Phoenix is the place to see a great collection of Hopi katsinas
When Hopi dancers put on the masks and garb of their katsinas, a ritual that dates to time immemorial, they are putting on far more: their identity.
“The Hopi Indians represent their gods in several ways,” wrote anthropologist Jesse Walter Fewkes in 1899, “one of which is by personation–by wearing masks or garments bearing symbols that are regarded as characteristic of those beings. The symbols depicted on these masks and garments vary considerably, but are readily recognized and identified by the Indians.”
Another way of representing the gods is through the katsina ”dolls,” which today are considered a high art form as well as religious symbols. And while most of the ceremonies are off limits to outsiders today, many katsinas (also spelled kachinas) have been gathered at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, forming perhaps the most popular core of an extensive collection of masterpieces created by the native peoples of the Southwest.
“At each festival in which these supernatural beings are personated,”Fewkes wrote, “the symbols are repainted, and continued practice has led to a high development of this kind of artistic work, many of the Indians having become expert in painting the symbols characteristic of the gods.”
The advent, several decades later, of a tourism industry that craved the katsinas led to a similar growth in artistic skills. The collection at the Heard, numbering more than 500, includes many of the earlier carvings, collected by the Harvey Company, and later images gathered by the late Sen. Barry Goldwater.