The Colima are part of a group of archaeological
cultures – known almost purely from their artworks –
referred to as the Western Mexico Shaft Tomb (WMST)
tradition. There are many distinct groups within this
agglomeration, and their relationships are almost
totally obscure due to the lack of contextual
information.
All of the cultures encompassed under the WMST
nomenclature 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 arts of this region are enormously variable and
hard to understand in chronological terms, mainly due
to the lack of context. The most striking works are the
ceramics, which 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. More abstract pieces –
such as reclinatorios – probably had a more esoteric
meaning that is hard to recapture from the piece.
The current piece falls within the Colima style, which is
perhaps the most unusual stylistic subgroup of this
region. Characterized by a warm, red glaze, the figures
are very measured and conservative, while at the same
time displaying a great competence of line. They are
famous for their sculptures of obese dogs, which seem
to have been fattened for the table. Colima
reclinatorios are also remarkable, curvilinear yet
geometric assemblages of intersecting planes and
enigmatic constructions in the semi- abstract.
This figure comes from the state of Colima and
is typical of a substyle know as Tuxcacuesco-
Ortices. Such charming terracottas represent the
citizens
of ancient Colima: men and women, high born
and low, dancers, athletes and priests. They
reveal in the details of their costumes and
gestures much about an otherwise vanished
world. Even as we acknowledge the vast gulf
between their culture and ours, we recognize the
fundamental human qualities we share and which
time has not altered.
