by Mildred Boyd
The
pre-Columbian sites in Western Mexico are never likely to replace Teotihuacan
or Monte Alban as tourist attractions. Simple tools, humble dwellings
and clay figurines are not much competition for lofty pyramids, princely
palaces and golden ornaments. Yet, to serious scholars, such sites are
even more informative than the grandiose ceremonial centers, in that they
can tell us much about how ordinary people lived.
Shaft tombs, some 45 or more feet deep and with several burial chambers,
were typical graves in Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima. They have yielded
an astonishing array of funeral offerings, especially ceramics, from crude
flat figures to sophisticated sculpture in the round. The potters of Colima
were particularly adept in depicting tiny vignettes of everyday life.
Animals were favored subjects, but birds and insects, hunchbacks, water
carriers, family groups, warriors and priests were all wrought in faithful
detail to accompany and protect the dead on their journey to the underworld.
Though some are now badly discolored from centuries of contact with the
earth, every example shown here was originally finished with the polished
red slip distinctive of Colima’s pottery. All date from the six
century.
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