page_title: Cumbia
section_title: Colombian chronicles and theories
hierarchical_section_title: Cumbia / Origins / Colombian chronicles and theories
caption_attribution_description: Niños Gaiteros en el Festival del Porro, Cordoba. Colombia.
context_page_description: Cumbia is a folkloric genre and dance from Colombia.
  The most notable difference between Colombian cumbia and Panamanian cumbia is the percussion. "Heavy drums play a part in both the cumbia of Panama and also the tamborito – yet you’ll hear in this example a very loose, easy-going feel, unlike a lot of rapidly-paced colombian ensembles.”
  Since 1940s, commercial or modern colombian cumbia expanded to the rest of Latin America, after which it became popular throughout the continent following different commercial adaptations, such as Argentine cumbia, Bolivian cumbia, Chilean cumbia, cumbia Dominican, Ecuadorian cumbia, Mexican cumbia, Peruvian cumbia, Salvadoran cumbia, Uruguayan cumbia, and Venezuelan cumbia, among others.
context_section_description: Sociologist Adolfo Gonzalez Henriquez, in his work "La música del Caribe colombiano durante la guerra de independencia y comienzos de la República" (Music of the Colombian Caribbean during the war of independence and the beginning of the Republic), includes a text of Admiral José Prudencio Padilla which records cumbiambas and indigenous gaitas during the festival of John the Baptist in the neighboring town of Arjona, a few days before the naval battle that took place in the Bahía de las Ánimas of Cartagena between the last Spanish resistance and the republican army, military confrontation that sealed the independence of Colombia:
  No era noche de luna la del 18 de junio de 1821; pero la pintoresca población de Arjona ostentaba la más pura serenidad en el cielo tachonado de estrellas, y en el alegre bullicio de las gaitas y cumbiambas con que festejaban los indígenas, al abrigo de las armas republicanas, la aproximación de la celebrada fiesta de San
  Juan...
  — Almirante José Prudencio Padilla, p. 96.
  Translated as
  It was a night without the moon, that of June 18, 1821; but the picturesque town of Arjona showed the purest serenity in the starry sky, and the cheerful bustle of gaitas and cumbiambas with which the indigenous people celebrated, sheltered from the republican arms, the approach of the festival of St. John...
  The musician and pedagogue Luis Antonio Escobar, in the chapter "La mezcla de indio y negro" (The mixture of Indian and black) of his book "Música en Cartagena de Indias" (Music in Cartagena de Indias) takes the description of Indian dance who witnessed the navy lieutenant Swedish Carl August Gosselman in Santa Marta, and recorded in his work "Viaje por Colombia: 1825 y 1826" (Journey through Colombia: 1825 and 1826) as proof that at least in the second decade of the nineteenth century the gaita ensemble existed already in Santa Marta, the same that appears in Cartagena and other coastal cities with black musical elements that resulted in cumbia:
  Por la tarde del segundo día se preparaba gran baile indígena en el pueblo. La pista era la calle, limitada por un estrecho círculo de espectadores que rodeaba a la orquesta y los bailarines.
  La orquesta es realmente nativa y consiste en un tipo que toca un clarinete de bambú de unos cuatro pies de largo, semejante a una gaita, con cinco huecos, por donde escapa el sonido; otro que toca un instrumento parecido, provisto de cuatro huecos, para los que solo usa la mano derecha, pues en la izquierda tiene una calabaza pequeña llena de piedrecillas, o sea una maraca, con la que marca el ritmo. Este último se señala aún más con un tambor grande hecho en un tronco ahuecado con fuego, encima del cual tiene un cuero estirado, donde el tercer virtuoso golpea con el lado plano de sus dedos.
  A los sonidos constantes y monótonos que he descrito se unen los observadores, quienes con sus cantos y palmoteos forman uno de los coros más horribles que se puedan escuchar. En seguida todos se emparejan y comienzan el baile.
  
  Este era una imitación del fandango español, aunque daba la impresión de asemejarse más a una parodia. Tenía todo lo sensual de él pero sin nada de los hermosos pasos y movimientos de la danza española, que la hacen tan famosa y popular.
  — Carl August Gosselman (1801-1843), Viaje por Colombia: 1825 y 1826.
  Translated as:
  In the afternoon of the second day they were preparing a large indigenous dance in the village. The dance floor was the street, bounded by a narrow circle of spectators surrounding the orchestra and dancers.
  The orchestra is really native and consists of a guy who plays a bamboo clarinet about four feet long, like a gaita, with five holes, through which escapes the sound; another that plays a similar instrument, with four holes, for which he only uses his right hand because the left has a small pumpkin full of pebbles, a maraca, that sets the pace. The rhythm is marked even more with a large drum made in a fire-hollowed trunk, on top of which there is a stretched hide, where the third virtuoso hits the flat side of his fingers.
  To the constant and m
caption: Children playing cumbia instruments. Notice the gaita, maracas, instruments mentioned by Gosselman in his historical record.
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