Text and photos by Richard Morgan Szybist
Mayan music has maintained its essential spiritual character
over the roughly 500 years since the conquest of this ancient civilization by
the Spanish Empire. The indigenous music heard at Lake Atitlán and the
instruments used to play it are essentially the same as found in the rest of
the contemporary Mayan world. The most common of the instruments are the drum,
flute, chirimía and the marimba. The first two can be traced back to
ancient times, the other two arrived with the Spaniards.
La Cofradía en San Juan La Laguna:
Oil painting by Felipe Ujpán
Mendoza depicts a drummer and
chirimía player with the leaders
of a local cofradía and their
wives in the background.
The original purpose of Mayan music was purely ritualistic.
Music served to appease and honor the gods, express gratitude for divine intervention
and to solicit favor. The subjects of these rituals changed with the imposition
of Christianity beginning in the 16th century. Over time, other outside influences
affected not only the inventory of the instruments and materials to fabricate
them, but the range of occasions for their use as well. Most important to the
continued ritual role of Mayan music has been the Christian institution of the
cofradía as it was adapted to the evangelization of the Mayans. Cofradías
were established by the missionaries as lay brotherhoods dedicated to the veneration
of specific saints. The cofradía has historically been the key human
resource of local Catholic indigenous communities. Traditional music constitutes
an essential part of virtually all of their ceremonies.
A good place to learn more about this music is the Casa K’ojom
Música Maya, a small museum at the Centro Cultural La Azotea in the town
of Jocotenango, not far from Antigua. According to Samuel Franco Arce, the museum’s
founder and an expert on traditional Mayan music, knowledge of the history of
this music comes largely from artifacts dating back to the Classic Period (A.D.
250 - 280). Musical instruments and rituals in which they were employed are
depicted in murals, in manuscripts and on pottery. The instruments portrayed
included rasps, drums, flutes, rattles and trumpets made from natural materials.
These materials included animal parts such as skins, shells, bones and antlers;
tree gourds with seeds inside, clay and wood. From the earliest days, being
a musician was an occupational specialty open only to men.
The forces of Christianity replaced Mayan rituals with ceremonies
honoring Christ and the saints. These ceremonies would come to range in length
from short sacramental events to festivals lasting for nearly a week. The Spanish
brought not only European instruments but instruments from other cultures in
which the Spanish Empire had been in contact. The marimba was an African instrument.
The chirimía originated in the Arab world. The Spanish also introduced
the first string instruments to the Americas.
Musicians in the Cofradía: Oil
painting by Antonio Vásquez
Yojcom featuring a marimba,
a drummer and a chirimía player
participating in a cofradía ceremony.
Drums are almost invariably present at Mayan rituals at Atitlán.
Pre-Hispanic drums were of a variety of sizes, shapes and composition. According
to Franco, all pre-Hispanic drums were beaten with the hand. Today, drums are
beaten with sticks that have the contact ends covered in rubber. Most post-Conquest
drums are cylindrical in shape with hide tops. An exception, rarely seen today
but once common among the Atitlán Mayan, is the tun. The tun drum is
made by cutting slits into a hollow log in the form of an H. This forms two
vibrating tongues that enable the instrument to give off three distinct notes.
The flute and the chirimía are woodwinds that are also
part of most Mayan rituals at Atitlán. Of the two, the chirimía
is the most popular. It is also the more complex in physical construction and
the more dif- ficult of the two instruments to play. The chirimía is
made from cherry wood. The inside of the mouthpiece is formed by a dry palm
leaf folded into a triangular shape and attached by a cord to a metal and wood
casing. The mouthpiece must be damp to produce its characteristically sad sound.
Early Mayan flutes were made from a variety of materials, ranging from bone
and pottery to jade. Flute music was considered divine. Most Mayan flutes are
of the straight mouthpiece style, although the transverse mouthpiece style was,
in the past, quite common around Atitlán. Today, copies of the transverse
style are commonly peddled as souvenirs in the streets of Panajachel and other
tourist locations. Modern flutes are generally made of Carrizo cane or metal.
They vary somewhat in size and shape.
The marimba, the national musical instrument of Guatemala,
is fabricated with a variety of materials incorporating the basic components
of a xylophone keyboard with resonators, played with sticks. Some are considerably
more complex than others. The origin of this instrument is traced to Africa.
The Mayan marimba has gourd resonators and is similar to the type attributed
originally to the African Bantu tribe. The gourds have openings at their bases
which are surrounded with bees wax and covered with pig’s intestine. The
keyboard most commonly has 25 wooden keys, which are struck by flexible wooden
sticks with rubber-coated ends. One musician plays the Mayan
marimba. Many modern marimbas are
played by a team of three or more, for
entertainment purposes at all kinds of
civic and religious services. The Mayan
marimba is becoming rare and is more specifically
associated with cofradía rituals.
“Rito de Agradecimiento” by Pedro Rafael
González Chavajay of San Pedro La Laguna:
Four musicians playing at a Mayan rite of
thanksgiving. Included in the scene are a
chirimía player, a guitarist, two drummers;
one playing a slit-log drum, the other playing
the more common cylindrical-shaped drum.
Two other instruments brought by the
Spaniards to the Americas and found at
Atitlán are the guitar and the matraca.
Dominican friars are credited with introducing
the guitar here and incorporated
it into church music. The matraca is a
noisemaker, generally portable, made of
hardwood and with a ratchet-type device
on a handle that is rotated in a circular
movement by hand. Large stationary versions
are often located on church roofs
near bell towers. According to Franco, the
matraca’s use is limited to the rituals of the
Holy Week of Easter.
Visitors who come here expecting to hear
melodious music coming from indigenous
ensembles are likely to be disappointed. As
Franco points out in his historical monograph
on sale at the museum’s gift store,
there is a basic distinction between the
function of indigenous Mayan music and
European music “as an art.” The function
of Mayan music “ … is not to evoke an
aesthetic experience, but rather to arouse
religious enthusiasm … The Mayan does
not sing or dance to display his skill or
his knowledge … his music is the expression
of his faith and hope and his fears for
the gods.” Otherwise stated, this is simple
music played with basic instruments to
stimulate the primal regions of the mind.
Hearing it ignites imagery of an ancient
belief system with its core still intact. •
