This tall and elegant antler Corn Maiden was carved many years ago by Claudia Peina.  She is wearing a tablita with inlaid jet and turquoise on each side.  The face has inlaid turquoise eyes with a natural red coral mouth.  It has a total of twenty-seven natural red coral inlaid dots, a total of eighty-six turquoise dots, and thirty-four inlaid jet dots (if our count was correct and we counted twice).  She was well loved for many years in the personal collection of the owner of Gathering Tribes.  More about Corn Maidens below.

Size: 8.25" H x 4.5" W due to the curve.

Corn Maidens represent everything good about being a woman: strong, kind, compassionate, nurturing, and powerful.  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.  Corn maidens come with a card detailing the meaning, the carver, and the material they are carved from.

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.