“Wedding Day”

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Her body is in the shape of a gourd, the oldest utilitarian vessel known to mankind. The gourd is used as storage, to carry water, women use to shape pottery and as a rattle in ceremonies.
The opening that runs down the middle of her body represents the womb. In all aspects of Hopi the perpetuation of life is stressed. The Hopi people are matriarchal society, where a child’s lineage comes from the mother. In traditional Hopi culture the women own the home, all of the household materials as well as the seeds planted every spring.
Her hair is worn in a traditional style of a double braid. The first day of her adult life she is allowed to wear this style is on her wedding day. In the wedding ceremony she is adorned with a hand-woven white wool cape draped across her shoulders.
She has no face for she symbolizes the egalitarian society of the Hopi people, not an individual. The Hopi thought is: One Mind, one body, one Spirit.