RECONSTRUCTION OF MESOAMERICAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF

WIND AND PERCUSSION

LUIS PEREZ

The great majority of musical instruments of Pre-Columbian origin which have been able to survive the rigors of time are made out of clay, practically every important museum around the world preserves some samples of such artifacts within their collections representing the Pre-Hispanic civilizations, other great number of important pieces remain hidden from the public eye, as they form part of private collections. The abundant number of archaeological artifacts which have been extracted from excavations and have been systematically analyzed by; archaeologists as well as musicologists are solid proof that clay was the material of preference among pre-Columbian societies in the making of their musical instruments, they also reveal a deep love for music to a point in which it was considered to have its origins in the divine realm.

To this date literally thousands of musical instruments have been found from; the North of Mexico to the Andean cultures in Peru, Bolivia and Chile each one with very distinctive sonic qualities, the form of these instruments greatly varies, from; simple capsules or whistles without any ornamentation and sometimes neither an air duct, and limited to producing only one sound, and up to the very complex multiple flutes of; two, three or four tubes which arranged in one body with only one mouth piece, allows to direct the players breath into one chamber or, two, three and up to four simultaneously, producing melodies and up to four note chords, [tetrachords], other instrument type of great complexity from its conception to engineering is what we know as; vaso silbador,  [whistling vase] also known as; water whistle, with its several variants these instruments, just to mention a few, are faithful testimony not only of the deep knowledge in terms of how sound can be manipulated, but also the complex systems and methods implied in the elaboration of these delicate instruments. We know that many musical instruments were of ritual use, one of them is the water vase, among the oldest samples of such instruments we should be mentioned the double water whistle from Tlatilco, in the Central Valley of Mexico, which dates from the fifth century BC other water whistles come from Monte Alban in the highlands of Oaxaca, some other come from the Toltec and Nahua cultures, but more abundantly are the water whistles from the Andean culture which date as far as 370 BC created during the period known as, Proto-Chimu.

At first, it was not the peculiar sounds produced by the pre-Columbian instruments what caught the attention of archaeologists and museum curators, but the artistic details that envelope such exquisite pieces, for they are very beautifully detailed. When I discovered my vocation for Pre-Hispanic music and yet not knowing its depth or without any instruments in my hands, I started my research by visiting museums identifying instruments, and trying to imagine their sounds, I realized that many instruments were labeled as; sculptures, artifacts or simply objects.  During the last three decades of the 20th century a lot more scholars came to contribute to our better understanding of the music and instruments of ancient Mexico, along came; historians, archaeologists, musicologists and artists, as well as groups of specialists in the fields of; acoustics, archaeomusicology, ethno-musicology, iconology, historyography, linguists and musicians among others, and they brought along their tools; stroboscopes, stethoscopes, X rays, frequency analyzers, spectrum analyzers, recording devices etc. This is understandable if we consider that some musical instruments constructed in clay date as far as 5 500 years, same age as the invention of pottery in our continent, ever since the creation of musical instruments and music expression flourished until the moment when it was stopped by the European invasion and the brutal destruction of the Aztec civilization during the mid 16th century, with the collapse of the Nahoa the last link of connection with our cultural past was also destroyed.

Pre-Hispanic societies found in clay an endless resources in the elaboration of objects needed for their daily life; in architecture, clay was used as a mortar and as stucco, as a sculptural element it was used for both; low and high relief, even as a fundamental element in construction of homes and entire towns as is the case of adobe houses, in medicine; they use clay with mineral healing proprieties, its use as facial and body paint, as well as in the making of masks, at times purely for cosmetic reasons, others for ritualistic purposes during ceremonies, festivities and war, clay was also used in the manufacture of toys for the infants, small animal figurines with wheels, puppets with articulated limbs, whistles that could mimic bird calls and much more.

The reason why music was so successful and prosperous for thousands of years among those societies was simply and thanks to clay. Its flexibility and malleability allows it to be; pushed, pinched, squeezed, rolled, pressed, pierced, stretched and modeled into virtually any shape, and if the desired results are no met, it can be destroyed, soaked and re-used and depending on the temperature during the firing process, it could gain the hardness of stone.

This proprieties in clay allowed the people in charge of designing and making musical instruments a great deal of possibilities in term of experimentation, their creative hands were able to reconstruct the standard instruments traditional to each cultural region, and their inventive minds created new ones during each and every cultural period of time, for this same reason pre-Cortesian music achieved a unprecedented advance, and at times, superior to that of their contemporary civilizations in Europe and the Middle East which were experimenting by using wood and metal in the construction of their musical instruments. One thing distinguish pre-Hispanic cultures from the rest of the world and that is, the absolute and blunt absence of string instruments, even though one of the most important weapons of use in hunting and in war is the bow, and according to some scholars; it was a natural propensity what led the use of this weapon to the invention of string instruments, it is important to note that, due to the great abundance and variety of clay aerophones, perhaps it was simply not in the interest of pre-Cortesian societies to develop string instruments since their; artistic, aesthetic and spiritual needs could be fulfilled with the sonic textures they created out of their clay aerophones and idiophones, this could also explain why they did not use the wheel for transportation or to facilitate the hard work in the crop fields when, on the other hand they used it in "toys."

Many pre-Hispanic clay Aerophones hold transcendental qualities not found in other instruments, music was present in every aspect of their lives and it created stretch vinculum with their beliefs and religious practices, certain instruments were designed with the purpose in mind of, stimulating neurological areas in the brain that would induce into a profound stage of contemplation and psychological stimulation, this could apply to; an individual, a group and even the entire community. From the moment of discovery for the human ability to produce sounds by utilizing instruments and as a consequence the invention of music, this manifestation immediately acquired a supernatural level, music became to be the human expansion for the sounds in nature and its power was used to transmit the desires, petitions, and  human uncertainties to the elements and natural phenomena which exercise their influence and rule the changes and the balance of life, the music-makers became to be considered vehicles of contact between the material and etherial realms, music was considered to be the sacred instrument to communicate with the divine. The elaborated burials of musicians along with their instruments confirm this beliefs and a profound love for music which, because of its divine origin and their beliefs in the after life, musicians would still need their instruments in the hereafter; to please their ancestors, and the gods,