Costa Rica Musical Instruments: Marimba, Quijongo and More

Hear a marimba at a Guanacaste fiesta and you know where you are. Costa Rica’s traditional instruments are few, but each one carries a piece of the country’s Indigenous, Spanish and African history.

The best-known Costa Rican instruments are the marimba, declared a national symbol in 1996, and the quijongo, a one-string musical bow from Guanacaste. Others include the quijada or carraca, a rattling donkey or horse jawbone; the pre-Columbian clay ocarina; the chirimía, a double-reed wind instrument brought by the Spanish; and the maracas, guitar and drums heard in folk music and Limón’s calypso. Most of this music comes from Guanacaste, and the best place to hear it is at a fiesta.

This guide explains each instrument, where it came from and where you can hear it today.

Instrument	What it is	Where you will hear it
Marimba	Wooden keyboard played with mallets	Guanacaste fiestas, folk dances, school events
Quijongo	One-string musical bow with a gourd resonator	Guanacaste folk groups, especially around Santa Cruz
Quijada (carraca)	Animal jawbone with rattling teeth	Guanacaste folk music
Ocarina	Pre-Columbian clay whistle-flute	Museums and replicas
Chirimía	Double-reed wind instrument from Spain	Religious processions and traditional groups
Maracas, guitar, drums	Shakers, strings and percussion	Folk music and Limón calypso

The national instrument

The Marimba

The marimba is the sound of Guanacaste. It has a row of wooden keys of different lengths, each with a resonator beneath it, and is played with mallets, often by two or more musicians at once. It carries the melody for the Punto Guanacasteco and most traditional dances.

Costa Rica declared the marimba a national symbol of culture and tradition on Sept. 3, 1996, and a 2017 law made Nov. 30 the Día Nacional de la Marimba. Its roots in Costa Rica are tied to Guanacaste’s Afro-descendant population and to instruments from West and Central Africa, though similar marimbas are played across Central America and southern Mexico.

Guanacaste heritage

The Quijongo

The quijongo is a musical bow: a long, bent piece of wood with a single string stretched between its ends and a gourd attached as a resonator. The player taps the string with a small stick, and the gourd shapes the tone into a low, buzzing hum that sounds like nothing else in Costa Rican music.

Its origin is debated. Some researchers trace it to African musical bows brought by enslaved people; others argue for Indigenous roots. Either way, it belongs to Guanacaste, especially Santa Cruz and Bagaces. The Ministry of Culture recognizes it as intangible heritage of the province, and makers and players such as the late Eulalio Guadamuz and Isidoro Guadamuz kept it alive.

The jawbone

The Quijada, or Carraca

The quijada, also called the carraca or quijada de burro, is the dried jawbone of a donkey or horse. Strike it, and the loose teeth rattle in their sockets with a dry buzz, similar to a maraca. Scrape a stick along the teeth for a ratchet sound. It still turns up in Guanacaste folk groups, though the louder marimba has pushed it, and the quijongo, to the margins.

Pre-Columbian

The Ocarina

If you know the ocarina from The Legend of Zelda, the Costa Rican version will look familiar: a small clay vessel flute with a few finger holes. Pre-Columbian peoples made them in Costa Rica centuries before the Spanish arrived, often shaped like birds, turtles and other animals. How they were played has largely been lost, but you can see originals in the country’s museums and buy modern clay replicas as souvenirs.

From Spain

The Chirimía

The chirimía is a wooden double-reed wind instrument, an ancestor of the oboe, that came to the Americas with the Spanish. Its loud, nasal sound, usually paired with a drum, became part of religious processions and festivals in towns across Central America, including in Costa Rica.

The rest of the band

Other Costa Rican Instruments

• Maracas: Gourd shakers filled with seeds or pebbles, used in folk music and calypso.
• Guitar: Brought by the Spanish and central to Guanacaste folk songs and the Punto Guanacasteco.
• Drums: Hand drums and bass drums, heard in Guanacaste fiestas, processions and Caribbean music.
• Limón calypso: The Caribbean coast has its own sound, Limón calypso, played on guitar, banjo and percussion and made famous by the Cahuita songwriter Walter “Gavitt” Ferguson. Our guide to Afro-Caribbean culture has more.

For visitors

Where to Hear Traditional Music in Costa Rica

• Guanacaste fiestas: Santa Cruz in January and Liberia and other towns around Guanacaste Day, July 25, bring out marimbas and folk dancers.
• Limón Carnival: Calypso and Caribbean music fill Limón around Oct. 12.
• Día de la Marimba: Marimba events on Nov. 30.
• Museums: Pre-Columbian ocarinas and other instruments are on display in San José’s museums.

See our holidays and celebrations guide for dates, and our guide to Costa Rican music for the bigger picture, from folk to modern bands. For more on the region, read about Guanacaste’s culture.

Good to know

Costa Rica Instruments FAQ