Kachinas in the Pueblo World

by SCHAAFSMA POLLY (ED)

• ISBN13: 9780874806670
• ISBN10: 0874806674
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Utah Pr

Summary

According to the Pueblo Indians the spirits of the dead return to this world as kachinas, where they take on cloud form -- become "cloud people" -- and bring the life-giving rains. These rain deities stand at the center of Pueblo religious experience. Without their intervention the crops will not grow, the cisterns will not be filled, the rivers will not flow, the people will not survive.

In Kachinas in the Pueblo World, fourteen scholars examine the role of kachinas in the cultures of the Rio Grande, Zuni, and Hopi pueblos. They examine the origins of the kachina cult, trace the figure of the kachina to a Mesoamerican original, and look at the fortunes of the rain deities after the Spanish and subsequent Anglo conquests of the Pueblo homeland. In addition they discuss the transition of the kachina doll from religious to art object, and consider the role of the kachina in allowing elements of Puebloan belief to endure in the modern world. Forty-one color plates boldly illustrate the many manifestations of kachinas in the Pueblo world.

Author Biography

Polly Schaafsma is a research associate of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture / Laboratory of Anthropology, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
Polly Schaafsma
The Hopi Indians, with Special Reference to Their Cosmology or World-View	7	(10)
Fred Eggan
The Zuni Ceremonial System: The Kiva	17	(6)
Edmund J. Ladd
The Meaning of Katsina: Toward a Cultural Definition of ``Person'' in Hopi Religion	23	(12)
Louis A. Hieb
The Katsina Cult: A Western Pueblo Perspective	35	(12)
E. Charles Adams
Kachina Depictions on Prehistoric Pueblo Pottery	47	(16)
Kelley Ann Hays
The Prehistoric Kachina Cult and Its Origins as Suggested by Southwestern Rock Art	63	(18)
Polly Schaafsma
Anthropomorphic Figures in the Pottery Mound Murals	81	(12)
Patricia Vivian
The Evolution and Dissemination of Mimbres Iconography	93	(14)
Marc Thompson
The Interconnection Between Western Puebloan and Mesoamerican Ideology / Cosmology	107	(14)
M. Jane Young
Pueblo Ceremonialism from the Perspective of Spanish Documents	121	(18)
Curtis F. Schaafsma
The Changing Kachina	139	(8)
Barton Wright
Kachina Images in American Art: The Way of the Doll	147	(14)
J.J. Brody
Stories of Kachinas and the Dance of Life and Death	161	(14)
Dennis Tedlock
References Cited	175	(16)
Index	191