Comala-style Dog

In western Mexico, large shaft tombs that could be over twenty metres deep seem to have been the privilege of high-ranking individuals. Various offerings, including large earthenware statuettes of human or animal figures, were placed alongside their remains. Such statuettes were not depictions of the deceased, but rather beings charged with accompanying them into the hereafter, if not to guard their tombs. Among the zoomorphic figures, dogs (xoloitzcuintle) were particularly common, especially in what is now the state of Colima. Their big stomachs are a reminder that they were fattened for eating. Their presence in the tombs was not solely due to a possible food offering; in Mesoamerica, it was also the role of those animals to guide the souls of the deceased in their journeys to the afterlife.