The Southwest Indians’ Humpbacked
Flute
Player, commonly known by the Hopi word "Kokopelli,"
usually appears on stone or ceramics or plaster as part of a galaxy of
ancient characters and symbols. On a steep canyon wall above the
Little Colorado river north of Springerville, Arizona, however, a
Kokopelli pecked into a basaltic boulder appears in absolute
isolation.
Against the black rock surface formed
by primal forces, this strange and lonely figure, with its apparent
mal-formed back and long
flute, seems to drift through the infinite
vastness of space, transcending time and place, sending his
plaintive music across the universe. There is a sense of
omnipresence, of the eternal. The early artist – probably a shaman,
or medicine man, seeking an entranceway to the spirit world – may
have understood a profound truth, and he may have intentionally used
the surface to express the universality of that truth.
Of course, he may have simply used the boulder’s surface as a
convenient place to peck a Kokopelli figure.
There is no way to know with certainty
what the artist had in mind, but his work can set your imagination
churning.
Kokopelli has stirred imaginations for a long time. Of the lexicon
of characters featured in the age-old religions, rituals, folk
tales, ceramics, rock art and murals of Southwestern Indians, there
are few more enduring than Kokopelli. He is so irresistibly
charismatic that he had been reinvented time and again for well over
1000 years by southwestern artists, craftsmen and storytellers. The
process continues to this day.
In the modern genre, he usually wears a kilt and sash and a
feathered headdress. Back arced forward like a rainbow, he plays his
ancient instrument. He dances solemnly. He graces paintings,
sculptures, ceramics, jewelry, textiles and books in galleries and
festivals in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and western Texas.
He is an icon of the region.
In earlier times, Kokopelli was far more than an icon. There is, in
fact, considerable evidence that he was an important deity to
Southwestern Indians. His images are among the most widely
distributed of any in the prehistoric and historic Indian sites of
the Southwest. Kokopelli may have been as important to the
Southwestern Indians as Abraham is to Jews or Paul, to Christians.
Ubiquitous as the figure is, the origins of Kokopelli as a deity and
the evolution of his role in Southwestern Indian life are difficult
if not impossible to reconstruct. It is like trying to assemble an
immense and mysterious jigsaw puzzle made up of a jumble of a few
distinguishable pieces, many indistinguishable pieces, innumerable
missing pieces, and numerous possibly unrelated pieces.
In classic form, a silhouetted and sometimes phallic Kokopelli
appears to either suffer a humped back or to carry a bulging pack.
He plays his flute like a New Orleans
jazz
musician plays a clarinet. He may be depicted as
walking to some now unknown destination, lying on his back, sitting
with crossed legs, dancing to a prehistoric beat, making love to a
woman, even perching on the head of another figure
He appears in many forms. In Galisteo
Basin rock art in New Mexico, for instance, he takes on the guise of
a humpbacked rabbit. At Sand Island, Utah, he appears as a
flute-playing mountain sheep. In rock art on West Mesa, near
Albuquerque, Kokopelli wears a headdress, necklaces and a kilt. On
rock art south of Holbrook, Arizona, he wears a kilt and sash. On a
prehistoric bowl from the Zuni reservation, he appears as an insect,
possibly the locust which led the Pueblo people’s mythological
emergence from the underworld onto the surface of the earth. On rock
art in the Arizona’s Petrified Forest and Canyon de Chelly and near
Moab, Utah, Kokopelli turns up with a bird for a head.
He is also represented in many styles. Unmistakable Kokopelli images
in rock art, for example, range from stick figures in Chaco Canyon
to spare, abstract stylizations in Colorado’s San Canyon to simple
outlines near Arizona’s Hardscrabble Wash to solid figures near
Velarde, New Mexico. Elegant Kokopelli images painted on ceramics
ten centuries ago by the Hohokam, a southern Arizona Pueblo culture,
have become the prototype for modern portrayals.
As indicated by his images,
Kokopelli seems to have played a featured role in numerous defining
moments of Southwestern Native American life. He leads processions
of people, perhaps on migrations. He participates with costumed
shaman figures in tribal rituals. He plays his flute for dances in
tribal ceremonies. He joins with other figures to illustrate tribal
myths. In hunting-magic scenes, he seeks to ensure success for men
carrying bows and, sometimes, lances. He impregnates women. He
participates in birthing scenes. Among ancient rain and water
symbols, he plays his flute to plead for moisture sufficient for his
tribe’s corn, beans and squash to grow.
On occasions, multiple Humpbacked Flute Players appear in a single
scene, perhaps seeking to redouble chances for fertility and
prosperity.
Kokopelli’s guises, styles and roles have mystified scholars for
decades. They have prompted divergent lines of research, given rise
to diverse theories, and led to some downright silly speculation.
Yet another layer of mystery about Kokopelli’s origin and evolution
lies in possible forerunners and derivatives.
One possible forerunner could have been simply flute players,
lacking hump or phallus, such as those which appear in Canyon de
Chelly rock art dating approximately 600 AD.
Another possible related figures includes a humpbacked, phallic
figure which is shown carrying a staff rather than playing a flute.
One such example was painted on a bowl fashioned by the Mimbres
Indians of Southwestern New Mexico some 900 to 1000 years ago.
Yet another possible forerunner includes humpbacked, phallic figures
which carry bows rather than
play
flutes. Such figures are painted on the wall of
Fire Temple in Mesa Verde National Park in Southwestern Colorado.
One of the more elaborate figures which could be a Kokopelli-type
derivative was pecked by an 18th century Navajo shaman into a canyon
wall at a sacred site in Northwestern New Mexico’s Largo drainage
system. Surrounded by other symbols chiseled into the rock, this
regal figure stands on muscled legs, wears a headdress and decorated
kilt, and is depicted holding a staff rather than playing a flute.
He bears, not a hump, but rather a rainbow-outlined pack adorned
with feathers and filled with seeds.
This site, like other rock art sites in the Largo Canyon complex, is
still revered by traditional Navajos. Vandals have defaced it in
some areas, an act akin to desecrating a church, a synagogue or a
mosque.
The relationships, if any, between Kokopelli and those figures which
feature only a hump or just a flute is not clear and may never be
clear.
The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which are available to us have
produced endless and sometimes emotional conjecture about
Kokopelli’s origin and meaning.
 One possibility is that
Kokopelli could have been an actual misshapen person who was widely
venerated for his power and wisdom. He could have been a young man,
burdened with a pack, traveling among pueblos, seeking a wife; he
played his flute to announce his mission. He could be a great
leader, like Moses, who guided his people in a migration to a new
homeland. He could have been a pochteca, a early bearer of gifts
from central Mexico.
One of the more exotic theories was mentioned by southwestern
Colorado authority Michael Claypool during a discussion several
years ago at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. He thinks that
origins of the figure could eventually be traced all the way to
Peru, where native traders carrying packs have long used flutes to
announce their arrival at native villages. An archaeologist friend
who has worked in Latin America tells me that Kokopelli-like figures
are common icons in prehistoric sites of Southern Mexico and Central
America.
While we may never know the origin or the full meaning of Kokopelli,
it is clear that he held high importance as a deity in the arid
American Southwest. His roles in scenes representing human
reproduction, crop growth and water suggest that the Southwestern
Indians associated him universally with fertility and prosperity.
His roles in hunting scenes, processions, rituals and ceremonies
suggest that the Indians connected him universally to their physical
and spiritual well being.
It is clear, too that the magic of Kokopelli is enduring. A few
summers ago, my wife and I came upon a dancing Kokopelli figure
pecked high on the sandstone canyon wall above the Chaco Canyon ruin
known as Kin Kletso. A thunderstorm rumbled threateningly overhead.
You could almost hear a plaintive and simple melody in the wind as
Kokopelli played his flute resolutely to plead for rain from the sky
above and to encourage the growth of crops of a long-vanished people
in the canyon bottom below.
There are many places to see Kokopelli
figures in rock art. Examples include West Mesa, across the Rio
Grande from Albuquerque; Canyon del Chelly, in northeastern Arizona;
Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico; and above the Little
Colorado River, near the Raven Site Ruin north of Springerville,
Arizona. Kokopelli figures appear occasionally on Indian pottery in
Southwestern Indian museums.
Dennis Slifer and James Duffield present the best overview of the
Humpbacked Flute Player and locations in their book Kokopelli.
Polly Schaafsma provides a good review of Southwestern rock art,
with various reference to Kokopelli, in her book Indian Rock Art
of the Southwest. Stephen W. Hill, author, and Robert B.
Montoya, illustrator, give a brief overview combined with excellent
Kokopelli-inspired illustrations in the book Kokopelli Ceremonies.
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