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Page 24
"After the first sensation of horror which one cannot
repress, one feels impelled to laugh, and this hilarity
can only be controlled by leaving the hall. So long
as these impossible sounds continue, the fact of their
being gravely produced, and in all sincerity _admired_
by the players, makes the 'concert' appear inexpressibly
'comic.'"
The Japanese had the same Buddhistic disregard for euphony,
but they have adopted European ideas in music and are rapidly
becoming occidentalized from a musical point of view. Their
principal instruments are the _koto_ and the _samisen_. The
former is similar to the Chinese _che_, and is a kind of large
zither with thirteen strings, each having a movable bridge by
means of which the pitch of the string may be raised or lowered.
The _samisen_ is a kind of small banjo, and probably originated
in the Chinese _kin_.
From Buddhism to sun worship, from China to Peru and Mexico,
is a marked change, but we find strange resemblances in the
music of these peoples, seeming almost to corroborate the
theory that the southern American races may be traced back to
the extreme Orient. We remember that in the Chinese sacred
chants--"official" music as one may call it--all the notes
were of exactly the same length. Now Garcilaso de la Vega
(1550), in his "Commentarios Reales," tells us that unequal
time was unknown in Peru, that all the notes in a song were
of exactly the same length. He further tells us that in his
time the voice was but seldom heard in singing, and that
all the songs were played on the flute, the words being so
well known that the melody of the flute immediately suggested
them. The Peruvians were essentially a pipe race, while, on the
other hand, the instruments of the Mexicans were of the other
extreme, all kinds of drums, copper gongs, rattles, musical
stones, cymbals, bells, etc., thus completing the resemblance
to Chinese art. In Prescott's "Conquest of Peru" we may read
of the beautiful festival of Raymi, or adoration of the sun,
held at the period of the summer solstice. It describes how the
Inca and his court, followed by the whole population of the
city, assembled at early dawn in the great square of Cuzco,
and how, at the appearance of the first rays of the sun,
a great shout would go up, and thousands of wind instruments
would break forth into a majestic song of adoration. That the
Peruvians were a gentler nation than the Mexicans can be seen
from their principal instrument, the pipe.
While it has been strenuously denied that on such occasions
human sacrifices were offered in Peru, the Mexicans, that race
whose principal instruments were drums and brass trumpets,
not only held such sacrifices, but, strange to say, held
them in honour of a kind of god of music, Tezcatlipoca. This
festival was the most important in Mexico, and took place
at the temple or "teocalli," a gigantic, pyramid-like mass
of stone, rising in terraces to a height of eighty-six feet
above the city, and culminating in a small summit platform
upon which the long procession of priests and victims could
be seen from all parts of the city. Once a year the sacrifice
was given additional importance, for then the most beautiful
youth in Mexico was chosen to represent the god himself. For
a year before the sacrifice he was dressed as Tezcatlipoca,
in royal robes and white linen, with a helmet-like crown of
sea shells with white cocks' plumes, and with an anklet hung
with twenty gold bells as a symbol of his power, and he was
married to the most beautiful maiden in Mexico. The priests
taught him to play the flute, and whenever the people heard
the sound of it they fell down and worshipped him.
The account may be found in Bancroft's great work on the
"Native Races of the Pacific," also Sahagun's "Nueva Espa�a
and Bernal Diaz," but perhaps the most dramatic description
is that by Rowbotham:
And when the morning of the day of sacrifice arrived,
he was taken by water to the Pyramid Temple where he
was to be sacrificed, and crowds lined the banks of the
river to see him in the barge, sitting in the midst of
his beautiful companions. When the barge touched the
shore, he was taken away from those companions of his
forever, and was delivered over to a band of priests,
exchanging the company of beautiful women for men
clothed in black mantles, with long hair matted with
blood--their ears also were mangled. These conducted
him to the steps of the pyramid, and he was driven
up amidst a crowd of priests, with drums beating and
trumpets blowing. As he went up he broke an earthen
flute on every step to show that his love, and his
delights were over. And when he reached the top, he was
sacrificed on an altar of jasper, and the signal that
the sacrifice was completed was given to the multitudes
below by the rolling of the great sacrificial drum.[04]
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