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Lot 70
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Taino Carved Conch Shell Zemi - Cohoba Trance Face
Taino Carved Conch Shell Zemi - Cohoba Trance Face
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Pre-Columbian, Dominican Republic, Taino, ca. 1000–1500 CE. A queen conch shell transformed into a sacred object, its pale spire densely incised with the curvilinear vocabulary of Taino art: nested spirals, banded lozenges, concentric eyes, and hatched registers chasing one another across the whorl. At the heaviest point of the shell a zemi face emerges, carved in low relief from the natural columella and outer lip. The visage wears the unmistakable marks of cohoba trance: gritted, bared teeth, wide staring eyes, and flared nostrils, the rigid grimace of a spirit summoned through inhaled snuff. Such a piece likely served as a ritual implement or embodied charm, a vessel for an ancestral or nature spirit (zemi) consulted by a behique or cacique. The marine medium itself, prized across the Greater Antilles, reinforced the object's potency as a conduit to the supernatural. Size: 7.8" W x 5" H x 6.1" D (19.8 cm W x 12.7 cm H x 15.5 cm D).

The cohoba ceremony was central to Taino religious life. Powdered seeds of the Anadenanthera peregrina tree were inhaled, often through bifurcated bone or wood snuffers, inducing visions through which the behique (shaman) or cacique (chief) communed with the zemis. Sculptural representations of figures in this altered state share a recurring iconography: the rictus of clenched teeth, bulging eyes, and distended nostrils visible on this shell, the somatic signature of the trance rendered in permanent form. The queen conch (Lobatus gigas), here also termed a whelk shell, was both a dietary staple and a raw material of high ceremonial value, worked into trumpets, beads, masks, and zemis throughout the Greater Antilles.

Provenance: ex-private collection, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, collected from 2010 to 2015

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Item # 198406

  • Condition: Good. Missing spire with chipping and flaking at edges of break. Losses and chipping to tips of spikes, as well as losses to outer lip as shown. Pitting and abrasions throughout commensurate with age. Good remaining detail and light patina throughout.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Artemis Fine Arts

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Bid Increments
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$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000