The Huasteco Adolescent is a 145 cm (57”) high piece, sculpted in sandstone, which is common to the region. It represents a young man, standing and nude, with a deformed skull, filed down teeth, a perforated nasal septum and other features typical of male Huasteco sculptures. His nudity reflects Nahua descriptions of the “shamelessness” of the Huastecs, associated with drunkenness and nudity. As with the myth of Titlacauan, a god who appeared in the Tula marketplace, selling chilis, his private parts showing, captivating the daughter of Huémac, the governor.
The nudity indicates that the Adolescent is a deity, and therefore, he embodies a sacred sexuality that has cosmological objectives: it is connected to the fertilization of the earth, to the growth of plants and invigorating the cycle human life. The conical cap and holes for round ear flaps reinforce his association with Ehécatl-Quetzalcóatl, a god related to agriculture (wind and rain) and with an important cult in Tamohí. On the back of the sculpture there is a smaller character, hanging from a strap, with a deformed skull and earflaps; some research suggests that this “infant” represents the Sun carried on Quetzalcóatl’s back.
The tattoos or paintings that decorate the Adolescent’s body are key to understanding other meanings of the sculpture. Corn husks, green stone beads (chalchihuites), and serpentine and creator beings (Monster or water snakes) are spread around and repeated on different parts of the piece. Taken as a whole, the sculpture alludes to the symbolic framework of agriculture-fertility-creation, which identifies the Adolescent with Cipak, young maize gGod. Given that the vegetal cycle and human life are considered to be analogous, the sculpture expresses the birth and beginning of life.
In this context, a well-known myth could reveal the identity of the small character: it is the deceased father of the maize, carried on his son’s back toward a sedentary farm life. However, on the way, the father decides to return to “the custom of the ‘old’ harvest” and is turned into a deer. This relationship between the characters is evidence of relevant symbolic opposites in order to understand the agricultural complex, such as cultivated corn/wild corn or agriculture/hunting.