A MARIMBA PLAYER AND HIS INSTRUMENT.
"Two long drumsticks, with balls of India rubber at their heads, are in the hands of the player, who strikes double notes at every touch of the wooden claviature, with the resounding jicaras underneath. The sound of this instrument is charming, clear, limpid in its tones, like the intonation of a harp string of wire. The Indians produce the justest and sweetest double notes, and blend a rattling tune together in very harmonious chords. Their talent for playing this instrument by ear is astonishing; in a day, they will pick up the most difficult air, and play it with a good deal of expression, accompanied with a chant of their own composition."
Instead of calabashes, earthen jars of various sizes are occasionally used to suspend beneath the key pieces; or, what in some districts is equally common, they are vertical tubes of cedar wood (Cedrela odorata). As described by the traveler Morelet, these tubes are twenty-two in number, all of equal diameter, varying in length from ten to forty centimeters, and forming three complete octaves without semitones.[37] In many of the bailes this is the favorite means of music, and it is often associated with the guitar.
That it was not unknown to the ancient Aztecs seems shown from the following drawing from an original Mexican painting in Duran's Historia, where the player does not appear to be striking a drum, but the keys of the marimba, or an instrument of that nature.
ANCIENT AZTEC MUSICIAN.
The Drum was, and remains, a favorite instrument in Central America. It is usually formed of a hollow piece of wood, which is struck with sticks. In Nicaragua, however, some of the natives use a short piece of bamboo, over the ends of which a skin is stretched. This is held in the left hand and struck with the tips of the fingers ot the knuckles of the right hand, keeping time to the chant or sone of the performer, while he throws himself into striking and extraordinary attitudes.
