USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Zuni and Hopi Southwest Indians carved Kachina dolls, out of wood. They were decorated with masks and costumes to represent the Kachina spirits. They help children of the tribe learn tribal ceremonies.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Kachina doll of the Hopi, which so many of us admire and collect, is the representation of a Hopi spirit or deity. Kachina dolls originally were, and still are, made to be given away as gifts to Hopi children so that they may learn the different Kachinas and the stories and religious significance attached to them.

Detailed explanation-3: -Kachina dancers, with very few exceptions, are all men, even those who personate female kachinas. Mostly they supply their own music, their singing muffled by the elaborate canvas or leather masks they wear and accompanied by gourd or turtle shell rattles and bells carried or worn, and sometimes by a drummer.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Hopi were the first to create kachina dolls to teach children about these spiritual beings and their wisdom to share with the people. The dolls are traditionally carved from a single cottonwood root, then painted and adorned to represent objects from the tribe’s spiritual beliefs.

Detailed explanation-5: -kachina, Hopi katsina, in traditional religions of the Pueblo Indians of North America, any of more than 500 divine and ancestral spirit beings who interact with humans. Each Pueblo culture has distinct forms and variations of kachinas.