Drumming Home a Lesson : Education: Performers at elementary school use ancient instruments, dance and storytelling to teach about Central American culture. Program blends arts, history.

It’s not often you see a man raise a conch shell to his lips and coax from it a haunting, flute-like tune. Or tap out a percussive rhythm using deer antlers and a tortoise shell.

The sight--and sounds--certainly caught students of Rice Elementary School in Rosemead by surprise last week.

But the children sat quietly while the two-man musical troupe Xochimoki told the story of Quetzalcoatl, the half-man, half-feathered serpent of ancient Aztec myth who brought music back to Earth.

The performance, which blended elements of music, dance and storytelling, offered a unique way to teach children at Rice about the history and culture of Mexico and Central America.

It was the culmination of a week in which students learned about myths, read stories, experimented with different musical sounds and talked about cultural traditions in their own families.

The Xochimoki program, sponsored by the Music Center of Los Angeles County, had special resonance at Rice, where two-thirds of the students are Latino. “I liked the music; it reminded me of my grandfather in Mexico,” said Abraham Munoz, 11. “He made drums out of deerskin that he would stretch real tight over wood.”

For all the pupils, Xochimoki’s performance offered an innovative way to teach language arts according to the multicultural, literature-based framework recently adopted by California.

“This brings in elements of history and social studies as well as arts,” Rice Principal Yvonne A. Goddard said. “Many of our children will never have an opportunity to go to the Music Center and see performances of such high quality that more affluent kids might take for granted. And especially with all the cuts that have been made in school arts programs, this provides a wonderful alternative.”

Goddard said the school paid $700 to the Music Center’s educational division for two performances by Xochimoki, which were seen by about 700 children in first through sixth grades. The fee was raised from candy sales and other fund-raisers, and Goddard called it money well spent to spark children’s curiosity about myths, Central American culture and environmental issues. The Music Center teacher’s guide also provided sample activities and lessons for teachers.

For instance, Betty Tsuchiyama told her second-graders a simplified version of the Quetzalcoatl story from the teacher’s guide. The class then discussed the difference between myths and history and how indigenous peoples respected nature and often endowed their gods with animal traits.

Two days before the performance, Tsuchiyama asked her students, who also include Vietnamese, Chinese and Koreans, to ask their parents what animals were sacred in their cultures.

For instance, “Japanese believe in the carp, they believe this fish brings strength to boys,” explained Tsuchiyama, who is Japanese-American.

Primed by the week of lessons, the students on Friday peppered their hosts with questions, many of which revolved around the environment.

“Did you kill the turtle to get that shell?” one boy asked.

“No, it died of old age,” answered Jim Berenholtz, a ceremonial artist who has spent 20 years living and working among the Pueblo, Maya and Lakota Indians. “We try to encourage kids not to kill animals, especially endangered species,” he added.

Another student who asked whether a deer was killed for its antlers was gratified to learn that deer shed their antlers each winter.

“When did you start doing this?” another boy wanted to know.

“My background is Aztec, and it was a tradition in our family, so my grandfather taught me the dances and stories,” said Mazatl Galindo, a native of Mexico City who specializes in composition and performance using pre-Columbian wind and percussion instruments.

The two, who have known each other 11 years, have performed at international conferences from Scotland to Peru to Egypt, where they played in the shadow of the pyramids.

Each year, they spend several months touring local schools as part of the Music Center’s educational division, which offers schools an array of dance and musical performances for varying fees.

Xochimoki--which means “flower of the ancient ones” in Aztec--also taught the students some words in native languages, including an Aztec phrase that means “may you have a wonderful day full of sunshine.”

The troupe plays authentic music of the Mayan, Aztec and Toltec cultures using instruments--some more than 1,000 years old--made of ceramic vessels, shells, gourds and wood.

As they told how Quetzalcoatl traveled the four corners of the Earth meeting animals and gods who gave him the gift of music, the two performers used their instruments to impersonate birds, the wind, the sea, howler monkeys, roaring jaguars and chirping crickets.

“Sometimes when we get older, we don’t like to listen to stories anymore,” Galindo told the students. “But it’s very important to hear these ancient stories, because that’s the way wisdom and history was passed on years ago.”

The students needed little coaxing.

Afterward, Ryen Martin, 10, reckoned that program had been “really cool.”

“But I also learned a lot,” he said, “like how the Indians could make musical instruments without having to kill the animals for sport.”