Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Colima, ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE. A fine example of a hand-built and highly burnished redware pottery vessel in the shape of an emaciated dog laying on its belly. The larger size of the body is perhaps bloating due to malnutrition, the shoulders and hips emphasized with bones raised beneath the skin, and a large spout emanates from the middle of its back. Unusual for Colima dog effigies is how both left legs - not fully visible along the topside - are incised beneath the body. The sideways-turned head lays on one side and exhibits a pair of incised ovoid eyes, a thick snout with delineated nostrils, and bared rows of teeth, all beneath a pair of perky ears. Size: 10.125" L x 7.25" W x 5.125" H (25.7 cm x 18.4 cm x 13 cm)
Pottery canines like this one are the only remains that we have today of a sophisticated and unique culture in West Mexico - they made no above-ground monuments or sculptures, at least that we know of, which is in strong contrast to developments elsewhere in ancient Mesoamerica. Instead, their tombs were their lasting works of art: skeletons arrayed radially with their feet positioned inward, and clay offerings, like this example, placed alongside the walls facing inward, near the skulls. A large effigy like this one most likely would have flanked the entrance to a tomb in a way that archaeologists have interpreted as guarding. Some scholars have interpreted these dynamic sculptures of the living as a strong contrast to the skeletal remains whose space they shared, as if they mediated between the living and the dead.
Scholars know of at least two types of Colima dogs, one to be fattened up and ritually sacrificed or eaten and one to serve as a watchdog and healer of the ill. This plump hairless canine known as a Chichi or Escuintla is thought to be related to the Chihuahua or Mexican Hairless also known as the Xoloitzcuintle. The Xolo dog was named for the deity Xolotl, the God of the Underworld, and believed to guide the deceased as they journeyed to the afterlife. Colima vessels like this example were buried in shaft tombs to protect the deceased and provide sustenance for eternity.
Provenance: private Kansas, USA collection, acquired via descent from family in Jalisco, Mexico ca. the 1940s, and imported into the US in the 1970s and 1980s
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#171493
Condition
Repair to back-right foot and restoration to exterior rim of spout. Abrasions, encrustations, and small nicks commensurate with age, with minor softening to some finer details, and light fading to pigment. Great remains of pigment and nice manganese deposits throughout.