"The man is blowing a bird-shaped vessel placed on his chin. He blows into a hole in the bird's head.  On the musician's lap lies a drum which is struck with a piece of antler. The red deer
and its antlers were considered a symbol of the sun and life force."

'Musickgeschichte In Buildrn, Alt Amerika' by Samuel Marti

In central and west Mexico 1300-1520 AD drumsticks were fashioned from the bones of recently dispatched sacrificial victims
or enemies killed in battle.

'The missing femur at the Mitla Fortress and its implications' Antiquity / Volume 84 / Issue 326 / December 2010

16th century bone flutes were still being made in the Mixteca Alta (northeast Guerrero and western Oaxaca).
These coexisted with those of European tradition introduced to the New Spain, that they brought from Mexico in 1552.

‘Music in transformation: musical instruments of the 16th century in the Vocabulary of Juan de Córdova (1578) and its comparison
with that of Francisco de Alvarado (1593)’ by Irene Gomez Fernandez and Gonzalo Sánchez Santiago, 2024, page 24

pipes found in the emporer's palace 1577 manuscript drawing
Florentine Codex. Book 8, page 30 [detail]

18th century accounts:
1769 In the Confraternity of San Nicolás Tolentino, amounts paid "to the al tamborilero and clarinet player"
and "to the shawm players" (131r)
1790 amounts disbursed in the Confraternity of San Pedro de la Cañada included payments
to the "tanburileros, piper, shawm player, and clarinet player"

‘Iconographic Sources in the Study of Instrumental Practices in 18th-Century Popular Music in New Spain’ by Evguenia Roubina

1824
The ’Instrucción provisional of 1824’ reveals the presence of players of the pipe and tabor in infantry companies
in central Mexico. Their pay was very low: "Tambor y pito 10 pesos"

 ‘Musical Instruments in Mission, Presidio, and Pueblo’ John Koegel  Page 4

Early 20th century “Towards the end of August…At seven in the morning the men and boys go out
with spades and coas to the milpa which lies nearly two hours on foot from the town . The whole day
they work while the teponaztli [slit drum] throbs through the standing corn and pipe and tabor shrill
their music to high heaven…. When all had gathered and the teponaztli had been drummed once more
on the base of the cross, we all started back to the village in a straggling, loose-knit procession to the
bursting of rockets and a gay little tune on the pipe and tabor…”

'Mexican mosaic : folklore and tradition' by Rodney Gallop

“The music of the indigenous people of the southern Mexican State of Chiapas reflects many varied influences, past and present….
The musician may enjoy his work, but always it is an obligation or duty.  He is paid in food and drink when performing, otherwise
he must support himself with other work…. The double-skinned drum, 3-hole flute, and all string instruments are all based on
16th century European models as none of them are known to have existed in the Americas before the arrival of the Spaniards.”

“recorded live at actual fiestas in Indian communities, 1972-1974” Tracks on the record include small drum and ‘3-hole flute’
It is not clear whether the ‘flute’ and drum are played together by the same musician.

'THE INDIAN MUSIC OF CHIAPAS, MEXICO VOLUME 2' 1977, ETHNIC FOLKWAYS RECORDS FE 4379

about Dec 1979, Mexico Day of the Indians

Outside Basilica in Mexico City. Chris Brady reports:

"They danced to two pipe (3-hole) & tabor players. They were a mixed
gender team - men and women dressed alike. They danced in two files -
forward and back and cross-over. Their costume was tasselled leather
over-shirt, tasselled leather trousers, sandals with metal plates as soles,
headdress of embroidered head band with vertical feather at rear. The
'sticks' were two pronged wooden rattles with tin-lids in between."

“...the music played by a musician called a tampaleo who
simultaneously plays a flute and a drum. When dancing
to the music of the harp and violin, the pascola wears his mask
on the side or back of his head, but when he is accompanied
by the tampaleo, he wears the mask over his face.”

' The Syncretic Compromise The Yaqui and Mayo Pascola ' Markman, Roberta H.,
and Peter T. Markman in 'Masks of the Spirit: Image and Metaphor in Mesoamerica' 1989

Tarahumara 1998

There are three sizes of drum
(tambora) in Tarahumara. Only
the largest has a skin on both sides.

the flying "Caballeros Águila" from Cuetzalan

17th century
“Slaves were worth more if they sang or danced. …. Alfonso González de Nájera described black slaves
as docile and inclined to singing, to playing instruments such as rattles, pipe and tabor [tamboriles y flautas], and amateurs to the guitar”

‘Music and dance around the Church: Notes for a minimal History of Carora’ by Moisés Orlando Chávez Herrera, 2024, page 51

1835 possibly a description of a procession in Caracasa:
“The festivals of the Roman Catholic religion are sufficiently numerous to employ a large portion
of the time of its votaries; and they are observed with as much pomp in the New World, as in
the Catholic countries of Europe. Corpus Christi day is celebrated with unusual magnificence….
The most beautiful girls in the city walk between two rows of priests, some carrying the ark,
and the show-bread, others incense or baskets of flowers. To these succeed young Indians,
who, to the sound of a flute and tabor, perform wild fantastic dances.”

‘The History of the Condition of Women: Comprising the women of Europe, America, and South Sea Islands’
by Lydia Maria Child · 1835, page 249