Katsina

About the Katsinam

"Katsinam" is the plural of "katsina." Some folks know them as "kachinas." The Katsinam are spiritual entities who empower many of the elemental functions of the world and human discourse. It was the concept of Katsinam that gave spiritual agency to objects and processes in the world. Katsinam have many, many faces and many, many names. They can be seen almost everywhere by those who are schooled in what to look for. Some are only carved while others are mostly drawn and painted. Those that are most often seen in the patterns of clouds are often painted on tiles and other Hopi pottery. Pahlik Mana (Butterfly Woman) is probably the most often pictured.

Similar to the Flower World ideology and the Sacred Clown societies, it seems the original "kachina cult" came north from MesoAmerica, arriving in the Four Corners area sometime in the 1200s CE. By then the main carriers of the ideology had formed a clan. They quickly spread members of that clan throughout the pueblos and villages on and around Mesa Verde. From there the practices and rituals spread with the people as they out-migrated to the Hopi Mesas, the Jemez Mountains and the valleys of the Rio Grande, Rio Chama, Rio Puerco and the Zuni River.

Taos is one pueblo where some of the migrating clans prospered but the Katsinam and Sacred Clown societies did not get a foothold and were never adopted. At Hopi, Zuni and most Tewa and Eastern Keres pueblos they are quite prominent.

---