Wider Context

The West Mexican cultures did not exist within a vacuum. They were part of Mesoamerica, an area of intense cultural interaction covering all or parts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. More than other parts of Mesoamerica, West Mexico may have been influenced by traders from cultures of the Pacific Coast of South America. People in West Mexico also felt themselves in contact with the supernatural world. Much more than simple reflections of everyday life, tomb figures are also religious icons which contain information about ancient concepts of the spirit world.

Map of the Pacific Coast from Mexico to South America
Map of the Pacific Coast from Mexico to South America

Archaeologists define Mesoamerica as a geographic area with shared basic cultural traits: agriculture based on maize, beans, and squash; Stone Age technology; society and economy organized around the agricultural village; leadership from a small elite class of kings and nobles; and fatalistic religion. As part of this area, West Mexico shared social institutions and belief systems with other cultures earlier and later in time. The ceremonial ball game played throughout Mesoamerica was clearly an important institution in West Mexico, and ball players are commonly represented among tomb figures. Symbols of rulership found in other areas, such as conch shells, seated position, and nose beads, appear in figures from elite shaft tombs.

  • Seated ceramic figure with short legs. Thin arms bent 90 degrees at elbow holding ball, left hand on top of ball, right cradling it. Eyes almond-shaped, painted white. Large nose with nose ring painted white. Disc earrings with white rim and dots, necklace with white dots. White short sleeved garment. Three to five white bands on each arm, four strand beaded bracelet on each wrist. Fingernails painted white. Narrow white band on upper legs and broad white band covering most of legs, painted. Wearing pointy hat with double twisted horizontal band, one plain red, one painted with white stripes. Vertical white stripe down middle of hat.
  • Seated ceramic figure with short legs bent toward figure's right. Thin arms bent 90 degrees at elbow holding bowl, left hand on bottom of bowl, right hand on side. Eyes almond-shaped, painted white. Large nose with nose ring painted white. Disc earrings with white rim and dots, necklace with white dots. Three to five white bands on each arm, four strand beaded bracelet on each wrist. Fingernails painted white. Wearing only a skirt and a pointy hat with double twisted horizontal band, one plain red, one painted with white stripes.

Nayarit Ceramic Figures

200 BC – AD 300
Ixtlán del Río Style

The ball ties these figures, found at Ixtlán del Río or Sierra Barrancas in 1964, to the rest of Mesoamerica; but the clothing resembles that worn on the Pacific coast of South America.

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM4112, HM4113

Standing ceramic figure holding a ball against his left shoulder with his left hand.

Nayarit Ceramic Figure

200 BC – AD 500

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM3826

Standing ceramic male figure colored red. Large head with incised lines indicating hair. Rectangular ears with holes in them. Coffee-bean eyes, long nose, carved mouth. Arms short and stocky with carved fingers, held out to sides with the right bent at 90 degrees down, and the left bent at 90 degrees and held out front. Conch shell trumpet with lines and circles carved onto ridge strapped on to back by a strap that goes over right shoulder and under left arm. Strap has checkerboard pattern carved into it. Slight indent in abdomen. Thick legs bent slightly with wide feet and long, carved toes.

Colima Ceramic Figure

200 BC – AD 300

This figure has a conch shell trumpet on a strap.

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM3677

Anthropologist Patricia Anawalt sees obvious connections between cultures of coastal South America and West Mexico. Clothing styles, fabric patterns, and personal adornments depicted on shaft-tomb figures are strikingly similar to ones represented on figures or found at archaeological sites along the northwestern coast of South America. Ecuadorian traders sailed great distances along the Pacific coast in search of supplies of Spondylus shells, which they provided to the elite of Peru’s powerful kingdoms. One source of the mollusk for them may have been off the coast of West Mexico. The presence of shaft tombs and similar dog and bird species in South America and West Mexico, but not elsewhere in Mesoamerica, supports the culture contact theory.

Ceramic vessel with globular body and two narrow spouts on top. Two incised hummingbird moths on either side with each spout serving as a beak. Hollow red-brown clay, painted red.

Colima Double-Spouted Vessel

200 BC – AD 300

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM3767

Views differ on the religious content of West Mexican shaft-tomb figures, from highly secular to very sacred. For decades many art historians believed that the art showed scenes of everyday life but nothing of the supernatural. In opposition, Peter Furst argues that many of the figures represent aspects of the spiritual: shamans who intercede with spirits, transformations, and non-ordinary reality induced by drugs. He interprets seated “horned” warriors turned to the left as shamans facing evil, rather than as rulers. Furst notes that many of the whistles found in tombs must have been meant for use in the supernatural realm, since a living person cannot physically blow them. In various figures, Furst sees spirits and gods similar to those in other parts of Mesoamerica, although other scholars continue to deny that any figures represent deities.

Small ceramic figure wearing headdress with band of vertical incised stripes. Face is skull-like: large indented eyes and nose, indented wide mouth. One arm flexed with hand up to mouth, the other arm bent with hand on phallus which is large and erect. Shirt has incised vertical lines and a protruding circle with incised lines radiating from center. Four bumps on each upper arm, hands not modeled. Legs short.

Colima Ceramic Figure

200 BC – AD 300

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM3661

  • Small ceramic figure with headdress seen from the front sitting with jar between knees. Mouth pursed. Implement in right hand.
  • Small ceramic figure seen from the side sitting with jar between knees. Shallow bowl on back of figure, decorated with chevrons. Two snakes encircle the bowl.

Nayarit Ceramic Figure

200 BC – AD 300

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM3961

  • Tiny ceramic figure, simple, holding instrument to mouth with both hands.
  • Tiny ceramic figure with elaborate costume.
  • Tiny ceramic figure with elaborate costume.
  • Tiny ceramic figure with elaborate costume.

Colima Ceramic Whistles

200 BC – AD 500

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM2191, HM2194, HM2196, HM2200

Ceramic vessel with elongated, beak-line mouth, and close-set eyes, perhaps a diminutive frog(?) on the upper lip; wearing a helmet-like headdress with fins, knob projections, and symbolic motifs.

Colima Ceramic Vessel

200 BC – AD 300

This vessel depicts the wind god Ehecatl.

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM3797

Seated ceramic figure with a throwing device in raised right hand, a pendant on neck, and a head ornament. Wears a nose ornament and headdress.

Colima Ceramic Figure

200 BC – AD 300

William P Palmer, III Collection
HM1229