6: As well as interviews and what ethnologists would call ‘participant observation,’ music was also essential to my research in the Gran Nayar. Here you can see a group of Náayari musicians laying down some tunes in the open air just after a fiesta. During the Revolutionary era – and still, to an extent, today – ballads known as ‘corridos’ functioned almost like newspapers in much of rural Mexico, spreading the word about important happenings, the rise and often violent fall of key local leaders, new political movements and much else of interest to a population that was largely illiterate. Today, ballads celebrating—or condemning—the paramount caciques, or telling of important battles, personal tragedies or political victories of the Revolution in the Gran Nayar, endure as popular entertainments during communal fiestas. These songs often contain key details that helped me better piece together not only the local events of the Revolution, but also the ways in which these were perceived and later remembered by the people of the Gran Nayar.