HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Soon after the conquest of Mexico in 1521, Spanish galleons began to arrive regularly at the port city of Veracruz, packed full of the tools and objects necessary for transplanting the power, culture and religion of Europe to the New World. Included in the cargo were tabletop organs, which would prove to be a powerful tool in the mission to convert the native population to Christianity. Since words are more easily memorized when sung than when spoken, the organ could provide the necessary outline for prayers and hymns. The importance of music for the conversion process was so well recognized by the King Charles V, that those friars competing for appointments to be sent abroad were given priority if they had musical skills.

The newly claimed territory had been parceled out among the evangelizing orders by Charles V, with Oaxaca, the land of the ancient Zapotecs and Mixtecs, awarded to the Dominicans. Soon after their arrival in Mexico in 1526, they began to filter southeastward into Oaxaca, cutting a diagonal swatch across the present day state to the important coastal trading center of Tehuantepec, a point of departure by sea with the colony of Guatemala and the rest of Central America. The distribution of historic organs which exist today in Oaxaca corresponds roughly to the Dominican evangelizing route, which in turn corresponds to the prehispanic settlements and trade routes.

One wonders how the natives reacted when they first heard the full sound of a pipe organ. Wind instruments had figured prominently in pre-Hispanic music, and the conch shell trumpet, frequently elaborately carved and decorated, was used in ritual context by the priests to invoke the God of the Wind (it is still used in many towns today to announce important events). If the power of sound reflected the power of the god being invoked, what better evangelizing tool could there be than an organ, a wind instrument like the conch shell trumpet, but whose sound is multiplied many times over by the number of pipes it contains.

Within just a few years after the Conquest, the indigenous population was involved in all aspects of European music—singing in the choirs, composing music, playing and building instruments—and organbuilding workshops, directed by Spaniards using indigenous artisan labor, began to appear in Mexico Coty. There was a great demand for organs, since a new church was not considered complete without one, and in fact the organ was decreed by the Vatican to be the only legitimate instrument to accompany the liturgy.

It is likely that these first organs could be moved around easily on tables, in the same way that saints are carried in processions today. They could be taken outside to be used in processions, outdoor masses, and large scale conversions in the open air chapels or temporary adobe churches, while the huge stone churches and convents in Cuilapam, Teposcolula, Yanhuitlán, Coixtlahuaca and others, were under construction, a process sometimes lasting 100 years.

As the structures and needs of the original churches grew, so did their furnishings, including the organs. Table organs were eventually accompanied or replaced with larger, fixed or stationary (unmovable) organs, which reached their greatest dimensions in the largest convents. Archive evidence refers to an organ in use in Oaxaca in 1545 in the original cathedral building (supposedly in the present site of the church of San Juan de Dios) before the present Cathedral was built. In 1560 this organ, presumably a portative instrument, was moved to the new cathedral building, located at the present site, and played by the organist Domingo de Alavez from 1555 – 1564. However, by 1569 it had become clear that this small organ could not sufficiently fulfill the needs of the larger establishment, so a new, “fixed” organ was commissioned, from the organ builder Agustín de Santiago with the financial support of the bishop at that time, fray Bernardo de Alburquerque.

Even after organbuilding activity had begun in Oaxaca, it seems that the pipes, the most complicated part of an organ, may have been imported from Mexico City until there were specialists in Oaxaca who could make them. The Codex Sierra refers by means of a combination of indigenous pictographs and a mix of letters in Nahuatl and Spanish, to a box of flutes (“caxa de flautas”) bought from Diego Gutiérrez in Mexico City by the community of Santa Catarina Texupan (now known as Santa Catarina Tejupan) in 1552. One supposes that these were the pipes for an organ and that the other less complicated components—the case, bellows, and interior pieces of wood and leather—were made locally.

The way in which organs were transported from Mexico City to Oaxaca is clarified by a document from 1606 in which a scribe from the Chocholtec community of Teotongo registers a payment of 2 pesos and 6 tomines to five men for carrying an organ from Mexico City to Tamazulapan. This tradition continued into the late 19th century, as related to us by the former organist ( since deceased)  of Santa María Alotepec, located in the mountainous Mixe region of Oaxaca. An organ was ordered by the community and when it was finished, the whole village, including the organist´s grandfather, then a young boy, walked three days to Oaxaca to retrieve the pieces of the organ, then back again to their town. This boy carried a few pipes on his back, sustained by a tumpline across his forehead. Then the organbuilder (ensamblador) came to assemble the instrument.

Dominican church construction activity started around 1550 and continued at an astonishing rate for about 150 years when it began to taper off, perhaps because enough churches had been built for a population drastically reduced since the Conquest. Severe earthquakes during the 17th century resulted in the rebuilding of many churches, such as the Oaxaca Cathedral. Attention was increasingly focused on consolidation and decoration of the churches rather than more construction and this encouraged smaller scale projects such as refurbishing the churches with new organs, retablos, paintings and interior decoration. Oaxaca was indeed a wealthy state in the 18th c., because of the commercial development of natural resources, particularly the cochineal insect used to make the red dye which would ultimately be used to color the uniforms of both the British “Redcoats” and Napoleon´s troops.  Some of Oaxaca´s most outstanding church art—including organs-- date from this period.

The Dominican presence continued to be strong and provided the energy to keep dispersed settlements united under one religious culture. But as their power waned, beginning in the late 18th century, the momentum was gradually lost and isolation and poverty began to take over in many communities.  Organs were left to deteriorate instead of being upgraded or replaced, and as a result, Oaxaca has an unusually high percentage of older 18th century organs (around 40% of the total) in comparison to other wealthier Mexican states. 

When we visit the organs in their communities today, the local people will frequently ask us where the organ was built….in Germany? in Spain? They suppose that if it is something important, it must have been imported. We remind them that Oaxaca is known all over the world for its outstanding arts and crafts and suggest that this same talent was responsible for the construction and decoration of the organs