Are there any interesting autochthonous instruments in your region/country? We've got mostly flutes and other wind instruments here, along with an array of percussion bits and bytes, but we do have the Charango, which I adore. It was born sometime around the 1700s when the northwestern natives wanted to replicate or rather replace the (baroque) spanish guitar brought by the Adelantados and Conquistadores. It's got 10 strings in five courses of 2, and the body used to be made from the shell of the back of an armadillo, until, well, wood became more available and it was simply easier to use that.

Although strictly speaking the instrument was born in what is now Bolivia, the tribes that created it used to populate a vast region which also includes northern Chile and north-western Argentina.

It sounds like nature and myth are having a lovely remembrance.


So how about you?