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 (of which we give engravings) 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 or whistle which is represented in the accompanying engraving appears, to judge from the somewhat obscure description transmitted to us, to possess about half a dozen tones. It is of pottery, painted in red and black on a cream-coloured ground, and in length about five inches. Among the instruments of this kind from central America the most complete have four finger-holes. By means of three the following four sounds (including the sound which is produced when none of the holes are closed) can be emitted:
the fourth finger-hole, when closed, has the effect of lowering the pitch a semitone. By a particular process two or three lower notes are obtainable.
