Chapter III: Part 3

If the preserved antiquities of the American Indians, dating from a period anterior to our discovery of the western hemisphere, possess an extraordinary interest because they afford trustworthy evidence of the degree of progress which the aborigines had attained in the cultivation of the arts and in their social condition before they came in contact with Europeans, it must be admitted that the ancient musical instruments of the American Indians are also worthy of examination. Several of them are constructed in a manner which, in some degree, reveals the characteristics of the musical system prevalent among the people who used the instruments. And although most of these interesting relics, which have been obtained from tombs and other hiding-places, may not be of great antiquity, it has been satisfactorily ascertained that they are genuine contrivances of the Indians before they were influenced by European civilisation.

Some account of these relics is therefore likely to prove of interest also to the ethnologist, especially as several facts may perhaps be found of assistance in elucidating the still unsolved problem as to the probable original connection of the American with Asiatic races.

Among the instruments of the Aztecs in Mexico and of the Peruvians none have been found so frequently, and have been preserved in their former condition so unaltered, as pipes and flutes. They are generally made of pottery or of bone, substances which are unsuitable for the construction of most other instruments, but which are remarkably well qualified to withstand the decaying influence of time. There is, therefore, no reason to conclude from the frequent occurrence of such instruments that they were more common than other kinds of which specimens have rarely been discovered.

The Mexicans possessed a small whistle formed of baked clay, a considerable number of which have been found. Some specimens (Fig. 16) are singularly grotesque in shape, representing caricatures of the human face and figure, birds, beasts, and flowers. Some were provided at the top with a finger-hole which, when closed, altered the pitch of the sound, so that two different tones were producible on the instrument. Others had a little ball of baked clay lying loose inside the air-chamber. When the instrument was blown the current of air set the ball in a vibrating motion, thereby causing a shrill and whirring sound. A similar contrivance is sometimes made use of by Englishmen for conveying signals. The Mexican whistle most likely served principally the same purpose, but it may possibly have been used also in musical entertainments. In the Russian horn band each musician is restricted to a single tone; and similar combinations of performers――only, of course, much more rude――have been witnessed by travellers among some tribes in Africa and America.

Rather more complete than the above specimens are some of the whistles and small pipes which have been found in graves of the Indians of Chiriqui in Central America.

The pipe of the Aztecs, which is called by the Mexican Spaniards _pito_, somewhat resembled our flageolet: the material was a reddish pottery, and it was provided with four linger holes. Although among about half a dozen specimens which the writer has examined some are considerably larger than others, they all have, singularly enough, the same pitch of sound. The smallest is about six inches in length, and the largest about nine inches. Several _pitos_ have been found in a remarkably well-preserved condition. They are easy to blow, and their order of intervals is in conformity with the pentatonic scale, thus: [Music: treble clef, quarter notes A B C# E F#] The usual shape of the _pito_ is that here represented (Fig. 17_a_ & _c_). A specimen of a less common shape, is given in Fig. 17_b_. They are all in the British Museum. Indications suggestive of the popular estimation in which the flute (or perhaps, more strictly speaking, the pipe) was held by the Aztecs are not wanting. It was played in religious observances, and we find it referred to allegorically in orations delivered on solemn occasions. For instance, at the religious festival which was held in honour of Tezcatlepoca――a divinity depicted as a handsome youth, and considered second only to the supreme being――a young man was sacrificed who, in preparation for the ceremony, had been instructed in the art of playing the flute. Twenty days before his death four young girls, named after the principal goddesses, were given to him as companions; and when the hour arrived in which he was to be sacrificed he observed the established symbolical rite of breaking a flute on each of the steps, as he ascended the temple.

Again, at the public ceremonies which took place on the accession of a prince to the throne the new monarch addressed a prayer to the god, in which occurred the following allegorical expression:――“I am thy flute; reveal to me thy will; breathe into me thy breath like into a flute, as thou hast done to my predecessors on the throne. As thou hast opened their eyes, their ears, and their mouth to utter what is good, so likewise do to me. I resign myself entirely to thy guidance.” Similar sentences occur in the orations addressed to the monarch. In reading them one can hardly fail to be reminded of Hamlet’s reflections addressed to Guildenstern, when the servile courtier expresses his inability to “govern the ventages” of the pipe and to make the instrument “discourse most eloquent music,” which the prince bids him to do.

M. de Castelnau, in his “Expédition dans l’Amérique,” gives among the illustrations of objects discovered in ancient Peruvian tombs a flute made of a human bone. It has four finger holes at its upper surface and appears to have been blown into at one end. Two bone flutes (Figs. 18_b_ & _c_), in appearance similar to the engraving given by M. de Castelnau, which have been disinterred at Truxillo, are deposited in the British Museum. They are about six inches in length, and each is provided with five finger holes. One of these has all the holes at its upper side, and one of the holes is considerably smaller than the rest. The specimen which we illustrate (Fig. 18_a_) is ornamented with some simple designs in black.

The other has four holes at its upper side and one underneath, the latter being placed near to the end at which the instrument evidently was blown. In the aperture of this end some remains of a hardened paste, or resinous substance, are still preserved. This substance probably was inserted for the purpose of narrowing the end of the tube, in order to facilitate the producing of the sounds. The same contrivance is still resorted to in the construction of the bone flutes by some Indian tribes in Guiana. The bones of slain enemies appear to have been considered especially appropriate for such flutes. The Araucanians having killed a prisoner, made flutes of his bones, and danced and “thundered out their dreadful war songs, accompanied by the mournful sounds of these horrid instruments.” Alonso de Ovalle says of the Indians in Chili: “Their flutes, which they play upon in their dances, are made of the bones of the Spaniards and other enemies whom they have overcome in war. This they do by way of triumph and glory for their victory. They make them likewise of bones of animals; but the warriors dance only to the flutes made of their enemies.” The Mexicans and Peruvians obviously possessed a great variety of pipes and flutes, some of which are still in use among certain Indian tribes. Those which were found in the famous ruins at Palenque are deposited in the museum in Mexico. They are:――The _cuyvi_, a pipe on which only five tones were producible; the _huayllaca_, a sort of flageolet; the _pincullu_, a flute; and the _chayna_, which is described as “a flute whose lugubrious and melancholy tones filled the heart with indescribable sadness, and brought involuntary tears into the eyes.” It was perhaps a kind of oboe.

The Peruvians had the syrinx, which they called _huayra-puhura_. Some clue to the proper meaning of this name may perhaps be gathered from the word _huayra_, which signifies “air.” The _huayra-puhura_ was made of cane, and also of stone. Sometimes an embroidery of needlework was attached to it as an ornament. One specimen which has been disinterred is adorned with twelve figures precisely resembling Maltese crosses. The cross is a figure which may readily be supposed to suggest itself very naturally; and it is therefore not so surprising, as it may appear at a first glance, that the American Indians used it not unfrequently in designs and sculptures before they came in contact with Christians.

The British Museum possesses a _huayra-puhura_ consisting of fourteen reed pipes of a brownish colour, tied together in two rows by means of thread, so as to form a double set of seven reeds. Both sets are almost exactly of the same dimensions and are placed side by side. The shortest of these reeds measure three inches, and the longest six and a half. In one set they are open at the bottom, and in the other they are closed. Consequently octaves are produced. The reader is probably aware that the closing of a pipe at the end raises its pitch an octave. Thus, in our organ, the so-called stopped diapason, a set of closed pipes, requires tubes of only half the length of those which constitute the open diapason, although both these stops produce tones in the same pitch; the only difference between them being the quality of sound, which in the former is less bright than in the latter.

The tones yielded by the _huayra-puhura_ in question are as follows: [Music: Treble clef, ascending quarter note octaves: A C D E G A C] The highest octave is indistinct, owing to some injury done to the shortest tubes; but sufficient evidence remains to show that the intervals were purposely arranged according to the pentatonic scale. This interesting relic was brought to light from a tomb at Arica.

Another _huayra-puhura_ (Fig. 19), likewise still yielding sounds, was discovered placed over a corpse in a Peruvian tomb, and was procured by the French general, Paroissien. This instrument is made of soapstone, and contains eight pipes. It now belongs to the Rev. Canon J. H. Rawdon.[4] In the Museum may be seen a good plaster cast taken from this curious relic. The height is five and three-quarter inches, and its width six and a quarter inches. Four of the tubes have small lateral finger-holes, which, when closed, lower the pitch a semitone. These holes are on the second, fourth, six, and seventh pipe, as shown in the engraving. When the holes are open, the tones are: [Music: Treble clef, quarter notes F# A C# F♮] and when they are closed: [Music: Treble clef, quarter notes F♮ A♭ C♮ E] The other tubes have unalterable tones. The following notation exhibits all the tones producible on the instrument: [Music: Treble clef, quarter notes E F F# G G# A C C# D E F A]

The musician is likely to speculate what could have induced the Peruvians to adopt so strange a series of intervals: it seems rather arbitrary than premeditated.

If (and this seems not to be improbable) the Peruvians considered those tones which are produced by closing the lateral holes as additional intervals only, a variety of scales or kinds of _modes_ may have been contrived by the admission of one or other of these tones among the essential ones. If we may conjecture from some remarks of Garcilasso de la Vega, and other historians, the Peruvians appear to have used different orders of intervals for different kinds of tunes, in a way similar to what we find to be the case with certain Asiatic nations. We are told, for instance, “Each poem, or song, had its appropriate tune, and they could not put two different songs to one tune; and this was why the enamoured gallant, making music at night on his flute, with the tune which belonged to it, told the lady and all the world the joy or sorrow of his soul, the favour or ill-will which he possessed; so that it might be said that he spoke by the flute.” Thus also the Hindus have certain tunes for certain seasons and fixed occasions, and likewise a number of different modes or scales used for particular kinds of songs.

Trumpets are often mentioned by writers who have recorded the manners and customs of the Indians at the time of the discovery of America. There are, however, scarcely any illustrations to be relied on of these instruments transmitted to us. The Conch was frequently used as a trumpet for conveying signals in war.

Fig. 20 represents a kind of trumpet made of wood, and nearly seven feet in length, which Gumilla found among the Indians in the vicinity of the Orinoco. It somewhat resembles the _juruparis_ (Fig. 21), a mysterious instrument of the Indians on the Rio Haupés, a tributary of the Rio Negro, South America. The _juruparis_ is regarded as an object of great veneration. Women are never permitted to see it. So stringent is this law that any woman obtaining a sight of it is put to death――usually by poison. No youths are allowed to see it until they have been subjected to a series of initiatory fastings and scourgings. The _juruparis_ is usually kept hidden in the bed of some stream, deep in the forest; and no one dares to drink out of that sanctified stream, or to bathe in its water. At feasts the _juruparis_ is brought out during the night, and is blown outside the houses of entertainment. The inner portion of the instrument consists of a tube made of slips of the Paxiaba palm (_Triartea exorrhiza_). When the Indians are about to use the instrument they nearly close the upper end of the tube with clay, and also tie above the oblong square hole (shown in the engraving) a portion of the leaf of the Uaruma, one of the arrow-root family. Round the tube are wrapped long strips of the tough bark of the Jébaru (_Parivoa grandiflora_). This covering descends in folds below the tube. The length of the instrument is from four to five feet. The illustration (Fig. 21), which exhibits the _juruparis_ with its cover and without it, has been taken from a specimen in the museum at Kew gardens. The mysteries connected with this trumpet are evidently founded on an old tradition from prehistoric Indian ancestors. _Jurupari_ means “demon”; and with several Indian tribes on the Amazon customs and ceremonies still prevail in honour of Jurupari.

The Caroados, an Indian tribe in Brazil, have a war trumpet which closely resembles the _juruparis_. With this people it is the custom for the chief to give on his war trumpet the signal for battle, and to continue blowing as long as he wishes the battle to last. The trumpet is made of wood, and its sound is described by travellers as very deep but rather pleasant. The sound is easily produced, and its continuance does not require much exertion; but a peculiar vibration of the lips is necessary which requires practice. Another trumpet, the _turé_, is common with many Indian tribes on the Amazon who use it chiefly in war. It is made of a long and thick bamboo, and there is a split reed in the mouthpiece. It therefore partakes rather of the character of an oboe or clarinet. Its tone is described as loud and harsh. The _turé_ is especially used by the sentinels of predatory hordes, who, mounted on a lofty tree, give the signal of attack to their comrades.

Again, the aborigines in Mexico had a curious contrivance of this kind, the _acocotl_, now more usually called _clarin_. The former word is its old Indian name, and the latter appears to have been first given to the instrument by the Spaniards. The _acocotl_ consists of a very thin tube from eight to ten feet in length, and generally not quite straight but with some irregular curves. This tube, which is often not thicker than a couple of inches in diameter, terminates at one end in a sort of bell, and has at the other end a small mouthpiece resembling in shape that of a clarinet. The tube is made of the dry stalk of a plant which is common in Mexico, and which likewise the Indians call _acocotl_. The most singular characteristic of the instrument is that the performer does not blow into it, but inhales the air through it; or rather, he produces the sound by sucking the mouthpiece. It is said to require strong lungs to perform on the _acocotl_ effectively according to Indian notions of taste.

The _botuto_, which Gumilla saw used by some tribes near the river Orinoco (Fig. 22), was evidently an ancient Indian contrivance, but appears to have fallen almost into oblivion during the last two centuries. It was made of baked clay and was commonly from three to four feet long; but some trumpets of this kind were of enormous size. The _botuto_ with two bellies was usually made thicker than that with three bellies and emitted a deeper sound, which is described as having been really terrific. These trumpets were used on occasions of mourning and funeral dances. Alexander von Humboldt saw the _botuto_ among some Indian tribes near the river Orinoco.

Besides those which have been noticed, other antique wind instruments of the Indians are mentioned by historians; but the descriptions given of them are too superficial to convey a distinct notion as to their form and purport. Several of these barbarous contrivances scarcely deserve to be classed with musical instruments. This may, for instance, be said of certain musical jars or earthen vessels producing sounds, which the Peruvians constructed for their amusement. These vessels were made double; and the sounds imitated the cries of animals or birds. A similar contrivance of the Indians in Chili, preserved in the museum at Santiago, is described by the traveller S. S. Hill as follows:――“It consists of two earthen vessels in the form of our india-rubber bottles, but somewhat larger, with a flat tube from four to six inches in length, uniting their necks near the top and slightly curved upwards, and with a small hole on the upper side one third of the length of the tube from one side of the necks. To produce the sounds the bottles were filled with water and suspended to the bough of a tree, or to a beam, by a string attached to the middle of the curved tube, and then swung backwards and forwards in such a manner as to cause each end to be alternately the highest and lowest, so that the water might pass backwards and forwards from one bottle to the other through the tube between them. By this means soothing sounds were produced which, it is said, were employed to lull to repose the drowsy chiefs who usually slept away the hottest hours of the day. In the meantime, as the bottles were porous, the water within them diminished by evaporation, and the sound died gradually away.”

As regards instruments of percussion, a kind of drum deserves special notice on account of the ingenuity evinced in its construction. The Mexicans called it _teponaztli_. They generally made it of a single block of very hard wood, somewhat oblong square in shape, which they hollowed, leaving at each end a solid piece about three or four inches in thickness, and at its upper side a kind of sound-board about a quarter of an inch in thickness. In this sound-board, if it may be called so, they made three incisions; namely, two running parallel some distance lengthwise of the drum, and a third running across from one of these to the other just in the centre. By this means they obtained two vibrating tongues of wood which, when beaten with a stick, produced sounds as clearly defined as are those of our kettle drums. By making one of the tongues thinner than the other they ensured two different sounds, the pitch of which they were enabled to regulate by shaving off more or less of the wood. The bottom of the drum they cut almost entirely open. The traveller, M. Nebel, was told by archæologists in Mexico that these instruments always contained the interval of a third, but on examining several specimens which he saw in museums he found some in which the two sounds stood towards each other in the relation of a fourth; while in others they constituted a fifth, in others a sixth, and in some even an octave. This is noteworthy in so far as it points to a conformity with our diatonic series of intervals, excepting the seventh.

The _teponaztli_ was generally carved with various fanciful and ingenious designs. It was beaten with two drumsticks covered at the end with an elastic gum, called _ule_, which was obtained from the milky juice extracted from the ule-tree. Some of these drums were small enough to be carried on a string or strap suspended round the neck of the player; others, again, measured upwards of 5 feet in length, and their sound was so powerful that it could be heard at a distance of three miles. In some rare instances a specimen of the _teponaztli_ is still preserved by the Indians in Mexico, especially among tribes who have been comparatively but little affected by intercourse with their European aggressors. Herr Heller saw such an instrument in the hands of the Indians of Huatusco――a village near Mirador in the Tierra Templada, or temperate region, occupying the slopes of the Cordilleras. Its sound is described as so very loud as to be distinctly audible at an incredibly great distance. This circumstance, which has been noticed by several travellers, may perhaps be owing in some measure to the condition of the atmosphere in Mexico.

Instruments of percussion constructed on a principle more or less similar to the _teponaztli_ were in use in several other parts of America, as well as in Mexico.

The largest kind of Mexican _teponaztli_ appears to have been generally of a cylindrical shape. Clavigero gives a drawing of such an instrument. Drums, also constructed of skin or parchment in combination with wood were not unknown to the Indians. Of this description was, for instance, the _huehuetl_ of the Aztecs in Mexico, which consisted, according to Clavigero, of a wooden cylinder somewhat above 3 feet in height, curiously carved and painted and covered at the top with carefully prepared deer-skin. And, what appears the most remarkable, the parchment (we are told) could be tightened or slackened by means of cords in nearly the same way as with our own drum. The _huehuetl_ was not beaten with drumsticks but merely struck with the fingers, and much dexterity was required to strike it in the proper manner. Oviedo states that the Indians in Cuba had drums which were stretched with human skin. And Bernal Diaz relates that when he was with Cortés in Mexico they ascended together the _Teocalli_ (“House of God”), a large temple in which human sacrifices were offered by the aborigines; and there the Spanish visitors saw a large drum which was made, Diaz tells us, with skins of great serpents. This “hellish instrument,” as he calls it, produced, when struck, a doleful sound which was so loud that it could be heard at a distance of two leagues.

The name of the Peruvian drum was _huanca_; they had also an instrument of percussion, called _chhilchiles_, which appears to have been a sort of tambourine.

The rattle was likewise popular with the Indians before the discovery of America. The Mexicans called it _ajacaxtli_. In construction it was similar to the rattle at the present day commonly used by the Indians. It was oval or round in shape, and appears to have been usually made of a gourd into which holes were pierced, and to which a wooden handle was affixed. A number of little pebbles were enclosed in the hollowed gourd. They were also made of pottery. The little balls in the _ajacaxtli_ of pottery, enclosed as they are, may at a first glance appear a puzzle. Probably, when the rattle was being formed they were attached to the inside as slightly as possible; and after the clay had been baked they were detached by means of an implement passed through the holes.

The Tezcucans (or Acolhuans) belonged to the same race as the Aztecs, whom they greatly surpassed in knowledge and social refinement. Nezahualcoyotl, a wise monarch of the Tezcucans, abhorred human sacrifices, and erected a large temple which he dedicated to “The unknown god, the cause of causes.” This edifice had a tower nine storeys high, on the top of which were placed a number of musical instruments of various kinds which were used to summon the worshippers to prayer. Respecting these instruments especial mention is made of a sonorous metal which was struck with a mallet. This is stated in a historical essay written by Ixtlilxochitl, a native of Mexico and of royal descent, who lived in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and who may be supposed to have been familiar with the musical practices of his countrymen. But whether the sonorous metal alluded to was a gong or a bell is not clear from the vague record transmitted to us. That the bell was known to the Peruvians appears to be no longer doubtful, since a small copper specimen has been found in one of the old Peruvian tombs. This interesting relic is now deposited in the museum at Lima. M. de Castelnau has published a drawing of it. The Peruvians called their bells _chanrares_; but it remains questionable whether this name did not designate rather the so-called horse bells, which were certainly known to the Mexicans, who called them _yotl_. It is noteworthy that these _yotl_ are found figured in the picture-writings representing the various objects which the Aztecs used to pay as tribute to their sovereigns. The collection of Mexican antiquities in the British Museum contains a cluster of yotl-bells. Being nearly round, they closely resemble the _Schellen_ which the Germans are in the habit of affixing to their horses, particularly in the winter when they are driving their noiseless sledges.

Again, in South America sonorous stones are not unknown, and were used in olden time for musical purposes. The traveller G. T. Vigne saw among the Indian antiquities preserved in the town of Cuzco, in Peru, “a musical instrument of green sonorous stone, about a foot long, and an inch and a half wide, flat-sided, pointed at both ends, and arched at the back, where it was about a quarter of an inch thick, whence it diminished to an edge, like the blade of a knife…. In the middle of the back was a small hole, through which a piece of string was passed; and when suspended and struck by any hard substance a singularly musical note was produced.” Humboldt mentions the Amazon-stone, which on being struck by a hard substance yields a metallic sound. It was formerly cut by the American Indians into very thin plates, perforated in the centre and suspended by a string. These plates were remarkably sonorous. This kind of stone is not, as might be conjectured from its name, found exclusively near the Amazon. The name was given to it as well as to the river by the first European visitors to America, in allusion to the female warriors respecting whom strange stories are told. The natives pretending, according to an ancient tradition, that the stone came from the country of “Women without husbands,” or “Women living alone.”

As regards the ancient stringed instruments of the American Indians our information is indeed but scanty. Clavigero says that the Mexicans were entirely unacquainted with stringed instruments; a statement the correctness of which is questionable, considering the stage of civilisation to which these people had attained. At any rate, we generally find one or other kind of such instruments with nations whose intellectual progress and social condition are decidedly inferior. The Aztecs had many claims to the character of a civilised community and (as before said) the Tezcucans were even more advanced in the cultivation of the arts and sciences than the Aztecs. “The best histories,” Prescott observes, “the best poems, the best code of laws, the purest dialect, were all allowed to be Tezcucan. The Aztecs rivalled their neighbours in splendour of living, and even in the magnificence of their structures. They displayed a pomp and ostentatious pageantry, truly Asiatic.” Unfortunately historians are sometimes not sufficiently discerning in their communications respecting musical questions. J. Ranking, in describing the grandeur of the establishment maintained by Montezuma, says that during the repasts of this monarch “there was music of fiddle, flute, snail-shell, a kettle-drum, and other strange instruments.” But as this waiter does not indicate the source whence he drew his information respecting Montezuma’s orchestra including the fiddle, the assertion deserves scarcely a passing notice.

The Peruvians possessed a stringed instrument, called _tinya_, which was provided with five or seven strings. To conjecture from the unsatisfactory account of it transmitted to us, the _tinya_ appears to have been a kind of guitar. Considering the fragility of the materials of which such instruments are generally constructed, it is perhaps not surprising that we do not meet with any specimens of them in the museums of American antiquities.

A few remarks will not be out of place here referring to the musical performances of the ancient Indians, since an acquaintance with the nature of the performances is likely to afford additional assistance in appreciating the characteristics of the instruments. In Peru, where the military system was carefully organised, each division of the army had its trumpeters, called _cqueppacamayo_, and its drummers, called _huancarcamayo_. When the Inca returned with his troops victorious from battle his first act was to repair to the temple of the Sun in order to offer up thanksgiving; and after the conclusion of this ceremony the people celebrated the event with festivities, of which music and dancing constituted a principal part. Musical performances appear to have been considered indispensable on occasions of public celebrations; and frequent mention is made of them by historians who have described the festivals annually observed by the Peruvians.

About the month of October the Peruvians celebrated a solemn feast in honour of the dead, at which ceremony they executed lugubrious songs and plaintive instrumental music. Compositions of a similar character were performed on occasion of the decease of a monarch. As soon as it was made known to the people that their Inca had been “called home to the mansions of his father the sun” they prepared to celebrate his obsequies with becoming solemnity. Prescott, in his graphic description of these observances, says: “At stated intervals, for a year, the people assembled to renew the expressions of their sorrow; processions were made displaying the banner of the departed monarch; bards and minstrels were appointed to chronicle his achievements, and their songs continued to be rehearsed at high festivals in the presence of the reigning monarch――thus stimulating the living by the glorious example of the dead.” The Peruvians had also particular agricultural songs, which they were in the habit of singing while engaged in tilling the lands of the Inca; a duty which devolved upon the whole nation. The subject of these songs, or rather hymns, referred especially to the noble deeds and glorious achievements of the Inca and his dynasty. While thus singing, the labourers regulated their work to the rhythm of the music, thereby ensuring a pleasant excitement and a stimulant in their occupation, like soldiers regulating their steps to the music of the military band. These hymns pleased the Spanish invaders so greatly that they not only adopted several of them but also composed some in a similar form and style. This appears, however, to have been the case rather with the poetry than with the music.

The name of the Peruvian elegiac songs was _haravi_. Some tunes of these songs, pronounced to be genuine specimens, have been published in recent works; but their genuineness is questionable. At all events they must have been much tampered with, as they exhibit exactly the form of the Spanish _bolero_. Even allowing that the melodies of these compositions have been derived from Peruvian _harivaris_, it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty how much in them has been retained of the original tunes, and how much has been supplied besides the harmony, which is entirely an addition of the European arranger. The Peruvians had minstrels, called _haravecs_ (_i.e._, “inventors”), whose occupation it was to compose and to recite the _haravis_.

The Mexicans possessed a class of songs which served as a record of historical events. Furthermore they had war-songs, love-songs, and other secular vocal compositions, as well as sacred chants, in the practice of which boys were instructed by the priests in order that they might assist in the musical performances of the temple. It appertained to the office of the priests to burn incense, and to perform music in the temple at stated times of the day. The commencement of the religious observances which took place regularly at sunrise, at mid-day, at sunset, and at midnight, was announced by signals blown on trumpets and pipes. Persons of high position retained in their service professional musicians whose duty it was to compose ballads, and to perform vocal music with instrumental accompaniment. The nobles themselves, and occasionally even the monarch, not infrequently delighted in composing ballads and odes.

Especially to be noticed is the institution termed “Council of music,” which the wise monarch Nezahualcoyotl founded in Tezcuco. This institution was not intended exclusively for promoting the cultivation of music; its aim comprised the advancement of various arts, and of sciences such as history, astronomy, etc. In fact, it was an academy for general education. Probably no better evidence could be cited testifying to the remarkable intellectual attainments of the Mexican Indians before the discovery of America than this council of music. Although in some respects it appears to have resembled the board of music of the Chinese, it was planned on a more enlightened and more comprehensive principle. The Chinese “board of music,” called _Yoh Pu_, is an office connected with the _Li Pu_ or “board of rites,” established by the imperial government at Peking. The principal object of the board of rites is to regulate the ceremonies on occasions of sacrifices offered to the gods; of festivals and certain court solemnities; of military reviews; of presentations, congratulations, marriages, deaths, burials――in short, concerning almost every possible event in social and public life.

The reader is probably aware that in one of the various hypotheses which have been advanced respecting the Asiatic origin of the American Indians China is assigned to them as their ancient home. Some historians suppose them to be emigrants from Mongolia, Thibet, or Hindustan; others maintain that they are the offspring of Phœnician colonists who settled in Central America. Even more curious are the arguments of certain inquirers who have no doubt whatever that the ancestors of the American Indians were the lost ten tribes of Israel, of whom since about the time of the Babylonian captivity history is silent. Whatever may be thought as to which particular one of these speculations hits the truth, they certainly have all proved useful, in so far as they have made ethnologists more exactly acquainted with the habits and predilections of the American aborigines than would otherwise have been the case. For, as the advocates of each hypothesis have carefully collected and adduced every evidence they were able to obtain tending to support their views, the result is that (so to say) no stone has been left unturned. Nevertheless, any such hints as suggest themselves from an examination of musical instruments have hitherto remained unheeded. It may therefore perhaps interest the reader to have his attention drawn to a few suggestive similarities occurring between instruments of the American Indians and of certain nations inhabiting the eastern hemisphere.

We have seen that the Mexican pipe and the Peruvian syrinx were purposely constructed so as to produce the intervals of the pentatonic scale only. There are some additional indications of this scale having been at one time in use with the American Indians. For instance, the music of the Peruvian dance _cachua_ is described as having been very similar to some Scotch national dances; and the most conspicuous characteristics of the Scotch tunes are occasioned by the frequently exclusive employment of intervals appertaining to the pentatonic scale. We find precisely the same series of intervals adopted on certain Chinese instruments, and evidences are not wanting of the pentatonic scale having been popular among various races in Asia at a remote period. The series of intervals appertaining to the Chiriqui pipe, mentioned on p. 60, consisted of a semitone and two whole tones, like the _tetrachord_ of the ancient Greeks.

In the Peruvian _huayra-puhura_ made of soapstone some of the pipes possess lateral holes. This contrivance, which is rather unusual, occurs on the Chinese _shêng_. The _chayna_, mentioned on p. 62, seems to have been provided with a reed, like the oboe: and in Hindustan we find a species of oboe called _shehna_. The _turé_ of the Indian tribes on the Amazon, mentioned on p. 67, reminds us of the trumpets _turi_, or _tuturi_, of the Hindus. The name appears to have been known also to the Arabs; but there is no indication whatever of its having been transmitted to the peninsula by the Moors, and afterwards to South America by the Portuguese and Spaniards.

The wooden tongues in the drum _teponaztli_ may be considered as a contrivance exclusively of the ancient American Indians. Nevertheless a construction nearly akin to it may be observed in certain drums of the Tonga and Fiji islanders, and of the natives of some islands in Torres Strait. Likewise some negro tribes in Western and Central Africa have certain instruments of percussion which are constructed on a principle somewhat reminding us of the _teponaztli_. The method of bracing the drum by means of cords, as exhibited in the _huehuetl_ of the Mexican Indians, is evidently of very high antiquity in the East. It was known to the ancient Egyptians.

Rattles, Pandean pipes made of reed, and conch trumpets, are found almost all over the world, wherever the materials of which they are constructed are easily obtainable. Still, it may be noteworthy that the Mexicans employed the conch trumpet in their religious observances apparently in much the same way as it is used in the Buddhist worship of the Tibetans and Kalmuks.

As regards the sonorous metal in the great temple at Tezcuco some inquirers are sure that it was a gong: but it must be borne in mind that these inquirers detect everywhere traces proving an invasion of the Mongols, which they maintain to have happened about six hundred years ago. Had they been acquainted with the little Peruvian bell they would have had more tangible musical evidence in support of their theory than the supposed gong; for this bell certainly bears a suggestive resemblance to the little hand-bell which the Buddhists use in their religious ceremonies.

The Peruvians interpolated certain songs, especially those which they were in the habit of singing while cultivating the fields, with the word _hailli_ which signified “Triumph.” As the subject of these compositions was principally the glorification of the Inca, the burden _hailli_ is perhaps all the more likely to remind Europeans of the Hebrew _hallelujah_. Moreover, Adair, who lived among the Indians of North America during a period of about forty years, speaks of some other words which he found used as burdens in hymns sung on solemn occasions, and which appeared to him to correspond with certain Hebrew words of a sacred import.

As regards the musical accomplishments of the Indian tribes at the present day they are far below the standard which we have found among their ancestors. A period of three hundred years of oppression has evidently had the effect of subduing the melodious expressions of happiness and contentedness which in former times appear to have been quite as prevalent with the Indians as they generally are with independent and flourishing nations. The innate talent for music evinced by those of the North American Indians who were converted to Christianity soon after the emigration of the Puritans to New England is very favourably commented on by some old writers. In the year 1661 John Elliot published a translation of the psalms into Indian verse. The singing of these metrical psalms by the Indian converts in their places of worship appears to have been actually superior to the sacred vocal performances of their Christian brethren from Europe; for we find it described by several witnesses as “excellent” and “most ravishing.”

In other parts of America the priests from Spain did not neglect to turn to account the susceptibility of the Indians for music. Thus, in central America the Dominicans composed as early as in the middle of the sixteenth century a sacred poem in the Guatemalian dialect containing a narrative of the most important events recorded in the Bible. This production they sang to the natives, and to enhance the effect they accompanied the singing with musical instruments. The alluring music soon captivated the heart of a powerful cazique, who was thus induced to adopt the doctrines embodied in the composition, and to diffuse them among his subjects, who likewise delighted in the performances. In Peru a similar experiment, resorted to by the priests who accompanied Pizarro’s expedition, proved equally successful. They dramatised certain scenes in the life of Christ and represented them with music, which so greatly fascinated the Indians that many of them readily embraced the new faith. Nor are these entertainments dispensed with even at the present day by the Indian Christians, especially in the village churches of the Sierra in Peru; and as several religious ceremonies have been retained by these people from their heathen forefathers, it may be conjectured that their sacred musical performances also retain much of their ancient heathen character.

Most of the musical instruments found among the American Indians at the present day are evidently genuine old Indian contrivances as they existed long before the discovery of America. Take, for example, the peculiarly-shaped rattles, drums, flutes, and whistles of the North American Indians, of which some specimens in the Museum are described in the large catalogue. A few African instruments, introduced by the negro slaves, are now occasionally found in the hands of the Indians, and have been by some travellers erroneously described as genuine Indian inventions. This is the case with the African _marimba_, which has become rather popular with the natives of Guatemala in central America; but such adaptations are very easily discernible.

VII.

EUROPEAN INSTRUMENTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

Many representations of musical instruments of the middle ages have been preserved in manuscripts, as well as in sculptures and paintings forming ornamental portions of churches and other buildings. Valuable facts and hints are obtainable from these evidences, provided they are judiciously selected and carefully examined. The subject is, however, so large that only a few observations on the most interesting instruments can be offered here. Unfortunately there still prevails much uncertainty respecting several of the earliest representations as to the precise century from which they date, and there is reason to believe that in some instances the archæological zeal of musical investigators has assigned a higher antiquity to such discoveries than can be satisfactorily proved.

It appears certain that the most ancient European instruments known to us were in form and construction more like the Asiatic than was the case with later ones. Before a nation has attained to a fairly high degree of civilisation its progress in the cultivation of music, as an art, is very slow indeed. The instruments found at the present day in Asia are scarcely superior to those which were in use among oriental nations about three thousand years ago. It is, therefore, perhaps not surprising that no material improvement is perceptible in the construction of the instruments of European countries during the lapse of nearly a thousand years. True, evidences to be relied on referring to the first five or six centuries of the Christian era are but scanty; although indications are not wanting which may help the reflecting musician.

There are some early monuments of Christian art dating from the fourth century in which the lyre is represented. In one of them Christ is depicted as Apollo touching the lyre. This instrument occurs at an early period in western Europe as used in popular pastimes. In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the ninth century in the British Museum (Cleopatra C. VIII.) are the figures of two gleemen, one playing the lyre and the other a double-pipe. M. de Coussemaker has published in the “Annales Archéologiques” the figure of a crowned personage playing the lyre, which he found in a manuscript of the ninth or tenth century in the library at Angers. The player twangs the strings with his fingers, while the Anglo-Saxon gleeman before mentioned uses a plectrum.

_Cithara_ was a name applied to several stringed instruments greatly varying in form, power of sound, and compass. The illustration (Fig. 23) represents a cithara from a manuscript of the ninth century, formerly in the library of the great monastery of St. Blasius in the Black Forest. When in the year 1768 the monastery was destroyed by fire, this valuable book perished in the flames; fortunately the celebrated Abbot Gerbert possessed tracings of the illustrations, which were saved from destruction. He published them, in the year 1774, in his work “De cantu et musica sacra.” As the older works on music were generally written in Latin we do not learn from them the popular names of the instruments; the writers merely adopted such Latin names as they thought the most appropriate. Thus, for instance, a very simple stringed instrument of a triangular shape, and a somewhat similar one of a square shape (Fig. 24), were designated by the name of _psalterium_.

The _cithara_ here illustrated (Fig. 25) is evidently an improvement upon the triangular psalterium (Fig. 26), because it has a sort of small sound-board at the top. Scarcely better, with regard to acoustics, appears to have been the instrument designated as _nablum_, which is engraved (Fig. 27) from a manuscript of the ninth century at Angers.

A small psalterium with strings placed over a sound-board was apparently the prototype of the _citole_, a kind of dulcimer which was played with the fingers (Fig. 28). The names were not only often vaguely applied by the mediæval writers, but they changed also in almost every century. The psalterium, or psalterion (Italian _salterio_, English _psaltery_), of the fourteenth century and later had the trapezium shape of the dulcimer.

The Anglo-Saxons frequently accompanied their vocal effusions with a harp, more or less triangular in shape, an instrument which may be considered rather as constituting the transition of the lyre into the harp. The harp was especially popular in central and northern Europe, and was the favourite instrument of the German and Celtic bards and of the Scandinavian skalds. In the next illustration (Fig. 29) from the manuscript of the monastery of St. Blasius twelve strings and two sound-holes are given to it. A harp similar in form and size, but without the front pillar, was known to the ancient Egyptians. Perhaps the addition was also non-existent in the earliest specimens appertaining to European nations; and a sculptured figure of a small harp constructed like the ancient eastern harp has been discovered in the old church of Ullard in the county of Kilkenny. This curious relic, which is said to date from a period anterior to the year 800, is illustrated in Bunting’s “Ancient Music of Ireland.” As Bunting was the first who drew attention to this sculpture his account of it may interest the reader. “The drawing,” he says, “is taken from one of the ornamental compartments of a sculptured cross, at the old church of Ullard. From the style of the workmanship, as well as from the worn condition of the cross, it seems older than the similar monument at Monasterboice which is known to have been set up before the year 830. The sculpture is rude; the circular rim which binds the arms of the cross together is not pierced in the quadrants, and many of the figures originally in relievo are now wholly abraded. It is difficult to determine whether the number of strings represented is six or seven; but, as has been already remarked, accuracy in this respect cannot be expected either in sculptures or in many picturesque drawings.” The Finns had a harp (_harpu_, _kantele_) with a similar frame, devoid of a front pillar, still in use until the commencement of the last century.

One of the most interesting stringed instruments of the middle ages is the _rotta_ (German, _Rotte_; English, _rote_). It was sounded by twanging the strings, and also by the application of the bow. The first method was, of course, the elder one. There can hardly be a doubt that when the bow came into use it was applied to certain popular instruments which previously had been treated like the _cithara_ or the _psalterium_. The Hindus at the present day use their _suroda_ sometimes as a lute and sometimes as a fiddle. In some measure we do the same with the violin by playing occasionally _pizzicato_. The rotta from the manuscript of St. Blasius is called in Gerbert’s work _cithara teutonica_, while the harp is called _cithara anglica_; from which it would appear that the former was regarded as pre-eminently a German instrument. Possibly its name may have been originally _chrotta_ and the continental nations may have adopted it from the Celtic races of the British isles, dropping the guttural sound. This hypothesis is, however, one of those which have been advanced by some musical historians without any satisfactory evidence.

In the _rotta_ the ancient Asiatic lyre is easily to be recognized. An illumination of king David playing the _rotta_ forms the frontispiece of a manuscript of the eighth century preserved in the cathedral library of Durham; it is musically interesting inasmuch as it represents a _rotta_ of an oblong square shape like that just noticed and resembling the Welsh _crwth_. It has only five strings which the performer twangs with his fingers. Again, a very interesting representation of the Psalmist with a kind of _rotta_ occurs in a manuscript of the tenth century, in the British Museum (Vitellius F.XI.). The manuscript was much injured by a fire in the year 1731; but Professor Westwood has succeeded, with great care, and with the aid of a magnifying glass, in making out the lines of the figure. As it has been ascertained that the psalter is written in the Irish semiuncial character it is highly probable that the kind of _rotta_ represents the Irish _cionar cruit_, which was played by twanging the strings and also by the application of a bow. Unfortunately we possess no well-authenticated representation of the Welsh _crwth_ of an early period; otherwise we should in all probability find it played with the fingers, or with a plectrum. Venantius Fortunatus, an Italian who lived in the second half of the sixth century, mentions in a poem the “Chrotta Britanna.” He does not, however, allude to the bow, and there is no reason to suppose that it existed in England. Howbeit, the Welsh _crwth_ (Anglo-Saxon, _crudh_; English, _crowd_) is only known as a species of fiddle closely resembling the _rotta_, but having a fingerboard in the middle of the open frame and being strung with only a few strings; while the _rotta_ had sometimes above twenty strings. As it may interest the reader to examine the form of the modern _crwth_ we give an illustration of it (Fig. 30). Edward Jones, in his “Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards,” records that the Welsh had before this kind of _crwth_ a three-stringed one called “Crwth Trithant,” which was, he says, “a sort of violin, or more properly a rebeck.” The three-stringed _crwth_ was chiefly used by the inferior class of bards; and was probably the Moorish fiddle which is still the favourite instrument of the itinerant bards of the Bretons in France, who call it _rébek_. The Bretons, it will be remembered, are close kinsmen of the Welsh.

A player on the _crwth_ or _crowd_ (a crowder) from a bas-relief on the under part of the seats of the choir in Worcester cathedral dates from the latter part of the fourteenth century.[5] It was probably identical with the _rotta_ of the same century on the continent.