Large Maya Polychrome Tripod Plate with Deity, Late Classic, ca. A.D. 550-950

boldly painted with the seated figure of the aged God L holding forth a bundle of tobacco leaves, his animated face surmounted by the avian headdress of a wide-mouthed moan bird, plumes flowing back, and wearing a fringed cape, perhaps a jaguar pelt,  a long strand of beads hanging front and back, supported on a stone dais with a tall tripod pot behind covered by a jaguar pelt, the tondo encircled by a skyband indicating the supernatural location of the scene, pseudo-glyphs in the field and a glyphic  phrase trimmed by jaguar spots around one side; supported overall on tripod feet with finely serrated rim below. 

Emile Deletaille, Brussels

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, 2005-2010

Overall very good, excellent color and form. Has clean breaks and repairs visible from underside showing approx. 3 main lines of breaks, has been filled on front over cracks .
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Native tobacco, nicotiana rustica, known to the Maya as 'picietal' was an important medicinal and ritual substance that has been a key element of shamanic and curing practises throughout the Americas. The intoxicating effect was nearly hallucinogenic; a number of Spanish chroniclers from the 16th C. to as late as the 19th C, witnessed with awe the effects. "...It must be handled cautiously because it is dangerous, it takes away the judgement from those who take it, and makes them behave foolishly and wildly'. (Robicsek 1978:44).

The "Smoking Gods'  are God K and God L, two of the principal Underworld lords. Among their many attributues are the bifurcated 'smoke scroll' and zoomorphic form. For an Early Classic carved vase of the God L in all his refinery, see Robicsek (1978: pl. 102), see also mayavase.com K8469 for a palace scene of smoking figures.