Contemporary Hemis Katsina Doll Carving [SOLD]

The Hemis Katsina is probably the most beautiful and best known of all Hopi Katsinas. His elaborate headdress, called a tableta, is partly responsible for his beauty. His body is painted with black corn smut with light colored half-moons on the chest. He wears a kilt over which hang evergreen boughs. A Douglas fir ruff is wrapped around his neck. The tableta is painted with phallic and cloud symbols and capped with feathers. He appears in the Home Dance or Niman Ceremony. No other katsina, neither clowns nor side dancers, appears with the line of Hemis except the Hemismana.

It is interesting to note that at Hopi, they refer to the Hemis Katsina as having come from the Rio Grande Jemez Pueblo of New Mexico. At Jemez Pueblo, they refer to a similar dance as a Hopi dance.

This representation of a Hemis Katsina is a contemporary carving from the last 20 years or so but made in the likeness of an earlier katsina doll.  It is nicely rendered and in very good condition. 

Provenance: from a gentleman in California.

Recommended Reading:  Following the Sun and Moon: Hopi Kachina Tradition by Alph Secakuku