Jemez Pueblo Pęk’ats’ana (Deer) Katsina Doll [SOLD]

This Jemez Pueblo Pęk’ats’ana (Deer) Katsina Doll is carved from wood, probably pine or other hard wood.  It is a one-piece cylinder with antlers and mouth added as attachments.  There is cotton attached on the head of the doll, perhaps to simulate eagle down feathers that are used on the actual dancer.  Down feathers are also attached to each horn branch.  White clouds outlined in black are at the top of the mask and black triangular eyes are painted over a turquoise-color mask.  A channel is carved between the mask and body, sufficiently deep to permit rawhide to be tied around the neck.  The back of the mask is painted white with black designs that resemble corn stalks and rain.

Regular Katsina masks are made of buckskin or cowhide.  As a black pigment, corn rust and a black stone from the mountains are used.  Micaceous hematite is used on masks to make them shine.  For turquoise or blue-green pigment the boiled gum of piñon is used; for red pigment, a red hematite, which is also smeared on the face by hunters. Across the bridge of the nose and under the eyes of masked dancers is painted as usual a streak of black paint.  Mask beaks are made of gourd.  Eagle feathers, tail feathers and downy feathers, are by far the commonest used on masks.

In general, a man keeps his katsina mask in his own house, unless he is living in his wife’s house or is unmarried, when he keeps them in his mother’s house.  The impersonator of the Deer Katsina keeps his own mask, which is buried (the mask proper, not the horns) in the north, at his death.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: from the collection of Chuck and Jan Rosenak, authors of books on Navajo folk art.

Recommended Reading: The Pueblo of Jemez by Elsie Clews Parsons, Published for the Department of Archaeology, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts by the Yale University Press. 1925.