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Bradley and Laura Soberano at their arts and
crafts booth across the street (south) from the Soriana
supermarket |
When you visit Colima, you'll find
replicas of the famous Colima Dog everywhere. No
gift shop would be
worth its salt if it didn't have at least one sculpture of Colima's
porky pooch. Instead
of having chocolates or
flowers delivered,
bring home this lovable doggie instead. The Colima Dog was known to have a variety of uses
throughout its centuries of existence: food
source, guardian to the dead, healer, watchdog. At
least two different types of Colima dogs evolved: one to be fattened up and eaten or
ritually sacrificed,
and another type for a watchdog and healer of the sick.
Esteemed as protectors, Xolos
were believed to safeguard the home from evil spirits as well as
intruders. If the canine was a good guard
dog, he would be kept and used as breeding stock. It is believed that, because of the tendency of the
breed to
make good watchdogs, the superior animals were used to
produce stronger and larger animals--hence, today the size of the Mexican
Hairless can weigh in at 60 lbs. |
"Dancing Dogs" are perhaps the
most popular replica in the state of Colima. It is also used
in numerous logos of businesses and charities. The dog on the
left is depicted as either having hair or wrinkles, while the
dog on the right is totally smooth. |
Boy holding dog, and dog with food bowl
holding an ear of corn |
Fat Colima Dog with corn;
Colima dog sleeping |
The Xolo held a place of
special religious significance for many ancient cultures. Clay and
ceramic effigies of Xolos date back over 3000 years and have
been discovered in the tombs of the Toltec, Aztec, Mayan, Zapoteca,
and Colima Indians.
The famous
pottery dogs of Colima provide
evidence of the intricate bond which has existed between man and Xolo
for centuries. All of these relics give testimony to the
civilizations' fondness for these wonderful dogs. They are truly a
living link to the glory of these primitive cultures. |
| The fat dogs most often
depicted in Colima sculpture were eaten. Possibly that's why many
of the sculptures of the Colima Dog portray the pooch with an ear of
corn in his mouth.
Diego Durán writes that at the time
of the Conquest, hundreds of dogs were for sale at the Market of
Acolman near the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico. It was
also reported that the meat was delicious. Durán was a Spanish
clergyman, who was brought to Mexico as a child, and grew up
in the Aztec capital city of Texcoco, where he learned to
speak Nahuatl, an indigenous language still taught today at
the University of Colima. Durán spent his life chronicling
the religion and customs of local people.
Perhaps it
was the growing taste for escuincle meat that brought
the dogs beyond their original turf into more temperate climates,
where inevitably they needed special care; Jesuit
Priest De Sahagún reports that
in the Central Valley they were wrapped in blankets during the
winter. |
A collection of Colima Dogs at the Nogueras
Museum near Comala, north of Colima City. |
The Olmec (1,200 B.C.E. to C.E.
600) tribes are often regarded as the "mother" culture of
Mexico and were known to eat dogs during their time.
The Mayans (1,000 B.C.E. to
about C.E. 1,000) believed that the artifacts they left in their
grave would eventually join the dead in the afterlife, which is why
the Mayans also put mummified dogs into their tombs. The Mayans
believed that dogs were guardians of the afterlife, and the sacred
mummification of a dog would allow the dead canine to help the
deceased to his ultimate destination.
By the age of the Toltec (700
C.E. to 1,160 C.E.) tribe, it became quite common to eat canine. Evidence
suggests that they ate plump, thick-necked dogs with short erect
ears and tail. Clearly the dog was bred for the table, particularly
the nobles.
The
Aztec
raised turkeys and dogs, which were eaten by the wealthy, and
usually only on special occasions. Male dogs
were castrated and fattened on corn, and either eaten or sacrificed.
Just so dog lovers won't feel bad, the Aztecs also practiced
cannibalism, and the sacrifice of humans.
In his Historia de Tlaxcala
(1585), Diego Muñoz de Camargo describes the sacrifices of several
hairless dogs to the rain god. Believers conducted canine sacrifices
by shooting them with arrows, asphyxiating them, or throwing the
hog-tied animals on rocks before extracting their hearts, which were
later cooked.
In addition to raising dogs as a food source, many
peoples of Mexico believed that a dog accompanied a person's soul on
the journey into the underworld. Discovery of these dog sculptures
and mummified dogs in tombs suggests they were intended as
companions for the deceased. The Xolo dog was named after the god who would
lead the deceased into the afterlife. Xolotl ("Lord of the
Underworld") was
the deity who aided the dead on their journey to the afterlife.
|
A 2,000-year-old Xolo |
There are two types of modern-day Xoloitzcuintle:
coated (front) and hairless (back), coming in 3
sizes, toy, mini & standard |
Although not recognized by the American
Kennel Club as a breed, the Xoloitzcuintle is the
official
dog of Mexico (and Colima). |
Highly prized for their curative and
mystical powers, the Xolo's breed purity appears to have been
maintained throughout the ages.
Ancient clay representations bear
witness to the fact that the species has remained virtually
unchanged for centuries.
Modern day Xolos bear a striking
resemblance to the primeval artifacts found in museums all over
Mexico. |
The Colima Dog's reputation as a
healer persists to this day. It is not at all uncommon to find small
Chihuahua-like dogs put to use in remote Mexican and Central
American villages. Believed to ward off and cure numerous ailments
including rheumatism, asthma, toothache and insomnia, undoubtedly
the gentle warmth of the animal's smooth skin does have a
soothing effect on the sufferer. Being hairless, the dogs do radiate
a lot of heat.
| In pre-Columbian times, if a dog showed promise as a healer
he was kept as a pet and spared being a main course on his master's
dinner table. In addition to its supernatural significance, the xolo
or escuincle fulfilled some of the more pragmatic needs
of the ancient Mexicans.
Though in general domesticated animals
played a much less important role in the pre-Columbian diet than in
that of Europeans, ancient Mexicans cooked and ate escuincles,
often prepared in green sauce and served with pigweed.
(Pigweed, also known as amaranth, grows wild in North America.
There are more than 60 species. The leaves have an extremely
high vitamin and mineral content. Amaranth seed is at least as
rich in protein as soybeans and contains amino acids essential
to health, and can be ground like maize. The leaves can be
picked when young and used as greens.) |
A species of Pigweed
|
Comala-style
earthenware vessels with decorative representations of foodstuffs
along their rims occasionally incorporate the figure of an escuincle;
one unusual ceramic piece depicts a life-sized roasted dog ready for
carving.
One of the first conclusive pieces of
evidence of the existence of dogs in the American Continent before
the arrival of the Spanish is found in the written statement of
Father Sahagún who examined and wrote of the things he observed:
"The dogs of this land have four
names, called: Chichi, Itzcuintli, Xochiocoyotl, Tetlamin;
and also tehuizotl.
"They are of different colors.
There are black, others white, others gray-like, and others with
stains. There are some large animals, others have long hair. They
have long snouts, their teeth are sharp and large, their ears are
concave and hairy, they have a large head; they are corpulent and
have sharp claws; they are tame and domestic, they accompany and
follow their master or owner. They are joyous, and wag their tail
in sign of peace. They growl and bark; they lower their ears
toward their neck in sign of love. They eat bread and green corn
stalks, and raw meat and cooked as well. They eat dead bodies and
eat corrupted meat.
"They breed in this land some
dogs with no hair at all, and if they had any hair strands they
were few indeed. They raise other dogs that they call Xoloitzcuintli
with no hair at all, and by night they covered them with blankets
to sleep. These dogs are not born this way; from small puppies
they smooth over them a resin which is called Oxitl, with
which their hair falls out leaving the body smooth. Others say
that they are born without hair in the towns of Teotlixco and
Toztlan. There are other dogs that are called tlalchichi,
short and round, that are very good to eat."
After the Conquest, the popularity
and reverence for the escuincle was largely replaced
with the arrival of European dogs, and the animal survived only in
Western Mexico, the area of its origin. Fortunately, the escuincle
did not suffer the same fate as the dogs indigenous to the island
of Hispaniola, which were hunted to extinction by Columbus's
famished crew. Instead, throughout the colonial era and well into
the 19th century, numerous laws enacted to control the problem of
stray dogs effectively reduced the escuincle
population. On occasion manufacturers used the dogs' skins for
gloves made for export.
Then, during World War I,
military scientists experimented on the dogs with poisonous gases
because of the similarities between the animals' skin and that of
humans, which accelerated the already dwindling population.
|
Check the lower-left corner of Diego
Rivera's mural for the escuincle bravely defending his home turf against a
European import.
|
It
was not until the mid-20th century that the escuincle
had a reversal of fortunes. With the fevered nationalism of the
post-revolutionary era, the dogs began to attract the attention of
Mexican artists.
For Diego Rivera, this most Mexican of animals
functioned as a symbol of national pride; escuincles
frolicked in the gardens and patios of Rivera and Frida Kahlo's
"Blue House" in Coyoacán, as documented in numerous
photographs of Lola Alvarez Bravo and others. In the corner of
Rivera's mural, painted in
Mexico City's National Palace, an escuincle filled
with the spirit of indigenous resistance can be seen snarling at
the European pooch imported by the conquistadors. Rivera's private collection of ancient art, now housed in
the Anahuacali Museum, includes several of his pre-Columbian
ceramic escuincles. Escuincles also
populate the artwork of Frida Kahlo, Maria Izquierdo, and others
of the post-revolutionary generation.
|
Frida and her pets, including an escuincle
|
The flourishing Aztec civilization
was halted by the arrival of Hernan Cortes in the early 1,500s. At
this time, many of the Techichi were believed to have become feral. What is known
about the Techichi is that it was bigger than the modern day
Chihuahua and had hair. It is thought that the Chihuahua originated
from the cross breeding of Asiatic hairless dogs, but now it is
known that the Techichi was in Mexico at least 1,000 years
prior to the existence of the Asiatic species. The Techichi was also hunted and eaten by the
Spaniards, but obviously some of the breed managed to survive. It wasn't until the late 1800s that the Chihuahua that we
know today made an appearance in the civilized world. A few were
found in Mexico around 1850 and named after the Mexican state they
were found in, Chihuahua. They remained rare until the early 1900s.
The bottom line is that most likely, the
Colima Dog sculptures seen in the museums and the replicas sold in
gift shops all around the state were once roasted and prepared for a
wealthy nobleman, shaman, or honored warrior, or were sacrificed to
accompany a loved one to his final destination. Some cultures ate the meat of the
Xoloitzcuintle
for ritual or medicinal purposes, and sources say the meat may still be found
for sale in some parts of rural Mexico.
|
 Another great article
about Xolos |
Today the Xolo has
three sizes - toy, miniature and standard, and two varieties, hairless and
coated. Efforts to establish the Xolo
as a purebred have met with little success. No large scale breeding
programs exist to promote good quality. Neither country of origin
nor the breed standard (at this point in time) offer direction to
breeders. Interest waned and in April 1959, the AKC (American Kennel Club) voted to drop the Mexican Hairless from the Stud Book. However, the breed is viewed as a national treasure in Mexico. An interesting video about this species is: This is an American web site that is very interesting about the breed, so those who want to learn more about our "Colima Dog." Own your own Colima dog! |
Facts about
the Xolo breed |
Timeline for the cultures mentioned
above.
Olmec: 1,200 B.C. to A.D. 600
Mayan: 1,000 B.C. to about A.D. 1,000
Toltec: 700 to 1,160
Inca: 1,438 to 1,532
