Behind the house where Ximena Obregón lived in Playa Garza, it was very easy to find shards—pieces of indigenous ceramic fragments.
Ximena moved to Garza in 2020 to work as a music teacher at a school. She wanted her students to learn more about the musical instruments used by local indigenous peoples, so she began researching ocarinas.
That’s when she found an online document about the archaeological site “El Rempujo,” referred to as “the first recorded cemetery of musicians in Costa Rica.” In these burials, individuals were interred with a large number of instruments.
The site is located in the mountains of Garza and has been excavated since 2009, but it wasn’t until the past decade that professionals in archaeology, anthropology, and music in the country began working together to better understand these instruments.
From these studies emerged a sound bank of pre-Columbian instruments, as well as two musical projects in which national artists incorporate them into their compositions. The most recent, Primero Fuimos Música (We Were Music First), is currently being released every Friday on Spotify and is accompanied by an exhibition at the Central Bank Museum of Costa Rica.
Discovering a Sound
During the 2009 excavation at El Rempujo, the National Museum’s archaeology team found 177 artifacts, of which 111 were musical instruments, mainly ocarinas.
Four years later, archaeologists Priscila Molina from the Central Bank Museum and Mónica Aguilar began researching pre-Columbian instruments from across the country, as no study had focused exclusively on the history of ancient music.
“Most likely, the people buried there were musicians or shamans who used music. This tells us about a high-status individual who was buried with many instruments. It’s possible they didn’t play all of them; they were meant to store knowledge and assist in their transition to the spiritual world,” explains archaeologist Priscila Molina.
Researcher Luis Porras and archaeologist Priscila Molina studying instruments in the museum vault. To select the instruments, they considered a diverse sample of periods, archaeological regions, and manufacturing techniques.Photo: Museo del Banco Central
The uses given to these instruments by indigenous peoples were varied, she adds. Some were made for specific rituals, while others had practical purposes, such as whistles used for long-distance communication.
In fact, one of the most significant recent discoveries regarding pre-Columbian musical instruments is linked to Guanacaste. During the research, they found pieces that combine both direct and indirect blowing techniques. Some animal-shaped ocarinas, for example, have a large resonance chamber and a smaller chamber located in the tail or a limb.
When blown indirectly—without fully placing the lips as in a transverse flute—the larger chamber is activated, producing a deep ocarina sound. But when blown with fully sealed lips, the air travels quickly to the second chamber, producing a whistle-like sound. In other words, a single instrument can produce two distinct sounds and requires two different playing techniques.
Priscila explains that they consulted ethnomusicologists across the Americas to share findings and exchange knowledge, and realized these pieces are unique to Costa Rica.
These are the kinds of things that move you, because until now we knew nothing about them. Every time we discover something like this, all the recordings start jumping in the storage,” says Molina.
Awakening the Instruments
The journey to these discoveries has been long. Priscila recalls that they wanted to give voice to the instruments but lacked a methodology. So in 2015, they sought help from musician and producer Andrés Cervilla to begin recording 20 instruments from different parts of the country belonging to the Central Bank Museum collection.
With those recordings, they created a sound bank and launched an open call for musicians to incorporate the sounds into their compositions. They received more than 100 proposals and selected 10. This first phase of the project was called The Metaphor of Sounds.
“Connecting with a musical instrument that takes you exactly 2,000 years back in time was definitely an experience that marked all of us in that recording room at the museum,” recalls Cervilla.
I almost cried, and so did the archaeologists. It was a very powerful moment, because it literally brought these artifacts—dormant for thousands of years—back to life,” he adds.
The archaeologists felt they needed to go even further. They needed someone who could not only play the instruments but also help understand them beyond a Western framework of thought.
“You have to completely decolonize your mind and let go of the do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do we’re taught. These instruments were created under entirely different logic and rules,” explains Cervilla.
That’s how they invited Luis Porras, researcher and founder of Proyecto Jirondai, who has documented indigenous songs and instruments in Costa Rica for 25 years.
Porras recorded more pre-Columbian instruments and helped reveal interpretation methods and musical structures from indigenous peoples of Costa Rica and Mesoamerica.
The museum plans to record more than 300 musical instruments and upload them to a digital platform where everyone—from national musicians to researchers or ethnomusicologists—can access and study them.Photo: Museo del Banco Central
With these new recordings, along with Cervilla’s earlier work, they have now documented more than 200 instruments, including ocarinas, rattles, whistles, flutes, and bells.
This second phase is titled The Metaphor of Sounds II: Primero Fuimos Música. With all these new sounds available, they again called Andrés Cervilla—not to perform, but to produce a full album with various artists. The album includes a song by Ximena Obregón, the teacher who lived in Playa Garza.
The Dream of a Song
Ximena recalls that while living in Garza, she had a dream in which Guadalupe Urbina was singing to her. She believes it may have emerged from her connection to the territory and conversations about indigenous artifacts near her home.
“I had probably been listening to her a lot, and in the dream she appeared and sang that song to me. A melody I kept repeating. She hugged me and sang, very much in her affectionate style. When I woke up, it felt like I could still hear the song,” she recalls.
That’s how she composed Memoria, which became part of the repertoire of the musical project Guápil, which she shares with her twin sister Amanda.
Living there, I composed many songs like that. I feel there’s an energy available for it, and it’s beautiful to think that it’s been there since ancestral times,” she adds.
The museum plans to record more than 300 musical instruments and upload them to a digital platform where everyone—from national musicians to researchers or ethnomusicologists—can access and study them.Photo: Museo del Banco Central
During Holy Week in 2025, while vacationing in Garza, she received a call from Andrés Cervilla.
He invited Guápil to record for Primero Fuimos Música. The song Ximena had dreamed about was the one they chose for the album—a piece about “the memory of sounds and how memory travels through time.”
Although they didn’t create a song from scratch, the twins used elements from the sound bank—bells, chants, and a double ocarina that captivated them from the moment they saw it.
Other artists featured include Canina, Achará, Frezco, Hubba Watson, Karol Barboza, Los Excavators, Mazzk, and Berenice. The genres range from jazz to hip hop and electronic music.
That ancestral connection generated by each instrument can somehow be felt in every piece, because everyone experienced something similar. What everyone shared was respect for these sounds,” explains Cervilla.
The musician and producer hopes the sound bank will be used in theater, dance, film, educational materials, and, of course, music.
Amanda Obregón, the other half of Guápil, hopes their music can be enjoyed but also serve to protect heritage and strengthen community bonds—just like the music of the indigenous peoples who inspired them.
“This land has history. All these excavations happening now for housing developments—sometimes without permits or supervision—we need to pay attention to who is doing this work and whether they are truly protecting this heritage,” she says.
All songs from Primero Fuimos Música are released every Friday as singles on Spotify, and the full album will be available in June. The sound bank can be explored on Bandcamp.
The exhibition Primero fuimos música allows visitors to see and hear these instruments and will be open to the public until August 2026 at the Central Bank Museums of Costa Rica.
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