748 music and musical instruments: Asia and the Pacific Carib Indians, some of whom seem not to have used drums, developed virtuosic techniques of playing the maracas whereby the seeds inside the gourd were made to produce unique and individual noises The instrument could thereby imitate the sound of rain, hurricanes, and other natural phenomena Carib singing accompanied by the maracas could involve many unusual sounds, including the creation of sympathetic vibrations between vocal chords to produce a style of polyphony similar to that of Mongolian throat singing The Aztec employed several idiophones in their religious rituals Many of these unique devices produced, like the Amazonian maraca, sounds analogous to those found in nature Mexican “rain sticks” were called ayon chicuaztli by the Aztec and were used to imitate the sound of trickling water, falling rain, rivers, and splashing They were used in the worship of mountain and water deities Indian dancers wore a variety of implements to accompany ceremonial music with their own peculiar sounds Attached to clothing or to the body of a dancer, shells, seeds, and bells could create bursts and waves of sound as the performer moved Throughout North America Indians danced with these idiophones either in hand or affixed to their wrists, ankles, torso, or head Northwest Coast peoples wore clamshell clappers, whereas the Anasazi wore ceramic bells These little bells may have been baked-clay imitations of earlier metal ones acquired from the Maya through trade In both the Anasazi and Maya cases the bells were made in different sizes and thicknesses to create different musical tones By the Common Era most of the wind instruments of the Americas seemed to have been highly developed Ancient instruments inherited by preconquest Indians included various flutes and whistles made of either wood or bone; trumpets made of conch shells, clay, wood, and cane; and wooden panpipes Many of these instruments seem to have issued from some original stock of Pacific instrument types that evolved into unique forms adapted to individual ethnic groups and performances Some ancient instruments fell out of use for a time, only to be reintroduced later The ocarina is a ceramic flute that produces a range of haunting, airy tones While ceramic instruments of this type may have been developed by many different archaic Indians before the Common Era, the later examples all seem to have spread from the South American Andes By the second millennium of the Common Era variations on the Andean ocarina could be found in territories as far north as Nicaragua and central Mexico Several kinds of clay trumpets also seem to have originated in the Andes These were played by Moche and Inca musicians but may have evolved from smaller Nazca prototypes invented earlier The Maya and Aztec are known to have played trumpets of this type as well as wooden ones One variety of Andean trumpet was tubular, with its bell carved in the shape of an animal or human head This imagery may have referred either to religious ceremonies involving zoomorphic deities or to warrior-cult imagery of trophy heads taken in battle Another trumpet featured a spiral tube that added to the resonance of the instrument and strengthened the ceramic shaft Peruvians also were known to have played long trumpets of silver and copper more in the manner of those found in Europe The quena, a type of wooden clarinet, was played at Inca weddings, harvests, and various dry-season festivals to the accompaniment of drums and flutes Panpipes were played at any performances involving festive drumming and were ubiquitous throughout the Inca realm This instrument had remained virtually unchanged from before the Common Era Panpipes came in different lengths and sizes to attain different tonal ranges Musicians often held a set of panpipes in each hand, skillfully switching between them to play different parts of a melody Many of the Andean wind instruments were adapted to Christian worship and festivals in the colonial period The Moche whistling vessels were decidedly an Andean novelty that did not appear elsewhere in the pre-Columbian world These unique creations produced musical whistles when the water inside them was agitated Different levels of water produced different musical notes when the pot was shaken Asia and the Pacific by I licia Sprey In medieval Asia and Southeast Asia music was an integral part of culture in all areas of life In religion music was used to communicate with and honor the gods For rulers, the presence of music at their courts brought power and heightened status For the growing urban-based middle class, patronage of musical theater was a sign of their growing sophistication In rural villages singing made work go faster and was an essential element of festivals and communal rituals Music was also a powerful medium of cross-cultural influences that moved throughout the region with traders and holy men While musical compositions were taught by a master to his pupil by repetition, lyrics were collected without accompanying notation Indian musical compositions were based on ragas, or melodies, which were themselves based on centuries-old works of earlier composers, all of which combined with improvisation in an effort to achieve the perceived ideal of musical, cultural, and spiritual harmony A raga consisted of five or more notes upon which the musician built a melody In Bharata Natya Shastra, a third-century Indian