The n'vike (alternately ) is a bowed string instrument native to the indigenous Toba people of the

Gran Chaco The Gran Chaco or simply Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland tropical dry broadleaf forest natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion o ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. A modern instrument can be described as a composite lute-type chordophone with a

neck The neck is the part of the body in many vertebrates that connects the head to the torso. It supports the weight of the head and protects the nerves that transmit sensory and motor information between the brain and the rest of the body. Addition ...

made from a pickaxe handle, a

resonator A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a reso ...

made from a tin box and a string rubbed with a bow made of horsehair. The instrument is the result of cultural fusion; Native Americans observed European-style instruments and experimented to create their own. It is an instrument of the

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...

culture. The instrument functions to "awaken" the dance and to remind people of traditional melodies. It was sometimes accompanied by the Kopakataki drum. The term has no equivalent in English, but refers to the act of a jaguar sharpening his claws on a tree.

Form

The is a monochord which is bowed with a string bow, called . Originally, the string () was made from the mane of a

peccary Peccaries (also javelinas or skunk pigs) are pig-like ungulates of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North America. Peccari ...

, but after the arrival of the Spanish horsehair replaced it. The monochord is placed atop a resonating body such as a

calabaza Calabaza is the generic name in the Spanish language for any type of winter squash. Within an English-language context it specifically refers to the West Indian pumpkin, a winter squash typically grown in the West Indies, tropical America, and t ...

gourd, an armadillo shell, or a tin box with an opening in the top.

Qom legend

There is a

Qom Qom (; ) is a city in the Central District of Qom County, Qom province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is the seventh largest metropolis and also the seventh largest city in Iran. The city is ...

legend about the origin of the . The account is that there was a man called La'axaraxaik, which in the Qom language means "the ugly one", who for that reason could not get a woman, leading him to be sad and lonely. One day, a man who called himself the owner of the mountain gave him an instrument never seen before, the —in addition to introducing him to his daughter, with whom La'axaraxaik fell in love and married. La'axaraxaik's happiness was reflected in the beautiful and joyful music that he played until the other women, who previously rejected him, began looking for him. One night, his wife, finding him with other women, took the and threw it into the campfire, where the instrument burned creating a light that formed the morning star (Venus). Abandoned by his wife, La'axaraxaik recovered the burned , but was never able to draw happy melodies from it again. Upon his death, the instrument was forgotten. Much later, a young man who could not be with his beloved because of the great distance that separated them found the old and began to play it. His melodies were so sad that they moved the owner of the forest, who then resorted to magic so the woman could listen to the music of her beloved, who then ran to meet her. Since then, if a lover is separated from his wife, he will be able to play the while pronouncing the name of his beloved, and before sunset the meeting will take place.

External links

Video with metal-can version N'vike being played. Name promised in video.Longer video with metal-can version of N'vike being played from 4:18 to 6:04.Mauricio Maidana-profesor Qom, accompanies his singing with the N'vike

References

{{reflist Bowed monochords Argentine musical instruments Bolivian musical instruments Paraguayan musical instruments Indigenous South American musical instruments Indigenous American fiddles