I am a percussionist, and wrote quite a lot about percussion instruments on my (this) blog. Instruments I use a lot, and even those a bit less (my article about tambourines, for instance). Maybe in one sense the “Maracas” seemed too cliché, too common an instrument, to warrant extra attention, but that is not even true.
I find the Maracas as used in e.g. Cuban music in fact interesting. It might not seem a “spectacular” or “rough” instrument, rather “mellow” and “soft”, one might say, but it is nice and even more influential than some would imagine. Maracas also have a long history, that is global.
FERNANDO ORTIZ
I recently read a small book by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969), who studied Afro-Cuban life and culture, and had influence even in wider Caribbean studies. There is also an institute in Cuba named after him (which I visited).
Ortiz was a white Cuban (of primarily Spanish descent) with a sincere interest in Afro-Cuban culture. It became sincere, but started out wrong. Early in his career more politically involved, he started studying criminal life among some Black Cubans, even employing some nonsensical, not to say morally dubious theories, such as from the rightly discarded “phrenology” idea: that criminal tendencies would show in the physical traits of people (outside, or the brain). That he focused on black Cubans at first, made it even more dubious. Also, the link between phrenology and now also discarded eugenics is historically tainted, though the latter “eugenic” foolishness persisted even beyond Nazism, up to the 1970s in parts of the US and Europe (the father of the influential billionaire Bill Gates was involved in it).
These Afro-Cuban “underground” people Ortiz “studied”, were mostly members from the secret society Abakuá (largely of Efik-Ibibio, Calabar/Cameroun/Nigeria origin) that had cultural organizations, regarded though – today we would say “framed” – also as criminal havens. Largely unjustly criminalized, but the government wanted more control (even before communism).
Ortiz however proved, over time, that he had an open mind, and was not a hardcore racist. He even changed - also by his own admittance - starting to focus on the beauty and variety of Afro-Cuban expressions: its varied African origins, and contributions to Cuban culture and music. Maybe it’s even a kind of “falling in love”, in some sense. There’s some “literary” beauty in this change of Ortiz, from Saul to Paul.., haha
Henceforth this became his focus, as he also became more anti-racist by the 1940s. He wrote some larger studies about Afro-Cuban and Cuban culture, with some anthropological influence even beyond “Cuban studies” - such as his coining of the term “transculturation” – but also some smaller works about aspects of Afro-Cuban culture.
MARACAS BOOK
As part of his series about typical Afro Cuban musical instruments, Ortiz also wrote about Maracas (shakers), in the 1950s. The book ‘Las Maracas’ in the series ‘Los instrumentos de la musica afrocubana” (the instruments of Afro-Cuban music), by Fernando Ortiz..
This I read recently, and I will focus on it, as fitting the theme I chose. It further also served me, to find out what I really know about shakers or Maracas.
Ortiz’s book seemed to have appeared only in Spanish (a translation is a good idea), but luckily I can read that language.
I do not know much about the academic culture in Cuba or the Spanish-speaking world of then, but this small book is more a “flux de bouche” as they say in French, or “ramble” in English. With little structure, paragraphs, no blank lines/extra space, or heads..
Fortunately, Ortiz writes quite attractively and engagingly, though with a tendency to “comma writing” as I call it: long sentences with “side paths”. I have that tendency too, so won’t criticize it too much, haha.
In the book, anyway, he shows his open mind and wide interest. He also shows his broad knowledge about – or study of - cultures even outside Cuba, as a true anthropologist.
One thing I asked myself about Maracas, were their origins. Of course, I saw Maracas being played often by Cuban musical groups – in Cuba itself – and in other “folksy” genres from the Caribbean, Latin America, or Africa. I even saw it sometimes as part of the “repertoire” or standard set of percussionists even in ‘pop music” groups (modern Reggae, Funk, R&B). I even played them myself live (on Funk, Blues, Latin, or Reggae music).
Despite its evident place in “Black” music, I always wondered if their origins might by African or Amerindian. Also because I read somewhere about its historical use among Amerindians in the Americas, including in the Amazon region. Later I noted Shékere and other shaker uses in traditional African music, of course, roundish and gourd-based, but these could differ in shape from this “rounder” Maracas (with stick) shape.. I thought so, at least..
Here Ortiz gave me some useful answers in his book.
ROOTS AND ROUTES
As the Wikipedia-articles are short and not very informative, I could not find much before. Under the name Ortiz used, “maracas”, there were at least only short articles in Wikipedia in English and Dutch – of mediocre quality - , and a bit a longer one in Spanish, also not very good.
By the way, the terminology in the Netherlands is kind of funny, as the Maracas are also known in Dutch as “sambaballen”, literally: “samba balls” . One might think: just colloquially, I imagine?.. no, even semi-official. Of course it is not correct, especially since not used (round maracas) as such in Brazilian samba. Brazil has its own known “shakers” (like the cylindrical Ganza, different from Maracas), besides similar, “roundish” Maracas with stick (named also Maracas in Brazil). The “vague exotic” as reference in Dutch.. There was even carnival pop hit song about it, high on the Dutch charts with “samba-ballen” in the title, by comedian André van Duin. Admittedly, not "high" culture or comedy (according to some), but the term "sambaballen" is still used in Dutch, if erroneous.
Ortiz pays some attention to the etymology of “maracas”. Not uninteresting, but with the risk of becoming tedious, after finding out that the word has Amerindian origins, comparing among languages. Some authors (including those cited on Wikipedia) trace the term “maraca” back to the Guarani in and around Paraguay.
He pays more attention to origins of the instrument itself, and this I found more interesting. It is a bit blemished – maybe – by some less-political correct terminology (by today’s standards), but overall very engaging and educational.
PRIMITIVE
Ortiz associates the shaker use with “primitive” cultures, and takes on a global approach. Africa, Asia, the Americas: all knew “shaker” or “maraca”-like instruments.
He details the “sacred” and ritual use of maracas in various Amerindian cultures, such as the Tupi in the Amazon region, among the Guarani, the Guyanas, among the Inca, in Mexico, and further concentrating on the Arowaks (or Tainos) that once lived in Cuba, before Columbus. The maracas were used with different intensities – or not at all - among Amerindian groups, dependent further on period. It was even – according to some scholars – not known before a certain period, when maize growing began in Central America, then on to the Amazon and Guyanas region, from which the Arawaks later travelled to Cuba and other Caribbean islands.
Interestingly to consider, how Ortiz describes, that “maracas” are now absent in more developed, modern societies like Europe, unlike other types of instruments. Too primitive or natural, seems the suggestion. Shaker sounds only survived as indirect references in folk genres in (very) rural parts of Italy, Greece, and Spain. The modern city killed the “soft-sounding”, rustic Maracas, it seemed, one can say.
Its sound (which Ortiz compares to rainfall, one can say ‘jungle sounds” too) is also directly connected to a more (tropical) natural life and surroundings. The African and Amerindian societies, moreover, kept Maracas use alive up to in present-day music, amid modernity.. An interesting fact.
In their early stage, the maracas/shaker use was not yet so widespread in the Americas, yet there is historical evidence of Maracas use among at least a part of Taino or Arawaks in Cuba before Columbus, also living on in folk stories.
CUBA
With the arrival of Columbus, colonization, and destruction, many “pure” Tainos (related to Arawaks) disappeared from Cuba: slavery, death, while the remaining ones mixed with Europeans and Africans in Cuba.
When I was in Cuba, I heard that the remaining Arawak (or in Spanish: Tainos) Amerindian blood was visible in racial mixtures of people in the region around the Far East of Cuba (around Baracoa), and some pockets in Eastern Cuba, and in the Far West (tobacco growing), Pinar Del Río part of Cuba.
What’s said in the Wikipedia article: that they are of Amerindian origin, including the well-known Cuban one, is according to this book of Ortiz not entirely true..
He emphasizes in Cuba the relevance of two sources of origins for maracas: the Americas, but also Africa.
He not even states that Africans saw the Maraca used by indigenous Arawaks in Cuba, and that that “reminded” them of their own, but goes further. He points out that Africans despite enslavement could bring their own Maracas-like shakers, according to African values and aesthetics, preferring these over local, present ones, even if having to remake them in Cuba.
In the case of e.g. Venezuela or parts of Colombia, where Amerindians far outnumbered Africans, the Africans there might indeed copy Amerindian models, but in the case of Cuba, according to Ortiz, the Africans brought their own models from Africa.
USE
He pays attention to the use of maracas among Afro-Cubans and in Africa, partly sacred, though to a lesser degree than among the Amerindians. It was after all used also mainly musically and rhythmically in African cultures, besides in some spiritual traditions, such as of Yoruba and Congo origin. For the latter, special, “holy” seeds or stone or wood pieces were gathered for the Maracas’ inside.
In Amerindian cultures there was a musical use too, but more often also ritual among some peoples, with not even a musical, but rather “sonic” (messages, healing, other rituals) function.
In some parts of Africa – such as the South East (Mozambique a.a.), there is a specific “female” reserved use for Maracas. Some other parts of Africa too, but within Cuba, Ortiz did not note any “prescribed” gender distinction in Maraca use among Afro-Cubans.
In the neo-African Rastafari tradition, originating in Jamaica since the 1930s, such a gender distinction is found in (spiritual) Nyahbinghi drumming (and chanting) sessions, around “heart beat” rhythms, with clear African musical retentions (Ghana, Congo), but also Protestant and Biblical influences. Maracas/shakers tend to play along with the drummed “heart beats” in Nyabinghi sessions. These drummers are traditionally only men, while women could sing along, and were “allowed” to play shakers, often a kind of wooden maraca, similar in roundish shape to the Cuban ones, only often bigger and decorated), but women were not allowed to play the drums.
Whether this gender distinction is actually a direct African retention like the Congo/Kumina “heart beat” drumming or Kete drums, or rather a later, even “Bible-influenced” rule, added in Protestant-influenced Jamaica, is hard to determine. Some Nyahbinghi Rastas assume an African retention, others refer to the Bible.
DEVELOPMENTS
He further sketches developments of the forms of Maracas, from almost purely natural calabashes and gourds with dried seeds - natural shakers, so to speak - to “man-made” ones (with sticks). Such old, “natural” gourd shakers are still used in traditional Igbo music (SE Nigeria), for instance, and elsewhere in Africa.
Proper man-made Maracas, Ortiz further explains, have that stick through the whole and to the top, else – with loose stick added – it is mostly “for tourist” souvenir of Cuba use, and less enduring. Sizes and seed use came to differ over time, being originally comparable in size to “oranges”, but bigger maracas (like say: a melon- or watermelon-size) developed too. Colombian-syle maracas tend to be these bigger ones.. Material changed from gourd to other fruits, wood, and later even metal and other material.
That is where the “route” more or less stops, as Ortiz pays much more attention to the “roots” of maracas, than its routes. He follows the historical “route” a bit, but not into the various Cuban (or Latin American) music genres of recent times..
He wrote this in the 1950s, but these (Son, Rumba, Mambo, etcetera) existed by then too. In this book – and in others of the series – he addresses more the Afro-Cuban religious/spiritual use, such as in Santería and Congo (Mayombe) religions.
In another book, about Abakuá instruments, he points out that these do not use shakers or maracas, but African traditions of Yoruba or Congo origin, like Santería and Mayombe quite a lot of shakers, also historically.
The common use of Maracas in early forms of Son, the Son Changui, in Guantánamo, Eastern Cuba, might point at a Congo, rather than an Amerindian origin, as long assumed. There is after all a strong Congo influence in Eastern Cuba, noticeable in Son music (and related later Salsa, Bachata, and other genres), also because of the high percentage of slaves from the Congo region in Eastern Cuba.
It became common in popular Cuban music, a route this book by Ortiz only hints at, and with that influenced other Latin American and Caribbean genres. He takes this use in Cuba for granted, hinting further at indications of more future use by Western musicians, or in classical music..
Ortiz also chose to give practical playing information, though in a broad sense, and other “material” issues, such as of what’s the variation of seeds used inside the Maracas. From etymology, he deduces that in the Congo region originally maize/corn seeds tended to be used. Later more varied seeds, or stones. Even non-natural pieces.
CONCLUSION
Fernando Ortiz’s short study for his book on Maracas, is thus more about its origins, and gives quite some practical and material details of the instrument.
Its spread throughout different Caribbean and Latin music genres would of course be an interesting topic, including aspects like different uses/playing styles.
That is left more, presumably, to musicologists or historians.
Still, I found the book about Maracas useful and informative for me, especially teaching me about the Maracas’ roots, as both Amerindian and African, in the case of Cuba. A good tree needs good roots – like a natural foundation -, and the “branches” of this firmly rooted tree – on which percussionists like me move – then grow by themselves..
The Spanish text on the book’s back cover uses “big words” for Ortiz’s works on ‘Los instrumentos de la musica afrocubana’, describing the series of books as “monumental” and even “no superada hasta ahoy”, translatable as: “not outdone (or improved) up to today” – even if going back to the 1950s.
Big words, but at least regarding the “roots” and origins of the Maracas, Fernando Ortiz’s small, anthropological book The Maracas, remains indeed foundational, and the main information source, cited/quoted also in later academic studies on Cuban and other music.. It was in that sense “groundbreaking”, even this small book on Maracas I discussed here.
I think, anyway, that these origins are good to know for me, as a percussion player, perhaps even necessary..
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