"Koshare: the first men, also the clowns, or dancers. Qatsina: animating spirit, hundreds of variations, or men dressed as such for ritualistic dances, or dolls made in the image of...Qomvi: the color obsidian, or a raven." The overlap in meanings in the vocabulary made it difficult to compare Hopi and similar languages. More problematic was how impenetrable it made more complicated ideas in the language seem. Since my encounter with the girl in the desert, my questions needed answers that were 1) being avoided by the villagers or 2) being avoided by the language itself. Qatinsa. Different concepts, all associated with the same ideas, but not quite the same. When I ask 'who is the Bloody Hand Print quatsina?' my response is a doll, a costume on a shelf awaiting a dance, or a violent spirit. The spirits dance with the dancers, in the dances you never know which is which. I've asked about Tiponi Ankti. She, and the blood puddled around her, were supposedly 'heat visions.' Apo and his son that she claimed was murdered are unknown in the pueblo.  Later, however, I was approached by two older women. They explained that Tiponi Ankti knew all the stories, but she didn't realize that they weren't always happening. They talked excitably about the Bloody Hand Print qatsina, but I couldn't decipher whether they were discussing a dancer or a spirit. It reminded me of how I originally found myself eaten up with these questions. I couldn't discern whether the girl talked about another spirit, or about a man. Bigger ideas were behind the words than the literal meanings that I used to understand them. The koshare, the qatsina, the colors that were birds....it all made perfect sense to the old ladies receiving me warmly under the adobe slats in the sitting room. I needed to be told like I was a child. It made sense to go back to her, to find an explanation for a child from a child. I had been assured I had nothing to be afraid of, so what was there to be afraid of?  _____________________________________ I was not expecting her, but it seemed natural to see her piling brush in the twilight. Her manner unaltered, it was like I had always been there, or had never come. I came closer and was startled by the screech of a rodent that scampered around my ankle. She giggled, "Siqu qa." Then looking to me, she said "Siqu was responsible for the Bloody Hand's imprisonment." The women in the pueblo seemed to be right. Tiponi was constantly telling a story, rehashing narratives at the appearance of the slightest reminder. She undoubtedly would have told the story to the fire, or to the sand, exactly as she was about to tell me. "I didn't know." "There was a dance at Gashpeta and the dancers and qatsinas were lined up to begin when siqu ran through the line and terrified all of the dancers!" "The qatsinas were terrified of the squirrel?" "The qatsinas are terrified of many things! Everyone lined up to dance was horrified; the line split into every direction. For four years all of the qatsinas were lost. The people of the pueblo waited. After eight years many of the qatsinas had returned. The people called for another dance, but when they saw the dancers lined up there was little more than half. The furious chief ordered the koshare to find the other half of the qatsinas."  "The koshare, what are they?" She looked surprised, but explained, "The koshare are the clowns who cause mischief during the dances. The chief cannot tell them what to do. You know the black and white qatsinas?" "Yes, the black and white striped ones?"  "Owi. They joke to remind us that we are people and not gods." "Were they not also people?" "They were the first men. A goddess wanted to make her friends laugh so she rubbed a piece of her own skin in her hand and made the koshare. They make the gods and the people laugh alike. They have other powers, but they don't always like to use them. When the qatsinas were lost, the koshare told the people to go out to the mountains and listen. If they did this they could follow the sounds they heard to find the qatsina." "The people found the qatsinas?" "No, the people told the koshare that they heard nothing. Then the koshare went outside the pueblo into the desert and threw ashes in every direction. Soon the earth split open and a spruce tree began growing in the hole in the earth. Finally the top of the tree reached over the crack where the earth had split and the qatsinas crawled out. The Bloody Hand Print was the first to be free, then Yellow Corn Woman lifted her son up and came behind him. The chief counted and the koshare asked, 'Are all of the lost qatsinas here?' They were." "Every one?"  "Every one climbed up the tree out of the prison in the earth. There's another dance tonight at Gashpeta. Yellow Corn Woman's son has grown now. He will dance with the others. Everyone will guess which dancer is Yellow Corn Woman's son, but no one will know, except me. I know." I was looking into the fire, feeling safe in the heat. Tiponi lulled me into the storytelling game, asking 'then what?' and 'how do you know?' I had so much put out of my mind what was actually happening, that my reply came naturally, "How do you know?" But she was gone. The wind picked up from the south and set about to making the firelight disappear. Author's Note: I have done my best in this retelling to keep all of the original elements of the story "The Imprisonment of the Qatsinas." The spruce tree, the anecdote about Yellow Woman's son, and the squirrel that scared the qatsinas and the dancers - all are examples of details found in the original text that I reproduced in this retelling. I found the details in the Cochiti accounts to be very revealing about the environment in which the Cochitis, and therefore the Hopis (a closely related tribe who have many cultural commonalities, including the qatsina beliefs), lived. In addition to environmental details, the story also shows the community in action and a glimpse of a hierarchy of power. I embellished on the original tale by adding information from the Oxford Mythological Dictionary. I did this in order to fully explain the koshare characters that appear in the story. Contemporary anthropologists and folklorists link the koshares, as mentioned in my retelling, to trickster characters in other mythological traditions. The koshare function as a crucial satirical and reprimanding force in Hopi communities. I would like to use these story retellings as introductions to major figures in the qatsina mythology, therefore in every story I attempt to give a portrait of one of the main qatsina characters. I would like for the readers, as well as myself, to learn something about the personalities and functions of spirits like the koshare within the greater context than the individual story lines. Image Information: Hopi Girl at Walpi, 1900. Four Hopi Women in Front of Pueblo Home, 1906. Koshare Drummer (left), Santa Fe. Koshare Kachina, Pueblo Clowns. Hopi Kachina, Native American Dolls. Bibliography: BENEDICT, Ruth. Tales of the Cochiti Indians, "The Imprisonment of the Kacinas." Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 98. 1932. Accessed online at Sacred Texts, the 17 March 2009. Last updated: Unknown. A Dictionary of World Mythology. Oxford University Press. 2003. Accessed online through Answers, the 17 March 2009. Last updated: 2009. |