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Kokopelli, most commonly referred to as The Flute Player has become as much an icon today as he was in southwest history. Kokopelli seems to be many things to many tribes, flute player, seducer of young women, fertility deity, trader, trickster, and rainmaker. There has been great speculation and little proof of the identity of Kokopelli. Whether he was an actual man or a symbol for a man or group of men is a mystery.
What is certain is that images of Kokopelli have been found in the petroglyphs (rock wall carvings) and pictographs (color stained rock wall) of the four corners area of the United States. The four corners are formed by the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. They were home to the Anasazi tribes who have become the modern day Pueblo Indians of Mogollon, Sinagua, Hohokam, Hopi, and Zuni to name a few. Kokopelli still appears in Hopi and Zuni rituals to bring the rain, seeds and crops which are essential to their survival. The Hopi believe that Kokopelli was a rainmaker and the flute was the instrument in which to call it forth. Kokopelli like images have also discovered in northern Mexico leading to the belief that he may have been an Aztec or Toltec.
Traditionally Kokopelli was depicted as a severely humpback, wild ‘haired’, knobby-kneed flute player, usually facing skyward and having phallic endowment. It is debated whether he was physically challenged or if he was a traveling trader and his hump was really a bag of wares that he carried. The Hopi believed that his bag was full of buckskin from which he made moccasins for the young maidens he planned to seduce. Another myth is that the bag is full of babies for Kokopelli to give the maidens hmm…Kokopelli’s crazy hair was probably an Aztec or Mayan feather headdress used to make an impressive appearance for the pueblo people.
In popular myth Kokopelli was believed to have traveled from village to village playing his flute to attract female attentions. He was welcomed into the tribes for trade and into the sleeping places of the women, for it meant blessings to the tribe for its women to be impregnated by his seed. He was an exotic stranger who charmed all he encountered, thus his reputation as the trickster.
Above all the Kokopelli symbol is an icon of play and whimsy, abundance and sexuality. He is an image of the musician, the dancer, the flirt and the bringer of great fortune. He is a ladies man and a man’s man. It’s no wonder that he holds a sense of wonder and mystery in our minds.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
The ideas described in this article were compiled from two fascinating sources:
Kokopelli ceremonies
By Stephen W. Hill with Illustrations by Robert B. Montoya
&
Cuckoo for Kokopelli
By Dave Walker
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