Yaqui music

Native and Spanish instruments are used including the harp, violin or fiddle, rasp (hirukiam, also kuta), drum, and rattles.

[1] The first recordings of Yaqui music, including thirteen deer songs, were made by Frances Densmore in 1922.

The dance is also accompanied by singing and instruments including water drum (representing the deer's heartbeat) and frame drum, rasp (representing the deer's breathing), gourd rattles held by the dancers (honoring the plant world), as well as the flute, fiddle, and frame harp.

The song lyrics use a way of talking which differs slightly from casual Yaqui and resembles Yaqui elders' speech in some ways, for example syllable repetition (reduplication) such as the use of yeyewe rather than yewe ("play"), or substituting /l/ for another phoneme.

[1] Deer songs also contain important terms, such as seyewailo, which may be considered archaic.