Jalisco Maternity Group Protoclassic, circa 100 BC - AD 250

Holding an infant figure to her right breast, she sits with a resolute posture and high rounded shoulders. Her crossed legs enveloped in her skirt, her body is erect and lips parted, with a slender nose showing inflated nostrils, rimmed eyes and modeled cheeks, as well as a black tattoo starting from her bottom lip extending vertically to her chin. Details such as the infant's hand resting on the mother's breast and the mother's hand supporting the baby's back capture this tender moment of bonding between a mother and her child. 

The present figure belongs to the Ameca Gray corpus, which includes the majority of Jalisco pieces. Mothers with infants are usually shown sitting with crossed legs, wearing a simple wrap skirt. Some women have spiral designs painted on the breasts. Women who are not nursing often "kneel with short, stubby arms stretched forward (palms down), or with one hand behind the head and the other outstretched. Furst [...] was told by Huichol informants that the latter gesture [...] 'would be made only be a woman...because it represented a petition to the Mothers, the female deities of fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth, to stop or withhold menstruation, to enable the petitioner to conceive.'" (Jacki Gallagher, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1983, pp. 86-87).