588 report of national museum, 1896. 



Mexico. 



Music evidently occupied a prominent place in the arts of the ancient 

 Mexicans, for it is nieutioned by the early [Spanish writers in connection 

 with war, religions ceremonies, and festivals of various kinds. The 

 instruments described or mentioned were drums, timbals, flutes, horns, 

 trumpets, and rattles. According to Clavigero,^ they had no stringed 

 instruments. 



Of their use in war or military movements Bernal Diaz^ relates: 



We saw the enemy in the plain in our front, advancing against us, sounding their 

 trumpets, horns, and drums. 



Again he says (p. 297) : 



Before we arrived at our quarters and while the enemy were pursuing us, we heard 

 their shrill timbals and the dismal sound of the great drum from the top of the great 

 temple of the god of war, which overlooked the whole city. 



Clavigero^ also mentions the use of musical instruments in war: 



They began the battle (as was usual in ancient Europe and among the Romans) 

 with a most terrible noise of warlike instruments, shouting and whistling, which 

 struck terror to those not accustomed to hear it. 



Of the religious music in charge of the priests the same author says 



(p. 43): 



The Ometochtli was the chief composer of the hymns which were sung at festi- 

 vals; * * * the Tlapixcatzin, the master of the chapel, who not only appointed 

 the music, but superintended the singing and corrected the singers. 



Of songs and dances Don Antonio de Mendoza, in a second letter * to 

 Emperor Charles V, says : 



Indians accompanying their dances and songs with flutes marked at the places 

 where fingers are to be placed. The flutes are of different sizes. The singers beat 

 time as with us. They sing in accord with those playing. 



Prescott,^ in speaking of the domestic manners of the Atzecs, says: 



As soon as they had finished their repast the young people rose from the table to 

 close the festivities of the day with dancing. They danced gracefully to the sound 

 of various instruments, accompanying their movements with chants of a pleasing, 

 though somewhat plaintive character. 



iThe History of Mexico, Trans. Charles Cullen, esq., Philadelphia, 1817, II, p. 207. 



^True History of the Conquest of Mexico, Trans. Maurice Keatinge, esq., Lou- 

 don, 1800, p. 45. 



^The History of Mexico, p. 170. 



"Castafieda: 1540. Relation Du Voyage De Cibola, etc., Appendice, p. 295; Trans. 

 H. Temaux-Compares, Paris, 1838. 



'^Conjquest of Mexico, I, p. 156. 



