The story
Jornada Cucalambeana in Las Tunas
First organized in Las Tunas in 1964 by decimista Jesus Orta Ruiz, known as El Indio Naborí, alongside Jose Ramirez Cruz, Ramon Veloz and Manuel Fernandez, the Jornada Cucalambeana honors nineteenth-century poet Juan Cristobal Napoles y Fajardo, El Cucalambe, through the Flor de Birama pageant, canto campesino and both written and improvised decima competitions, a verse form recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, held each year from late June into early July.
The Jornada Cucalambeana honors Juan Cristobal Napoles y Fajardo, known as El Cucalambe, the most prominent Cuban poet and repentista, a practitioner of improvised sung verse, of the nineteenth century, and it was first organized in Las Tunas in the mid-1960s, specifically in 1964, conceived by Jesus Orta Ruiz, himself a celebrated decimista known nationally as El Indio Naborí, together with Jose Ramirez Cruz, Ramon Veloz and Manuel Fernandez, who together envisioned a festival representing Cuban peasant culture with El Cucalambe as its central figure.