Music of the Aztecs
"Poets, among the Aztecs, were more numerous than orators; their verses were measured and cadenced. The poetry of the Aztecs was brilliant and imaged..."
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From The Aztecs: Their History, Manners, and Customs by Lucien Biart, 1900.
Poets, among the Aztecs, were more numerous than orators; their verses were measured and cadenced. The poetry of the Aztecs was brilliant and imaged; it borrowed its comparisons from the flowers, the trees, the brooks, the most pleasing objects of nature. In poetry the Mexicans used compound words by way of preference; these words were often long enough to constitute a verse.
A great variety of subjects were treated of in poetry; most frequently they composed hymns in honor of the gods, which were sung in the temples and during the sacred dances. The poets likewise composed verses in which they recounted the adventures of the nation or the glorious actions of their heroes, — compositions which were declaimed during the profane fetes. They also cultivated the ode; however, among them it generally ended with a useful lesson. Hunting and fishing usually furnished the topics for their descriptive poems. The infrequency with which love is brought into play in Aztec verse is, as Clavigero remarked, owing to the fact that the poets were almost always priests.
A king of the Alcolhuas, Nezahualcoyotl, was himself a great poet, and his example made versification fashionable at his court. We are told that a poet condemned to death for some crime, wrote some verses in which he bade adieu to the world in such a touching way that the musicians of the court, all of whom were his friends, deter- mined to sing them before the king. The latter, hearing the verses, was so moved by them that he granted the culprit his life, — a fact unique in the history of the Alcolhuas. According to Torquemada, who also relates this legend, the culprit was the son-in-law of Nezahualcoyotl himself, falsely accused of adultery. Led into the presence of his father-in-law, who had recognized his innocence, and believing he was on his way to death, the poet recited his verses; they obtained him congratulations and new honors.
The Aztecs had a taste not only for lyric but also for dramatic poetry. The stage on which they represented their dramas was a simple platform built under the open sky in the market- places or on the lower step of the temples. The stage in Mexico, according to Cortez, was six feet high and thirty feet square.
There is little probability that in their dramatic compositions the Aztecs observed the rules recognized in the Old World. However, we have a general idea of their talent in this art in a description by Father Acosta of a performance given in Cholula on the occasion of the feast of the god Quetzacoatl:—
“Near the lower step of the temple of this god,” says the learned Jesuit, “ there was a small stage carefully whitewashed, which was ornamented with branches, wreaths of flowers, and feathers, from which were suspended birds, rabbits, and fruits, the whole picturesquely arranged. To this place the people hastened after dinner. The actors suddenly appeared and presented scenes of buffoonery. They pretended to be deaf, lame, blind, and paralyzed, and prayed the idols to cure them. The deaf answered those who spoke to them with cock and bull stories, the lame with acrobatic feats ; all these actors, by displaying their afflictions, excited the laughter of the public.
“These buffoons were succeeded by others who represented animals. One was a beetle, another a toad, a third a crocodile, etc. These animals discoursed among themselves, explained the parts they played upon earth, and each of them claimed to be the first. The people loudly applauded these actors, who were very skilful in representing the ways of the animals they were imitating. Next came the pupils of the seminaries, provided with wings of butterflies or of birds of different colors. These children took refuge in trees arranged for the purpose, and the priests pelted them with pellets of earth with the aid of blow-guns, while addressing comic admonitions to them. A ballet, in which all the actors took part, ended the performance.” This is all that is known of the Mexican stage, and it must be admitted that Father Acosta’s description recalls the stage of Thespis rather than the art of AEschylus.
The music of the Aztecs was unworthy of so cultivated a people. They were not acquainted with stringed instruments; those they used were confined to the “huehuetle,” the “teponastle,” trumpets, sea-shells, and flutes — generally made of terra-cotta — which produced shrill sounds. The huehuetle was a wooden cylinder, three feet high, carved and ornamented with paintings, its top covered with skin of a deer, which could be stretched or loosened at will, according as they wished to produce deep or rumbling sounds. This drum was played by striking its head with the fingers, which required a certain amount of skill.
The teponastle, still in use in some towns, is a hollow wooden cylinder, with no openings but two longitudinal parallel slits close together. The strip of wood between the two slits is struck with two rods, like our drum-sticks, but covered with rubber to make the sound softer. The dimensions of the teponastle varied greatly; some which the musician suspended from his neck were small, while others were five feet long. In using them they were placed on a pedestal, which very often represented a man in a bent position, a tiger, or a monkey. The noise produced by this instrument, which I have frequently heard, has something melancholy in its tones; and it is audible at a great distance.
Must we count among the musical instruments of the Aztecs the bones of deer, and even of men, which were put into the hands of the distinguished dead on the day of their funeral? These bones, notched their whole length, were rubbed against each other or against a shell. The sound they produced can be imagined; it certainly lacked harmony. We must also mention the “axacaxtli,” — a sort of gourd pierced with holes, which was filled with small stones. These enormous rattles, shaken in time with the other instruments, took the place of castanets.
Drums, flutes, even conch shells accompanied the hymns sung in the temples, which were chanted in a sing-song manner, in a rude, monotonous tune, fatiguing to European ears. But the Aztecs took so much pleasure in them that they frequently sang during entire days. In spite of this taste music is the only art that remained in infancy among them.
Bad musicians, the Mexicans, on the other hand, were very skilful in the art of dancing, in which they exercised themselves under the direction of priests from childhood. Their dances, which were of great variety, had different names. They danced in circles, or arranged in files, between which a dancer executed fancy steps. The women often took part in this amusement. For this recreation the nobles put on their most costly clothes, and decked themselves with jewels of gold, of silver, or of feathers. They bore a light shield in one hand, in the other they carried one of the gourds filled with stones of which we have spoken above. While going through their steps they shook this rattle to keep time with the airs played by the musicians. When the plebeians danced they muffled themselves in disguises, of papyrus, of skins, or of feathers, representing animals.
In the ordinary dances — those intended to amuse the nobles in their palaces, those which took place in the temples as acts of devotion, or those executed in houses on the occasion of a domestic fete — there was but a small number of partners. These then formed two parallel lines, and danced side by side or face to face. Sometimes the two lines crossed, or one of the best dancers placed himself between them and danced alone.
In the great commemorative ballets, which were performed either in the market-places or on the lower step of the temple, several hundred people took part. The musicians stood in the centre, and the nobles, placing themselves near them, formed several concentric circles, which began to move round and round. Every dancer, while executing his steps had to keep his own circle. The outer circle, having more space to move about in than the others, was more animated. A little way from those of the nobles the plebeians formed their circles, and still others were composed of the young people.
The dances were almost always accompanied by songs; these were at first slow, but when the musicians and the dancers became animated, the song became quicker to keep time with the measure. Generally one of the dancers intoned a verse, and the rest took it up. Between the lines of the circles buffoons tasked their wits to amuse the crowd with grotesque steps. When one circle was tired out another was immediately formed to replace it.
Such was the arrangement observed in the ordinary ballets; but in other dances there was a semblance of dramatic art, for they represented an episode in the life of the gods, an heroic action, scenes of war or of the chase.
Not only did the priests, the nobles, and the pupils of both sexes of the seminaries take part in the dance, but the king himself indulged in this amusement during religious ceremonies, or as a recreation. However, he always danced alone, out of respect for his dignity.
Historians have described for us a singular dance, which was held in great favor in Yucatan. A pole was erected fifteen or twenty feet high, to the top of which were attached a number of very long cords of various colors. Each dancer took hold of one of the cords, then to the sound of music they crossed in and out, and gradually formed a symmetrical figure around the pole. When the cords became too short they undid the figure by reversing their steps.
Among the descendants of the Aztecs the dance is but little in vogue. However, in villages far removed from cities, it is not rare to see an Indian rise suddenly during the celebration of the mass, and begin to dance. The gravity with which he performs this action, and the sobriety of his steps atone, to a certain extent, for whatever unseemliness this fancy may have, considering that our views have robbed the dance of its ancient sacred character.
Biart, Lucien. The Aztecs: Their History, Manners, and Customs. Translated by John Leslie Garner, A.C. McClurg & Co, 1900.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
