#huasteca

Another time lapse, this time of the "Quechquemitl vs Poncho" illustration I did for Codex Black's book 2. Drawing all the little details of the two garments was surprisingly relaxing and fun.

"The woman, carved in pale stone, wears a peaked headdress, circular earrings and the wide hip belt and kneepads of an ancient Mesoamerican athlete. Her expression is fierce, her pose triumphant. In her right hand, she grips the severed head of a sacrificial victim by the hair.

The sculpture is the first life-size representation of a ritual ballplayer found to date in the Huasteca, a tropical region spanning parts of several states along the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Like virtually every other Mesoamerican society, the inhabitants of the Huasteca played what is simply known today as “the ballgame,” in the time before the Spanish conquest. Despite its name and ties to modern soccer, this game was more sacred rite than sport.

For the players, who bounce a solid, dangerously heavy rubber ball off their hips, it was a means of communing with the gods, one that sometimes culminated in human sacrifice.

The ballplayer will be among the most important artifacts in an exhibit, “Ancient Huasteca Women: Goddesses, Warriors and Governors,” at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, opening Friday. This is the first time the piece, which was discovered by landowners about 50 years ago near Álamo, Veracruz, has been on public display.

“It is a totally atypical sculpture,” said David Antonio Morales, an archaeologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Veracruz, who stumbled upon it last November when he was visiting private collections.

He contacted María Eugenia Maldonado, one of the few archaeologists specializing in the pre-Columbian past of the Huasteca. At first, she didn’t think the figure could be real. It would be the first stone sculpture of a ballplayer found in the region, the first female ballplayer and the first at this scale holding a decapitated head.

~ Hunchback Leaning on Staff.

Date: 10th–12th century

Place of origin: Mexico, Mesoamerica, Veracruz

Culture: Huastec

Call To Action 📢Support the Nahua youth of the Huasteca Potosina by reaching out to @tlatoanitsin our Teacher David Marcelino Cayetano at 📩[email protected] to make a donation.

Un Llamado a la Acción 📢Apoya a la juventud Nahua de la Huasteca Potosina comunicándote con @tlatoanitsin nuestro Maestro David Marcelino Cayetano al 📩[email protected] para hacer una donación.

Repost de Tlamach. @tlatoanitsin