MATCHINA DANCE BY DOROTHY NEWKIRK STEWART FROM HANDBOOK OF INDIAN DANCES
Accompanying text reads
MATCHINA DANCE
Dance drama given in either Indian or Spanish form–the violin accompaniment, ruffled pantaloons, being Spanish; chorus and different details of costume, Indian. The origin is Moorish, the same name survives for and English Morris (Moorish) dance. Spanish priests are credited with teaching the dance to the Indians of Old Mexico in the 16th Century; it could have been a Morality Play of the church. Who were the leading characters at that time? Now the "king" is called ‘Montezuma’; a little girl or young woman, dressed in white, is called ‘Malinche’, the native interpreter for Cortez at the Conquest, when Moctezuma ruled the Aztecs. There are also a masked clown with a whip and a devil-clown, who in the elaborate version of Santo Domingo pueblo, dances upon all fours during one figure of the dance, with first his head, his back and then his hand under the foot of the dancing ‘Montezuma’. At times a small boy is "bull".
Pairs of men wear tall headdresses, like a bishop’s mitre; a jet fringe covers the eyes, a scarf the face. From the point of the mitre hangs a bright silk shawl and many ribbons. A fringed shawl wraps the hips; skunk fur dance-anklets and moccasins may be worn. One hand carries a three-pronged wand, turned fan-wise constantly; the other a kerchief-covered rattle. The three points of the scarves, the dance figures with three persons, the marked accent of the music, all apparently imply the Holy Trinity, in contradistinction to typical Indian four count.