Talk:Kachina

undated
Does Kachina need to be capitalized? (Few English nouns do.)Vicki Rosenzweig


 * I've seen it both ways, but I don't know for sure. Tokerboy

No, kachina and katsina do not need to be capitalized. Only the proper names of each being (e.g., Mongwa, Sohu, or Qoqole) need to be. FYI katsina is becoming the accepted spelling, as it is closer to the Hopi pronunciation.

Sourcing and references
...would be useful. There is an inherent problem in sourcing and reliability about Hopi and other Puebloan societies, who have oral histories, protect religious information as secrets, regard scholarship as irrelevant, intrusive, or even culturally exploitive, etc. There's also a lot of nonsense out there, even from published sources. Lacking any real information people opine. Maybe that means we have to keep these articles very brief and limit it to simple, objective info. That cautious approach would probably please both the article subjects and the Wikipedia people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs) 02:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And God forbid we read any of the reams and reams of literature the University of Arizona and other universities in the southwest have published about the topic, of course--even the Hopi aren't all that closed-mouthed.
 * How is it possible that there's more information about Candomble on Wikipedia than there is about almost any Native American religion? Even the Navajo get severely short shrift, and they're the biggest Native nation in the U.S. And their religion's been copiously documented, too--there's no excuse for all this stuff not to be up here.  Nagakura shin8 (talk) 18:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * im not native myself but i am a avid studier of native and infact all religion, i will attempt to fill in some of the gaps on this page atleast--Tophatdan (talk) 09:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * in my personal library i have a copy of a wonderfull book

Hopi Kachinas by Jesse Walter Fewkes, 1903 in which most of the kachinas are briefly referenced, i never payed much attention to it, as i purchased the book along with several others as a lot, however i find myself glad i have it and i am simply typing out what he has to say, i also notice that if i look around the internet many people are using Fewkes text, or atleast part of his text with some personal touches, but are not crediting him with it, perhaps this will help us to lay this referencing problem to rest. with any luck i can have about 80% of the kachinas listed on this page up and online within a week or two if work does not keep me from it.--Tophatdan (talk) 11:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That will be great.  I think you have identified Wikipedia's famous "Pokemon test" (aka the Pikachu effect), which in one formulation is that for any given subject X, there are more articles about cartoon characters than X.
 * To do this as well as possible, I hope I can help perfect the first few articles, so those can work as a template for doing the others. Looking at Toho (kachina) as an example I see a few relatively superficial things to improve: using correct citation format / templates, section headings, narrative tone (needs to be more objective voice rather than an in-universe perspective), adding categories and links, and some typographical things.  It would be good to standardize the spelling and capitalization kachinas versus katsinas or katsinam, and include a pronunciation guide (I neer figured out how to do this).  As a bonus it would be good to write a standardized introductory sentence or two so things are consistent and understandable to a patient intelligent lay reader who does not yet know the subject, and also perhaps to develop a standard template for the page bottom, or side infobox, just for Hopi kachinas.  I've found that the most fundamental thing to get across to people who don't yet know is that kachinas are three things all in one: carved figures, ceremonial dancers, and mythological beings, and that in any of these forms their role is to perpetuate and reinforce the culture, particularly as a device in educating children.
 * I see the book has been scanned for google - http://books.google.com/books?id=ze4NAAAAIAAJ - and has lots of color plates with hand-drawn pictures. It would be wonderful to copy these for the various articles - scans are not eligible for copyright and, because the book is 1903, any copyright to the drawings and the underlying artifacts are
 * Regarding the comment, I agree that published sources are the best place to start. In my experience Hopi are vociferous about some things, but secretive about others, and for the most part share only things (internally and with outsiders) that they deem fair to know.  The quality of scholarship varies.  There is good work, but also some wishful thinking, 19th and 20th century cultural mores, and a bit of the Anekantavada: some people spent a lot of time in one particular village, or with a particular person, and attributed what they learned to all Hopi (or worse, all Native Americans) without accounting for variations, changes in things over time, or the fact that they have only a small part of the overall picture.  Because of the secrecy some people miss the point and announce their small piece of the puzzle as being of paramount importance, when the opposite is the case: they just learned what someone tells the tourists or anthropologists.  These days Wikipedia creates its own reality, and anything we write here is bound to become the accepted version for lots of people.  Wikidemon (talk) 15:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

These are all small matters but if it's just right from the start it won't need any follow-up. It would be good to standardize an introductory sentence or two so that the article makes sense to an intelligent lay reader who does note yet know anything about the subject...and also perhaps develop a template just for Hopi katchinas.


 * thanks for the response, i would just like to let you know that Jesse Walter Fewkes seems to have grouped hopi and zuni traditians together as what he called "peueblonian culture" also when concerning the differing spelling, again this is Fewkes, who when speaking of the dancers would use 1 spelling and when speaking of the dolls or as he called them "teaching aids" would use another, and when speaking of them in the ethereal sense he used the diasporic term "fetish" for them all together, you have to understand that using him as a source we are going to run into this, on the one hand it is a source over 100 years old and as a result has what i would hope to be 'more' accurate information than what will be found in even the oral traditions of today, on the other hand he was working without any modern structure of cultural anthropology, leaving him to identify and 'fabricate' his structure as he went. i fully agree we can and should 'standardize' these pages as i add them, but in the mean time i am simply working from the original text to get 'some' information online for these subjects. oh and regarding the book, my copy is very old, it has a publishers mark that says 1920-1921 and it does have a number of these hand drawn descriptions, but it is not in color at all, leaving me to rely on wether Fewkes states "the color was green" in order to give descriptions, also there are long descriptions of the dances in the book which in most cases i am leaving out, i am sure there is a place for them, but im just not sure that this is that place. Again i say thank you and perhaps if you are willing to do the cleanup and i am able to do the research we can get these online. -- i do have 1 question, in Fewkes book there are listed a number of kachinas which are not on this list, and also this list has a number of them which refer to cerimonies, spring and fall dance sets and fetish shrines involving kachinas, should i erase those names from the list, or list the ritual as best i can from Fewkes? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tophatdan (talk • contribs) 22:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You should check out the google version - that has color pictures, probably from a different edition. The current list has no special status - it was added by one or more editors from unkown sources.  If the book has others I would add them, and probably group closely related minor katchinas on a single article page.  I would suggest grouping the list somehow so that it is orderly.  Fewkes seems to group the katchinas by origin and ceremonial role, and points out something I was unaware of, relatively new ones that were introduced by specific people.  Another possible grouping is by mythological type, e.g. ogres.  Usually I don't like to delete stuff, but if there are any we can't match we might want to create an "other" category, or move them to the talk page as a holding place until someone can find a source.  A number of the ones on the list don't produce any google search results.  Some of these might be variant names or spellings, obscure ones, katchinas from other groups, or mistakes and fabrications (I seem to recall that in the mid 20th century culturally insensitive folks would make up katchinas and stories on whim).  The terminology is interesting - fetish is a technically correct word but it sounds awkward, as does calling things a "myth" or a spiritual being a "deity".  Perhaps that can be overcome with some appropriate wikilinks.  Reading the text, Fewkes seems very earnest, methodical, and not at all arrogant or agenda-driven, which probably makes him a better source than most anthropologists from the era.  But you are right, to some extent he is a primary source about what an expert 100+ years ago thought, not a current understanding.  I'm not sure I agree with your comment about accuracy.  Oral traditions like Hopi are constantly evolving over time in response to circumstances.  There's a saying that sometimes events play out according to prophesy, sometimes prophesy changes to fit the events.  Culture is an organic, evolving thing and Hopi did not become frozen in 1903, nor does something being the product of interaction with western culture make it invalid.  Curio shop katchinas, Taiwan-made katchinas, and katchina coloring books are probably not a terribly good source of understanding (though perhaps a notable subject in their own right), but who is to say that something arising in the 1940s is not a proper thing?  Well, we can cover that pretty well in the article by trying to mention dates where necessary rather than discussing everything as if it happens in the present.  Wikidemon (talk) 23:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

What is a kachina?
Although I'm sure it's difficult to translate Native American metaphysics into English, from the point of view of a newbie like me this article doesn't do a very good job of defining what a kachina is. The first sentence, which should define it, says only "Kachinas exist in western Pueblo cosmology and religious practice." The second paragraph doesn't help much: kachinas can be "...anything which exists in the natural world or cosmos."  I understand not wanting to offend another culture's religion by offering a simplistic facile explanation, but surely the term can be narrowed down more than this. -- Chetvorno TALK 03:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Defined kachinas as "spirit beings" in first sentence, and added some description. -- Chetvorno TALK 02:43, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Worhipped or not?
The sentence "Although not worshipped, each is viewed as a powerful being who, if given veneration and respect, can use their particular power for human good (...)" is not clear. The article on worship defines the word as an act of religious devotion usually directed at a diety, so I fail to see why katchinas are "not worshipped". I would guess this is a pragmatic explanation used by practitioners to make their beliefs more palatable in a monotheistic environment. But should it be repeated in an encyclopedic article? 11:39, 16 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.96.231 (talk)


 * I wrote that sentence. I have no expertise in this field, nor am I of the Pueblo culture, so I tried to be sensitive and use the correct terminology about a religion I am unfamiliar with.  I read on some Native American site that kachinas are not "worshipped"; I will try to find a source.  There can be many gradations of veneration and devotion in religions, and the term "worship" can be a sensitive one.    Catholics have many rituals which venerate saints and the Virgin Mary, but will be offended if they are described as "worshipping" them; they only "worship" God.   I believe the same applies to Moslems and Mohammed, and Buddhists and the Buddha. -- Chetvorno TALK 12:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Worship can be a loaded term, and probably has some specific implications that vary depending on context and the field (e.g. anthropologists probably mean something different than scholars of religion, or religious leaders). I think the broad implication is correct, that people don't pray to katchinas or see them as deities in the Judeo-Christian or ancient European sense, although there are some ritual supplications.  We've identified the three main ways they are conceived - as a race of spirits, as human dancers, and as dolls, all of which embody in a spiritual and educational sense various things from the world.  It's hard to be definitive.  There aren't a whole lot of sources, and the sources we do have (particularly the older ones) are often quite mistaken or fanciful.  Also, it's tricky to generalize about what a group of people believe, particularly an ancient but evolving indigenous culture... one with many different roles, clans, etc., that is now simultaneously part of the modern world.  To run with the Catholic example, do Catholics truly believe in the miracles and appearances of the saints?  And where do you put your barometer to measure that - do you ask someone in the Vatican, an American Catholic, or a villager in South America?  Do you go to the old texts from the era when a particular saint lived?  I don't think one's just trying to make a mysterious religion more palatable by saying that people view these spirits in a metaphorical sense, maybe they're trying to figure that out for themselves too.  I made a few minor adjustments, btw.  - Wikidemon (talk) 13:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Qatsina → Katsina?
I would like to see a source for the etymology that katsina comes from qatsina meaning "life bringer." The Hopi Dictionary (1998) does not connect the two words, and the definition and the dictionary's examples for qatsina don't support the interpretation being put on it in this article.

qatsina 1. make a life (of)... e.g., when he made a life of corruption....  2. make a big event, a commotion...

I suspect we're looking at a case of folk etymology, projecting a plausible idea back on the word.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC) -- Edited 13:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced recent material
Anonymous user 23.31.81.101 added extensive material at 21:06 on 12 March 2019 without citing any sources. My initial reaction was to revert the entire edit, but I chose instead to flag it as needed citations.

User:Modernist has repeatedly reverted the flag.

Either the flag stays, or the edit by 23.31.81.101 goes. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)