A Colima Standing Water Carrier, Protoclassic, ca. 100 B.C.-A.D. 250

leaning forward from the weight of his large vessel secured by a tumpline across his forehead, with massive muscular legs and slender tapering arms, pectorals flexed and round face with coffee bean eyes and slit mouth, adorned with a necklace of long shell segments, earrings and wearing a loincloth, painted with areas distinctively reddish brown and orange brown.

Richard F. Townsend ed., Ancient West Mexico Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, catalogue to an exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, September 5-November 22, 1998, p. 207, fig 6; cat no. 29

The important trade networks in ancient Mexico included the long distance movement of small luxury goods such as shell and turquoise, as well as larger heavier loads composed of salt or obsidian. Merchants or porters known as tamemes were the basis of the trade system relying on the well documented tumpline or mecapal. This porter may be a tlachiquero, transporting the sap of the maguey cactus, from which pulque was made.