Title: Los Pollitos Dicen

General Information About Item:

Verbal Folklore Language: Spanish

Language: Spanish

Country of Origin: Chile

Informant:  C.A.

Date Collected: 10-9-21

Informant Data: 

C.A. is a third-year student at Dartmouth. He is originally from Texas and is half Mexican. He is very proud of his culture and speaks Spanish proficiently. Los Pollitos Dicen is a lullaby that was sung to him as a child. He recalls the memory of this lullaby being sung to him fondly.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: 
Los Pollitos Dicen was one of the only lullabies C.A. really remembers having sung to him as a child. He remembered it because it was pretty common in the Spanish-speaking world to have this lullaby sang to you. He said that this would help him fall asleep or calm him down after nightmares when he was very young and that a great number of Hispanic mothers are familiar with this lullaby.

Cultural Context: 

This lullaby, Los Pollitos Dicen (“Little Chickens”), is a very famous Spanish Nursery Rhyme, and is classified under the Nana or Cancion de cuna category. Several Spanish speaking countries have said that this lullaby originates from their region: for example, Ecuador and Spain, but its author is actually a Chilean musician named Ismael Parraguez.

Item:
Los pollitos dicen
Pío pío pío
Cuando tienen hambre
Y cuando tienen frio
La gallina busca
El maíz y el trigo
Les da la comida
Y les presta abrigo
Bajos sus dos alas
Acurrucaditos
Duermen los pollitos

The chicks say
Peep peep peep peep
When they are hungry
And when they’re cold
The hen looks for
The corn and wheat
Gives them food
And gives them shelter
Under her two wings
Snuggled up
The chicks sleep

Associated file: 

Informant Comments: 
“It was nice to remember this part of my childhood. I think this lullaby being in Spanish really set me apart from a lot of my friends growing up in a predominantly white area.”

Collector Comments: 
I really loved hearing lullabies from different parts of the world. I think it is exciting to not just learn about the lullabies in different languages but to hear it spoken in that language as well and hear how soothing the sound is.

Collectors Name: Reem Atallah

Tags: Dartmouth, Spanish, Male, student, verbal folklore