Title

A Divine Wind: The Arts Of Death And Music In Terminal Formative Oaxaca

Abstract

This paper examines the social context of music and musical instruments in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica through the detailed analysis of a late Terminal Formative period (a.d. 100-250) burial from the site of Yugüe in the lower Ro Verde Valley of Oaxaca. The burial contained a sub-adult male interred with an incised bone flute and a plaster-backed iron-ore mirror. The Yugüe flute is the earliest reported bone flute from Mesoamerica and is incised and carved to create the bas relief image of a skeletal male figure. Based on the instrument's archaeological context and elaborate incising, we argue that the flute was categorized in pre-Columbian ontology as an animate object that actively participated in ceremonial action at Yugüe. While the nature of such ceremony remains unclear, the incising on the flute indicates that the instrument was capable of making manifest ancestral and divine forces affiliated with rain, wind, and agricultural fertility. Copyright © 2012 Cambridge University Press.

Publication Date

1-1-2012

Publication Title

Ancient Mesoamerica

Volume

23

Issue

1

Number of Pages

9-24

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536112000016

Socpus ID

84862285284 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84862285284

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