Reseña

It is worth noting what the author of this treatise on indigenous instruments expresses in his own words: we are building an intergenerational bridge; And this is what his anthropological musical proposal is about: establishing a direct connection between the ancestral past and the current present, so that this generational bond is not broken and historical memory is not buried. This descriptive and illustrative sample of each of the instruments of Kuskatan
necessarily invites us to remember that mother earth is the manager of all vital things produced by human beings, from food and the raw material for clothing to the creation of instruments that spiritualize, delight, and entertain us. At the same time, these instruments remind us of the worldview of our ancestors as heard in the last ancestral voices that emerge from these manufactured instruments: from the earth emerge humans, our ancestors, from the earth they extract their food and medicines, from the earth the materials germinate; from the
materials the instruments are born, and from these their ancestral voices spring up in a logical and irreversible sequence for posterity.
Undoubtedly, the book The Voice of the Ancestors, Instruments of Kuskatan will be a valuable resource of knowledge about the original musical culture of El Salvador for music students, musicians, artists, art and cultural workers, and for all those who seek to strengthen the values of their own cultural identity, which, unfortunately, are currently in danger of extinction. Likewise, it enriches part of that sparse history of music in our country, given the little interest in research and work done in the area of indigenous music. I believe that the most magnificent aspect of this ethnomusicological contribution is the rediscovery and
refocusing on our motherland of Cuscatlán; The ancestral voices.
Benjamín Palomo
Research musician, writer, and editor.