Carnival has a singular importance among the present-day indigenous festivals of Mexico, to the point that there are regions in which there is not a single remnant of Indian ceremonial music or dance which is not associated with its celebration. Such is the case, for instance, in the faldas of the Malinche in the state of Tlaxcala, as my field notes show. The bibliography pertaining to carnival is very extensive, and it is not my intention to do it justice here. I think it appropriate, however, to touch upon a few points in relation to the songs at hand. Although it is not possible to give an exact date for the entrance of Carnival in Mexico, it does seem fairly clear that its appearance was within relatively few years of the appearance of the Spaniards themselves. In the Compendio breue que tracta. . . , published in 1544 under the patronage of Fr. Juan de Zumfrraga, in the last pages there is a reference to men with masks and dressed as women dancing and leaping with lascivious and dishonest movements of the body, . . re-enacting such profane triumphs as those of the God of Love, within the Cathedral, during Mass. The author goes on to lament that such uncivilized and pagan customs should be transplanted from Europe, it being that the Indians were so favorably disposed to imitate them. This seems to be a reference to Carnival, as the vocabularies of Gilberti (Tarasco, 1558), Molina (Lengua mexicana, 1555), and Motul (Maya, c. 1590) also show, and as I shall have the opportunity of demonstrating in a forthcoming publication. It is also documented in the Gazeta de Mdxico (first and second series) that the Viceroys in New Spain were very much disturbed by the popularity of Carnival during the period from 1722 to 1738, publishing almost yearly bans on its celebration. Enrique de Olavarria y Ferrari, in his Reseffa Hist6rica del Teatro en Mexico (1961:50, 202 ff, 340, 341, and 436), gives data on the subject during the period from 1786 to 1845. It seems clear that the statement of Garcfa Cubas in his El libro de mis recuerdos (1945:308 ff) to the effect that this fiesta reached its height of popularity during the period from 1850 to 1860, is in error; and we can say that if there was any epoch in Mexico when it clearly seems to have fallen into disuse, it was in the years of political and social unrest from 1810 to 1845 (in round numbers), after which it exploded on the scene as an overt expression of pent-up energies. Of course the custom is European in origin, and I can single out only one aspect which is quite possibly of aboriginal tradition: the relationship that Carnival frequently has to the agricultural calendar of various Indian groups-among the Otomies of Hidalgo, the Tzeltales and Tzotziles of Chiapas, and the Nahuatl-speaking groups of Tlaxcala, to give a few examples extracted from my field notes. As in Europe, the celebration is associated with fertility rites. Passing now to the material at hand, the three carnival songs with which we are dealing come from the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz, and clearly are indigenous interpretations of the famous Spanish romance [ballad] of El Sefior Don Gato.