Recently I was on a website for eco-friendly photo albums, and noticed a category there which intrigued me. The category was entitled "Kokopelli". After doing some research on the Internet, I find it rather remarkable that the handcrafters on the Indonesian island of Bali, where many of these photo albums are made, know of that symbol, which I knew nothing about, though I've vacationed a number of times in the desert Southwest.
The name comes from two words from both Hopi and Zuñi - "koko", a deity, and "pelli", meaning "desert robber fly". A more recent etymology shows that it actually means "kachina hump". At least 400 years ago, the Spanish explorers came across the Hopi, and learned of the god with this name, and the Hopi version, as a result, has stuck.
It appears he has been showing up on pictographs and petroglyphs in that part of the country for quite some time, as some of the figures have been dated to around 1000 A.D. Some pottery has also been found with Kokopelli on it, and has been dated to somewhere around 750-850 A.D. He's become a symbol of the Southwest in general in recent years, and has been finding his way onto baseball caps, keychains, T-shirts, etc. For certain he's part of the cultures of the Hopi, Pueblo and Zuñi, and good evidence he was part of the ancient Anasazi and Hohokam cultures. Also, a similar figure has been found in artifacts of the Mississippian culture of the Southeastern USA. So, it appears he's gotten around quite a bit through antiquity.
Today, a bicycle trail between Grand Junction, CO, and Moab, UT, called the Kokopelli Trail is open to riders. He always is shown with something in his mouth which appears to be a flute, but some have surmised it is actually a blowgun, or even a ceremonial pipe for tobacco. Additionally, he's been associated with many rituals and activities down through the centuries by various tribes. To the Hopi, he takes on the job of the stork in delivering babies to women, but for other tribes, he's part of marriage rituals, chasing winter away, bringing rain, even seeds. He seems to be associated with a number of animals as well. Some examples of this are snakes, lizards, insects, rams and deer.
Jim Green lives in Rockford, IL, and owns [http://forestcityphotoalbums.com], which offers handcrafted, eco-friendly photo albums [http://www.forestcityphotoalbums.com] at very reasonable prices.
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