Of all the panels Rivera made for The Museum of Modern Art, Indian Warrior reaches back farthest into Mexican history, to the Spanish Conquest of the early 16th century. An Aztec warrior wearing the costume of a jaguar stabs an armored conquistador in the throat with a stone knife. The Spaniard’s steel blade—an emblem of European claims to superiority—lies broken nearby. Jaguar knights, members of an elite Aztec military order, were known for their fighting prowess; according to legend, their terrifying costumes enabled them to possess the power of the animal in battle. The panel’s jarring vision of righteous violence offered a Mesoamerican precedent for Mexico’s recent revolution, as well as its continuing struggles.
Rivera used drawings like this cartoon for Liberation of the Peon to work out the compositions of his murals. In both study and fresco, he focused on the relationship between the figures in the group and the limp body of the peon. In order to facilitate transfer of this image, Rivera drew diagonal lines over the composition, with their intersection marking its center. These lines helped him to position the foreground figure, which is more completely finished than the rest of the drawing.