On the high plateaus of northern Arizona, in villages built on top of three great mesas, live the Hopi, one of the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest. Their religious life revolves around a figure the outside world knows mainly through painted wooden figurines: the katsina, plural katsinam. In English the name is often spelled kachina. Behind the colourful objects lies a theology of rain, reciprocity and the cycle of the year.
Who the katsinam are
The katsinam are spiritual beings. Hopi traditions describe them as messengers, spirits of the elements, of animals, of plants and also of ancestors. There are a great many, hundreds, each with its own appearance, name and character: there are corn katsinam, cloud katsinam, animal katsinam such as the bear or the eagle, warrior figures and comic figures.
Their main task is tied to rain. In a dry land, where corn is grown without irrigation and depends on summer rainfall, rain is the very condition of life. The katsinam carry the people's prayers to the beings who govern the clouds and return as clouds heavy with water.
The calendar: December to July
According to tradition, the katsinam do not stay among the Hopi all year. For half of the year they live in their homes, including the summits of the San Francisco Peaks, the sacred mountains south-west of the villages. They arrive around the winter solstice, linked to the Soyal ceremony, and remain until summer.
During these months their ceremonies take place:
- Powamu, in February, also called the «bean dance»: in the kivas, the underground ceremonial chambers, beans are sprouted ahead of time as a sign of the fertile season to come. It is also when children are introduced to knowledge of the katsinam.
- Plaza dances in spring and early summer, lasting a full day and drawing relatives and visitors.
- Niman, in July, the «home dance», with which the katsinam take their leave and depart for their homes carrying the prayers for rain.
Dancers and presence
During the ceremonies the katsinam appear as masked dancers, moving in lines through the village plaza with songs, rattles and repeated steps. For the Hopi these are not actors playing a role: whoever dances, wearing the mask in the right spirit, becomes the vehicle through which the katsina is present.
Alongside the solemn katsinam appear comic figures, the sacred clowns, who during breaks in the dance make the audience laugh by imitating bad behaviour: greed, vanity, rudeness. Their humour has a precise function, because it shows everyone what a Hopi person should not do and reminds them that laughter too is part of the sacred.
The value of the dance also depends on the attitude of the participants. Hopi traditions stress a «good heart»: peaceful thoughts, no resentment, focus on prayer. A ceremony held with a troubled spirit loses its strength.
Tihu dolls
The figurines the world calls kachina dolls are called tihu in Hopi (plural tithu). They are traditionally carved from cottonwood root, painted and decorated, and reproduce the appearance of the different katsinam.
They are not idols, nor toys in the usual sense. During ceremonies the katsina dancers give them to little girls and young women, who hang them in the house. They serve to make the katsinam known and carry a wish for fertility and well-being. Very young girls often receive a simple flat form; as they grow older the figurines become more elaborate.
In the twentieth century Hopi carvers also developed work for the art market, with increasingly detailed and realistic figures. Alongside it, traditional carving for families continues.
Respect and privacy
Some katsina dances are open to visitors, but with clear rules: Hopi communities forbid photographing, recording or sketching the ceremonies. Many kiva rites are reserved for initiates. The masks themselves are considered living beings, and their sale has been challenged several times by tribal authorities.
Those approaching this tradition from outside should remember that the katsinam are not a repertoire of decorative images, but part of a religion practised today, with its own calendar and its own discipline.
In short
- The katsinam are Hopi spiritual beings linked to rain, the elements and the ancestors.
- They stay among the Hopi from around the winter solstice until the Niman ceremony in July.
- Powamu, the plaza dances and Niman mark their season.
- Tihu dolls are ritual gifts to girls, neither idols nor mere toys.
- The ceremonies are not photographed or recorded: this is a living religion.
