THE MUSIC OF INDIAN MEXICO

Abstract

ENERALLY speaking, Mexican arts are the product of Spanish influence on an Indian foundation so much of Indian influence on a Spanish foundation. In pre-Conquest times the arts, like every other manifestation of life, were subordinated to religion and put to almost exclusively ritual uses. It was this fact that led the Spaniards to destroy them utterly and wipe even their memory from men's minds, a task they accomplished with astonishing efficiency, considering the number of forms artistic expression had taken. Most of all, music and dance seem to have been devoted to religious ends. The chroniclers of the Conquest, principally Sahagfin and Torquemada are very perfunctory in their mentions of the music that accompanied the dances, although they describe these last more fully. Some dances were performed to an instrumental accompaniment, others, including the Great Round Dance of Tenochtitlan, to the chanting of ancient poems and historical ballads, two singers intoning a verse and all responding in chorus. Good composers were much appreciated, and Netzahualcoyotl, the 15thcentury King of Texcoco, instituted in his domains an Academy of Music, which was an all-powerful arbiter in the arts and sciences. Nevertheless, Torquemada makes it clear that this music was both rudimentary and monotonous, variety being apparently sought by raising the pitch and increasing the tempo the dance went on as one might change from a bass to an alto and from a grave dance to a lively contrapds. The instruments on which an old Mexican could play included drums, trumpets, and flutes, which were not very well tuned, or he could whistle through small but very resonant bones. One of the drawings in the Florentine Codex that illustrates Sahagfin's immortal work, shows two musicians, one playing a drum and the other a gourd rattle, with scrolls issuing from their mouths, clearly intended to represent song, like the words in a comic-strip drawing. Although the nature of Aztec court-music will never be definitely established, it is very doubtful whether the Indians were more a