Most of these have a religious purpose. Thus, it is still a common
custom, in case of sickness or impending danger, to make a vow that,
in case of escape, the person will dance before the image of some
saint on a certain day, at a certain place, usually at a
festival.[29] Such dances are sometimes accompanied with songs or
chants of praise, or are performed in silence. The performer is
usually masked or in costume.
It would be erroneous to suppose that there is much gaiety in their
dances. At least, it is not apparent to foreign eyes. The music is
monotonous and almost lugubrious, the singing is all in the minor
key, and the motions are dull, mechanical and ungraceful. A European
traveler has, indeed, characterized these spectacles rather as an
exhibition of profound melancholy, than outbursts of merriment, and
has instanced them as a proof of the psychical inferiority of the
race![30]
Some of them, even to this day, as continued by the lower half-caste
population, are accused of an indecency which may be a reminiscence
of ancient Indian religious rites;[31] for we know that the native
Nicaraguans celebrated a festival strictly similar to that in
ancient Babylon, so condemned by the prophet, during which every
woman, of whatever class, had the right to yield her person to whom
she would, without incurring blame or exciting jealousy.
The _Logas_ seem to be peculiar to the Mangues. A small theatre is
extemporized, music is provided, and the actor comes forward,
arrayed in some odd garb, and recites a sort of poem, with gestures
and dancing movements. The text of one of these was obtained at
Namotivá by Dr. Berendt, and is in my possession. It is entitled,
_Loga del Niño Dios_, and contains about two hundred lines. The
language is a corrupt Spanish, with a number of Mangue words
interspersed. The exordium reads--
"Atienda, Señores,
Pongan atencion
Del Mangue tiyo Pegro
La conversacion."
The theme is an address to the patron saints and the infant Jesus,
but the tone is that of a burlesque, rather than a serious
composition. The costume of the orator, and his surroundings, the
little theatre, the holy infant, etc., are represented in the
frontispiece to this work, from a sketch taken from life.[32]
Frequently a number of persons join in the dance. Such is one, still
occasionally seen, called _Las Inditas_, the Little Indian Girls.
The period of its celebration is on the day of St. Jerome. The
women are masked, and wear a loose mantle, a skirt with lace edging,
a sash of rose color, and a hat with feathers. They carry bouquets
and have a silk handkerchief fastened around the waist, the ends
meeting over the hips. The men are in grotesque costumes, with ugly
masks. They dance in couples, but without touching each other. The
music is the marimba and the guitar. The songs usually turn on some
matter of local interest.
Another favorite dance is the _Baile de Chinegritos_, celebrated
by the Mangues. This name is applied to the masqueraders who take
part in it. They wear a cap of black straw, and the body is naked
to the waist, and painted. Each carries a stick or the dried yard
of a bull, and in turn lifts a companion from the ground and strikes
him with the whip. One, who keeps himself apart from the rest, is
called the _rucia_, or _yeguita_, the mare. He is in a framework
of cane adorned with women's skirts and colored handkerchiefs,
supposed to represent some animal. There is no fixed day for the
dance, but it is usually carried out in fulfillment of a vow. A
variety of this _baile_, called _Chinegritos à caballo_, is
performed by mounted actors, in brilliant costumes, with gaily
caparisoned horses. They are accompanied by music, and draw up in
front of a house, where they sing a song with a monotonous chorus,
_le-le-le-le-le-le-le-li-u_.
The _Baile de Negritos_ is celebrated on the festivals of St. James
and St. Anna. The participants are on horseback, themselves and
their steeds adorned with bright-colored sashes and garlands of
flowers. They all wear the _mosote_, or black straw hat, from which
this and the preceding dance derive their names.[33] The songs which
they sing are called _Ensaladas_, salads or medleys, and usually
contain personal allusions.
The _Baile de Toro-Guaca_, the Dance of the Graveyard Bull,[34] as
it may be rendered, is presented on the festival of the Virgin, of
St. Jerome, and other days, in accordance with a vow. It requires
fourteen dancers and seventeen masqueraders. The "bull" is
represented by a framework of reeds, surmounted by a pair of horns
and gaily decorated.
Other such exhibitions are called the _Baile de diablitos_, _Baile
de la Yeguita_, _Baile de San Roman_, _Baile de San Martin_, _Baile
del Toro y Venado_, _Baile del Mantudo_ (in which a desperado, with
numerous _chichiltes_, small bells, appears), besides some
representations of Bible scenes, as the combat between David and
Goliath, etc.
Although most of these are accompanied by songs, and some by
dialogues, they do not seem to reach to the height of a plot, or to
the depicting of character or emotion. Beside them, however, and no
doubt to take the place of original compositions of a similar kind,
were complete dramatic creations.
Many of these were religious or historical plays, arranged by the
clergy, and offer little of interest. But some were of a secular
character, and appear to refer to historical events.
One was The _Ollita_ or _Cañahuate_. It was acted in the Mangue
tongue at Masaya as late as 1822, but the text is, unfortunately,
lost. The _Ollita_ is the name of the whistling jar, on which, and
on the drum, a lugubrious musical accompaniment was played. The name
_Cañahuate_ is said to have been that of a dialect of the Mangue.
The plot turned on a proposed marriage between an old man, richly
dressed in Spanish garb, and a native princess. The chorus and
assistants carried bows, arrows and quivers, which would seem to
point to an early date as that of the supposed transaction.
§ 3. _Nicaraguan Musical Instruments and Music._
The musical instruments of the natives of Nicaragua, mentioned by
Oviedo, are drums, flutes of reeds, and _excoletes_, or trumpets.
This, however, by no means exhausted the list, and several others of
similar powers have been retained to the present day, and have been
referred to by travelers as local curiosities. Thus, Mr. Squier
writes as follows, in describing a festival in Leon de Nicaragua:
"It is impossible to describe the strange instruments. One consisted
of a large calabash, over which was stretched the skin of some
animal; this, when pressed in, recoiled with a dull, sullen noise,
like the suppressed bellow of a wild beast, and the wail of some of
the long reeds was like that of a man in the agonies of a violent
death."[35]
The memoranda that I have obtained from various sources enable me to
supply this omission of the distinguished traveler, and to make out
the following list, which probably is not exhaustive.
The most elaborate is the _Marimba_. Some writers say that both the
name and instrument are of African derivation, having been
introduced by the negroes. Others assert that the Indians have known
the marimba time out of mind, and undoubtedly invented it. Certain
it is, that they develop singular skill in its management.
A good description and illustration of it are given by von Tempsky,
from whose work I extract them.[36]
"They [the Indians of Central America] are still very fond of
dancing, and are very good musicians, performing on a peculiar
instrument, a native invention of antique date, the Marimba. A long,
horizontal stick supports a number of jicaras (or long, cylindrical
calabashes), arranged near one another, according to size, from two
feet in depth to four or three inches. Over the mouth of each of
them is drawn a thin piece of bladder, and over it, at the distance
of a quarter of an inch, are flat pieces of a very hard wood,
arranged like the claviature of a piano. These oblong pieces of wood
are supported on a frame of light wood, joined to the long stick
that supports the row of jicaras underneath. Two light legs sustain
the little piano, partly on the ground, and a hoop connects it with
the player, who sits within the hoop, pressing it on a bench.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: NICARAGUAN INDIANS PLAYING ON THE DRUM.]
This is held in the left hand and struck with the tips of the
fingers or the knuckles of the right hand, keeping time to the chant
or song of the performer, while he throws himself into striking and
extraordinary attitudes. The illustration on the preceding page,
from a sketch by Dr. Berendt, shows their manner of performing on
this instrument.
These two varieties of drums were also known to the ancient
Mexicans. They called the one which was struck with the hand the
_huehuetle_, "ancient object," and that played by sticks,
_teponaztli_.
The _Ollita_, or Little Jar, is an instrument still remembered in
Nicaragua, and the drama, in the Mangue dialect, to which I have
referred, bearing this name, proves that it was familiarly known at
Managua early in this century. Its sound is described as grave and
suitable to serious emotions. The identical _ollita_ which was used
in this drama was preserved long after the last performance of the
play (about 1822), in the chest of the _cofradia_ of San Jose, in
Managua; but like so many other valuable relics, it disappeared in
the disturbances of the republic.
From the name, and from what was told of its powers, it was
evidently not merely a whistle, but a sort of earthenware flute.
Such were known in Peru, and precisely in Nicaragua, on the island
of Ometepec, inhabited at the Conquest by the Nahuas, such a musical
jar was discovered of late years, and was examined and its musical
capacity described by Dr. Berendt in the following words:--
"Held with the two hands, the lower side turned upward, and the four
holes managed with two fingers on each side, blowing in the mouth
piece yields six different notes. Any two holes covered give the
tonica, one only covered the secunda, all open the tertia, and by
hard blowing a forced quarta; while all closed produces the dominant
(quint) in the underlying octave. Three holes closed yield notes not
in concordance with the others, varying between an imperfect sext
and a diminished septima of the lower octave. But those mentioned
as in accordance permit the playing of many varied tunes."
The shape of this jar is shown in the following cut, which was
prepared for an interesting article on Indian Music by Mr. Edwin A.
Barber, in the _American Naturalist_.
[Illustration: EARTHENWARE MUSICAL JAR FROM NICARAGUA.]