Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHARANGOS, COURTSHIP AND MERMAIDS
In rural areas, particularly around Lago Titicaca, the charango is used by young,
single
men
to woo the female of their choice. They are helped, at least according to local beliefs,
by
mermaids
(
las sirenas
). The ethnomusicologist Tom Turino records that most towns
and villages around Titicaca claim that a mermaid lives in a nearby spring, river, lake or
waterfall, and notes that new charangos are often left overnight in such places to be tuned
and played overnight by the mermaid. Some villagers even construct the
sound box
in the
shape of a mermaid to invest their charango with supernatural power.
When young men go courting at the weekly markets in larger villages they not only dress
in their finest clothes, but also decorate their charangos in elaborate
coloured ribbons
-
these represent the number of women their charango has supposedly conquered. At times
a group of young people will get together for the ancient
circle dance
called the
Punchay
kashwa
where the men form a half circle playing their charangos, facing a half circle of
young women. Both groups dance and sing in bantering fashion, participants using a set
syllabic and rhyming pattern so that they can quickly improvise.
Fiestas
Major fiestas and other significant social events call for musical performance on a more ex-
tended scale, including large
marching bands
of brass instruments, drums or panpipes. The
drums are deep-sounding, double-headed instruments known as
bombos
or
wankaras
, origin-
ally made out of the hollowed-out trunk of a tree with the skins of a llama or goat. These
marching bands exist for parades at fiestas, weddings and dances in the Altiplano and around
LagoTiticaca. Itisperfectly normalforawholevillage tocometogether toplayasanorches-
tra for important events and fiestas - music is an integral part of all communal celebrations
and symbolically represents the sharing and interdependence of Andean rural life.
Andean fusion music
The political events of the 1950s and 1960s are crucial to an understanding of recent Bolivian
folk music and the development of Andean fusion music. The
1952 Revolution
led to a peri-
od of social and economic reform that accorded more rights to Bolivia's indigenous inhab-
itants; such reforms conferred new respect on Andean traditions, and were enthusiastically
supported by many Latin American intellectuals. At the same time, rural people migrated to
urban areas, bringing their languages and traditions with them. The new Bolivian administra-
tioncreated afolkloredivisioninthe
Ministry of Education
,oneofwhosefunctionswasthe
organization and sponsorship of traditional music festivals. Radio stations started to broad-
cast in
Aymara
and
Quechua
and play the music of these communities.
