The Kachina and the White Man: The Influences of White Culture on the Hopi Kachina Cult

by Frederick J. Dockstader

First published in 1954, this fascinating study of the scope and complexity of the Kachina cult has for too long been out of print. In this revised edition, the author updates his rather gloomy predictions of thirty years ago that the Kachina rituals were in danger of dying out because modern pressures seemed to be restricting their worship. Despite the continual pressures of modern and Anglo ways of life, however, Dockstader can happily report that the Kachina has made a dramatic return and that Hopi religion remains a strong and meaningful foundation of the culture. In fact, Dockstader observes, the appreciation of the ancient Hopi rituals and traditional customs “provides much of the glue holding together the whole Hopi world-— and of this, the Kachina remains a major element.” Although anthropologists have long tried to systematize and interpret the Hopi Kachina cult, it is Dockstader who has brought the material up to date, fit it into its historical perspective, and described and explained the manifold symbols and designs from the viewpoint of the Hopi artist. The author examines the effects of the current surge of tourist interest in Indian traditions, especially dances, and the ever-growing art market interest in Kachina dolls. The influence of commercialization is clear, and some of the effects are inevitably deleterious. - “The book contains a wealth of information on general Hopi history and Hopi life."—-Harold Colton FREDERICK DOCKSTADER holds the Ph.D. in American Studies from Western Reserve University. For twenty years he directed the Museum of the American Indian in New York. He is not only a curator, ethnologist, and anthropologist, but also a recognized artist and silversmith and has written widely about North American Indian arts.

202 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1985

Reviews

[Archer]

Rather academic, this is not a book necessarily to be read for pleasure. I had finished the main "theological" section of the "Book of the Hopi", and was hungry for more information on their religion.
This book covers mostly the physical aspects of the Kachina ceremonials, as opposed to any sort of transcendental or symbolic understanding of them. It is also concerned with proving that what he calls "The Kachina Cult" existed before white contact, which he does. That this elaborate ritual and fully formed religious culture was originally purported by American archaeologists to have been in imitation of the Catholic priests that attempted (and failed) to convert the Hopi shows only the depth of arrogance which once gripped (and still does, to a lesser extent) our "advanced" western culture.
This is not to say that reading it was not an interesting exercise. One of the main reasons why earlier archaeologists failed to realize the pre-columbian origins of the Hopi ritual was that it produced no permanent artifacts. Most ritual artifacts of the Hopi are not precious, the beliefs and rites itself being more important that the objects used to facilitate them. Therefore, with the lack of a system of object production which is so heavily ingrained in our own culture, the archaeologists were unable to "prove" the historic origin of the Kachina, and placed its origin with the object producing Spanish.
Another aspect of Western archaeology which falls in an interesting light in this book is that of the objective fact. It is interesting when such a thing as a religion, which is inherently non-objective, comes into contact with science, which is determined with proofs and facts. The mixing of cultural gravitational pulls.
I wonder what Pierre Bourdieu would say.