Effigy

15″x 30″x 10″
Wood, paint
1994
$3,000

Text: These pieces came from a type of effigy which the Americans use in rituals believed to ward off the forces of chaos and misfortune. For those rituals, a council of shamans devises scenarios in which one or more of these effigies is posed as if performing an ordinary activity, then, at some precisely calculated moment, the effigy is violently jolted. The scenario is repeated until the council determines that a certain danger has passed. ©