MUSiC AND DANCE

Music and dance accompanied most religious festivals, including human sacrifices. Drums set the beat for warriors to march to war and announced the celebration of victory. While war and sacrificial songs were most common, music also told the story of the Aztec culture. Songs

Spoke of a family’s ancestors and the acts of greatness that enabled the family to reach its current social position.

Official Records

Along with writing poetry and myths, the Aztecs produced many official records. The governing of an empire required a great deal of paperwork. Districts paid taxes. Merchants recorded sales and profits. Armies recorded victories. People owned land. And the Aztecs had many religious events. The Aztecs had scribes to keep records of their works. Each scribe had a specific area of knowledge, much like we have historians, accountants, and people who register births, deaths, and deeds. The Aztecs recorded so much information that Tenochtitlan used up 480,000 sheets of paper a year.

The Aztecs had many wind and percussion instruments but no string instruments. Their music was played on instruments made from wood, bones, skins, shells, and clay. Percussion instruments included rattles, shakers, and a variety of drums. Drums played a big part in the music of the Aztecs. The ayotl was a drum made from a turtle shell. Prongs were placed on the underside of the shell and struck to create sound. The teponaztli was a horizontal log drum that was played with mallets. The huehuetl was an upright skin drum, played with the hands like a bongo drum. A musician could make the huehuetl produce two tones by playing on the inner or outer area of the drum’s skin. The huehuetl and teponaztli were played together for most Aztec songs.

Rattles were another form of percussion instrument. They were made by filling gourds or sticks with stones, seeds, or beads. Rattle sticks are still used in native Mesoamerican music. Maracas, used in modern Mexican music, are like the rattles of Aztec times.

Melodies were played on flutes or horns such as the atecocoli, a large conch shell that sounded much like a trumpet. The chichitli was a high-pitched whistle, somewhat like a piccolo. The Aztecs even had an instrument that made a buzzing sound, called the cocoloctli. The Aztec flute, the huilacapitztli, is still very popular in Mexico.

Every Aztec person learned the songs, instruments, and dances of their culture. Between the ages of 12 and 15, Aztec children went to the cuicacalli, where they learned singing and dancing.

When people gathered for a religious rite, the music provided the appropriate mood. Hundreds of people sang and danced together, from young children to the elderly. Musicians were extremely careful not to make any mistakes as they played. An error was a serious insult to the gods and might displease them.

Most nobles had their own orchestras, as well as songwriters and dancers. Spanish priest Geronimo de Mendieta (1525-1604) wrote, “Each lord had in his house a chapel with composer-singers of dances and songs, and these were thought to be ingenious in knowing how to compose the songs in their manner of meter and the couplets that they had. Ordinarily they sang and danced in the principal festivities that were every 20 days, and also on other less principal occasions.” (quoted in “Aztec Music” at Aztec-History. com).

Family celebrations and all religious rituals had music to mark the occasion. Special songs were written and sung for Huitzilopochtli, Tez-catlipoca, Tlaloc, and Ometeotl. Songs praised the gods and asked for their assistance, particularly in bringing rain or ending a famine.