Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American

History
Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in
Mexico and Guatemala  
Yael Bitrán Goren
Subject: History of Mexico, History of Latin America and the Oceanic World, Cultural History
Online Publication Date: Oct 2018 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.568

Summary and Keywords

Henrietta Yurchenco, née Weiss, was a pioneer of ethnomusicology research. Her

expeditions in various regions of Mexico and Guatemala between 1942 and 1946 allowed
for the gathering of musical recordings from the Zoque, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chiapaneco,
Tojolobal, Cora, Huichol, and Seri peoples of Mexico, and from the Quiché, Kekchí, Ixil,
and Zutujil peoples of Guatemala. A portion of these expeditions were carried out thanks
to an agreement signed between the Instituto Indigenista Interamericano (III; Inter-
American Indigenist Institute) and the Mexican Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP;
Public Education Ministry/Department) and the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington.
The recordings produced by these expeditions were made direct-to-disc and are
preserved at the Fonoteca Nacional de México (Mexican National Music Library/
Collection), where they have been completely digitalized. They were also recognized with
the Memory of the World distinction by UNESCO in 2015. One-hundred thirty two (132)
discs are preserved with hundreds of pieces from these cultures, of enormous value to
Mexican cultural heritage. In her memoirs, published in two versions (Spanish and
English), Yurchenco offers a fascinating account of her travels in Mexico and Guatemala.
Additionally, she explores specific aspects of the aforementioned research in specialized
journal articles and book chapters. Yurchenco was particularly interested in discovering
traits from pre-Hispanic music. This goal drove her to explore remote regions of Mexico.
Her work in its vast majority—both her writings and recordings on Latin America as well
as on the rest of the world—still has yet to be studied.

Keywords: Henrietta Yurchenco, Mexican music, Guatemala, Latin-American indigenous people, ethnomusicology,
recordings

“When I was 19, I decided I was not to be a concert pianist. I figured the world
would not even notice my defection. Certainly it didn’t need another pianist who
forgot the key she was in, and suffered attacks of nerves. Rather than fight them, I
decided to back out gracefully, admit defeat, and try something else. I became an

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

ethnomusicologist. This was not a conscious decision on my part; it just evolved

little by little, over many years. This is the story of how it happened.”

—Preface to Around the World in 80 Years. A Memoir. A Musical Odyssey.

Henrietta Yurchenco

The American researcher Henrietta Yurchenco (1916–2007), née Weiss, was one of the
first to systematically record the music of Mexican and Guatemalan indigenous peoples.
Her groundbreaking vision established a standard for researching indigenous cultures’
music. She plunged into adventure with minimal means to remote locations to record
music that was until then unknown. Later, she made efforts to disseminate that music and
generously share her great knowledge to generations of students at the City University of
New York; thus she has left her mark on the history of ethnomusicology on the American
continent.

Yurchenco recognized as her predecessor the Norwegian ethnographer and explorer Carl
Lumholtz, who had explored regions of the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Tarascan
region/people of Michoacán between 1890 and 1910 and who, as a result, published
books that included ethnographic materials on the Rarámuri culture. Additionally,
Lumholtz recorded music of the Huichol people on wax cylinders invented by Thomas A.
Edison.1

Yurchenco recorded the music of Mexican indigenous populations, first on discs and later
on open-reel audio tape. She is recognized as a pioneer folklorist in Mexico, where she
was invited in 1941 by the Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, whom she met in New York,
and his wife Olga Costa; with the couple, Henrietta and her husband Basil “Chenk” set
forth on a road trip:

After some months’ stay in the country, and fascinated by the stories about the
indigenous people, their music and dance, she became the first to record this
music on discs. She delved into an international cultural project, led by Dr. Manuel
Gamio, the goal of which was to compile Latin American indigenous music so that
its dissemination would form part of and influence contemporary music
production.2

Yurchenco gave herself to the work of recording the music of diverse indigenous groups
in Mexico and Guatemala. This project, initiated in 1942, which was completed under the
joint auspices of the Instituto Indigenista Interamericano (III) with headquarters in
Mexico, the Mexican Secretaría de Educación Pública, and the US Library of Congress
(LOC); it brought her to many areas of Mexico and Guatemala, and lasted until 1946.
During this time, Yurchenco recorded approximately one thousand musical pieces from
fourteen indigenous groups in both countries. Later, she would return to Mexico on four
more occasions: 1964–1966, 1971–1972, 1981 and 2002.

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

Expeditions in Mexico and Guatemala

Background of Field Recordings in Mexico

In the 1920s, while the recently established post-Revolutionary regime sought to form a
new nationalist consciousness, there emerged the so-called Misiones Culturales (Cultural
Missions). It had, among other goals, that of compiling folkloric melodies from distinct
regions of the country and making a record of them on paper. These first compilations
were made a reality in collections of music and folklore published as volumes of sheet
music and in didactic materials based on regional melodies/music.

Within the SEP, founded in 1921, there was a Sección de Música (Music Section) that
formed part of the Departamento de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Department). This section
was divided into two subsections: folklore and música culta (cultured music). The latter
was dedicated essentially to compiling and transcribing ecclesiastical music: from
archives, churches, parishes, and cathedrals. In turn, the folklore section was in charge of
the compilation, study, classification, and publication of music from distinct regions of the
country. Among their goals was the sending of research missions to directly gather
folkloric documents all over the country. Before Yurchenco’s arrival, there had already
been expeditions that recorded, on paper, the songs and photographs of the musicians.
Nevertheless, very little had been done in terms of recordings. Shortly after Yurchenco’s
project, the Mexican government organized an expedition with a recorder and shellac
records that occurred beginning September 1, 1947 in Morelos. It was a mission to study
the music—indigenous, mestizo, and criollo—of Náhuatl-speaking groups that lived in that
state.3

Yurchenco’s Expeditions

In December 1941, Yurchenco set off on a tourist trip to Oaxaca where she fell in love
with Zapotec music and the virtuosity of that region’s musicians. The following year, the
researcher carried out her first ethnic music recording trip, accompanied by the
American sound engineer John H. Green and Roberto Tellez Girón Olace, of the Sección
de Música from the Palacio de Bellas Artes. With her own funds and support from the
Universidad de San Nicolás in Morelia and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in México City
(who provided a truck and driver) they began their journey. They visited Pátzcuaro and
recorded Purépecha groups from the lake area as well as corridos in Paracho, where they
recorded young people from an indigenous boarding school singing in duos and trios, also
in the Purépecha language. They used the Fairchild recorder brought by Green and
shellac records; these ran out after 125 songs, and so they returned to Mexico City.

Upon returning, Yurchenco approached the Sección de Música de Bellas Artes and the
recently created Instituto Indigenista Interamericano led by Manuel Gamio, who
proposed she prepare a series of radio programs in collaboration with the Pan American
Union in Washington. The goal was “to stimulate the creation of orchestral works based
on indigenous music [for which] we offer scholarships to Latin American composers.”4
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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

Letters were sent to composers from various countries in the Americas, urging them to
join the project, for example: Aaron Copland from the United States; Carlos Chávez,
Candelario Huízar, and Blas Galindo from Mexico. Musicologists from the Americas were
also invited and asked to send materials that could serve for the compositions and
programs. Among those who received these letters were Carlos Isamitt of Chile; Andres
Sas of Peru; Jesús Castillo of Guatemala; Heitor Villa-Lobos of Brasil (included as a
musicologist on Yurchenco’s list); Francisco Curt Lange of Uruguay; and Juan L. Gorrell
of Ecuador. Additionally, Harold Spivacke, Chief of the Division of Music at the LOC was
asked for copies of the recordings of indigenous peoples (Iroquois, Seminole, Navajo,
Pima, Papago, and Apache) with the same goal in mind. In 1942, before and after her trip
to Chiapas, she worked on the aforementioned projects.

The researcher had already directed several radio programs in the United States that
were the first to disperse what we now call world music and contemporary music. Before
she moved to Mexico, Yurchenco had produced programs on WNYC, a radio station in
New York. Among others, these included: Adventures in Music, from January 1940 to
March 1941, which was a weekly broadcast dedicated to folkloric world music; Folksongs
of America, on which the participants included the soon-to-be-famous Leadbelly, Woody
Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, among others; Songs of Seven Million, which was dedicated to
disseminating music from many nationalities representing the inhabitants of metropolitan
New York; and Here is Music, which presented weekly songs from different areas of the
world, transcribed and interpreted by the group The Consort, from New York University,
under the direction of Roy Mitchell.5

Chiapas

Her next expedition was in 1942 to Chiapas and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, by invitation
of the governor of the state of Chiapas and with the support of the Instituto Nacional de
Antropología e Historia (INAH; National Institute of Anthropology and History), which
provided a recording device, discs, and an anthropologist assistant, Raúl Guerrero.

Indigenous Music Project.

Miss Enriqueta Yurchenco, who has previously worked at the Music Department of
the Library of Congress in Washington, is launching, in the State of Chiapas, and
in accordance with the local government, through the Museo Regional (Regional
Museum), the creation of a music library for indigenous musical folklore,
especially among the Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol, Lacandon and Chiapanec peoples.
Miss Yurchenco worked previously in the State of Michoacán collecting Tarascan
musical folklore.6

Yurchenco spent two months in the state of Chiapas recording music of the Zoque,
Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chiapanec and Tojolabal peoples. Approximately 100 sones were recorded
on disc and more than 700 feet in 16mm color film were shot.7 Yurchenco observed that
the music had a primarily religious purpose, and that there existed a great pride in
playing the pieces that were passed down through the generations. Similarly, she was
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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

able to note that the traditions were being lost due to rapid modernization of the region.
Regarding the instruments, she recorded the existence of two types of groups: reed flutes
of 3 to 7 holes and drums, and another combination of stringed instruments: violin, guitar,
and harp; the latter was used on secular occasions, while the former was for religious
events. Although marimbas are ubiquitous, they did not form part of the indigenous
musical tradition, she pointed out. The researcher also observed that there was scarce
vocal music and when they sang it was European and popular/common music, which was
of little interest to her. Greater areas of interest were regions such as Chiapa de Corzo
and Tuxtla Gutiérrez, which were more rhythmically rich and with a “very simple and
elemental” harmony; this she associated with indigenous influence. She highlighted the
fact that in those areas with significant melodic development there had been more
European influence. Of particular interest were variations on the same songs in each
village, including their diverse embellishments or finales.8

In 1945, Yurchenco returned to Chiapas and made recordings in San Cristóbal de las
Casas, where the native peoples went to play their music for the researcher. This time,
Yurchenco learned of songs that she had not been able to find on her first visit and also
bands using guitars, violins, and harps. In San Juan Chamula, Yurchenco was spellbound
by various songs that seemed to be a type of canon that the Mayor and his wife played for
her in the privacy of their home. The researcher placed the microphone between the two
singers, put the needle on the acetate, and gave them the signal to begin. The first song
was a hymn to San Pedro, protector of travelers. The discovery of this polyphonic music
was later strengthened by instrumental pieces that she heard, in which the trumpet
played a melody over which the flute improvised and the drum “brought everything
together with a dramatic rhythm, like a third voice.”9

A collaborative project, financed by the LOC and SEP, brought the researcher to new
territories. The first institution provided the equipment and discs, while the second
offered Yurchenco a transport and travel allowance and an assistant: the photographer
Agustín Maya, from the SEP’s Departamento de Propaganda y Publicidad (Department of
Propaganda and Publicity). During that year, Yurchenco and Maya explored first the Cora
and Huichol territory in Nayarit and Jalisco, and later the Seri in the state of Sonora.

Cora-Huichol and Seri Territory

According to the vivid description in her Memorias, during this long journey, Yurchenco
suffered from the rigor of difficult conditions, which Dr. Manuel Gamio had warned her
about. In the places they stayed overnight, there was no electricity nor running water;
sometimes they slept on the floor, eating only tortillas and beans, or exposed to poisonous
bugs such as scorpions that got inside their clothes; they traveled by mule on the steep
trails of the Sierra Madre mountains; it grew very cold at night and there was intolerable
heat by day; such were some of the challenges they suffered. There were moments when
she doubted she would survive the journey. The researcher spent ten weeks in the Cora
and Huichol territory. In that region, Yurchenco suspected that she had reached the peak
of her ethnomusicological goals: to find pre-Hispanic music; while at the same time she

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

faced the fact that this form of cultural expression was in serious danger of extinction. In
her words: “The Cora region was our first experience with an ancient Mexico, almost lost
in the shadow of history,” and “one day we made a true discovery: pre-Hispanic songs
sung by shamans.”10 Her impression was reinforced by the remoteness of the place they
had to reach and by the use of an instrument made by a hunter’s bow attached to a gourd
for resonance, stuck with two thin sticks, and called a mitote. The elderly man whom
Yurchenco interviewed confessed that no one had taught him those songs, that “God gave
them to me, I knew them when I was born.” He added: “When I die, all this will die with
me. My son has no interest in learning these songs.”11 When asked for the lyrics to the
songs, the musician explained that he could not give them to her because they were in an
ancient language that was no longer spoken and that no one understood anymore.

In the Huichol region, a wild area of intolerable heat, Yurchenco and Maya were
supported by one of the SEP’s Misiones Culturales, without which they would have failed
in their ethnomusicological task. The employees of the SEP, led by Señor Bonilla,
explained their work in the region and how, little by little, they had gained the trust of the
people. Yurchenco felt that her feeling of going back in time was reinforced and she
recounted unforgettable experiences for being “the most primitive.”12

Yurchenco experienced scenes of intense mestizo religiosity, in which the native worship
practices, combined with Christianity, produced ceremonies she had never seen: She
heard the panhuéhuetl drum for the first time, “only seen in museums and codices” and
had contact with peyote, a “sacred drug” that played an important role in the rituals. The
Huichol people explained to her the three foundations of their ceremonial life: deer,
peyote, and corn; from being a nomadic people, the gods gave them corn, which made
them an established society, although they continued practicing the worship of the three
elements. Every year, they made a ceremonial journey for weeks in order to collect the
peyote. For entire nights, Yurchenco attended ceremonies and recorded a portion of them
on the discs she carried with her. She had to be selective since she did not have enough
materials to record everything, in addition to the fear of the unreliable electricity that
could interrupt recording.

In terms of the music, according to Yurchenco’s notes, the vocal tradition among the
Huichol people was much older and more important than the instrumental, songs were
sung in unison with the occasional use of falsetto. The researcher found a particular
passion and religious intensity in the songs. She noticed that there were no flutes in this
region and the use of violins and guitars, homemade, seemed of little significance. “Music
is the property of all. Everybody in the community knows the songs sung during the
fiestas.”13 It was particularly interesting to her to record the songs of a young woman in
that ethnic group, an experience that left a mark on her in following years. “Years later I
understood that, worldwide, it is the women who sing about private life, emotions and
feelings.”14 Yurchenco’s intense emotional experience with the Huichol people affected
her deeply and she would remember it for the rest of her life. Additionally, the researcher

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

understood the importance of her work in the Cora-Huichol area, since that music had
never before been recorded.

In the summer of 1944, Yurchenco, restless, prepared herself to leave on her next
expedition in the Seri region. The Seri people are primarily a fishing people located in the
Gulf of California in the state of Sonora. Before leaving, she read the works of the
ethnologists William McGee (1898) and Carlos Basauri (1930), who had previously visited
the region. Yurchenco and Agustín Maya spent two months in the village of Desemboque,
where the main Seri community of 200 inhabitants was located. Living conditions were
very difficult and uncomfortable, and they suffered from hunger. Yurchenco mentions that
she lost twelve pounds during her stay in the region. They had to stay seven weeks
waiting for a gasoline motor to arrive which was necessary to complete the recordings. In
the interim, they spent time with the community, who eventually opened their doors to
them. Despite the hardships of the experience, Yurchenco fell in love with the people. In
her Memorias, she realized the closeness that she managed to develop with the Seri
people: “In all the years of my work among Indians I never felt more at home than among
these lively, intelligent and affectionate people. They opened their doors and let me in and
I am eternally grateful.”15 Regarding her musical discoveries in the Seri region,
Yurchenco summarized them in the following manner in an article published in the
Boletín Indigenista.16

The Seri believe in the divine origin of music. The main shaman is the medium by which
God sends his songs to the tribe. The music has always been used in religious and secular
contexts. Although the great majority of the songs in the past formed part of sacred rites,
this factor has almost disappeared since the festivals have not been celebrated for some
time. Only the songs of the curanderos are still preserved in their sacred and ritual role.
Everyone in the Seri community, including children, sing not only the music that is
common property of the tribe, but also some of individual invention.17

The music accompanies the hunt or fishing trips, and there are love songs and lullabies.
The music is sung in unison and the form is composed of two short phrases repeated as
many times as required. Almost all the music is vocal with the exception of a one-stringed
violin, which reminded the researcher of an oriental instrument. Yurchenco reports that
some80 songs were recorded during the expedition as well as 50 photographs and 300
feet of 16mm color film.18

Guatemala

In February of 1945, Yurchenco took a train to Guatemala, sponsored by the US

Department of State; without the resources to hire a photographer, she went alone.
Yurchenco’s long-cherished dream was able to become a reality once the dictator Jorge
Ubico was thrown out of power, as well as his successor, General Ponce. With the
intellectual José Luis Arévalo’s return from exile and assumption of power, the situation
became more propitious for Yurchenco’s endeavors. Once in Guatemala, the researcher
was surrounded by people anxious to help her, and she became a kind of local celebrity.

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

With a truck, a driver, and some money provided by the Minister of Education, Jorge Luis
Arriola, Yurchenco went to Rabinal in the province of Baja Verapaz. In that city she heard
part of the music for the Rabinal Achí, a play of pre-Hispanic origin in Quiché that was
documented by a Belgian cleric, Charles Étienne Brasseur, in 1855; the music is played
with trumpets and a teponaztli with three tones instead of the usual two. The researcher
recorded this music and compared it to the chapel maestro’s transcription made almost a
century earlier, and discovered they had little in common. Yurchenco was fascinated by
the topic and studied it deeply, managing to publish, many years later, a research article
about the Rabinal Achí in a musicology journal.19

After returning to Guatemala City, she headed for the western part of the country. In
Chajul, an Ixil town, she recorded a band of guitars, square drums with leather skins,
reed flutes, metal trumpets, and a teponaztli. This time, the recordings were created on
aluminum-based acetate discs on a turntable. There she managed to find someone to play
El baile de las canastas (The Basket Dance) for her, which they explained consisted of
nine parts, each with its own music, on trumpet and teponaztli; the recording took an
hour. To the researcher, the music seemed “so cheerful and rhythmically exciting, so
unlike the doleful sound of the Rabinal Achí.”20 Inspired by this music, Yurchenco
managed, with the support of the Minister of Education Arriola, to organize a staging/
performance of El baile de las canastas in Chajul. They rented costumes and hired
dancers who wore the baskets on the end of poles attached to their backs. With the
accompaniment of the trumpets and the teponaztli, the complete piece was performed, as
well as filmed, photographed, recorded, and documented in notes. Hundreds of people
from the nearby towns attended, knowing that this show had not been performed in a
long time. The team had to spend large sums of money for the costumes, musicians, and
alcohol that they demanded, among other things. It was a special moment that Yurchenco
would remember for life. Unfortunately, the film was destroyed years later in a fire.21

Registry of Henrietta Yurchenco’s Historic

Recordings of Traditional Mexican Music in
UNESCO’s Memory of the World, Mexico
(2015)
Thanks to the agreement signed between the Director of the III, Mexico’s SEP, and the
US LOC, from 1944 to 1946, Henrietta Yurchenco produced a series of direct-to-disc
recordings with the Cora people in Nayarit, the Huichol in Jalisco, the Tzeltal and Tzotzil
in Chiapas, the Tarahumara in Chihuahua, the Seri and the Yaqui in Sonora, and the
Quiché, Kekchí, Ixil and Sutujil in Guatemala.22

According to the agreement, three copies of the recordings would be held at each of the
signing institutions: the Library of Congress in Washington, which produced the copies of
the researcher’s recorded discs, kept a set and sent two copies to the Instituto
Indigenista Interamericano based in Mexico City, whose director was the prestigious
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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

anthropologist Manuel Gamio. He left one of the copies with the Secretaría de Educación
Pública, specifically at the Departamento de Música de Bellas Artes (The Bellas Artes
Music Department), then led by composer Luis Sandi.23 This is the set that was archived
at the CENIDIM, beginning with its creation in 1974, and is currently housed at the
Fonoteca Nacional. The second example held in Mexico currently belongs to the
Programa Universitario de Estudios de la Diversidad Cultural y la Interculturalidad
(PUIC; University Program for Cultural and Intercultural Diversity Studies) at the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), once the III was dissolved in 2009,
and has also been housed at the Fonoteca Nacional. According to her Memorias,
Yurchenco herself left a copy of the completed recordings from Guatemala in that country
at the end of her stay.24 Some of these recordings were later produced in Washington on
record labels such as Folkways and Nonesuch.25

The two collections kept in Mexico consist of 262 shellac direct-to-disc recordings,
recorded between 1944 and 1946 in the regions mentioned previously. CENIDIM’s
collection, now preserved, inventoried, catalogued, and digitalized, includes the following
discs: 14 from the Seri region, 11 from the Huichol, 25 from the Tzotzil/Tzeltal, 11 from
the Cora, 20 from the Tarahumara, 16 from the Yaqui, 21 from the Quiché, seven from the
Ixil, four from the Kekchí, and one from the Zutujil, with a total of 130. These two series
were proposed for registry in UNESCO’s Memory of the World in 2015, by CENIDIM,
PUIC, and the Fonoteca Nacional. On February 21, 2016, at the XXVII Feria Internacional
del Libro del Palacio de Minería (The Palacio de Minería’s 27th International Book Fair) in
Mexico City, the presidential office of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Mexican
Committee’s presented the Diploma of the proposed registry to the participating
institutions.

Compiling and Distributing Indigenous Music

Aware of the importance of her pioneering work in the collection of indigenous music in
Mexico and Guatemala, in 1946 Yurchenco published an article in which she gives an
account of her work and experience, advising future ethnomusicologists to undertake
field work recordings. Yurchenco doubts the veracity of transcriptions completed in the
19th century due to the debatable transcription ability of those who completed them and
because of the limitations imposed when one transcribes into modern-day musical
notation what is heard in other cultures. When compositions were made based on
indigenous melodies, the harmony was “corrected,” making it unrecognizable when
compared to the original source. Her proposal is the “amalgamation” of musicologists’
methods with those of ethnologists and archeologists: the collection of melodies by the
first group and the study of the music’s social and cultural aspects by the other two.

Yurchenco gives some general and practical recommendations, and others more
technical, with respect to the recordings; a kind of recording manual for the
ethnomusicologist. Among the first are the following: if possible, contact the groups
through the local authorities, that is, so that the expedition is recognized as official in

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

nature. However, if there is hostility toward the authorities, it is better to earn the trust of
the indigenous groups directly; this was Yurchenco’s experience with the Seri women. It
is important to compensate the musicians and, frequently, the performers refuse to play
unless they are offered alcohol. She experienced this with the Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Seri
peoples. It is also essential to offer praise/show admiration that you feel for their music
“for its beauty and rhythm, thus you will have won half the battle.”26 Additionally, she
warns researchers of the dangers of authorities offering them false information that may
lead to incorrect conclusions. For example, she mentions her impression that the
indigenous music of Chiapas was primarily instrumental, according to an article
published in 1943, but when she returned to the state three years later she realized the
error of her assessment.

Regarding technical aspects, she indicates the differences between recording religious
music and secular music. For religious music, she lists three methods, each with
advantages and disadvantages: (1) Record the ceremony live, (2) Recreate the festivities
for the recording, and (3) Gather the musicians with the sole goal of recording the music.
This last option has the limitation of losing the “festive ambience” although it is the most
practical of the three. This form allows the recording of different versions, isolating parts,
and distinguishing harmonic and melodic traits and style of performance. The researcher
also provides technical instruction on the use of recording devices and microphones, the
tone control, and more.

What attracted Yurchenco to research the music of Mexico was, according to the
researcher herself, her fascination with pre-Hispanic music. She hoped to find music that
had not been contaminated by Western civilization. During her many expeditions to
Mexico and Guatemala, this was a recurring theme that she expressed both in her diary
as well as in articles that she wrote and, without a doubt, guided her travels of musical
compilation throughout the country. Her eagerness can be seen in this passage that she
wrote in her memoires (original in English):

I never doubted that any future research I might do would focus on Indian music
rather than mestizo, particularly the possible survivals or prehispanic culture.
Though I knew Spaniards had explored every nook and cranny of the country and
left their mark everywhere, anthropologists and musicians assured me that if I
went far enough into the mountains I would find primitive tribes living like their
ancestors.27

In the Spanish version of her memoires, overseen by Yurchenco, her claim was slightly
more tentative:

Despite my interest in all kinds of popular music, what interested me—after my

explorations—was the possibility of discovering pre-Hispanic music, still alive and
well. Before leaving New York, a prominent anthropologist assured me that
indigenous culture no longer existed, that it had been destroyed by the Europeans.

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

But according to some Mexican anthropologists, it still existed among the

country’s most primitive tribes.28

In 1942, on her first compilation trip to Chiapas, she found herself already in pursuit of
these cultures. She confirmed then that: “The music of the indigenous tribes of the state
of Chiapas is one of the most primitive of the republic, although on its own maintains
little of the pre-Hispanic.”29 On her next journey to Chiapas, in 1945, she points out that:
“To the casual observer, Chiapas is Christian country, yet, underneath lies a secret vein, a
devotion to a past recalled through song and ritual.”30 The researcher claimed
categorically that those songs survived from the ancient past, long before the arrival of
Europeans, and that they were as valuable as the Mayan ruins scattered throughout the
state. She confirmed that throughout that region the music was changing due to modern
influences.

Her efforts to find original music led her to delve into more and more remote regions far
from civilization, such as the Cora-Huichol region in the Western Sierra Madre, where
Yurchenco suffered through lack of food, water, and places to sleep. In a 1963 article,
Yurchenco recorded her discoveries from the 1940s and concentrated on her insistent
idea of the survival of pre-Hispanic music, indicated in the title, and which she claims to
have found in the “primitive tribes” like the Seri and Yaqui, with songs and dances that
harken to a time even before hunters and fishermen. She also found this type of ancient
music among the Huichol and Tarahumara peoples. Yurchenco identified the Yaqui Danza
del venado (Dance of the Deer), which portrays the hunt and capture of the deer, as pre-
Hispanic; from this piece she transcribed a fragment of the lyrics and another of the
music. Similarly, she transcribed an example of a Yaqui song that the people sang in the
privacy of their huts, thus avoiding exposing it to the Mexican mestizos, and she offered a
brief analysis of its music. The piece was “in praise of God; it is characterized by leaps of
a fourth and a fifth, repetition of single notes, emphasis on ‘tonic’ and ‘dominant,’ a
strong accent and relentless metre; the range is an octave.”31 The third example that she
included was from the Tarahumara, from the Dutubiri dance. The Tarahumara are another
people isolated from contact with miscegenation and fond of consuming the
hallucinogenic fungus from peyote (like the Huichol people). She found that the
Tarahumara were “very primitive” and “with a strong pre-Columbian culture.” The
musical characteristics that she described included accompaniment by a bell that could
last for hours, short melodic phrases with a basic rhythm and descending pattern.

Thanks to this zeal for original purity, Yurchenco managed to attend ceremonies in
remote regions where she had access because of her skills and good offices, obtaining
recordings of music never before recorded; some of which survives today only in this
form. Yurchenco had a clear awareness of the sense of social cohesion/connectedness
that music has among indigenous peoples, its cultural value and the importance of its
preservation as intangible heritage of ancient cultures, whether in Mexico or other
countries of the world. In a report published in 1983, Yurchenco demonstrated a great
appreciation for mestiza music that had been heard in Michoacán in the 1960s. In
particular, she noted the voices of women such as the Solorio Sisters and the Pulido

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

Sisters, who sang accompanied by guitar. She also praised the quality of the voices of a
girls’ school group she recorded in Uruapan in 1966. Yurchenco no longer searched for
only music that was most closely tied to the original, and could appreciate the musical
quality of cultural mixing seen in these women or in Joaquín Bautista, a “talented
Tarascan guitarist” trained at the Conservatorio. Upon studying the Pirekua, she finds
that this has a clear influence from 19th century Europe in the ternary meter, the use of
the guitar, and harmony in thirds and sixths.32

It was a time in Mexico in which the national musical identity was being formed, through
the compositions of Carlos Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas, Manuel M. Ponce, Candelario
Huízar, José Pablo Moncayo, and many more, recreating culturally mixed sounds in the
search for a national sound. As Marina Alonso has mentioned, in the Mexico of the 1940s
and 1950s, there emerged a process of “invention” of indigenous music, to which
composers contributed, with the creation of national styles, as well as researchers in
popular and traditional music, for the sake of forging a national culture that would be
seen reflected in broad-reaching and long-lived cultural politics.33

The recordings that Yurchenco made constitute an important link in the construction of
the musical memory and ethnic heritage of Mexico, which has been preserved in archives
in the United States and Mexico. These recordings safeguard genres, instruments, and
even dialectical variants that have since disappeared, but thanks to her work we can
appreciate. The wealth of documents collected by Yurchenco in her recordings and held
at archives in both countries still await researchers who will study and share them.

Secondary Sources
Upon Henrietta Yurchenco’s death at ninety-one years of age, journalists, colleagues, and
friends wrote obituaries in which they celebrated her life and career. These texts depict
personal and professional traits of the researcher, from the point of view of those who
knew her as friend, colleague, or teacher. John Graziano remembered her days as a
professor at City College in the late 1960s: she not only taught folkloric music courses,
something uncommon during that time, but also founded a musical group called Common
Ground, with which she played music for liberal causes. She always accompanied her
students to conferences and on musicological expeditions. And, although she retired, she
continued writing books and articles. Her last books were Around the World in 80 Years
(2002) and In Their Own Voices: Women in the Judeo-Hispanic Song and Story (2007). Eli
Smith recounts how Yurchenco started her classes at City College in 1966, with an
attitude of open rebellion in the face of academic affectations and against bureaucratic
nonsense; there, she offered inspiring courses as well as workshops to learn to play
different instruments and music styles. During that time she was very active in the anti-
Vietnam War movement: “She remained politically active, going to demonstrations,
speaking out against war and oppression, singing and promoting protest and peace songs
until the end of her life.”34

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

David Austin Gura mentioned how, every Thursday, practically until her death, former
students and friends would gather in the evening at her apartment in Chelsea to sing old
protest songs that Yurchenco had taught in her classes in the 1960s and 1970s, such as
“Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “Study War No More.” At these gatherings, lyric
sheets were passed out and people commented and asked questions, as if they were in a
seminar. Every meeting had a particular theme.35

The obituaries appeared both in the United States and Mexico as well as England, and
offer valuable information. Below are those that offer information beyond just
biographical facts:

• Condon, Eileen, “Pioneering Ethnomusicologist: Henrietta Yurchenco, 1916 to 2007,”

Voices 34 (Fall–Winter, 2008).
• Graziano, John, “Henrietta Yurchenco,” Society for American Music Bulletin 34.1
(Winter 2008): 8.
• Groce, Nancy, “Henrietta Yurchenco (1916–2007),” Folklore Center News 31.1–2
(Spring/Winter 2009). (Consulted February 27, 2018)
• Gura, David Austin, “Yearning to Study War No More” (Consulted February 15, 2018)
(Published months before her death)
• Hunt, Ken, “Henrietta Yurchenco. Folk-music Champion of the Americas,” The
Guardian, February 11, 2008.
• Martin, Douglas “Henrietta Yurchenco, Pioneer Folklorist, Dies at 91” (Consulted
February 28, 2018)
• Smith, Eli, “Henrietta Yurchenco. (1916–2007).” (Consulted February 15, 2018)
• “Henrietta Yurchenco (1916–2004),” Arqueología Mexicana 15.90 (March/April
2008): 12.

Additionally, due to the “Memory of the World 2015” recognition in 2016 and upon the
hundredth anniversary of her birth, these articles came out highlighting Yurchenco’s
ethnomusicological work:

• Juan Paullier, “Henrietta Yurchenco, la inesperada salvadora de la música indígena

de México,” BBC Mundo, April 5, 2016.
• Erika P. Bucio, “Yurchenco, a 100 años,” Reforma.

There also exists a digital audio tape titled Henrietta Yurchenco en el Palacio de Bellas
Artes, at the Fonoteca Henrietta Yurchenco of the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo
de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI; National Commission for the Development of Indigenous
Peoples), which is the recording of a tribute to Yurchenco made in 2004. It includes a
biography by Sol Rubín de la Borbolla; a talk by Arturo Chamorro about Henrietta
Yurchenco in the Huichol Sierra; a presentation about Yurchenco and her work in the
sound recordings of Mexican indigenous peoples by Julio Herrera; another about
Yurchenco’s contributions to Mexican ethnomusicological training by Gonzalo Camacho;

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

as well as musical interludes. The entire event was topped off with a twelve-minute
address by Yurchenco herself.

In the original article by Marina Alonso Bolaños published in 2008, the author uses the
concept of the invention of indigenous music during the nationalist period of the 1940s
and 1950s, to which three groups contributed: nationalist composers, scholars of popular
music, and those who disseminated and initiated phonographic series. In this last group
belongs Yurchenco, among others such as Cristina Bonfil, Irene Vázquez, Arturo Warman
and Vicente T. Mendoza. That same year, Alonso Bolaños published her book, La
“invención” de la música indígena de México. Antropología e historia de las políticas
culturales del siglo XX (Buenos Aires: SB, 2008).36

Discussion of the Literature

Books and Articles

Without a doubt, an indispensable source for delving into the life of Henrietta Yurchenco
is her own diary, which exists in two forms with significant differences: the English
version (published in 2002) and the Spanish version (published in 2003).37 In her
particular and casual style, Yurchenco tells us about her personal life; her
ethnomusicological transformations; how she faced the Mexican and Guatemalan
bureaucratic world, as well as other countries where she launched expeditions in search
of music; her adventurous expeditions in inhospitable lands; living with different
indigenous peoples where she traveled; and the ceremonies and transformations that she
experienced. The Mexican version comes embellished with photographs from the field
and documents, making it very interesting to discover the negotiations she undertook
with Mexican, Guatemalan, and US authorities. Additionally, she recounts particular
moments of her Mexican and Guatemalan negotiations, which sometimes are left out of
the US version. At the same time, one can see a reduction or elimination of certain
comments that are found in the original English language version, but that for Mexicans
could have been considered derogatory.

Another worthy text, that discusses her research experience in Mexico and Guatemala, is
the article, “Grabaciones de música indígena.”38 There, Yurchenco offers a historical
account of the conquest and its implications on the lives of indigenous peoples,
particularly the detrimental effect on the music of those ethnic groups. She describes the
process of recording music in Mexico and Guatemala, as well as the collaborative project
that developed between Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States, and which was
completed in 1944–1945; she claims that some five hundred pieces of music were
recorded and she suggests a classification of indigenous music; she explores the function
of music in indigenous populations; she describes the distinctly indigenous musical
instruments; and she concludes by pointing out the danger these representations are

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

under with the advancement of roads and electricity to the most remote regions of the
Mexican landscape.

Recordings

Some of Yurchenco’s recording projects in Mexico and Guatemala came to light on discs
produced by commercial recording companies. Listed here are those related to
aforementioned expeditions. They appear in chronological order with reference to their
reprints:

Folk Music of Mexico, Washington D.C., Library of Congress, Vol. 19, 1948.

Indian Music of Mexico: Seri/Cora/Yaqui/Huichol/Tzotzil/, New York, Folkways,

P143, 1948/Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, FW04413, 2004.

Music of the Tarascan Indians of Mexico: Music of Michoaca and Mestizo Country,
New York, Nonesuch H2009, 1966/Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, AHM 4217,
2004.

The Real Mexico in Music and Song, New York, Nonesuch, Hw009, 1966.

Latin American Children’s Game Songs recorded in Puerto Rico and Mexico, New
York, Asch Folkways, 751, 1968/Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, FW07851,
2004.

Mexico South: Traditional Songs and Dances from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
New York: Folkways Records, FE 4378, 1976/Smithsonian Folkways Recordings,
FW04378, 2004.

Music of the Maya-Quichés of Guatemala: The Rabinal Achí and Baile de Canastas,
New York, Folkways, FE 4226, 1978/Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, FW04226,
2004.

In the article by CENIDIM researcher Hiram Dordelly, “Catálogo de la colección

Yurchenco,” he presents an initial classification of Yurchenco’s recordings collection and
of those of which the Centro holds a copy.39 Dordelly states: “The following catalog
corresponds to the order in which the original pieces were recorded and registers all the
information that Henrietta Yurchenco noted in the first relating of the content of the
recordings that she made.”40 Dordelly made a copy of Yurchenco’s discs on 19 cassettes
that contain 612 registered pieces, with a detailed listing of all. Another interesting
document with information regarding the recordings is that which describes the archives
found at the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI)’s
Fonoteca Henrietta Yurchenco, which can be consulted online.41 On the disc produced by
the ethnomusicologist Xilonen Luna Ruíz in 2007, Memoria Sonora Náayari: Música
ceremonial de la Coras de Nayarit (Memoria Sonora Náayari: Ceremonial Music of the
Nayarit Cora People), six of Yurchenco’s recordings from 1944 are used.42 The researcher

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

made another one that same year about the harp, another track of Yurchenco, recorded in
1945.43

Three reviews of Yurchenco’s recordings came out in the journal Ethnomusicology, all
concerning the music of Mexico and Guatemala: one regarding the album The Real
Mexico, another about Music of the Tarascan Indians, both by Thomas Stanford, as well
as another by Linda L. O’Brien on the album Music of the Maya-Quichés of Guatemala.44
All the reviews emphasize the value of Yurchenco’s groundbreaking work in the 1940s in
regards to recording this music. Stanford points out technical problems with the
recordings, and both authors list several errors in the track notes and conceptual
problems made by Yurchenco.

Archives

The main collection on this researcher is the Library of Congress’s Henrietta Yurchenco
Collection in Washington. The vast majority of the documents held there, which include
books, recordings, film, photographs, prints, and drawings, can only be accessed in hard
copy at that institution. There are also the archives of the Comisión Nacional para el
Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI) in Mexico City, where the Fonoteca Henrietta
Yurchenco is located, and where one can consult the researcher’s direct-to-disc
recordings of the Tarahumara, Huichol, Cora, Seri, Tzotzil, and Tzeltal regions. At Mexico
City’s Fonoteca Nacional’s archives, one can access Henrietta Yurchenco’s sound
collection that was housed at the CENIDIM/INBA and is now completely digitalized. At
the INAH’s Fonoteca in Mexico City, one can find the CD-ROM Henrietta Yurchenco:
Grabaciones de Campo published by the CDI, which contains numerous documents and
photographs of her field work; also a CD with a 2002 interview with Yurchenco: “La
música y el I.I.I.”45

Translated from Spanish by Amy Savage.

Further Reading
Gottfried, Jessica “Music and Folklore Research in the Departamento de Bellas
Artes, 1926–1946.” In the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History,
edited by William Beezley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Loza, Steven. “Contemporary Ethnomusicology in Mexico.” Latin American Music Review/

Revista De Música Latinoamericana 11.2 (1990): 201–250.

Nava López, Enrique Fernando. “Musical Traditions of the P’urhepecha (Tarascos) of

Michoacan (Mexico).” In Music in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Encyclopedic
History, Vol. 1, Performing Beliefs: Indigenous Peoples of South America, Central
America, and Mexico. Edited by Malena Kuss, 247–260. Austin: University of Texas Press,
2004.

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

Tarica, Estelle “Indigenismo.” In the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American

History, edited by William Beezley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Yurchenco, Henrietta. “Estilos de ejecución en la música indígena Mexicana con énfasis

particular en la pirecua tarasca.” In Sabiduría popular. Edited by Arturo Camacho
Escalante, 2nd ed., 153–163. Morelia: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1997.

Yurchenco, Henrietta. “Investigación folclórico musical en Nayarit y Jalisco. Grupos

indígenas coras y huicholes.” In Música y danzas del gran Nayar. Edited by Jesús
Jáuregui, 141–170. México: Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Contemporáneos, 1993.

Yurchenco, Henrietta, “Indian Music of Mexico and Guatemala.” Bulletin of the American
Musicological Society 11/12/13 (1948): 58–59.

Notes:

(1.) Carl Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico: A Record of Five Years Exploration among the
Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre, in the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco, and
among the Tarascos of Michoacan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902); and Carl
Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico: An Account of One Year’s Exploration in North-Western
Sonora, Mexico, and South-Western Arizona: 1909–1910 (London: Fisher Unwin, 1912).
These recordings can now be listened to on seven corresponding discs at the Library of
Congress. Additionally, there are three CDs with his recordings donated by the
Norwegian government to the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

(2.) Henrietta Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años. Memorias (México: CDI, 2003),
5. Can be downloaded free of charge at: https://www.gob.mx/cdi/articulos/henrietta-
yurchenco-y-el-registro-de-la-musica-indigena-de-mexico-r?idiom=es (consulted July 30,
2018). This book in Spanish is a modified version of the English-language original:
Henrietta Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years. A Memoir (Point Richmond, CA: MRI
Press, 2002).

(3.) Secretaría de Educación Pública, “Informe de las labores desarrolladas entre el 1° de

agosto de 1947 y el 30 de junio de 1948 por la Sección de Investigaciones Musicales” 1
Mecanoescrito del Archivo Histórico del CENIDIM, documento 159, caja 8, p.1.

(4.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 53.

(5.) In her diary, Yurchenco states: “Once the [radio] programs were over, another
research opportunity came to me.” This claim leads us to believe that the programs were
indeed completed; unfortunately, we don’t yet have those recordings. La vuelta al mundo
en 80 años. 62.

(6.) Carlos Girón Cerna y Manuel Gamio, editores, Boletín indigenista, vol. II, no. 3
(México: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1942).

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

(7.) Henrietta Yurchenco, “La música indígena en Chiapas, México,” América Indígena 3.4
(1943): 305–311.

(8.) Yurchenco, “La música indígena en Chiapas, México.”

(9.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 165.

(10.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 73, 77.

(11.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 78, 79.

(12.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 80.

(13.) Henrietta Yurchenco, “Report on Expedition to Record on Discs the Music of the
Huichol Indians of México,” documento inédito (1944) Archivo de la Comisión Nacional
para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI).

(14.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 87.

(15.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 139–140.

(16.) Henrietta Yurchenco, “Nota sobre la expedición para grabar música aborigen de los
indios seri,” Boletín Indigenista 4.3 (1944): 258–262.

(17.) Yurchenco, Boletín Indigenista, 260.

(18.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 98.

(19.) Henrietta Yurchenco. “The Rabinal Achí: A Twelfth Century Drama of the Maya-
Quiché of Guatemala,” Acta Musicologica 57.1 (January–June 1985): 37–50.

(20.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 155.

(21.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 156–157. The American photographer
Maud Oakes made slides of the event that still exist. With the terrible political conditions
in the following years—the guerrilla war, the repression of the Ixil people—no one knew
of this dance much less had they seen it when Yurchenco returned to Guatemala in 1979
and asked about it.

(22.) The information in this section is taken from the document titled “Propuesta para la
inscripción en el registro Memora del Mundo 2015. Documentos Sonoros de Henrietta
Yurchenco. Grabaciones históricas de música de pueblos indígenas de México y
Guatemala” produced by the Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e
Información Musical “Carlos Chávez” (CENIDIM) of the INBA, the Programa
Universitario de la Diversidad Cultural y la Interculturalidad at the Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México and the Fonoteca Nacional (México, 2015).

(23.) Archived at the Archivo Histórico del CENIDIM-INBA, Ciudad de México.

(24.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 160.

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

(25.) See the section on Discs.

(26.) Henrietta Yurchenco. “La Recopilación de Música Indígena,” América Indígena 6.1
(January 1946): 325.

(27.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 111.

(28.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, 69.

(29.) Yurchenco, “La música indígena en Chiapas,” 306.

(30.) Yurchenco, Around the World in 80 Years, 166.

(31.) Henrietta Yurchenco, “Survivals of Pre-Hispanic Music in New Mexico,” Journal of

the International Folk Music Council 15 (1963): 16.

(32.) Henrietta Yurchenco, “Estilos de ejecución en la música indígena mexicana con

énfasis particular en la pirecua tarasca,” in Sabiduría popular. En homenaje a Vicente T.
Mendoza, Fernando Horcasitas y Américo Paredes, ed. Arturo Chamorro Escalante, 240–
260. México: El Colegio de Michoacán/Comité Organizador pro Sociedad Interamericana
de Folklore y Etnomusicología, 1983.

(33.) Marina Alonso Bolaños, “La invención de la música indígena de México,”

Antropología. Boletín Oficial del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 77 (2005):
47.

(34.) Eli Smith, “Henrietta Yurchenco. (1916–2007).” (Consulted February 15, 2018.)

(35.) See references to these articles in the section on Secondary Sources.

(36.) Alonso Bolaños, “La invención de la música indígena de México.”

(37.) Yurchenco, La vuelta al mundo en 80 años, and Yurchenco, Around the World in 80
Years. In addition to these, the other articles by Henrietta Yurchenco cited throughout the
text are recommended.

(38.) Published originally in the journal Nuestra Música in 1946 and reprinted in the
journal Bibliomúsica 7 (January–April 1994): 55–61. Can currently be consulted and
downloaded free of charge from the INBA digital archive [Consulted February 25, 2018].

(39.) Hiram Dordelly, “Catálogo de la colección Yurchenco, Bibliomúsica” 7 (México:

Conaculta/INBA/Cenidim, January–April 1994), 62–72 [Consulted February 25, 2018.]

(40.) Dordelly, Bibliomúsica, 62.

(41.) Laura Ruíz Mondragón y Lorena Vargas Rojas, “Fonoteca Henrietta Yurchenco,”
Centro de Investigación, Información y Documentación de los Pueblos Indígenas de
México: Guía general, Coordinadora, Teresa Rojas Rabiela (México: Comisión Nacional
para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, CIESAS, 2003), 91–92.

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Henrietta Yurchenco: Ethnomusicology Pioneer in Mexico and Guatemala

(42.) Memoria Sonora Náayari: Música ceremonial de la Coras de Nayarit (Memoria

Sonora Náayari: Ceremonial Music of the Nayarit Cora People) (México: Comisión
Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, 2007), 62 pp.

(43.) Xilonen Luna Ruíz, and Camilo R. Camacho Jurado, Arpas indígenas de México
(México: Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, 2007). The track
is an example of the Tzotzil harp.

(44.) Thomas Stanford, “The Real Mexico in Music and Song by Henrietta Yurchenco,”
Ethnomusicology 13.2 (May 1969): 408–409; Thomas Stanford, “Music of the Tarascan
Indians of Mexico; Music of Michoacán and Nearby Mestizo Country by Henrietta
Yurchenco,” Ethnomusicology 18.2 (May 1974): 349–350; and Linda L. O’Brien, “Music of
the Maya-Quichés of Guatemala: The Rabinal Achí and Baile de la Canastas by Henrietta
Yurchenco,” Ethnomusicology 23.3 (September 1979): 475–477.

(45.) This is a video of a conversation between the researcher and Guillermo Espinosa
Velasco on August 21, 2002, upon Yurchenco’s visit to the History Archives of the Archivo
Histórico del Instituto Indigenista Interamericano (III) that day. It was published on
compact disc in September of that year. There also exists the documentary Henrietta
Yurchenco: Testimonio de vida (1996, duration 36 min) directed by José Luis Sagredo in
the series “Programas Especiales: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, México” produced on
VHS. We were not able to locate this material in Mexico City libraries. According to
WorldCat’s catalog, it can be found in the University of Texas Library system.

Yael Bitrán Goren

Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical, Instituto

Nacional de Bellas Artes

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