As its name suggests, an Aztec death whistle can make a most dreadful sound. But the effect depends on how it's played, explains musicologist and archaeologist Arnd Adje Both of the Free University of ...

In cultures around the world, instruments have brought music and joy to rituals, ceremonies and everyday life. But in the forests of central Mexico, a single note from an Aztec whistle didn’t always ...

In Aztec belief, death was not the end of the journey. Many souls were thought to travel to Mictlan, the vast underworld ...

The first stage of the way consists in crossing the Apanohuaia river with the help of a dog, either white or vermilion, called Xoloitzcuintle. Its color was the only way to see in a place full of ...

NEW YORK — A 5-foot tall clay figure of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld, stands in a darkened corridor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, flaunting the form of a disintegrating ...

When the Aztecs dominated central Mexico, a blood-curdling sound like a human scream played through a small whistle. Luis Aceves via Unsplash In cultures around the world, instruments have brought ...