Emily Chan
In the late 1990s, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a 20-year-old boy while excavating the ruins of ancient Aztec temples in Mexico City.
The boy died as part of a sacrificial ritual to appease the Aztec gods. It was regarded as an extraordinary discovery because the skeleton was found in the stairway of a temple dedicated to the Aztec wind god, Ehecatl. It was still holding a pair of small ceramic whistles in each hand.
The whistles were decorated with an image of an ominous skull. At first, archaeologists assumed they were merely toys or ornaments, but later on, they realized the skull was the symbol for the Aztec god of death and the underworld, Mictlantecuhtli. And with that, the instruments became known as “death whistles.”
Mictlantecuhtli was believed by the Aztecs to rule the underworld, called Mictlan, alongside Mictecacíhuatl, his wife.
The Aztecs depicted Mictlantecuhtli as having a skull instead of a face, though he did have eyes, and he stood six feet tall. He would wear an owl feather-adorned headdress and a necklace made of human eyes.
As for Mictlan, the underworld, it was said to be a scary place where souls would have to travel for approximately four years and complete nine difficult challenges before getting to the middle of Mictlan, where Mictlantecuhtli resided.
But, back to the whistles. When the whistles were blown, they made high-pitched, piercing noises that resembled the sounds of humans shrieking in pain/fear or howling gusts of wind.
According to Roberto Velazquez Cabrera, a mechanical engineer and an expert on pre-Columbian instruments, the use of the death whistle was not common.
It seemed to have been reserved for human sacrifices and was blown right before a victim was killed. The sound of the whistle was meant to help guide the spirits of the dead to the afterlife.
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