Seated female figure

Seated with arms raised, wearing a cape-like quechquemitl and ankle-length skirt, this fanciful youth has a doll-like charm, an impression enhanced by the red circles painting her cheeks. Her expression is enigmatic, with vacant, elliptical eyes, the slightly triangular face recalling Veracruz Smiling Figures, including similar dental mutilation (see MMA 1979.206.1211). Her headdress is a simple beret encircled by a black band (applied using chapopote or bitumen, a petroleum-based product sometimes used as a colorant). A lock of shoulder-length hair is discretely tucked behind each ear. She is adorned with a double-strand necklace of round pendants and wears large earspools, perhaps indicating her elite status. The artist applied geometric patterns across her quechquemitl, using the same earthen red pigment decorating her cheeks, and forming a border at the hem of her top and skirt.

Veracruz artists fashioned innovative ceramic sculptures with animating properties, including marionette-like figurines with moveable limbs, wheeled animals, and bodies with interchangeable heads. Other figurines functioned as musical instruments, such as rattles, flutes, ocarinas, and whistles. This delightful female figure possesses both sonic and kinetic attributes. She is seated on a swing, indicated by a plank-shaped board beneath her, while her upraised hands would have seized slender ropes on either side. The space in each of her small, clenched hands is just large enough for a yarn-sized width of cord.

On the undecorated and rather coarse reverse of the figure, the exterior duct protrudes outward near the base, providing the mouthpiece of the vessel whistle. Two long, vertical air holes are slit into the back and head above it. A small, horizontal slit near the headdress on the painted obverse creates yet another air hole (similar to that found on the headdress of many Smiling Figures that also function as whistles), with further openings provided by the eyes and mouth. A female figure on a swing on display in the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa (#316086) also doubles as an aerophone, with a similar duct and vertical air slits incised at the rear.

According to José Luis Franco (1971: 18-19) valveless aerophones including flutes and ocarinas were the “most common melodic instruments used in Mesoamerica” with ocarinas and whistles the most popular ducted instruments. Appearing in endless varieties, the majority produced three to five notes. Medellín Zenil (1960: 70-71) noted that the oldest Negro y Rojo Sobre Crema figures function as both a whistle and a rattle; the hollow head held small stones with the hollow body of the vessel functioning as a whistle. As the type developed, figures functioned solely as whistles. Music archaeologist Mark Howell observed that, whether or not this piece is a compound instrument, it resembles one.

Although often appearing individually like this one, figures on swings are often paired (Museo de Antropología de Xalapa (#14900) or even seated three to a swing (Ancient Art of Veracruz 1971: 48-49). Thought to represent children, none have been found archaeologically. “Negro y Rojo Sobre Crema”, the bichrome ceramic type used to create this example, on the other hand, is widespread in Central Veracruz, appearing as far inland as Tlaxcala. Combining music, movement, and color, this Female Figure on a Swing highlights the multi-sensory possibilities of Veracruz ceramic sculpture. The sound of a whistle, a child on a swing, red circled cheeks--each element seems as like a part of our common experience. Yet, this is undoubtedly part of a more nuanced and culturally-complex story.

Cherra Wyllie, 2025

Further Reading

Ancient Art of Veracruz, Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History 1971

Franco, José Luis, “Musical Instruments from central Veracruz in Ancient Times”. In Ancient Art of Veracruz, Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History 1971

Howell, Mark “Pre-Columbian Music of Veracruz/Mexican Gulf Coast” in Dizionario enciclopedico universale della musica e dei musicisti / DEUMM Online, ed. Zdravko Blazekovic. Administered by RILM, 2025

Melgarejo Vivanco, José Luis, Los Totonaca y Su Cultura, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa Veracruz, 1985

Medellín Zenil, Alfonso, Cerámicas del Totonacapan, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa. 1960

National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), Smithsonian Institute, collections. https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_236042