El Coquí (The Frog): A Song History
The coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui) is a small frog native to Puerto Rico, named for the loud, rapid "ko-KEE" that its males call to attract mates.[1] According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Puerto Rico's coquíes, a group of related frog species, are a national symbol, and the singing of their males is a familiar part of the island's landscape and heritage.[2] Probably carried abroad mostly in nursery and landscaping plants, the frog is now established, and highly invasive, in Hawaii.[1]
Kitagawa Utamaro, Frog (Kaeru); Gold Beetle (Kogane mushi), from the Picture Book of Crawling Creatures (Ehon mushi erami), page from woodblock-printed book; ink and color on paper, 1788. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.
"El Coquí" is a Spanish-language nursery rhyme from Puerto Rico about this frog.[3] A Dartmouth folklore archive entry, collected in 2020, records a woman raised in Brooklyn in a Puerto Rican family who learned it as a child from aunts and uncles in Puerto Rico, where the frogs' calls could be heard at bedtime.[3] The sources consulted here name no composer and give no date of origin or early publication for the song.[3]
Shelley Stevens includes it in Baker's Dozen #6: World Music, a collection of 13 songs from Europe and the Americas arranged for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]
Sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Nonindigenous Aquatic Species: "Coqui (Eleutherodactylus coqui) - Species Profile".
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: "Rock frog (Eleutherodactylus cooki)".
- Dartmouth Folklore Archive: "El Coquí".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #6: World Music".
- Image: Kitagawa Utamaro, Frog (Kaeru); Gold Beetle (Kogane mushi), from the Picture Book of Crawling Creatures (Ehon mushi erami), page from woodblock-printed book; ink and color on paper, 1788. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.