Hopi Kachina, Kokopelli the Fertility God with Erection

Hopi carver, unknown

Circa 1950 | Wood | Item 2101

This kachina is called Kokopelli, or the Fertility God. It is made of wood and is painted with commercial paints. He is not a novelty, but an important kachina with the powers of fertility. It’s not a wonder, then, why he has an erection as a part of his being and/or powers.

This kachina is the true kokopelli. The more famous Kokopelli as a hunched back flute player is how most people think of this deity. Below is an exert from a Thesis project written by Shannon Burke titled The Commodified Kokopelli. Here Ms. Burke explains how Kokopelli was miss-named.

Most of us from the Southwest don’t hesitate to label the popular flute player symbol as the “Kokopelli.” Because, well, why would anyone question it? It’s the name given to the symbol on Wikipedia, in trinket shops, and in just about every situation you may encounter (outside of scholarship devoted to the symbol itself).

This was the experience that I had—growing up in Phoenix and never questioning the Kokopelli at all—and was thus shocked when I discovered that the current notion of the Kokopelli is based on a misunderstanding of its name, meaning, and association.

In other words, the “Kokopelli” name has been wrongly attributed to a flute player symbol from Indigenous rock art, resulting in an extensive misunderstanding impacting not only the Southwest region but other regions and nations as well. It seems hard to believe that people could go their whole lives donning Kokopelli stickers on their water bottles, looking at Kokopelli decorations in their homes every day, and drinking Kokopelli wine without ever knowing that they are a part of a massive misunderstanding.

So, you ask, how did this happen? Where does this mis-association come from? Well, the journey leading to this misunderstanding is a little complicated, but it’s worth understanding as it offers insight into the complexities of the Kokopelli symbol.

First, it is important to note that most people who are aware that the symbol has Native roots seem to believe that it aligns with the Hopi katsina Kokopölö (or Kokopelli). However, to the Hopi, Kokopelli was a kachina deity considered to be the god of fertility. As such, Hopi people typically term flute players in rock art (an entirely separate concept) as maahu, ‘the cicada’, or in some cases, lelenhoya (flute player), or Lelentiyo (flute boy), but the symbol is “not referred to as Kokopölö.” In other words, the Hopi people, to whom most people trace the concept of the “Kokopelli,” never associated the figure as having a form like the flute-playing “Kokopelli” we think of today.

Alph Secakuku, the first Hopi to officially comment on this misunderstanding in his 1995 book, unequivocally states:

“Kokopölö is a katsina with a hump-back. He is not a Flute player, though he has been mistakenly referred to as such.”

Additionally, according to expert Richard Rogers, Anasazi State Park in Boulder, Utah, “presented a year-long exhibit, created with help from members of the Hopi Flute clan, focused on correcting the misidentification of flute players as Kokopelli.³” Most of the contemporary representations of the Kokopelli “are based on the stick-figure image of flute players from Hohokam ceramics,” which is only “marginally related to Kokopelli katsinas or the prehistoric flute players seen in rock art.”⁴ In simpler terms, even though most people seem to believe that the ubiquitous ‘Southwestern’ flute player is called the Kokopelli due to its connection to the Hopi Katsina Kokopölö, this is not the case.

Perhaps the most important distinction between the current conception of the Kokopelli as the flute player and the Hopi fertility deity is that modern representations lack the key feature of the Hopi fertility god, his erect penis. The lack of phallus can be seen on virtually every commercialized Kokopelli symbol—from logos like Kokopelli Beer Company to tourist attractions like the World’s Largest Kokopelli.

Written by: Shannon Burke