A Guide to Hopi Katsina Dolls

Hopi katsinam and the dolls that represent them have fascinated Indian arts trader and author Kent McManis since he was a little boy. In A Guide to Hopi Katsina Dolls, McManis shows how the eternal spirit of the katsinam manifests itself in the works of some of the most skilled and inspired Hopi carvers working today.

For the Hopi-a communal farming people who reside in stone and adobe villages on and near three Mesas in northeastern Arizona-everything in life is imbued with the sacred. The Hopi attribute their very survival as a people to the katsinam, inhabitants of the spiritual realm who convey prayers to the gods and respond with blessings in the form of rain, bountiful harvests, and plentiful game.

In A Guide to Hopi Katsina Dolls, more than seventy of the most prominent and intriguing katsinam who appear during the Hopi ceremonial year are described and depicted in full color photographs of both contemporary and historic katsina dolls.