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- 220928-02 Hopi Eototo Kachina / Katsina by Leon Dallas
220928-02 Hopi Eototo Kachina / Katsina by Leon Dallas
16.25" h
Leon began carving kachinas full-time as an adult. He has developed a distinctive style that features rich colors and shading on his figures. His attention to detail is shown not only in his exquisite carving, but also in the costume and accouterments of the kachina.
He has said that the Kachinas reflect his Hopi heritage in two ways; first from the way that they appear and also with their associated meanings. Leon feels that the Hopi people are an intrinsically artistic culture.
He typically signs his kachinas on the bottom. Leon has a large extended family of carvers, including his brother Eugene Dallas.
Eototo Kachina
Eototo is the chief of all kachinas and knows all of the ceremonies. He is the spiritual counterpart of the village chief and as such is called "father" of all the kachinas. He controls the seasons and is sometimes called the husband of Hahai-i Wuhti.
During the Powamu or Bean Dance on Third Mesa, he conducts an elaborate ceremony with his lieutenant, Aholi. He draws cloud symbols in corn flower on the ground pointing into the village.
Aholi places his ceremonial staff on these and roars out his call. Then they both proceed onward toward the village. This is designed to draw the clouds and moisture into the pueblo.
Eototo "goes to the north end of the kiva, rubs a handful of sacred meal to the north side of the hatchway and then pours a little water into the kiva, which is caught up in a bowl by a man standing on a ladder." This offering to the north is then repeated to the other three cardinal directions. Water and the fruitfulness of the earth are thus what his appearance at Powamu promises to the Hopi.
Aholi and Eototo kachinas went to the Red Land of the south and brought back squash, "after long wanderings" an echo of the legend on which Powamu itself is based. Eototo does, in fact, appear to derive from the red land of the south, from the primordial Aztec god of creation, Ometeotl, a version of whose name he appears to have adopted.
Ometeotl was personified in the legendary figure of Quetzalcoatl, one of Mesoamerica's most popular gods. Ometeotl controlled the rain as Tlaloc, the sun as Tonatiuh, the corn as the Mother Goddesses. To the Hopi, as Eototo, he brings the "gifts of nature" back to the villages at Powamu.