Sound Practices in Late Postclassic to Early Colonial Tlaxcallan: Applying a Community of Practice Framework to Investigate Sonic Expression

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Music Archaeology's Paradox: Contextual Dependency and Contextual Expressivity" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In archaeological interpretations of Postclassic period central Mexico, sound practices and related assemblages are often conceptualized as unchanging, standardized, and fixed to a common Mesoamerican religious system under the umbrella of Aztec cultural expression. This neglect of other polities’ sound traditions assumes a shared sonic experience and sensorium common across distinct communities from varying ethnolinguistic groups and time periods. However, given evidence for political turmoil and balkanization, population mobility, and prominent cultural and technological changes in the Late Postclassic and early colonial periods, there would be a great deal of patterned variability in the manufacture and use of sound-related material culture attributed to various communities of practice (CoP) and communities of engaged performance (CEP). Considering how CoP- and CEP-sonic expressivity could have been affected by transculturation, we might observe organological differences, changes in performance, and specific rhythmic structures, as well as a shift in the consumption of sound-related material culture and sound referents over time. I apply this framework to Late Postclassic to early colonial period Tlaxcallan (modern-day Tlaxcala), in the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley. The Tlaxcalteca were one of the few polities resistant to Aztec imperialism, and they allied with the Spanish during the conquest of Mexico.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Music Archaeology's Paradox: Contextual Dependency and Contextual Expressivity

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33394