page_title: Cumbia (Panama)
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Cumbia (Panama) / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: Panamanian, playing traditional Violin Español: Panameño, ejecutado el violín Folclórico
context_page_description: Cumbia is a folkloric genre and dance from Panama.
context_section_description: Panamanian musician Narciso Garay, in his book "Tradiciones y Cantares de Panamá", published in 1930, assumed that the word cumbia shares the same linguistic root of the word cumbé, dance of African origin registered in the dictionary of the Spanish language as dance of black people
  Colombian folklorist Delia Zapata Olivella in her publication of 1962, "La Cumbia: Síntesis Musical de la Nación Colombiana, Reseña Histórica y Coreográfica" (Cumbia: Musical Synthesis of the Colombian Nation, Historical and Choreographic Review) notes that the only word similar to cumbia present in the dictionary of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española, is cumbé "a dance of African origin and the musical interpretation of this dance." And that cumbes (without acute accent) is used for black people living in Bata, in Spanish continental Guinea (now Equatorial Guinea).
  The Colombian cultural researcher Jorge Villarreal Diazgranados in his article "La cumbia, el jolgorio y sobre todo el placer" (La cumbia, fun and above all pleasure), published in 1977 states:
  Cumbia viene de Cumbague y Cumbague era la personificación del cacique indígena pocabuyano, se dice que Cumbague además de tener un carácter belicoso y audaz, debía ser un excelente bebedor de maco (chicha) porque todos los de su raza eran muy borrachos y amigos del baile y la juerga.
  An English translation of the quote above would be:
  Cumbia comes from Cumbague and Cumbague was the personification of the indigenous cacique pocabuyano, it is said that Cumbague besides having a bellicose and bold character, should have been an excellent maco (chicha) drinker because all of his race were drunks who danced and played among friends.
  Musicologist and folk-researcher Guillermo Abadía Morales, in his 1977 "Compendio general de folclore colombiano" (General Compendium of Colombian folklore), says that cumbia is a shortened form of cumbancha, a word whose root is Kumba, Mandinka demonym, and adds that the Republic of the Congo was called Cumba.
  Cuban ethnologist Graciano states that the words Kumba, Kumbe and Koumbi, replacing the letter "k" for "c" (when turned into Spanish) means "drums" or "dances". He adds that cumbé, cumbia and cumba were drums of African origin in the Antilles. On the other hand, he states that cumba - kumba, African word for Bantu or Congos tribes, means "roar", "shock", "shouting", "scandal", "joy". The Panamanian folklorist Manuel Zarate adds to this theory in his "Tambor y Socavón" (Drum and Tunnel), as the root of the word cumbia. Also, for Ortiz, among congos, nkumbi is a drum.
  Regarding the word cumbé the 22nd version of the Diccionário of the Real Academia de la Lengua, published in 2001, it is recorded as "Danza de la Guinea Ecuatorial" (Dance of Equatorial Guinea) and "Son de esta danza" (Music of this dance).
  In 2006, Colombian musician and musicologist Guillermo Carbo Ronderos said that the etymology of the word cumbia is "still controversial" and that "seems to derive from the Bantu word cumbé"
caption: Panamanian musician playing folkloric cumbia.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D90", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.4.1", "Image DateTime": "2011:05:29 10:45:06", "Image Artist": "Luigi Crespo", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "938", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "16139", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/2000", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "320", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:14 00:09:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:14 00:09:18", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1370723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "847997/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "8/5", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "3/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "75", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "3494769", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[50, 50, 9/5, 9/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "50.0 mm f/1.8"}