Earth Serpents: Mimesis, Mastery, and Ancestral Memory on the Colorado Plateau

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Polly and Curtis Schaafma have been instrumental in identifying primary archaeological tenets associated with the origin of the Pueblo Kachina Cult. In this paper I revisit key ethnohistorical and archaeological findings of the origins of the Pueblo Kachina Cult and "Snake Dance" (Tsu’tiki or Tsu’tiva). Utilizing a comparative ethnoarchaeological lens, I examine complimentary geological, archaeological, and ethnohistoric, and ethnographic explanations of Hopi origins and earth changes on the Little Colorado River. Finally, I present preliminary theoretical considerations about ancestral and earth memory, mastery and mimesis as foundations of Hopi and Paiute ritual performances in relation to earth birth and human origin narratives.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23227