The July sun towers at the zenith of its searing power above the high desert country of northeastern Arizona. The land is always thirsty, but soon its thirst will be quenched by rain, a blessing the region's Hopi Indians believe comes through the benevolence of the Kachina supernaturals.
On this summer afternoon, in a plaza at the center of a Hopi village atop a windswept mesa, forty or more Kachinas are arrayed in a long line.
In the time of legends, some Hopis say, kachinas and people climbed a reed leading from the Underworld to Sipapu, the Place of Emergence at Arizona's Grand Canyon. Thus, they came to this, the Fourth World.
Kachinas - beings of great power and fantastic form, neither totally human nor completely animal - brought blessings to the horticultural Hopis and their crops of corn, beans, and squash. But people took the Kachinas for granted, so they returned to the Underworld after teaching certain Hopis how to make costumes like their own and transform song and dance into profound prayer. In this way was born the Kachina cult - which permeates every aspect of Hopi life - and marvelous ceremonies for bringing rain, good crops, health, and blessings upon humanity.
Some Kachinas are named for physical appearance - White Chin, Broad Face, Long Hair. Others represent plants, animals, physical objects, and natural phenomena - Cholla Cactus, Antelope, Parrot, Rattle, and Thunder. Many names derive from the Kachinas' distinctive cries - Hu, Hototo, and Hohote.
A few represent other Indian tribes - Apaches, Navajos, Havasupais, and Comanches. Some were borrowed from other tribes, especially the Hopis' Zuni neighbors a hundred miles to the east. But the meaning of many Kachina names and the rich symbolism associated with these spirit rainmakers remain obscure, for Hopis are reluctant to discuss such matters.
The masks over the impersonators' faces create an ongoing explosion of pointed, rounded, upturned, downturned, and twisted eyes and ears, noses and mouths. There is an eruption of colors - blue, yellow, red, green, violet, lavender, and orange - softened only by the poetry of eagle, owl, hawk, and parrot feathers swaying lazily in the cooling breeze.
A Hopi man who appears in rituals as a Kachina calls the leather mask he wears "friend." "When I put my friend over my head, I don't pretend to be the Kachina," he says earnestly. "I become the Kachina."
Off to one side, a heavyset Koyemsi, or Mudhead - his face covered with a reddish-brown sack mask to which are appended bell ears and what looks like a loosely hanging carrot at the top of his head - sits astride a metal chair. A leather strap over his shoulder keeps a large drum in place.
The Mudhead grasps the drumstick in his powerful hand and ushers in a round of drumming with a low rumbling, like distant thunder reverberating through the plaza.
The Kachinas are quiet.
But
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