Origins & History of the Xoloitzcuintli

ORIGINS & HISTORY OF THE XOLOITZCUINTLI Researched & Compiled by Sandra L Bridges Assisted by Pene lope C Inan CLAY STATUES OF HAIRLESS dogs have been Man with the instruction to guard it with his life. In found in the thousands in burial sites in Mexico. exchange, it would guide Man through the Highly collectible, these ancient artifacts illustrate dangers of Mictlan, the world of Death, toward the the extraordinary importance that this dog held in Evening Star in the Heavens. The Aztecs deeply ancient society. Columbus mentioned revered the Xolo and believed the breed to have encountering strange hairless dogs in his 1492 mystical healing abilities. New World journals. INDEED, THE DOG OWES its name to the THE NEXT ACCOUNT of the Xoloitzcuintle Aztecs, who named the breed after Xolotl. This (“Mexican Hairless Dog”) is by the European, root word was then co-joined with the word for Glover M. Allen in his “Dogs of the American dog, 'itzcuintli' to form the name Xoloitzcuintli Aborigines”, 1920, and seems to be that of (pronounced 'Show-low-eet-squint-lee'). For the Francisco Hernandez, (1514-1578): Aztecs as well as several other pre-Columbian civilizations, the Xolo dog possessed not just “A dog of medium size, rather heavily built, healing properties for the physical body but also and long bodied in proportion to its height; ears for the spirit. There were actual dogs buried large and erect; tail thick, drooping or carried alongside their caretakers, and statues of these nearly straight behind; hair nearly absent except dogs were for a few coarse vibrissae and generally a sparse placed in coating on the tail, particularly near the tip tombs to sometimes a tuft on the crown.” ritualisticcally serve the IN 1785, THE NATURALIST, Buffon, reports the same purpose. following: The famous “Colima dog “The first and largest of these American dogs statues” are is called Xoloitzquintli. He is often three cubits the premier long ( ); and what is remarkable, he is totally example of destitute of hair, and only covered with a soft, this. close skin marked with yellow and spots.” A dog statue from the Colima tombs THE XOLOITZCUINTLI IS NOW known to be one ALWAYS PRIZED FOR THEIR loyalty, of the world’s oldest and rarest breeds, with companionship and intelligence, they are also statues identical to the hairless variety dating credited with curative and mystical powers. back over 3,000 years. These clay and ceramic Because they were believed to be favored by the effigies have been found in tombs of the Mayan, Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, sacrifices of the dogs Colima and Aztec Indians. Xolos were were sometimes dedicated to him. At one time, considered sacred dogs by the Aztecs (and also Xolos were prevalent throughout Mexico and Toltecs, Mayans and some other groups) large portions of Central and South America. Most because they believed the dogs were needed by likely, early forerunners of the Xolo originated as their masters’ souls to help them safely through spontaneous hairless mutations of indigenous the underworld, and also they were useful New World dogs. Hairlessness may have offered companion animals. According to Aztec a survival advantage in these tropical regions. mythology, the god of lightning and death, Xolotl, Indigenous peoples of these areas valued the made the Xoloitzcuintle from a sliver of the Bone Xolos for their loyalty, companionship and of Life from which all mankind was made. Xolotl intelligence, as well as their curative and mystical gave this gift to powers. In poor, rural areas, Xolos were eaten when other food was not available. (NOTE: On the pages following this excerpt appears the article with the ‘Official Standard for AFTER THE SPANISH CONQUEST of the the Mexican Hairless’ from the 1935 Official A.K.C. Aztecs, the breed population in its native lands publication, Toy Dogs: the Breeds and Standards as Recognized by the American Kennel Club. This dwindled and was kept alive only by secluded article could be said to be some of the Indian tribes in remote parts of Mexico and South aforementioned “considerable amount of America. The breed did not receive any official nonsense” written about what was a most likely a notice in Mexico until the 1950s. The FCM, Chihuahua/Toy Xolo crossbred. These small, founded in 1940, was not prepared to declare the hairless crosses were bred and sold in numbers to Xolo an official purebred at that time. Americans near the U.S.-Mexico border as a “Mexican Hairless”. They could NOT have been According to breed historian Norman Pelham the true Xoloitzcuintle, as they were found in only Wright, author of The Enigma of the Xoloitzcuintli, the toy variety and resembled nothing more than a Xolos first began to turn up at Mexican dog shows hairless Chihuahueño. It seems obvious today in the late 1940s. While it was recognized that that this diminutive dog could not have been the ferocious animal needed to save his master from these were indigenous specimens of a native the “fiendish crocodiles” encountered on the breed, interest in them was minimal at that time. journey of the dead to be ferried across a Reliable information was scarce and, with no subterranean “infernal river”.) national breed club, no standard existed by which to judge them. . .the other is the Xoloitzcuintli, an animal without hair on its body that in hardly any way resembles the Within a decade, however, the FCM realized that chihuahueno. the breed would be extinct if drastic action were Seemingly, there is confusion with respect to not only not taken to save it. This led to the widely the names of these animals, but also their origin and publicized “Xolo Expedition of 1954”. With the history. official sanction of FCM, Wright and the British . .some years ago Colonel and Mrs. Harmar, Chihuahua expert Hilary Harmer, along with the Archduchess Felix of Austria, better known as the enthusiastic chihuahueno breeders then living in Countess Lascelle de Premio Real and a team of Mexico City, briefly explored parts of Chihuahua, other Mexican and British dog authorities, set off seeking traces of the Dog there.. to discover if any purebred Xolos still existed in remote areas of Mexico. We include the following information, “right from the horse’s mouth”, as it were. Excerpts from: “A Guide to Mexican Mammals and Reptiles” by N. Pelham Wright, F.Z.S. (Published in 1965 in Mexico) “. .there are two types, or breeds, of Dog that Photo above from the actual 1965 “Guide” have evolved in Mexico and are to be regarded as typically Mexican. It so happens, moreover, that XOLOITZCUINTLI neither is fully understood, and that a considerable amount of nonsense has been The second Dog – more important and much written about both. more typical of Mexico – is called xoloitzcuintli, sometimes now abbreviated to Sholo. It is an extraordinary animal, about which I was once Medicinally, the sholo’s value is logical in the induced to write a book, ‘El Enigma del extreme. Certain simple ailments can be Xoloitzcuintl’i. alleviated by the use of a hot-water bottle. The hot, naked – and consequently flealess – body of Together with other undefined types of Dogs, the a xoloitzcuintli makes a fine substitute and, even sholo was the first domestic animal in North today, countrywomen in Sinaloa, when they feel America. Its forebears, already with some indisposed, go to bed with a sholo to warm their unexplained biological tendency toward nudity, stomachs. Among older people in the Balsas must have accompanied early man from Eastern River Valley, state of Guerrero, it is believed that Asia across the Bering Straits. Its nearest relative possession of such a Dog protects them from is another form of naked Dog formerly known in colds and other ailments. Manchuria, and possibly still present there. Early Spanish historians reported that dog flesh Zoologists like Brehm complicated the issue of its was relished by the Indians, who considered it a classification by giving it Latin names such as great delicacy. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, for one, Canis caribbaeus, in Yucatan, as though it were a mentioned hairless Dogs among the innumerable natural, wild species, whereas it was never a wild exotic food items the conquerors found for sale in animal but merely an unconventional form of the fabulous marketplace of Tlatelolco. It is even Canis domesticus. More recently, zoologists recorded that, in the 16th century, many Spaniards have stated categorically that there has been no acquired a taste for dog flesh. The sholo is wild canine in America which could have been the usually called pelon mexicano in popular progenitor of any domestic Dog. This is parlance. The Mexican Kennel Club finally tantamount to saying that all Dogs found with adopted the present name, in complex American Indians when the Europeans arrived circumstances, for details of which the reader is must have been descendants of those brought referred to his author’s book on the subject, from Asia by prehistoric immigrants. mentioned above. It is not identical with the animal called Mexican Hairless in the United There is a wealth of evidence that, before the States, which was probably never an established Conquest, the Indians in Mexico held the sholo in breed, but a creature of unstable form, bearing great esteem; that it had a religious significance, little resemblance to the traditional xoloitzcuintli. was used medicinally, and even eaten; and that efforts were made, with the help of a depilatory Since the above-mentioned book was published, I unguent, the recipe for which has been lost, to have had correspondence with a geneticist which maintain its nude state. The Nahuatl name undoubtedly has a bearing on this animal’s xoloitzcuintli means “he who snatches his food curious characteristics, even though further study with teeth sharp as obsidian (i.e., Dog), and who of the matter may indicate some local deviation is the representative of the god Xolotl.” This deity from the law concerning hairlessness that has was the god of twins and monsters, being himself been expounded by certain geneticists.

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