Serpentine Mask
The Mixtec people lived in what is now known as Mexico from 1000 to 1400 CE. Their masks featured "ideal" faces, that is, of their deities and of animals.(1) Although the purpose of these masks is not entirely clear, they were probably not meant to be worn, since the masks had no openings at the eyes or at the mouth either. However, these masks did have holes on the side meaning that they may have been tied to deity bundles, buried with the dead, or worn as pendants. This specific mask from the 13th/14th century is made of light green serpentine. It is thought to represent the rain god Tlaloc because of the curling moustache and the nasal septum.(2) Tlaloc also was seen as the Aztec god of "fertility, mountains, thunder, rainy season and new vegetation" and he was able to be reincarnated via a statue or a human (probably using a mask). (3) Since these Mixtec people lived near the time of the Aztecs many of the gods were shared or linked in their practices. For the Mixtec people Tlaloc was mainly seen as the rain god, but for the Aztecs he was representative of vegetation essentially. These masks were probably bound to places of vegetation and a ritual was performed near them summoning Tlaloc through the mask.
1.Metmuseum.org. Accessed April 15, 2021. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/313255.
2. W., A. "A Mixtec Mask." Calendar of the Art Institute of Chicago 60, no. 3 (1966): 5. doi:10.2307/4112731.
3. Dehouve, Danièle. "The Aztec Gods in Blended-Space: A Cognitive Approach to Ritual Time." Journal of Cognition and Culture 19, no. 3-4 (2019): 385-410. doi:10.1163/15685373-12340065.