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8o MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. |
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paniment. The nobles themselves, and occasionally even the monarch, not unfrequently delighted in composing ballads and odes.
Especially to be noticed is the institution termed " Council of music," which the wise monarch Nezahualcoyotl founded in Tezcuco. This institution was not intended exclusively for promoting the cultivation of music; its aim comprised the advancement of various arts, and of sciences such as history, astronomy, &c. In fact, it was an academy for general education. Probably no better evidence could be cited testifying to the remarkable intellectual attainments of the Mexican Indians before the discovery of America than this council of music. Although in some respects it appears to have resembled the board of music of the Chinese, it was planned on a more enlightened and more comprehensive principle. The Chinese " board of music," called Yo Poo, is an office connected with the Le Poo or " board of rites," established by the imperial government at Peking. The principal object of the board of rites is to regulate the ceremonies on occasions of sacrifices offered to the gods; of festivals and certain court solemnities; of military reviews; of presentations, congratulations, marriages, deaths, burials,—in short, concerning almost every possible event in social and public life.
The reader is probably aware that in one of the various hypotheses which have been advanced respecting the Asiatic origin of the American Indians China is assigned to them as their ancient home. Some historians suppose them to be emigrants from Mongolia, Thibet, or Hindustan ; others maintain that they are the offspring of Phoenician colonists who settled in central America. Even more curious are the arguments of certain inquirers who have no doubt whatever that the ancestors of the American Indians were the lost ten tribes of Israel, of whom since about the time of the Babylonian captivity history is silent. Whatever may be thought as to which particular one of these speculations hits the truth, they certainly have all proved useful |
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