The Colima are part of a group of
archaeological
cultures – known almost
purely from their artworks – referred to
as the
Western Mexico Shaft Tomb
(WMST) tradition. There are many
distinct groups
within this agglomeration,
and their relationships are almost
totally obscure
due to the lack of contextual
information.
All of the cultures encompassed under
the WMST
nomenclature were in the
habit of burying their dead in socially-
stratified
burial chambers at the base of
deep shafts, which were in turn often
topped by
buildings. Originally believed
to be influenced by the Tarascan people,
who
were contemporaries of the
Aztecs, thermoluminescence has pushed
back
the dates of these groups over
1000 years. Although the apogee of this
tradition
was reached in the last
centuries of the 1st millennium BC, it
has its
origins over 1000 years earlier at
sites such as Huitzilapa and Teuchitlan,
in the
Jalisco region. Little is known of
the cultures themselves, although
preliminary
data seems to suggest that they
were sedentary agriculturists with
social systems
not dissimilar to chiefdoms.
These cultures are especially
interesting to
students of Mesoamerican history
as they seem to have been to a large
extent
outside the ebb and flow of more
aggressive cultures – such as the
Toltecs, Olmecs
and Maya – in the same
vicinity. Thus insulated from the perils
of
urbanization, they developed very
much in isolation, and it behooves us to
learn
what we can from what they
have left behind.
The arts of this region are enormously
variable
and hard to understand in
chronological terms, mainly due to the
lack of
context. The most striking
works are the ceramics, which were
usually
placed in graves, and do not seem
to have performed any practical function
(although highly decorated utilitarian
vessels are also known). It is possible
that they
were designed to depict the
deceased – they are often very
naturalistic –
although it is more probable that
they constituted, when in groups, a
retinue of
companions, protectors and
servants for the hereafter. More
abstract pieces –
such as reclinatorios –
probably had a more esoteric meaning
that is
hard to recapture from the
piece.
The current piece falls within the
Colima style,
which is perhaps the most
unusual stylistic subgroup of this
region.
Characterized by a warm, red glaze,
the figures are very measured and
conservative,
while at the same time
displaying a great competence of line.
They are
famous for their sculptures of
obese dogs, which seem to have been
fattened
for the table. Colima
reclinatorios are also remarkable,
curvilinear yet
geometric assemblages of
intersecting planes and enigmatic
constructions
in the semi- abstract.
This figure comes from the state of
Colima and
is typical of a substyle know as
Tuxcacuesco-
Ortices. Such charming terracottas
represent the
citizens
of ancient Colima: men and women, high-
born
and low, dancers, athletes and priests.
They
reveal in the details of their costumes
and
gestures much about an otherwise
vanished
world. Even as we acknowledge the vast
gulf
between their culture and ours, we
recognize the
fundamental human qualities we share and
which
time has not altered.
