Hopi Cottonwood Carving of a Chusona or Snake Dancer [SOLD]

This carving of a Hopi Snake Dancer dates to the mid-twentieth century. The carver remains anonymous but would not likely have admitted carving it at the time anyway. Very few carvers today will carve these figures and it was even more restrictive a century ago. This is an excellent example of a Hopi Snake Dancer.

The carver presented a slight forward leaning figure as if the dancer was in motion. In his left hand, he has already picked up a snake from the pile of snakes writhing on the ground. The feathers in the right hand are used to rub the snake to soothe it so that it does not coil. It cannot strike if it cannot coil.

The dancer's face and body are painted black, and the arms and legs are skin color. The kilt he wears has a painted snake encircling the center.

The Snake Dancer is one among several non-katsinas which are carved that are categorized as katsina dolls. Others frequently carved are the Apache Mountain Spirit Dancers, the Butterfly Girl, Two-Horned Priests, and a Hopi maiden.

At the end of the nineteenth century, very few tourists had ever seen the Hopi Snake Dance; however, many had heard tales of a dramatic ritual that only occurred every other year in isolated Indian villages in Arizona. This religious ceremony that Victorian society found so horrifying-and so fascinating-soon grew into a symbolic representation of "Indian Country" in the Southwest. The Passenger Department of the Santa Fe Railway played upon sensationalist, tourist visions of American Indians when it published Walter Hough's travel guide The Moki Snake Dance. It was described as "A popular account of that unparalleled dramatic pagan ceremony of the Pueblo Indians of Tusayan, Arizona, with incidental mention of their life and customs."

Condition: very good condition with glue repairs to both feet and left arm, very minor paint loss

Provenance: this Hopi Cottonwood Carving of a Chusona or Snake Dancer is from the collection of a client

Recommended Reading: The Moki Snake Dance by Walter Hough, Ph.D, Passenger Department Santa Fe Route, 1898 (Reprinted by Avanyu Publishing in 1992)

TAGS: Katsina Dolls, Hopi Pueblo, Hopi Kachina Dolls