If you live in the United States, you’ve most likely seen Kokopelli, a Southwestern Native American deity. He’s depicted as a stylized figure playing a flute. Possibly you’ve never questioned whether the figure was male. But did you know there has always been a female version, Kokopelmana?
Cedars State Park manager Teri Paul, who worked with Hopi elders, is quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune as explaining that Kokopelli is a Kachina. That’s an ancestral spirit being for the Pueblo peoples. As with other Kachinas, Kokopelli represents two different spirit beings.
“Kokopelli is actually two different Kachinas which are representations of deities in Hopi culture usually seen in social or ceremonial dances,” said Paul. “Kokopoli is male, and Kokopelmana is female.”
Now, why are people so much less familiar with the female deity Kokopelmana? Perhaps they’ve never seen her. Is it time for a revival of Kokopelmana and what she represents?
As most in the U.S. are aware, Kokopelli has been appropriated for all kinds of commercial uses. He’s ubiquitous, a logo of the American Southwest, a musical “trickster.” But so is his female counterpart.
Mana From Hopi Pueblo Beliefs
In Hopi Pueblo traditions, Mana Kachina dolls represent female spirit beings called Katsinam. And “Mana” or “Maana” means female, woman, or maiden. Appended to the name of a Kachina, it
indicates the female counterpart or version of that spirit,” states second-generation Native Arts and Artifacts expert and dealer, Matt Wood.
As was customary, most Hopi Katcinas appeared in both male and female impersonations. Nevertheless, both parts were played by men in rituals, and the female is sometimes the “partner” and sometimes the “sister” of the male, according to Titiev.
Seen on a rare Anasazi ceramic vase date to 1000 years ago, we see Kokopelmana as a woman, and in two cases with an extended belly. As you can see, she appears to play the flute.
“The fertility god Kokopelli, here represented as a female rather than a male, painted on a 1,000-year-old pottery bowl in New Mexico.”
Male and Female Spiritual Equals
This role of the “sister” is similar to that in other ancient spiritual traditions, such as those in Egypt. In those cases, the idea of a male god pairing with a female “sister” could be misunderstood. Rather than an actual sister as partner, the deities’ relationship is seen as coming from the same divine source, and thus all are directly related.
For instance, in ancient Egyptian love poetry and court language, “sister” (senet) and “brother” (sen) were common terms of endearment used between husbands, wives, and lovers. It signaled deep intimacy, equality, and shared status. When applied to deities or royal lineages (who modeled themselves after the gods), it emphasized a spiritual and social peerage rather than literal genealogy.
Could this be a similar intention to calling Kokopelli’s female counterpart his sister? Regardless, as in other spiritual and religious beliefs, the divine feminine half of the equation has been obscured today.
The Hidden Kokopelmana
As we can easily see, popular Western culture lost sight of, ignored, and actively suppressed Kokopelli’s original appearance and meaning. Nevertheless, this has always been a male-female deity pair.
“According to the Hopi belief, Kokopele is a katcina who appears sometimes as a masculine character called Kokopeltiyo, and sometimes as a female known as Kokoopelmana,” wrote American anthropologist Mischa Titiev in 1939.
What was Kokopelmana, also known as Kokopölmana, Kokopelli Mana, or Kokopelmimi, to the Pueblo peoples? According to some accounts, she and her male consort both helped prompt people to question themselves and their behavior in much the same way. Like him, she was a free spirit in all ways. Do you think Western culture has an issue with that idea? Or has it changed today?
“Kokopelli and his female consort Kokopelmana (also given as Kokopelmimi) are often depicted acting inappropriately in public – like the clowns in the kachina ceremonies – encouraging an audience to question what it means to behave appropriately, what the value of such behavior might be, and how they have been behaving themselves,” states World History Encyclopedia.
But that’s just one part of the Kachinas’ larger and sacred significance.
Kokopelmana As Sacred Wild Woman
Some stories have Kokopelmana chasing after men the same way her male counterpart does. A wild woman who was uninhibited and even dominate over men. During rituals, she challenges men to a race and tackles him to the ground, mimicking copulation. And yet, only men performed as Kachinas. Thus, men act as the female Kokopelmana, discarding gender norms for the performance.
Note: There is one exception: the Kachina called the rare Pachavuin Mana, or “Harvest Maiden,” is represented by a woman.
“[Pachavuin Mana] appears during the Pachavu Ceremony (related to bean sprouts and harvest), where she brings bean sprouts, corn sprouts, and grasses into the village, symbolizing growth and fertility,” states Matt Wood’s kachina page.
While comically breaking societal taboos, the Kokopelmana performance is also meant as a symbolic prayer to stimulate cosmic and earthly fertility. A call to bring a season of bountiful harvests and healthy children to the whole village. While crossing social boundaries, the erotic antics of the Kachinas operate as a serious invocation,stirring up the life forces needed for agricultural survival.
During rituals, the Kachinas may act as a kind of “sacred clown,” which can humiliate anyone in the audience. Like Kokopelli, they bring a sense of laughter and a lack of taking things too seriously, while also serving a sacred and benevolent purpose.
Video by Mythlok: Koshari: The Sacred Clown:
Kokopelmana Carries A Food Packet
In one of the few freely available depictions of Kokopelmana (Wikipedia), we see her carrying what appears to be a rattle. Upon closer inspection, the 1903 source by anthropologist Jesse Walter Fewkes stated that Kachinas carry rattles during ritual dances.
And Kokopelli is compared to a winged insect like a cicada, which makes a rattling sound.
“The Hopi call a certain dipterous insect kokopelli and apply the same name to a personification said to have been introduced by the Asa clan. The head is painted black and has a white median facial line. The snout is long, pointed, and striped in spiral black and white. On each side of the head is a white circle with diametrical lines drawn in black, and there is a warrior feather on top. The body is black, and girt by an embroidered sash. There are buckskin leggings, stained yellow and green. A hump is always found on the back in pictures of dolls of Kokopelli.”
“The author has been informed that in old times many of these beings appeared at the same time, but he has never seen the personation,” wrote Fewkes on page 86.
Regarding Kokopelmana, she is seen holding two packets of food wrapped in corn husks.
“The Kokopelli girl has a slender, protuberant snout painted with spiral lines. She carries in her hand two packets of food made of mush wrapped in corn husks.”
In the book, you can see an incredible array of Hopi katcinas. Another female, Tcakwaina Mana (page 63), represents a warrior maiden who defended the pueblo where she lived against hostiles using a bow and arrows.
What Does Kokopelli Mean to Modern Western Culture?
In popular imagery, the flute-playing Kokopelli represents a free-spirited, mischievous, carefree way of life. One who brings merriment and abundance. Hence the surface appeal for people. But these depictions may be seen as appropriated and taken entirely out of the original sacred context.
Others have noted that commercialized versions of Kokopelli have become a means for Euro-American culture to propagate “Western fantasies” of such things as “a hyper-virile, sexually promiscuous masculinity.” The “Casanova of the Cliff Dwellers,” who seduces women. Popularized even while the culture oppressed and brought ruin to the indigenous peoples they originated from. And that story sadly continues today.
At the lesser extreme, he may have been inspired by the image of the Pochteca. These were traveling merchant traders from Aztec society who sometimes carried packs on their backs. And in the 1940s, American scholars traced Kokopelli back to the Callahuayo group in present-day Bolivia. According to their research, the nomadic tribe included flute-playing medicine men who traveled with seed corn.
Video by Symbol Sage:
Kokopelli’s Original Appearance
Although Kokopelli imagery is popular, it’s also a sanitized version for the mainstream. Originally, images and figures could show an enlarged phallus, symbolic of virility and fertility. And the acted-out rituals could involve male nudity.
This, too, was seen in ancient Egyptian spirituality, as with the god Min, who was depicted as ithyphallic. Similar to Kokopelli, Min represented male sexual virility, spiritual generative powers, fertility, reproduction, and the harvest. I always find these comparisons across the world fascinating.
Notably, Min was also known as “Lord of the Desert” and paired with the goddess of the desert, Iabet, as well as Isis.
If you like to examine these comparisons, there are similar Mayan and Aztec deities to explore. Perhaps these are all archetypes, appearing across the world at different times.
Objections to Accurate Depictions of Kokopelli
Objections to the anatomically correct Kokopelli are ongoing. For example, there are recent examples that resulted in “controversy.”
For example, in 2008, residents in San Juan County, Utah, were “deeply offended” by such a sculpture resembling a humpbacked flute player near the road. While others were offended at the censorship.
The aforementioned Teri Paul helped come up with a solution, telling The Associated Press:
“There are people in the community who felt the opposite way,” Paul said. “So, our solution — I believe we have served everyone the best we possibly can. It’s not right in the front of the museum on the street where everyone can see it.”
Historically, when Spanish priests came to North America to convert people to Christianity, they no doubt objected to seeing a phallus on images of Kokopelli, or Kachinas in general.
Today, pressure continues against a historically accurate Kokopelli. Instead, people expect to see the Fluteplayer, unaware of or perhaps indifferent to his true identity. Still fewer may know the existence of Kokopelmana at all.
Kokopelli May Not Have Played a Flute
It’s questionable if Kokopelli ever played the flute. Or if Kokopelmana played the flute, for that matter. Rather, it appears the genuine “Fluteplayer” was another being altogether. Due to a mix-up, possibly by anthropologists in the 20s, the musical being depicted on ancient rock art was syncretized with Kokopelli.
“First, it is important to note that most people who are aware that the symbol has Native roots seem to believe that it aligns with the Hopi katsina Kokopölö (or Kokopelli). However, to the Hopi, Kokopelli was a kachina deity considered to be the god of fertility. As such, Hopi people typically term flute players in rock art (an entirely separate concept) as maahu, ‘the cicada’1, or in some cases, lelenhoya (flute player), or Lelentiyo (flute boy), but the symbol is “not referred to as Kokopölö.”2 In other words, the Hopi people, to whom most people trace the concept of the “Kokopelli,” never associated the figure as having a form like the flute-playing “Kokopelli” we think of today,” wrote Shannon Burke in “The Commodified Kokopelli.”
While the original Kachinas could be depicted with an erect penis and a rattle, they may not have played a flute. In rituals, the man could go naked, fully exposed, according to a Hopi elder’s account. After the arrival of white colonizers, the tradition faded.
The Carrier of Seeds from the Previous World
According to Navajo Historian Wally Brown, the figure we know as Kokopelli was based on a man “who brought all of the seeds from the previous world into this world.” That’s why he often had a hunchback, carrying the seeds in his backpack, which are also the seeds of animal life. Symbolically, the seeds could be seen as carrying a meaning akin to that of ithyphallic images.
“Not only does he carry the vegetation, but he also brings the seeds of insects, birds, and animals. All these different lifeforms he brings his seedlings in his backpack,” said Brown.
As a guardian of insect life, it’s interesting to note that the Fluteplayer, Leelenhoya, or Paiyatuma, is compared to an insect, a cicada. Moreover, the words for “flute” and “cicada” are the same in modern Hopi. Possibly, the flute was related to the cicada’s late-summer music. The Hopi kachina has also been compared to “robber fly” insects.
“According to the lore of the desert, it was the humming sound of the cicada that kept the world warm enough for the maize to grow, and maize was extremely important to the Native Americans, for without corn there was no life. So the cicadas warmed the earth for the life-sustaining maize, and the buzzing sound that warmed the earth was said to come from their flute-shaped nose. In modern Hopi, the words for flute and cicada are the same, showing just how intertwined the two are,” shared Patheos author Jason Mankey.
Kokopelli’s Medicine Pipe
Moreover, this Navajo version of the deity is not blowing a flute, but a medicine pipe. As he plants the seeds, he blows “sacred smoke” over the seedlings and sings certain sacred words, songs, and prayers. As he nurtures the animals, he teaches them how to live in their homes on Earth.
“Kokopelli is a character that still dances in our ceremony as Dénéh [Diné], and he is also regarded as an actual human being,” explained Brown. “He’s not a god, he is just a person,” he continued, comparing him to the Spider Woman who taught people how to weave clothing and materials.
In contrast, Hopi oral traditions say the Kachinas were benevolent spiritual beings who emerged from the underground, helping the people learn survival skills. But after enemies attacked the Hopi and killed the Kachinas, the people began to impersonate them in elaborate masks and costumes. Another version says the Kachinas returned to the underworld when people took them for granted. As men perform in kachina regalia in underground chambers called kivas, the spirits enter their bodies for a time.
Video by Navajo Traditional Teachings:
