| 介绍（英） | Nayarit house models are, on one level, snapshots of village life, easily read as renderings of the everyday. Highly narrative, they depict lively gatherings in plazas and houses, including feasts, dances, and the ballgame, complete with spectators gesturing and placing bets.
Perhaps more than any other tradition in ancient Mesoamerica, Nayarit models give the viewer a clear idea of building types and features that do not appear in the archaeological record. This model and another in the museum’s collection (see MMA 2015.306), for example, show the complex geometric designs of the sloping, peaked thatched roofs that cover rooms and porticoes.
These models also provide a privileged view of the activities that occurred inside such structures, as these masterful constructions are populated with numerous figures engaged in a vast array of tasks and pleasures. Formed individually and then lightly fired into place, the figures gesture in ways that suggest various types of interactions, from conversation to the preparation and consumption of food.
Far from simple representations of the everyday, however, these scenes document major community events. In this example, we see an open portico and lower room filled with activity surrounding the preparation and enjoyment of a feast. Based on the fact that the Nayarit buried their dead beneath their houses, and that models were intended to be funerary offerings, Kristi Butterwick suggests that the lower rooms may depict tombs, and the world of the dead. Alternatively, such lower-level spaces may simply have been used for domestic activities such as cooking. Here, a woman grinds corn on a metate, a type of grinding stone still in use today. Two other adults have set out prepared food on a plate, ready for delivery to the banquet upstairs. A dog, perhaps destined to become an eventual meal himself, sits at the entryway waiting for precious crumbs to fall. Upstairs, the feast is in full swing. Food from the kitchen below has been set before four adults. One male figure, slightly larger than the others, is likely the head of the family or lineage. He occupies pride of place, resting against the back wall of the roofed portico, overlooking the gathering as plates of food are lined up before him.
Patricia J. Sarro, 2018
Further Reading
Butterwick, Kristi. Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture From West Mexico: The Andrall E. Pearson Family Collection. New York, New Haven, London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.
Hers, Marie-Areti, ed. Miradas renovadas al occidente indígena de México. Mexico: Universidad Autónimo de México, 2013.
Pillsbury, Joanne, Patricia Joan Sarro, James Doyle, and Juliet Wiersema. Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015, pp. 36–37, figs. 35–37.
Schávelzon, Daniel. Treinta siglos de imágenes: Maquetas y representaciones de arquitectura en México y América Central prehispánica. Buenos Aires: Fundación Centro de Estudios para Políticas Públicas Aplicadas, 2004, p. 121.
Townsend, Richard F., ed. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Chicago, Art Institute of America, 1998.
von Winning, Hasso. Anecdotal Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico. Los Angeles: Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles, 1972, no. 28, p. 54. |