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Hopi Katsina Tihu

ProMax

A tihu is cut from cottonwood root — a tree that hunts water, chosen by people whose year turns on rain — then chalked with kaolin and painted in ground mineral pigment. Every mask is a map: yellow north, blue-green west, red south, white east, black the nadir.

This system takes that literally. The page is the smoke-darkened wall the dolls hang against. Colour arrives in flat, hard-edged fields split by a black keyline, never blended, never glossed. Type is the text face of the Fewkes plates that documented the subject in 1903.

Learn more about the Hopi Katsina Tihu style

  • OriginHopi mesas, north-eastern Arizona — Oraibi and Walpi
  • Periodpre-1900 mineral-pigment tradition; Early Action carving era 1930–1945
  • DesignerWilson Tawaquaptewa · Jesse Walter Fewkes · Barry Goldwater
  • MovementsHopi katsina carving tradition · Southwest Pueblo material culture · Early Action carving era

Web examples

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Slide examples

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