The southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the part of the coast that corresponds to the present-day states of Tabasco and Campeche, constituted a universe permeated by cultural influences external to the Mayan area. A territory well known by the first Spaniards, scene of multiple shipwrecks and bloody combats, besides being the place where Cortes would be accompanied by the Malinche before beginning the Conquest of Mexico. The greatest virtue of this Mayan woman was that she spoke Nahuatl, the language of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
Jerónimo de Aguilar, first abandoned to his fate on the Mexican coast and later incorporated into Cortes' expedition, would serve as an interpreter between Doña Marina and the Captain himself. La Malinche was then a faithful reflection of what had happened for centuries in that part of Mexico, a region of contrasts where two great cultural traditions of Mesoamerica coexisted and where commercial ports multiplied.
It was in these lands that the Mayan world came into with the cultural models of central Mexico, where ethnic differences were attenuated in the close coexistence of the coastal towns. The ancient province of Acalan was a true melting pot of cultures, a land furrowed by great rivers that became from time immemorial a age of well-stocked convoys carrying all sorts of products from the tropical jungles to the cold land of central Mexico. Following the coast, beyond Laguna de Terminos and the Candelaria river, the Yucatan Peninsula begins.
The coast of Campeche, in the heart of the Mayan world, in ancient times produced truly remarkable pottery that could not disguise the effect of the frequent cultural s that were established along the seaboard; a type of figurine whose singularity reached the territory of Tabasco and the north of Chiapas. These are usually small pieces that portray richly dressed characters, perhaps the specimens from the island of Jaina best represent them. However, we must that from this same island on the coast of Campeche came a figurine of the type that we know as smiling, and that they were very popular in Pre-Hispanic times on the coastal plain of Veracruz, which extended to the western limit of the Maya area and which, as in this case, were part of burial offerings for high-ranking persons.
The ceramic production in this part of the Mexican southeast, still framed in the cultural manifestations of the Mayan world, does not fail to exhibit the peculiarities of pottery work that is recurrently exposed to plastic arts expressions from other regions of Mesoamerica. The case of this interesting piece from the Amparo Museum collection is no different. It is an attempt to reproduce in clay the appearance of a temple as a theater curtain, which serves as a haven for the effigy of a deity whose face cannot be further from those that were common among the divinities of the Mayan world.
In the center of the room, we can see a face with rough features and prominent teeth, adorned with earrings and several rows of feathers. On its neck, resting on its shoulders, there appears a heavy necklace of large beads that ends in the front in a pendant that has the basic features of a human face. The rest of the composition revolves around this essential figure. At the sides, we discover two smaller characters that appear in front of the jambs of the single door, practically as if they are attached or glued to them. The one on the left is sitting, while the one on the right is standing.
Above, over the representation of the roof is a set of figures - a bird of beautiful plumage and two probable felines - that on both sides are bordered by human figures that rest in a kind of roof eave. It is these characters who really serve here to determine the origin of the piece, to make it participate in the Mayan civilization by taking into the movement of the body and the presence of a cord that emerges from the upper part of the nose that travels the orbit of both eyes. A symbolic element that is usually observed in Mayan steles from the northwestern lowlands and that seems to be associated with the representation of deities of central Mexican origin in the Maya area.
The southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the part of the coast that corresponds to the present-day states of Tabasco and Campeche, constituted a universe permeated by cultural influences external to the Mayan area. A territory well known by the first Spaniards, scene of multiple shipwrecks and bloody combats, besides being the place where Cortes would be accompanied by the Malinche before beginning the Conquest of Mexico. The greatest virtue of this Mayan woman was that she spoke Nahuatl, the language of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
