• Director(s):

    TRUFFAULT (PHILIPPE)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, PROGRAM 33

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2005

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    NON-THEATRICAL, TV, DVD, INTERNET

A Hopi doll or "tihu" is a representation of one of the 350 Kachina spirits. This is a little wooden doll about forty centimetres high.

A Hopi doll or "tihu" is a representation of one of the 350 Kachina spirits, a mirror society which shares the life of the Hopi Indians in Arizona for half the year, livening up their villages with their dance and above all bringing rain and fertility. The Hopi children learn to familiarise themselves with this invisible world thanks to the dolls sculpted and painted in the images of these spirits.
These dolls fascinated the surrealists, who brought back a large number of them to France and Europe. The one at the centre of this film belonged to André Breton. It is now in the Museum of Marseille. Like most of the Kachina dolls, it bears the symbols of the rain, clouds and corn - essential elements for the survival of the Hopi.