Wright's Indian Art > Kachinas

Kachinas are messengers - intermediaries between the heavens and mankind on earth.

Kachinas help the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest; farmers who depended primarily on crops for survival. Succesful crops, in turn, depended on the scant and capricious rainfall of the high desert. The Hopi and Zuni, located far from rivers, especially needed the divine intervention of kachinas to ensure harvests in an arid climate.

Harvested crops meant survival; having enough to eat brought good health, abundance, happiness. So, most ceremonial dances involve some form of petition to maintain or regain a bountiful harvest and plentiful game.

Since the culture was strictly oral, carvings of the various kachinas were used as visual textbooks - to pass on the lore to the children. When not listening to stories about the kachinas and their roles in ceremonies, the children played with the "dolls" as they are called.

In addition, carving the dolls is a creative outlet for the carver. When not in play, they would hang from a nail on the wall, serving as decoration in the home. Since the mask and headdress were crucial to recognizing the different kachinas during ceremonies, the bodies were carved in a rudimentary manner.

Now, carvers create kachinas to be sold but they are no less "authentic" than the old ones. It is still important that the heads are accurately depicted; how the bodies are carved is up to the individual. Similarly to the evolution of fetish carvings, kachinas changed through the years, becoming more realistic and detailed, as carvers responded to the growing interest of collectors. In the 1970's and 1980's, the trend was even to adorn the figures in action with real shells, beads, leather and feathers - just like the human dancers who donned the masks during ceremonies.

Today, for some carvers, there is a swing of the pendulum back to a more primitive look. Other carvers prefer a more elegant, but equally abstract effect to the bodies. As in all genres of Indian art, creativity is pushing the boundaries.

Hopi

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