Gilka Wara Cespedes Kjarkas Music

"Huayño," "Saya," and "Chuntunqui": Bolivian Identity in the Music of "Los Kjarkas"
Author(s): Gilka Wara Céspedes

Source: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Vol. 14, No. 1
(Spring - Summer, 1993), pp. 52-101
Published by: University of Texas Press
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Gilka Wara Cespedes Huayiio, Saya, and
Chuntunqui: Bolivian Identity
in the Music of "Los Kjarkas"*
Introduction
The funeral of Ulises Hermosa in April

1992 best portrays how a large sector of Bolivians feel about their music.
A throng of about fifty thousand mourners, five kilometers long, paid their
last respects as his remains were placed in a privileged site reserved for the
illustrious by the authorities of Cochabamba, his native town. This last
homage paid to a musician, a member of Los Kjarkas, one of the most
famous, popular, and idolized groups of musica folklorica, reflects the in-
volvement of a people who as admirers and consumers of their music had
come to express their collective loss. This immense crowd, a crosscut of
the population-young, old, musicians, panpipe players, a swarm of the
"folk"-gathered on this occasion of emotional outpour, because at some
time or another, in one way or another, Los Kjarkas have touched and
undeniably made an impact in the perception, attitude, and feelings towards
Bolivian music at home and abroad.
In this article I want to explore the trajectory of this extraordinary group
focusing on two issues pertinent to the cultivators of the folkl6rica genre
On the one hand, is the question of representation of Bolivian music t
Bolivians at home: how do Los Kjarkas construct, mediate, carry, an
communicate the imprint of Bolivianness, and what kinds of processes are
at work that validate their music? If the social, the cultural, and the politic
are imbedded in the sonic, in what ways do Los Kjarkas reflect these pro-
cesses? What kinds of discourses are represented in their music? Moreover
what kinds of chords, literally and figuratively, do Los Kjarkas play that
resonate so profoundly in the collective psyche of their public? On the othe
hand, considering the dissemination of "ethnic" musics in the general
panorama of world music and their inevitable mercantilization, how d
Latin American Music Review, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1993

?1993 by the University of Texas Press
Gilka Wara Cespedes : 53
these musicians cross the boundaries to become a part of the music industry?
Or do they? At a time when the Andean Sound is becoming a part of the
sonic scene from Europe to Japan, when the sound of (synthesized) pan-
pipes appears in more and more recordings (a favorite of New Age music),
these musicians feel that they can rightfully claim a space for themselves
in this larger picture. In Bolivia the idea that for too long Bolivian music
has been appropriated by others without being given its due is commonly
(and rightfully, as we shall see) shared by musicians and non-musicians
alike.
To date Los Kjarkas have recorded close to twenty albums, including
original materials, anthologies, and compilations. I have chosen to discuss
music from the album "Canto a la Mujer de mi Pueblo" (Song to the Woman
of my People), issued in 1982. In my opinion, this album is most repre-
sentative of the characteristic stylistic imprint that has been associated with
the music of Los Kjarkas. Also in this album the original version of the
famous piece "Llorando se fue," later world-known and rebaptized as a
Lambada. Subsequent albums, although creative, aesthetically pleasing,
and interesting, prove redundant to a degree, insisting to a great extent
what has already been stated with this album.
Steven Feld has argued that musical meaning is socially situated and
emphasized that music as a communication process necessarily implies
interpretation, involving the listener in an active role, who in a switchback
of musical and extra-musical associations "works through the dialectics by
developing choices and juxtaposing background knowledge" (1984: 8).
Feld coined the term "interpretive moves" to denote this process of fitting
one's temporal listening experience into a "context of prior and plausible
experiences to interpret what is going on" (Feld 1984, 7-8). The notion of
"interpretive moves" helps in understanding the complexity involved in the
production code and the receiver/consumer's interpretation. I will try to
guide my discussion toward an explanation of how Los Kjarkas address
fundamental issues of identity, gender, and values via an itinerary through
the composition process, the encoding of the songs, and how the ideas are
constructed in them to the interpretation process by looking at the social
interaction between the musicians and their audience. I think that the
personal and collective reception of the audience very definitely reaffirm
the musicians' message. In the second part of this article, I will explore th
way in which the now famous (or infamous) Lambada was appropriated to
become such a famous World-Beat hit. At each step of the discussion, I w
try to highlight the biographical elements of Los Kjarkas' repertoire and th
layers of historical, geographical, ethnic, class and aesthetic factors, that is
the "natural history of signs and symbols" as Geerz would put it, inscrib
in the music that may explain the wide popularity of Los Kjarkas. I believ
that the local popularity of Los Kjarkas is less a function of a good market
54 : Huayno, Saya, and Chuntunqui: Los Kjarkas
strategy, (although this too plays an important role), and more a function
of their ability to operate on the affective level through the conscious and
unconscious use of elements that express intense feelings.
To understand where Los Kjarkas fit in the general panorama of Bolivian
popular music, it is necessary to trace the socio-historical events that sur-
round and permeate the cultural production of this music. In Bolivia the
term musica folklorica has come to be defined and accepted in the general
context of Bolivian discourse as representing the musical practices and
products native to Bolivia. Either rural or urban, indigenous or criollo,
these are based on the ever-flowing rivulets of traditional forms, genres,
and idioms that feed the main current of musica folkl6rica and consolidate
in styles recognized as unmistakably Bolivian. The term distinguishes this
music from other imported commercial musics such as rock, pop, salsa,
and others that simultaneously form part of the general picture in the pro-
duction and consumption of popular music. Musicafolklorica is also regarded
as different in kind from the idiom of the Canto Nuevo (or Nueva Cancion)
movement that, often adopting native musical features, carries an overt
political agenda.
Urban musicafolklorica as a genre has grown and flourished as an outcome
of a fundamental change in values due to a transformed Bolivian society as
a result of the nationalist revolution of 1952. Much has been written about
this historical event, and although this is not the place to analyze the rami-
fications of the revolution, the reader should be aware that an understand-
ing of this event better illuminates how the changes undergone in all areas,
including symbolic expressions, are connected by the ideological strands
of those developments.
Along with Peru and Ecuador, Bolivia has one of the largest indigenous
populations in South America. In a classic example of the Latin American
latifundist system, where the extreme inequality in land shares was essential
for the control of peasant labor, the Aymara and Quechua bore the brunt
of an unjust and uneconomical system of land ownership by a minority of
absentee landowners and mining barons (Klein 1991: 234 ff). Heralded by
the progressive Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (M.N.R.) party,
the rallying cry of this revolution addressed two major issues: the country's
economic liberation from the exploitative practices of the tin barons and
the latifundist landlords, and the integration into the state of theretofore
disenfranchised Aymara and Quechua peasants who, though constituting a
demographic majority, were nevertheless the social group least represented
civilly and politically. A series of laws were decreed favoring the Aymara
peasants and miners, and included agrarian reform, the nationalization
of major mines, and the right to vote. Although these were to a great extent
political measures to consolidate the power base of the party, the new laws
radically changed the social situation. The reforms called for a rethinking
of social categories since the civil rights of the Aymara and Quechua as full
citizens were warranted, at least on paper, through such measures. This
intended integration is best symbolized in the postage stamp issued at the
time of the agrarian reform; president Paz Estenssoro embracing an
Aymara peasant.
The newly recognized rights and reforms also meant that the urban areas
saw in the course of the next few years a great migration from the rural
areas, resulting in a heavy Indian presence that could not be ignored.
Because social class in Bolivia is related to ethnicity, indigenous expressive
forms of music, dance, language, and festivities were subject to the nega-
tive value judgements of some strata of the urban classes. To redress this,
one of the first changes was the conscious effort to modify the language
used to refer to the ethnic Indian. The derogatory term Indio thereafter
turned into campesino (peasant), thus neutralizing and blurring the negative
connotations. There was a general shift in the overall official and unofficial
policies and measures that pointed to a recognition of the symbolic impor-
tance of expressive forms, particularly music. While the administration
created a new Ministerio de Asuntos Campesinos (Ministry of Peasant Affairs),
the Ministry of Education1 created a new division of folklore. One function
of this new division was the organization and sponsorship of traditional
music festivals both in the city and in selected rural towns. Thus the valida-
tion of native musical culture was institutionalized while capitalizing on
the exoticism and "otherness" as a way to attract attention to Bolivia as an
exotic and interesting place. One example is the festival developed on the
shore of Lake Titicaca at the site of Compi, which counted with the parti-
cipation of dance and music groups from the altiplano.2 These festivals
which are often vested with a revivalist character de-contextualize and
modify the way fiestas are traditionally celebrated in the communities.
Nevertheless, festivals of traditional music have spawned everywhere.3 As
Buechler puts it, the festivals in the city and country reflected the increasing
efforts of both Bolivian officials and migrants to give the Aymara and
Quechua peasants a national identity and to have the Aymara and Quechua
languages accepted as part of the national heritage (Buechler 1971: 87).
In the early 1960s social dynamics opened a space where the urban upper
classes were more exposed to the relocation of native forms through the
concept of "peinafolkldrica" incarnated in the creation of pefas, urban venues
where people could go and hear live folk music artists. Peias emphasized
the separation between a public, notably urban middle class but also
foreign, and the artists in a relationship of musicians/audience. The
audiences wanted musicafolklorica but not in the raw, and the peias opened
up the receptivity of a certain public to a specific kind of music. To a certain
extent the musicians molded their aesthetics to the expectations of the new
audiences. It was in the penas that new and creative artists gained recognition
56 : Huayno, Saya, and Chuntunqui. Los Kjarkas
and new exploratory steps were taken. In the peias certain practices became
the norm: the "Andean ensemble" consisting of guitar, charango, bombo,
and qena was standardized.
The music developed at the penas embodied and reflected in many ways
the tenets of the ideology of integration. One fundamental way to achieve
it was to incorporate other native musical instruments into the ensemble.
Being featured as solo instruments at first, and then as virtuoso instruments
they were mixed with other non-indigenous instruments, thus breaking the
traditional use in the rural "natural" context. Native instruments, which
in the context of rural community music conform to a normative mode of
performance, acquired a different kind of meaning in the city. This is the
case of the panpipe, or siku, in the city called by the Spanish name Zampona.
In a rural "natural" context, sikus (as are almost all other wind instruments),
are played communally, integratively, and are associated with specific
occasions of the yearly calendric cycle as part in general of a symbolic
system coherent with other aspects of the native cosmology. In the city,
while connoting authenticity, Indianness and by extension, Andeanness,
the instruments are imbued concurrently with city values: individuality
and virtuosity versus communality. A case in point is the qena, which
became the staple melody-carrier in all the groups that played musica fol-
kl6rica. Whereas in the 1940s the qena had remained circumscribed to the
criollo "estudiantina" ensembles, it was not until the 1960s that it became
such a popular and ubiquitous instrument. The siku quickly followed, and
the 1970s saw a boom of these wind instruments throughout Bolivia, as
dozens of musical groups were formed locally, disintegrated, reintegrated,
and either became popular or died.
While the artists were creating a space for self-expression, their music
was becoming a commodity as consummable "folklore." This "folklore"
has flourished in a number of directions in the course of the last twenty
years; primarily, because it became an avenue of expression for many
musicians who have channeled their own creativity in this idiom. A con-
siderable number of music groups have made names for themselves
through innovations, additions, modifications, and by imitating one
another from a common stock, i.e., the wealth of the traditional repertoires.
The different kinds of music groups representing new currents viewed
in their innovative versions their view of what folklore music was supposed
to represent: an affirmation of a Bolivian identity as a defense against a
perceived outside cultural intrusion and colonialism as well as the recog-
nition and legitimization of the peasant Aymara and Quechua music in
the city, mediated in the realm of a new sound (Cespedes 1984; see also
Leichtman 1989, 29-52). In an earlier work (1984) I discussed the different
approaches taken by the groups of different persuasions: Grupo Aymara
and its experimentation on the sounds of the panpipes; Grupo Wara and its
use of electronic instruments; Grupo Savia Andina, the "virtuosi" of the

different instruments, and its innovative arrangements; the "purists,"
who only played authentic versions of Aymara peasant music; and various
others.
Los Kjarkas: A Sign of Bolivian Integration?
Los Kjarkas appeared on the horizon in the wake of the changes outlined
above. The group is composed of six musicians from the valley region of
Cochabamba. Three members are brothers: Gonzalo Hermosa, the elder
poet, composer, and spokesman for the group, Ulises Hermosa,4 also poet
and composer, and Elmer Hermosa, the lead singer. The bulk of the com-
positions belong to these brothers. Other musicians are Fernando Torrico,
Gaston Guardia, and Edwin Castellanos. They are all polished and versatile
instrumentalists, write songs, and play exclusively their own compositions.
Well-versed bilingual speakers of both Spanish and Quechua, they use the
languages in a poetic manner in their compsitions, exhibiting a very per-
sonal style imitated by many followers. Los Kjarkas have operated a music
school in Cochabamba for many years, thus contributing to the formation
of a whole generation of young musicians who in turn have spun off to
form their own groups.
There are many ways in which Los Kjarkas inscribe, assert, and package
their Bolivian identity.5 Not surprisingly, one of the ways is to appeal to an
ancient, pre-Columbian past. Their logo, "Kjarkas," is cast using the icono-
graphic symbols present in the stylized anthropomorphic condor or warriors
carved on the stone of the Gate of the Sun at Tiwanaku, an archaeological
site from the pre-Inca Tiwanaku era:
Figure 1. Los Kjarkas Logo
The Tiwanaku symbols are instantly recognized as belonging to a millenary

culture, the site of which is the heart of the Andes and Bolivia. As such
they are ubiquitously and almost indiscriminately used by travel agencies,
jewelry stores, hotels, restaurants, importers, and so on. With this logo,
Los Kjarkas too can rightfully invoke the past thus situating themselves as
part of the more remote history of the Andean heritage.
The name they chose, Kjarkas, refers to the name of Pre-Spanish fortresses
built by the Inca to protect against outward invasions. Therefore, Kjarkas
"fortress" implies an indigenous bastion of strength and resistance.
Los Kjarkas are true to what has become the norm in most groups that
play mtusicafolkl6rica; they present themselves in concert attired in ponchos,
a visual overt referent to their Andeanness. In many of their earlier records,
the back of the jackets reproduce a photograph of Los Kjarkas standing
on a rock wearing ponchos with Tiwanaku designs embroidered, and
holding panpipes, the most iconographically Andean of all instruments.
They are not just holding any panpipes, but the giant and deep sounding
Toyos as well as one of the large wankara drums (Fig. 2). These overt uses
of indigenous Andean symbols characterize Los Kjarkas as folkl6rico
musicians deeply rooted in an ancient past.
Figure 2.
Gilka Wara Cdspedes : 59
Composition and Encoding
Los Kjarkas are well aware of what they represent-Bolivia in her music
for an audience that is primarily Bolivian. But they also represent them-
selves. The aesthetic underpinnings of their music hinge on an interplay
between a claim to both authenticity and innovation. The adherence to
authenticity allows them to evoke the element of recognition in the listener,
while the innovative opens up a new area of experimentation and inter-
pretation. By authenticity is meant the effort to reproduce in the music those
stylistic elements that place a piece within a specific recognizable form,
while the innovative rests on their ability to recast those features in an
idiom and a sound that is very "Kjarkas." This is one of the reasons why
Los Kjarkas are viewed as "modern," particularly among the youth.
Two interrelated concepts guide the creative work of Los Kjarkas: the
first is what they call "proyeccion de la audiencia" (audience projection). In other
words, they target the audience to whom a song will appeal the most. They
are well aware of the socio-economic group in which the song will resonate
by means of what they call "zonificacion." This in simple terms signifies that
the group will compose in a regional style that is faithful to the formal genre
of that particular region. They will undertake a "sociological study" of the
Bolivian people and "project" a song by incorporating all the stylistic
elements of a particular geographic region into a song. To achieve this ideal
the group interrelates two aspects: by keeping true to and respecting the
authenticity of the genre and by adding their innovative additions, arrange-
ments, or recasts of those genres. In a recording session in which I inter-
viewed them (1984), they were recording a "Kaluyo," a genre from the
central valley region of Bolivia. In the words of Gonzalo Hermosa:
En este disco que estamos sacando, la proyecci6n de la audiencia es mas

popular. Nosotros catalogamos, si se quiere, al final de cuentas hacemos
estudios sociologicos del hombre Boliviano, jno? Este Kaluyo, por ejemplo,
es de la zona central de Bolivia. Significa Omayrapa, Mairana, Vallegrande,
Pucara, Pasorapa, Aiquile y aledafios, mno? Eso seria la parte central que
toma esto. Este seria un Kaluyo extractado casi con todos los elementos y los
valores culturales de la zona. El sistema de bajos, el charango, el charanguito
que va a entrar, con el sistema de rasguido que alla usan.
In this record we are making, the projection of the audience is more popular.
We catalog, if you will, all said and done, we do sociological studies of the
Bolivian people, you know? This Kaluyo for instance is from the central
region of Bolivia. This means Omayrapa, Mairana, Vallegrande, Pucara,
Pasorapa, Aiquile and the surrounding areas, right? This central part will
receive it. This Kaluyo would have been extracted almost with all the elements
and cultural values of the region (de la zona): what kind of bajo to use, the kind
of charango, when the other charango is to come in, the local strumming style.
Los Kjarkas have the ability to insist on the stereotype and then do some-
thing unusual and subvert it. They are well aware of the reception each
of their compositions will have.
Eso no quiere decir que estamos preparando ese tema para esa zona, sino
estamos tratando mas bien de representar esa zona en la musica boliviana.
Y no s6lo quiere decir que ese tema se va a llegar a vender a Vallegrande, a
Mairana, que es un mercado muy reducido, que digamos, . . . ellos lo van
a tomar de seguro, depende de la calidad de la musica que se haga, y ello por
que la principal letra tiene elementos de poema, elementos de musica que
estan realmente hechos a medida para la zona. Pero no solo van a querer
digamos esto en La Paz, seguramente la gente del pueblo lo va tomar. En
Oruro, Potosi, Tarija, en Cochabamaba y en Sucre lo van a recibir como una
cosa. Eso quiere decir que la musica zonificada no s6lo sirve para la zona
sino tambien que atraves del sentimiento de lo que se quiere expresar va a
llegar a cundir toda una vasta zona, tremendamente. (Personal interview,
1984)
This does not mean that we are composing this song for that region, rather,
we are trying to represent that region in Bolivian music. And that means,
that it will be well received not only in the the region it came from, for sure it's
going to be received there, depending on the quality of the music, because it
(our song) has lyrics with the poetic and musical elements that belong to the
region. . . . But in La Paz surely the popular sectors will receive it. In
Oruro, Potosi, Tarija, Cochabamba, and Sucre, they are going to receive it
as something else. It means that "zonificaci6n" is not only regional, but
through the sentiments it wishes to express, it's going to spread everywhere
tremendously.
With these arguments Gonzalo Hermosa acknowledges two dimensions

of musical meaning: 1) a localized, identifiable, and recognizable dimen-
sion that can be understood in specific terms at a circumscribed, and local
level, and 2) another more general dimension that transcends the imme-
diate geographic and cultural boundaries. In his own words, Hermosa
provides a ground where interpretation of the musical creations is open to
a number of "interpretive moves" on the part of their audiences. This also
explains in some measure why some songs are more successful than others.
Los Kjarkas are much more familiar and experienced in the music from the
valley regions than the highlands, and the appeal to authenticity fits better
those styles that they know best.
Los Kjarkas are viewed as musicians who play 'folklore." Gonzalo
Hermosa has very definite ideas about the concept:
El folklore significa para mi la esencia de un pueblo, que viene a ser casi la

cultura de un pueblo en una forma un poco reducida, nada mas. La cultura
y folklore casi vienen a ser un mismo caj6n, la tapa es mas grande. En el folk-
lore la cultura seria en realidad la palabra mas mayor, no? Que comprende
el folklore y todo. No es solamente cantar. Entonces la cultura vendria a ser la

tradici6n, quiero decir es la tradici6n. La tradici6n que no es s6lo cantar, la
forma de hacer herencia, de enamorarse, de casarse, de hablar de comer, de
preparar las comidas como los chairos, etcetera. Nuestro derecho que no esta
registrado, un derecho que se ejerce entre el pueblo que no siempre esta
escrito en nuestras leyes. Fuera de nuestras leyes hay otras leyes que se
ejercitan en el pueblo. Tambien toma esto. La forma de cantar, la forma de
ser, la forma de alegrarse, la forma de bailar, de ir a dar serenata, o no dar
serenata, o despues de un chicharr6n tomarse una tutuma de chicha, o de
vino, entonces son reglas que han hecho que el folklore sea la personificaci6n
y la personalidad de un pueblo, ,no? De vestirse, de peinarse, de tomar las
cosas buenas o malas, todo eso es folklore. (Personal interview, 1984)
For me, folklore means the essence of a people, which is the culture of a peo-
ple somewhat reduced, culture and folklore fit in the same box, only the cover
is bigger. In folklore, culture would be a larger statement, which comprises
folklore. It's not just singing, in folklore is tradition, I mean, is the tradition,
not only to sing, but how to make the heritage, how to fall in love, to get
married, to talk, to eat, to prepare food, like the chairos, (a local dish) etcetera.
And much more. Our right, which is not written out . . ., a right that is
exercised by the people but is not written in the codices, in our laws. Beyond
our laws there are other laws which the people exercise. That's it. The way
to sing, the way to be, the way to be happy, the way to dance, the way to go
serenading, or not to go, after a chicharron to drink a tutuma of chicha, or of wine,
these are the rules that folklore has made and are the personification and the
personality of a people, right? The way to dress, to wear one's hair, to
take the good and the bad things, all that is folklore.
How these thoughts and beliefs extend to music is further explicated as the
historical layers from which the genealogies of the different genres and
styles are traced and melded together. In the old dichotomy of Spanish
versus native, ultimately provenance does not matter. Gonzalo Hermosa
does not make taxonomic distinctions between genres. Concerning muzsica
criolla, he says:
La musica criolla es parte del folklore. Muchas cosas las esta aprendiendo
uno mismo y estan formando parte de nuestro comuin hacer de los hombres.
. . .Para mi no hay divisiones entre musico criolla y musica aut6ctona. Al
final de cuentas, ambas son autoctonas. Al tratar de dividir la musica ya
seria remontarse mucho mas lejanamente en el tiempo y posteriomente
vendria a ser la musica criollizada, que nuestra historia siempre ha conse-
guido, jno? La saya, la cueca son cosas criollas que han nacido, digamos, de
mestizajes. El mestizaje vendria a ser una musica criolla. Y algunas cosas se
han mantenido puras, por ejemplo el huayio. El huayiio es lo que mas se ha
mantenido puro. (Personal interview, 1984)
Criolla music is part of folklore. All that we learn forms part of the common
doing of humankind. There are no distinctions. For me there are no distinctions
62 : Huayio, Saya, and Chuntunqui: Los Kjarkas
between musica criolla and musica aut6ctona. When all is said and done,
both are autoctonas. If we try to divide our music, we would need to go so far
back in time, but our history has always had criollo music, right? Saya, cueca
are criollo things that have come about as mestizajes. Mestizaje is a criollo
music. Some things have maintained pure, like the huayio, for example.
Huayio is the purest of all.
Gonzalo Hermosa conceives identity as shaped around the cognitive, the

affective, and the pragmatic. The way we know, the way we feel, and the
way we do things makes us what we are:
La cultura tambien es asi. No son cosas estaticas, no son que en un tiempo

ha ocurrido y ahi se ha quedado eno? . . . A los bolivianos nos falta conocer
nuestro pueblo, nuestra cultura, nuestra forma de ser. Para ubicarnos en el
tiempo y en el espacio y en la persona. Para saber, porque eres Boliviano:
Porque he nacido en Bolivia? Eso es lo mas absurdo que pueda haber. El
hecho de nacer no te da ningun derecho a ser Boliviano. Yo soy boliviano
porque hago esto, hago esto, siento de esta forma, de esta forma hago lo otro,
como chairos, hago jolkkes, ique se yo!
Culture is like this, they [cultural forms] are not static things, not as if once they
happened they are going to stay the same, no? . . . We need to know our peo-
ple, our culture, our way. In order to place ourselves in time and in space, as
well as in the person. To know why I am a Bolivian because I was bor in
Bolivia? Just to be born in Bolivia doesn't make one a Bolivian, this is absurd:
I am Bolivian because I do things this way, because I feel this way, I do this
other in this way. I eat chairos (a local dish), makejolkke, whatever.
A strong sense of self also plays an important role in the way one makes
music. When talking about other groups who are involved in musica fol-
klorica, he says:
A mi lo que me interesa de un grupo es su identidad con uno mismo, si se

quiere decir, se podria l1amar su verdad. Estar de acuerdo con uno mismo.
Eso es muy importante. Si tu estas sintiendo los lineamientos que tu te has
trazado, no porque te han obligado, sino porque tu estas queriendo ver, ese
es un tipo bueno .... Ahora cual seria mejor, si entre nosotros o entre ellos.
. . .Lo importante es tener una idea de visi6n, de concebir las cosas. Si para
unos es amarillo y se inclinan al amarillo, bien. Y si nosotros es gris, es gris,
dno? jCual es mejor, el gris o el amarillo? Los dos son buenos. El amarillo
entre los amarillos es bueno, el gris entre los grises, no habria porque hacerlo
cambiar. (Personal interview, 1984)
What I'm most interested in a group is its self-identity, its truth, if you will.
To be in agreement with oneself. This is very important. If you feel along the
lines that you have set for yourself, not because you are forced to, but because
it's your own soul searching, this is good. I don't know which is best, them or
us. The important thing is to have a vision, a way to conceive things. If for
some it's yellow and they tend toward yellow, fine. If for us it's grey, it's grey,
right? Which is better, grey or yellow? Among the yellows, the yellow is good,
among the grey, the grey is equally good. No reason to have it change.
These are some of the very definite and well-articulated ideas that influence
the musical practice of Los Kjarkas.
Canto a la Mujer de Mi Pueblo: The Interplay of Music, Language, and Ideology
Even though Canto a la Mujer de mi Pueblo is not their first album, it is never-
theless one of the most successful and popular, and the one that brought
Los Kjarkas to the foreground in the panorama of urban popular music
of thefolklorica genre. The title of the album plays on the convergence in
meaning of pueblo: one for people, as in a large group that can be extended
to signify nation; the other for a small town or a village. The album is there-
fore intended to celebrate the "woman of my people," but also the woman
from the village, the campesina, the Indian, not the woman from the city.
This concept is confirmed by Gonzalo:
Es el canto a un tipo de mujer, a esa que es madre, que es obrera, a la que

realmente es una persona muy importante, que va detras de la yunta con la
semilla, es mujer en las noches, y viva, habita las soledades de nuestra tierra
surefia sobre todo, esta inspirado en la tierra del sur. Si conoces esa zona, es
tan hermosa, tan inhospita . . . ves pastoras, ves nifias pastoras en las sole-
dades tremendamente encerradas. Y ellas aprenden pues la responsabilidad
desde muy nifias . . ., y creo que es mejor homenaje que hemos rendido a
este tipo de mujer, pensamos que nuestros grandes valores estan ahi, en el
campo. (Personal interview, 1984)
This is a song to a type of woman, the mother, the worker, the one who really
is a very important person, who walks behind the mule team with the seed, is
a woman at night, and lives, inhabits the solitudes of our southern lands, it's
inspired in the South. If you know that region, beautiful, inhospitable, you
see girls shepherding, locked in the vast solitudes. And they learn responsi-
bility from a tender age. ... I think it's the best homage we can pay to this
type of woman. We think our greatest values reside in the campo.
This intended meaning is conveyed in the record jacket, showing a young

Indian woman sitting on the ground, dressed in fiesta garb, her handwoven
"llijlla" with the distinctive regional designs, clearly a campesina and not a
mestiza. Behind her are a few men, out of focus but clearly campesinos as
well (Fig. 3).
The indigenous element in the foreground of this album is further in-
dexed by the choice of the music. The album contains ten pieces, seven of
which are huaynos. Gonzalo Hermosa himself believes in the "untarnished"
properties of the huayno, when discussing Bolivian musical genres:
Figure 3.
Algunas cosas se han mantenido puras, por ejemplo el Huayfio. El Huayfio

es lo que mas se ha mantenido puro.
Some things have remained pure. For example Huayio. Huayiio has re-
mained the purest of all. (Interview, 1984).
Therefore for Hermosa, the genre huayho already means unpolluted, un-
touched, pristine, and authentic. The other pieces are two Chuntunquis
and one saya. The saya will be discussed in the second part of this article.
Significantly, none of the pieces are of the mestizo genre such as the cueca,
which has a distinct history, associations, and practice. The album breaks
down into:
Side A: Side B:
1. Wa Ya Yay (huayfio) 1. Surimana (huayno)

2. Siempre he de adorarte 2. Canto a la Mujer de Mi Pueblo
(chuntunqui) (chuntunqui)
3. Por Un Mundo Nuevo (huayiio) 3. Llorando se Fue (saya)
4. Tata Sabaya (huayfio) 4. Mamita Surumi (huayiio)
5. Phuru Runas (juayno) 5. Capinotefia (huayfio)
Among the musical contributions of Los Kjarkas perhaps the most inno-
vative and appealing is the popularizing of a regional genre, the Chuntunqui,
which first appears in this album and is widely used in subsequent albums.
This is a local genre from the central valley area of Chuquisaca associated
with music played at Christmas time, "mal llamado Villancico Chuquisaqueno,"
(ill-named Chuquisaca Villancico) says Hermosa. It is one of the very few
rhythms in 6/8 otherwise present in Bolivian folk and criolla music in its
Hispanic-derived cuecas, bailecitos, and carnavalitos. Cueca and bailecito are
"courtship dances" that belong to the same types as the carnavalito and the
chacarera in Argentina. These embody a machista narrative accompanying
a dance that suggests an imagery of conquest and domination of the female.
These forms usually have a set harmonic formula of I-IV-V-I and a ternary
rhythm in which an interspersed hemiola is the characteristic feature. As an
alternative to these musical narratives represented in the cuecas, bailecitos,
and carnavalitos, a Los Kjarkas' Chuntunqui provides a ternary rhythm that
stands in contrast to the aforementioned forms, while inserting itself in the
larger picture of Latin American forms. The Chuntunqui breaks with the
linearity of the musical narrative of the ternary meter cueca and bailecito by
its simultaneity of cross rhythm of threes against twos, by the alternative
harmonic schemes, and by a typical Kjarkas instrumentation that empha-
sizes the brilliance and transparency of the stringed instruments. Chun-
tunquis occupy about one third of the selections of each album of Los
Kjarkas. Los Kjarkas do not really play many cuecas: the reason may be
that cueca presents structural constraints, whereas Chuntunqui opens an
avenue of flexibility.
In instrumental forms such as something as simple as a Huayio, there
will be an excursion through several sequences of tones through different
tonal centers that make the music such a novelty. The album Canto is one
such example. Musically the group strategy makes the listener comfortable
by insisting on what is well known and recognizable and then introduces a
space of innovation and non-recognition. Los Kjarkas' sound is also inno-
vative in the way they privilege a dense texture; there are no "empty
spaces" unfilled by the brilliance of a charango embroidering the main lines.
Los Kjarkas come from a tradition where stringed instruments are the
preferred medium. In concert, there are at least two guitars, one charango
and a roncoco, a larger sort of bass charango.
One way in which authoctonous music references itself is by relying on
very specific closing formulas, or even micro-motifs that identify one genre
from another. Los Kjarkas know this principle in general and use it. The
appeal to the stereotype is clearly present in their casting many of their
songs at least partially in a pentatonic mode. This allows them to engage
in specific progressions and closing formulas that give the songs their
"Andean" signature and to explore various possibilities at different kinds of
developments and closures. Typically, at the point where one would expect
a closure by a movement V-I, the great majority of the songs close in a
VII-I. This one whole step rather than a skip points to another type of
modality. One of the musical strategies Los Kjarkas use is to circumvent
the basic I-IV-V folk-music formula, extremely common in the genres. It
would seem that they go out of the way to avoid those specific tone pro-
gressions and replace them with others, for example I-IV-VI-III. This is a
novel approach to harmonic progressions that renders it very appealing.
The Construction of Gender
Los Kjarkas are romanticones (romantics at heart) when it comes to their

perception of women. They sing with great fervor about the quest for love,
the attainment of love, the loss of love. The album Canto reaffirms a romantic
idealized image of the woman who inhabits the realm of the sentiments.
To a degree, it also repeats the major theme in Andean ideation, the
identification of woman with earth. The earth, Pachamama, is mother of
all living things, and all daily acts are suffused and permeated with this
idea. These ideas are collapsed into one as the songs to the woman in this
album are directed to the campesina who is also viewed as being closer to
nature, closer to the earth, and identified with it.
Canto a la mujer de mi Pueblo (Chuntunqui) Example 1:
Nifia de las trenzas negras Young girl of the black braids

nina de la soledad Girl of solitude
morena piel de montaias dark skin of mountains
y pueblos perdidos and lost villages

Luz del fogon que lleva Light of the hearth that carries
fuego de amor que se aviva a fire of love that revives
El cielo de tu mirada Your gaze like the sky
Tiene sonrisas de sol has the smile of the sun
y tus manitas morenas caricias deand your small hands, caresses

tierra of earth
Quien velara tus suenios Who will watch over your dreams?
quien peinara tus trenzas. Who will comb your braids?
Mujercita tus penas se iran Dear woman, your sorrows will go

away
al despertar en tu vida el amor when love awakens in your life
Y mil secretos la vida abrira and a thousand secrets life will open
muchos que el tiempo guard6. that time kept away.
Cuentan que entre los maizales They say that in the maize fields
tu canto se oye al pasar your song can be heard
y por montanas y cerros and through hills and mountains

se llevan los vientos the winds carry it away
tierno canto de esperanza tender song of hope
llevas ternura de madre. you have the tenderness of a mother.
Mujercita tus penas se iran . . . Dear woman, your sorrows will

go away . . .
Example 1.
Canto al la mujer de mi pueblo

(Chuntunlgui)
AsLoe^ -^ i - i F - r Ilfl fX
-- . _
aqffiêtt t--- I I IT I IiHlf1if1tVI
b^r r :Sr r-Sj rrkr V tliiIlt$
-I _ i n 7 nJ n n 1 i nni jrl n
i. . -._
fInnflinnnnn1nfln / -, /
At^-fS nlnl^ r Î- t- ----=
68 : Huayfio, Saya, and Chuntunqui. Los Kjarkas
Example 1 (continued)
qe,Mi
- I - .llf t-ll f 1) ' 1It~T t I - I -
I7LfI I If 7- j
* - ae bs houS 1 ;- oa
El ci. -to te. h, ,w- r?- ta- ^;t" c?(11 C, s- ?- - sa s J-le W ly .'/ O$ ?4%i-
^Cnaoj : / / I / I I / I -/ I -/ I / I I /
C ^ A cr C,
. I . I . I I I I . I
G^J;. , -/ I -/. I / -/ I I I / / I /
,cIt c 'h tt>Vas j pue--- iti - .l - \

^- pO L-^-r a .- - - l Jkf C;C-- ri (a; t<-la -,* h^. -
cw.-A / I~ / II / I I x I I I /
e . - -f t Ve
Ia 4 so Ow i A - --,- 'rc.;- i " pe-n-if, SI-
c. / / I / I / lI'/. I I / I
.... , . I ,1, 1'- , II , 'I ,
( Uil.
I -//_ /. . -/ 71 -I -1 7- I - - I -
/s ' 'I ~' ~~~~~~~ 'I /I ' I'I
1 'I
4 I I 4 I
j
I II 1 -II1 IIIIII 1 1 7 -r-rT 14-. I
/fJ.'<- i jI*.? uÎ ^.r~ l a 3?\ Î7 >
l !% i | I / . ip ;z I ;/- I - / I -
Am? / /i F c /I
1 / | /' I ' | V- I ^ | /
Example 1 (continued)
l'iepo i- r7oo
Ch._ / I ._J I f 1ttt

i- /A - IB?,-/ /
> [I -1-r,
7_
, >,7
The metaphors in the lyrics insist on the physical featu

the woman and the earth: darkness and solitude. In rega
features, the woman's love is also associated with a natu
the fire of the hearth is a contained fire. There is also the association be-
tween love and song, and her song, like her body, is part of the world of
nature. The winds carry it away through hills and mountains; her song,
like the earth, has the tenderness of a mother. The song plays on two sets
of relationships associated with and crystallized in the image of the woman,
her affinity with the earth, and her affinity with love. But she is lonely and
sad and needs to be awakened. It is presumed that love, in the form of a
man, will come and awaken her.
Siempre he de adorarte (Chuntunqui)
Siempre he de adorarte tiernamenteI will always adore you tenderly

Eres el milagro de este amor you are the miracle of this love
No podre alejarte de mi mente I won't get you off my mind
te llevo prendida en el coraz6n I carry you attached to my heart
Si tu amor lleg6 a mi vida If your love came to my life
para ser feliz mis dias To complete my days
y el mundo que he formado para
ti. (bis) and the world I made for you.
Sin tu amor la vida esta perdida Without your love life is lost
no hay consuelo en mi desventura. There is no consolation in my
misfortune.
Buscare tu amor Il1 look for your love

y en el coraz6n And in the heart lives
vivira encendida la ilusi6n. (bis)Hope forever alight.
In this Chuntunqui the woman, situated in an aethereal region is evoke

in love. The lyrics always utilize a direct form of address to the woman
(The only time in this album that a concrete place is mentioned occurs in
the song "Capinotefia," which says: "among the flowers in my garden / I
prefer the dark ones / the ones from Capinota / to love you / to lose you /
I prefer death.')
Por un Mundo Mdor (huayfio)
Todo en esta vida Everything in this life

tiene un fin que conseguir has an end to attain
Son designios que se tienen

que cumplir Designs we must accomplish
iVen! que debemos mejorar Come! We must better
El mundo en que vamos a habitar the world we are to inhabit
iVamos! nuestra vida empieza aqui Let's go! our life begins here
y nos aguarda el porvenir and the future awaits
En un mundo ciego en que nos

toco vivir In this blind world we're to live in
Buscaremos una vida sin temor well look for a life without fear
iVen! que debemos mejorar Come! We must better
Juntos por la tierra buscaremos Together on this earth well look

un lugar for a place
el lugar donde formemos nuestro
hogar the place where well make our home
Ven, que debemos mejorar Come! We must better
Que feliz soy mientras sonries How happy I am while you smile
y me abrazas con amor and embrace me with love
This song addresses a larger issue. A song of hope, as Gonzalo Hermosa

explained, in view of the uncertain future on this earth, always on the verge
of calamity, as the earth is menaced, and life will disappear.
The many other songs of love by Los Kjarkas are in the same vein.
However, in these and many other songs, there are themes that do not get
treated. It is significant, for example, that compared to other musical cul-
tures in Latin America, (the romantic music of the tropical countries for
example which make reference to sex and sexuality overtly, riddled with
metaphors and double entendres) the songs of Los Kjarkas stay at the
sentimental, non-sexual level. The physical attributes of the woman sung
to are the eyes, the hands, the face, the braids, the color of the skin. In a
public presentation Gonzalo Hermosa introduced this song: "A los ojos
maravillosos que son la ventana del alma" (to the marvelous eyes which are
the window to the soul):
Chuntunqui
Dejame mirarte por esa ventana Let me look at you through that
window
que por las mafianas yo veo en

tus ojos I see everyday in your eyes
el brillo de tu alma color solitario the glow of your solitary-colored soul
dejame decirte que en mis

pensamientos let me tell you that in my thoughts
yo Ulevo tus suenios y tus sentimientos I carry your dreams and your
sentiments
y mi alma siente morirse, pequefia and my soul feels like dying,

little one
quiero hablarte de mi tierra quiero' I want to talk to you about my land

hablarte de rios y suefios celestes Talk to you about rivers and blue
dreams
hablarte del viento y sus cantares talk to you about the wind and its
song
del amor de las flores a la tierra of the love flowers have for the
mojada damp earth

dejame mirarte por esa ventana let me look at you through that
window
However, core features of women's lives and experiences, such as children

and hard work, do not form part of the discourse of Los Kjarkas. The
image of the real woman, with a child on her back and/or at her hand, sell-
ing goods at the market or in the street is the most ubiquitous both in the
city and in the country, and impossible not to see, to respond to, and to
interact with. How this most obvious feature and proof of an active sexuality
is glossed over is significant. Los Kjarkas are singing to an ideal woman,
to their image of the bucolic campesina, who has stayed in the campo. The
object of desire is obviously the nubile, beautiful, but sad, maiden awaiting
to be awakened (residues of nineteenth-century romanticism?). Are these
other real women so hard to see? Or do Los Kjarkas not want to see this
other side? What kinds of messages are being sent? In addition, what
contradiction is inherent in equating the woman with the Mother Earth,
Pachamama, whose most prominent attribute is that of fertility and the
giving and sustaining of life, but implicitly negating it in the woman? Or
is it the reverse, that is, they are so well aware of all these things that they
hardly need mentioning, and ultimately it is only the sentimental attach-
ment that counts? Gonzalo himself provides a partial answer to these
questions, subscribing to the latter, indirectly addressing the issue:
Yo pienso que hay un mont6n de canciones que hablan de eso. L6gico, no

entran los hijos ... el hombre mismo en su contexto general involucra a la
mujer. Cuando el hombre conquista la luna no significa que sea el var6n el
que ha conquistado la luna, sino la raza humana del hombre. El sin6nimo
del hombre significa mas que todo los dos sexos. L6gico, la parte mas her-
mosa siempre es la epoca del cual uno es enamorado. Hay un mont6n de
razones . . . hay otras cosas que en si llevan implicitas. Nosotros no hacemos
panfleto, ano? (Personal interview, 1992)
I think we have many songs that deal with that. Of course, children are not a
part of it . . . man in his general context is invariably associated with the woman.
When man conquers the moon it does not mean the male, but the whole human
race. Man is synonym for both sexes. Of course, the most beautiful part is when
one is in love. There are many reasons . . . other things are implicit.
This statement essentially reflects the male voice with which Los Kjarkas
speak, placing them within the romantic-love song tradition and away from the
types of songs from Canto Nuevo, which would address those themes directly.
Another side of this issue is represented in their later album Los Andes
. . .Descubrio su Rostro Milenario 1990 (The Andes . . . discovered their
millenary countenance). The title of this album presents an ambiguity at
the outset contained in the word descubrio, which could be defined as either
"discovered," something that is "found," or as meaning "revealed," the
Andes reveal themselves/the Andes discover themselves. Either way it is an
imposing, formidable title that suggests a journey into the remotest past
and into one's millenary roots. Likewise, the jacket pictures a close-up of a
man, clearly an Aymara, looking directly at the viewer, all in a red chiaro-
scuro and illuminated behind by the dim firelight. The back side of the
jacket features a reproduction of the designs of a regional weaving, pos-
sibly from Potosi. But in spite of this staid, sober package not a single song
has the remotest reference to the apparent message this image conveys.
The album is really a collection of love songs: "Puedo vivir sin tu amor";
"Duele"; 'Todo me habla de ti"; 'Tus 15 afios y yo"; 'Nifia de mi Tierra";
"Sefiora su hija"; "S6lo yo he ganado"; "Santusay." The only exceptions are
'Tupiza," a song to a southern town but still peripherally a love song, and
'Jilguero Flores," a song about a poet. The recurring themes are of unre-
quited love or lost love and the love for a fifteen-year-old.
Many questions arise in this respect. Why do Los Kjarkas need to
invoke the imagery of ethnic ancestry in order to put forth a collection of
love songs? Of course, love songs really sell, and Los Kjarkas use the image
they project to sell their songs. Gonzalo sees their treatment of music and
text as a medium to revindicate national music to the next generation:
Esa letra esta directamente para chicas de quince, dieciseis, diecisiete, dieci-
ocho aios. Esas personitas de 15-17 afios jamas querian saber de la musica
boliviana. S6lo los viejitos se acordaban de sus bailecitos, de sus cuecas; y
tampoco no los dejaban expresar pues, no los dejaban expresar .... Porque
entr6 ahi la nueva ola, la melena, la guitarra electrica y todas esas cosas y
empez6. Y el instrumento de alienaci6n gratuito siempre ha sido la radio y
la televisi6n, y actualmente lo consigue.
The lyrics are directed toward fifteen-, sixteen-, seventeen-, eighteen-year-

old girls. Those young people never wanted to know about Bolivian music.
Only the older people remembered their bailecitos, their cuecas, and they
weren't permitted to express that either, . . . because in came the new wave,
the long hair, the electric guitar and all of that, and that's where it started.
And the most effective alienating tool has always been the radio and televi-
sion, and actually it succeeds.
We should then not jump to hasty conclusions and take Gonzalo at his
word: the packaging and the subjects dealt with, though incongruous with
one another, are a vehicle to draw younger listeners and to find and adopt a
musical medium of expression that is Bolivian.
Language: Quechua/Aymara
Los Kjarkas sing mostly in Spanish, although some songs are in Quechua.
The use of the native language is one of the ways to locate the music in its
"authentic mode." Its use reinforces and enlarges the ambient of expression.
Moreover, in the use of the native language, there are qualities in the per-
formative aspect that repeat the expressive traits proper to the rendition of
the song. A multitude of feelings that the language implies and contains is
also brought in, with occasionally suppressed elements in the culture of the
dominant language. For example, it is not uncommon in real life for men
to cry about a lost love, particularly if the emotions have been heightened
by the consumption of alcohol, a widespread practice. The singing in
these cases acquires a characteristic plaintive, lamenting character. The
verse of "Surimana" is in Quechua; Elmer Hermosa is quite successful in
the rendition of those qualities.
Surimana (huayho)
Waqay kutipis saqerparerkani I left her (distraught, drowned in

tears)
Ama riupychu waqaspa niwarqa don't leave, crying she said
Sapa paqarin yuyarispa kani every day I'm waiting
yuyarispa sonqoypis waqani waiting while my heart weeps
Ay yo no quiero saber de tu olvido I don't want to hear of your for-

getting me
Ay no quisiera saber de tu olvido I don't want to hear of your oblivion
acaso piensas que yo no estoy contigo Do you think I am not with you?
Deja tu orgullo y andate conmigo Leave your pride and come with me
Quiero tenerte siempre aqui a mi I want you always by my side

lado
No dejes nunca que tu amor me falte don't deny me your love

Porque sin ti vivir no podria because without you I couldn't live
Regresa a mi, flor del alma mia come back to me flower of my soul
Los Kjarkas do not sing in Aymara, since they are from the Quechua-
speaking valley region of Bolivia. Yet, one of the most successful songs in
74 : Huayho, Saya, and Chuntunqui. Los Kjarkas
the album is Wa ya yay, which implicitly touches upon the boundaries

between speech and song. The Aymara language offers a rich panorama of
sound iconicities that appear consistently through onomatopoeic instances.
Descriptions in Aymara are peppered with colorful expressions that evoke
sound-meaning relationships. This feature lends to the language expressive
elements not always present in other languages. Aymara is full of the ono-
matopoeic use of words: certain words suggest meanings by association of
their sound with the targeted effect. In English some of those words (much
highlighted in comic-book stories) such as thud, splash, and splat suggest in a
broad sense a sound relationship determined by what kind of an object falls
on what kind of surface. In the Aymara language there are expletives asso-
ciated with different kinds of pain. In Aymara the equivalent of the English
ouch would be expressed in different ways: thus, in the expletive Achachau,
"ch" is associated with pain caused by a burn or a sting; change the sound to
an "L," and the association is with the discomfort caused by cold. Alalau
means "I'm very cold" or any variation thereof. The sound 'T" is associated
with a sharp pain, such as when one would hit one's thumb with a hammer
or stub one's toe on a rock; Atatau would be the expletive.
Similarly, we can infer other types of sound and meaning correspon-
dences in Aymara. The particle "Wa" is in this sense very important,
because there seems to be a lexical semantic component attached to this
sound, involving a domain having to do with crying, but also with singing.
The old Bertonia Aymara vocabulary shows these entries (hua= wa,
modern spelling):
Hua = cry/crying
huararitha llorar a gritos to weep loudly (with cries)

huararaatha hazer dar gritos to cause someone to cry
huararihachatha tener ganas de dar gritos to have the urge to cry
huararihuasaitha dar muchos gritos como to emit many cries as

quando cogen a la zorra when catching a fox
o lobo que hurta stealing
hurarintatha entrar dando gritos en to enter into a house
alguna casa crying

huararicatatha llegarse gritando to arrive crying
huararimucutha echar gritos to let out cries
huararistacatha encontrarse con alguno, to meet someone, or go
o salirse al encuentro meet them letting out
dando gritos cries
huararithaptatha juntarse los que dan to bring together the

gritos crying ones
huararitatha alcar el grito repentina- for one or many to
mente uno o muchos suddenly let out a cry
Gilka Wara Cdspedes : 75
Hua = song/singing
huaruru kochu, canci6n o cantar kochu, song and singing

de indios of Indians
huarurutha cantar asi to sing like this

huarurumucutha gastar mucho tiempo en to spend a lot
cantar y decir canciones singing and recitin
huarurunocatha idem idem
huaruruntatha entrar cantando to come in singing

huaruruthaptatha encontrarse cantando los for two groups coming
que van y vienen and going to meet while
singing
Whenever there are no words to a song, or one does not know the words,
it is standard practice to substitute syllables to fill in. Among the Aymara
the preferred manner is to use the syllable 'Way," and it would be incon-
gruous to use anything else. (In Spanish it is generally "Lai-ra-ra-ray.")
In view of the points discussed above, it would seem that the use of 'Way"
is not altogether an arbitrary choice, but instead, it has a lot to do with the
semantic component of this sound and its iconic, affective, properties.
'Wa-ya-yay" is delivered in the same general plaintive, lamenting, wept
style described above. Moreover, it is more frequently used by women
since in the practice of music, singing is the domain of women while the
playing of instruments is that of men. In the context of a fiesta in an alti-
plano town or community, women participate very actively in the music-
making and in the fervor of the fiesta, and as much inebriated as the men,
the emotions rise to a high level. 'Way-ya-yay" is present both as a song
but also as a lament. The styles in which emotions are expressed are cul-
turally inscribed. One particular instance in my own fieldwork during a
1983 fiesta in which I was researching Sikuri music, at the height of the
action, a group of women were seated on the ground as is customary among
the Aymara, men and women occupying separate spaces. My attention
was drawn to the way one of the women, as she was telling her story, wove
in and out between a weeping telling of her story, and she would then break
into song, using 'wa-ya-yay," turning back to tell the rest of the story,
again, in the same weeping style, and breaking back into the 'vay ya yay."
This went on for quite awhile.
Los Kjarkas know this in an unconscious manner. One of the biggest
hits that took the city and the country by surprise was their song, composed
by Ulises Hermosa, 'Wa ya yay." Deceptively simple, with this particular
song they have tapped directly into one of the most important expressive
veins of how things are said in the Altiplano. Important expressive elements
intersect at several levels: the lyrical, the musical, and the emotional. At
the level of the lyrics, the first verse tells about the singer's emotional state,
of pain, sorrow, loneliness, disappointment. This is an introverted verse:
Voy a contarte hoy mi triste pena I am going to tell you about my pain
La soledad que hoy llevo en mi alma The loneliness I carry in my soul
Voy a contarte de tristes desenganios I'm going to tell you about my
sad disappointment
De ilusiones y de suenios que he About the dreams and illusions I
vivido have lived
In the second verse the speaker has not said anything yet, but moves on to
tell about his environment, mountains, and valleys and, most of all, the
source of the most significant musical and emotional symbols: he was
cradled by huaynos and saw the land itself bloom in the charango and the
panpipes grow in the wind.
Entre montafias y valles he nacido I was born between mountains and

valleys
Me acunaron los huayiios en su the Huayfios cradled me in their
encanto enchantment
Y al florecer mi tierra en su And when the earth bloomed in her
charango charango
Vi crecer las zampofias en el viento I saw the panpipes grow in the wind
Now the emotional state of the first verse and the musical materials of the
second are going to find their expression in the third verse and the rest of
the song that consists entirely of 'Wa-ya-yay":
Wa ya ya ya ya ya ya ya yay
wa ya yay
Wa ya ya ya ya ya ya ya yay
Wa ya yay
way, way wa ya ya ya yay

way ya yay,
way, way wa ya yay
Wa ya ya ya ya ya yay
wa ya yay
wa ya yay
This song pays hommage to the Aymara of the highlands. The song is
huayfio, and the first part of the melody is pentatonic, indexing in this wa
Aymara music. The song ends with the typical closure of a sikuri piec
quoting the typical exchange between the Arca and the Ira (the pair o
complementary panpipes).
To the surprise of the group, the song became extremely popular in
many places including outside the national borders. Gonzalo Hermosa said
Example 2. Wa ya yay (huayino)

WAj A Y^ Y
M_ 1t)4)
J-.IO
..... I V--4 \ I=f=.

i:= r-~
E C,
4,
11t X y 4 j. .1. 3 -'. J - , 7 II .1 I J J. 'J I ^J
-'. T I pc - -- I te
1.Vaj. 0, - CC"n -- +,;, - tt 6y "I +,rS la. SO-le - d- ,oJ or 1l - vo
U A ? - | -2 a f i -t 9 tr o -t k . Ae ei -L s 1 & ,t< 1r _r -u i - )s ,1 uc ;ioci
"I don't know why, what elements were there that made that song to b
so well received."
El wa ya yay es pues un simbolismo, con s6lo decir wa-ya-yay es pues el

aymara .... ya no necesita mas letra, apoyo de ninguna letra. Y te digo que
con el wa ya yay hemos tenido fen6menos muy curiosos. Cuando estamos
en el extranjero, en una cultura muy diferente y con otro idioma, se canta el
wa ya yay que siempre hemos cantado al final, la gente sale tonadeando y se
les va pegado. Entonces yo pienso mas bien que esa canci6n es el origen
primo de una esencia natural del hombre humano que ha quedado restricto
muy adentro, que ha quedado sus restos, tocan ahi sus restos como si estu-
vieran llorando.
Wa ya yay is symbolic, just saying "wa ya yay" one says Aymara. It doesn
need words, or the support of any lyrics. I can tell you that with this song w
have experienced curious things. When we are abroad, in a different cultur
and with another language, we sing "wa ya yay," which we always sing at th
end, and people leave humming it, it catches on. I think that song touches
prime response in the natural human essence that has remained very restricted
buried inside, and it touches them as a cry. (Personal interview, 1992)
Politics
Los Kjarkas have very few overtly political songs. Yet, the nationalist
discourse embedded in their music permits any social group to lay a claim
to it and endorse it. Because the nationalism of Los Kjarkas operates at
diverse sensory, cognitive, and affective levels, listeners can assign a mean-
ing to it that may or may not have been there at first. A song that stands
out in this respect is "Bolivia," one of the most successful songs that tugs
at the feelings affecting a large number of Bolivians. "Bolivia" is a powerful
song in all its simplicity. This is the most requested song at the end of a
concert, and it brings the house down. Some recent comments about it
have been that "this should become Bolivia's national anthem."
The message is conveyed at the sonic, the poetic, and the musical levels
in layers of signification, which I will lay out through my "interpretive
moves." The song is cast in the rhythm of a huayno. The lyrical content of
the song is a statement calling for liberation looking towards a better future.
The referenced time frame, a century and a half, has to do with the inde-
pendence sesquicentennial celebrations of the mid 1970s and is a commen-
tary to the fact that although independence may have been declared, it has
not been necessarily achieved, particularly by the oppressed group, the
campesinos:
Bolivia
Ser tu bravura ser la fuerza y To be the bravery, the strength,

juventud and youth
de tu letargo mudo la voz, la the awakening and voice of your
inquietud mute lethargy
Bolivia! Bolivia!
quiero pegar un grito de liberaci6nI want to shout liberation

despues de siglo y medio de after a century and half of
humillaci6n humiliation.
Quiero tengan tus dias destino mejorI want a better destiny for your days
y el futuro sonria prometedor and that the future may smile
promising
Bolivia! Bolivia!
En la falda de tus cerros hare At the foot of your mountains Ill
mi hogar make my home
donde felices los nifios iran a jugar Where the children happily will go
play
Bolivia! Bolivia!
The musical encoding is terse: the song starts with a simple charango
establishing the huayno rhythm. Then the first verse "Ser tu bravura ser la
fuerza y juventud" is sung a cappella in parallel fifths and in a pentatonic
motif. Both the tone material and the parallel fifths tie in directly to one of
Gilka Wara Cispedes : 79
the oldest panpipe traditions in the Bolivian Andes, the qantus. Qantus by
themselves, stand out as the icon for Aymara identity. The second verse,
"de tu letargo mudo la voz, la inquietud" moves over an instrumental
accompaniment that renews and reaffirms the huayno rhythm and iconically
underlines the "awakening of your mute lethargy." The chorus "Bolivia!"
erupts in a triad, by this time the parallel fifths have been abandoned, and
there is a closure of a IV-I progression, again the pentatonic closure is not
there. The second part of the verse, "quiero pegar un grito de liberaci6n,"
is in complete triads, and "despues de siglo y medio de humillaci6n" is
stated by the solo. The two verses are interpolated by an extended instru-
mental section in which, sequentially, the wind and the stringed instruments
take turns. The a cappella vocals never reappear during the rest of the song,
the second verse entering over the underlying rhythmic base. This motion
from the collective, a cappella, pentatonic, to the individual, instrumental,
triadic statement suggests to me that Los Kjarkas in one piece of music,
purely by musical means, are capable of traveling a distance that indicates
text or tune relationships by referencing music-structural iconicities, such
as the qantus, and performative meanings, such as the solo at the word
"Liberacion!"
In 1980 a most violent and gruesome coup took place in Bolivia prevent-
ing the freely elected government from taking power and replacing it with a
military rule in one of the most chaotic and corrupt periods in recent
history. While the press was being restrained and radio stations were
silenced, the only radio allowed to broadcast the government line was the
official Radio Illimani. A musical signature interspersed between slices of
propaganda for the "new order" was the tail end of this song. The choice of
this piece was as felicitous as it was insidious: given the simple but powerful
affecting character I have tried to describe, playing only the chorus of it
told only part of the story. It is as if the military were now answering the
call for liberation and a better future. To the people who had been deeply
affected by the repressive measures of this regime this message played out
like a bad joke.
This same piece had been used earlier to bolster the political propaganda
of the most right-wing (and dictatorial) candidate. Gonzalo sent an open
letter to the effect that the use of that theme was unauthorized and that its
use compromised Los Kjarkas with a political party, (and the most reac-
tionary at that).
Los Kjarkas no tenemos color politico. No somos del PC, ni PCB, ne del
ADN, ni del MNR, ni de la Falange ni de nada. Nosotros somos del pueblo.
No tenemos color. A nosotros nos interesa reivindicar a nuestro pueblo,
llevarlo a otro lado y cambiar la mentalidad. Y ese cambio de mentalidad ha
hecho que la misma Remedios este en el Palacio de Gobierno.6 (Personal
interview, 1992)
80 : Huayio, Saya, and Chuntunqui. Los Kjarkas
Los Kjarkas don't have a political color. We are neither PC, nor PCB, nor
ADN, nor MNR, nor Falange, nothing. We belong to the people. We don't
have a color. Our interest is to revindicate our people, take it elsewhere and
change the people's mentality. That change has made it possible for Remedios
to be in the government.
If there is any political involvement on the part of Los Kjarkas it is at a

different level. Los Kjarkas see themselves vested with a mission, which
is to shake the consciousness of their publics into an awareness of one's
cultural values in reaction to the relentless bombardment of alienating
messages. Of these, one of the worst is the influence of rock music. For
Gonzalo rock music is the worst culprit:
[La inferioridad] es un problema que todo el mundo lo conoce, la tez morena

contra la piel blanca y los ojos azules. Es una enfermedad que hemos here-
dado. Pero en nuestro tiempo ha habido una enfermedad mucho mas grave,
la alienacion extranjerizante del rock. El rock ha empezado a traer un enfer-
medad y ha traido droga tambien. Y ha empezado a querer disfigurar, a
borrar lo que en trecientos afios los espafioles no nos han podido borrar.
Habia un peligro inminente de borrar del mapa nuestras cuecas, nuestros
huaynos y de arrinconarlos absolutamente. Porque era sin6nimo de un status
inferior. (Personal interview, 1992)
[Inferiority] is a well known problem, our dark skin pitted against the white
skin and the blue eyes. It's an illness we have inherited. But in our time there
has been a much more serious illness, the alienating influence of Rock. Rock
brought in an illness, and it also brought drugs. And it started to disfigure,
to erase what in three hundred years the Spaniards were not able to do. There
was the imminent danger of erasing from the map our cuecas, huayfios, and
to cast them aside totally. Because it was the synonym of an inferior status.
Los Kjarkas credit themselves with having changed the attitudes of the
people toward themselves and proudly accepting their Bolivian heritage.
Nuestro primer objetivo era sacar al hombre boliviano de muchos prejuicios

que tenia. Yo le llamo la enfermedad sicosocial, ;no? Renegaba de su poncho,
renegaba de sus abarcas, de su piel morena, de su apellido Huanca, Mamani,
Choque, que se yo . . . renegaba de su madre de pollera .... Nosotros nos
hemos atribuido labores que realmente debian ser competencia de otros
institutos. Pero si nadie lo hacia, quien los hacia? Nosotros lo hacemos. Esta
ha sido una gran revoluci6n. Yo he dicho siempre, es la revoluci6n jamas
llevada. Ni el '52 ha sido comparado con esto. Porque el '52 no se pudo cam-
biar la mentalidad de hombre, entiendes? esta si la cambi6, cambi6 mentali-
dades. Por eso tenemos teatros. Porque al teatro el charango no entraba,
estaba vedada la zamponia, estaba vedada.
Our first objective was to remove some prejudices from the Bolivian. I call
it the psychosocial illness. He renounced his poncho, his abarcas (sandals),
his dark skin, his name, Huanca, Mamani, Choque (typical Aymara names)
. . denied his mother's pollera .... We have taken over a task that really
ought to be the work of other institutions. But if nobody would carry it out,
who would? We do. This has been a great revolution. I have always said, the
never-accomplished revolution. Not even 1952 can be compared to this.
Because in '52 they could not change people's attitudes, right? But this one
did, it did change attitudes. That is why we now have theaters. Because the
charango had no place in the theater, the zampofia was forbidden, it was
forbidden.
This "revoluci6n incruenta" [bloodless revolution] had to be won first in

Bolivia. As far south as Tarija and as far east as Santa Cruz, Gonzalo
claims that Los Kjarkas engaged in an intensive work of reviving old,
almost forgotten styles. This is a recurring theme in his rhetoric. Los
Kjarkas play exclusively their own compositions. The reason for this is a
personal choice: rather than going the way so many of the other groups
had, simply reviving pieces of the traditional repertoire, Los Kjarkas felt
that they could give the music a different twist, go in with a different at-
titude, and make a few changes consonant with the times:
adecuar al momento historico en el cual estamos viviendo. Cambiarle la

letra. Moverle un poquito a la musica, adecuar a las exigencias de aho
adapt to the historic moment we are living now. Change the lyrics, spee
the music a little, satisfy today's expectations.
The Connection with the Audience
The best moments of Los Kjarkas are during a performance whe

musical ideas incarnate and become alive in an act of communication. Los
Kjarkas are communicative, warm, serious, and funny at the same tim
The group makes a living from its music, and available venues are diverse
and range from very formal theater concerts to more popular concerts in
open-air theaters or parks. In formal theater concerts they play to packed
houses-often the late comers must buy their tickets from scalpers. Th
interaction between the musicians and their public is direct, immediat
and feverish. Los Kjarkas bring the house down. How do Los Kjarkas se
the communicative process in motion? What kinds of messages are bein
passed and how?
The whole performance is an emergent process in which a dialectic i
created from the dialogue and the live sound that both reassures and fulfills
the listeners' expectations, but also surprises them. Their general publ
is very "popular," meaning it is made up of elements consisting of working-
class, cholitas, university students, and otherwise very few upper-cla
people. Los Kjarkas make themselves very accessible and are generous
with the public. I saw one instance at an open air theater when they en-
couraged a "Kjarkas sing-alike" contest on the spot (it may have been
sponsored by a soft drink company), where young men had a real chance
and privilege at singing with the big stars. The singing was its own reward:
Los Kjarkas accompanied the winner in the song of his choice.
To introduce the pieces Gonzalo establishes a connection with the
audience by talking, joking, and making the audience feel at home. Each
introduction is concurrently a construction in stages through several images
and rhetorical devices, projecting on the feelings the audience is about to
have. Some examples are discussed below.
The excerpt below on the name "Los Kjarkas" is part of a much larger
talk, and I am transcribing only part of it:
Quiza muchos de Uds se pregunten sobre el significado de la palabra Kjarkas.

Es una palabra que se perdi6 con el tiempo y que aparece en la America Latina.
. . significa la fortaleza, el valor, el coraje, la temeridad de un pueblo. De
ahf que las "machu kjarjas" durante el incario eran las fortalezas que eran
para atajar la invasi6n de las tribus selvicolas del americano. Y habian
muchas fortalezas, fortines, donde el hombre se agrandaba. (Recorded inter-
view, Berkeley, 1986)
Maybe many of you want to know about the meaning of the word Kjarkas.
It's a word that got lost with time and appears in Latin America . . . [it]
means the strength, the valor, the courage, the temerity of a people. Thence,
the "machu Kjarkas" that served to forestall the invasions from the low-land
tribes of America. And there were many fortresses, forts, where man made
himself greater.
The appeal here is to antiquity, Amerindian roots, and as previously men-

tioned, an indigenous bastion of strength and resistance through which
"man made himself greater," that is, by resisting the outsider.
On the Zampofia:
Hay muchas canciones en el repertorio de Los Kjarkas que hace mucho

tiempo no tocabamos. Son canciones que empezamos mas o menos hace
catorce o quince aios atras y con unos instrumentos bastante interesantes y
milenarios, ya que la zampona que tenemos en Bolivia, tengo la suerte de
tener una zampoiia que el carbono 14, una zamponia de arcilla de barro
cocida, da mas o menos diez mil afos de antiguedad. Hace diez mil afos los
hombres en Latinoamerica tocaban instrumentos de viento y eran cosas
bastante perfectas. Una vez con mi hermano Ulises Hermosa fufmos con un
diapas6n electr6nico y tocamos uno de esos tubos de arcilla y daba un mi,
44 justo, iimaginese Uds! Que recursos, que tecnicas empleaban pero real-
mente eran cosas perfectas. Y asi muchos instrumentos de arcilla, entre ellos
algunas ocarinas, un mont6n de cosas, instrumentos que si ha podido per-
durar el tiempo, porque la zampoiia de toqoru que es un material que es una

planta, una cania, no puede perdurar ni siquiera, pienso a la intemperie ni
siquiera mil afnos. Pero tengo la suerte de que nuestros antepasados si,
pudieron hacer las zampofias de arcilla y eso nos di6 la pauta de que nuestra
zampofia era tan antigua como el hombre en la America, imaginense. Y eso
es un testimonio. No podemos decir los americanos que tiempo llevamos en
la America ya que nuestros antropologos, geologos se ocupan de todas esas
cosas. Pero es hermoso, es hermoso tener estos instrumentos ya que para mi
realmente forman el grito mismo de la madre tierra, el grito de la Pachamama
al juntarse con el viento que es la caricia de la paja brava. Hoy queremos
traerles el pueblito mas rec6ndito de Bolivia, un pueblo alejado, pueblo
antiquisimo que viene con estos versos que dice Chullpara, en ritmo trote.
(Recorded interview, Berkeley 1986)
There are many songs in Los Kjarkas' repertory that we hadn't played in a
long time. There are songs we started about fourteen or fifteen years ago,
and with a very interesting and millenary instrument, the zampofia we
have in Bolivia. Ten thousand years ago the men in Latin America played
wind instruments and they were very perfect things. Once with my brother
Ulises Hermosa we went with an electronic tuning fork and we played one
of those clay tubes, and it gave an E 44 just. Imagine! What resources, what
techniques they must have employed, but really they were perfect things.
Like this, many clay instruments, among them some ocarinas, many things,
instruments that have lasted through time, because the toqoru zampofia, that
is a plant material, a reed, cannot last out in the open, I think not even a
thousand years. But we are lucky that our ancestors, yes, they could make
their clay zampofias and that is how we know that our zampona is as old as
man in the Americas, imagine. And that is a testimony, we cannot say how
long we Americans have inhabited America. Our anthropologists, our geolo-
gists deal with that. But it is beautiful, it is beautiful to have these instru-
ments, that for us mean the call of the mother earth, the cry of the Pachamama
when she joins with the wind which is the caress of the paja brava. Today we
want to bring to you the most hidden little village in Bolivia, a far away
village, one of the oldest that comes with these verses, in trote rhythm.
This speech has the purpose of situating the panpipe, the zampona, not only
historically but proto-historically as the musical instrument of the continent
in order to exonerate it from the connotation "illiterate," "uncivilized," and
the racist "Indian" assigned to it by the dominant classes for ages. For this
reason, the appeal to the legitimizing, irrefutable, scientific facts are devices
that place science, the sacred cow of the West, on the side of the zampona.
Who can argue with Carbon 14, and with electronic tuning forks? In this
way the zampofia, metaphoricized as the cry of the earth, the caress of the
paja brava, the one in which the most hidden and old villages find their
voice, is revindicated.
From Saya to Lambada
The importation of Africans as slaves was more the rule than the exception
throughout the colony in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was
no different in High Peru (Alto Peru), now Bolivia, the source of the richest
silver mines centered in Potosi that supplied the Spanish empire. The
African presence in Bolivia was very important in this particular period of
colonial history in respect to the economic exigencies of the empire which
required a redoubled added manpower to do the heavy work of the mines
and the furnaces of the "Casa de la Moneda," the minting center. The
number of slaves brought to this part of the continent never matched the
quantities brought to other places of South America. Nevertheless, the
number of imported Africans to this region is not negligible, as we may
infer from the registers of the documents of the times (Portugal Ortiz 1977).
Because Africans could not resist the inhospitable conditions and tempera-
tures of the highlands, they were taken to the more temperate regions of
the Yungas7 to work in the coca, cane, and sugar plantations (Pizarroso
Cuenca 1977). This practice lasted well into the nineteenth century.
Throughout the colonial period all kinds of laws were formulated that
regulated the social interactions between blacks and Spaniards, but also
between blacks and Indians. By the first years of independence in the
nineteenth century, the African presence had dwindled down for a number
of reasons, having concentrated mostly in two cantones (sub-provinces):
Pacallo and Mururata in the Yungas region. The existing documentation
drawn from the tributary registers indicates that around 1883 the African
population, referred to as moreno in these censuses, reached no more than
10 percent to 15 percent in the more concentrated areas.
Today, the African presence in Bolivia is negligible, the reduced pockets
of black people existing in the same isolated communities in the subtropical
valleys of La Paz for all practical purposes have become assimilated to the
indigenous population of those regions. There are no homogeneous cul-
tural practices that may have left their enduring imprint to the extent they
have in other parts of South America and the Caribbean. (So exceptionally
rare is the presence of the African other than in the Yungas, that in the
folklore of urban schoolchildren there is the practice of pinching one
another for good luck whenever a black sighting occurs.)
Yet, for its conspicuous absence in the general fabric of Bolivian society,
it is remarkable that the African presence is instead conspicuously present
in the folk dances of the Aymara. The most prestigious and widespread
dance at fiestas and festivals is the renowned Morenos dance, a masked
dance that features the representation of black dancers, the masks empha-
sizing and exaggerating the facial features of the African, protruding eyes,
thick lips, black skin. There are hierarchies in this dance: the Reyes Morenos
(the kings), the Caporales (overseers) and the Morenos. The dancers wear a
tin helmet resembling a miner's, topped by three long colored plumes worn
over a horsehair wig. The dress is unwieldly cumbersome, richly em-
broidered and in the shape of a cylindrical skirt complemented by towering
epaulettes or, in the case of a rey, a cape. The dancers carry matracas, ratchets
to accompany the music and mark the pace. Costumed young girls precede
the dancers,8 whereas the women follow the men as a block wearing their
traditional festive garb of pollera and manta. Morenadas are danced to a band
accompaniment and the musical form has a distinctive melodic formula.
It is a slow dance with heavy steps, its own distinctive rhythm and musical
conventions. Although this dance has not been studied in depth, it has been
speculated that it represents the rebellion of the slaves against the foreman,
the capataz, whom they inebriate and then force to perform the heavy duties
of stomping the grapes and turning the heavy press (Urquizo Sossa 1977).
This would explain the sound of the ratchets, the cogs iconically symbolize
those of the wine presses; the cylindrical skirts of the dancers represent the
wine casks. Morenada is the dance that has more prestige than others and
is the most prominent in the city festivals. It is also much preferred when-
ever young urban Aymaras return to their community fiestas.
Seeing that at the heart and core of Andean peoples dancing is such a
primary mode of expression, what is the connection? Why should an ethnic
group take on the symbols of another and represent this absence in the
most symbolic, visible, and insistent way? It has been speculated by Bolivian
investigators, that the presence of Blacks in Indian folklore signals the
"othering" of Aymara in front of a group that was even more enslaved,
more dominated and more subjugated than they were. And that this has
remained in the collective unconsciousness of an ethnic group that, al-
though numerically superior, has remained in a position of subjugation.
The other dance is Caporales who dance to the rhythm of saya, a genre
that originates in the Yungas and it is one of the rare African-derived
musics existent in Bolivia. Originally it accompanied the dance of the
Tundiqui, onomatopoeic of the sound 'tun-diki" made by the instrument,
a single headed hand-held drum. Spoken texts were fitted to match the
rhythm. These texts, "coplas," are improvised but are also drawn from an
already existing corpus. The Tundiquis were the original dancers who came
from the Yungas to dance in the city on occasion. The dress is very simple
and it reflects the everyday wear of the people of this region. The women
wear full skirts and a manta (shawl), the men a loose shirt and tight knee-
length pants.
Out of the Tundiquis developed the related dance Los Negritos, danced
in the city by groups of young men who in imitation of Tundiquis paint
their faces black and wear curly-haired wigs. Los Negritos take a cue in their
garb from the Afro-Cuban images of the 1940s and 1950s and don the
characteristic ruffled, swollen sleeves in bright colors. They dance to the

rhythm of the saya, played on drums, and sing the texts of the coplas.
The general context for this dance is during patronalfiestas, and when city
groups visit the provincial towns at the time of the yearlyfiesta. On these
occasions, in the melee of musics coming together from various sources,
there is a cross-pollination that results in the adoption of new melodies to
which texts are added. Thus we have both, spoken texts, but also sung
texts. The new lyrics are set to already existing melodies and cast in saya
rhythm. I have collected an example in which a group of Negritos dancers
had adopted a sikuri (panpipe) piece at a fiesta in which Sikuris participated
and had instantly recast the same material into a different genre.
The Caporales dance is an offshoot of these others and takes its cue in the
character of the caporal, who as a character appears sporadically both in
the Tundiqui and in the Negritos dance. The caporal, an overseer in times of
the slave trade, was a mediating figure whose task was to choose the new
arrivals and assign their tasks and labors as well as supervise them. The
caporal oversaw the labor in large haciendas and reached the large expanses
of land on horseback. Appropriately, his work dress included riding pants,
boots, and a large straw hat, the brim turned up, as well as a ldtigo (whip)
across his chest. The dance repeats these features of dress. The music to
the Caporales is the saya, which in the last few years has undergone a few
changes and acquired great popularity, particularly with the growth and
expansion of the big urban festivals such as the Oruro Carnaval, the
Entrada del Gran Poder (La Paz), the Virgen de Urkupifia (Cochabamba).
Caporales has been adopted by many young people and become an urban
dance most favored by high school and university students. In fact, within
the last five years, university students in the city of La Paz have imple-
mented their own "entrada,"9 each of the facultades (colleges) presenting
one or two dances of several hundred dancers. This "entrada" is modelled
after the traditional "entradas," featuring the same kind of format, but
divested of the religious-ritual aspects surrounding them. An informa
inquiry as to the preference for this dance draws enthusiastic comments
ranging from its aesthetic qualities: "el baile es lindo"; 'los pasos son
bonitos"; "el ritmo es lo que mas gusta"; to the more intangible, "te sale de
adentro"; and the social, "yo bailo porque todos mis amigos bailan alla."
The young people feel that the dance looks good, has nice steps and
catchy rhythm, and "comes from within." Moreover, it provides an oppor-
tunity to be together and make friends. During the performance another
aspect becomes evident: the dance provides an arena where both sexes can
show off, the men as men, and the women as women. Caporales privileges
the male dancers since in it they have the opportunity to "strut their stuff"
by performing a variety of newly invented and expanded dance steps, som
nearing acrobatics. The costumes of full riding pants, boots attached with
bells, and a big straw hat adorned with flowing ribbons, turned up in the
style of the royal caporales, have added more recently features that suggest
the fantastic images taken from television and recall episodes from the
popular program "Star Trek." The girls' dress, full miniskirts, does not bear
any resemblance to the actual dress worn in the Yungas villages. This is
big time and exhuberance.
The music is provided by a brass band. The dancers no longer play the
drums as was the case with Tundiqui and Negritos, but mark the rhythm
blowing a whistle. The repertoire of band sayas is huge and it increases
every year. The bands continuously renew their repertoire by adding the
latest 'hits." For example, the huayno "Jilguero Flores" by Los Kjarkas was
turned into one of the most popular band sayas; in fact, many huaynos are
easily turned into sayas by slightly changing the rhythm, and adding the
identifying "signature" that marks the piece as a saya. Saya is characterized
by its rhythm marked by the drum:
?`~ I
Drum I ) ! P1 PJ
Drum II - 7
- > r
(optional) i Al '
The rege-rege scraper is also used and complements the rhythm w

characteristic pattern:
Rege-Rege . J.. ,. 1 1 ,I.

or: j T
The two together:
IDrum(s): 44 7 * 'i;)
Drum(s): '- s
. 94
Rege-Rege: m ''fi t
m mI E
Whistle:
-'T , -Tx T / 7T- N ,x
t? . . t, . .. . tr . .. . t
The characteristic "signature" of a saya is this pattern, or a variant thereof:
or:
or ^ 1 r ' r n
1 ji ry I I , I1
or: )
^ Pr) J7~'^n i
"Llorando sefue," a saya, was created by Los Kjarkas in 1981. At the struc-
tural level, the piece is extremely simple, two contrasting musical phrases,
interpolated by an instrumental interlude. In a minor mode, a descending
line, semiclosure on the relative major; second subject on the IV and VI.
What is unusual about this song are the leaps in the melody of the second
phrase: descending 6ths, followed by an ascending 7th, to come back down
in a descending 6th before it closes. The interlude is provided by a repeti-
tive pattern in the zampona that departs from the typical saya "signatures."
Yet, the creativity of "Llorando se fue" is manifest in how the rhythm is
manipulated. The melody keeps an autonomy with respect to the rhythm
that is not immediately identifiable as a saya. The charango introduces the
piece in two beats that suggest a huayno. The voice enters with "Llorando se
fue" together with the tun-tuna of the drum, marking the rhythm in a counter
beat to that of the huayfio, establishing the piece as a saya, not a huayno. In
my opinion, the other feature of "Llorando sefue" that makes this such an in-
teresting piece of music is that it contains the atypical interval leaps. The
melody, however, keeps its own line, thereby providing an alternative to
whoever is following the song: in other words, it goes against the expecta-
tions. This is the piece that has toured the world.
Llorando sefue (saya)
9d-b
Charang ?b - I - I I 1- i1f m fflmF

uidtfCrr&o
tz1z
Gilka Wara Cespedes: 89
Llorando sefui (continued)
.s,y r ' r r if If r r Ir r J ~ I%, i f

(5
ad) < Lo o--- raon-do se. fui, y e de-do so-to sin su-mor. I
,C^Vtd L.-ifre-'cuer-do
r It r r 1r 1 I r ir r Jl< iJ?
hcy, yjxn mi vi-J6 nop-is-tejl ran-cor.
(.
fcc
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tsBorobo' IT - -U"-
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'
s; --.t r c r ir r r r r r
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c,,!^'
cat+oATr ir r r r - rri tr - r fJrr in ul'I 7
r , f' r T
i li re-crw-o Vo, êomi vi- Q tyi-*- ren - cAr.
$ik 8 f r n ^ ^ it n i^t t r t IT ir f
t?i& r Ir iprrp ri fnrrr~ 1ir urr i

So7 4i-l--rc( re-cor-&An-c6(a-iV-mor êtl t-npo no fke -de borar.
BE t3L - lLr - Ir, - ir If r-I , r -
Llo-rof%-oj:s-tu-ru re.- coc- an-<H.Cai-or 'Au d-o \ 0o Sul po cudar
sabkuo> - i r I rT f ir lr F T
90: Huayio, Saya, and Chuntunqui: Los Kjarkas
Llorando sefue (continued)
CanQeip i - rSo--ni r 1 ij r 3 if frp I ^ r r tF L T

(aes-o-rf - core- -dxtn-<6 pe--o? ?ye-t -tiemr-ooo p(x-deb- bra .
Llo-r-nc-dlou.s-'a-x t re-cor-dan-dq a-no, ciOreyn c(-a no supo cidacr.
CG4I4 rir Ir S 1ttfj It r tr ruf3
ciV l,o o S- .Ii .r
(_--C--
__ -Ai-
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|jj> - |2n
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B- I I f I r - Ir I-
s,~o~)-b -tA tfli l 7t, ,~U1( 7X,tII I7Ur
(&" r - I ' i , - r--

,-- 5 -. , _ ---J 3 , . _. 3 ?
At the same live event that was recounted earlier, Gonzalo Hermosa
presented this saya in the following manner. The reader will have a feeling
of how the entire speech builds up as contextualizing background to the
saya, but at the same time, reinforces and reaffirms the historical, territorial,
and mythological elements that identifies the saya as Bolivian. It is as if
different "interpretive moves" were being directed already by the discursive
moves employed by Hermosa, who keys them to motivate the listener to
be an active participant in the process:
Culturas en America se juntaron hace tantos ainos atras. Las culturas africanas
y las culturas americanas para hacer un ritmo afro-americano que ..
bueno, en toda la America lo tenemos repartido. De ahi, es una ... hoy
mismo vi en la en television el Carnaval de Rio deJaneiro bueno, con ese ritmo
ta-na, africano, hermoso, mucho ritmo. Tambien en Bolivia como decia se
hizo la saya en base al huayfio boliviano.?1 Esa es la manera de como los
negros absorbieron nuestras culturas, las hicieron suyas pero a sus modo. Y
hoy dia yo quiero contarles un poquito, porque yo se que entre mis paisanos
hay muchos Orurenios, Pacenios, Cochabambinos, Chuquisaquefios, kkara
panzas-Victor, por ejemplo.
Una manera de nuestra capital (no es la capital, es la sede de gobierno),
bueno una forma de llevarse el gobierno y decirles, "no, aqui esta la central
pero alli solamente va a ser el gobierno," bueno, y los Chuqisaquefios se lo
creyeron. (risas) Recuerdo que hay una plazuela muy famosa que es el
coraz6n de La Paz, que es la sede de gobierno de los bolivianos, que es la
Plaza Perez Velazco, quien no la conoce, (voces) y quien no conoce, bueno
si no conocen, no conocen La Paz . . . es la llaga y el zumo de la pacenidad
esta en una calle que se llama la Buenos Aires (voces) . . . Bueno en base a
eso vamos a hacer una leyenda pequefia que se me inspir6 cuando retornaba
a Bolivia viniendo de Buenos Aires, pasando el Salar de Uyuni, ique hermosa!
Cuentan, dicen los abuelos, que los cerros nevados de Bolivia se juntaron
un 15 de Julio para hacer la vispera. Iban a llegar, y estaba el tata Sabaya,
Sajama, el Huayna Potosi, el Illimani, y el Tunari con su pequenito nevadito,
sombrerito blanco de cholita que vino, el Illampu, todos estaban, el Sorata y
todos ellos. Paseaban, cada uno, bueno el Tunari trajo su chichita, en su,
bueno se lo tom6 en el camino. Bueno los tarijefios vinieron con el Sama,
representando. Tarde llegaron, pero llegaron el 16 deJulio. Bueno ocurre que se
juntaron en la plaza Perez Velazco en la noche entre ponche y lleva al pecho
y dele seco. Dieron pues su bienvenida, para luego mas tarde, dos de la
mafiana, en una cantina de la Buenos Aires le dieron el remate (voces) y a
las 6 de la mafiana cada uno se fue para su casa como quien dice, y ahi esta-
ban tendidos con sus hermosos ponchos blancos los guardianes mudos de la
historia, pero habia cerros tambien como el Sama y los cerros verduzcos de
los Yungas de La Paz que venfan subiendo empinadas laderas, con sus
monitos, sus loritos, con sus reco-recos, tamborines trayendo esta saya negra
que dice "Llorando se fue y me dej6 solo sin su amor." (Recorded interview,
Berkeley, 1986).
92: Huayno, Saya, and Chuntunqui: Los Kjarkas
Cultures in America joined so many years back; African cultures and American
cultures that made an Afro-American rhythm that, well is dispersed through-
out America. Just today, I watched on TV the carnival in Rio de Janeiro,
well with that rhythm ta-na/ta-na, African, beautiful, lots of rhythm. Well, in
Bolivia saya was made in base of the huayiio. This is the way blacks ab-
sorbed our cultures, they made them theirs, but in their own way. And today
I want to tell you a little bit about it, I know that in the audience there are
many countrymen, Orurenios, Pacenos, Cochabambinos, Chuquisaqueiios,
kkara panzas-Victor, for example.
A habit of our capital city, (well it's not the capital but the seat of the govern-
ment) . . . well a way of taking away the government and telling them, "no,
here is the central [authority], but over there it's going to be the government
only," well, and the Chiquisaquenios believed it . . . (laughter) I remember a
very famous plaza that is the heart of La Paz, seat of government of Bolivians,
that is called Perez Velazco, who doesn't know it (voices), and who doesn't
know, well if you don't know it, you don't know La Paz . . . the core and es-
sence of 'pacefio-ness" is in a street called Buenos Aires (voices) .... Well,
based on that well make up a small legend that I was inspired to do when I was
coming back from Buenos Aires across the salt desert of Uyuni, what a beauty!
Our grandfathers say that the high snow-covered mountains of Bolivia got
together on the 15th of July to celebrate the vzspera [vespers], and were going to
come. There was Tata [father] Sabaya, Sajama, Huayna Potosi, Illimani,
Tunari, with its little snow cap, white sombrerito of a cholita, Illampu, all were
there, Sorata, and all of them. They paraded, each one, Tunari brought his chi-
chita, well, he drank it on the way. Tarijeiios were represented by Sama, they
arrived late, but they arrived the 16th. Well, they got together in the Plaza
Perez Velazco and in the night with ponches [punches] they gave their welcome,
and later, two in the morning, ended up in a cantina of calle Buenos Aires for
the remate [conclusion] (voices), and 6 in the morning they each went home, as
they say, and they were all laying about with their beautiful white ponchos, the
mute guardians of our history. But there were other mountains like the Sama
and the greenish hills of the Yungas of La Paz, that went climbing steep slopes
with their monkeys and their parrots their reco-recos, tambourines bringing this
black saya song that says llorando se fue y me dej6 solo sin su amor."
Llorando se fue
Llorando se fue La recuerdo hoy

y me dej6 solo sin su amor y en mi pecho no existe el rencor
Sola estara Llorando estara
recordando este amor recordando el amor
que el tiempo no puede borrar que un dia no supo cuidar
She left weeping I remember her today

and left me alone loveless there is no rancour in my breast
she's perhaps alone she's probably weeping
remembering this love remembering this love
that time cannot erase she did not look after
In this speech, Hermosa first situates the piece historically and juxtaposes
it with African music in other places of the contintent, such as Brazil. The
message seems to be: this is our Afro-American music, it is African, but
now it is Bolivian. In a way that is very personally his, he establishes a
rapport with the public even down to the individuals by acknowledging
their names, their provenance, their towns of origin. He then maps the
territory. The mention of all of those places: plaza such and such, calle so
and so, has the power to jolt the memory and throws ropes that people can
hold onto to be brought back through these memories right into the center
of the action. Thus, he is appealing to their affective responses. As he is
describing the places, the public latches onto the ropes and responds, adds
details, quotes, comments, laughs, reminds Gonzalo about things he for-
got, celebrates the wisecracks, and Gonzalo addresses every comment, at
times getting off the track. He makes jokes about the foibles of some
Bolivians (such as when Chuquisaqueios let Paceiios take the capital
away). These are historic-political events that every Bolivian knows about
and can relate to.
In the third part of his speech, he invokes the telluric, mythologica

Andean part of the Bolivian heritage. No regular, everyday city places
but the mountains that surround La Paz and the indigenous cosmology
are viewed and entrusted as the timeless old sages and guardians (there is
a word, the Apus). These mountains, however, are personified and endowed
with the attributes of the people of the regions: Tunari drank his chicha on
the way, and Sama arrived late. After they have all partied out, they a
retire, but end up lying around on the streets with their beautiful poncho
spread about, thus, reproducing the kinds of human behaviors typical to
this context. (This would be the time when the drunks go down the street
crying wayayay.) The lower mountains and the greenish hills of the valley
come to celebrate bringing their animals, monkeys and parrots, and al
their musical symbol, the saya, which begins to play as Gonzalo ends h
speech. Thus, the communication is accomplished.
Piracy and Greed
In the year 1981 Los Kjarkas registered their song among others that mak
up the album Canto a la Mujer de mi Pueblo with the Bolivian Ministry
Department of Culture. This registration, however, is not the same as
copyright, it simply certifies authorship of a work. Bolivia was not at the
time a signatory of the international copyright agreements. Los Kjark
recorded it in 1982 with Lauro Records, the Bolivian recording firm
responsible for most of their albums. In 1983, the piece began to be covere
by other artists. The Peruvian 'Cuarteto Continental" had made a tropical
arrangement of it and recorded it. In turn, the Argentinian Juan Ram6n,

the Colombian Pastor L6pez, a renowned "salsero," and the Brazilian
Marcia Ferreira and Jose Ari recorded it also, the latter in Portuguese. All
of the artists mentioned at least one of the Hermosa brothers as the authors
of the piece."
About mid 1989 this same piece, through the able marketing techniques
of a French individual, was spreading round the world as a new "discovery"
and retitled "Lambada." It was recorded by the popular group Kaoma and
instrumentally rearranged by speeding up the tempo and changing the beat
to a duple time. The mechanisms of the market and advertisement did the
rest, and "Lambada," the song, became the furor of pop music for awhile.
Coated over with choreographic elements that play on the other stereotype
some Europeans like to have of Latin Americans, of their unbridled sex-
uality, lambada was touted to be the most sensuous dance that had ap-
peared in years. In fact, it is not exactly coy.
Lambada is a legitimate urban Brazilian ballroom/nightclub dance by
itself which has a role in Brazilian popular musical culture. It flourished
in the Rio gafieiras (dancing saloons) from the 1950s onwards. In the
1980s it was heavily influenced by other black currents such as Dominican
black percussion and merengue beat. It is to the Northeastern part of Brazil
that the French individuals came, saw, and with dollar signs in their eyes
sought to conquer. The most telling of the press items transcribed traces
the details of this ill-conceived enterprise:
Will America follow Europe in embracing the sexy new dance craze known
as Lambada? That's what Jean Karakos, a French music entrepreneur, and
his partner, Oliver Lorsac, a film maker, hope will happen through the com-
bination of a television blitz and an American tour by Kaoma, a band
assembled by Mr. Karakos. On Friday evening, the seven-member group,
based in Paris is to perform with eight lambada dancers at the Palladium,
136 East 14th Street.
In Europe the Brazilian dance, reminiscent of the tango but danced with
the two partners, pelvis-to-pelvis, became a sensation last summer largely
through ingenious marketing. With $300,000 Mr. Karakos and Mr. Lorsac
bought the rights to 400 lambada songs, filmed a racy 10-minute documentary
showing off the dance, and put together Kaoma, whose four core members
are alumni of the African pop band Kunde. Kaoma recorded a single, "Lam-
bada," and an album, World-Beat (Epic).
With the help of 250 airings of Mr. Lorsac's video on France's major
television station, TF1, "lambada" sold 1.8 million copies in France and
swept Europe, selling four million [my emphasis] and is becoming the most
successful European single in the history of CBS. The sound of "Lambada,"
which features the lead vocals of Loalwa Braz, a Brazilian singer, suggests
a more mechanized echo of Santana.
Kaoma is a multinational band. Its members, who range in age from
to 40, come from Brazil, Senegal, Guadeloupe, Algeria, Martinique, and

France, and songs on World-Beat embrace several languages.
'The band is not musically revolutionary or out to prove anything," Mr.
Karakos said last week in a telephone interview. "It's just pop music with
world music sources."
In trying to bring Lambada fever to America, Mr. Karakos said he has
encountered barriers that he did not face abroad.
"America is a big challenge," he said. "I used to live here, and I know all
the difficulties. The language barrier is a bigger problem in America than
anywhere else. The song also has nothing to do with the formats that are already in
place in American discotheques (my emphasis). It's very difficult for disk jockeys
in clubs to stick one song that doesn't fit their formats right into the middle.
Television will be the key. If it works, it will create a demand from the street,
and well sell 10 million copies."
Just pop music with world music resources would have been a more accurate
description by Mr. Karakos.
After the much anticipated premiere, this is what Jon Pareles of The New
York Times wrote about it:
The pop version of Lambada, a prefabricated danced craze hoping to hap-

pen, arrived in NY when Kaoma performed at the Palladium on Friday
night. Kaoma-a Paris-based group that includes musicians from Brazil,
Africa, the Caribbean and France-has sold four million copies of its single
Lambada since its release in Europe last summer. The song is an international
hybrid a digital-era French production of an eminently catchy Bolivian
melody featuring the sound of a button accordion, lyrics in Portuguese, and
a version of the Lambada rhythm that originated in Northeastern Brazil.
Kaoma was assembled by its producers to perform the song and it's a
thoroughly professional group that puts the rhythm section of the Senegalese-
Parisian band Toure Kunda behind a sultry-voiced Brazilian singer Loalwa
Braz. Yet whether or not the Lambada catches on here, Kaoma has the
makings of a one-hit wonder. To fill out a slick, cheerful set that lasted barely
longer than an hour, it played "Lambada"and "Lambada Caribe" twice. Yet,
for anyone who has heard some of the multiplying varieties of modern African
Caribbean and Brazilian dance music, Kaoma sounds like the house band at
some of the better tourist trap hotels, singing in Portuguese, Spanish, French
and English.
In Kaoma's hands, the lambada rhythm, nothing special,-a four-square-
clipetty clop beat-sounds like a slowed down merengue played by a polka
band. Along with the music, Kaoma features eight dancers-bare chested
men and short skirted women who demonstrate the Lambada. It's a lithe
lascivious close clenched couple dance in which the woman's pelvis grinds
against the man's thigh, thrust between her legs, as the couple glides and
turns and dips, some songs ended with the woman bent so far back her head
nearly touched the stage. If the public follows suit, chiropractors could have
their greatest bonanza since the twist.
As a pop novelty act, Kaoma is fun, it would be more enjoyable if it weren't

trying so hard to exploit the growing interest in Third World rock. Its album
title is World-Beat, and its set included a half hearted drumming and chanting
selection, similar to what many world beat bands play as a tribute to their
roots. The zouk music of the Antillian-Parisian band Kassav (Kaoma's
obvious model for staging) the mbalza of Senegal's Youssou NDour and the
Soukous of Kanda Bongo Man all carry forward traditional elements, the
connection to a specific culture and place is a major part of their appeal. But
Kaoma's music comes from a different heritage-one in which Western
cultures borrow, dilute, commercialize other people's traditions.
On stage, Lambada itself told the story. The first time through (but not
the second) one of the singers flaunted an accordion, a symbol of homegrown
music. But the accordion line was actually being played on the synthesizer
by the band's producer, Jean Claude Bonaventure. The accordion, like most
of Kaoma's other claims to roots, was faked.
There are many other general commentaries in the press that generally
locate the piece in Brazil, focusing on its overt sensuality. But the article
that sums up this lurid affair is the one that Alan Riding of the New York
Times wrote not six months after his initial commentary:
One year after the lively song Lambada and the sensual dance of the same
name arrived from Brazil and took first France and then Europe by storm,
France's society of composers has ruled that the song is in fact Bolivian.
The Society of Musical Authors, Composers and Editors, said it had ac-
cepted a complaint by two Bolivian brothers, Gonzalo and Ulises Hermosa,
that their song, "Llorando se fue" or "He left Crying" [actually she] was the
melody used for Lambada.
In January the office, better known by its French acronym, SACEM,
ordered the royalties from the record sales of "Lambada" to be frozen. Jean
Loup Tourier, the society's director general, said that a French entrepreneur,
Olivier Lamotte d'ncamps had been reprimanded for claiming to have
written the song. 'This is an extremely rare measure that has not been
adopted by SACEM in 30 years," he added.
Lambada, recorded by a group called Kaoma, and the dance became
popular in many countries, but nowhere more than in France where they
were introduced with a blitz of publicity and marketing tricks during a Paris
music festival in June 1989. Five million single records and two million
albums with the song were reportedly sold worldwide.
Mr. Lamotte dlncamps, who also uses the name Olivier Lorsac, said he
discovered "Lambada" in the Brazilian resort of Porto Seguro in 1988. When
its copyright was registered at SACEM, the song's composer was listed as
Chico de Oliveira, although this was subsequently found to be a pseudonym
for Mr. Lamotte dIncamps. His copyright to the song has been cancelled.
Within weeks, the Hermosa brothers said "Llorando se fue" had been pla-
giarized.
On the American release of Kaoma's album, the liner notes said of the
song: "Ulises and Gonzalo Hermosa and Olivier Lorsac contributed to its
realization, although the song was still credited exclusively to Chico de
Oliveira.
In October, French press reports said, Mr. Lamotte dincamps and his
partnerJean Georgekarakos, offered the Bolivians US. $140,000 !!! for rights
to the song but were turned down, reportedly on the ground that the amount
fell far short of worldwide earnings from the record.
The French press has reported an out-of-court agreement giving 25 percent
royalties on the record to Mr. Lamotte dIncamps' company and editor and
promoter, 25 percent to CBS records as distributors, and 50 percent to EMI,
which owns the rights to "Llorando se fue."
Perhaps something is being lost in the translation here: If dlncamps got

25 percent, CBS another 25 percent, and EMI 50 percent, what did Los
Kjarkas get?
Conclusion
The assumption behind the music of Los Kjarkas is that Bolivia as a natio
is plagued by the alienating influences from the outside. For this rea
Los Kjarkas believe that the power of music as a cultural symbol, rai
as a banner of liberation can bring self-discovery, self acceptance and sel
respect in the people. In this article I have attempted to show how t
diverse images of Bolivia, a complex of multiple ethnicities and identitie
are embedded and articulated in and through the music of Los Kjark
These multiple ethnicities and identities surface, mixed and matched,
a weft of sound-iconicities and symbols that resonate in the receptivity
the many publics of Los Kjarkas.
I have also indicated the complexity involved in tracing the music
biographies of the genres that make up Bolivian musica folkldrica, in th
case, the history of the saya. It has been shown that a musical genre, by t
time it becomes a massive popular culture item has passed through sever
filters of interpretations and reinterpretations layered upon each oth
"Chorando se foi," the Lambada version of "Llorando se fu6" is a cumula-
tion of this layering that at each stage, from Afro-Bolivian community,
village festivities, to city bandas, to musica folklorica, in turn, added, su
tracted, or multiplied, modifying its musical and extra-musical compone
before it ever left Bolivia. In the image of the torrid dance that was the
intended purpose for its mercantilization, there is not the remotest clue
any of the cultural, social, and historical values behind it. The appropria-
tion, commodification, and outright exploitation of a cultural expression
is nothing new. In this case, it is outrageous that the name of Mr. Ch
de Oliveira, a.k.a. Lamotte dIncamps, should have appeared, cynical
as the author of the song, dismissing it as afaux-pas once the perpetrators

were discovered. This process opens up a whole new area of issues to be
discussed, for which there already exists a vast literature. This task will
have to be addressed at a future time. (However, it is interesting to note
that on account of the Lambada episode, an enthusiastic new audience
for Los Kjarkas was generated, this time coming from the Bolivian upper
classes whose preference in music generally draws its members away from
mzusica folklorica.)
That Los Kjarkas truly do represent their people is voiced in the opinion
of composer and Canto Nuevo musician Luis Rico, an active participant in
the life of musicafolkl6rica since the inception of Peia Naira:
Los Kjarkas han sabido mostrar su propio pueblo, c6mo es su pueblo. Es

un pueblo que come bien, se divierte, atraves de la chicha y el alcohol vierte
sus sentimientos, bien unidos a la naturaleza, bien unidos a la mujer cocha-
bambina, bien unidos al amor de la pareja del valle, que es el amor mas
fresco, mas sincero a veces mas inestable, entonces Los Kjarkas han expre-
sado eso, y ese es su gran valor.12
Los Kjarkas have been able to show what their people are like. They are a
people who eat well, have fun, pour their sentiments in chicha and alcohol,
very linked to nature, very linked to the woman of Cochabamba, very linked
to the love of the valley couples, which is a fresh love, a sincere love, often an
unstable love; Los Kjarkas have expressed all of that, and that is their great
merit.
I am still curious, though, to know if "Llorando se fue" has something

intrinsically of its own, something, perhaps structural, perhaps semantic,
that has made it so appealing from the outset. (Of all the Lambadas
launched, "Llorando se fue" is the musical piece associated with the genre.)
I do not think I have an answer as yet.
In the meantime, sayas will continue to be composed and danced happily.
Notes
*A la memoria de Ulises Hermosa, "Kjarka" poeta y cantor decedido

en Houston el 5 de Abril de 1992.
1. The Ministerio de Educacion from term to term has been renamed
Ministerio de Educacion y Cultura, and in some administrations Ministe
de Educacion, Cultura y Turismo. Not coincidentally, some functio
of culture are blurred with or contained in tourism.
2. We should not forget that in the 1940s the populist government of
President Gualberto Villarroel had preconized the emancipation of

the Indians. The first Congreso Indigenal was held in La Paz in 1945. It
also conglomerated participants from the altiplano who came to show
their traditional dances and music at the soccer stadium. Today many
oldsters still remember that occasion.
3. It is interesting to note that in recent years (1980s), the indigenous

communities themselves sponsor these festivals for in-house (in-
community) use, particularly since the inception of the Katarista
parties. I see this as counter-hegemonic and as an affirmation of their
own strength and identity.
4. The replacement for Ulises Hermosa is Rolando Malpartida.
5. For an interesting reading on the interface of the ethnic, national,
political and cultural discourses, please see a recent article by Thomas
Abercrombie (Abercrombie 1991: pp. 95 ff.).
6. Remedios is a "Cholita" who sits in parliament as a congresswoman.
She has not abandoned her traditional dress nor made any conces-
sions to the trappings of the post. She champions the causes of the
women of her class and status, and has introduced bills to secure some
benefits to the large segment of women who work as domestics in the
upper-class households.
7. The Yungas is the semitropical region on the slopes east of the Cor-
dillera mountains. The altitude is between 800 to 2,000 meters. The
humid and warm climate allows the cultivation of coffee, coca,
tobacco and many fruits, particularly citrus and many varieties of
bananas. The Yungas is where coca grows best, and on this account,
a region targeted by the "clean-up" policies of the United States
under Republican administrations.
8. The dress of the young girls features high thigh boots and very short
miniskirts. This development reflects a concession to city tastes.
This was not always so, these figures originally were danced by trans-
vestite men because they represented lewdness and lechery attributed
to the female component of this dance, a certain Maria Antonieta who
supposedly was the lover of the Capataz, and ridiculed in the dance
(Paredes de Salazar: 98).
9. Entradas are the massive entrances of dancers at regular patronal
fiestas.
10. Gonzalo Hermosa believes that the saya is the black version of the
huayno. He thinks that saya is how blacks see and interpret the huayno,
imbuing it with their personality and style. (This may be a reason
why "Llorando se fue" starts off as a huayno).
11. "Entrevista Exclusiva con Gonzalo Hermosa" in Las Americas, March
8, 1990, p. 11-12. Washington, D.C.
12. Personal interview, July 1992.
References
Abercrombie, Thomas
1991 'To be Indian, to be Bolivian: 'Ethnic' and 'National' Dis-
courses of Identity" in Nation-States and Indians in Latin America,
edited by Greg Urban andJoel Sherzer, pp. 95-130. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Bertonio, Ludovico
1612 Vocabulario de la Lengua Aymara. Facsimile edition. La Paz.
(1956)
Buechler, Hans C., and Judith-Maria Buechler
1971 The Bolivian Aymara. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Cespedes, Gilka Wara
1984 '"New Currents in Musica Folkl6rica." Latin American Music
Review, 5(2): 217-242.

Feld, Steven
1984 "Communication, music, and speech about music." In Yea
bookfor Traditional Music, pp. 1-18. Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Klein, Herbert
1991 Historia de Bolivia. La Paz: Libreria Editorial Juventud.
Leichtman, Ellen
1989 "Musical Interaction: a Bolivian Mestizo Perspective." Latin
American Music Review 10(1): pp. 29-52.
Paredes de Salazar, Elsa
1976 Presencia de Nuestro Pueblo. La Paz, Bolivia: Editorial Universo.
Pizarroso Cuenca, Arturo
1977 La Cultura Negra en Bolivia. La Paz: Ediciones ISLA.
Portugal Ortiz, Max
1977 La Esclavitud Negra en las epocas colonialesy nacionales de Bolivia.
La Paz: Instituto Boliviano de Cultura.
Urquizo Sossa, Carlos
1977 Carnaval de Oruro. Tarabuco y Fiesta del Gran Poder. La Pa
Colecci6n Bolivia Magica.
Popular Press
Las Americas
1990 "Entrevista Exclusiva con Gonzalo Hermosa," March 8, pp.

11-12. Washington, D.C.
Farris Thompson, Robert

1990 "One- and- Hump, Exits and Entrances." Artfdrum, vol. 28,
no. 10, 11.
Holden, Stephen
1990 "The Pop Life: Taking Lambada from Brazil to Europe to
North America." New York Times. Jan. 10, vol. 139, p. 16C,
col. 3.
Miles, Milo
1990 'World Beat Has Become Industry." New York Times.
Pareles, Jon
1990 Review/Pop: Lambada. Would be craze by way of Paris." New
York Times. Vol. 139, p. C15, col. 1.
Riding, Alan
1990 "Brazilian wonder turns out Bolivian." New York Times.
July 4, vol. 139, p. 16L, col. 3.
Time
1990 "Marketing: Hurricane of Hype," vol. 135, no. 14, p

April 2.
Recordings
Banda Ases Quirquinchos de Oruro

Capo Caporal. La Paz: Disquera Kantuta.
Author's field recording of Italaque, July 16, 1980.
Grupo Afro-Boliviano
Paya Kantatina: Muisica de los Yungas. Discos Lyra SLPL 13742.
Kaoma
Worldbeat. Epic EK 46010.
Los Kjarkas
Canto a la Mujer de mi Pueblo. Lauro LPLR S-1408. 1982.
1986 Live recording, concert at Berkeley. Tape furnished cour-
tesy of Mr. Tom Solomon.
Lo Mejor de Los Kjarkas (n.d.).
Descubrio su Rostro Milenario. Discolandia. MCB CL-20 (1990).

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"Huayño," "Saya," and "Chuntunqui": Bolivian Identity in the Music of "Los Kjarkas"

Author(s): Gilka Wara Céspedes

The funeral of Ulises Hermosa in April

Latin American Music Review, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1993

use of electronic instruments; Grupo Savia Andina, the "virtuosi" of the

Los Kjarkas: A Sign of Bolivian Integration?

Figure 1. Los Kjarkas Logo

The Tiwanaku symbols are instantly recognized as belonging to a millenary

Composition and Encoding

En este disco que estamos sacando, la proyecci6n de la audiencia es mas

With these arguments Gonzalo Hermosa acknowledges two dimensions

El folklore significa para mi la esencia de un pueblo, que viene a ser casi la

el folklore y todo. No es solamente cantar. Entonces la cultura vendria a ser la

Gonzalo Hermosa conceives identity as shaped around the cognitive, the

La cultura tambien es asi. No son cosas estaticas, no son que en un tiempo

A mi lo que me interesa de un grupo es su identidad con uno mismo, si se

Canto a la Mujer de Mi Pueblo: The Interplay of Music, Language, and Ideology

Es el canto a un tipo de mujer, a esa que es madre, que es obrera, a la que

This intended meaning is conveyed in the record jacket, showing a young

Algunas cosas se han mantenido puras, por ejemplo el Huayfio. El Huayfio

1. Wa Ya Yay (huayfio) 1. Surimana (huayno)

The Construction of Gender

Los Kjarkas are romanticones (romantics at heart) when it comes to their

Canto a la mujer de mi Pueblo (Chuntunqui) Example 1:

Nifia de las trenzas negras Young girl of the black braids

morena piel de montaias dark skin of mountains

y pueblos perdidos and lost villages

y tus manitas morenas caricias deand your small hands, caresses

Mujercita tus penas se iran Dear woman, your sorrows will go

y por montanas y cerros and through hills and mountains

Mujercita tus penas se iran . . . Dear woman, your sorrows will

Canto al la mujer de mi pueblo

aqffi^ett t--- I I IT I IiHlf1if1tVI

b^r r :Sr r-Sj rrkr V tliiIlt$

At^-fS nlnl^ r ^I- t- ----=

,cIt c 'h tt>Vas j pue--- iti - .l - \

Ia 4 so Ow i A - --,- 'rc.;- i " pe-n-if, SI-

Ch._ / I ._J I f 1ttt

The metaphors in the lyrics insist on the physical featu

Siempre he de adorarte (Chuntunqui)

Siempre he de adorarte tiernamenteI will always adore you tenderly

Buscare tu amor Il1 look for your love

vivira encendida la ilusi6n. (bis)Hope forever alight.

In this Chuntunqui the woman, situated in an aethereal region is evoke

Por un Mundo Mdor (huayfio)

Todo en esta vida Everything in this life

Son designios que se tienen

En un mundo ciego en que nos

Juntos por la tierra buscaremos Together on this earth well look

This song addresses a larger issue. A song of hope, as Gonzalo Hermosa

que por las mafianas yo veo en

dejame decirte que en mis

y mi alma siente morirse, pequefia and my soul feels like dying,

quiero hablarte de mi tierra quiero' I want to talk to you about my land

mojada damp earth

However, core features of women's lives and experiences, such as children

Yo pienso que hay un mont6n de canciones que hablan de eso. L6gico, no

The lyrics are directed toward fifteen-, sixteen-, seventeen-, eighteen-year-

Waqay kutipis saqerparerkani I left her (distraught, drowned in

Ay yo no quiero saber de tu olvido I don't want to hear of your for-