|
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.
- (CK.0730)
|
