Colima Figure with Boomerangs

George and Julianne Alderman, Baltimore

Holding boomerangs readied in each hand, the figure turns in anticipation, balancing on the outspread bent legs. The figure is a classic example of the warrior guardian, an important genre of male figures who must participate in rites of passage to attain any position of chief. This figure shares an affinity to shaman by the specific ‘horned’ headband. Here the wide textured headband hugs the chin and wraps around the tapering headdress which may be the whorl of a conch shell as a clan emblem. His mature physique is clothed in a short sleeve tunic.

Cf. For a highly similar figure, see Michael Kan, Clement Meighan, H.B. Nicholson, Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Los Angeles, 1970 (reprinted 1989), p. 63, cat. no. 115.