Trigonolithe, TAÏNO

Our artifact is a famous example of a three-pointed stone, also known as a "trigonolite", a typical Taino art artifact. The object is ancient and authentic with the approval of two world renowned specialists in these civilizations. It comes exactly from Santo Domingo and is part of the renowned H.Verne Collection. The latter was a famous Belgian novelist, who died in 2021. He was the author of 230 adventure and science fiction novels, set all over the world, especially in exotic places. He is best known for his series of novels "Bob Morane", a series about one of the most famous French pilots but also a great adventurer, constantly travelling the world and searching for rare objects to enlarge his precious collection. Like the protagonist of his series, Henri Vernes was also a great collector and our piece is a wonderful example of the objects he collected over the years.
Taino art exhibits the art of aboriginal groups from the West Indian region of the Caribbean Sea, which was settled from the 3rd century BC onwards, when the first polychrome paintings and stone objects began to appear. Most of these stones had three inverted points and represented deities related to fertility rituals in the fields and human reproduction. The upper end of these artefacts ended as the female breast, an organ of nutrition and reproduction of the species and thus a confirmation of the fertility message it was supposed to communicate.
About these objects, it was Christopher Columbus himself who wrote: "Most caciques possess three stones to which they and their people show great devotion. They say that one of them is good for the cereals and vegetables they have sown; the other, for women to give birth without pain; and the third, to have water and sunshine when they are lacking”.