This is a piece with an enigmatic function and appearance. The two tubular mouths emerging from the upper part and of the sides of the quadrangular body indicate that the inside is hollow. This small recipient seems to be made from a soft stone, nevertheless, it is a highly compact type of clay, with stony appearance.
It has a fantastical and schematic form of a quadruped with a human head. An animal skin from an unknown species shows straight lines in distinct directions and triangles, and behind in a slight embossment a tail is seen with two trident shaped sections.
Although it is chipped, it shows no signs of use. There is no way to determine what it was used for, particularly because the design is atypical in the Mesoamerican setting.
Veronica Hernandez Diaz
The pieces with catalog numbers 1003 and 1004 of the Amparo Museum collection (and also #1002, which has a separate file) are very original. We do not recall seeing pieces of this type in any collection of Mesoamerican objects, in any archaeological context. We will go by parts.
Its function is related to the circulation of a gas: tobacco smoke, in all probability, although the smoke of some aromatic herb or resin cannot be ruled out. The pieces are hollow: they are blocks with a cylindrical channel inside. One of the exits of the channel is wide, and the other very narrow. At least two of the pieces (#1002 and #1004) have a blackening at the wide exit, which suggests that they were in with burning embers and constant smoke. The narrow mouthpiece would have been used to inhale and/or introduce air into the stone "bowl."
It seems that they are, then, bowls, like those of tobacco pipes from other regions of the world. We could even call them pipes; for now we have no better option, it seems that that is what they are. There is a problem in the system and the shape of the three. #1002 has a very small mouthpiece; it seems more likely that it was plugged, so to speak, with some type of straw, some grass. You have to take into something else: anyone who has smoked a pipe knows how hot the bowl where the coal is placed gets. Such a small mouthpiece and so close to the surface of the bowl would have been inadequate; it would burn the lips. On the other hand, the mouthpieces of pieces #1003 and #1004 are in a straight line with the mouthpiece, so the only way to smoke them without the tobacco or other herbs spilling out would have been with the head completely turned towards the sky, or lying down. If we assume the use of grass or straw plugged into the nozzle, the problem may have been attenuated.
Finally we have a problem of origin. The appearance of the three pipes is strange for Mesoamerica. They are made of clay, but of a very compact, hard and heavy clay that looks like stone. The figures perched on the bowls are not similar to representations we know. Note, for example, the flat, schematic and caricature face of the character of piece #1003. It is also curious how the anthropomorph of #1004 embraces the pipe, and how his fingers extend as if they were large fins or the claws of a reptile.
The solution to this puzzle seems to be found in Chile. In fact, there are pre-Mapuche pipes, from archaeological cultures of the Araucanians that are very similar to the three from the Amparo collection. See, for example, the face and claws of a piece from the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. Regarding the shape of the mouthpiece, the similarity is also enormous, as can be seen in a smoother, disc-shaped pipe from this museum.
What is most likely, then, is that the three pieces from the Amparo Museum come from an acquisition, made by a collector or traveler in Chile. They would be pre-Mapuche Araucanian pipes.
Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo
