Ixtlán del Rio Style Nayarit Terracotta Sculpture of a Standing Woman Holding a Cup

There are many distinct groups within the agglomeration referred to as the Western Mexico Shaft Tomb (WMST) tradition, foremost among them the Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima. Their relationships are almost totally obscure due to the lack of contextual information. However, it is the artworks that are the most informative. All of the cultures encompassed under the WMST umbrella 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 current piece falls within the style known as the Ameca-Ezatlán group, which is characterized by elongated faces, turban-like headwear, wide mouths, large hands, defined nails and staring eyes with elevated rims. The current piece is therefore a classic example of the tradition. Insofar as theme is concerned, the subject matter is likewise traditional. Just as in other sophisticated social systems around the world – such as the Egyptians or Dynastic China – figures were made to represent the sorts of people and resources that might be needed in the hereafter. They were in this sense symbolic of actual people, who were buried with the deceased as retainers in more sanguineous Central and Southern American societies.

A bold, expressionistic figure rendered in broad planes of clay and painted geometrics, this woman holds out her cup in a perpetual gesture of offering. Ultimately, however, it is her mouth with its white straight teeth that rivets our gaze. She has a slightly nervous mouth perhaps because she is uncertain of how her gift will be accepted.