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SPIRIT
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The 29 pages in this Guides & Spirit Helpers section are
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Kokopelli
By BearInMind
I saw this image posted
by Cinnamon Moon 1 in a thread I wasn't really reading but just
scrolling through. As I was scrolling, it caught not just my
eye, but my breath! I immediately recognized it as "Kokopelli"
and I was first introduced to in a book I read called "She
Who Remembers." The character intrigued me even then, but
later I began hearing the name more and seeing the image more,
and I'm really interested in learning more about this historical
figure. Can someone share any "short and sweet" information
about Kokopelli?
Minna EarthKeeper:
Hi, Bimmy, I love Kokopelli
too. Here's this - there's another site that has information
about him, but I can't find it right now. link: raysweb.net/canyonlands/pages/anasazi.html
Kokopelli (or Kokopilau): The Flute
Player Kokopelli is a figure commonly found in petroglyphs and
pottery throughout the southwest. Since the first petroglyhs
were carved around 3,000 years ago, he predates even Oraibi,
the oldest continuous settlement in North America. He is regarded
as the universal symbol of fertility for all life, be it crops,
hopes, dreams, or love. Some legends suggest that Kokopelli
was an ancient Toltec trader who traveled routes between Mexico,
the west coast, the southwest, and possibly even as far as the
eastern areas of the U.S. Documented finds lend truth to these
legends as dentalium shells, which are only found in certain
coastal areas, and macaw feathers from Mexico have been unearthed
here in northern new Mexico and Arizona. Kokopelli was said
to play a flute as he traveled to pronounce his arrival to the
villagers and it was considered the greatest of honors to be
the women he chose to be his "dreamtime companion"
for his duration of time in the village as many of these women
apparently bore children from these unions.
About Kokopelli Hopi legend tells
us that upon their entrance onto this, the fourth world, the
Hopi people were met by an Eagle who shot an arrow into the
two "mahus," insects which carried the power of heat.
They immediately began playing such uplifting melodies on their
flutes that they healed their own pierced bodies. The Hopi then
began their separate migrations and each "mahu" would
scatter seeds of fruits and vegetables onto the barren land.
Over them, each played his flute to bring warmth and make the
seeds grow. His name -- KOKO for wood and Pilau for hump (which
was the bag of seeds he always carried)-- was given to him on
this long journey. It is said that he draws that heat from the
center of the Earth. He has come down to us as the loving spirit
of fertility -- of the Earth and humanity. His invisible presence
is felt whenever life come forth from seed -- plants or animals.
A search of the web reveals the extent of the commercialization
of the Kokopelli image -- you name it ... jewelry, sculpture,
t-shirts, artwork ... and you'll find him . Thus, I suppose
he qualifies as one of the universal symbols that Carl Jung
talked about.
ON THE TRAIL OF KOKOPELLI Text and
Photos Jay W. Sharp The Southwest Indians’ Humpbacked Flute
Player, commonly known by the Hopi word "Kokopelli,"
usually appears on stone or ceramics or plaster as part of a
galaxy of ancient characters and symbols. On a steep canyon
wall above the Little Colorado river north of Springerville,
Arizona, however, a Kokopelli pecked into a basaltic boulder
appears in absolute isolation. Against the black rock surface
formed by primal forces, this strange and lonely figure, with
its apparent mal-formed back and long flute, seems to drift
through the infinite vastness of space, transcending time and
place, sending his plaintive music across the universe.
There is a sense of omnipresence,
of the eternal. The early artist – probably a shaman, or
medicine man, seeking an entranceway to the spirit world –
may have understood a profound truth, and he may have intentionally
used the surface to express the universality of that truth.
Of course, he may have simply used the boulder’s surface
as a convenient place to peck a Kokopelli figure. There is no
way to know with certainty what the artist had in mind, but
his work can set your imagination churning. Kokopelli has stirred
imaginations for a long time. Of the lexicon of characters featured
in the age-old religions, rituals, folk tales, ceramics, rock
art and murals of Southwestern Indians, there are few more enduring
than Kokopelli. He is so irresistibly charismatic that he had
been reinvented time and again for well over 1000 years by southwestern
artists, craftsmen and storytellers. The process continues to
this day.
In the modern genre, he usually wears
a kilt and sash and a feathered headdress. Back arced forward
like a rainbow, he plays his ancient instrument. He dances solemnly.
He graces paintings, sculptures, ceramics, jewelry, textiles
and books in galleries and festivals in New Mexico, Arizona,
Utah, Colorado and western Texas. He is an icon of the region.
In earlier times, Kokopelli was far more than an icon. There
is, in fact, considerable evidence that he was an important
deity to Southwestern Indians. His images are among the most
widely distributed of any in the prehistoric and historic Indian
sites of the Southwest. Kokopelli may have been as important
to the Southwestern Indians as Abraham is to Jews or Paul, to
Christians.
Ubiquitous as the figure is, the origins
of Kokopelli as a deity and the evolution of his role in Southwestern
Indian life are difficult if not impossible to reconstruct.
It is like trying to assemble an immense and mysterious jigsaw
puzzle made up of a jumble of a few distinguishable pieces,
many indistinguishable pieces, innumerable missing pieces, and
numerous possibly unrelated pieces. In classic form, a silhouetted
and sometimes phallic Kokopelli appears to either suffer a humped
back or to carry a bulging pack. He plays his flute like a New
Orleans jazz musician plays a clarinet.
He may be depicted as walking to some now unknown destination,
lying on his back, sitting with crossed legs, dancing to a prehistoric
beat, making love to a woman, even perching on the head of another
figure
He appears in many forms. In Galisteo
Basin rock art in New Mexico, for instance, he takes on the
guise of a humpbacked rabbit. At Sand Island, Utah, he appears
as a flute-playing mountain sheep. In rock art on West Mesa,
near Albuquerque, Kokopelli wears a headdress, necklaces and
a kilt. On rock art south of Holbrook, Arizona, he wears a kilt
and sash. On a prehistoric bowl from the Zuni reservation, he
appears as an insect, possibly the locust which led the Pueblo
people’s mythological emergence from the underworld onto
the surface of the earth. On rock art in the Arizona’s
Petrified Forest and Canyon de Chelly and near Moab, Utah, Kokopelli
turns up with a bird for a head. He is also represented in many
styles. Unmistakable Kokopelli images in rock art, for example,
range from stick figures in Chaco Canyon to spare, abstract
stylizations in Colorado’s San Canyon to simple outlines
near Arizona’s Hardscrabble Wash to solid figures near
Velarde, New Mexico. Elegant Kokopelli images painted on ceramics
ten centuries ago by the Hohokam, a southern Arizona Pueblo
culture, have become the prototype for modern portrayals.
As indicated by his images, Kokopelli
seems to have played a featured role in numerous defining moments
of Southwestern Native American life. He leads processions of
people, perhaps on migrations. He participates with costumed
shaman figures in tribal rituals. He plays his flute for dances
in tribal ceremonies. He joins with other figures to illustrate
tribal myths. In hunting-magic scenes, he seeks to ensure success
for men carrying bows and, sometimes, lances. He impregnates
women. He participates in birthing scenes. Among ancient rain
and water symbols, he plays his flute to plead for moisture
sufficient for his tribe’s corn, beans and squash to grow.
On occasions, multiple Humpbacked Flute Players appear in a
single scene, perhaps seeking to redouble chances for fertility
and prosperity. Kokopelli’s guises, styles and roles have
mystified scholars for decades. They have prompted divergent
lines of research, given rise to diverse theories, and led to
some downright silly speculation. Yet another layer of mystery
about Kokopelli’s origin and evolution lies in possible
forerunners and derivatives. One possible forerunner could have
been simply flute players, lacking hump or phallus, such as
those which appear in Canyon de Chelly rock art dating approximately
600 AD. Another possible related figures includes a humpbacked,
phallic figure which is shown carrying a staff rather than playing
a flute. One such example was painted on a bowl fashioned by
the Mimbres Indians of Southwestern New Mexico some 900 to 1000
years ago. Yet another possible forerunner includes humpbacked,
phallic figures which carry bows rather than play flutes. Such
figures are painted on the wall of Fire Temple in Mesa Verde
National Park in Southwestern Colorado.
One of the more elaborate figures
which could be a Kokopelli-type derivative was pecked by an
18th century Navajo shaman into a canyon wall at a sacred site
in Northwestern New Mexico’s Largo drainage system. Surrounded
by other symbols chiseled into the rock, this regal figure stands
on muscled legs, wears a headdress and decorated kilt, and is
depicted holding a staff rather than playing a flute. He bears,
not a hump, but rather a rainbow-outlined pack adorned with
feathers and filled with seeds. This site, like other rock art
sites in the Largo Canyon complex, is still revered by traditional
Navajos. Vandals have defaced it in some areas, an act akin
to desecrating a church, a synagogue or a mosque. The relationships,
if any, between Kokopelli and those figures which feature only
a hump or just a flute is not clear and may never be clear.
The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which are available to us have
produced endless and sometimes emotional conjecture about Kokopelli’s
origin and meaning. One possibility is that Kokopelli could
have been an actual misshapen person who was widely venerated
for his power and wisdom. He could have been a young man, burdened
with a pack, traveling among pueblos, seeking a wife; he played
his flute to announce his mission. He could be a great leader,
like Moses, who guided his people in a migration to a new homeland.
He could have been a pochteca, an early bearer of gifts from
central Mexico.
One of the more exotic theories was
mentioned by southwestern Colorado authority Michael Claypool
during a discussion several years ago at Fort Lewis College
in Durango, Colorado. He thinks that origins of the figure could
eventually be traced all the way to Peru, where native traders
carrying packs have long used flutes to announce their arrival
at native villages. An archaeologist friend who has worked in
Latin America tells me that Kokopelli-like figures are common
icons in prehistoric sites of Southern Mexico and Central America.
While we may never know the origin or the full meaning of Kokopelli,
it is clear that he held high importance as a deity in the arid
American Southwest. His roles in scenes representing human reproduction,
crop growth and water suggest that the Southwestern Indians
associated him universally with fertility and prosperity. His
roles in hunting scenes, processions, rituals and ceremonies
suggest that the Indians connected him universally to their
physical and spiritual well-being. It is clear, too that the
magic of Kokopelli is enduring.
A few summers ago, my wife and I came
upon a dancing Kokopelli figure pecked high on the sandstone
canyon wall above the Chaco Canyon ruin known as Kin Kletso.
A thunderstorm rumbled threateningly overhead. You could almost
hear a plaintive and simple melody in the wind as Kokopelli
played his flute resolutely to plead for rain from the sky above
and to encourage the growth of crops of a long-vanished people
in the canyon bottom below. There are many places to see Kokopelli
figures in rock art. Examples include West Mesa, across the
Rio Grande from Albuquerque; Canyon del Chelly, in northeastern
Arizona; Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico; and above
the Little Colorado River, near the Raven Site Ruin north of
Springerville, Arizona. Kokopelli figures appear occasionally
on Indian pottery in Southwestern Indian museums. Dennis Slifer
and James Duffield present the best overview of the Humpbacked
Flute Player and locations in their book Kokopelli. Polly Schaafsma
provides a good review of Southwestern rock art, with various
reference to Kokopelli, in her book Indian Rock Art of the Southwest.
Stephen W. Hill, author, and Robert B. Montoya, illustrator,
give a brief overview combined with excellent Kokopelli-inspired
illustrations in the book Kokopelli Ceremonies. link:www.desertusa.com/mag00/apr/stories/trail_kok.html
RavenFireStoneWolf:
Short
and sweet as it was told to me in Navajo country Kokopelli represents
fertility.
WhiteBuffaloWoman:
We
were just in Navajo country and bought some pottery from a Navajo
woman. She said that Kokopelli does represent fertility, but
not necessarily in the sense of a baby coming into the picture.
Kokopelli represents the growth and prosperity that the harvest
brings in.
CinnamonMoon:
The Kokopelli are spirits,
‘Koko’ is a Zuni term for the ancestral spirits that
bring rain (and fertility) when they appear as clouds. They
come from mountains or from Kachina Village at the bottom of
the sacred lake near Zuni. This area is also the home of the
dead who in life were initiated into the Kachina society. The
term also refers to masked dancers who impersonate the spirits
in ritual dances and to the masks worn by men when impersonating
the spirits. When people imitate the clothing and dances of
the Kokos, they are animated by the spirits. You may also want
to look into the Kachinas.
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Libraries
are on this row
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INDEX
Page 3
(Main Section, Medicine Wheel, Native Languages &
Nations, Symbology)
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INDEX
Page 5
(Sacred Feminine & Masculine, Stones & Minerals)
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©
Copyright: Cinnamon Moon & River WildFire Moon (Founders.)
2000-date
All rights reserved.
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