Who is Kokopelli?

This was sent to me in email a several months ago and sorry
it took so long to get it posted online.

Kokopelli is a flute player, a vagabond with a pack on his back, a lover,
a coward, and an overused image of the southwest art culture,
depending on which opinion you choose to accept.
His figure appears in Hohokam and Fremont petroglyphs, and the
stories of his wanderings are many. Some say he is not a flute player
at all, but an image of a traveling man. They say that the stick he
holds is not a flute at all, but rather a cane for traveling with. Some
say that the stick is to hold a bag over his shoulder, but this would be
highly uncommon for an indigenous person to travel with such a pack.
Most Fremont, Hohokam, and Anasazi drawings and historical finds
would indicate a 'tump' line (a band running over the forehead, to the
top of the bag or basket, leaving the hands free) or a dog pack.
His name most likely is an amalgam of Hopi and Zuni word for
a god, "Koko", and the word for an insect, "pelli". Some believe he
was a black man who led the Spanish through the Southwest in their
search for Cibola. Some Kokopelli figures on rocks are highly phallic,
while others do not contain such embellishments. Many petroglyphs
did not originally contain phalluses, but were later added by
Spanish conquistadors, setting an early trend for graffiti. However the
origin of his extremity is from indigenous cultures, not from
the Spanish. Many cultures have believed that hunchbacks were
fertility symbols, and this furthers that idea. In any event, Kokopelli
was always welcome at corn time, or when the men left for long periods,
so long as the men did not know he was lurking about.....
Nevertheless, his mystical and mythical figure has spawned many legends,
most of them contemporary and to be taken with a grain of salt.
Only the Pueblo People have the original stories of this legendary
person, although many books have been written about him and his
prowess with the female gender. Regardless of the cultural view
of the Native flute, it seems to always be seen as a means of winning
over a woman's heart. Many would say that the flute still holds that power today.







Page Created by: Lonewolf