Rasqueado is a regional style of music and dance from the Brazilian Midwest, more precisely in the Metropolitan Region of Cuiabá, where the capital of the state of Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, is located. The folkloric rhythm of the rasqueado and its respective dance — also striking in cities and riverside regions of the Paraguai River Basin such as Cáceres, Barra do Bugres and Corumbá (today in Mato Grosso do Sul) —, still very present in the popular culture of the riverside of Cuiabana, received influence of the Paraguayan polka — when Paraguayan prisoners were confined on the right bank of the Cuiabá River, today a municipality of Várzea Grande, during the Paraguayan War — and the siriri from Mato Grosso. From this contact between the refugees and the riverside population and the mixture of the Paraguayan guitar with the viola-de-cocho, the rasqueado would emerge.
