Flower World Concepts in Hopi Katsina Song Texts

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper explores the idea that the Flower World references the moral imperatives that need to be followed to live the corn lifeway. The Flower World describes the perfect life where people live communally, sharing and caring for each other, and, in turn, the rains come and all life is perpetuated. I explore how this idea is embedded in the words, phrases and grammatical constructions in the texts of katsina songs of the Hopi, a Uto-Aztecan speaking people living in northeastern Arizona. Song texts are a particularly appropriate source for further understanding of the concept of the Flower World since Uto-Aztecan speakers equate flowers with song, both of which connote the beauty of the perfect world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Flower World: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23093