Hopi Kachina Carvers Evolving in Style

HONORING THE HOPI KACHI

NEW STYLES AND TALENT HAVE EMERGED, BUT TRADITIONAL CARVING REMAINS IN DEMAND THE CLASH AND TUMBLE of modern life follows a slow path to the Hopi Indian Reservation, if it gets there at all. The high mesas of northeastern Arizona remain largely as they were 50 years ago, or 150-silently, hopelessly and blissfully lost to time. But that doesn't mean the Hopis are changeless, especially in endeavors involving contact with the wider world. That's true in the remarkable kachina carvings Hopi artisans produce. Today, the market bristles with talent and a powerful energy, which inevitably and happily-is taking this venerable art form in different directions. On the one hand, carvers are producing ever-more elaborate kachinas, marked by action, motion and finely detailed renderings of such attributes as fingernails and flowing hair. "The detail work has really taken off the past two years," says Ron McGee, of McGee's Indian Art Gallery in Keams Canyon. "Carvers are putting more figures on the bases of their kachinas, almost to where they're telling a story. Collectors want those extra touches." In other words, artists hear customers' desires and satisfy them. But the market has also seen a strong revival of traditional kachinas. These dolls are often flat, simple, minimally carved, painted in muted colors and decorated with feathers, cloth and shells. They also have no bases or stands, so the bottoms consist only of the kachina's feet. Walk into any Hopi house and you'll see thesekachinas hanging on walls, as opposed to standing on a base on a shelf. The latter is for collectors to display their dolls. But to the Hopis, their primary purpose is to be handled during Katsina dances.

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TEXT BY LEO W. BANKS PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIM MARSHALL As Hopi author Alph Secakuku says in his book, Following the Sun and Moon: Hopi Kachina Tradition, kachina dolls aren't simple carvings or brightly colored objects.

They live among the people during the ceremonial season, from December through July, when Katsina dancers, manifestations of the spirits, dance in the village plazas, presenting dolls to girls as gifts. The dolls help educate young females about the Katsinam and their meaning in Hopi life.

Traditionalist carvers most of them young and following the lead of Manfred Susunkewa, who sparked the old-style revival-believe that collectors' tastes have pulled kachina dolls too far from their original meaning. In response, they create dolls that look exactly as Katsinam look in the plazas. Some even carve from cottonwood root that has knots in it, so it looks old to begin with, then they rub it with sandstone to achieve a rougher feel.

"We probably sell the old-style dolls five to one now," says Bruce McGee, Ron's brother and director of retail sales at the Heard Museum Shop and Bookstore in Phoenix. "They look like they're from the turn of the century and have a real mystique about them."

Whatever the style, the artisan's work begins with cottonwood root, and these days acquiring this lightweight, soft wood can be difficult and expensive.

A single 2-foot-long piece can easily cost $30. One carver talked of paying $300 for a high-quality log measuring 4 feet long and 6 inches in diameter. Wood merchants scour riverbanks in Arizona, Colorado and elsewhere hunting for it, then they peddle it in the Hopi villages, their pickups loaded down, often tilting from the high stacks they bear.

Several carvers get their wood from a retired Colorado school principal who trucks it to Hopi markets, or to one of the big shows, such as Santa Fe's Indian Market. "He won't take money for his wood," says carver Alfred "Bo" Lomahquahu. "He only takes dolls in trade. I give him a foot-tall doll and he gives me a truckload."

Getting the right wood is essential. Paul Sewemaenewa, a 34-year-old from Flagstaff, looks for what carvers Actor John Wayne loved Arizona and he loved dolls. While making movies in the state, he often traveled to the Hopi mesas to acquire kachina dolls, eventually building a collection of 64 pieces.

JOHN WAYNE Treasured His Kachinas

Prior to his death in 1979, he arranged to donate the dolls to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, which periodically places some of them on display. "My father spent a lot of time looking at those dolls and took pride in them," says John Ethan Wayne of Wayne Enterprises in Newport Beach, California. He is the Duke's youngest son. "He wanted to make sure they'd be someplace where other people could look at them, too."

In a reminiscence published in 1982 in PersimmonHill, the cowboy museum's magazine, the late writer Dean Krakel told of visiting the elder Wayne at his Newport Beach home to talk about his kachinas.

The actor said he always associated his dolls with his breakout 1938 picture Stagecoach, directed by John Ford and filmed in Monument Valley. The kachinas made him think of Navajo country, Hopi country and the real West he loved so much.

The dolls, most collected during the 1930s, '40s and '50s, also brought back fond memories of actors he'd starred with and his film crews, some of whom became his closest friends.

It might come as a surprise to learn that a tough-guy actor had such an abiding interest in these carved works of art. But the real John Wayne wasn't all saddle leather and gunsmoke.

"My dad read everything he could get his hands on, especially if it had to do with history," says Ethan, who was named after Ethan Edwards, the character his father played in the 1956 Western, The Searchers. "He was voracious about it, and very curious."

Krakel noted that the actor's personal library included copies of Bureau of Ethnology reports featuring kachinas, and similar works by noted intellectuals like Jesse Walter Fewkes and Harold S. Colton, founder of the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Wayne's home, in Krakel's description, was "truly a museum, a fashion place, a cultural institution," full of art and historical antiques, especially those relating to horses.

"He was a discriminating collector," Krakel wrote. "Duke had a way of immersing himself in the lore and culture of a setting. He had the ability to notonly adjust to the environment but to absorb as much of a way of life as he could not only for a movie role he might be playing, but forever."

Wayne understood Hopi philosophy, the Hopi people's faith in the supernatural and their belief that certain kachinas possessed powers human beings do not have.

"Hopis often prayed for rain through their kachinas' spiritual powers," Wayne told Krakel. "We pray for rain today in strange ways that are less colorful and less meaningful than that. They admitted openly that water, like the sun, was a source of life. Boil it down, and they are right."

Wayne always wore a copper bracelet. Though Ethan Wayne insists that his father wore the bracelet purely for its sentimental value, some say he believed it alleviated his arthritis pain and helped his sore joints. "In a way, this old bracelet is like a kachina," the elder Wayne was reported to have said. "It's all in your head and what you believe." He told stories about several of his kachinas, including the Mongwu, the Great Horned Owl. Wayne acquired it in exchange for some silver dollars on a trip to Third Mesa in the 1940s.

its sentimental value, some say he believed it alleviated his arthritis pain and helped his sore joints. "In a way, this old bracelet is like a kachina," the elder Wayne was reported to have said. "It's all in your head and what you believe." He told stories about several of his kachinas, including the Mongwu, the Great Horned Owl. Wayne acquired it in exchange for some silver dollars on a trip to Third Mesa in the 1940s.

He told Krakel that the owl, being wise, monitored the conduct of Hopi clowns, hooting at them if they misbehaved. If a clown continued to act up, the owl would leap onto the clown, beat it with its wings, then douse the culprit with water."

Our society could use a few of these old owl kachinas," Wayne said, adding that he also liked his Chusona, or Snake Dancer doll, a social figure rather than a true kachina.

"I've seen them do that very dance on the Second Mesa," he said. "Some people said the Indians had sewn the rattlesnake's mouth shut and milked their venom. Like hell they did. The rattlers I saw them hold had a full load of poison."

Wayne's Squash Kachina was another favorite. He acquired it after he and director John Ford sent a truckload of watermelons to a Hopi elder to thank him for permitting a film crew onto their land, and for allowing Hopis to fill in as extras after another group of Indians had suddenly left. In return, theheadman gave the actor the Patung, or Squash Kachina.

Regarding his passion for art and antiques, Wayne regretted not having time to expand his collection, especially by acquiring Charles Russell oil paintings.

"I would loved to have owned [one] and hung it over my fireplace," he told Krakel. "The things I collected were usually convenient and easy to acquire and would not interfere with my work. One of my problems was that I always loved working."

But the kachinas occupied a prominent place in Duke's home. He kept them on a high, illuminated shelf that circled the perimeter of his large, combination den and screening room, where he also kept his trophies and gun collection.

"Sometimes he'd take one of the kachinas down and I'd get to hold it," remembers Ethan, who was only 17 when his father died. "But most of the time they stayed on that shelf because he didn't want me messing with them."-LWB

He call “rocks” in the wood, swirls of white mineral matter that sometimes cause the knife to slip and grow dull, requiring frequent sharpening.

If a piece of wood passes the “rock” test, Sewemaenewa makes it his companion. He literally cradles it like an infant, waiting, as he puts it, “for the wood to tell me what it wants to be.” When he does that, when he's patient with the wood, he says, the finished piece comes out better. But it might take days.

“If I'm going to visit my mom,” says Sewe-maenewa, a bear of a man with deep-set black eyes, “I'll carry the wood to her house and she'll say, 'What's this wood doing in here? I'm going to trip over it.' I'll tell her, I'm just waiting for answers.'"

Lomahquahu, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, considers his carvings part of himself, his family. “I think of my kachinas as like my children, and in that way they come alive,” says the gregarious 40-year-old. “Also like my children, I'm proud of them.” Brothers Brian and Ronald Honyouti from Hotevilla brought a contemporary style of carving to wide popularity. Like them, Lomahquahu loves stretching the form. Rather than carve a kachina dancing, he'll depict it hunting, or even at home washing its hair. But he's careful to render each kachina accurately.

For example, he might carve the Owl Katsina or the Left-handed Katsina in a hunting scene. But the Long-haired Katsina, which represents the gentle rain, can only be shown as it appears in the villages, dancing and bringing gifts.

Lomahquahu creates finely carved pieces, some of which stand more than 2 feet tall and include multiple figures of kachinas and animals. He also does kachina sculptures that lack arms and legs and appear more abstract, the design mirroring the contours of the wood.

These might depict a Katsina figure, but Lomahquahu doesn't consider them true kachinas. An example is his Water Maiden. This sculpture uses the image of the Palhik Mana Katsina, which helps bring rain and a bountiful harvest, standing slightly more than 43 inches tall and depicting the maiden hovering over the ruins of a pueblo. She has cornstalks carved into the folds of her robes and the haunting faces of three kachinas staring out from the base of the piece.

Except for a few added items-earrings,feathers, pueblo ladders and others-he carved the entire work from a single piece of wood. And those added items are also carved.

I THINK OF MY KACHINAS AS LIKE MY CHILDREN, AND IN THAT WAY THEY COME ALIVE.'

“It's common now to see the whole kachina carved, even the feathers,” says Steve Beiser of Puchteca, an Indian arts shop in downtown Flagstaff. “Thirty and 40 years ago, carvers used real feathers, but when it became illegal to use migratory bird feathers, they began carving them. Now the old-style revival has brought real feathers back, mostly turkey, pheasant and parrot.” Lomahquahu's Water Maiden took more than a month to complete, and sold for $20,000 in August. Standard kachina doll prices begin as low as $200. These ordinary dolls might take two days to complete. But higher-priced dolls begin at about $4,000 and can range past $20,000, according to Kent McManis of Tucson's Grey Dog Trading Co.

“There are a lot of carvers out there, but a limited number of really phenomenal ones,” he says. “Everybody wants the great ones, so their prices have gone way up.” High prices and possible financial gain form a powerful incentive for young carvers to enter prestigious shows and begin to build their reputations. But old ways persist.

Some artisans, even talented ones like 35-year-old Derrick Hayah, find greater contentment working quietly in their villages, often with friends. That's an old reservation tradition-carvers gathering in remote shacks to work together. Hopis consider the act of carving ceremonial, sacred and social. Hayah enjoys the company of friends from Polacca, his First Mesa village, as he carves. "We all grew up together and we still hang together," says Hayah. "It makes it feel like you're not working. Sometimes

we barbecue. Even in winter, we'll be out there in the middle of a snowstorm, cooking our meat."

Lomahquahu works alone in a 12-by-12-foot studio he built himself behind his home in Holbrook, near the Marine Corps flag flapping in the breeze outside.

Another award-winning carver, Aaron J. Fredericks, works out of his living room in Kykotsmovi, often listening to the rock group Rush.

With exceptions, off-reservation kachina carvers tend toward more experimentation. Kevin Sekakuku, who works in an apartment in Phoenix where he lives with his wife and daughter, specializes in miniature carvings that stand 1 to 3 inches tall and depict plenty of action."

"If the wind is blowing, I'll have flowing hair, and I do a lot of detail in my feather carving," says the up-and-coming 27-yearold artist. "I want everything as realistic as possible."

In the case of 60-year-old Neil David Sr., his life in Polacca is often hectic with 17 grandchildren. Which explains why he works in the dead of the night, often carving past 3 A.M. in the same house in which he was born and raised.

But his large family is also a source of great fun, and his work reflects that.

His specialty: Hopi clowns, the court jesterlike characters who entertain during Katsina dances. One of his clown figures carries a pizza in its palm, while another depicts a dog ripping off a clown's breechcloth from behind, revealing his fanny.

"Everything I carve I've seen in the plazas," says David, pausing to stroke his silver and black goatee. "Well, not everything. I kind of exaggerate. These clowns, man, they keep me young."

In the village of Hotevilla, on Third Mesa, Edward Seechoma works in a hut on the edge of a sandstone cliff. The silence seems as endless as the view, the perfect workplace for a young artist-29 years old, wearing an "I Love NY" T-shirt-who believes strongly in creating traditional kachinas.

Seechoma uses no electric tools, only files, a knife and two gouges. He doesn't sign his kachinas because no one did that in the old days. His pieces also don't have bases, only pigeon-toed feet, his trademark.

Acrylic paints? No, they're too bright. Instead Seechoma hikes the canyons below his house and around Hotevilla, collecting natural sources of the various colored pigments he needs such as dirt, stones and plants-then grinds them and adds water. "When I started making my own paints,

I asked my uncle where to find them," says Seechoma. "He just laughed and said, 'Open your eyes, the earth will show you.' And it did." It takes work, but Seechoma gets what he wants-classic, low-key colors.

Seechoma's sought-after dolls, available at Tsakurshovi, a Hopi art shop on Second Mesa, and sometimes also at the Heard Museum gift shop, range from $350 to $1,000, well below upper-end contemporary carvings.

But for him it isn't about money.

"Now you see these action kachinas with capes blowing back and all that," says Seechoma, gesturing, animated. "But Hopis don't want wind. It dries out the land and the crops and raises up dust storms."

"I did those dolls for a while, and I know I could make a lot more money with them. But I've moved away from them. To me it's not Hopi. I didn't feel it, and I was afraid it'd ruin me, make me greedy. I'm happier this way."

As he speaks, a gust of wind tears across the flat below Seechoma's hut, climbs the cliff and shakes the north-facing window. The thought occurs that a carver probably occupied this same space 50 years ago, or 150, and heard that same rattling wind as he bent over his worktable, creating something meaningful, something beautiful, something Hopi. EDITOR'S NOTE: The Hopi language does not include the "ch" sound, so many publications and conversational speakers now use the word "Katsina." We've decided to use the capitalized form when referring to the spirit dancers, and the more traditional lowercased "kachina" when referring to the dolls that represent them. The plural of Katsina is Katsinam.