A DIVINE WIND: THE ARTS OF DEATH AND MUSIC IN TERMINAL FORMATIVE OAXACA

This paper examines the social context of music and musical instruments in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica through the detailed analysis of a late Terminal Formative period (a.d.100–250) burial from the site of Yugüe in the lower Río Verde Valley of Oaxaca. The burial contained a sub-adult male interred with an incised bone flute and a plaster-backed iron-ore mirror. The Yugüe flute is the earliest reported bone flute from Mesoamerica and is incised and carved to create the bas relief image of a skeletal male figure. Based on the instrument's archaeological context and elaborate incising, we argue that the flute was categorized in pre-Columbian ontology as an animate object that actively participated in ceremonial action at Yugüe. While the nature of such ceremony remains unclear, the incising on the flute indicates that the instrument was capable of making manifest ancestral and divine forces affiliated with rain, wind, and agricultural fertility.

Internality/Externality and Animistic Thinking

The present study investigated the relationship between internality, externality, and children's concept of life. The subjects were 96 children, between 10 and 13 yr. of age, who answered an animism test and a locus of reinforcement control test. The data indicated that 49 internal-scoring children of both sexes had higher animate object scores and lower inanimate object scores than the 47 external-scoring children. This relationship suggested that the internal scorers may have a more accurate concept of life than the external scorers. The authors have proposed that internal and external children may employ different cognitive processes in acquiring the concept of life.