Skip to global NPS navigation Skip to this park navigation Skip to the main content Skip to this park information section Skip to the footer section. National Park Service Search Search. Exiting nps. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Fees. Loading alerts. Alerts In Effect Dismiss. Dismiss View all alerts. Contact Us. Drummers and dancers from the Acoma-Laguna Buffalo Dancers, performing a ceremony in the central plaza at Aztec West in spring Jamie Peters, NPS. Ancient Traditions The modern Pueblo peoples practice traditions that they have mantained, in some cases, for over a thousand years.
Songs and ceremonies from ancient times survive not only through their continued practice in the modern age, but also through the rich oral histories modern Pueblo cultures have maintained. Music is one of the only traditions that is shared by all cultures around the world, and it was certainly a central part of ancestral Pueblo society.
Archeological sites across the Southwest, from Great Houses to pit dwellings, reveal the extensive collection of instruments that ancestral Pueblo people used to make music. A tinkler made from conus shells, used by ancestral Puebloans during ceremonial dances. The shells arrived via trade with the peoples living along the California coast.
Bells, Shells, and Trumpets Some of the instruments found at Aztec Ruins were made of materials that were not found locally, and for which the ancestral Pueblo people had to trade. They obtained shells and copper bells via their extensive trading networks; you can read more about where the inhabitants of Aztec Ruins obtained items like these on this page. Copper bells were forged by people living in what is now north-central Mexico.
These bells are used by modern Pueblo people as clothing adornments, which jingle in rhythm to the music as the dancers move. The bells found at Aztec Ruins were likely used for similar purposes. Shells originated in some cases from what is now coastal California, around the Santa Barbara Channel, and in other cases from the Gulf of California.
