Using Multimedia to Expand the Audience of ... - Richard Repp

Using Multimedia 38
Figure 15. Huichol playing a rabel of 4-strings for traditional sacred ceremony
(Simental, 2007).
Gradually, the Huichol incorporated European instruments in their religious
music. Spanish clerics and militia brought with them 12-inch long, 3-stringed violin
called a rabel. Around 1555 the native musicians adopted the rabel as their own
instruments and called the small string instrument a raweali and the bow, a toepi.
The modern Huichol raweali is about 14-16 inches long and is still played like its
precursors by holding it against the left upper arm in front of the shoulder and chest near
the armpit (Mendéz, 1998). Huichol violinists have maintained this traditional posture
and instrument position over the centuries. Rodney Gallop provides a 1939 picture of
Chief Xenobio holding a raweali (p. 224) in the exact position previously described, and
a 2006 field observation witnessed the lead violinist in a Huichol string quartet holding
his instrument in a similar manner.
Figure 16. Lead violinist, in the foreground, holding a modern violin like a raweali