2. Native Song and Dance Affect in Seventeenth-Century Christian Festivals in New Spain

Ceremonial song and dance traditions were essential for Nahua cultures at the time of European contact. In the first hundred years after the conquest, devotional songs and dances in Nahuatl were considered essential for the wholehearted engagement of native converts with the Catholic faith and they were thus incorporated into religious ceremonies organized by the mendicant orders. This chapter explores early descriptions of Nahua music-making along with four villancicos in Nahuatl in order to demonstrate a particular kind of hybrid devotional singing in colonial context. The narrative posited by the surviving villancicos includes the representation of native characters as humble, suffering workers, underscoring the exploitative conditions of native workers in seventeenth-century New Spain.