Hopi Sösö’pa – Cricket Katsina Doll [SOLD]

James Kootshongsie is best known as Jimmie Koots.  He was born at Hopi Pueblo on the Third Mesa village of Hotevilla during the period of World War I.  At a very young age, he and many other Hopi children were removed from their homes and taken to government schools where they were to be stripped of their Hopi beliefs and heritage and assimilated into the White man's culture.  Koots survived the five long years at the Bureau of Indian Affairs School and then returned to his native village.

At age 22, Koots was again taken away from his native village and sent off to the Pacific to fight in World War II.  Following this war, he once again returned to the village of Hotevilla.  It was then that he discovered that the big oil companies and the government were colluding to remove the Hopi from their reservation because of the wealth of mineral resources—coal, gas, oil and Uranium.  He became an activist against strip mining and the big corporations.  As a result of his and many other's efforts, the Hopi retained their native land.

Jimmy Koots was among a group of Hopi who revived the ancient art of traditional Hopi Katsina carvings.  He was immensely popular in the 1960s and 1970s as a katsina doll carver.  His dolls were mostly sold in Santa Fe at a downtown shop called Rare Things by Dutton, a business that is now closed but was very active in the 1960s-1980s.  His carvings, although not signed, are so distinctive in appearance that they can be easily identified as his work.

This carving represents the Sösö’pa Katsina, also known as the Cricket Katsina.  Sösö’pa appears as a racer.  He whips opponent racers gently with yucca and rewards them with gifts such as piki bread.  He wears the traditional plaid man’s shoulder blanket as a kilt, has feathers or grass stalks for ears, and has his hands painted white.

Condition: very good condition with some abrasion to paint

Reference and Recommended Reading: Hopi Katsina: 1,600 Artist Biographies by Gregory and Angie Schaaf

Provenance: from the collection of a gentleman from California who purchased it in the mid-1980s from Rare Things by Dutton, a Santa Fe gallery.