Teponaztli: Gateualan musical instrument

A teponaztli is a kind of slit drum that is used in central Mexico by Aztecs and related traditions.

source of picture: www.britishmuseum.org

The musical instrument consists of a hollowed hard wood logs, normally fire-hardened. Like most slit drums, the teponaztli have three slits on their topside, cut into the shape of H. the resultant tongues of the instrument are then struck with rubber balls on mallet that were commonly made of deer antlers. Since the tongues of the instrument are of different lengths or are carved into various thicknesses, the musical instrument manufactures two different pitches, normally a 3^rd and 4^th apart.

Teponaztli were often decorated with a relief carvings of different deities or with abstract designs mouthed, manufacturing increasing volume via the hole at the end. On the other drums, a hole was put beneath the drum. The teponaztli from the Mixtec culture in what is today south-central Mexico are known for different battle or mythological scenes carved in relief.

These drums sizes ranged in size from 30 cm to 1.2 m long. The larger version of the teponaztli would be rested upon a supporting frame. The smaller versions could either be rested on a frame or carried by straps about the shoulders of the players.

The player of this musical instrument is known as ‘teponazoani’ and the musical instrument were used in dances, poetry, and celebration or in warfare as a means of communication. According to some sources, on important state occasions the blood of sacrificial victims could sometimes be poured into the musical instrument.

Montolinia, a Franciscan friar and chronicler of post-conquest Aztec life, opined that the teponaztli was always performed with the huehuetl skin drum to accompany many dances. In addition to dances, the musical instruments were used to accompany poetry readings; the notations for the beat of the drum’s sounds even at times appear within the poetry itself.