We are overdue to collect the word in the small town newspapers, there is the
grandparents’ voice that has lost its timbre and takes refuge in moth-eaten papers
and in the letters wrapped in old chests.
Alfredo Cardona Tobón
Teach me to cry like you cry
teach me to feel the impressions
of a heart that has at all hours
the pain of other hearts
Liborio Aguiar Zuñiga
The minstrels gave meaning to the words that embodied courage, love and
feelings that forged peoples and civilizations. However those
Voices flew like smoke, like whims and the wind, which is why we had to
retain them to preserve their essence and prevent them from changing their meaning.
To save the words, they were engraved on slabs and stones, on clay tablets, on
skins, in papyrus, on paper and in sound records. For many thousands
For years, packaging for sounds was sought until the words became
tied to symbols, they freed themselves from the caprice of the minstrels, the imagination
left room for the facts and the efforts and promises could faithfully reflect
dreams and human projects in written words.
The civilizations were chiseled in the monuments, stamped on the
papyri and in unknown monasteries the monks where they preserved science in the
parchments and paper books. Now the new generations preserve the
word in the electronic media, which despite technological advances does not
It seems that they can completely displace ink and paper.
On the roads
On the roads, in the inns and tahonas, in the inns, or around a
bonfire, the minstrels modeled the word and delivered it in the form of myths and
legends. Much of ours comes with them and with the troubadours, the
the palabreros and the muleteers, the printing press was supplied and the written media recorded
the present and the past.
Newspapers appeared in all our villages from the end of the 19th century.
to inform, form opinions and defend and disseminate the principles of the
communities. It was no longer the minstrels who gave shape and life to the word
but the leaders who replaced the rifle with the pen and the blood with the ink of the
publications.
Countless newspapers, loose sheets, books and magazines appeared. Some civic
and literary and other fire traps of political campaigns. They were tribunes of the
spirit, cultural bastions that paved the way for an enlightened generation
torn apart by the political violence of the last century
In Risaralda
In the Department of Risaralda the written word occupied ample space in
Pereira, Marseille, Sanctuary and Appia. In those towns there were characters who
They were ahead of time in fields such as nature conservation,
respect for popular interests and the rights of citizens. In Caldas,
For their part, the nurseries of the spirit flourished prolifically in Riosucio and
Salamina where, it must be added, the minstrels have never been silent.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Tatamá magazine marked an era in the population of
Sanctuary with monthly editions directed by Fr. Marco Antonio Tobón
Tobón, a priest who was not afraid to confront the inquisitorial church.
The Tatamá Santuario magazine made contact with national publications such as the
Surco de Salamina, the South of Rio del Oro, Omega de Salamina, El Montañés de
Pueblo Rico, El Popular de Sonsón, Labores de Chiquinquirá and El Microbio de
Dirty river. The magazine launched itself against the antisocials who attacked the
mayor Marco Tulio Escobar and became the promoter of the colonization of
the vacant lands of Celia in Alto Cañaveral. Tatamá Magazine published the work
culture of the Santuareños and learned about the intellectual work not only of the province
Colombia but also from the sister republics.
The municipalities
The word took shape in “El Ave Negra” where from 1928 it served the
Balboa’s interests under the direction of CC Nicholls and the liberal leader’s motto
Caucano Diógenes Arrieta who led his numbers with… “Our weapons
They are ideas, sparks of the human spirit that hurt the foreheads of tyrants and
They melt the chains of the people.” The Black Bird led batteries against the
antisocial. turncoats and speculators and created an atmosphere of peace that
gave impetus to the small municipality.
In August 1921, the liberal newspaper “Flecha Roja” from Quinchía served as a platform
to Teófilo Cataño from Rio Sueño. In it, its director Emilio Osorio de la Cuesta, also
riosuceño, publishes “little things that shock” that as in present times
They mortify those who take advantage of the command.
We are overdue to collect the word in the small town newspapers, there is the
grandparents’ voice that has lost its timbre and takes refuge in moth-eaten papers
and in the letters wrapped in old chests. There without chisels, or rolls of
Papyrus is our paisa essence and the germ of what we are. The word
written will answer for the times gone by because the minstrels with their stories,
legends and trovas have long rested under the cold slab of oblivion.