Song to the Divine is a four-hundred-year-old peasant ritual music tradition from central Chile, long sustained in rural communities and largely hidden from urban life. Recently, Mississippi Records released a compelling compilation of field recordings made by Chilean anthropologists Danilo Petrovich and Daniel González. Magik Circles speaks with Danilo Petrovich about the cultural legacy, resistance, and sonic richness of this remarkable tradition.
In 1983, I was in secondary school when I visited the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art (Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino) in Santiago for the first time. I had a homework assignment about the music of Chile’s first inhabitants — the Indigenous peoples. I became instantly fascinated by the museum’s colonial building, designed by Italian architect Joaquín Toesca y Ricci, as well as its permanent collection and library.
I still remember my second visit as vividly as it happened yesterday. That’s when I met ethnomusicologist José Pérez de Arce, who explained to me that Chile has more than 15,000 years of missing history — entire artistic and cultural legacies that had been silenced or lost. That realization blew my mind. I began to study the different cultural periods, their now-extinct languages (around fourteen) and became deeply engaged with the question of how these people and their traditions continue to survive today.
Soon after, I discovered Bailes Chinos, a living music and dance tradition still practised in Chile’s Central Zone, with roots in the Aconcagua culture that dates back to the 10th century. While Bailes Chinos has deep Indigenous origins, I also learned about Canto a lo Divino (Song to the Divine), which comes from the same region but grew out of the Chilean Creole peasant culture — a product of the Spanish colonial era.
Canto a lo Divino is performed during rural rituals, especially to mark the premature death of children and babies. In these gatherings, families invite cantores (singers) to sing until dawn. The lyrics are based on stories from the Old and New Testaments, as well as popular 19th-century songbooks like Lira Popular and Literatura de Cordel.
This tradition is closely connected to Canto a lo Poeta (Song to the Poet) and Canto a lo Humano (Song to the Human), which use the same poetic form — the décima, a 10-line stanza with eight syllables per line. The songs are typically accompanied by Spanish guitar or the Guitarrón Chileno, a plucked string instrument unique to Chile with 24 to 26 strings, including four “diablitos” — single strings outside the neck.
Despite its Christian themes, Canto a lo Divino has long existed on the margins of the Church — tolerated by some, welcomed by a few open-minded priests, but never fully embraced. In recent decades, however, the Chilean government has recognized this practice as part of the nation’s intangible cultural heritage.
Anthropologists Danilo Petrovich and Daniel González have been documenting this living tradition through recordings and film, preserving it as an arte de la memoria — an art of memory. Their work can be explored at the Museo Campesino en Movimiento (MUCAM).
Magik Circles interview Danilo Petrovich, broadcast by Resonance FM, Clear Spot, 19th & 20th May 2025 at 8.00PM.
For more info, visit:
MUCAM
Soundcloud
Mississippi Records
Honest Jon’s
Magik Circles 