Vase With Entwined Snake

Label

These artists have chosen to represent animals significant to the ecosystems of their homelands. Kevin Pourier carved a relief of monarch butterflies around this hollowed buffalo horn cup, paying tribute to both the perseverance of the insects’ annual migration and the generosity of the buffalo. The black snake has long been considered a symbol of honor by the Catawba, and its depiction on vessels has made the snake pot among the venerated forms in Catawba pottery. Similarly, the roadrunner or “Zia bird” has remained a common motif in Tsi’ya pottery for over a century. Tsi’ya ecological iconography has been adopted by New Mexico, with both the roadrunner and Zia sun symbol claimed as emblems of its statehood.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World,  curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Provenance

Unknown maker, South Carolina; collected by Clara G. Corser Turner Churchill (1851-1945) and Frank Carroll Churchill (1850-1912), South Carolina, probably 1909; bequeathed to present collection, 1946.

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Subjects