Editing Marimba (section)

=== Mexico ===
The first known marimba dates back to 1545 in the Santa Lucía hacienda, in the municipality of [[Jiquipilas, Chiapas]]. According to documentation dated October 9, 1545, the encomendero Don Pedro Gentil de Bustamante and owner of the hacienda of Santa Lucia, describes in his chronicle a marimba in a celebration of Indians; and tells us the following:.<ref>{{cite web |title=Music of Chiapas: marimba, dance and tradition |url=https://musicaenmexico.com.mx/musica-mexicana/la-musica-tradicional-chiapas/ |access-date=December 16, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The marimba of Chiapas |date=23 May 2014 |url=https://www.sendamaya.com/marimba-de-chiapas/ |access-date=December 16, 2020}}</ref>

{{quote|“…said instrument is composed of eight slats of red wood, unequal in size, which are pierced together with cord and produce joyful echoes with boards of the macaguil (macagüil) stick (…) rows of boards tied to short orchestras (sic) flanged and stretched under said instrument a hole in the ground and glued with resin on the boards snake rattles that make musical vibrate with blows of two small sticks with black wax head one for each hand… …that this music is accompanied by a drum of animal skin (…)”<ref name="Fray Antonio_1">Chronicle of Don Pedro Gentil de Bustamante year of 1545.</ref>}}

It is believed that xylophones came to America by means of Africans who had been taken to Guatemala and Mexico, although there are also records in some Mayan pyramids found in Chiapas and Guatemala. The first documented mention of the marimba in Guatemala (marimba de tecomates), dates from November 13, 1680 during the inauguration celebrations of the Santa Iglesia Catedral in Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala.

The modern double keyboard marimba was created in 1892, in Chiapas, Mexico, thanks to the innovation of [[Corazón de Jesús Borras Moreno]], a native of the Municipality of [[Venustiano Carranza (Chiapas)|Venustiano Carranza]], Chiapas, Mexico. In 1897, the current model of marimba was played for the first time in the traditional park of the church of Señor del Pozo, in the same municipality, from that moment it has gone from being a native instrument to a concert instrument.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.muyinteresante.com.mx/preguntas-y-respuestas/322530/origen-marimba/ |title=Origin of the marimba, in muyinteresante.com.mx. |access-date=October 10, 2012 |archive-date=January 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140118124538/http://www.muyinteresante.com.mx/preguntas-y-respuestas/322530/origen-marimba/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> A five-octave instrument was first built, and later an 11-octave, huge instrument was built, which was played by 9 elements.

In Central America there are two versions of its origin. Some claim that it was brought by black slaves from Africa, while others consider it native, created by the Maya-quiche.<ref>{{cite news |title=La Marimba |url=https://guiascostarica.info/simbolos/marimba/ |date=June 27, 2013 |access-date=July 26, 2018 |journal=Guías Costa Rica |language=en-US}}</ref>

Historian David Vela says: “We also refer to the thesis of Dr. Castañeda Paganini on the possible invention of the marimba in Guatemala, by Africans brought as slaves in the sixteenth century; it is surprising however that the marimba appears here early among communities closed to their influence, among remote mountains, and is missing in the areas actually inhabited by the colored race.” what is undoubted is that the ingenuity of the local countries transformed the instrument to the point of making it their own.<ref>[http://www.deguate.com/artman/publish/hist_precolombina/Historia_de_la_Marimba_6488.shtml History of the marimba; deguate.com.]</ref>

Since there are records in Guatemala that in the middle of the 18th century, in the same city of Santiago de Guatemala (today Antigua Guatemala), the presbyter Joseph de Padilla developed a new version of the instrument (simple marimba), to which he extended the extension of the keyboard to 42 keys (first and only collective instrument in the world), he added a structure with 4 legs raising it from the ground, being able to play standing up.

In 1894 in Quetzaltenango, the master Sebastián Hurtado developed the first chromatic marimba or double keyboard marimba made of Hormigo wood (Plathymiscium dimorphandrum) giving it up to 6 musical scales. He inherited the marimba to his sons and they created the group Marimba Royal of the Hurtado brothers who in 1908 performed a concert in the city of Buffalo, New York, and thus introduced the marimba (with the contributions of Guatemala) in the United States, making it known to the world.

Being an instrument used in many countries of the Americas, on February 12, 2015, the Organization of American States [[Organization of American States|(OAS)]] declares the marimba “Cultural Heritage of the Americas”.