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Aztec music.

The Aztecs, a Náhuatl-speaking tribe, were one of the most important Indian

groups in pre-Conquest America. According to their own tradition, the Aztecs

came into central Mexico from the northern region of Aztlan in the 12th century.

Based on a league of three cities, Mexico, Texcoco and Tlacopan, the Aztec

empire by the time of the Spanish Conquest (1521) extended as far as present-

day Central America. Approximately one million people in Mexico still speak

Náhuatl. (For Mexican Indian music, seeMEXICO, §II, 3.)

Among the pre-Conquest Aztecs, music had no independent life apart from

religious and cult observances. A professionalized caste controlled public musical

manifestations and training of an extremely rigid kind was prerequisite to a career

in music. Since music was always thought of as a necessary adjunct to ritual,

absolutely flawless performances were demanded, such as only the most highly

trained singers and players could give. Imperfectly executed rituals were thought

to offend rather than to appease the deities, so that errors in the performances of

ritual music, such as missed drumbeats, carried the death penalty. Singers and

players enjoyed considerable social prestige and in certain cases exemption from

tribute payments, because of the important role music played in Aztec life.

Despite this prestige, however, the names of musicians have not survived; neither

have the names of poets, unless the poet belonged to royalty such as King

Nezahualcóyotl (1402–72) of Texcoco.

Music was regarded as essentially a means of communal rather than individual

expression, and therefore collectively performed music rather than solo music

was the norm. Instrumental performance and singing were always inseparable,

as were dance and music, insofar as can be judged from the descriptions of

Aztec musical performances bequeathed by Spanish 16th-century chroniclers.

Certain instruments were thought to be of divine origin, and the teponaztli (slit-

drum with two tongues played with mallets) and huéhuetl (single-headed upright

cylindrical drum open at the bottom, played with bare hands) were held to be gods

temporarily forced to endure earthly exile. The teponaztli(into which the blood of

sacrificed victims was poured at royal accessions) and the huéhuetl were

therefore often treated as idols. Not only were certain instruments thought to have

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mana(mysterious supernatural powers) but they were also held to represent

symbolically such emotional states as joy, delight or sensual pleasure.

Aztec music communicated states of feeling that apparently even the Spaniards

could grasp and appreciate, whereas much of the Indian traditional music north of

Mexico meant nothing to European ears. In many instances Aztec music seems

to have communicated the same emotion to Indian and European listeners alike.

Thus a lament, as composed by an Aztec priest-musician, was sad not only in

the opinion of the Indians who heard and understood it, but also in the opinion of

Spaniards unfamiliar with the Náhuatl language. Every piece of music was

composed for a certain time, place and occasion, so that a musician needed a

wide repertory if he was to satisfy the demands of the different days in the 260-

day religious calendar.

Although the calmécac (priest's seminary) at the Aztec capital served as a

national conservatory and by 1450 was (according to Diego Durán, Historia de las

Indias de Nueva-España, Mexico, 1867–80) the model for similar training

institutes in surrounding municipalities, the Aztecs themselves lacked any system

of music notation; if they had one, it was kept secret from Europeans. Any

reconstructions of Mexican pre-Conquest music are therefore largely conjectural,

based on the possibilities of surviving instruments in museums, verbal

descriptions by Spanish 16th-century chroniclers and the contemporary sounds

of Indian traditional music recorded in outlying areas.

Aztec musicians needed prodigious memories. Musicians not only learnt

traditional songs but also composed new ones. Creative ability was prized,

especially in the households of those powerful caciques who were able to employ

singers to compose ballads telling of their exploits. Court music, at least in the

Aztec and Tarascan neighbouring kingdoms, differed as much from the music of

the maceualli (peasant classes) as did court speech from the vernacular Náhuatl

and Purépecha spoken by the common people of those kingdoms.

Although Aztec music was predominantly percussive (string instruments were a

European importation), the Aztecs had acute pitch sense and tuned with

considerable care their various idiophones: ayacachtli, áyotl,cacalachtli,

chichuaztli, chililitli (caililiztli), coyolil,omichicahuaztli, tecomapiloa, teponaztli,

tetzilácatl; aerophones: atecocoli (atecuculli), chichtli, çoçoloctli,huilacapitztli,

quiquiztli, tecciztli (tecziztli, tezizcatli),tepuzquiquiztli, tlapitzalli; and

membranophones: huéhuetl, tlapanhuéhuetl. (For descriptions and pictures of

these instruments, see Stevenson, 1988.) Bold, assertive qualities such as

loudness, clarity and high pitch were preferred by players and singers alike. This

crying aloud to their gods served their purpose even when the common people

danced (as is still done by indigenous peoples of Mexico) to do penance.

The pre-Conquest Aztecs frequently inscribed their instruments with carvings that

tell symbolically the purposes served by their instruments. For instance, the

various carvings on the Malinalco huéhuetl (seeillustration [not available online]),

an upright drum about 90 cm tall, in the Museo de Arqueología, Toluca, show a

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group of captured warriors being forced to dance to music of their own making

just before having their hearts torn out and waved aloft as offerings to the war god

Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs, who burst into the Valley of Mexico to found

Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) around 1325, borrowed heavily from the organography

of earlier cultures in the extensive territories stretching south to present-day El

Salvador, which they conquered during the next two centuries. To the European

conquerors, the instruments used by Aztecs, Tarascans, Otomís, Zapotecs,

Mixtecs and Mayas greatly resembled each other, with only the names differing in

the respective aboriginal languages. In none of these languages do 16th-century

lexicographers record a single generic term for music, coming nearest to it in

Alonso de Molina's Arte de la lengua Mexicana (Mexico, 1571) with cuica

tlamatiliztli (‘knowledge of singing’). Neither did Náhuatl have any single term for

‘musician’ or ‘player’ but numerous nouns meaning ‘player on the huéhuetl’,

‘player on the teponaztli’, ‘flute player’ and ‘trumpet player’. The Aztec language

also included numerous verbs with such varied specific meanings as ‘to sing in

praise of someone’, ‘to sing derisive songs’, ‘to sing tenderly’, or ‘to sing in a high

voice’ (see also MEXICO,§II, 1).

The teponaztli is still in use among the Náhuatl-speaking people of middle and

western Mexico. In the town of Pómaro-Michoacán near the Pacific coast, the

Náhuatl-speaking people call this instrumentteponahuastle (a hollowed tree trunk

played in a horizontal position), used to announce Christian ceremonies such as

the beginning of the Holy Week pilgrimage and the call to Mass during other

Christian festivities. Teponahuastleis very often accompanied by a church bell.

The huéhuetl is still in use in the valley of Puebla and Tlaxcala among Náhuatl-

and Otomí-speaking people to announce the Christian Mass and the beginning of

patron saint celebrations. In this region,huéhuetl is one of the instruments of an

ensemble called conjunto azteca which includes a snare drum and a pair of

chirimías(double-reed aerophone).

Huéhuetl and teponaztli are played together in particular ensembles to

accompany conchero dances (dances with armadillo-shell guitars and conch

shells). The contemporary performance of this dance resembles Aztec dances

but with clear syncretism of Christian influences: it takes place on 12 December

in honour of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City, and in some other festivities in

Chalma, central Mexico.

The Aztec legacy as regards the use of the huéhuetl and teponaztliis clear, but

there was also a process of acculturation with Spanish musical traditions that

began in the early 16th century. This process changed the values and world-view

of the Aztec people and transformed their music significantly. New European

instruments and concepts of music and Christian cultural values were adopted by

emergent musical ensembles among Náhuatl-speaking people in Veracruz and

Michoacán. One example is the music for the allegorical dances about La

Malinche, the Amerindian woman who was Hernán Cortés's interpreter.

Performed by Náhuatl-speaking people in Acayucan and Pajapan-Veracruz, these

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dances are accompanied by jaranas (small five-string guitars), diatonic harp (12

or 28 strings) and rattles made of thin metal plates. The La Malinche dance is

performed in honour of the Virgin of Guadalupe on 12 December and of San Isidro

Labrador between 14 and 17 May. Another example is the music to accompany

the cuauileros dance (the cudgelers' dance) among the Náhuatl-speaking people

from Pómaro, Aguila, Coire, Ostula and Maruata in the Pacific Ocean region of

Michoacán. The performance of this dance represents a battle between Aztecs

and Spaniards and is accompanied by small harps of 28 strings and a violin.

Dancers perform with rattles made of thin metal plates and wooden cudgels.

Cuauilerosare performed in honour of St Anthony on 13 June.

Bibliography

F.W. Galpin: ‘Aztec Influence on American Indian Instruments’, SIMG, iv (1903–4),

661–70

L.M. Spell: ‘Music and Instruments of the Aztecs: the Beginning of Musical

Education in North America’, Music Teachers National Association: Proceedings,

xxi (1926), 98–105

F.H. Martens: ‘Music in the Life of the Aztecs’, MQ, xiv (1928), 413–37

R. Lach: ‘Die musikalischen Konstruktionsprinzipien der altmexikanischen

Tempelgesänge’,Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge: Festschrifi für Johannes Wolf,

ed. W. Lott, H. Ostoff and W. Wolffheim (Berlin, 1929/R), 88–96

D. Castañeda: ‘Los teponaztlis en las civilizaciones precortesianas’; ‘Los

percutores precortesianos’; ‘Los huehuetls en las civilizaciones precortesianas’,

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Xochipzahua’,Revista mexicana de sociologia, iv/4 (1942), 87

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Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007 — 2014.

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Robert Stevenson/Arturo Chamorro