Jacqueline Larralde de Saenz, who originally collected this piece, identified it as a duck in flight. It is made up of two cups ed together by a rectangular shape with a bird's head projecting from its two free sides. The birds have a flattened beak and it is possible that they are ducks. In effect, the two main views appear to be a bird in flight, the cups being the wings.
As regards to this piece, it is possible that it conveys the multiple cultural values of the duck: those relating to its use, its habits, the seasons and the aquatic environment, and of course the religious and symbolic meanings too. However, we also see the extraordinary creativity and sensitivity of the artist in capturing, using non-figurative elements, the image of a bird in flight, especially with the fantastical attributes like the two heads.
This piece corresponds to the peak period of the Chupicuaro culture, during the last four centuries prior to the start of our era. Almost all of it is painted red, except for the lower inside part of the rectangular prism that s the two vessels, which is hollow, does not have a base and shows some perforations which perhaps are for a rope to through to hang and move the piece around.
Some of the simple motifs on the external wall of the cups are painted in black and cream colors. These are basic straight and zigzag lines, the last ones in diagonal arrangements and evoke spread wings in flight flapping up and down. The two heads have a black beak and are different sizes, painted with different motifs. On the larger one, we see two tiny vertical lines on the central axis and on the cross axis two staggered linear triangles. On the small head, there is just one solid shape painted on the cross axis, which conveys two ed triangles. Taking into the two heads, different in size and decorative designs, which are facing in opposite directions, I think that this image represents the departure and return flight of the same bird or type of bird, which grows during the course of the journey or takes on different meanings. I believe that the piece captures a migratory bird.
As mentioned above, the beaks could correspond to a duck, as it is an aquatic bird and some of its species are migratory, which leads us directly to the river and lake region where the Chupicuaro culture settled. This was the Valley of Acambaro, in southeastern Guanajuato. It was also recorded to have spread to the bordering region of Michoacan, in the Cuitzeo Lake basin.
Since the ethnic and linguistic identity of the of this development is unknown, their name was taken from a town that was covered by the Solis dam in 1949, following archaeological rescue work carried out there. The ancient Chupicuaro site was situated at the confluence of the Lerma and Tigre or Coroneo rivers. Today, the Solis dam, which is like an artificial lake, is still the destination of many aquatic migratory birds that come from the north and west of the country. In Pre-Colombian times, this phenomenon must have occurred with much greater intensity due to the original river basins and the Cuitzeo lake. Ducks are one of the species included among these birds; some of the varieties detected recently are: the Canadian, Mexican (or "garbancero" or "trigueño"), Northern Pintail ("golondrino") and American Wigeon ("chalcuan").
Along this line of thinking, the double vessel that conveys a bird in flight departing and returning, expresses a natural context and its interpretation in the world view of a society, and of course, the outstanding creativity of an artist of the Chupicuaro culture.
