At first glance, you don’t notice the drum shown being carried by Nezahualcóyotl, the ruler of Texcoco (an ally of the Aztecs), in this image from the Codex Ixtlilxóchitl (fol. 106r) - probably as it’s painted blue by the artist and so fails to stand out from the ruler’s warrior costume behind. We have evidence too in the writings of the Spanish chroniclers of the time; for instance, the friar Tomás de Torquemada mentions that ‘the Texcocan king carried a drum on his shoulders which he played at the start of a battle, while others blew large shell trumpets’. Whistles and human battle cries combined with these instruments to whip up the fighting spirit of the army.
Source:-
Guerreros Aztecas by Marco Antonio Cervera Obregón, Ediciones Nowtilus, Madrid, 2011, pp. 78-79
Image scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of Codex Ixtlilxóchitl, Graz, Austria, 1976
This article was uploaded to the Mexicolore website on Jan 28th 2018