Kachina Sio White Hemis Hopi, Arizona, USA 1920s Carved wood (cottonwood root), pigments and feathers H. 22 cm Provenance: - Sale Neret Minet, Paris, June 18, 2003, lot 13 - French private collection, acquired at the above sale "This Hopi doll evokes the goddess of corn: in the crenellated frame of the head, you discover the clouds on the mountains; in this little checkerboard, in the center of the forehead, the ear of corn; around the mouth, the rainbow; in the vertical striations of the dress, the rain coming down in the valley. Is this poetry as we continue to hear it?" André Breton, Le Littéraire, 1946 A delicate and refined example of a rare white variant of Sio Hemis Katsina (the Kachina of the New Corn). This spirit originally came from the Zuni pantheon. The prefix "Sio" in her name means "of Zuni origin" in the Hopi language. It represents ripening corn and is a prayer for rain and germination. Plants and grains are of crucial importance to the Hopi whose food resources are scarce. For this reason, many of the Kachina spirits in the pantheon are linked to plants, especially corn, beans and squash (the "Three Sisters"). These were the staple food in most pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican and ancestral Pueblo cultures. They still play a crucial role in the traditional agricultural systems of the southwestern United States. Note the great sobriety of the composition with white dominance. This Kachina has a remarkable poetry.