IDNO

P.8737.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Moqui runner”. [typed text]

Bronze statue of the Moqui Runner (The Moqui Prayer for Rain - the returning of the Snakes), modelled 1897, cast after c. 1897. The statue is held at the Art Insitute of Chicago and was the gift of Edward E. Ayer (catalogue number 1924.1350). A second edition of this statue is held at the Metropoloitan Museum of Art (catalogue number 1978.513.6)

Place

N America; United States of America; ?Chicago; Arizona; Oraibi

Cultural Affliation

Hopi [historically Moqui]

Named Person

Hermon Atkins MacNeil (sculptor)

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Date

circa 1924?

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon Collection

Source

?Art Institute of Chicago

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Context: The Moqui Prayer for Rain, 1895–96; this cast, 1897
Hermon Atkins MacNeil (American, 1866–1947)
Bronze; 22 1/4 x 26 x 12 in. (56.5 x 66 x 30.5 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter C. Crawford, 1978 (1978.513.6)
MacNeil's interest in Native American rituals led him in the summer of 1895 on a modeling expedition into the Far West. He observed the Moqui Indians' annual nine-day prayer for rain celebrated at the top of the mesa at Oraibi, Arizona. It inspired him to make three-dimensional sketches on the spot, probably in wax or clay. For the ceremony, the Moqui used a variety of snakes they had gathered, for to them, as to many Indian tribes, snakes symbolized the lightning that brought rain to their arid climate. At the height of the dance that was the final act of the ritual, the Moqui grabbed the serpents by the handful and ran with them down the trail from the mesa, returning the snakes to the plains so that the prayer for rain could be answered. MacNeil's impression of the ceremony remained so vivid that as soon as he arrived in Italy in 1896 as a Rinehart scholar he began work on this complex study of movement in sculptural form—a dynamic image of a young brave at the climax of the dance, titled The Moqui Prayer for Rain (also known as The Moqui Runner and The Returning of the Snakes). [Source: Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/
bsaw/hod_1978.513.6.htm (October 2006), JD 12/4/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Jocelyne Dudding 13/4/2007]