaleza that he assumed more completely the character which would sustain his
art for the next four years. Brazil can thus be regarded as the true creative birthplace of
Mangor, where Barrios developed fully his theatrical concept to the extent that fantasy
overtook reality and in his performing role, he became Nitsuga Mangor.

Guitar News, No. 99 (June-August 1968), quoted in Graham Wade and Gerard Garno, A New Look at
Segovia: His Life, His Music, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (Pacific, MO: Mel Bay, 2000), vol. 2, 68.
8
Introduction, 1-2.

93

Reception History
As indicated in the Introduction, Latin American critics and audiences who encountered
the exotic figure of Mangor in concert from 1930 were initially dubious or hostile,
particularly when Barrios performed classical compositions in such an apparently
anachronistic setting and costume [Figure 3]. Juan de Dios Trejos, who later became a
pupil of Barrios during the San Salvador years from 1940, relates his apprehension when
he attended a Mangor concert in Costa Rica in 1933:
When I first saw the announcements for Barrios concert in Cartago, I thought it
would be some kind of clown doing parodies on the works of the great masters
for the poster announced works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and so on. I went
with a sense of trepidation. But upon hearing the magic of this mans playing, I
was enthralled! Barrios was a true magician of the guitar and a magnificent
musician! 9

This fear of the grotesque, of an outrage about to be committed against the revered
works of the classical repertoire, somehow interpreted through an Indian guitarist
transported from the jungle to the concert stage, was a common reaction of the critics.
Thus at a concert in Guatemala in September 1933, the critic for Nuestro Diario noted
the disparity, on the one hand, between the exotic setting of the stage and Barrios
feathered costume, and on the other, the classical repertoire with which he opened the
concert. The reviewers patronising and overtly racist tone emerges strongly: the
Indian feels he is a musician but my God! That savage wants to play Bach,
Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin on the guitar. It seems a sacrilege. We expect a disaster,
a fatal musical calamity.

10

But after hearing some more of Barrios original

compositions, the critic and audience were won over by the force and imagination of his
playing.
9

Stover, Six Silver Moonbeams, 140.

Stover, Six Silver Moonbeams, 149.

10

94

NOTE: This figure is included on page 95 of the print copy of the thesis held in
University of Adelaide Library.

the

cgure PW _arros as jangorI crca N9PNK

pourceW www.renatospace.it/Scuola/Contenuti/Barrios/Barrios_Foto . htmK
EaccessedW T guly OMM9F

9R

It must be acknowledged that Barrios was attempting an heroic task not only in
seeking acceptance of the striking figure which he presented as Mangor, but also in
convincing audiences of the guitars status as a credible concert instrument. That latter
function itself carried the additional burden of the problematic nature of the guitars
repertoire at that time, which relied either on original works primarily pieces from the
nineteenth century of slender musical substance or more controversially, using the
guitar to present transcriptions of classical works. 11
Modern reception to Mangor has been similarly ambivalent. It is true that since
the 1970s there has been a remarkable posthumous recognition of Barrios, which has
radically altered his status from relative obscurity to prominence, such that he is now
regarded as the pre-eminent guitarist-composer of the twentieth century. This
renaissance in Barrios studies has been accompanied by a proliferation of recordings
devoted to his music since 1977. 12
However, and as argued in the Introduction, much of the attention paid to Barrios
in recent years has tended to merely acknowledge in passing his Mangor episode. From
this latter perspective, Barrios adopted Indian heritage is ultimately irrelevant to our
evaluation of his contribution. It is of no more account than Barrios use of metal strings,

11

An examination of Barrios concert programs during his Mangor period of the 1930s reveals a mixture
of 1. works composed for the guitar by the nineteenth century guitarist-composers Sor, Coste, Trrega; 2.
transcriptions by Barrios of classical works, comprising both piano works by Beethoven, Chopin,
Mendelssohn, Schumann and operatic paraphrases from Verdi and Donizetti in the manner of Liszt; and 3.
Barrios original compositions, comprising a) serious classical works, e.g. in the style of Bach, b)
Romantic works (waltzes, mazurkas and tangos) and c) works in various Latin American popular style
(chros, maxixes, cuecas). This was also a dilemma with which Segovia was all too familiar: the challenge
of leading a modern revival of the guitar while simultaneously building a repertoire, which, until the
efforts of contemporary composers were sufficient to make a substantial contribution, had to rely of
necessity on transcriptions and arrangements.
12
For a survey of the Barrios renaissance see Graham Wade On the Road to Mangor: How Barrios was
rescued from obscurity, EGTA Guitar Journal, 5 (1994), 41-44. See also the references in the
Introduction, 12.

96

a device he employed to gain more brilliance in the guitars treble register but which
attracted severe criticism at the time, even from his supporters, and which differentiated
him in an unflattering way from the sweet, full-bodied sound which distinguished
Segovias method of sound production. 13 For Barrios biographer Richard Stover, as for
most of Barrios admirers, Mangor represents a fascinating but ultimately irrelevant
stage in Barrios career, the enduring value of which is to be located in his
compositional output, his status as the greatest of Latin American guitarist-composers,
and the depth of his artistic vision.
By contrast, this thesis interprets Mangor as an integral feature of his
performing identity, which gains added significance in the context of Latin American
cultural independence, and also in relation to the wider modernist currents of the 1930s
with their preoccupation with the primitive and the exotic.

Latin American Perspectives

Modern Latin American writers are by no means unanimous in their interpretation of
Barrios assumed Indian identity as a supposed demonstration of his love of Latin
American culture. Much of this commentary follows the pattern which greeted the
appearance of Mangor during the 1930s: great enthusiasm on the one hand and fierce
criticism on the other.
For the Paraguayan guitarist and composer Sila Godoy (1921-), the phenomenon
of Mangor is the aspect of Barrios that has left the strongest impression of his memory

13

The view that regards Barrios use of metal strings as mere eccentricity is, however, not a universal one.
Opposing this is the interpretation that his choice of metal strings constituted a vital feature of Barrios
aesthetics of sound production on the guitar. Refer to the Appendix, 159.

97

throughout Latin America, such that in some countries he still known by that name
rather than Agustn Barrios.

14

At the same time, Godoy recognises an undeniable

element of commercialism in the characterisation which exploited Barrios own

indigenous features, exaggerated by the exotic dress and the advertising which promoted
him as The Paganini of the guitar from the jungles of Paraguay. For Godoy, Mangor
also conveniently embodied in artistic form the support for indigenous causes which
existed throughout Latin America at the time, thereby facilitating the reception of his
alternative identity. 15
Former pupils of Barrios are also keen to defend the memory of their master,
particularly in relation to the authenticity of his adopted Indian heritage. Jose Roberto
Bracamonte Benedic, a student of Barrios in El Salvador from 1940, feels impelled to
take issue with Barrios brother over this crucial aspect of Mangor:
I must pause and review the ethnic question of Mangor, because I understand, I
love and I respect this "Indian Guaran" musician, dressed with feathers and the
attire of his tribe. I am forced to stop, because his brother Hctor L. Barrios
has left words that, in my opinion, are discriminative and they give the
impression that he [Agustin] felt ashamed to acknowledge the blood of our
ancestors and the color of the muddy soil of America. 16

The objectionable sentiments in question were that Hctor claimed emphatically that,
not one drop of native blood ran in the veins of their family, an attitude which, for
Bracamonte, constituted an act of betrayal of his own race, as well against his own
brother. 17 Benedic refutes that charge by Barrios own confirmation of his racial origins:
14

Sila Godoy and Luis Szaran, Mangor, Vida y Obra de Agustn Barrios (Asuncin: Editorial Nanduti,
1994), 82.
15
Godoy and Szaran, Mangor, 82.
16
Jos Roberto Bracamonte Benedic, Mangor, el Maestro que Concoc (San Salvador: Fundacin Mara
Escaln de Nez, 1995), 16. Translations from this and other Spanish works quoted in this chapter are by
the author.
17
Benedic, Mangor, 16.

98

Mangor, like I and many Salvadorians, felt proud to be racially mixed and he
knew that he carried in his blood and spirit the collective subconscious of the
two races, as well as those racially mixed of pipil origin, amounting thus to
three: Indian, black and white. Yes, Mangor was of mixed race even though
Hctor did not like it, and he felt more Indian than white, as shown by the way
he speaks of his tribe and of its Indian gods as Tupa and Yacy. 18

Benedics treatment of the Mangor issue is passionate in its defence of Barrios

motivations, but not necessarily persuasive. That Barrios or his disciples on his behalf
affirmed an Indian heritage because he felt it, or that he dressed as an Indian in
concert, does not in itself suffice to demonstrate such a link.

19

What the passage does

demonstrate is how his El Salvadorean followers have been keen to claim Barrios as one
of their own, to take ownership as it were and incorporate him into their historical
tradition, in this case by tracing his lineage to the group that inhabited the country in precolumbian times (the pipil).
But there is one other telling aspect of Hctor Barrios account to which
Bracamonte refers, perhaps inadvertently, as it weakens the force of the authors
argument concerning the authenticity of Agustins Indian identity. In his brothers
estimation, Chief Mangor or Chief Nitsuga satisfied a mere artistic whim. Everyone
here knows that, even if they ignore it abroad. 20 Could such a simple explanation as the
capriciousness licensed by artistic freedom actually be at the root of Mangor?
Further support for this argument is offered by Bacn Duarte Prado, who adopts
a more critical perspective on Mangor than does Bracamonte. In a work

18

Benedic, Mangor, 17.

Benedic refers to Barrios Mangor costume as evidence of how genuinely he regarded his Indian
heritage, which is acceptable although debatable, but also comments that Barrios even presented as such in
large, foreign theatres. The latter claim is incorrect, as Barrios abandoned Mangor for his European trip
in 1934.
20
Benedic, Mangor, 16. The sentence is however, misleading, because of the same incorrect inference as
pointed out in note 19, that Barrios also presented Mangor in Europe.
19

99

commemorating the centenary of Barrios birth, Prado poses the obvious and critical
question concerning the guitarists rationale for his transformation:
We do not know for sure what was the motivation that led him to fulfill in
himself this strange nominal and personal metamorphosis, this capricious
change. Was it for economic reasons in the sense that this ingenious expedient
would help to enlarge his public and consequently his income ? But one must
bear in mind his indifference to all material things, except those strictly
necessary to manage, which makes it hard to admit this hypothesis. It is
abundantly clear that he lived and worked in poverty, with more riches gained
through his art than with a purse of jingling money. 21

From all the evidence concerning Barrios character, this is an accurate interpretation of
the role that financial considerations played in the construction of his alternative
performing identity. That Barrios was never a wealthy man, that he gave generously, for
example by donating his works in gratitude to friends or by performing for charity, is
confirmed by his contemporaries. Nor would an avaricious person have inspired the
poetry and tributes that Barrios attracted throughout his life, and the eloquent eulogies to
his memory. Barrios career embodied the struggle of an artist wandering ceaselessly
through Latin America, occasionally wealthy from a successful series of concerts, but
most often with the spectre of poverty at his shoulder.

22

But Prado continues by

questioning the integrity of Barrios alter-ego:

Did he show in this somewhat unusual form his solidarity, his love, his
admiration towards the forgotten race, having to pass through such a figurehead?
It is not necessary to doubt the love that Agustn Barrios professed to his land, to
the people of his country of origin, but it does not seem very congruent that this
affectionate inclination extended to his identifying in such a way with our
indigenous ancestors. By elimination from other possibilities, this hypothesis
seems to us one that better fits his idiosyncrasy: a humorous gesture, an innocent
fraud, a joke done for its own sake, like displaying the pigtail which is done to
break certain rules of solemnity and formality, in tribute to a festive spirit, to the
will of not taking itself too seriously, above all in matters that are judged proper.
In short, a whim of the genius, who follows his own road. 23

21

Bacn Duarte Prado, Agustn Barrios: Un genio insular (Asuncin: Editorial Araver, 1985), 123-124.
Stover, Six Silver Moonbeams, 193, 196.
23
Prado, Agustn Barrios, 124.
22

100

Prado thus ultimately reaches the same conclusion as Barrios brother Hector, that
Agustn took a frivolous decision, befitting the artists prerogative, by challenging the
strait-jacket of convention which surrounded and stifled the world of classical
performance. What can be gleaned from all these accounts is the strong element of
fantasy which informed the development of Barrios performing character, and which he
exploited in the promotion of that figure.
Yet in part, the motivation for Mangor was also pragmatic in orientation,
whereby Barrios pursued his dramatic role which generated interest and favourable
publicity. Again, Prado paints an evocative picture of Mangor:
His physical characteristics, his dark and straight hair, his gaze often lost in
distant or ancestral dreams, gave sufficient encouragement to the legend of
which he was author, adding in this way the enchantment of a certain exoticism
and novelty to his artistic and social presence. 24

Barrios further contributed to the desired reception by circulating to journalists the story
that he was adopted by the Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay and educated in their
institutions, although such a system had not existed in his country for 150 years. His
brother Francisco Martn collaborated in the campaign as Barrios secretary and
manager, often arriving in the Brazilian towns prior to Agustn and announcing that his
brother would arrive following his recent European season, a tour which although much
anticipated by Barrios, had not actually occurred. 25

24
25

Prado, Agustin Barrios, 123.

Godoy and Szarn, Mangor, 85.

101

Mangor and Cultural Independence

Mangor represented the struggle of conflicting patterns both in Barrios personal life
and in the wider context of Latin American culture. One aspect of this conflict lay in
Barrios deferential attitude to Segovia as the supreme maestro of the guitar, whom
Barrios was keen to impress and gain his approval, perhaps with the forlorn hope of
assistance with his own career. On the other hand, there is the emergence of Mangor in
Barrios career from 1930 as a conscious differentiation of his previous activities, as a
distancing from the orthodox presentation which Segovia personified, and as a strategy
of personal fulfillment.
These artistic tensions in Barrios psyche were themselves reflections of those
competing movements for social change which had occupied Latin American societies
in the previous fifty years. As discussed in the previous chapter, the intellectual
dichotomy of the mid-nineteenth century posed the stark choice between the political
stability and cultural achievements derived from European tradition versus the law of the
jungle, in other words, between civilisation and barbarism. This was later played out in
the tensions of the Belle Epoque era between 1870 and 1920, with its adoption of
European morals and attitudes while simultaneously proclaiming a national identity in
opposition to European culture. The romantic nationalism of costumbrismo itself gave
way to a deeper appreciation of ancient American cultures characterised in the
indigenismo movement which followed the First World War.
The themes of the Belle Epoque, costumbrismo and the quest for an appropriate
cultural identity have particular relevance in regard to the differing personae that Barrios
adopted, first in his relationship with Segovia, and then in his alternative presentation of
himself as Mangor. His highly respectful attitude to his more famous Spanish colleague
102

 as illustrated by Barrios comments concerning their famous meeting of 1921

26

was

typical of the way that Latin American elites and middle classes in that period deferred
to Europe in matters of taste and cultural judgement. In his other persona as Mangor,
Barrios adopted an independent, nationalistic identity, and thus participated in the wider
costumbrismo movement through his overt celebration of Indian identity. Furthermore,
Barrios adoption of these dual personae can be viewed as representative of those
broader cultural divisions of the post-independence era, which challenged traditional
Hispanic-centred allegiances with a new ideology of independent Latin American
identity.
Contemporary Latin American commentators were alert to the significance of
Barrios Indian persona in the context of his musical journeys throughout the continent:
This compulsory pilgrimage was valuable for his personal glory and for the
artistic prestige of his country. Agustn Barrios, transformed into the chief
Mangor, with his masked face, carved in the bodily stone of its pure American
substance, with his hands of green iron extended in ten fingers like ten
bewitched fireflies, with his tremendous internal treasure of rhythms and
sounds; the great and powerful chief Mangor united the towns of this Continent
with the sonorous trail of his guitar. 27

The language is poetic, as Barrios himself would have adopted, yet the clear intent is
that Mangor was far more than a theatrical persona; he symbolically united the cultural
activity of the entire continent. Nor was Barrios an unwitting actor in this historical
movement. Far from his adoption of an Indian identity derived from Paraguays colonial
background being a happy coincidence with nationalistic sentiments permeating Latin
America, Barrios actively voiced his awareness of the broader artistic and cultural
movements in which he participated:

26

Godoy and Szarn, Mangor, 40-43. See also the discussion in the Appendix, 155-156.
Saturnini Ferreira Perez, Agustin Barrios, Su entorno, su epoca, y su drama (Asuncion: Educiones
Cumuneros, 1990), 103.
27

103

Throughout the Americas at this time there is a tendency of nationalism. This is

observed in South and Central America. In Mexico, from what I understand, the
nationalistic feeling is more profound. We are now tired of imitations, and we
are returning to that which is ours. Europe indisputably is headed toward
decadence while we are on the way to scaling great heights. America has a
brilliant future and this is seen manifested in the arts, in literature, sculpture, the
pictographic arts and music. 28

This marked the high water mark of Barrios as Mangor. He proudly proclaimed his
Indian heritage while situating his activity within the wider sphere of Latin American
cultural independence. As part of that assertion of autonomy, Barrios was concerned to
offer a critique of Europe, distancing himself, his country and his whole continent from
what he saw as the tired decadence of the Old World. In so doing he was also critiquing
Segovia, the preeminent representative of the guitar in European culture, and distancing
his new identity from his own previous behaviour which had been so obviously in awe
of Segovia, and thus in danger of following that imitative model which he now
disparaged. Certainly by this time in his career, Barrios had a clear awareness of his own
significance, including his status vis--vis Segovia. It is true that by 1930 the Spanish
guitarist had established an enviable performing reputation in Europe and some Latin
American countries, had made important contributions in rehabilitating the status of the
guitar as a legitimate concert instrument and was beginning to fire the interest of
composers in the guitar. But Barrios could legitimately claim that he was the major
guitarist-composer of his era, following a great tradition of earlier figures including
Fernando Sor (1778-1839), Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) and Francisco Trrega (18521909). 29

28

La Prensa, July 12 1933, from Stover, Six Silver Moonbeams, 146.

In fact Barrios represents the last of this great tradition of guitarist-composers. The Cuban Leo Brouwer
(b. 1939), the most significant and prolific composer for the instrument in the second half of the twentieth
century, also had a prominent performing career until a hand injury in 1984 forced his retirement.
29

104

Barrios and Pan-Americanism

A final aspect of Barrios stance of cultural autonomy lay in the way that his career was
intimately bound up with his relationship to Latin America as a whole. Save for his last
few years when he settled in San Salvador, Barrios life was a constant pilgrimage
throughout that continent. Unlike other significant guitarists of the time, Barrios toured
extensively in Latin America, and his financial struggle was a consequence of his
determination to survive primarily through his concertising activities. Occasionally
Barrios adopted an overt attitude of solidarity towards his fellow citizens, in particular
the Indians of North America:
If I go to the United States I have my mind made up to make my entrance in the
State of Arizona. There are my Indian brothers and I want to visit and play for
them. I will charge nothing for my playing since I shall be going to them
bringing greetings from my race to the brother race. 30

Unfortunately, Barrios never journeyed to North America, perhaps as a result of his

unsuccessful European tour which strengthened his resolve to devote his efforts to Latin
America because it was more receptive to his music. Barrios suggestive comments
about his relations to his North American Indian brothers therefore remains a
tantalising glimpse of the socially significant role which Barrios intended for Mangor.
For Sila Godoy, Barrios embodied the spirit of American art while also capturing the
essence of the Spanish tradition which had given rise to the renaissance of the
instrument at the start of the twentieth century:
In his instrument there resounded unmistakably the living expression of that
which the guitar carries with it from its remote origin to the most recent influx
of Spanish bloodThe harmonic apex of the guitar of Barrios weds the soul of
ancient and modern Spain and the soul of America; that is to say instead of
diminishing its expressive value, the guitar is enriched with an enormous
spiritual and aesthetic contribution. 31
30
31

Interview in Diario Comercial, Aug. 29, 1933, from Stover, Six Silver Moonbeams, 149.
Sila Godoy, Ha Muerto el Poeta de la Guitarra: Agustin Barrios, Godoy and Szarn, Mangor, 132.

105

Moreover, his compositions based on folkloric themes of various Latin American

countries have assumed an iconic status, comparable to the finest examples of those
genres. 32 In this sense, Barrios activities in collecting and adapting folk music were
comparable in dedication and skill to that of Bartk or Kodly. And while it is true that,
unlike those artists, Barrios compositions were confined to the medium of the guitar, his
work was so idiomatic that it expressed the spirit of the instrument in the same way, for
example, as did Chopin for the piano. 33

Barrios-Mangor and the European Tour of 1934

From a contemporary perspective it may be convenient to dismiss the Mangor episode
as an exercise in opportunism or sensationalism, whereby Barrios capitalised on an
artificially adopted Indian heritage in order to promote his career. Certainly the
transformation to Mangor occurred after a bitterly disappointing time for Barrios when
he had been rejected by audiences in Buenos Aires, during which time Segovia had
enjoyed conspicuous success there. In that sense, the self-made image of Mangor
offered Barrios a radical break with the disappointments of the past, and an opportunity
to attract fresh audiences by exploiting the unique appeal of the guitar and its origins.
But Mangor also promised something more to an artist struggling in the shadow of
Segovia; it provided a radical and exotic differentiation from Segovias classically
restrained performing persona. The primitivism inherent in Barrios Mangor identity

32

Godoy, Ha Muerto el Poeta de la Guitarra 132.

John Williams comments that, In this way he has filled that need of every instrument to have its
composer who belonged to the instrument and at the same time wrote great music; quoted in Stover, Six
Silver Moonbeams, 179.
33

106

posited a radical, provocative contrast to the image that Segovia was striving to project
of the guitar. That latter image projected the guitar as a symbol of the highest aspects of
European culture, in equal company with the accepted orchestral instruments with their
centuries of performing tradition.
Moreover, the idea that Mangor was an artificial, commercially motivated
creation gains further apparent credibility in the context of Barrios subsequent decision
to abandon his Indian alter-ego. This occurred at the time of Barrios tour of Europe in
September 1934, an adventure which Barrios had long anticipated and which would
have actually benefited the guitarist immeasurably more had he undertaken it twenty
years earlier. In any case, from this time he suddenly cast off the mantle of Mangor and
assumed a more restrained, orthodox presentation. The theatrical persona which Barrios
had assumed for five years in Latin America was laid to rest as he adopted the
anonymous performing image which he and his admirers regarded, mistakenly it is later
suggested in the case of Mangor, as de rigueur for European audiences. From this
perspective, Barrios desperate quest for recognition in Latin America, which Mangor
represented, was no longer necessary or indeed acceptable. Now Barrios prepared
himself for the European stage, where he and his colleagues and advisors regarded
exoticism, at least in such a theatrical form, as anathema to the conventions and
demands of classical performance. 34
There is compelling evidence that Barrios bowed to external pressure at this
period, regardless of the genuine nature of his own feelings towards Mangor or of the
34

On Mangor as a desperate strategy, see David Tannenbaum, The Classical Guitar in the Twentieth
Century, Victor Anand Coelho (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 188. Yet as this chapter argues, it was precisely the primitivism embodied in
Mangor that would have most appealed to European audiences in the 1930s.

107

possibilities of success for touring as Mangor in Europe. That pressure derived from the
hostile press reviews which Barrios had received as Mangor which compared most
unfavourably to the praise Segovia had recently enjoyed and also from the advice of
colleagues. For it was at this time also that one of Barrios patrons emerged with
decisive effect on his career. The Paraguayan ambassador to Mexico, Toms Salomini,
after hearing Barrios play in Mexico in 1934 convinced him to abandon his absurd
attire and revert to his original name and identity [Figure 4].

35

For Salomini, this was a

prerequisite for encouraging and assisting Barrios in the realisation of the guitarists
artistic dream: the European tour.
But instead of the anticipated success on the European stage, Barrios gave only a
handful of concerts on the continent. His recital in Brussels at the Royal Conservatoire
on November 7, 1934 is the only documented instance of this period and it gives a
glimpse of the reception he may have received in the concert halls of Europe. The critic
of Het Laatste Nieuws displayed an apprehension of the guitars slight and introspective
nature and feared that,
when it is presented in the large hall of the Brussels Conservatoire, one can
wonder if the sounds and chords enticed from the instrument will not be
completely absorbed by the mere size of the auditorium, and be lost for the ear.
Fortunately it appears that this fear is unfounded, and one listens with increasing
pleasure to a masterly performance of a select program containing works by
Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Mozart and some pieces especially
composed for guitar by Sor, Coste, Malats, Trrega and Granados. Nitsuga
Mangor is a great virtuoso and his high-level performance was applauded at
length and deservedly. 36
35

Godoy and Szarn, Mangor, 94. As suggested above (p. 107), the further intriguing question is why
Barrios chose to delay his European tour until 1934 rather than some twenty years earlier when he may
have benefited more from this experience.
36
Anonymous review of November 11, 1934 quoted in Jan J. de Kloe, Barrios in Brussels, GFA
Soundboard, XXVII (Winter/Spring 2000), 24. The reference to Mangor suggests that Barrios had not
quite abandoned his alter-ego for European audiences, instead maintaining that persona, at least in name,
for his concert publicity on this occasion.

108

Figure 4: Barrios in his Guaran costume in Mexico in 1934.

Source: Stover, Richard D., Six Silver Moonbeams: The Life and Times of
Agustn Barrios Mangor, Clovis, CA: Querico Publications, 1992, 148.

109

In this way, the Belgian critic echoed the reception that Barrios had been accorded as
Mangor in Latin America: incredulity which was quickly overtaken by admiration.
Following Brussels, Barrios spent a year in Berlin; however there is no record of him
performing a single concert during this period. Eventually arriving in Madrid in
December 1935 at a critical moment in Spanish history, just prior to the outbreak of the
Civil War, Barrios decided that the safest course was to return home and he spent the
rest of his life performing and teaching in Latin America. By the conclusion of the
Second World War in 1945, Barrios was too ill to consider international touring. The
possibilities for Barrios much anticipated European tour were thus nullified by
historical events which deprived him of the opportunity to reach an international
audience, and the debilitating effects of the syphilis which he had contracted as a young
man ensured that he was unable to resume his international career after 1945.
Closer examination, however, reveals other aspects of Barrios personality, and
of the prevailing climate of Latin American cultural independence, in which the
Mangor persona assumes a deeper meaning and relevance. Barrios was a genuinely
creative musician whose life followed the pattern of the wandering artists pilgrimage
throughout Latin America. 37 In his poem, Bohemio, he presented himself as a brother
to those medieval troubadours/who suffered a romantic madness.

38

That Barrios

regarded his Indian heritage as something deeply felt is also manifested through his
Profeson de Fe. The Profeson provides a poignant, poetic justification for the concept
of Nitsuga Mangor: 400 years after the Spanish conquest in which Mangor died,

37

Aside, that is from the 18 month intermission in Europe from September 1934 to February 1936.
Yo soy hermano, en glorias y dolores; de aquellos mediavales trovadores; que sufrieron romntica
locura, quoted from Benedic, Mangor, 64.
38

110

Barrios resurrected the spirit of his Guaran ancestor, and the guitar was the voice
through which Barrios-Mangor communicated his cultural message to a new and
receptive audience. Moreover, and as argued in the next chapter, Barrios compositions
offer further support for the authenticity of the Mangor identity. Compositions such as
Un Sueo en la Floresta (A Dream in the Forest), La Catedral, Una Limosna por el
Amor de Dios (An Alm for the Love of God) are illustrative of his romantic imagination,
while his many works in popular national styles attest to Barrios devotion to the
traditional musical forms of Latin America.
This posits a deeper relevance for Mangor in Barrios psyche, and is further
supported by the fact that Barrios did not entirely abandon Mangor following his
abortive European adventure. Barrios arrived back in Venezuela in February 1936 and
spent the remaining eight years of his life resuming his musical travels throughout the
countries of Latin America. Programs from his concerts in Costa Rica and San Salvador
during 1939 continued to display the name Mangor, without, however the
accompanying costume and make-up which had marked the zenith of his Indian period
between 1930 and 1934. In fact, right up to his last years in El Salvador, Barrios
continued to present himself by name as Nitsuga Mangor. In that sense Mangor was
not a label or mere costume to be taken on and subsequently discarded depending on the
authors inclinations, or the reactions of audiences and prevailing cultural trends. It
should be viewed instead as the manifestation of a deeper conviction about the sources
of his artistic beliefs and his relationship to the American continent in which he traveled
and concertised.

111

The Urge to Primitivism

An intriguing question remains, however, as to the reception which Barrios may have
received with Mangor in Europe. Was Barrios himself unaware of the full implications
of his Indian persona for international audiences? In particular, what was the meaning
of Mangor for a Europe which was, precisely at this historical period, so fascinated by
the primitive? How, for example, would Parisian audiences, who had recently been
entranced by Josephine Bakers display of exoticism (and eroticism) in the 1920s, have
reacted to Barrios Indian figure, what Sila Godoy terms his presentation of the savage
beauty of Indian art? 39
The previous chapter discussed the enduring concerns of Latin American
intellectuals with attitudes to Europe as they worked through the argument of civilisation
versus barbarism in the mid-nineteenth century, and which later developed into the
themes of costumbrismo and indigenismo. In Europe itself, the development of
primitivism in the early decades of the twentieth century was profoundly linked to a key
concern of modernism, the rejection of industrial society, and the related celebration of
the energy inherent in peasant and tribal culture.

40

In this analysis, the primitive

embodied a connection with the direct, elemental aspects of nature which modern
society had rejected or lost. As an artistic movement, primitivism had enormous impact
in the visual arts, ballet, literature, as well as in music. In explaining this enduring
fascination, commentators have observed how the West has been preoccupied with the
dichotomy of both differentiating from and identifying with the primitive Other. This
39

Godoy and Szarn, Mangor, 132.

Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture and Collage from Stravinsky to the
Postmodernists (Cambridge, Ma: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994), 63.
40

112

is achieved through a process of rejecting or denying the irrational, subversive and

mystical aspects of Western civilization, and instead projecting these aspects onto socalled primitive peoples. Marianna Torgovnick observes that, fascination with the
primitive thus involves a dialectic between, on the one hand, a loathing and demonizing
of certain rejected parts of the Western self and, on the other, the urge to reclaim
them. 41 In particular, the repression of erotic desire in modern civilisation is projected
on to the primitive and thereby gains a renewed power.
In dance, primitivism was integral to the artistic vision of Serge Diaghilevs
Ballet Russes. It provided exemplary examples through works such as Schhrezade in
which Nijinskys depiction of the Golden Slave offered audiences a vision of primitive
masculinity, its liberated hero fulfilling his lustful desire.

42

That image was continued in

Nijinskys choreography of Debussys Prlude laprs-midi dun Faune where again

the dancer scandalised audiences through his display of auto-eroticism at the ballets
conclusion. Nijinskys half-man, half-animal Faun drew from ancient Greek and
Egyptian art to provide another powerful image of primitive desire. 43
But the iconic work of twentieth century primitivism to be realised through the
Ballets Russes was Stravinskys Le Sacre du printemps which caused a succs de
scandale at its premiere in Paris in 1913, again with Nijinskys choreography. The work
was based on a Slavic rite involving the sacrifice of a young woman in order to ensure

41

Primitive Passions: Men, Women and the Quest for Ecstasy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 8. See
also the same authors Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 1990), 11. Nor is the use of primitivism always unproblematic, as witnessed by the
Nazis appropriation of the notions of blood and folk in the 1930s which posited a return to a more
primitive, purer Germanic civilization; Primitive Passions, 12.
42
Lynn Garafola, Diaghilevs Ballet Ruses (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 32-33.
43
Garafola, Diaghilevs Ballet Russes, 56-57.

113

the renewal of nature. It has assumed a central significance in modernism through its
savage depiction of the human costs of change, a process which would be tragically
illustrated the following year in the convulsions of World War One. In this way
Stravinskys depiction of youthful sacrifice provided a cogent link between primitivism
and modernism. 44
Picasso, who collaborated with Diaghilev in designing the sets for Parade, Le
Tricorne, Pulcinella and Cuadro Flamenco fully embraced modern arts trend to
primitivism, as did Gauguin and Matisse. Picasso displayed his primitivist tendencies as
early as 1907 with Les Demoiselles dAvignon with its mask-like heads derived from
African tribal art. 45
Europes obsession with the primitive in the early decades of the twentieth
century was strikingly illustrated in the phenomenon of Josephine Baker. Leaving
behind the racial hostility she had encountered in the United States, Baker toured to
Paris in 1925. Here her provocative sensuality was celebrated and she exploited this
appeal through her danse sauvage, a stylised, ritualistic performance in which her nearnakedness aroused the desires of her white male audience. The dichotomous nature of
primitivism was evident in the fascination with which Parisians viewed her exotic
display, while simultaneously reaffirming their own

civilised status through

differentiation from the savageness which Baker represented. 46

44

Peter Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 385.
th
William Rubin, Picasso, William Rubin (ed.), Primitivism in 20 Century
Art: Affinity of the Tribal
and Modern (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1984), 248-265.
46
Wendy Martin, Remembering the Jungle: Josephine Baker and Modernist Parody, Elazar Barkan
and Ronald Bush (eds.), Prehistories of the Modern: The Primitivist Project and the Culture of
Modernism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 313. Note also, however, that Baker later
reconstructed herself from jungle temptress to figure of royalty in the Folies-Bergre, admired by white
suitors, and her private life reflected this regal status in an extravagant lifestyle; Remembering the
Jungle, 313-314.
45

114

The primitivism which was unleashed by Stravinskys Sacre du Printemps and

illustrated in Bakers danse sauvage later found further fertile ground in the United
States through the African-American jazz of the 1930s, particularly through the music of
Duke Ellington, giving rise to a jungle music performed in the Cotton Club. In this
way the European fascination with African-American culture, filtered through European
culture, was transferred back to its source and re-presented to an American audience. 47

Summary
It is clear, then, that Barrios as Mangor aligned with the European and American
preoccupation with primitivism as a cultural movement which flourished in the early
decades of the twentieth century. Barrios alternative persona embodied themes that
were thoroughly illustrative of this movement. In his scenery, costume and makeup
which he learnt from the traditions of Paraguayan theatre he appeared as the Indian
Chief Mangor from the jungles of Paraguay, a figure which resonated with modern
European fascination with the primitive and with tribal art. As we have seen, this also
aligned with the preoccupations of Latin American literature, which celebrated the
jungle as the authentic representation of the natural world.

48

It was ironic, then, that

Barrios abandoned Mangor just at the time when he may have enjoyed his greatest
success with European audiences.

47

Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre, 189. Ellington wrote a series of jungle evocations with titles such as
Jungle Jamboree and Jungle nights in Harlem. The authentification of Ellingtons jazz style through the
prism of European culture was also seen in the jungle costume of Baby Cox who performed at the Cotton
Club, with its obvious references to Bakers own exotic outfit which she employed in the Revue Negre in
Paris.
48
Chapter 2, 55.

115

With his Profeson de Fe Barrios further clothed the guitar in incantatory

associations, situating the instrument in the context of Indian mythology with Mangor
as the instruments divine messenger. As the previous chapters have argued, Barrios
here synthesised the magical qualities of music in Latin American traditional societies
with the specific power of the guitar as the emblematic bearer of Latin American culture.
Above all, through the content of his folkloric compositions, and particularly
through the tremolo works, with their mystical qualities invoked through the idiomatic
device of repeated notes, he embodied the qualities of meditation, fantasy and the exotic
Other, which stimulated the primitivist imagination. These key works in the BarriosMangor story form the subject of the final chapter.

116