A circle-dance performed by couples among Afro-Hispanic communities of the Pacific lowlands of Colombia and Ecuador, often in the context of the currulao or chigualo rituals. Secular and Afro-Christian religious themes are sung in responsorial style by an entonadora (female leader) and respondedoras (female chorus). Instrumental accompaniment is played on reed flutes, cununas (conical drums) and guasas (rattles). Early reference to the Bambuco identify it with the bunde: individuals who participated in bundes in the mid-1700s (when the term was used as a generic name for African dance) were often censured. Its 19th-century relationship with the bambuco identified it as being played in a major mode without the melancholy character ascribed to the bambuco. Popular bunde found its way as a form into classical composition when Alberto Castilla (1830–1938), who founded the Ibagué Conservatory, composed Bunde Tolimense (Bunde of Tolima), with words by Cesáreo Rocha Castilla.
WILLIAM GRADANTE/R