Article suitable for older students

Ayotl (turtle-shell drum)

17th Apr 2022

Clay model of an Aztec ayotl turtle-shell drum, Templo Mayor museum

Here we try to give as comprehensive an introduction as we can to one of the oldest percussion instruments in the world, common throughout ancient Mesoamerica and still played today in coastal regions. We have been playing ours in school history workshops on the Aztecs and Maya for decades, and it remains one of our most treasured artefacts: the turtle-shell drum... (Written by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

Simple though it may sound - you tap the underside of a tortoise or turtle shell with a brittle beater - there’s more to this humble instrument than meets the eye. Just how was it played in ancient times? How widespread is its use today? Many associations have been ascribed to it in the past - are they all true? Do we know for sure it’s the ancestor of the ubiquitous two-toned tongue drum?
First, its name. In Nahuatl ayotl refers commonly to the turtle and to the instrument. It’s conceivable that the word is a composite of a(tl) - water - and -yotl - living thing or ‘pertaining to...’; this would be logical given the creature’s aquatic environment - by far the most common ayotl instruments are fresh-water (river) turtle shells (Contreras 1988). One or two Nahuatl dictionaries list ayotapalcatl (meaning something like ‘tiled tortoise’) rather than ayotl as the name of the instrument.

Though the entire instrument consists of organic material, turtle shells ‘are in fact fairly common burial furniture in the Classic period’ (Coe: 1988: 231) - to which we can add evidence from iconography, sculptures, and the testimony of 16th century chroniclers - Spaniard and native alike. There’s plenty to go on...
Whilst the ayotl is not shown in the inventory of instruments in the palace of Emperor Motecuhzuma Xocoyotzin, it is specifically mentioned in three separate chapters in Book 2 (‘The Ceremonies’) of the great Florentine Codex. Two references are made to it (chapter 24) during the festival of Toxcatl (‘They beat turtle shells; they struck turtle shells; they sat using turtle shells’), and during the ‘serpent dance’ performed by seasonal warriors; subsequently in chapters 25 (Etzalqualiztli) and 26 (Atemoztli) the instrument is named.
One of the ‘classic’ images of the ayotl being played can be seen in the Codex Magliabechiano (pic 2) - part of the final section of the Codex dealing with a miscellany of gods, rites and customs; five death rites are depicted, in one of which the ayotl plays a prominent role.

Though not illustrated individually, the ayotl is mentioned in the midnight funeral procession of the Tarascan king (cazonci) in Part 3, Chapter XVI of the Relación de Michoacán, on ‘how the king died and the ceremonies by which he was buried’: Iban tañendo delante: uno, unos huesos de caimanes; otros, unas tortugas (‘in front they went playing: one, alligator bones, others tortoises’).
It’s references such as these that have led outstanding scholars of Mexica/Aztec music over the years (Martí, Stevenson, Both...) to conclude that turtle shells ‘were primarily used in funeral contexts and ceremonies dedicated to the afterlife’ (Both 2006: 323). Their conclusions have been reinforced by several historical allusions to the allegedly ‘sad and lugubrious sounds’ of the instrument (Kurath and Martí 1964: 31, quoting a Yucatán history from 1896; a similar comment - ‘giving a mournful, sad sound’ - was made by Diego de Landa in the 16th. century.)

More recent historians of Mexican music (Castañeda & Mendoza, Contreras...), of course, take a far more scientific and unbiased approach, pointing out that by its nature the turtle shell offers quite a large soundbox, producing a sound that is ‘potente, limpio y con peculiar oquedad’ (Contreras 1988: 35). The most interesting aspect of the sound is the two-tone effect, derived from the fact that one end of the plastron (the nearly flat underbelly, as opposed to the rounded upper part known as the carapace) tends to be thinner - and, importantly, shorter - than the other - the same applies to the carapace. The thicker end is usually towards the front (for the head). Different tonal shades can be produced according to which part of the plastron is struck.

This strikes an immediate parallel with one of the two most sacred and ancient of Mesoamerican drums, the two-toned tongue or slit drum, teponaztli in Nahuatl, tunkul in Mayan languages. Understandably, scholars suggest the connection is more than skin deep: in describing the ayotl as one of the principal West Mexican percussion instruments, John Burkhalter III (noted for his recreation of the Maya jaguar-growl-imitating string and bow rasp drum - follow the ‘Ancient Maya Music’ link below) has written: ‘The skeletal underbelly plate of the turtle shell produces essentially two different tones, one higher than the other. Since turtle shell instruments have a wide geographic distribution in the ancient Americas, and are made of a natural material linked to various ecosystems, it is possible to conclude that this instrument could be the original tonal concept for the two-toned horizontal wood slit drums of the Maya and the later Aztec’ (2004: 6) As if to symbolise this link, one of the three magnificent original teponaztlis on display in the British Museum, in the shape of a crouching human figure, bears the icon of a turtle on the right armband (pic 5).

We have more examples of turtle-shell instruments being played depicted on Maya artefacts than those from Central Mexico: indeed, Stevenson (1968: 36) suggests that ‘the ayotl was a favourite instrument of the Mayas, who gave it the name of kayab...’ For this he quotes the 19th. century German scholar Eduard Seler, who claimed that the glyph for the 17th. winal (20-day ‘month’ in the Maya calendar) features a tortoise, from which he deduced that kayab ‘seems to refer to the musical use of its shell’ (Stevenson 1968: 26). This seems something of a leap of faith, and modern Maya glyph dictionaries give ak as the Maya equivalent of ayotl.

From the earliest colonial references to the instrument - and to some extent from the iconography available to us - disagreement arises as to exactly how the turtle-shell was played. Hammond (1972: 131) gives two contrasting examples: Bishop Diego de Landa (extending the quote above) wrote that ‘having taken out the flesh they strike it with the palm of the hand’, whereas ‘its use at the time of the Conquest is attested by Lopez de Cogolludo [writing in 1688] who describes an ambush at Ake in Yucatán in 1528 where the Maya “beat the shells of large turtles with deer horns”’.
Hammond points out that, in proportion to the human players holding them, the shell drums depicted at Bonampak measure ‘just over fifty centimetres long and about thirty-five centimetres wide’ (ibid) - large by any standard, and likely to be seawater turtle shells.

So is this instrument a drum, a rasp, a gong...? Stevenson, a longstanding expert on ancient Mexican music, deduces from de Landa’s statement and from Seler’s comments that ‘we should infer that the tortoise shell was more of a gong than a rasp’ (1952: 48). Both (2006: 323) and Houston, Stuart & Taube (2006: 265) refer to a rasp. Izikowitz (1934: 9) calls it a ‘stroke idiophone’, and it’s interesting that Houston et al include the Mayan term lahb in their list of Yucatec words for playing instruments, the word meaning to ‘stroke with the dexterity of the tortilla maker’ (!) (2006: 255). Weinberg (1982: 79) quotes Curt Sachs - a respected music historian but non-Mexican specialist, writing in 1968: ‘It certainly was erroneous to interpret this playing as a gonglike striking; on miniatures as well as on clay figures the antler is represented as being so close to the shell that it must have been used to scrape the uneven surface rather than to strike it’. But Weinberg contradicts this view, referring to the notoriously ambiguous image in the Codex Becker which appears to show ‘a player of the ayotl using a forked antler being held about six to eight inches from the shell’ (ibid) (pic 8). Of course it’s quite possible that both techniques - scraping and striking - were used.

More clues are to be found in terra cotta votive figures excavated from tombs and offering sites over the centuries, from several different cultures - such as the ceramic figure of a seated ayotl-player from West Mexico (pic 9) found in a deep shaft tomb - one of many ceramic objects produced in distinctive local styles to accompany the dead. In his pioneering survey published in 1934 the eminent ethnomusicologist Karl Gustav Izikowitz noted that, apart from a single reference to one played by the Tikuna people of the Brazilian Amazon, ‘I do not know of any instances of such instruments occurring anywhere else in South America, but they have existed in Mexico’ (1934:9). Well, that’s an understatement! Respected historians of Mexican folklore, including Carl Lumholtz, Miguel Covarrubias, Frances Toor, Daniel Castañeda and Vicente Mendoza, all draw attention to the ayotl’s presence - from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Chiapas, from the Yucatán to Nayarit, and from Oaxaca to Michoacán.

In the collection of ceramic figures of Franco-Mexican ethnologist Auguste Génin, photographed in the 1920s, six of the fourteen musicians depicted (see picture 10, centre - figs d, e, f, h, j and n) are playing ayotls. Commenting on his own photo of two such musicians also from Ixtlán del Río, Nayarit (pic 10, bottom), Lumholtz notes that they play turtle-shell drums ‘como muchas tribus surianas de México solían hacer’ (Castañeda & Mendoza 1933: 212).
It’s worth noting here that, unlike the Aztec examples (see pictures 2 and 11), in the case of the Tarascan, Ixtlán del Río and Maya musicians the instrument is not placed on the ground but is held by hand, with one hand inside the shell to hold it steady. Be that as it may, the overall conclusion must surely be that the ayotl was sounded, in Mary Miller’s words, by ‘people knocking deer antlers against turtle carapaces’ (2006: 258).

We now know that the brittle rattling or clattering sound of antler on shell was important in invoking supernatural forces, in ritual activities. ‘Their symbolic meaning probably originated in the association of natural sounds, such as pattering rain or the warning sound of rattlesnakes, and therefore was related to Aztec deities of the rain and wind. Clattering sounds were related to the underworld. The role that these and other associations played in the function and meaning of musical instruments cannot be sufficiently emphasised’ (Both 2003: 21).

Rattles exert, in musicological jargon, ‘agency’, and it’s very possible that the heavy tapping sounds of bone on shell imitated - and hence invoked, through what’s called sympathetic magic - the sounds of heavy raindrops landing on the ground. There is a strong connection in Mesoamerican cosmology between turtles, the earth, fertility and life-giving water. ‘The turtle carapace... may be the idealised image of a cosmic house; it resembles rocks, which are often sacred, and has the rugged texture of the earth’ (Benson 2001: 277). The Maya maize god is famously depicted sprouting out of the turtle-earth (itself believed to be a gigantic reptilian creature floating on primordial waters), a number of late Classic Maya altars were carved in the form of turtles, and ‘turtles are said to weep when there is drought, and their tears bring rain; if a turtle is harmed, drought may ensue...’ (ibid: 278)

Given their musical qualities, it’s not surprising that from ancient times ‘turtles may have been identified with music in central Mexico’ (Miller & Taube 1993: 174) - picture 13 shows the god of music in the guise of a turtle (Mendoza 1959: 328). Referring specifically to the turtle carapace and deer-antler rasp, Houston, Stuart & Taube leave us in no doubt: ‘The connection of deities with song and music is strengthened by an evident association with the most robust noisemakers of all, the many Chaak, or storm gods’ (2006: 265); so we’re talking here not just of the invocation of rain but of thunder too. Houston et al suggest that ‘the rasping noises probably filled the sonic spaces between rattles and drums’ (ibid) - Mary Miller, in her classic study ‘The Boys in the Band’, was the first to point out that in Maya iconography there appears to be a set sequence of musicians, of rattlers followed by flautists and then drummers and ayotl players (moreover, they are often grouped in threes - see picture 7).

Centuries ago, de Landa identified the ‘turtle star’ ac ek as one of the most important constellations in the Maya calendar (Milbrath 1999: 267), which most scholars today identify with either Gemini or Orion.
Given their longevity (up to 150 years) it’s also hardly surprising that turtles have long held associations with gods, ancestors and kings, whose status was marked by magnificent jewellery. A fine example of a (gold) necklace in the form of a chain of tortoise shells, made by a particularly talented Mixtec artisan, now in the Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Collection, can be seen in picture 15. It consists of 16 spheres decorated with incised zigzags and circles in the stylised shape of a tortoiseshell, each shell cast from a separate mould using the lost-wax technique. A bell is attached to each tassel.

‘When worn, the reflections cast by the moving parts would have animated the necklace while the bells would have produced a distinctive metallic tinkling’ (McEwan & López Luján 2009: 95) - a sound that some scholars believe imitated the sound of gentle rain, further suggesting the association with fertility (see Toby Evans 2010: 97). Even the colour used to depict turtle shells could be significant: Stone & Zender point out (2011: 127, 207) that the turtle shells held by the Bonampak musicians (see picture 7) are painted yellow - ‘a probable reference to the k’an sign [representing yellow] that frequently marks turtles in [Maya] art.’

In conclusion, we return to the principal context for these unusual instruments to be played in ancient Mesoamerica, that we indicated at the start - in funerary processions - and we leave the last word to Mary Miller, who, in carrying out the first detailed study of the musicians in the Bonampak murals, concluded that the evidence ‘suggests to me that musicians accompanied the body to the tomb, laying down instruments as offerings’ (1988: 322) - which is why, of course, we’re lucky to have so many sources of evidence today.

And finally, what of our own ayotl?! We were privileged to have it studied by staff at the Zoological Society of London (picture 16) recently: they suggested that it’s probably a (female) freshwater turtle, but much beyond that they couldn’t say. We used to let children play it in our workshops, but as the years go by and we get more nervous of an accident occurring, it’s now only handled and played by our team. it wasn’t the first artefact we began taking to schools (that was Graciela’s family metate), but it comes in pretty close - we think we got it in Mexico on a field trip in 1981: she’s been accompanying us to schools ever since...

Sources/references:-
• Benson, Elizabeth P. (2001) ‘Turtles’ in Carrasco Davíd (Ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures Vol. 3, OUP
• Both, Arnd Adje (2003) ‘Aztec Music Culture’, in Report of the 1st. Meeting of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology, 25-27/04/2003, UCLA, Los Angeles
• ----- (2006) ‘On the Context of Imitative and Associative Processes in Prehispanic Music’ in Studien zur Musikarchäologie V, Ellen Hickman & Ricardo Eichmann (Eds.), pp. 319-332, Westfalia, Germany, Rahden
• Burkhalter III, John H. & Griffin, Gillett G. (2004) Music from the Land of the Jaguar, Princeton University Art Museum
• Castañeda, Daniel & Mendoza, Vicente T. (1933) Instrumental Precortesiano Tomo 1 - Instrumentos de Percusión, UNAM, Mexico City (1990 reprint)
• Coe, Michael (1988) ‘Ideology of the Maya Tomb’ in Maya Iconography Eds. Elizabeth P. Benson & Gillett G. Griffin, Princeton University Press
• Contreras Arias, Juan Guillermo (1988) Atlas Cultural de México: Música, SEP/INAH/Editorial Planeta, Mexico City
• Covarrubias, Miguel (1986) Mexico South: the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, KPI Ltd., London (original, 1946)
• Florentine Codex Book 2 - The Ceremonies (1981) trans. Arthur J.O. Anderson & Charles E. Dibble, University of Utah
• Hammond, Norman (1972) ‘Classic Maya Music Pt. 1: Maya Drums’, Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 2 (April 1972), pp. 124-131
• Houston, Stephen, Stuart, David & Taube, Karl (2006) The Memory of Bones: Body, Being and Experience among the Classic Maya, University of Texas Press
• Izikowitz, Karl Gustav (1934) Musical and other Sound Instruments of the South American Indians, S.R. Publishers Ltd., Wakefield (1970 reprint)
• Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch & Martí, Samuel (1964) Dances of Anáhuac, Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology no. 38, New York
• (de) Landa, Fray Diego (1978) Yucatan Before and After the Conquest, trans. William Gates, Dover Publications, New York (original, 1566)
• Martí, Samuel (1968) Instrumentos Musicales Precortesianos, INAH, Mexico City
• ----- (1978) Music Before Columbus, 2nd. ed., Ediciones Euroamericanas, Mexico City
• McEwan, Colin & López Luján, Leonardo (Eds.) (2009) Moctezuma Aztec Ruler, British Museum Press
• Mendoza, Vicente T. (1959) ‘La Música y la Danza’ in Esplendor del México Antiguo pp. 323-354, Eds. Raúl Noriega, Carmen Cook de Leonard & Julio Rodolfo Moctezuma, Centro de Investigaciones Antropológicas de México, Mexico City
• Milbrath, Susan (1999) Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore and Calendars, University of Texas Press
• Miller, Mary (1988) ‘The Boys in the Bonampak Band’ in Maya Iconography (Eds. Elizabeth P. Benson and Gillett G. Griffin), Princeton University Press
• Miller, Mary & Taube, Karl (1993) The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London
• Montgomery, John (2002) Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs, Hippocrene Books, New York
• Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobernación de los indios de la provincia de Mechuacan (n.d.) (Ed. Moises Franco Mendoza), El Colegio de Michoacan facsimile edition, Mexico
• Stevenson, Robert (1952) Music in Mexico: a Historical Survey, Thomas J. Crowell Co., New York
• ----- (1968) Music in Aztec and Inca Territory, University of California Press
• Stone, Andrea & Zender, Marc (2011) Reading Maya Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Maya Painting and Sculpture, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London
• Toby Evans, Susan (Ed.) (2010) Ancient Mexican Art at Dumbarton Oaks, Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, no. 3, Washington D.C.
• Toor, Frances (1947) A Treasury of Mexican Folkways, Crown Publishers Inc., New York
• Weinberg, Norman (1982) ‘Aztec Percussion Instruments: their Description and Use Before Cortés’, Percussive Notes, 19, March 1982, pp. 76-87.

Picture sources:-
• Pix main, 1, 4, 12 & 18: photos by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 2: image from the Codex Magliabechiano scanned from our own copy of the 1970 ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria
• Pic 3: Image from Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobernación de los indios de la provincia de Mechuacan (Edited by Moises Franco Mendoza) scanned from our own copy of the El Colegio de Michoacan facsimile edition, Mexico, n.d.
• Pic 5: images courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
• Pix 6 & 7: image(s) scanned from Ancient Maya Paintings of Bonampak, Mexico, Supplementary Publication no. 46, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1955
• Pic 8: image from the Codex Becker scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1961
• Pic 9: photo courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
• Pic 10: (top) image scanned from ‘Notes on the Dances, Music and Songs of the Ancient and Modern Mexicans’ by Auguste Génin, Annual Report Smithsonian Institution 1920; (centre & bottom) images scanned from Castañeda & Mendoza, op cit
• Pic 11: image from the Codex Tudela (original in the Museo de América, Madrid) scanned from our copy of the Testimonio Compañía Editorial facsimile edition, Madrid, 2002
• Pic 13: mage from the Codex Borgia scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1976
• Pic 14: image scanned from Castañeda & Mendoza, op cit
• Pic 15: photo courtesy of and thanks to the Registrar and Collections Manager / Museum, Dumbarton Oaks
• Pic 16: photos by Joanna Sotres and Graciela Sánchez/Mexicolore
• Pic 17: image scanned from Covarrubias/Mexico South op cit.

Guess...

...where the world’s oldest pet tortoise is kept?

Find out

Aztec limerick no. 35 - ode to the ayotl
Tickle a tortoise’s tum
Two tones will emerge from its bum;
Think gong and you’re wrong,
Don’t grasp for a rasp,
It’s nature’s primordial drum!

‘RESOURCE: Ancient Maya music’Hear the {italicayotl} played by expert Chris García...Watch Chris García play a turtle shell as a scraper with a deer’s antler (timing: 2:13-2:29)Watch Chris García play a turtle shell as a drum (timing: 10.33-10.59)‘Turtle shells in traditional Latin American music’ by Edgardo Civallero (PDF)

Comments (1)

Chris García

20th Apr 2022

I suggest you mention time lines in relation to everything you mentioned, e.g.
100 B.C., RADIOCARBON dated: MURALS OF SAN BARTOLO showing deity playing a turtle shell with an antler which is 1000 years BEFORE the Mexica enter the Valley of Mexico;
404 A.D., RADIOCARBON dated: the tomb of YAN NUUN AYIIN, who passed away in 404 AD, shows that he was buried with a turtle shell marimba made of graduated sizes on a wooden frame;
790 A.D., RADIOCARBON dated: MAYAN MURALS OF BONAMPAK
showing musicians playing all manners of instruments;
1200 A.D., MEXICA enter the valley of Mexico some 400 years after BONAMPAK;
1325 A.D., TEMPLO MAYOR started construction the first of 6 additions; 1487 A.D, it is completed and is pretty much how we know and see it today.
So the way the Mayans played the shell is hundreds of years away
and different to the way the Huichol, or the Mexica chose to play it - which is what musicians do, they evolve, they look for other ways to do the same thing or do something else.

The turtle shells being played in Bonampak (sea shell turtles) are much larger than the ones shown in sculptures played by other peoples (fresh water turtle shells).

Mexicolore

Many thanks, Chris, as ever, for this very relevant information.

Clay model of an Aztec ayotl turtle-shell drum, Templo Mayor museum