Colima Postclassic Seated Figure with Headdress, El Chanal, Postclassic, AD 1250 - 1521

James Bodisbaugh, Los Angeles
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above between 1969 -1970

Inventoried by Hasso von Winning, March 28, 1970, no. 26, and further documented by Hasso von Winining on June 18, 1968, (personal communication to Edwin and Cherie Silver) 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, January 27 - June 30, 1975

Hasso von Winning, 'Der westmexikanische equipal-Stuhl. Ein ethnologisch-archäologischer Vergleich', Indiana, vol. 9, 1984, p. 184, fig. 3b, & p. 185, fig. 3e

This figure and lot 44, are part of an important group of four known Postclassic figural censors from the northern Colima region of El Chanal. Their eccentric and stylized faces and rope-like arms echo earlier West Mexican figural styles, but it is the round woven cane stools (known as equipales) which are of particular distinction. Hasso von Winning first studied the three figures in the Silver collection in 1968; his later article  discussed the ethnographic importance of the cane and bamboo round seats used by the Huichols of Nayarit (von Winning, 'Der westmexikanische equipal-Stuhl', Indiana, 1984, pp. 175-187). An important source was the early work of the Norwegian explorer/anthropologist Carl Lumholtz. Lumholtz traveled from Arizona down through Mexico in 1892, recording and studying indigenous groups including the Huichol and Cora of the Sierra Madre Occidental. His two volume publication in 1902, Unknown Mexico, was a landmark oeuvre with illustrated, highly personal accounts of West Mexican customs and art.

Round stools held special importance as nearly all depictions of seats are rectangular. Lumholtz describes the equipales for shaman and their attendants as seats of divine power, an indispensable accessory for shamanic customs (Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, vol. II, 1902, pp. 30-31). Lumholtz records, "The singing shaman who was the leader, sat in a peculiar arm-chair used by the tribe" (ibid., p. 7). He refers to shaman sitting for days, "...on all festive occasions the shaman and the principal men use such chairs and after the feast is over, everyone takes his chair home with him." A smaller version of the cane stool was called a "Gods chair" (ibid., p. 30-31).  

Veneration of deities included long celebratory rituals involving combinations of performance, feasting, fasting, sacrifice, and divinations. Within the framework of Postclassic iconography, von Winning noted the figures can be compared to the deity Mixcoatl, God of the Hunt, as illustrated in the codices Magliabechiano and Vaticanus, which show impersonators with costume elements similar to the Silver’s figures including the stiff broad collar, headband with applied medallions, and twisted armbands (ibid., p. 179).

Postclassic figural censors depicting a skeletal deity or the rain god Tlaloc are from a different region and were of very blocky proportion. The Silvers' figures are a refined and vivid reference to the ritual behavior of elite individuals.

For the closely related fourth and companion figure, see Elizabeth Kennedy Easby and John Scott, eds. Before Cortes, Sculpture of Middle America, 1971, fig. 264, (also Sotheby's, New York, May 15, 2009, lot 140), currently on loan to the Yale University Art Gallery (ILE2010.17.1).