Cantores de los pueblos de indios

Spanish law gave every Indian town of more than a hundred Indians two or three salaried-by-exemption singers and every reducción a sacristan, all of them free of tribute assessment and personal service. A Franciscan who saw the result reports village choirs singing polyphony on locally made instruments and Nahua composers whose four-voice works Spanish singers refused to believe were theirs. The Mexican council of 1585 declared that no stipend was owed them.