Editing Charango (section)

==History==
[[Image:Cuna del charango.jpg|thumb|A sign in [[Potosi, Bolivia]], in the style of a charango with the words 'Cuna del Charango' (Birthplace of the Charango).]]
[[Image:210 Museu de la Música, el Bosc, charango.jpg|A traditional charango made of ''armadillo'', today superseded by wooden charangos, in [[Museu de la Música de Barcelona]]|thumb]]

When the Spanish [[conquistador]]s came to South America, they brought the [[vihuela]] (an ancestor of the classical guitar) with them. It is not clear whether the charango is a direct descendant of a particular Spanish stringed instrument; it may have evolved from the vihuela, [[bandurria]] ([[mandolin]]), or the [[lute]]. [[Ernesto Cavour]], [[Bolivia]]n charanguista, composer, and consulting music historian for many museums around the world,<ref>[[:es:Ernesto Cavour]]{{Circular reference|date=April 2019}}</ref> has noted characteristics of the charango in various vihuelas and guitars of the 16th century, and maintains the charango is the direct descendant of the vihuela.<ref name=cavour>{{cite web |url=http://www.puebloindio.org/Historia_del_charango.html |last=Cavour |first=Ernesto A. |title=Historia del charango |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150523023030/http://www.puebloindio.org/Historia_del_charango.html |archive-date=23 May 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

There are many stories of how the charango came to be made with its distinctive diminutive soundbox of armadillo. One story says that the native musicians liked the sound the vihuela made, but lacked the technology to shape the wood in that manner. Another story says that the Spaniards prohibited natives from practicing their ancestral music, and that the charango was a successful attempt to make a lute that could be easily hidden under a garment such as a [[poncho]].<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Creating Our Own: Folklore, Performance, and Identity in Cuzco, Peru|author=Mendoza, Z.S.|date=2008|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=9780822341529|url=https://archive.org/details/creatingourownfo00zoil|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/creatingourownfo00zoil/page/97 97]|access-date=2014-10-16}}</ref>

There is no clear evidence that points to a specific location or moment in time for the birth of the charango but there are a number of theories being debated. One of those is that it is believed the charango came into its present form in the early 18th century in the city of [[Potosí]] in the [[Royal Audiencia of Charcas]] part of the [[Viceroyalty of Peru]] (in what is present-day [[Bolivia]]), probably from [[Amerindian]] contact with [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish settlers]].  Cavour presents evidence from Bolivian murals and sculptures as early as 1744, in, for example, the Church of San Lorenzo of the city of Potos (Potosí), the facade of which depicts two mermaids playing what he believes to be charangos.<ref name=cavour/>

Another two theories that are being researched are that the Charango originally came to Potosí from the Ayacucho region in colonial Peru as a result of migration within the Quechua populations. This suggests that the charango originated in the territory of what is now Peru via cultural exchange and then spread to the rest of the Andean area. This theory has not been proven either.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.jornada.com.pe/cultural/6683-ayacucho-cuna-del-charango |title='Ayacucho, Cuna del Charango' |access-date=2018-05-06 |archive-date=2018-05-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507085254/http://www.jornada.com.pe/cultural/6683-ayacucho-cuna-del-charango |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Because the modern states of Peru and [[Bolivia]] had not yet been established at the time, it is difficult to trace the charango's origin to a specific country, and the issue remains highly debated among nationalists from both countries.

One Bolivian musician has posited a third theory which is that the Charango was created as a variant of the [[timple]] canario from the Canary islands. More research however is required{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}}.

The first published historic information on the charango may be that gathered by Vega, going back to 1814, when a cleric from Tupiza documented that "the Indians used with much enthusiasm the guitarrillos mui fuis... around here in the Andes of [[Bolivia]] they called them Charangos".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3hvsAAAAMAAJ&q=charango+guitarrillos+mui+fuis|title=Historia musical de Bolivia|access-date=6 May 2015|last1=Gainza|first1=José Díaz|year=1988}}</ref>  Turino mentions that he found carved sirens representing playing charangos in some Colonial churches in the highlands of Bolivia.<ref name="google2">{{cite book|title=World Music: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific|author1=Broughton, S.|author2=Ellingham, M.|author3=Trillo, R.|date=1999|publisher=Rough Guides|isbn=9781858286365|url=https://archive.org/details/roughguidetoworl00simo|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/roughguidetoworl00simo/page/278 278]|access-date=2014-10-16}}</ref>  One of the churches to which Turino refers may well be that mentioned by Cavour; construction on the San Lorenzo edifice began in 1547 and wasn't completed until 1744.<ref name=cavour/>

According to [[Eduardo Carrasco]] of [[Quilapayún]], in the first week after the [[1973 Chilean coup d'etat]], the military organized a meeting with folk musicians where it was explained that the traditional instruments charango and [[quena]] were now banned.<ref name=Morris>Morris, Nancy. 1986. Canto Porque es Necesario Cantar: The New Song Movement in Chile, 1973–1983. ''[[Latin American Research Review]]'', Vol. 21, pp. 117-136.</ref>

===Etymology===

[[File:Horniman_instruments_06.jpg|thumb|Charango in the Horniman museum, London, UK.]]
The origin of the term "charango" is not entirely clear.  One source suggests that the instrument took its name from its players, who were called ''charangeros'', meaning "someone of questionable character and low morals".<ref>{{cite book |last=Candaleria |first=Cordelia |title=Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture, Volume I |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |location=Westport |year=2004 |page=427}}</ref> Another traces the term to the alteration of a Spanish term, ''charanga'', which could refer to either a type of military music played on wind instruments, or an out-of-tune orchestra.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Machpherson |editor-first=A. |title=Webster's Etymological Dictionary |publisher=Ulan Press |location=Rochester |year=2012}}</ref> Charanguista Alfredo Coca, offers yet a third theory:  asserting that "charango" comes from a Spanish corruption of the Quechua word “Chajwaku”, which means joy, noisy, boisterous, referring directly to the sound of the charango.  As support for this he points to the common practice of the Conquistadors appropriating local terminology.

Charanguista [[Ernesto Cavour]] disagrees, and tends to support the second origin, maintaining that the word “charango” comes from a mispronunciation of the Spanish word “charanga”, meaning "brass band" (a reasonable corollary to 'military music played on wind instruments').<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cocha-banner.org/issues/2012/may/long/ |title=Long Live the Charango! |access-date=2016-08-15 |archive-date=2016-08-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826124102/http://www.cocha-banner.org/issues/2012/may/long/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

One of the most complete contemporary statements on the origin of the term "charango" appears in the introduction to Duran and Pedrotti's, ''Charango Method'', ostensibly the first complete, bilingual charango method to be published:

:"Charango" in an Ibero-American colonial term that refers to a series of Spanish-American cultural concepts related to "noise" and rustically constructed objects.  The term "charanga", for example, was often used to refer to a small instrumental band.  "Charanguero", meanwhile, denoted something rough or rustic.  In his book ''El charango, su vida, costumbres y desaventuras'', Ernesto Cavour has collected a large amount of information regarding the etymology of the word "charango".  As this author related:
:::"In the rural areas of Andean Bolivia, the instrument is not only known by the name "charango", but by many others as well, including:  mediana, guitarrilla, thalachi, quirqui, p'alta, khonkhota, aiquileno, guitarron, anzaldeno, etc. ..."
:An Uruguan publication from 1823 uses the term "changango" as a synonym for the Argentine "charango", and claims the same word was used during the eighteenth century to refer to old and poorly constructed guitars:
:::"...In Argentina they speak of the Charango, a guitar with five doubled strings and a body made from the shell of an Armadillo.  Nevertheless, the small Spanish-American guitar has been known by the name changango for more than one hundred years.  In a footnote to his correspondence with [[Paulino Lucero]] regarding the [[Great War]], Hilario Ascasubi explains this situation with indisputable clarity:  "Changango: an old, poorly made guitar".
:::(Excerpt from the newspaper "El Domador", Montecivideo, 19 March 1823).
:Julio Mendivil engages in a similarly detailed discussion of this issue in his article ''La construccion de la historia:  el charango en la memoria colectiva mestiza ayacuchana'', Musicology Institut/University of Colonia."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Duran |first1=Horatio |last2=Pedrotti |first2=Italo |title=Charango Method |publisher=Mel Bay Publications |location=Pacific, MO |year=2010}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2017}}