Canine vessel

Canines are a ubiquitous presence in the ceramic sculpture of central and southern Veracruz. Artists fashioned them into figurines on wheeled axils, as zoomorphic musical instruments, sleeping dogs in affectionate pairs, and as part of vessels such as this one. This unusual example features an open bowl on one side and a canine effigy on the other. The canine resembles a xoloitzcuintle (or Mexican Hairless), a dog characterized by large, erect, pointed ears, a long, tapered snout, dental abnormalities, and close-fitting, hairless skin that is prone to wrinkling, especially on its face (conveyed on this vessel as incised lines on the dog’s ceramic face and body). With one paw raised, the creature appears oddly playful, but its prominent front teeth, unusually long fangs, and a second set of protruding, curled fangs suggest an otherworldly being.

During the Veracruz late Classic period, small-scale ceramic sculptures were often mold-made, then modified by carving when the clay was at the leather-hard stage. Lack of visible tempering accounts for the near-uniform surface appearance of ceramic figurines and mold-made vases and bowls. Here the artist paired a figurine made using this technique with a hand-modeled bowl, a combination that may help to explain the incongruity of the detailed hairless dog and rather rudimentary bowl. Zoomorphic bowls have been found archaeologically at Nopiloa, Loma de los Carmona, and other sites in central and southern Veracruz. At Cosamaloapan, a hollow cavity in a canine head forms a vessel with stirrup spout in a mold-made figurine depicting a reclining dog (Museo de Antropología de Xalapa #00913).

In ancient Mesoamerican cosmology, dogs connect the surface world of humans with the subterranean Underworld. On a Rio Blanco relief-carved bowl from south-central Veracruz two dogs take part in a merchant celebration, thought to reenact the birth of the Sun at the dawn of Creation (Von Winning and Gutiérrez Solana 1996; Wyllie 2008: 248). The Mixe, whose ancestors include peoples of south-central Veracruz, believe that black dogs guide the deceased across waters separating the living and the dead. Dogs are present in Underworld scenes on a variety of Maya polychrome vases, while among the Mexica, the deity Xolotl is perceived as a dog who resides in the Underworld retrieving the bones of the dead.

Cherra Wyllie, 2025

Further Reading

American Kennel Club, Breeds ,“Xoloitzcuintli” https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/xoloitzcuintli/

Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo, Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya, Yale University Press 2017

Culpepper Belt, Sage, “Veracruz Ceramic Techniques”. In Ancient Art of Veracruz, Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, 1971

Drucker, Philip, Ceramic Sequences at Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 146, 1943

Esquivas, Chantal, On the Edge of Empire?: Settlement Changes in Calcalapan Southern Veracruz during the Classic and Postclassic Periods. BAR International Series, Oxford 2002

Foster, George M. “Mixe, Zoque, and Popoluca”, In Handbook of Middle American Indians, (Robert Wauchope, general ed)., vol 7, part 1: Ethnology (Evon Vogt, ed) 448-477, University of Texas Press, 1969

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

Medellín Zenil, Alfonso, Nopiloa: Exploraciones arqueológicas, Universidad Veracruana, Xalapa, 1987

Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, Veracruz (MAX), Digital Collection of Archaeological Heritage, Xalapa, Veracruz https://sapp.uv.mx/catalogomax/en-US

Stark, Barbara L. “Figurines and Other Artifacts” (179-226) In Classic Period Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico: Diachronic Inferences from Residential Investigations, Barbara L. Stark, editor, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, the University at Albany, Albany 2001

Von Winning, Hasso and Nelly Gutiéreez Solana, La Iconografía de Río Blanco, Veracruz, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Mexico 1996

Wyllie, Cherra “Continuity and Change in Late Classic Southern Veracruz Art, Hieroglyphs, and Religion”, In Classic Period Cultural Currents in Southern and Central Veracruz, edited by Philip J. Arnold, III and Christopher Pool, pp. 225-258, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University Press, 2008

Wyllie, Cherra “Las Figurillas en Clásico de Veracruz: Reconsideraciones”, In Arquelogía de la Costa del Golfo: Dinámicas de la Interacción Politica, Económica e Ideológica, edited by Lourdes Budar, Marcie L. Venter, and Sara Ladrón de Guevara, pp. 161-178, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, 2017