(from Náhuatl).
A 17th-century villancico emulating Aztec song-dance. The surviving texts are either completely in the Náhuatl language of the Aztecs or in Spanish with the frequent insertion of Náhuatl words and phrases. Three well-known tocotines by the Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz survive, unfortunately without music. The 18th-century Jesuit historian Francisco Javier Clavijero wrote that the Amerindian dance was of pre-Hispanic origins, but was of such propriety that priests permitted it to be danced in churches. The name of the dance derives from a series of syllables which denoted drum rhythms and dance steps, and it may be presumed that its performance would have included the use of the huéhuetl and teponaztli, the two drums associated with the tradition (see Mexico, §II, 1).
E. THOMAS STANFORD