The
most traditional of all of the North American tribes, the
Hopis carry on a ceremonial life that evolved from thousands
of years of relationship to the striking lands of the Southwest
and Mexico. They are farmers who miraculously grow corn,
beans and squash in the sand in a land that averages only
10" of
moisture.
A
reverent people, their life revolves around the ceremonial
cycle of the year. Hopi is known as a place of power where
humans could call forth the assistance of nature to support
their existence in this arid land. The power of their faith
is immense.
To
derive water in this desert land, they developed a complex
religion to secure supernatural assistance in fulfilling their
needs. One element of this religion are the Kachinas. Kachinas
are the spirit essence of everything in the real world. The
Kachinas represent game, domestic plants and animals, birds,
insects, even death itself. The creative force of the sun
and the abstract power inherent in neighboring tribes are
visualized as kachinas.
Hemis Kachina
Kachinas
are supernaturals, embodying the spirits of living things
and also the spirits of ancestors who have died and become
a part of nature. Kachinas are believed to possess powers
over nature, especially the weather, but higher gods limit
the extent of their powers.
"Excavation of large ancestral Hopi Pueblos in the
Little Colorado River valley indicate that the religion
had a major influence on Pueblo culture after A.D.1300.
Katsinam appear on pottery by 1325 on the Mogollon Rim
and before 1350 along the upper and middle Little Colorado
River. On the Hopi Mesas, katsinam motifs postdate 1350
on ceramics and possibly on rock art. Katsinam appear
on rock art as the Rio Grande style in the Rio Grande
Valley, Zuni, and middle Colorado River areas by 1350.
By 1500, the religion was present in all western Pueblos
of Hopi, Zuni, and probably Acoma, and in the eastern
Pueblos south and east of Santa Fe. It also might have
been present in the Tewa villages." (Peabody
Museum ofArchaeology and Ethnology on line exhibit)
The representations of masked beings that are the easiest
to identify as katsinam come from murals in kivas which may
date as early as 1350 at Hopi and Homol'ovi. Details of the
paintings on Awatovi murals, an ancestral Hopi site, show
costumed and masked figures as separated elements or interacting
in scenes. Ritual drama and symbolic elements in the murals
are recognizable and still used today among Pueblo people.
When
Kachinas appear during ceremonies, they assume visual form
and appear in the streets and plazas of the villages. As a
supernatural they may cure disease, grow corn, bring clouds
and rain, watch over ceremonies and reinforce discipine and
order in the Hopi world.
The
Hopi do not worship these kachinas but rather treat them as
friends or partners who are interested in Hopi welfare. They
give substance to the immaterial, becoming in the process
intermediaries between the physical and the spirit world.
The
Kachina season in the villages begins around the time of Winter
Solstice as they prepare the ground for the planting season
and closes in late July with the bringing in of the first
harvest.
There
have been over 800 different kachina beings documented. In
any one season, 200 different ones may appear.
Simple as is the meaning of the kachina, everything about it is stylistic and complex, and it has
exerted a powerful influence throughout all the pueblos
in the Southwest. There are no kachinas in the Rio Grande
pueblos, but in many of their unmasked dances one often
detects the distinct kachina stylizations. Zuni is the
only other pueblo which has kachinas; these, say the Hopis,
were given them by the Hopis who preceded them during the
Emergence. The origin of Hopi kachinas lies far back in
the prehistoric past. The Kokopilau Kachina sings a song
in a language so ancient that not a word of it is understood
by the modern Hopis, who know only that kachinas accompanied
them throughout their migrations. Indeed, they assert that
kachinas came up with them during their Emergence from
the womb of Mother Earth. Tipkyavi, meaning "womb," is
the name given a place at the base of the San Francisco
peaks, the last site where the Hopis lived before settling
in their present villages and still the last stopping place
of the kachinas on their way home from Niman Kachina; it
is also represented on Third Mesa by a kisonvi (plaza in
front of a kiva) in Oraibi.
All these academic considerations, however, are invalidated
by the basic truths and meaning of the kachina. It is distinctively
Hopi. In its conception the Hopis have created a form for
the everlasting formlessness; a living symbol unique in
the world for that universal and multifold spirit
which embodies all living matter; which speaks to
us, as only the spirit can speak, through the intuitive
perception of our own faith in the one enduring mystery
of life. (Frank Waters from Book of the Hopi)
star
kachina 