Adobe Gallery Blog
Hopi Pueblo Poli Mana Katsina Doll from 1937 - C4045A
As in many instances, there is a male and a female version of this katsina. The Polior Butterfly Katsina is the male and the Poli Mana is the female. They always appear together but only in the kiva during the Night Dance. In most instances, the male version of a katsina is better known than the female version, but in this instance, the female is better known, perhaps because of her elaborate face and headdress.
According to Barton Wright "He (Poli) seems to appear solely on Third Mesa and may actually be a development of that Mesa. His partner (Poli Mana) looks almost exactly like the Palhik Mana but does not serve quite the same function. The female katsina partner is portrayed by a man unlike the regular Palhik Mana who is a woman. The steps and postures of the Poli Katsina and Mana, in fact the entire form of the dance, are very much like that of the more common social Butterfly Dance." Wright, 1973
Barton Wright further states that the katsina is a continuum, beginning with the Poli Mana at one end and finishing with the Hopi Salako Mana at the other. Somewhere in between lies the Palhik Mana. This hypothetical continuum relates only to appearance.
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