Curio shops pop up along Interstate 40 at regular intervals as I head toward Hopi country. Say what you will about roadside attractions, but they know our tastes better than we like to admit. Travelers can't seem to resist the giant jackrabbit, the dinosaurs made from chicken wire and concrete or the plywood teepees decorated with the flute-playing character we call Kokopelli.

Popular culture has taken the Pueblo Indian symbol and run with it. Our version of Kokopelli turns up on refrigerator magnets, mouse pads and in the form of tattoos on various body parts. Inspired by ancient rock art, the dancing flute player has become the most commercialized icon since the howling coyote. This playful mischief-maker has achieved mascot status, becoming the Southwest's own original scamp.

My reason for the trip is to take a closer look at the real Kokopelli behind the image. I've arranged to meet Eric Polingouma, a Hopi elder from Second Mesa. He'll bring tribal judge Delfred Leslie, who represents the Flute Society from First Mesa.

I reach the Keams Canyon Cafe early and sit with a mug of coffee growing cold, thinking about how strongly certain symbols grab the imagination. America periodically latches onto an image from the Southwest to feed its appetite for anything different. Some images like the saguaro cactus have a long shelf life. Hollywood producers once trucked saguaros up to Monument Valley, far north of where they grow, knowing moviegoers would expect to see them in any genuine Western.

Like the transplanted saguaros, our image of Kokopelli doesn't match reality. I first became aware of this during an interview with Delford’s father, Ebin Leslie, then head priest of the Flute Clan. It surprised me to learn how wrong we’ve gotten it – and how seriously the Hopi take these matters.

The real Kokopelli, I was told, has no connection to the flute player found in rock art throughout the Four Corners country. He is a kachina belonging to a different clan and is never depicted with a flute. The younger Leslie agreed. "One thing you can be sure of," he said, "if it has a flute, it's not Kokopelli."

After our initial meeting, I continued a friendship with Leslie. "My dad was always troubled by the name Kokopelli being applied to the Flute Player. When you came into the picture that gave him some hope," Leslie explains.

But dislodging such an entrenched misconception is always difficult. Archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes conflated the two images as early as 1898, and later ethnographers added to the confusion. They gave the flute player multiple identities. He was said to be a rain priest or maybe a trickster. Others thought he was a hunting shaman or a fertility symbol or maybe a trader from Mexico. Take your pick.

In a conversation last year, Leslie dismissed the various interpretations offered by scholars. "I sit in that Flute House for nine days listening to the songs, listening to what is said. I've been in the Flute Ceremony for 20 years. I've listened to hours and hours of discussion about these things. Have they made a personal sacrifice? Have they gone into the kiva, have they fasted as I have, have they gone to the source? Hopi who participate in rituals as a part of their lives have as much authority as those people with PhDs. In fact, they have more – they live it."

And then I mention a paper written by a medical doctor. It claims the symbol of the humpbacked flute player depicts an actual physical deformity.

"A lot of things are just commonsensical," the Hopi leader insists. "That hump is their luggage – their seeds, their altar. They wrap these things up in a blanket and put it on the back." The hump also represents the back of Maahu, he added, the cicada whose call warms the earth and who plays an important role in the Flute Ceremony.

"The pictures of deities incorporated into the Flute Altar are identical to representations in rock art. There's no mistaking them; there's no confusion once you see them. The Flute Player is a wu'ya, the principal clan symbol called Leelenhoya."

Wanting to clarify a few points, I've returned for another talk. When the Hopi men arrive for our meeting, they join me at a corner table. Polingouma, last of the Bluebird Clan, lays out some of the basic differences between Kokopelli and the Flute Player. He mentions the fertility aspect of Kokopelli, but stresses that the Katsina appears during ceremonies as a reminder to keep on the right path and follow the Hopi way.

“Kokopelli is a warning against the misbehavior humans are prone to,” Polingouma says. The Flute Player, on the other hand, was carved into or painted on rocks as a symbol recording the Flute Clan's journey to its present home in Northeastern Arizona. The clan locates its place of origin somewhere far to the south, where the land is lush and green. Known as great travelers, the Flute Clan eventually reach the north, where the land is covered with ice.

“Flute Player traveled all over,” Polingouma says.

These Hopis have seen petroglyphs and pictographs of the image during visits to prehistoric sites from Northern Utah to Mexico. "Ruins and symbols on the rock," Leslie adds, "these are our claim to the land."

Rock art depictions of the Flute Player first appeared in the Black Mesa region around A.D. 500 among the Puebloan ancestors of the Hopi. Within 500 years, the image had spread throughout the Four Corners country and beyond. But depictions of Kokopelli have always been scarce.

"The Asa Clan owns Kokopelli. He is just a mischievous, old man,” Leslie says. The Asa were a Tano people from New Mexico, who were known for their skills as warriors and were recruited to defend Hopis against nomadic raiders. After agreeing to follow Hopi customs, they were given a place on First Mesa to build their village and farm the land.

The Tanos proved to be successful fighters, but fell short of meeting the standards demanded by their hosts. Offended by their promiscuous ways, the Hopis finally expelled them. "They lived the life of a Kokopelli," Leslie says, "and were asked to leave because of their bad behavior. They were leading a crazy way of life, koyaanisqatsi [meaning life out of balance].”

Most had already departed when the powerful deity Maasaw encountered the last group. "He met them and asked why they were leaving. 'Our way of life is unacceptable to the Hopis,' they said.

"'But you did a lot for the Hopis,' he told them. 'I think you need to stay here.'"

Maasaw told the Tano people to carve a war shield on a rock to represent their good qualities. Next to it, they added a bird to represent Kokopelli and the traits they must guard against. “To live here,” Leslie says, “they had to change the crazy way of life they were leading.”

The Kokopelli Katsina, Kookopölö, conveys much the same message when he appears during ceremonies. The old man will shuffle into the plaza, eyeing the crowd for a victim. Suddenly, he chases after the young women and will pretend to make love to those he catches. The girls scatter at his approach, and the crowd roars with laughter.

“There’s also a female version, Kokopölmana,” Polingouma explains. “We call her, man-crazed woman.” He laughs when I tell him she once caught me during a ceremony when I should have been running instead of observing. The antics of Kokopelli and his female counterpart provide comic relief, but their actions are meant as a serious warning against misbehavior. In the popular version of Kokopelli, we’ve kept the concept of playful sexuality, but have discarded the lesson that goes with it.

Polingouma traces the case of mistaken identity to the Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, and Leslie agrees. They believe it popularized a concept known to be wrong by knowledgeable Hopis. And in confusing the two figures, the book missed the real meaning of the Flute Player, a symbol of great force and beauty. "The purpose of the Flute Player is to sustain life," Leslie says. "The Flute Ceremony ensures an abundance of crops, so we can multiply as a people."