The musical bow, or chapareque, is a chordophone used by the Rarámuri, Comca'ac (Seri), and Yoreme (Yaqui and Mayo) peoples. This instrument is made from a dried maguey or sotol flower stalk and is fitted with a small wooden bridge, two or three wooden tuning pegs, and metal strings arranged longitudinally, which are plucked with the right hand. The instrument ranges from 60 centimeters to one meter in length. The musician, generally a man, holds it horizontally and uses his mouth as a resonating chamber. Its timbre is clear, and its sound is relatively soft.
Information concerning the origin of the chapareque is scarce and somewhat uncertain. Some have proposed a pre-Hispanic origin, while others suggest that it represents a borrowing from Afro-descendant cultures. Beyond assigning it to one tradition or another, the Rarámuri know that this instrument belongs to primordial times, when the solar deity Onorúame, “He Who Is Father,” gave it to humankind in order to preserve cosmic balance and maintain communication with the divine realm.
Today, the chapareque is gradually falling into disuse in favor of the guitar or violin, a change that carries important cosmological implications. According to local accounts, the neglect suffered by the Rarámuri people is an expression of God's displeasure at the silence of his instrument.
In community memory there still remains the earlier use of the instrument in ceremonies associated with deer hunting, agriculture, the life cycle, and healing practices. Over time, however, its use has shifted toward more recreational contexts. The chapareque appears within the dance-musical framework of the matachines instruments and pascola dancers, common in civil and religious festivities such as Holy Week. The chordophone may also be accompanied by the violin.