Demeter and the corn doll

The question of generation, left unanswered, can drive the child and sometimes the adult to perversion. Artists attempt to transcend the answers in their works, as shown by Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeois. As for myths, they forged the metaphorical rites capable of elaborating the mystery: the Eleusinian Mysteries are an example. The myth of Demeter enables us to approach various aspects of the masculine and feminine related to Demeter’s attributes: the belly which gives birth to wheat. A doll can act as this metaphorical intermediary, as Françoise Dolto understood when she invented the flower-doll. Likewise, certain Zimbabwean tribes make use of fertility dolls. For a woman who is the subject of a clinical vignette reported here, a corn-husk doll serves this purpose.