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Our Southwest is a veritable treasure chest of interesting things made
by clever Indian craftsmen. Here and there, at Indian trading posts or
Indian roadside stands along the way, among the rugs, sashes, pottery,
and silver and turquoise jewelry, you will find Kachina dolls. Not too
many. Up until a few years ago they were quite scarce in the trading
posts, but could be bought at the various Hopi pueblos, where the best
ones are made. While they were originally made for their little girls,
as stated in the preface, they produced even more of them when it was
discovered that tourists prized them. And like everything else, someone
saw a chance to earn a dollar and started to manufacture them. Some
years ago the Japanese even went so far as to make them of papier-mache.
Many of them are machined and given a quick coat of paint. But you can
still buy good Kachina dolls both on the mesas and at trading posts.
All in all the Hopi-made dolls are good, and usually when you find one a
bit worn, with a cord around its neck, you can figure that at one time
it adorned a pueblo wall. The Hopi Kachina makers take great pride in
their work. Their dolls are made out of cottonwood roots, which gives
them that sort of rough texture that is pleasing to the eye. Some of the
very old dolls have cloth and buckskin clothing to make them more
realistic, but for the most part they are made entirely of wood with the
exception of feathers and fluffs, as shown in the following pages.
As mentioned before, there are about 250 different Kachinas, but the
Hopi do not make that many different dolls. There are certain Kachinas
that lend themselves better to carved dolls, and it is with these that
we will deal.
Years ago, when starting out boys and girls in whittling, I made it a
practice to give them Kachina dolls to whittle, for various reasons. It
acquainted them with the feel of wood and the meaning of grain. It
taught them how to sharpen a knife, and how to use it. And best of all,
they whittled figures without having to worry about human faces, which
are the bugaboo of all whittling novices, and a lot of others, too.
This booklet will mainly show how Kachina dolls are whittled and
painted, and to what use they can be put. This is not an ethnological
thesis, but is written for the craft-minded who like to whittle, and who
like Kachina dolls. I do not imagine that anyone will make all of the
objects listed and described, but there may be one or more of them that
you will enjoy making.
The first thing you will need is a piece of wood. Since it would be
rather difficult to obtain cottonwood roots, our next best bet is a
piece of straight-grained soft wood. I have used sections of green,
knot-free basswood, willow, and poplar saplings or branches with good
results. A piece of wood about 1½ inches in diameter is of a proper size
to start out with. The green wood whittles easily and, due to the short
lengths and deep cuts, it is not likely to check. And of course it is
already round.
Also, white pine, sugar pine, and basswood can usually be bought at a
lumber yard or millwork shop. It should be cut in rectangular sections
and then rounded.
Then, of course, you will need a knife that holds an edge. A good
quality of pocket knife is best, and all the whittling I have ever done
has been with a small blade, from 1¼ to 1½ inches long. As the knife
comes from the store it is not sharp enough for whittling. So get a
small abrasive stone, and a piece of leather to strop it on, and sharpen
it until you cannot see the edge; as long as you can see a “white” line
or spot on the edge, your knife is not sharp. Thereafter, keep it sharp
at all times.
You will also need sandpaper to sand down the knife cuts in the wood.
Now for the part that worries most beginners: painting the dolls. If you
have a fairly steady hand, and use a good brush, this should not be too
much of a problem. I have often said that it a person can pare a potato
without wasting it, and can write fairly well, he or she can make a
Kachina doll.
We use water colors for painting. That is what the Hopi use, and water
colors are not so messy. While any good brand of water colors will do
the trick, you will have the best success with poster or show-card
colors. They are opaque and cover better than transparent water colors.
Although many of the old Kachina makers use brushes made out of yucca
leaf stems, chewed and trimmed to the sizes required, you can pick up a
couple or three small brushes that will do a better job. Sable-hair
brushes are best, but also more expensive.
Painting the dolls is not as difficult as one may think. Remember—you
don’t have to paint faces, and the masks are all more or less abstract
or symbolic in design. And furthermore you don’t have to do any shading
or blending. It is all flat work.
There are two methods of painting. Most of the old-time Kachina makers
give the entire doll a coat of white paint first, and the rest is
painted over that. But usually, with good poster colors to work with, it
is easier to lay out and paint each color directly on the bare wood. The
colors dry rather rapidly and, if used rather thick (not too much
water), they will not be apt to run or bleed where colors overlap. So
don’t let the painting stop you. I have seen cub scouts make some very
nice looking dolls.
The Indian does nothing to preserve the painted surface and the water
colors are apt to smudge and wear off. On the other hand, a glossy
surface on a doll looks awful, and is not in character. So we suggest
that you use a light spray coat or two of Krylon, or Spray-fix, or any
other crystal-clear spray, such as come in bomb cans. Krylon is a
crystal-clear plastic spray, and Spray-fix is a fixative (in a bomb can)
such as is used by artists to prevent smudging of pencil, charcoal, or
pastel drawings. But whatever you use to preserve the water color, it
should be “water white” and should not be sprayed on to impart a shiny
surface, except where stated otherwise in the following pages.
Naturally, questions arise as to where one can get ideas for more
difficult kinds of Kachina dolls, or Kachina costumes. Here are a couple
of good books which contain such information: Hopi Kachinas, by Edward
Kemrard; Ceremonial Costumes of the Pueblo Indians, by Virginia
Roediger.
Moreover, Kachina dolls are shown from time to time in Arizona Highways
Magazine and there are many crayon drawings of Kachinas, made by a Hopi
Indian, in the 1899-1900 Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology.
[Illustration: PALAH’IKO MANA]
[Illustration: HEMIS]
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[Illustration: PAK IOKWICK]
[Illustration: MUDHEAD]