| Puerto Ricans have been told that an odd, obsolete guitar-shaped instrument of native Puerto Rican lineage--its memory resting within relics made early in the 20th century and preserved in several public and private collections on the Island--is called the "bordonúa." These few surviving samples shown, share the same name as the 19th century bordonúas that were often described in accounts of that period. But these relic "bordonúas" are not the same as those earlier namesakes.
These so-called bordonúas are cloaked in mystery: nobody really remembers how to play them, mostly because their odd stringing and string spacing arrangements seems to defy categorization. Curiously, cultural preservationists nonetheless recreated modern versions of the instrument, changing them even further from the original models. They changed them in virtually every regard: in size, shape, stringing, tuning...all in an effort to make them more accessible and easier to play for modern players. Preservation through change: a odd effort, indeed! These present day replicas, these "modern bordonúas," are quite successful on their own terms: many are beautiful in workmanship and beautiful to hear. They have even spurred several excellent players to produce beautiful recordings with them. But these newly minted instruments have very little--only superficial resemblance to the relics whose "tradition" they are supposed to be preserving.
But the curiousity doesn't end here; those old preserved relics in the collections are themselves significantly different from the bordonuas that were in existence during the century before them, the 19th century. All the bordonúa relics have up to ten doubled and single metal strings, tuned to a melodic register--they were strung to play the melody part in string bands. They also had multiple soundholes.
When we researched several old books written in the 19th century about Puerto Rican customs, what they described as bordonuas were large guitar-shaped instruments with six single (probably gut) strings. The name bordonúa itsels appears to derive from the term bordón--which since antiquity actually means "a thick, low-pitched instrument string." So it appears reasonable to conclude that an instrument with bordones be called bordonùa. Indeed, having bordones would have impated to them a deep sound--that is, deeper than the sounds of the other stringed instruments in the traditional instrumental group. We now that these lower-pitched, 6 single string bordonuas were being played around 100-150 years ago in Puerto Rico. None of them physically survive in this form today. Nobody remembers what they looked or sounded like, either, save for a glimpse of them seen in a 19th century painting.
The early-20th century surviving namesake relics are also unplayable, but we could tell from their pegs, nuts and bridges, and some of the surviving strings themselves, that they were made to be strung--not with six single large gut strings--but instead with 8-10 single and double thin gauge strings made of steel. That would have given them a bright, shiny, metallic voice. Also, the children and grandchildren of the old-timers who actually played those 20th century bordonuas insisted that they never played the lower-register accompaniment, rather, they always played the principal melody-line voice in musical groups. They also said they had never heard of them ever having six single strings, either.
This was the puzzle we faced and which confused us for 10 years: two significantly different instruments with the same name, bordonúa. And nobody ever remembering a six-string, lower-register instrument also called bordonúa, either, regardless that they were described that way in the old 19th century descriptions.
Just recently we noted two interesting details: the way the younger bordonúa relics were strung and tuned were all similar to the ancient Spanish vihuelas and later, 17th and 18th-century guitars. These were strung with eight, nine or ten strings and tuned in guitar-like intervals. And all of these were all customarily lumped together with the same name: vihuela. Coincidentally also, those present-day museum relics that came to be called bordonúas had multiple sound holes, just like the ancient Spanish vihuelas. So these so called "bordonúas" carried on them traces of the ancient Spanish vihuelas, and the tunings and stringing arrangements that recalled the later Spanish "vihuelas."
Going back to those old 19th century descriptions, they all included a mysterious fourth member of the family of Puerto Rican native instruments. There indeed existed during the nineteenth century, possibly earlier, another distinctive guitar-like native instrument called vihuela in Puerto Rico--which nobody ever talks about or even has heard about today anywhere in Puerto Rico. It's another "disappeared" or forgotten Puerto Rican stringed instrument that was once described in the Puerto Rican countryside in the 19th century texts--but is completely unknown and unheard-of in Puerto Rico today. And what do those 19th century texts say about the forgotten vihuela jíbara? They had "up to ten strings" and they played the melodic register in musical groups, groups that also included tiples, cuatros, and bordonúas in various arrangements. And that their ancient namesakes, the earlier Spanish "vihuelas" had multiple soundholes and were strung with eight, nine or ten strings in guitar-like intervals.
The only way to fit all these disparate facts together into a reasonable description of what occurred was that there actually were four native Puerto Rican instruments in the 19th century: tiple, cuatro, 6- string bordonúa and "up to ten" string vihuela. Only the tiple, cuatro and vihuela survive into the 20th century, the 6-string bordonúa disappearing at the beginning of the 20th century. The vihuela, with its multiple soundholes and ancient vihuela stringing survives into the 20th century but it's old name is forgotten and Puerto Ricans bestowed upon it the name of the extinct bordonúa. So we can conclude that in modern times 'the complete family of Puerto Rican stringed instruments consistes of the tiple, the cuatro and an instrument called a vihuela which came to be called bordonúa.
There are quite a few historical precedents for name-shifting string instruments and we found several other instruments that were called several names at once, or the same instrument with different names at different times or places, or that instruments physically changed without the old name changing--or similarly, that different instruments in different periods had the same name. In instrument history, instrument names are often fluid in this manner. In Puerto Rico there are other instances of fluid instrument names. Take the cuatro. The cuatro is named because it had four strings. A completely different instrument but with a similar usage appears in the late nineteenth century--with 10 metal strings tuned completely differently--and Puerto Ricans called THAT a cuatro too. In some places the bordonua was called a "large tiple". In Spain the name "vihuela" stuck and remained the name of different twelve, ten, nine, and eight string guitar-like instruments across the centuries.
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Alfonso Sanabria
Miguel González
Juan Pablo Rosario
Fabiola Mari Méndez Quiñones
Felita Oyola
Notas de un viejo folleto del ICPR
Yayito Maldonado
Francisco López Cruz
Manuel (Maneco) Velázquez de León (1926-2008) nació en Humacao. Se enseñó a tocar cuatro cuando jóven, y se destacó con el instrumento en eventos escolares. En el 1950 se trasladó con su familia a Nueva York, donde trabajó en una fábrica mientras mantenía su interés en el cuatro y la guitarra. Allí se une a la unión de músicos, lo que le permite ganarse la vida tocando junto a Yomo Toro, Claudio Ferrer, Nieves Quintero y Ernestina Reyes, "La Calandria", entre otros. En 1970 regresa a Puerto Rico, grabando con el sello Ansonia, ganando premios y acompañando a Joaquín Mouliert, Lito Peña, Daniel Santos, Tito Lara, y muchos otros cantantes.
Uno de los más importantes acompañantes en la historia de la música puertorriqueña, José Diáz Armengol, conocido como "Mengol" acompañó con su guitarra a los grupos y artistas más reconocidos de la historia, incluyendo a Rafael Hernández y su grupo Victoria, Manuel "Canario" Jiménez, Sexteto Pedro Flores, el Conjunto Típico Ladí, y respaldando Davilita, Johnny Rodriguez y Daniel Santos. Su carrera se proyecta a través de una larga trayectoria desde las décadas de 1920 - 1960.
Israel Berríos Castro (1927- ), pionero defensor de la música puertorri- queña y el Son cubano. Es un tesoro nacional en vida de nuestra isla. Estamos construyendo 
