The energy spent in burying people shows that death was an important rite of passage in West Mexican society. It is clear that death was a time of mourning for those left behind. A common type of small solid figure has an attendant sitting beside a body tied to a bed. This may be an ill or dead person with a nurse or mourner. Larger figures of men and women are seated in mourning poses, with elbows propped on knees. Some have painted tears streaming down their cheeks. Part of the mourning ritual involved self-sacrifice. A mourner would pierce the cheeks with a sharpened bone or obsidian knife or make long cuts in the flesh of the arms, legs, and torso.

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