Maraca

Maracas ( pronunciation ), sometimes called rumba shakers and various other names, are percussion musical instruments—rattles—that originated in Latin America. They are classified as idiophones. Players hold them by their handles, usually in pairs, and shake them. Traditional maracas consist of hollow balls made from dried gourd shell (cuia "koo-ya") or coconut shell filled with seeds or dried beans and mounted on a wooden handle. Modern maraca balls are also made of leather, wood, or plastic.

They are known in Trinidad, Dominica and the French Antilles as shac-shacs.

Maracas appear in many forms of Caribbean and Latin music—and also in pop and classical music. They are characteristic, for example, of the music of Haiti,Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Dominica, the French Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Brazil.

Maracas, also known as Tamaracas, were rattles of divination, an oracle of the Brazilian Tupinamba Indians, found also on the Orinoco and in Florida. Maracas were made of a fruit so called, which resembles a gourd, and is capable of containing about three pints in its cavity. This is fixed upon a handle; human hair is sometimes fastened on the top, and a slit is cut in it to represent a mouth, through which their jugglers, whom they call Payes, make it utter its responses. A few pebbles are inserted to make it rattle, and it is crowned with the red feathers of the Goaraz. Every man had his Maraca. It was used at their dances, and to heal the sick.