MUSIC IN THE LIFE OF THE AZTECS

By FREDERICK H. MARTENS
THE AZTECS
THE seven tribesof the Aztecs,like the Israelitesof old,
came "out of the wilderness." They came fromthe north,
fromAztlan, "a land of famineand death," towardthe end
of the eleventhcentury,and overspreadthe fertilevalleys of the
terrestrialparadise of Anahuac, the present-dayvalley of Mexico.
A fiercewarriorrace, their Moses was the god Huitzilipochtli,
born of the virgin Coatlicue, whose voice, sounding from the
recesses of his holy ark, directed their wanderingsbeneath the
crystal skull-domeof the sky. The Aztec invaders assimilated
the culture of Toltec and Maya predecessors,graftingmany of
its refinements on their own savage stock, and in time produced
a civilizationrichin beauty, individualand fantastic.
When the City on the Lagoons, Mexico-Tenochtitlan,was
foundedin 1325,it was a mereclusterofhuts. When Montezuma
I, the greatesttlatohuanior kingthe Aztecs everhad, died in 1469,
the magnificentGreat Temple or teocalliof the war-godHuitzili-
pochtli rose above a sea of houses and palaces; the Aztec sway
extendedfarbeyondthe valley plateau of its origin;and the kings
and caciquesof manylands paid himfeudalhomage. Montezuma
II, in 1519, when Cortez landed in Mexico, had changed his title
fromking to emperor,he was addressed like the Akhaemenian
kings of Persia, as hueitlatoani,"Lord of Lords," and the Aztec
bannershad been carriedto the furthestprovinceson the Mexican
Gulf, to distant Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. Over
practicallyall those Indian races whose one hundredand eighty-
two idioms representas many tribes, the Aztec monarch ruled.

THE GODS OF ANAHUAC

The Aztec culture complex, however, was weighed with
religiousinhibitionsof the stone age. The gods of Aztec myth-
ology harked back to savage creative instinctsmillionsof years
old, when the firstReindeer Men passed over the edge of the
Asian world to the Americancontinentby the land bridge which
thenoccupied the BehringStraits. "The dim sketchwhichis the
413

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414 The Musical Quarterly
basis of all ethics" in early man, in the case of the Aztecs had
followedthose aleatory laws which determinemores,and had in
the fulness of time blossomed out in a pantheon of divinities
representinga mixtureof sanity and extravagance,of the noble,
horribleand grotesque.
AndrewLang has well said "A less lovely set of Olympians
to conceive,"and in the character
than the Aztec gods it is difficult
of most of the purely Aztecan divinitieslurks somethingof the
cold, unmoralcrueltyof the pre-historic savage, "a thingwiththe
brain and heart of an alligator yet fashioned after God's own
image." Even the earth as a whole was deifiedby the Aztecs as
a monster,as Biart puts it, "provided with mouths at every
articulation-mouthsfilledwithblood."
High above the threehundredodd gods ofthe Aztec pantheon
(not countingthe "four hundredgods of pulque" and countless
Rabbit-gods of fertility),was God Teotl, the supreme sun-god.
But thoughprayerswere chanted in his honorfourtimes by day
and by night,Tonatiuh,the Sun, had no templeand no sacrifices.
The Aztecs had found him ruling the Toltec skies when they
reached Anahuac, and though they honored him in song, their
own specificsun-gods, Huitzilipochtli,"Hair of the Sun," the
Hummingbird-god, who ruled the heavens in springand summer,
and Tezcatlipoca,the ShiningMirror,the wintersun-god,absorbed
Tonatiuh's sacrifices.
In the Aztecan cities,beside the templesof theirown deities
rose those of the gods of subject tribesand peoples, also honored
and sung. For the Aztecs were a tolerantpeople. Their gods,
none of whom said, "Thou shalt have no other gods but me,"
were liberal-mindeddeities. The flood of sacred song which
poured continuallyfromthe teocallisof the Aztecan citiesmingled
amiably in a universalhymnof worship,no matterhow addressed
individually. The Tarascans gave one of theirgods "the bum's
rush" out ofhis heaven because he was an habitual drunkard,but
on earth no Aztec dreamt of destroyingchoristersbecause they
were chanting the glory of some divinity Toltec, Totonac,
Chichemec,Huaztec, Miztec or Zapotec.
In Tenochtitlanthe church-music of Huitzilipochtliflourished
at the expense of that of Quetzalcoatl, a Toltec god who came
firstin the hearts of the Cholulans, Aztecan subjects; but those
who worshippedQuetzal were not persecuted. Aztec theologians
did not ask the subject Tepanecans to revise theirritual chants
and delete those in honorof Xiutecutli,the "Old, Old Fire God,"
whose black-green-yellow image was dear to their hearts; nor did

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 415

the high-priestof Mexico quarrel with the Zapotecan high-priest

anent the canonical musicof the latter'stempleservice. Latitude
in preferentialworshipof any one god went hand in hand with
obligatoryreverencefor all the gods, thoughthe circle of tolera-
tion was banded by inescapable rituals of which music was the
chief means of expression. The worshipof the gods lived from
chant to chant, was upborne on the airs of Anahuac in a linked
chain of devotionalsingingwhichneverceased.
Its traditionsgained in power as they aged. Huitzilipochtli,
when he had ascended into heaven afterdirectingthe wanderings
of the Aztec hordesfromhis ark, had leftbehind a crude wooden
image of himself,painted blue, and this was esteemedmore holy
than all later images wroughtin stone. Similarly the ancient
ritual chants in the archaic Nahua idiom were consideredmore
potent than the new ones by the omnetochtli, composersof festival
hymns forthe recurringtemple celebrations.
In these chants the rude and melancholyimaginationof the
race expresseditselfin exacerbant music, priests singing,drums
beating in complicate rhythms,thousands of dancers circling
around a central point, slowly,then with increasingspeed until
they whirled"like a sun of many colors, torn into a spiral, like
a star newlyborn."
This dance, like its music,was neversecular; it was not culti-
vated as an art, but performedas a rite. And these festivalsall
inculcated a sense of the merelyrelative value of the individual
human life. They stressed the blood-thirstof the gods, which
must be appeased, and tribalunityin the blood-soul-human and
divine-common to mostAmerinds. An idea of what thesethings
meant to the Aztecs helps remove theirmusic, like theirmorals,
from the realm of the purely fantastic to the comparatively
sane.

THE LILY OF MICTLAN

Once the lily was grey and odorless. Then Mictlan-Teculi,

the Lord of Death, dipped it in the dark stream which flows
throughhis land of shadows, and it turned into the fragrant,
flowerthat rose along the lagoons of Tenochtitlan.
silver-glistening
Yet in the fulnessof its bloom it must returnto Mictlan-Teculi,
forin the end all that whichis beautifulmust returnto the Lord
of Death. So runsthe Aztec legend.

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416 The Musical Quarterly

Like the Mexican lily, the curiouslybeautifulcivilizationof

the Aztecs,compact of animalismand spirituality,tendernessand
blood-lust,delicate refinement and matter-of-factgrossness,poetic
sensitivenes and cannibal piety, has returnedto Mictlan, the
domain of all vanished loveliness. Four hundred years have
passed since the Aztecan empire perished; not witheringon the
sapless stalk like othercyclesof culture,but lopped in full flower.
In its externals,in any event,it can know no renascence.
Yet fourhundredyears afterthe Conquest the descendants
of the multipleIndian tribeswhichmade up the Aztecan empire
continue to breed true to race; and even the mestizos,the half-
breeds,revertto the stronger,darkerIndian blood strain. D. H.
Lawrence declares, "there is some Indian quality whichpervades
the whole. . . . And all the effortsof white men to bring the
soul of the dark men of Mexico into final clinched being, has
resultedin nothingbut the collapse of the whiteman." The lily
of Mexico resistshybridization;it evades the influenceof a foreign
pollen. Similarlythe Mexican revertsto ancient type, his vision
is introspective,as was that of his ancestors.

THE INDIAN BLOOD-SOUL

This "Indian quality" ofthe Mexican is a biologicinheritance,
the instinctiveclingingto primitivebelief in the "blood-soul."
All humanity,in the evolution toward a higher development,
strives for a mystic union with God, with the Divine. The
furtherit ascends in this directionthe more spiritualbecome its
revelations. But the Indian tribesof CentralAmerica,in general,
and the Aztecs in particular,while the externalsof theirciviliza-
tion took on rich and varied formsof material beauty, were in
essence primordial. They responded only to the urges of the
"blood-soul"; the "spirit-soul," speaking by and large, did not
exist forthem.
It was music, evanescent and volatile, passing away in the
moment of expression,yet ever renewed in it, which bound
togetherwithits liquid tonal cementthe elaborate ritual,musical
and terpsichorean,in whichthe Aztec priesthoodhad crystallized
the worshipof theirgods. The importanceof music in Aztecan
lifewas due to the fact that Aztecan life,religiouslyspeaking,was
"through-composed."Aztec polytheismprovideddivinecausation,
rule and regulationfor every detail of existence,fromthe cradle
to the grave and beyond. Even folk-melody-lullaby, war-song
or occupational ballad-did not escape the religious inflection.

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 417
All the business of life moved within a frameworkof minutely
prescribedritual acts and festival observances, in which music
and the dance were linked withimpressivedisplay.
The Chinese in their evolutionaryprocess made their most
definitestop at that specificfeatureof the "ghost-cult,"knownas
ancestor worship,common to all pre-historichumanity; and for
all theyhave progressedbeyond it in Taoism and Buddhism,it is
still the idea which dominates the race. Among the Aztecs, the
cult of the blood-abhorringgod Quetzalcoatl representsonly a
minor,partial spiritualascent. They made redemptionthrough
blood and human sacrificethe point of emphasis, and centered
their cult around them. Blood-sacrificebecame the outstanding
featureof the Aztec religion,and its chants and hymns,like our
own Christianones (thoughthesedwellon the blood ofredemption
only in a figurativesense) werefullof it.
In Mexico the Aztec priests controlledall education, songs
and prayers,music and dance, painting,national legend,religious
dogma, medicine,conjuration,the drawing of ideographicsigns
and of phonetic hieroglyphics;and Ratzel's statement "Where
religionis the whole of immateriallife, it means that all intel-
lectual life is frozenfast," is admirably illustratedby Aztecan
culture. In vain the gentlerhymns sung by the quaquiles, the
Toltecan monks of Quetzalcoatl, the "Green-FeatheredSerpent"
god of the Toltecs, who repudiatedhuman sacrifice,soughtto free
the souls of the men of Anahuac fora new gospel of lightand joy.
They were overpoweredby the thunderof the great snake-skin
drums,the wewetlsof Huitzilipochtliand Tezcatlipoca, the gods
of war and fate, the drinkersof blood, whose music whirledthe
Aztecs "back to . . . a bygone cycle of humanity . . . the oldest,
darkestrecessesof the soul," a soul that dwelt in the pulse of the
body's vital tide, the "red jewel-water."
For the same Aztecs who reveredQuetzalcoatl as the Azure
Planet, worshippedTezcatlipoca as the breath of life personified.
And forthe Aztecs the breath of life,in Lawrence's words,harked
back to "the innermost,far-off place of the human core, the ever-
present,where there is neitherhope nor emotion,but passion sits
withfoldedwingson the nest and faithis a tree of shadow."

AZTEC "COMMUNITY MUSIC"

Since, aside fromgreatersacred celebrations,everytwentieth
Aztec day was a festivalday, and all Aztec life in generalwas mu-
sically ritualized, the ritual symphony was practically concurrent

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418 The Musical Quarterly

with their existence: they lived their music and religion to an

extentwe can hardlyrealize.
In our days the "community"no longerexists eitherin the
medievalor in the Aztec sense. Nor can it wellbe revivedsocially
or artistically,in spite of the hue and cry of those devoted to the
revival of communitypageantry, of communitymusic and of
communityart. The Aztec cult ruled Aztec life to a far greater
degree than the medieval ChristianChurch influencedthe Chris-
tian community.
That vast truncatedpyramid,the Great Temple of Mexico,
with twin towers like Notre-Dame, loomed above the city of
Tenochtitlanas a Gothic minsterovershadoweda medieval town,
and among some two thousand other teocallis,"houses of God,"
threehundredand sixtyrearedtowersto the sky. The enormous
numberof Aztec priests,whose elaborate hierachywas headed by
two supremepontiffs,of whom the High Priest was the head of
religionthroughoutthe empire,followedideals of asceticism;and
so intimatelyand indissolubly were the aims of royalty and
religionidentifiedthat therewereno clashes of authoritybetween
kingsand pontiffs like thoseoccurringbetweenpopes and emperors
of the Middle Ages.
Aztec communitieswere unifiedin religiousbelief,life habit
and social tradition: therewas no roomforschism,and the emperor
and kingsof Mexico sharedin the reverencepaid the gods.
The modern"communityfestival" and pageant has nothing
in common with either the great Aztec ritual spectacles or the
medieval mysteries. Both of these last representeda single-
minded fusing of collective devotional spirit. Aside from the
factthat the moderncommunityitselfis a pseudomorph,it is not
even artisticallyunified,to say nothingofreligionsunity. A more
or less collectiveeffortmotivatedby sociallyor financiallyimpor-
tant groupsforcesa "pageant" or otherart drivetemporarilyover
the so-called "community"top.
Of that propaganda of verbal idealism, often camouflaging
ulteriorpersonal or commercialmotivesin modern"community"
art endeavor,the Aztecs were happily ignorant. The only axes
their song leaders had to grind were sacrificialknives, and their
communitymusic was a spontaneousexpressionof genuinecom-
munityfeeling. It did not (as is so oftenthe case in our own
civilization)representthegalvanicululationsofan exhumedcorpse.
The greatsacral festivalsof the Roman Churchin Catholic lands;
the "revival" meetingin purelyMethodistsettlements;the relig-
ious springtideorgies of Africanblacks and Australian "black

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 419

fellars" (though theirangles of approach differ)offerthe nearest

comparisonsto the sacred communitycelebrationsof the Aztecs.
Lucien Biart says: "The music of the Aztecs was unworthy
of so cultivated a people. . . . Drums, flutes,even conch-shells
accompanied the hymns,sung in the temples,whichwerechanted
in a sing-songmanner fatiguingto European ears." But "un-
worthiness"in music,as in otherthings,is a purelyrelativeterm.
Expressingthe Indian ideal of "the old, terribleblood-unisonof
man," Aztec music united the emperor,whose tributarykings
carried his litter barefoot,and the breech-cloutedtlamama who
acted as a porterin Tenochtitlan'sstreetsor as a stevedoreon its
wharves. The term"unworthy"does not apply to a music which
expressedits makers'grouppsychologywithan intensityChristian
liturgicmusic to-day seems to fail to convey.
It was non-harmonicmelodically,but not rhythmically;and
it had to the full what Natalie Curtis has definedas the most
distinctivecharacteristicof New World music,"a rhythmicpulsa-
tion of the voice on sustained notes somewhat analogous to the
effectproduced on the violin when the same note is sounded
several times during one stroke of the bow." The melodies it
hatched fromthe nest of rhythmwere brief,reiteratetunes of a
five-tonescale. Its orchestrasknew nothingof the stringtone,
and this spiritual tonal element which lends a loftierpsychic
quality to the chant developed out of the incantationalcry and
the biologic rhythmof the drums was lacking in Aztec materia
musica.
Yet, thoughin its deploy of massed choruses and wind en-
emblesAztec musicclungto the unisonmelodyof the tribalhorde,
it drew finedistinctionsbetween the sonoritiesof its percussives,
monkey-,puma- and human-skindrums and the teponastli,a
varietyof xylophone"whose sound" Carmargo,on the evidenceof
his own ears,tells us "may be heard at a distanceof half-a-league,
blendingwiththenotesofthedrumin a strangeand softharmony."
In the Aztec communityfestivals drumming,dancing and
singing were combined in a free counterpointof independent
rhythms. This, like all other Indian ritual music, was not an
outer reflectionof life,but an integralcause. The drumwas the
instrumentand song (vocal and instrumental)the substance of
its form,and, like the dance, not alone the expressionof the
Indian soul, but the bridgeover whichit crossedfromthe known
to the unknowable.
In the ritualdance as in theirmusicthe Aztecs acknowledged
the inspirationalpsychologyof numbers,three to fourthousand

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420 The Musical Quarterly
dancers (irrespectiveof musicians) takingpart in the great ritual
dance-festivals.1 Lawrence has admirably given the "feel" of
these elaborate performancesin which color actual (brilliantly
painted faces, gorgeousfeather-costumes and head-dresses)color
in rhythmicmovement,and color in tone were directlyapplied in
theold,barefooted,absorbeddancingoftheIndians,thedanceofdown-
ward-sinkingabsorbtion . . . the dance of the Aztecs and Zapotecs and
Huicholes . . . indigenous to America; the curious, silent, absorbed
dance of softly-beating
feetand ankles,the body comingdownsoftly
but withdeep weightuponpowerful kneesand ankles,to the treadof
the earth . . . the womensteppingsoftlyin unison .
This dancing,carried along on vast tides of unison sound-
boy and girlchoirs,deep-voicedpriestlychoruses,drumshighand
low, tenor flutesand bass conches-continually recurring,deeply
cherished,expressed a communityfeeling,an emotion spiritual
and racial, single-mindedpast question. Only if we can imagine
the savage minglingofthrobbingwind-tones(clay ocarinawhistles,
trumpetsof copper and silver, flutesof bone, reed and crystal)
with the pulsing of the human chorus, a mass of sound floating
on the varied rhythmicground-bassesof the percussivesand the
dance-beat, can we grasp what one enthusiastfor this vanished
civilization meant when he cried: "Tenochtitlan is a bloodied
and desecrated tapestry over which the Spaniards swarmed
insatiate! . . They seized its beauty and it died."

RITUAL SACRIFICE AND MUSIC

In the interestsof compressionwe may sum up the Aztecan

rituallifesymphonyin fourmovements,each of whichis a specific
developmentof the theme of redemptionby blood. The Aztec
babe entered life to the war-whooputtered by the midwifeto
show that its motherhad borneherhourof travail like a hero and
had "captured a prisoner,"i. e., the child. Its own firstwails
were drowned by a magic chant to avert ill luck. Yet the
religiousmortalityof infantsin Anahuac was high,for a certain
proportionamong those who escaped the diseases to whichchild
is heir,fellvictim to the belief that Tlaloc, the god of rain and
demandedinfantsacrifice.
fertility,
The green emerald,the chalchihuitl, was sacred to this deity,
who presided over the lovely subterranean water-paradise of
Tlalocan. Yet his reputed fondnessfor the "red jewel" (as the
1Probably the only dance of the kind unaccompanied by music was in honor of
Tetoinnan, the earth goddess, which female physicians and midwives danced in utter
silence.

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 Music in the Life ofthe Aztecs 421

Aztecs euphuisticallytermed the human heart) of children,led

parents to sufferthem to be laid upon his altars with real satis-
faction: theirpassing redeemedthe familycrops fromdanger of
draught,and the childrencould look forwardto a happy hereafter.
The families of death-fatedAztec children accompanied them
to the altar singingand dancing,and the morebitterlythe little
victims wept, the better were the prospects of bringingin the
sheaves at harvesttime.
It should be said that most Aztec childrenhad a pleasanter
festivalin store. The tocoztlispringfeast of greetingto the new
seed was also known as the "Festival of Child Drunkenness."
Let the reader stiflehis cry of horror. Motivation is everything
in life, and this festival was an importantmusical ritual. It is
true that the Aztec weddingguest was allowed to drink his fill
if he kept it modestlyhidden frompublic view, and the gilded
youth of Montezuma's Tenochtitlanwere not roundedup by the
Aztecan police. Ordinarily,however,drunkennessin adults was
punishedby death and womeninebriateswerestoned.
But religiousintoxicationis well-nighas old as the human
race. Boys and girls of twelve,childrenof the poor and middle
classes, danced on theirsacred May-day in the public squares of
the Aztec cities,to the sound of drum,fluteand sacred song, and
"this orgyof the unripesymbolizedNature, youngand immature,
in Spring." As theydanced "until theyweredrunkenand shame-
less," handing each other bowls of octli-wine,fromwhose foam
rose a flower,theydid so witha sense of keepingholy the sabbath
day. While the little commonersblock-dancedin the street,the
childrenof princelyand noble familiesdanced beforethe Emperor
Montezuma,in one of the countlesscourtsof his great tecpan,his
palace of pink stone.
Let him who would be the firstto cast a stone at these chil-
dren rememberthat theirchurch1expresslyprescribedthat they
make the acquaintance of the Dionysiac motivethus early in life,
and practically experience the deep interconnectionbetween
musicaland alcoholicexaltationwhichis notconfinedto the Aztecs.

'Be it said that the Aztec clergy was reputed for its sobriety. Even the three
hundred and three pabas or priests of Tezcatzoncatl, god of wine (also known as Teot-
lahuiani, "He Who Submerges" or, as we mightsay, god Blotto) on theirdeity's festival,
afterthey had chanted a long ritual in his honor and their throats may well have been
dry, rose to heroic heights of abstinence. The three hundred and three gathered
about a huge jar of agave-wine on the god's altar. In it were three hundred and three
reeds-but only one of them was hollow! The priest who secured the hollow reed had
the rightto empty the jar. One wonders whetherhe approached his Gargantuan task
with thrillspirituousor spiritual,and whetherthe white herons' featherswhich adorned
his hair maintained theirritual angle upon its completion.

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492 The Musical Quarterly

FLOWERS AND BLOOD

The Aztecs had a curious facultyfor pairing the noble and

the horrible. Mothers who died in child-birthwere raised to the
skiesas ciuateto,"divine women,"thereto greetTonatiuh,the Sun,
at noon and accompany him with song and dance to the gate of
the West. Yet these divine singers of the golden midday by
night lurked as vampires at the crossroads,doing little children
whomthey mightmeet to death in monstrousfashion.
Likewisea love formusicand forflowers-twopurelyaesthetic
emotions-went hand in hand beneath the skull-dome of the
Aztec sky with sacrificialblood-lust. Coatlicue, "The Skirt with
the Viper," the sanguinarygod Huitzilipochtli'svirgin mother,
was the goddess of flowers,and garlands of yucca-bloomsand
acacias, roses, carnationsand orchidsadorned those who assisted
at the hetacombsof war-captivesslaughteredin her son's honor.
To Aztec ears the traditional chant that the toplitzin,or
sacrificingpriest intoned afteropening the breast of the human
victimon the altar with his obsidian knife,tearingout the heart
and offering "the palpitatingtrophy"to the idol, was the musical
quintessenceof holiness. We must not let currentnotionsanent
human sacrificeblind us to the truthof D'Alvilla's statementthat
"there is not a people that has not practisedthis custom at some
period or otherof its history. Romans, even Israelites,differ,in
this matter,fromthe negroesof our own times in nothingsave
the object theyassign to this kind of sacrifice."
To us the juxtaposition of blood and flowersin connection
withHuitzilipochtli'ssacrificesmightappear grewsome,its musical
connotationsappalling, did we not rememberthat all ideas of
ransom and redemptionby human sacrificehark back to such
stone age procedure,and that the Old Testament is permeated
with the idea of the blood covenant and its ritual. To this day,
Lumholtz avers, the Tarahumari Indian of Mexico "never kills
anotherexcept when drunk,foras he says, 'the blood is God's' ".
If we bear this in mind the flower-cultof these fiercekingsand
caciques,whichmade themvalue blossomsbeyondfeather-dresses,
emeralds,turquoisesand gold, "the excrementof the gods," is not
so incompatiblewiththeirreligiouspractices. We can understand
how it was that an ambassador at Montezuma's court regarded
a bouquet of orchidsfromhis palace-gardensas the most costly
gifthe could receive.
Huitzilipochtli's altars were ensanguined during most of the
year with the red jewel-water of war-captives, slaves and children

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 423

bought for sacrifice. Yet one of his feasts, "The Incensing of

Huitzilipochtli,"seems to have been innocentof blood. On this
day the god's image, to the sound of pious hymns,was escorted
froma small shrineto the Great Temple by six hundredyouths
and as many maids of the noblestAztec families. The boys wore
warrior dress of feather-work,green, blue, crimson,black and
yellow. Their hair was braided in locks and hung with golden
bells. The god's image placed in a cornerof the Temple Court,
the prieststied the boys and girlslightlytogetherby the wrists,
arms over each others' necks (symbolic of the relation between
the sexes), and the ritual dance began.
The musicians-in unconscious anticipation of Baireuth's
hidden pit-were placed so that theycould be heardbut not seen.
Holding roses and golden rattles in their fetteredhands, the
adolescents whirledin rhythm,the sun flashingfrom feathers,
gold and gems,to the sound of the teponastli,"the singingdrum"
and the chanted chorus, in whose music throbbedthe unison of
the blood tie whichmade these fledglingaristocratsone with the
plebeian multitudewatchingthem.
It was while the Spaniards dominatedTenochtitlanthrough
Montezuma, theirprisoner,that the feast of the "Incensing" was
held forthe last time. As the dance was at its heightthe Span-
iards filledthe temple gateways with pikeman,while otherswith
sword and battle-axe raged among the unarmed boys and girls,
slaughteringthemmercilessly,togetherwithpriestsand musicians
and-contemners of the bloodshed on Huitzilipochtli's altars-
turnedthe Temple dance-courtinto a crimsonlake. Long after
the conquest sad ballads of the great slaughterwere sung in the
Aztec villages.
AZTEC MILITARY MUSIC
The third movement of this symphonymay well bear the
title "Military Intermezzo," seeing that the Mexican army was
as much a religious as a secular institution;more so, in fact.
Huitzilipochtli,as Mexitli, was the Aztec Lord of Hosts, the army
was practicallythe church militant,and its music temple-music
draftedforuse on the battle-field.
The "line" regimentsof the regulararmy seem to have con-
sisted of some 8,000 men (Cortez uses the expression"Mexican
colonel"), divided into companies of 400 men, each commanded
by a captain. The martialimpedimentaof these Aztecan dough-
boys (aside fromshield,bow and arrow,javelins and woodensword
with inset obsidian blades hung from their wrists), consisted

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424 The Musical Quarterly

merelyof a breech-clout. The rest of theiruniformwas painted

on theirbodies and faces. There were also Aztec pikemen,who
handled an eighteen-foot copper-tippedpike, like the Macedonian
sarissa. Every companyhad a companyflagand everyregiment
its militarybands.
The authoritieshere cited-Clavigero, Clark Wissler,Ramu-
sio-agree only in specifyingthat the Aztec militaryband was
composed of drummers,conch-playersand whistlers,without
furtherdetails; save, perhaps,that rattlesmade of tapir-bladders
filled with pebbles were used to frightenthe Spaniards' horses.
That theirattack was lustyis vouched forby Cortez,who declares
that when they "struck up," it sounded "as thoughthe heavens
would cave in." The eliteregiments'of "Eagles" and "Jaguars"
who composed the emperor's bodyguard wore quilted cotton
armorcoats, helmetswithplumesand a kindofsporranoffeathers.
The featheredsporransof each individual company were of the
same color,red, white,yellow,blue, and the officersworecuirasses
and helmets overlaid with gold and silver, and costly feather
dresses. No doubt the musicians in these regimentswere uni-
formedin keeping with the rank and file,and looked down on
theircompanionsof the "line" as in morecivilizedlands.
The battle-chant-thoughnot all the conquistadores recognized
it as such-was a featureof every Aztec battle. Since the con-
quest of territorywas moreor less incidental,and the Aztec army
in realitya species of altar-guildwhose firstduty was to capture
sacrificialvictimsforthe shrinesofHuitzilipochtliand his comrade
gods, the "Onward, Aztec Soldiers" was probablya templehymn
whichhad "seen red" and ended by runningamok on the battle-
field.
It is not strange that the Spaniards listened to the Aztec
battle-hymnwith a prejudiced ear. They speak of "the horrible
music of the Mexicans . . . theirwild howlingbeforethe fight";
and one observerdeclares:
DuringbattletheIndiansdanceandsinguninterruptedly. Nowand
howlingand whistling,
again,in addition,theyraisea horrible and those
whoare not yet accustomedto thesenoisesand savage actionscannot
helpbut be afraid.
Bernal Diaz has come nearest to an actual descriptionof
theirwhooped battle-hymn,if so it may be termed:
'Advocates of compulsory military training in the American college might be
surprised to learn that the Aztecs surpassed their fondest ideals. "In Mexico City
were two kindsof schools, those forreligiousinstructionand those formilitarytraining."
And these boys who slept in barracks at night studied only militarysubjects in their
colleges.

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 425

I rememberthatwhenwe dischargedour arms,that the Indians

made a greatwhistling withclamorsand cries. . . and that thenthey
soundedtrumpets and cryingand sayingAla
largeand small,whistling
lala, ala lala!
The Aztec regimentsentered their home towns with bands
playing when returningfroma victoriouscampaign and, like the
Moslem warriorwho dies on the battlefield,the Aztec soldierwas
translateddirectlyinto paradise. Even as a "prisonersacrificed
by the enemy" he was sure of the sun-god's heaven, and it is
pleasant to reflectthat Mexico's last fightingemperor Guate-
motzinmay have benefitedby his faithin this belief,when Cortez
judicially murderedhim by hanginghim froma tree.
The destroyingangels who ascended fromAztec battlefields
rated no golden harps in their hereafter;yet with their faces
ritually painted red, white and black, their wind and choral
ensembles each morn celebrated the risingof the day-star with
hymns, concerts and dancing, in a heaven much like Dante's
paradiso,wheremusic was wedded to light and motionto delight
the soul. Even theirfinal end was musical, because "after four
years of this glorious existence," they were privileged to flit
throughthe clouds as birds endowed withharmoniousvoices and
brilliantplumage,freeto singin heaven or on earthas theymight
prefer.1
The boomingthundersof the huge serpent-skindrumon the
top of the Great Temple of Mexico, and of the war-drumson the
other teocallis,toward the end of the siege of Tenochtitlan,had
decidedly gotten on the nerves of the doughty captain Bernal
Diaz. He repeatedlyspeaks of the "accursed drum,and cries"
and says, "that which the Mexicans did by night in theirgreat,
huge cues (towers) was to play their damned drum, and I say
again that its sound was the most accursed and sad that might
conceivably be made, sounding for a great distance; and they
played otherand worseinstruments."
Yet this drumwhichrang the knell of a demoniacidolatryin
the Spaniard's ears, and their savage battle-chants and cries
helped the Aztec soldieryto die cheerfullyby the thousands for
the sake of the gods they adored, and to secure them a freepass
into a heaven where they were sure of an eternityas coloratura
humming-birds.Afterall, in sacred as in secular music,it is not
'The Tlaxzaltecs held a species of Presbyterian doctrine of the "elect," social
distinctionbeing at a musical premium,and the souls of the nobly born inhabitingthe
bodies of singing birds, while those of the common herd were condemned to dwell in
the bodies of tuneless tumblebugs.

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 426 The Musical Quarterly

so much the music itselfthat matters;it is what it may mean to

those who make or hear it.
When Antonio de Caravajal slew the two drummersin the
topmostshrineof the Great Teocalli of Mexico and hewed asunder
Huitzilipochtli'sgreat war-drum,Aztec militarymusic gave its
death-rattle. "Its last hollow beat was flung upward to the
nocturnalstars like a human cry,a dyingpeople's cry of terror!"

FOOD FOR THE GODS

The Aztec war-drumswere those of Huitzilipochtli,but their
ancestor was the magic snake-skin drum of Tezcatlipoca, the
Shining Mirror god, whose compellingtones once had sent the
people of Cholula dancing willynillyover an abyss into nothing-
ness. Blood ran as red, if not so frequentlyon Tezcatlipoca's
altars as on those of his brothergod. The golden ear of his
image inclinedever towardthe smoke-cloudsof burnt-offering and
the dripof jewel-waterwhichcame to it transformed into prayers.
One must not forgetthat the Aztecs had all the Amerindinsensi-
bilityto pain; that to themdeath was not so terribleas to us; and
that used fromchildhoodto seeingblood spilt-usually to music-
they shed theirown as if it were a superfluousliquid.
Tezcatlipoca's greatest feast of blood communionwith his
people began ten days beforethe event with a shrillterra cotta
flageoletsolo by a priest,a melodyof a type Stravinskyuncon-
sciously may have duplicated in the Charlatan's initial solo in
"Petrouschka." Every morningfor ten days the flageoletthus
called the faithfulto prayer,and on the tenthday god Tezcatli-
poca was slain in honorof god Tezcatlipoca.
The paradox is only apparent. Each year the handsomest,
physicallymost perfectAztec prisonerof war was ritually"raised
up"' as the humanpersonification of Tezcatlipoca on earth. Out-
fitted with a suite of eight attendant youths and four lovely
girl-brides,each bearing a goddess' name, for one briefyear the
slave lived the lifeof a god. To him no house was barredand all
was permittedhim. His one task was to learn to play on his
flutes,of whichhe had a number,certain melancholyritual airs;
love songs the wind of his flutemightblow as it listed, without
compulsion.
Dancing and blowinghis flute,the fleshand blood Tezcatli-
poca passed along the streetsof Tenochtitlan,his leftleg painted
'The practise of "raising up" a living man in the stead of a dead one was common
to many Amerind peoples and was customary among the North American tribes of
the Iroquois Confederacy.

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 427
black to the thigh,golden bells tinklingon collar and sandals,
long white turkey-feathers in his hair, followedby his wives and
escort. The days and nights of his last week were an uninter-
rupted round of wine, women and song, and on his ritual year's
last hour,upon a temple-pyramid altar, the high-priestspilledhis
"jewel-water." As he ascended the pyramidhe stopped at each
step and against its sharp edge broke one of the crystal flutes
whose music had charmedhis days. Nothingcould more pictur-
esquely symbolize that music is the very soul of even a god's
"jazz" life.
The arms and thighsofthe defunctgod (like the fleshof other
victimsslain or "blessed forsacrifice")was kosherin a peculiarly
sacred way. After the priests, and the boys and girls of the
schools and seminarieshad danced and sung at the festival,the
remainsof the human Tezeatlipoca, choicelycooked and seasoned,
steamed on the tables of the nobles, who said grace beforethis
meat withsacramentalunction.
Since music entered intimatelyinto these anthropophagic
riteswe must,forher fairname's sake, removethe stigma which
unjustlyrestson the Aztec custom of eating "food forthe gods."
Historians who should be better informed'oftenignore the fine
distinctionswhichobtain in cannibalism. The well-informed an-
thropologist,like Lamartine,knows that Tous nos goittssontdes
reminiscences.Sumner and Kellog, in their"Science of Society"
are positivethat "cannibalismby no means goes with degradation
of physique or character,is not correlativewith destitutionor
lack ofmeat-food;humanfleshis eaten moregenerallyforreligious
reasons; and tracesof its formeremploymentare verywidespread,
indicatinga conditionin the remotepast vergingon the universi-
talityof the practiseamong all races."
Cannibalismmay be inspiredpurelyby familyaffection. A
Samoan chiefrefusedto embrace Christianitybecause he feared,
if he did, his body would be eaten by worms,not by the members
of his family,who loved him. But cannibalismin parts of Aus-
tralia, where "a man who has a fat wife is afraid to let her go
anywherealone," is very different fromeating man as holy food.
The sacramentalcannibalismof the Aztecs was motived by
sincerestdevotion. In the market-placesof the great cities, the
tlaaltzin,"The Well-WashedOnes," adolescent youth and maids
garnishedwith garlands,were sold to furnishpieces de rtsistance
1CarletonBeals has censuredtheir". . . 100 per cent emotionalabhorrenceof
Indian sacrifice," ". . . the practiseof humansacrificeinvolveda
rightlyremarking,
loftygenesiacconception, farmorepristinethan oursin thistwentieth
century,when
we chainedourgodsto the caissonsof nationalismfortheslaughterofmillions."

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428 The Musical Quarterly
forAztec religiousfeasts. Yet the Aztecs ate them as innocently
as Christian children devour strawberriesat a Sunday school
festival,forthetlaaltzin,rituallypurifiedand dedicated,were"food
for the gods." Our own beautiful spiritual doctrineof trans-
substantiation,wherebywe partake of "the body and blood" of
the Deity and thus enterinto communionwith Him, is rooted in
the same ancient belief which led the Aztecs to take and eat
with identicalbut moremateriallydirectdevotion.
Nor is it strangethat when purchasersdrew near, the sacra-
mentalmeat of the Aztecs chantedits own praise in merrymusic,
to the sound of flutes;that wreathedwithblossoms,it sang on its
way to theirmouths. The Zapotecan and other girls who thus
voiced theirswan-songsknew that theirdeath would be swiftand
painless, and that in the capacity of victims to the gods they
would enterat once into paradise.
The sacrificeof the human Tezcatlipoca and the ritualeating
of his body,in particular,was a climaxingexpressionof the Indian
idea of communionbetween the divine and human. His blood,
flowingdown the sides of the black obsidian altar, returnedto its
source,"the great blood-being";it typifiedthe blood of the indi-
vidual flowingback into the reservoirfromwhichhe had received
it as a loan.

QUETZALCOATL

Passing mentionhas been made of Quetzalcoatl, "The Green-

Feathered Serpent" god. Teotl, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilipochtli,
Tlaloc, Centeotl,Mictlan-Teculi (and othersmore) ranked higher
in Aztec general estimation than Quetzalcoatl. This pacifist
Toltec god who refusedhuman sacrifice,preferring butterfliesand
flowers, was a kind of diminished seventh in the Aztec chord
divine. To begin with,he was "naturalized," not "native-born."
A god of love and peace, conceived of the spiritof Teotl, born of
the virginof Tula, he had been admittedto the Aztec pantheon,
but his cult was entirelycast into the shade by those of the gods
of war and fate.
He had his worshippers-therewereanti-vivisectionists among
the Aztec pabas-but they were a minority.-And the Aztec
emperor,nobles, priests and the majority of the people, though
they identifiedthe blonde Cortez with the blonde Toltec saviour-
god, because of an ancientprophecy,loved and fearedthe wooden
image of Huitzilipochtli, lance and shield in hand, more than the
resuscitate Quetzalcoatl who rode out of the West on a "deer-

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 429

monster,"as the Aztec called the horse,and whosefollowersused

lightningin theirblow-guns.
Yet Quetzalcoatl, the diminished-seventh god of the Toltecs,
in a measure resolvedthe harsh,acerb harmoniesof purelyAztec
music into a loftier,more spiritualcadence of consonantbeauty.
The Toltecs claimedthat he had firsttaughtmen to sing,his very
voice being music; that wheneverhe raised it in the gardensof his
silver and mother-of-pearl palace in Tula, the song-birdsflocked
to learn a new song. He showed the Toltecs how to play the
huehetl,the deer-skindrum,which skilled fingerscan make weep
or rejoice,and inventedthe slittedtenopastle,a xylophonewhose
murmuris the soul of tendermelancholy.
Yet thoughthesegentler,moretunefulpercussivesweretaken
over into the Aztec orchestra,the blood-rhythmsof Huitzili-
pochtli's and Tezcatlipoca's harsher wewetls,snake-skindrums,
dominatedand submergedtheirtone.
An old legend declares that when Quetzalcoatl was driven
fromTula, all the song-birdsfollowedhim into exile; but crossing
the icy ranges of the Sierra they were strickenby a snow-storm
and died. Passing from its Toltec birthplace, Quetzalcoatl's
gentler gospel and tenderermusic died (save as they became
identifiedwith certain more limited human or decorative urges)
among a people whosereligionmade forthe marbleheart and the
stone age ear. Quetzalcoatl's influence,musically exerted, was
practicallyrestrainedto "secular" music,thoughAztecan lifewas
rituallyso inhibitedand controlledthat (as in the case of most
of the ancientpeoples of the East) much we now regardas secular
was sacred.

MusIc AS AN ADORNMENT OF AZTEC LIFE

We have used the termAztec to embrace the whole Aztecan

culturearea, thoughit cannot yet be said just how far northand
south the fullseriesof Aztec traitswas diffused. To the east the
Tlascalans, to the west the Michoacoans, to the north,Tarascans,
Otomi, and still furtherChichlimecans,Huichol, Cora, Mayo,
Yaqui, etc., had a culture intermediatebetween the Aztec and
the Pueblo Indians. To the south the Mixes, Zoque, Chiapanecs
and Zapotecans again shaded off,culturally,into savagery. Within
thisgeneralAztecan culturalarea (as, moreor less, in all the other
cultural areas of the New World), we findthat music could not
give expressionto any nobler,loftier,more spiritualconceptionof
love because, as Bandelier puts it, "woman was littlebetterthan

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430 The Musical Quarterly

a costly animal," and "the most degradingepithet which could

be addressed to any Mexican, aside fromcalling him a dog, was
that of woman."
Sex and war were the principalmotivesin Aztec life,and sex
activitywas religiouslymotived. The love-goddessesoftheAztecs
weremany: Xochiquetzal,goddessoflove and flowers,ofsensuous
pleasure and offal;Ixcuina, goddess of confessionand absolution,
also a divinityof lighterlove; Tlazolteotl and her foursisters;the
Huaxtec Mayaeul, a fertilitygoddess with four-hundred breasts,
and otherfertility goddesseswithoutnumber. Yet as the poetry
of the Indian, to borrowa happy phrase of Schoolcraft's"is the
poetryof naked thought,"so theirlove seems to have been senti-
mentalprincipallyin a sensuousway. Sympathy,chivalry,faith-
fulness,all those higherqualities whichthe "tabloids" of our own
day prove characteristicsof our own superiorars amoris,seem to
have been lackingin Aztec love.
Naturally this exclusivelysensuous viewpointunderlaytheir
love-music. With religion stressingsex rather than soul, and
justifyinglicense,it is not strangethat among the Indians "most
oftheirchantsin relationto theothersex are erotic,not emotional.'"
Some Aztec love-poemsare charminglyexpressed,forexample:

I know not whetherthou hast been absent;

I lie down with thee,I rise up with thee,
In my dreamsthou art with me.
If my ear-droptremblesin my ears
I know it is thou movingwithinmy heart.

And yet Brintoninsiststhat the Aztecs had but "one wordto

express every variety of love, human and divine, carnal and
chaste, between the sexes." While their poetry supplied a rich
obbligatoof verbal embellishment, its themewas inevitablyof the
earth,earthy. The love-fluteof our own Chippewasor Cherokees
was of plain sumac or cedar-wood,that of the Aztecs fashionedof
crystal and silver, or a human thigh-bone,gold-encrustedand
emerald-set. Yet neitherthe young brave of old Tellico on the
Mississippi,nor the youthful"Eagle" of Tenochtitlan,whenthey
blew the flute at dusk, sighed out a love's unrest of the soul.
Sahagun has preservedthe Aztec father'sadmonition: "My son,
repressthy sensual appetites. Wait until the young girl whom
the gods have destinedforthywifereachesthe rightage to marry
her." Yet whena lad joined in the chorusof "The Sweet-Smelling
Ones" (the girlskept in thegreatstate-honkatonk of Tenochtitlan
for the convenienceof the regimentsin garrisonthere),he still

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 431

could feel that his vocal effortshad "benefitof clergy"-of the

priestsof Xochiquetzal.
In general,it may be said that Aztec music which had no
specificreligiousmotivationwas largely decorative,and thus it
fittedinto the complexfabricof lifelike the turquoiseinlay of an
Aztec dancing-maskinto its gold. Boys and girlsattendedpublic
schools (techputcalli)at an early age, and like little Atheniansof
Pericles' day learned to sing theircountry'spatriotichymnsand
songs there. Girls of the aristocracywere educated in convent
schools and seminaries(calmecoe)wheremusic was prominentin
the curriculum,and pious Aztec priestsacted as singing-,drum-
ming-and flute-teachers.
Special academies where music and eloquence were taught
flourished,and accordingto Sahagun the "professionaltalent" in
any great town was easily available, since in its miscoacali or
"House of Music" gatheredall the singers,playersand dancersto
participatein the performanceof new compositionsor the relig-
ious dance-spectacles. On the advent of the Spaniardsthe Aztecs
weretakingthe firsttimidsteps towardthe developmentof music
in the drama, as an art, ratherthan as ritual.
Medieval astrologershave claimed that somewherein space
is a stagnumoblivionis,a "pool of forgetfulness," wherethe years
of the past and all that in them was, to their very sound, float
about like clouds in the sky, and could be recalled by one who
knew the magic spell. If we recall fromthe stagnumoblivionis
an echo of that fulnessof musical sound whichaccompanied the
everydayactivitiesof the Aztec metropolis,it may convey some
idea of the decorativer6le of music in Aztec life.

THE AZTECAN STREET CONCERT

Tenochtitlan's"Main Street" ran froma southerncauseway

across the lagoons the length of the city. The palaces, public
buildings and temples which lined it were built of rose-colored
stone, boasted porticos with jasper and porpherycolumns, and
were interspersedwithgardens. Offfromit stretchedthe streets
of brickhouses of the commonalty. Canals ran throughall parts
of the town and broughtthe produce of the countrydirectto the
fourgreat city markets.
Even beforedawn wereheard the songs of the rowers,fisher-
men,hunters,slaves, bringingfoodto the city in theircanoes,and
at sunrise-announced by the booming of metal gongs fromthe
temples-the city was bathed in a flood of sound. From the

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432 The Musical Quarterly
teocallitops the voices of temple singersfloated down fromthe
heights,"as threads of color sink downward into still waters."
Only-the humantides of the Aztec citystreetswerenever"still."
Music soundedfromthe palaces of the nobles (who kepttheir
own "Court" orchestras,like the Austrian magnates of Haydn's
time) out into the thoroughfares. In market-placesand alleys
rose the musical cries of venders and hawkers (musical, "for the
Aztec language is sweet and harmoniousto the ear"); the songs
of the tlaatzin,the roll of templedrumsannouncingsome religious
festival. No Aztec Jannequinor Charpentierhad recordedthe
street-criesof the Tenochtitlan bazaars, yet they all had their
"cries,"the vendersof turtle-eggs, of the big molescalled tuzas,the
sellersof whitefat manguey-worms, still a favoriteMexican dish,
and the pepper-hawkers. Merchantschantedthe praisesofmanu-
scriptsand featherpaintingsof wild beasts, roasted grasshoppers
or jewelled flutesmade of human bones, and all theircries were
threadedby the tinklingof bells.
Passionately fond of the bell-tone were the Aztecs, and its
tinnabulationfilledAztecan streetswithgracilesound. Some old
chroniclerhas said, not with entiretruth: "They are a folk of
dancers,priestsand children,who would ratherhold silver bells
in their hands than swords." Little bells of clay and bronze
tinkledon the wrists,ankles and necks of the poor, while golden
bells, coyoli,hungfromthe collars and werestrungon the sandals
of the Aztec lords and princes. All the city was filledwith this
incessant,pleasing shrillingof the bells, not in the sense of Lati-
mer'ssaying,that "bells informheaven ofthe necessitiesofearth,"
but as a vague, formlessmusic whichlent a charmto life.
And always, fromtime to time, processionsswept the city
streets with a wave of tone. "Eagle" and "Jaguar" regiments
marchinginto town aftera victoriousGuatemalan campaign,pre-
ceded by theirmilitarybands; priestlycortegesintoninghymns;
the "Lord of Lords" himself,passing in processionfrompalace to
temple in his litter. Before him would go his own musicians,
minstrelswho flungsilverballs up into the air and caught them
as theyfellin basins of copper. Each ball strucka different note,
tenoror bass, and withthemthe minstrelssang a melody.1
Or, suddenly,to the bellow of conches, shrill of flutesand
rattle of tortoise-shelltambourinesthe wild whirl of the half-
naked priestsof Tlaloc would tear throughthe streets,as leaping
'When Montezuma came out of Tenochtitlan to meet Cortez for the firsttime,
these minstrelsof ball and basin played in advance of him and set the Spanish harque-
busiers laughing because the melody they played was just like one the farmersin Old
Castile sang when they spread manure on the fields.

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 433
and bounding,they scourgedthemselveswithaloe-thorns,in time
to themusicwhichwas to make themsee visionsand dreamdreams.
Even the quarter of "The Sweet-SmellingOnes" added its
peculiar quota to the general concert of sound, for these girls
(Bernal Diaz, who tells us, heard them) chewed gum, chicle',so
incessantlyas they went about theirbusiness,that "the noise of
their chewingsounded like the rattle of castanettes." Nor did
darkness bring cessation of musical sound in Tenochtitlan and
otherAztecan cities,forthe hours of the night were blared forth
by conch-shelltrumpet calls which rolled sonorouslyfrom the
templesover the sleepingcity and its lagoons.
THE SPANIARDS AND AZTEC MUSIC

Not many years after the Conquest, Aztec music-natural

and cultivated-seemed to have died away on the Mexican air,
just as a few radiant feather-dressesand jewels, a few codexes,a
few gloriousruins are all that remainof the Aztec civilizationas
a whole,forto the Spaniards the Aztecs remainedsavages, despite
theirrichculturalachievement. Tenochtitlan'sfourmarket-places,
so Cortez wrote the Emperor Charles V, were each "four times
the size of the great market-placeof Seville." In them these
"savages," to use Cortez' word,had commodiousaxixcalli, "com-
fortstations,"neatly hedged by tall palisades and hiddenby low-
growingpalm treesin an age when King Henry III of France was
forcedto issue an ordinance(August, 1578), commandingthat the
feces be swept frombehind doors, offthe stairs and out of the
roomsbeforehe rose in the morning,in order to make the royal
palace of the Louvre safe forhis royal step.
But the fanatic and ignorantconquistadoresregarded Aztec
music as well as Aztec axixcalli with scorn.' The fact that race
and religious consciousnesssubtly persist in the people's songs,
however,was practicallyrecognizedby the priestssent fromSpain
to make Christiansof the conqueredIndians. Says Torquemada:
"The Indians are no longer allowed to sing their ancient songs
because they are full of diabolic reminiscence." And Sahagun
adds: "The devil's own pitfallsare these songs, the plot he has
I"Exaggerating a little, one might say that these warriors,worthy of Homer,
knew less than the mathematical horses of Erbelfeld (which aroused Maeterlinck's
admiration), and possessed less trend toward philosophy than Landseer's humanized
and well-nighspiritualized dogs. .... To ignorance, allied with religious fanaticism,
and an absolute lack of intellectual curiosity,on the part of soldiers as well as clerics,
men of letters as well as magistrates,it is due that the great empires, Peruvian and
Aztecan, have disappeared without leaving traces of their unique civilizations." R.
Blanco-Fombona. El ConquistadorEspaiol del Siglo XVI. Ensayo de Interpretaci6n.
Madrid, 1992.

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434 The Musical Quarterly

hatched on earth so that they mightbe used in his service,in his

temples,as lauds."
Later, a more intelligentpolicy on the part of the Church
encouragedIndian convertsto transferthe identityof the gods
and goddessesof the Aztec pantheonto the personsof the Trinity
and of the saints. This was the easier since the splendid ritual
and ceremonyof the Aztec church had prepared the Indian for
the pomp of Roman worship. The Indians, however,accepted
the outerformswithoutpenetratinginto the innermeaningof the
white man's faith. The Indian horse allowed itselfto be led to
the water of salvation,but it did not reallydrink. To the Indian
the Christiangods are still "foreigners";they are not gods of
his own race, of his own blood, with the cinnamon-coloredskin-
pigmentan Indian god should have.
In Mexico as well as Peru, long afterthe Conquest, conces-
sions had to be made to the Indian sense of religiouspropriety.
Humboldt says: ". . . in the provinceof Pasto, on the Andean
ridge, I saw Indians, masked and hung with bells, dance wild
dances around the altar, while a Franciscan raised the Host."
Even in the sacred musical dance-spectacleswhich the Spanish
padresmade an edifyingfeatureof worshipin the Mexican Church,
in "The Last Judgment,"the "Ballet of the Serpent" (St. George
and the Dragon), and others more, totemisticjaguar-skinsand
echoes of Aztec ritual and hymn were mingled with Christian
prayerand benediction. The same Indio who bowed his head in
the adobe villagechurchat mass mightbelongto one of the Indian
secretsocietieslike that of the "Dancers of Totolitzli,"formedto
preserve the old race heritage of music and dance, and whose
members were initiated in a cave at the foot of the Azuzco
volcano.
On the surface of modern Mexican Indian life floats an
amorphous music, a music mestizo,half-breed,and R. and M.
D'Harcourt hold the foreignimpenetrationresponsiblefor the
seeming lack of "any save Spanish and Italianate rhythmsand
melodic formulasin the examples of so-called "Indian" music
hithertocollectedand examined.""
But in reality,the Indian blood currentruns in the veins of
the modern Mexican as it ran in those of his Aztec forbears;
neitherIndian musicnor the Indian blood-soulhas changed. The
Yaquis-more typical of the warlikeAztecs of the Conquest than
'Even in the pretentiousgovernmentmonographs published by the Direcci6n de
AntropologiaMexicana, and devoted to the valley of Mexico, the examples of indigenous
music given are Spanish ratherthan Indian.

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 435

theirown descendants,mainlyoffspring of the non-fightingcastes

-still combine a love for music and flowerswith a passion
for pedal scalping, for liftingthe soles from errant white feet.
The modernMexican indifference to bloodshed and to death, its
lack of concernfor the life of the individual,is a purely Indian
inheritance.
In Santo Domingo, in Oaxaca, is a splendidbaroque church.
Its bells of gold and silverbronze,whichonce called the Indians
to worshiphave vanished,as has the domed vaultingof the organ-
loftceiling,extendingin all directionsinnumerableleaves of gold,
and the gold and silveraltar vessels. Yet in neighboringJuchitin
the Indians still venerate "as thoughit were a god," the sacred
"Tree of the Little Hands," its red flowersshaped like a hand with
inwardbent fingers.
In Santa Maria de Tule is an archaic silver trumpetwhich
the bugler of a troop of Cortez' horse broughtthere. A recent
travellerheard a Zapotecan Indian playingthe old trumpetsong
of his race on the Spanish bugle. And even the trumpet'stone
had "gone native," for the hearer adds: "It was quite unlike
anythingone hears to-day-clear, mournful,barbaric-without a
trace of European ancestry."
ThroughoutMexico the Indian blood comes more and more
intoits own. In the strugglebetweenChurchand state in present-
day Mexico it may seem strangeto us that the great mass of the
Mexican Indian population did not rise in defence of what is
generallyaccepted as its faith. The sad truthis that the devoted
labors of priestand missionaryin the courseof fourhundredyears
have not really moved the alien Aztec soul. Frans Blom, only
two years ago, wrote: "Four hundredyears of Spanish rule, four
hundred years of Catholic missionizinghave not been able to
stamp out the worshipof the ancientgods in the ancientway . . .
the deeper religiouscurrentis of an older form." Nor can the
worshipof the ancient gods in the ancient way be disassociated
fromits music. This musicmuststillexist,muststillbe cherished.
Before those secret altars where the copal-smoke of adoration
still rises to the ancient gods, there still must echo, on occasion,
the sound of ancientritualhymns.

A HIDDEN FOLK-MUSIC TREASURE

To assemble and reconstructthe autochtone music of the

Aztec and Indian past calls forthe labors of a musical Viollet-le-
Duc like Hornbostel. The treasure is there, but it cannot be

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436 The Musical Quarterly
raisedby thetraveller,archaeologist the treasure-
or anthropologist;
hunterwho would unearththis hoard must be a musicologist.
The genuine Madonna-so far as the Mexican Indians are
concerned-is the Virginof Guadalupe, forshe is of theirrace, a
"red" Madonna, an India-and somethingmore. On her festival
day some fiftythousand Indians fromall parts of Mexico gather
at her shrine,whereinflower-fragrance drownsthe odor of incense.
In his heart the Indian identifiesla Guadalupana with Tonantzin,
"Our Mother," of the Aztec skies, worshippedtime out of mind
on the same spot. As late as 1853 the clergyallowed the Indians,
clad in the feather-dressesof Montezuma's day, to dance in the
cathedralproper,but soon afterthe Archbishopof Mexico forbade
"these diversionsin which they formerlyindulged in honor of
Tonantzin."
So now the Indians, on the evening of la Guadalupana's
feast-day,wearingface-masks,dance the old Aztec ritual dances
in the cathedral enclosure,and under the influenceof the "four
hundredlittlegods ofpulque" the spiritofthe ancientritualchants
pulses in the hymnsof ante-Conquesttimes. It is there,and at
the festivals of Indian villagers throughoutthe land, that the
traces of the olden sacred and social music which expressedthe
indigenouspeoples of Mexico must be sought. This music,which
does not yet seem to have been recorded,is stillthe carrierof race
ideals, the fluidtonal amber in whichtheyhave been traditionally
handed down for centuries. If collected,it mightlend actuality
to what little we now know about the r6le of music in olden
Aztec life.'

No doubt, when the autochtonemusic of Central America is

some day exploited,it will be found to stressin tone the Indian
1Readers who may care to go more deeply into the subject of ancient Mexican
music are referred,in addition to such standard sources as Cortez' "Letters," Sahagun,
Torquemada, Bernal Diaz, Acosta, Las Casas, Oviedo, Herrera, De Solis Prescott,
etc., to Lucien Biart's, "Les Azteques"; E. Stucken, "Die Weissen Gitter"; D. H.
Lawrence, "The Plumed Serpent"; Ratzel, "Vijlkerkunde"; N. Curtis, "The Indian's
Book"; Carmargo, "Historia de Tlascala"; C. Seler-Sachs, "Frauenleben im Reiche der
Azteken"; Lumholtz, Rep. Int. Congress Anthrop., 1893; F. X. Clavigero, "Historia
antica del Messico"; Clark Wissler,"The American Indian"; G. B. Ramusio, "Raccolta
delle Navigazioni e Viaggi, Venice, 1554;" Bandelier, "Social Organization and Mode
of Government of the Ancient Aztecs"; D. G. Brinton, "Essays of an Americanist";
Frances Densmore, "The American Indians and Their Music"; A. von Humboldt,
"Essai politique sur le Royaume de Nouvelle Espagne"; R. and M. D'Harcourt, "La
Musique des Incas et ses Survivances"; HerbertCorey, "Among the Zapotecs of Mexico,"
Nat. Geogr. Mag., May, 1917; Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge, "Tribes and Temples:
Record of an Expedition to Middle America, Conducted by Tulane University,La.,
19M6."

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 Music in the Life of the Aztecs 437

feelingforthe transitorinessof all earthlythings,the feelingwhich

permeatedall Aztecan culture,that,wherethereis no emptiness,
with skin, rind or vault to formit, thereis no life. For "in the
innermosthuman core" of the Mexican Indian to-day passion
still "sits with folded wings on the nest and faith is a tree of
shadow." In words accredited to Quetzalcoatl the thoughthas
been expressedin musical metaphorby Stucken,in his prose epic,
Die WeissenGltter:
There is a magic of magics in the hollow, the empty, the form-
less. . . . All life is wine in a wine-skin, marrow in a bone, jewel-water
in a sacrificial basin. . . . Hold the sea-shell to your ear and you will
sense it! Because the fluteis hollowit breathesjoy and sorrowand has
life. The kingof all musiciansinquiresas to the thicknessof the slave's
skin which formshis drum-head;if the skin tears the drum dies...
The nut-kernelgrowsin the nut-shell,a human communityin a single
belief. Death is the shatteringof the bowl, so that new bowls may
come into being,fornot even the blue bowl of the sky endures.
This, in the main, was the Aztec philosophyof life,such were
the ideas which underlay its music, always a part of and not an
art-projection out of that life. Less poetically articulate, perhaps,
these ideas must still echo in the unrecorded music which reflects
the Mexican Indian soul to-day.

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