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Pacific Coast region (Mexico), |
Paired figures may represent a male chanting while his female companion offers him a bowl of some liquid. They have often been interpreted as scenes of marriage or some other ritual activity.
Like the Jaina figurines, these tomb ARTIFACTS offer some clues to the everyday life, customs, and beliefs of this long-lost culture. But many tombs have been damaged by local farmers or looted by people searching for the very marketable clay figures. As a result, no ARCHAEOLOGICAL or scientific recorded observations were made when the tombs were opened that would help us better understand their context and cultural meaning. Every tomb discovered so far has been at least partially disturbed.
Without texts, oral traditions, or controlled EXCAVATIONS, no one can be exactly sure what purpose the clay figures served. They may have been placed in the tomb to honor or protect the dead, or to serve as reminders of the deceased's family members in the passage to the next life. Before burial, the works may have functioned as architectural or religious sculptures, displayed in front of buildings or inside homes and shrines. Ritual practices associated with the figures may have centered on a cult of the dead or a type of ancestor worship. The people believed that the welfare of individuals and the community was dependent on maintaining friendly relationships with those who went before them.2
Notes
2. Kan, Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico, pp. 47, 60. See also Peter T. Furst, "West Mexican Mortuary Art: A Look Back," Studio Potter 16, no. 1 (December 1987), p. 40.
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