The Aztec Death Whistle -- The Most Terrifying Noise Known to Man?

by Howard Fosdick © FolkFluteWorld.com

In 1999, Mexican archaeologists made a startling find. While unearthing an ancient temple dedicated to human sacrifice, they discovered a victim clutching a skull-shaped object in each hand.

As the scientists analyzed their find, they realized they had discovered the first Aztec death whistles found in situ.

How does the death whistle sound? Was it really designed to incite involuntary animal terror in the human psyche?

What was its purpose? And why was a victim of the dread human sacrificial rites of the Aztecs murdered with two in hand?

This article tells the story... and lets you hear what many call the most bone-chilling shrieks ever heard.

Feeding the Gods

Human sacrifice has a long history in Mesoamerica (modern-day Mexico and central America). The practice existed as early as the ancient culture of the Olmecs. The Olmecs were the first true civilization in the region and dominated from about 1,200 BC to 400 BC.

   

Like the Easter Island people, the Olmecs were fond of making giant human heads of stone, ranging up to a dozen feet tall.

They were also avid practitioners of blood sacrifice. Deer, wildlife, dogs, birds... and humans... they sacrificed them all on the altars of their bloodthirsty gods.

The need for sacrifice was based in the creation myths of the society. The great gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca tore apart the reptilian monster Cipactli to create the earth and all things. To console Capactli, the gods promised her human hearts in appeasement.

Thus, the gods had to continually be "fed" or "nourished" by the blood of those sacrificed. Prisoners of war, slaves, and innocent children were popular victims.

Sacrifices were payment for human existence. They were nothing less than a debt owed to the gods. Who would dare oppose that?

Not even some of the victims, it seems, at least some of whom went to their deaths with little resistance.

And certainly not the Aztecs, who took blood sacrifice to entirely new levels. The Aztecs dominated Mesoamerica from about 1300 AD to 1521. They adopted much of earlier Mesoamerican culture, including human sacrifice.

They practiced ritualistic sacrifice much more frequently than previous Mesoamericans. They murdered thousands of people every year to appease the gods and maintain the universe. The process was highly ritualized and treated with utmost solemnity.

It was considered a vital ritual, without which humankind would not survive. Some even thought it an honor "to serve."

Which only goes to show how humans in the grip of the deep belief in a religion or an ideology can override their normal instinct for survival. As well as their respect for others' lives.

The Templo Mayor, in the area that was later to become Mexico City, holds an estimated 130,000 skulls in seemingly unending racks and towers. This sobering monument to the gods of war and rain is called the tzompantli.

Ritual sacrifice even made it into Aztec games. In the famous Mesoamerican ball game, the losers were sometimes sacrificed to the gods.

Needless to say, when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico in 1519, they were appalled by the blood-soaked temples they encountered. (And the conquistadors were not exactly squeamish, having killed scores of natives along the way.)

Hernán Cortés' lieutenant, Bernal Díaz, documented their experience in his fascinating autobiography, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain.

The Death Whistle

Death whistles had been found before but discarded as irrelevant. The first time they were identified as important was when two were found in the hands of a 20-year-old male sacrificial victim in 1999. He had been beheaded. It's been determined that he endured his death during the Aztec reign at the Tlatelolco site in what is today Mexico City.

The body was found in a squatting position at the feet of the wind god, Ehecatl.

The death whistles are ceramic skull images thought to represent Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of death and the underworld.

Ceramic whistle-making had a long tradition in Mesoamerica. (You can read some of that fascinating history in my article here).

Mesoamericans shaped whistles into birds, animals, gods, and other objects. We call them "whistles" rather than ocarinas, because whistles produce sounds, whereas modern ocarinas are tuned to a scale and are capable of playing tunes.

Aztec whistles are enclosed pottery vessels with a mouthpiece that splits the users' breath to produce sound waves.

The death whistle is a unique design called an air spring whistle. Air is blown through an intake tube and then encounters a well or spring of air inside an enclosed chamber. This collision of air produces a distorted sound.

The cut-away photo shows how this worked. The user blew into the vertical intake tube at the top. His breath then shot into the central enclosure, where it collided with air in the rightmost cavity.

This air-spring design has no modern equivalent. Its design differs from that of modern instruments such as ocarinas and various kinds of flutes.

Mayans were thought to have invented the air spring whistle in about 700 to 800 AD. It seems to have uniquely applied to death whistles. Their more playable vessel flutes had only a single air chamber, much like modern ocarinas.

Death whistles also have an opening that allows the user to cup his hand and shape the sound. This allows the user to vary the sound produced by a single breath.

How Were They Used?

Archaelogists are often in the difficult position of decoding history through the collection of a few artifacts. That is certainly the case with the death whistle. There are at least four different views as to the function of the Aztec death whistle.

And as a result, there are several interpretetions of how they may have sounded. In other words, the sound and function of the death whistles are inextricably linked.

One view is that the whistles were linked to the wind god and perhaps designed to summon or imitate him. This is based on the location of the sacrificial victim's body, at the feet of the wind god, Ehecatl.

In this interpretation, the Aztec death whistle sounds more like that of the howling wind than a human shriek.

A second school believes that models of the whistle prove that it sounded more like a human scream. This interpretation leans heavily on the role of the whistles in human sacrifice. These scientists create death whistle models that make sounds that can only be called bone-chilling.

A third view posits that death whistles were blown to frighten and intimidate enemies during battles. This theory promotes the idea that the death whistle sowed terror in the hearts of enemies with its horrific shrieking.

While this interpretation has gained some popularity on the web, among serious researchers there is general agreement that there is no real evidence to support it. Death whistles have generally been discovered near ceremonial sites and temples, not on battlefields.

Lastly, some experts consider the sound of the death whistle as trance-evocative. They theorize that it could have been used in healing or therapy. But this is pure speculation.

Bottom line: the weight of scientific opinion believes it very likely that the death whistle played a ritualistic role in human sacrifice. The big question is whether the death whistle sounded like the howling wind, or one of the most horrific screams you can imagine.

Scientists support their personal conclusions with whistle models they create that simulate those found in excavations. They use techniques like CT scans, 3D imaging, computer modeling, and 3D printing to create models from originals and research the topic.

How Do They Sound?

Here are several videos that claim to sound like Aztec death whistles.

The first one participates in the "wind sound" school. Prof. Arnd Adje Both is a German music archaeologist who specializes in this field. He explains and demonstrates how the death whistles simulated howling wind.

The two videos to the right subscribe to the "horrific scream" interpretation.

  

It's amazing how eerily similar the shrieking whistles sound to the desperate screams of dying people. No wonder they've become the focus of so much attention.

Scientists have conducted formal psychological and neuroscientific experiments to see how the brain reacts to such sounds. Not surprisingly, they've found deep emotional responses. The noises active the area of the brain that identifies symbolic meanings.

To those of us who aren't boffins, it's a little simpler. The sounds are simply terrifying!

Summary

Since the first death whistles were identified as culturally important in 1999, others have been unearthed. Yet we are still no closer to authoritatively solving two key mysteries: how were they used? And, how did they sound?

The public -- and much of the press -- has adopted the "horrific scream" meme. And perhaps they're correct.

While what these whistles meant to the Aztecs remains unknown, there's little doubt that death whistles were associated with human sacrifice.

Today you can buy any number of imitation death whistles on the web and elsewhere. You can be sure that very few sound like the wind!

References

1. The ‘death whistle’ by Roberto Velázquez Cabrera (Mexicolore)

2. How Did Ancient Aztecs Use the Haunting Aztec Death Whistle? (How Stuff Works)

3. Why Death Whistles Sound Like Human Screams (ArsTechnica)

4. The Aztec Death Whistle Makes One of the Scariest Sounds You'll Ever Hear (Discovery)

5. Scientists Decode the Haunting Screams of Ancient Aztec Whistles (SciTechDaily)

6. Aztec 'death whistles,' used to prepare sacrifice victims to descend to the underworld, scramble your brain, scans reveal (Live Science)

7. This Aztec Death Whistle Will Chill You to the Bone—and Mess With Your Mind (Popular Mechanics)