Corn Maiden Sisters & Baby

Davey Cooeyate carved these two Corn Maiden sisters and a baby from antler.  So many lovely details!  The faces have inlaid turquoise eyes and mouths, the bodies are engraved corn kernels, and there are inlaid dots of turquoise, blue and purple stones in geometric engravings.  The two sisters are wearing small tablitas on their heads.  More about Corn Maidens below.

Size: 4.75" H x 3.25" L x 1.375" W

Female corn beings represent all that is good about being a woman: loving, generous, nurturing, kind, strong with great compassion.  In tribes that traditionally grow corn, most of the stories are the similar.  There are many Indigenous stories about how corn was brought to the people at a time when there was hunger, and how a sacred, sometimes other worldly, female being brought them corn.  In Zuni Pueblo, there are three ages of female corn beings: the maiden who wears her hair in the traditional buns on each side, the mother who has one or more babies, and the elder grandmother who wears her shawl over her head. There are dances to honor the female corn beings in many of the Pueblos.  And in other tribes, she is held in a place of great honor.

Traditionally, Zuni carvings are symbolically fed cornmeal.   Each Zuni fetish comes in a box with a descriptive card and a tiny bit of corn meal to tide them over until they reach you.