Katsinam
Special Exhibit: View a selection of Katsinam in 360 degrees.
This outstanding collection of more than 600 figures includes carvings primarily from Hopi, but also from the pueblos of Zuni, Acoma, San Juan, and the Diné (Navajo Nation). The figures represent the variety of twentieth-century katsinam, include more than 100 figures collected by Henry R. Voth at Hopi in the 1890s, and are added to as the tradition continues and evolves in the twenty-first century (see Additions to the Collection). Voth, a Mennonite missionary, lived at the Hopi villages; his writings about the Hopi people are considered important early ethnology on Hopi culture. The katsinam Voth collected are among the earliest and finest examples of these figures.
The Collections Manager and Director, assisted by volunteers, has been working on this collection for the last three years in two respects: 1) restoration and better storage and 2) research interviews with Hopi carvers to document and better understand issues of Hopi identity (see Research: Katsinam Project). Figures had previously been stored openly in Vault 1, where, over time, dust collected and some feathers and cloth deteriorated. The figures have been painstakingly cleaned, repaired, and remounted on special stands designed by the Collections Manager, Shannon Parker. New protective glass cases have been built on the second floor of Vault 2; these include screens that can be lowered in front so the katsinam can be obscured from inappropriate viewing.
About Katsinam
The Hopi (and other groups participating in the katsinam culture) believe that each thing in the world —each tree, mountain, animal, human, and so on— has its own spirit or soul, its own katsina. The people who don katsinam regalia are understood to impersonate the true katsinam.
Children and youths are initiated into the culture and the meaning of the katsinam in a years-long graduated instruction. This indoctrination begins in infancy with small cradle figures. Thereafter, boys are educated in the kivas and can themselves train to be katsinam impersonators; girls, however, are excluded from this direct instruction and learn about the culture from the series of figures carved traditionally by male relatives.
It is taboo for a Native American of the katsina culture to view a figure to which he or she has not yet been indoctrinated. In addition, the Hopi consider that some katsinam should never be on public display. For these reasons, IARC has developed more sensitive storage and display facilities for this collection.
Note on Terminology
The Hopi figures are properly referred to as tihü, while the people of Zuni Pueblo refer to their carvings as kokko figures. IARC uses the more general term katsina (plural katsinam) to identify most of the figures in this collection (the terms “figures” or “carvings” are preferred to “dolls”). This term is used in preference to the commonly used kachina because it more closely approximates the Hopi pronunciation of the word.
