Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Colima, ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE. A hand-built and highly burnished redware pottery figure of a seated male shaman with hands placed atop bent legs. The shamanic effigy presents with coffee-bean eyes, a prominent nose, protruding lips, and large ears, with an incised headwrap and chinstrap securing an upturned horn to his brow. An abstract bird pendant hangs from around his neck, the cord incised around his clavicle and neck nape, and circular ear spools adorn each ear. Size: 7" L x 7.2" W x 12.25" H (17.8 cm x 18.3 cm x 31.1 cm)

Colima, located on Mexico's southwestern coast, was part of the shaft tomb culture during this period, along with neighbors to the north in Jalisco and Nayarit. In this culture, the dead were buried down shafts - 3 to 20 meters deep - that were dug vertically or near vertically through the volcanic tuff that makes up the geology of the region. The base of the shaft would open into one or more horizontal chambers with a low ceiling. These shafts were almost always dug beneath a dwelling, probably a family home, and seem to have been used as family mausoleums, housing the remains of many related individuals. This is a figure made to be placed inside those mausoleums, perhaps to mediate between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Cf. another seated example at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1979.206.478

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-Arte Primitivo, New York, New York, USA; ex-John Ley-Chang collection, acquired in the 1950s

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#179568

Minor abrasions and nicks, with softening to some incised decorations, fading and areas of fire-darkening to red surface pigment, and light earthen deposits, otherwise intact and excellent. Great preservation to overall form. Previous inventory labels and previous handwritten inventory number beneath base.