Cortijo Daimuz

Among the many characters linked to Daimuz perhaps the best known is the “Shepherd friend”, the man of confidence of Don Federico who guided him in the care and development of the business linked to the farmhouse.

The Shepherd friend recommended that he let his brothers choose the land on condition that he reserved for himself that below the boundary. This allowed him to unify the land, plough the wastelands and increase irrigation with the channels that the Shepherd himself designed.

Federico knew his “Shepherd friend” well. He appears illuminated by nostalgia and the proximity of death in a youthful prose where he reconstructs one of his first memories: “The kitchen was filled with cigar and wood smoke and the figures looked like dreadful shadows with the flames. I used to fall asleep caressed by my Shepherd friend and I sensed his voice saying in my sleep: ‘Quiet!’ and then one of his sons would carry me in his arms, quickly, to my mother who pressed me against her chest and covered me with kisses (…). Until one day he did not go, he was already very old and had a high fever… my parents were very alarmed and I was afraid for his life… the doctor said that he was very ill and that he would not recover from that illness… My father then sent for the doctors of the nearby towns, but they all said the same thing. I went to visit him because he was asking for me… It was as if he were dead, with his mouth half open and his eyes closed. When I came in, he opened them and when he saw me, he smiled as sweetly as he used to. My mother picked me up and sat me on the bed. He sat up, helped by a niece and he caressed me for a while, running his hands over my face. Then he kissed my hand, and with a loud sigh he let himself fall on the pillows”.

Another of the usual characters that appeared in Daimuz was Nicasio, an itinerant painter of doors and windows who, in addition to the tools of his trade, carried an accordion. That figure is linked to the memory of Francisco García Lorca: “On this occasion he was commissioned to do some work in the farmhouse and, as the family was gathered in the room at the entrance, which served as dining room and living room, Nicasio, the musician painter, played his accordion. Perhaps it was my father who said: `Paco, dance¨. Without following the rhythm of the music very well, I began to run to one side with an uncertain step, from one wall of the room to the other, amidst the laughter of the family. I remember, if I have not recreated it from a later recollection, that my brother was sitting next to Nicasio, on the steps leading to the upper chambers. Federico was laughing out loud”.

Federico inicial’s literary work is riddled with references to the life of La Vega. In the Book of Poems (1921), for example, there are direct allusions to children’s games and folk songs of the land in poems such as Sad Ballad, Santiago, Interior Ballad (“Cold, cold / like the water of the river”).

Those contained in Suites are short poems, written between 1920 and 1923, at the Students’ Residence or at Asquerosa (Disgusting), during the summer. In July 1920, at the house in Asquerosa, Lorca wrote several suites whose subject matter is again the loss and ultimate frustration of lost love or childhood. In Moments of Song, for example, the same elements and the same subject matter of Book of Poems appear, but their poetic expression is totally different.

Songs, published in 1927 but written between 1921 and 1923, is also composed under the direct influence of the Vega as a primordial and decisive place. The presence of the peasant environment of Asquerosa (Disgusting) is especially noticeable in some songs: “Mi sombra va silenciosa [My shadow goes silently] / por el agua de la acequia [through the water of the irrigation channel]” (Debussy); “niño [child], / que te vas a caer al río! [you’re going to fall into the water!]” (Narciso); “en el soto [in the undergroqth], / los alamillos bailan [the small poplars dance] / uno con otro. [With each other.]” There is a poem dedicated to “Irene García. Maid” and recreations of children’s games and songs.

In January 1935, a year and a half from his assassination, Lorca again confirms the weight that his childhood spent in the territories of the Vega still has on his work. In February 1934, in an interview in La Voz de Madrid newspaper with the journalist Ángel Lázaro, Proel, he declares: “All my childhood. Shepherds, fields, sky, solitude. Simplicity, in short. I am very surprised when they believe that those things in my works are my daring, audacity of a poet. No. They are authentic details, which seem strange to many people because it is also strange to approach life with such a simple and impractical attitude: to see and hear: such an easy thing, right?

The documents indicating the ownership of the Daimuz Farmhouse dates back many centuries. The most remote ones were written in Arabic which guaranteed that its origin was not related to the disentailment of Mendizábal and the easy enrichment at the expense of the property of the Church.

Federico and Francisco spent many hours reading all those documents, indeed, they made those examinations a form of pastime. “How many times Federico and I entertained ourselves in looking at those documents whose letters sometimes made it very difficult to see how the names of the pillars of the holders changed; sometimes as if they were the ladies of a comedy: Doña Sol, Doña Elvira, Don Lope; and more archaic like Doña Mencía”, recalls Francisco García Lorca.