It is probable that the placement of the hands on the belly in the sculptural images of women in various cultures of the Mesoamerican West is a gesture that symbolizes pregnancy or a request for it, in addition to being associated with feminine stereotypes. The abdomen often shows only a discreet bulge, as in this work, and does not constitute a diagnostic in itself.
Despite the woman's naked appearance, the most striking aspects are the described gesture and above all the head which has an attractive and detailed hairstyle. Her long, straight hair with linear incisions is parted in the middle, fringe (painted red) and strands at the sides. The hairstyles and headdresses particularly, together with other ornaments like necklaces and earrings, endow each piece with the abundant production of the style that the archaeologist Muriel Porter, pioneer in the knowledge of the Chupicuaro culture, called "slant eye" or slanted eyes. It is also known as H4 in relation to a formal typology of small ceramic sculptures from the Central Highlands of Mexico made during the Preclassic established by George Vaillant in the 1930s.
As Porter pointed out, the style has sub-variants. The one we are looking at corresponds to one with eyes and mouth in the form of a "button": it consists of a rectangular application with two lateral incisions. The neck covered by a wide choker (formed from several twists) is a feature associated with the choker style that preceded it in the same cultural frame, although the flattened volume and the completely smooth back are characteristic of the slanted eyes style.
The iconographic analysis reveals that women predominate in the Chupicuaro ceramic sculpture, sometimes in the company of infants or dogs, or showing expressive gestures; most frequently they were modeled simply sitting or standing, which highlights the importance of the head and its ornamentation. The conventional appearance is of young women, and it is possible to identify some cultural practices from which material evidences are preserved: the high and flattened head shows an intentional cranial deformation (tabular erect), corresponding to one of those detected in the skulls found in the graves of the area of Chupicuaro, in which these types of figures were used as an offering.
Such deformation consists of an alteration of the growth pattern and the shape of the human skull. This was done in the first years of life through the use of tablets, girdles, bandages and pads, among other instruments. There are several modalities and was a common practice among Mesoamericans since the Preclassic period, and was probably much more common in their artistic representations. In the skeletal remains of the town of Chupicuaro in addition to the tabular erect, the tabular oblique has been recorded, both with varying degrees.
It is probable that the placement of the hands on the belly in the sculptural images of women in various cultures of the Mesoamerican West is a gesture that symbolizes pregnancy or a request for it, in addition to being associated with feminine stereotypes. The abdomen often shows only a discreet bulge, as in this work, and does not constitute a diagnostic in itself.
