The Hopis possess the largest number of kachinas, which can number in the hundreds at any one time, and are constantly changing. If a specific kachina doesn't perform the job it is requested to do, it is abandoned and a new kachina is added to the pantheon. About thirty "mong" or chief kachinas perform specific annual ceremonies, including Sotuqnang-u, the god of the sky; Masao, the god of the earth, Kwanitaqa, the one-horned god and guardian of the Underworld; and Alosaka, the two-horned god of reproduction. There are also clown, racerunner, parade, and numerous dance kachinas. Kachinas visit Hopi villages every year beginning in February after descending from their home on top of the San Francisco Mountains near Flagstaff, Arizona. The Powamu, or Bean Dance Ceremony, is designed to ask for plenty of water, good weather, abundant crops, and peaceful, prosperous lives; the Kachina Spirits serve as intermediaries to the Creator. The kachinas remain in the villages until July, after the Ninman or Going Home Ceremony.
Both male and female kachinas are personified by costumed men--never women--wearing elaborate masks with headdresses, or as carved and painted dolls. In either incarnation, the kachina represents a specific spirit whose name is never spoken aloud. Hopi dancers believe that by wearing the mask of a kachina, they actually become that kachina during a ceremony. They usually carry rattles made from gourds and branches of Douglas fur, and tortoise shell rattles and sleigh bells attached to one leg. Kachinas carved from cottonwood roots are carved into costumed, feathered dolls and used as learning devices to teach Indian children about each kachina spirit, or they serve as fertility charms for women.
The Hopi religion teaches that in the beginning, kachinas lived with people and taught them useful skills such as hunting and farming. They were able to bring all-important rain to the arid Hopi lands by dancing in the fields. The people asked them to take the souls of the recently dead back with them to the San Francisco Mountains; but the kachinas wearied of that task, and they eventually stopped visiting the villages, saying that they would rather be impersonated by humans. This led to the kachina cults of men, who now dress in costumes and masks and dance at Hopi ceremonies. Another myth tells how kachinas stored the sun and moon in a box. One day a coyote stole the box, opened it out of curiosity, and accidentally let them escape into the sky to help humans ... read more ...
