Colima Seated Shaman, Comala Style, Protoclassic, 100 BC - AD 250

Douglas Hague, Los Angeles
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above between 1966-1967

Inventoried by Hasso von Winning, March 28, 1970, no. 23

Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, October 11 - November 27, 1983

Jacki Gallagher, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1983, p. 46, fig. 31

The hunchback holds an oval vessel and shakes double rattles in his lively role within a feasting ritual. Feasting was one of the four most important themes portrayed in West Mexican art, along with kinship, status, and power (Butterwick, Heritage of Power, 2005, p. 12). Feasting ceremonies were an integral part of a community that solidified economic and social interaction within and between villages, engaging all levels of the society.

It is suggested that the rattles were peyote buttons which would be integral to any shamanic activity surrounding a religious feast. The known intoxicating liquids included octli, or pulque from agave plants, or tesvino, maize beer (Butterwick, in Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico, 1998, p. 103). This figure also wears the insignia of rank with the shell projection on the forehead secured with the incised band wrapped carefully around the chin and head. The large ears are pierced for ornaments and he wears a short-sleeved tunic delineated by the high burnish and incised edges.

For similar seated figures with bowl and rattles, see Holsbeke and Arnaut, Offerings for a New Life, 1998, cat. no. 9; Gallagher, Companions of the Dead, 1983, fig. 33; and the Proctor Stafford Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico, 1998, p. 210, fig. 16.