Showlow Polychrome jar: butterfly motif
- CULTURE:
- Ancestral Pueblo
- DATE:
- 1300–1400
General Description
According to Hopi songs, when people entered the current world, it was already filled with animals, plants, and insects—including butterflies. Butterflies proliferate in seasons of rain. One Hopi scholar relates them to the word paasimasat, or “water-flower-wings,” where the delicate butterfly wings are composed of fluttering water and flower petals.
Excerpt from
Kimberly L. Jones, PhD, Hopi Visions: Journey of the Human Spirit, Label text, 2018.