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.
There are few cultures in the Americas or indeed
elsewhere that can match the Jalisco for
exuberant skill in the production of figurative
ceramics. These wares 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. Many of the figures
represent warriors, judging from their apparel
and martial stance. These were probably
protectors of the deceased, symbolic of actual
people who were buried with the deceased as
retainers in more sanguineous Central and
Southern American societies. Supernatural and
more enigmatic figures are also known,
presumably representing aspects of Jalisco
cultural heritage (gods, spirits, ancestors,
mythological figures etc) that cannot be
understood at the present time. However,
perhaps the best-known style is that of the
maternity figure.
Found lying together, this terracotta mother and
child scene is one which could pull at the heart
strings of anyone who came across it. The figure
of the mother is a picture of pain and anguish.
Larger than the image of her child, she towers
over him, leaning against the bed posts. She
clutches at her throat, as if she is choking from
her own misery, as she looks down at her child.
Her face is contorted to reveal her emotions and
her teeth are shown resembling a gashing of
teeth. As she looks down on her child, she sees
him lying down and bound over the chest, arms
and legs, prohibiting him from moving at all.
The head is also restricted due to two blocks on
either side of the head. The child may have been
inflicted with the disease of epilepsy, causing
him to be restrained in this manner. With this
sort of realism, art takes on the task of evoking
emotion, a vital part of life and even our own
ortality.
