Kokopelli, the fluteplayer, is one of the most popular icons that American culture has adopted from the Native peoples of North America. The Kokopelli name and image are everywhere, adorning everything from jewellery, welcome mats, T-shirts, and money clips to motels, freeway underpasses, nature trails, nightclubs, and string quartets. Kokopelli evokes mystery and wonder, ancient ceremonies and spirituality, Mother Earth and the purity of nature. But what exactly is Kokopelli? Just how Native American is the ubiquitous flute-player? In this readable and fascinating book, the distinguished Hopi scholar Ekkehart Malotki describes the development of the Kokopelli phenomenon in American mass culture from its beginning to Kokopelli's present status as pan-Southwestern icon. He explores the figure's connections with the Hopi kachina god Kookopolo and Maahu, the cicada, and discusses how this rock art image has been appropriated and misunderstood. Kokopelli sheds light on a little-understood aspect of Hopi culture and testifies to the continuing power of Native cultures to spark the popular imagination and interest of outsiders.
Ekkehart Malotki is a professor of languages at Northern Arizona University. His books include "Hopi Animal Tales" and "The Bedbugs' Night Dance" and "Other Hopi Tales of Sexual Encounter", both available from the University of Nebraska Press.
- ISBN10 0803232136
- ISBN13 9780803232136
- Publish Date 1 November 2000
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 January 2010
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Nebraska Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 177
- Language English