Who makes a kachina doll matters to collectors as much as what it depicts. The same katsina can be carved by a Hopi man on Second Mesa or by a Zuni carver working in a different tradition. Kachina-style figures are also produced in quantity for the tourist trade. Each of these objects has its own history and its own place in a collection.
This article looks at the makers: Hopi carvers and the villages they come from, the named carvers whose work has entered museums, the Hopi-Tewa community of First Mesa, Zuni katsina dolls and the figures made by Navajo makers. We describe each tradition on its own terms.
The Hopi word for the spirit beings is katsina (plural katsinam). They act as messengers between people and the spirit world and are associated with bringing rain. The carved figure is a tihu (plural tithu), also called katsintithu. "Kachina" is the common English spelling, and collectors use katsina doll and kachina doll for the same object.
Among the Hopi, men carve the figures. Traditionally, the dolls are given to babies and girls during ceremonies held in February and July, as "a prayer-wish for future growth and well-being," in the Heard Museum's words. After they are given, the figures hang on the walls of the home to be studied. They are made to instruct young girls. The carver's role starts there, inside the community, before any question of sale.
Katsina dolls are also carved for sale, and have been for a long time. Traders began selling Pueblo katsina dolls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Fred Harvey Company, an early chain selling Native American crafts along the transcontinental railroad, was among the sellers. Hopi and Zuni carvers began making katsina dolls for tourists in the 1920s. Anyone collecting katsina figures meets work made for both purposes, and here the focus is on the hands behind it.
Gregory Lomayesva, Wooden Hopi Kachina. Wood Kachina, 21.5 x 6.75 in. Signed along the bottom. View Work
Hopi carvers come from villages across the mesas and from Moenkopi. The material is the same across them: Hopi katsina dolls are carved from cottonwood root, which is light and sturdy. Early traditional figures were carved from one piece of that root and smoothed with sandstone.
The mesas appear clearly in the history of the Old Style revival. Four Hopi carvers are credited as most responsible for reviving the carving of "Old Style" katsina dolls, one from each area:
• Walter Howato: First Mesa.
• Manfred Susunkewa: Second Mesa, born 1940.
• Jimmy Koots: Third Mesa.
• Jimmy Kewanwytewa, known as Jimmy K: Moenkopi.
Over a hundred carvers took part in this renaissance. The revival matters for collectors because it shows that carving styles move. An Old Style figure is a choice a carver makes, and it can be recent.
Second Mesa also appears in a museum record. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian holds a Crow Mother (Angwusnasomtaka) figure carved of cottonwood, made 1964 to 1965. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board bought it from Hopicrafts on Second Mesa in 1965.
Wilson Tawaquaptewa is the earliest carver known by name. He was Kikmongwi (village chief) of Oraibi at the time of the village split of September 8, 1906, and his carving career spanned at least four decades.
His work has a clear signature in its iconography. He was uncomfortable selling authentic katsina dolls to tourists, so he altered their iconography slightly. That choice makes his style easy to recognize. It also shows something about carving for sale from its earliest named practitioner: a carver could decide what to share with outside buyers and what to hold back.
Before Tawaquaptewa, carvers worked without their names attached to the record. As carving developed, individual carvers became recognized and collectors sought work by specific makers. His case marks the start of that shift.
The Heard Museum in Phoenix and the Autry Museum in Los Angeles hold major collections of katsina figures. The Heard's collection includes work by carvers across several generations.
Brian Honyouti (Hopi, 1947 to 2016) carved a Nata'aska (Ogre) katsina doll in 1998. Ros George (Hopi, born 1948) carved a Turkey katsina in 1988. Ed Tewanema (Hopi/Shoshone, born 1966) carved a Deer katsina in 2000. Arvin Saufkie (Hopi, born 1977) carved a Muy'ingwa katsina in 2012.
The works span more than two decades, by carvers born between 1947 and 1977. Taken together, they show a living practice rather than a closed historical category. The styles also changed over that time. By the mid-1900s, figures were posed to suggest movement and painted in bright colors with poster or oil-based paint. Recent work, which the Heard Museum calls "action sculpture," carries fine detail carved directly into the wood. Some figures are carved entirely from wood with incised details and finished with a stain that lets the grain show.
Carving conventions kept shifting in other ways. After the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, carvers separated the arms from the body and tilted the heads, a style known as "early action." In the 1960s they began adding bases. In the 1970s they began carving feathers in wood instead of attaching real ones. Federal law makes dolls decorated with protected migratory bird or eagle feathers illegal to buy or sell, regardless of age, so carved feathers matter to any buyer. They have since become one of the places where a carver's skill shows most clearly.
Most collectors begin with a figure. Many end up following a carver. Recognizing a hand across several works takes time, but it is the most reliable way to understand what a given carver does well. Looking at many kachina dolls by known carvers trains the eye faster than reading about them.
Not every carver on the Hopi mesas is Hopi by origin alone. After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Tewa immigrants from the New Mexico Tewa Pueblos arrived at Hopi and were given a village on First Mesa, Hano. The Hopi-Tewa heritage that museum records attach to some carvers belongs to this history.
The Koshari, or Hano clown, came with them, and it remains one of the figures collectors seek. It is not Hopi by origin but from the New Mexico Tewa Pueblos, where it is called Koosa. The Heard Museum holds a Clown katsina from 1994 by Neil R. David Sr. (Hopi-Tewa, born 1944).
Hopi-Tewa history is a reminder that the katsina tradition at Hopi has absorbed influences over centuries. A carver's heritage can be layered, as Ed Tewanema's Hopi/Shoshone attribution in the Heard collection also shows.
Hano - Clown by Otis Thomas. View Work
The Zuni share the katsina tradition with the Hopi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes a katsina as "a spirit being who serves as a cultural guide in Hopi and Zuni communities." Contemporary dolls made for the crafts market come from both the Hopi and Zuni Pueblos.
The beliefs differ in detail. The Hopi say the katsinam live on the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona. The Zuni believe katsinam live in the Lake of the Dead.
The carving differs too. Zuni katsina dolls present detail through added fabrics and materials rather than the carved and painted details Hopi carvers prefer. Articulated arms are a defining feature of Zuni dolls. A Hopi figure tends to put its information into the wood. A Zuni figure tends to put it into what is added to the wood.
That difference has a practical consequence. The Met notes that movable arms and added garments, rather than painted ones, can indicate a figure made for the tourist market. On a Hopi figure, they can point to that market. On a Zuni figure, articulated arms are part of the tradition itself. The same feature reads differently depending on who made the doll.
Influence has also crossed between the two. The Long Hair (Angak'china) known at Hopi traces its origin to Zuni. The Mudhead's name Koyemsi also comes from Zuni Pueblo.
Both traditions sit at the detailed end of the range. Zuni and Hopi katsina figures are highly detailed, while those of the Rio Grande Pueblos are simpler.
Navajo makers mass-produce many of the kachina-style figures sold to tourists. In 1994, High Country News reported that tourists had bought "tens of thousands" of these figures in recent years, with one factory operating in Thoreau, New Mexico. The same article noted that Hopi-carved figures take weeks or months to hand-carve and often cost five times as much. The Hopi Tribe considered trademark or copyright protection at the time.
These figures are a separate category. Factory figures are produced in quantity for the tourist trade, and they are not Hopi tithu. That is a description, not a judgment. A buyer simply needs to know which object is in front of them.
Navajo work is not limited to production pieces. Some Navajo sculptors have carved figures similar to tithu as artworks in their own right. Those sculptures belong to their makers' own practice and are best judged as such.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 is a truth-in-advertising law. It makes it illegal to offer or sell an art or craft product in a way that falsely suggests it is Indian produced or the product of a particular tribe. Kachina dolls are among the products it names. For a first violation, an individual faces fines of up to $250,000 or up to five years in prison, and the two can be combined. Businesses face fines up to $1,000,000.
The principle bears directly on carvers. A figure made by a Navajo maker can be sold honestly as Navajo work. A figure from Zuni can be sold as Zuni work. What the Act forbids is suggesting that a figure is Hopi, or Indian produced at all, when it is not. Attribution to a tribe is a claim, and the law treats it as one.
For collectors, the practical steps follow from that. Ask who carved a figure and from which community. Check that the stated origin agrees with the material and the style of the figure, the same checks used to identify authentic kachina dolls.
Robert Rivera, Gourdhead Shalako Kachina. Wood and Gourd Kachina, 18 x 9.5 in. View Work
The history of katsina doll carving can be read as a list of makers. It starts with anonymous carvers working for their own villages. It continues with Tawaquaptewa at Oraibi and with the four revival carvers spread across the mesas. Later come the generations represented in the Heard Museum's collection. Alongside them stand Zuni carvers working in their own idiom and the Hopi-Tewa of Hano with their own clown.
Collectors who follow carvers rather than single figures tend to see more. A Ros George figure from 1988 and an Arvin Saufkie figure from 2012 belong to the same tradition, but they answer different questions about form and finish. Seeing that requires knowing who made what. Each tradition makes its own sense once the maker is known.