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 most striking works of the Nayarit subgroup
are the ceramics, which were usually placed in
graves, and do not seem to have performed any
practical function. 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. 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.
Our gaze is immediately focused by the intense
expression on this woman's face: A look which
seems drawn from the dark reaches of the soul.
It is only afterwards that we recognize she is in
labor, about to give birth. The presence of such a
figure in a tomb would have served as a
reminder that birth - like death - is both a
painful and mysterious process. An act of
transition between one world and the next. Such
a piece was surely meant to renew hope in the
midst of grief.
