Kachina: Mudhead
Ceremonial figures, known as the Sacred Clown Kachina, or Koyemsi, are called Mudhead Kachina in English. Seen in most Hopi and Zuñi ceremonies, the Mudhead Kachinas play the role of entertainment and laughter at the dances. They drum, dance, play games and may act as announcers for events. They often give prizes or rewards for the winners in foot races and guessing games they organize. The term “Mudhead” comes from their masks which surround their heads and have mud applied to them.[1] Although the Mudheads look like creatures that might be found in a Star Wars episode on a distant planet, these Kachinas are purely Southwestern USA!
Family Nicknames
Our father had the quirky habit of giving his children nicknames. Often without rhyme or reason, he dubbed each child with a name that stuck, even if it were offensive and made little sense. The louder the protest, the more likely he was to repeat the name. He called me “George,” which was always a mystery to me. One of his most unusual nicknames was for our sister, Millie. She first spotted the Mudhead Kachinas as a teenager, while attending a dance at the Zuñi Pueblo. She wrote about the dancing kachinas and the prominent Mudhead with a flourish. Those letters home from summer camp must have fueled Dad’s nickname fire. As if the alliteration gave him license for a new moniker, he immediately nicknamed her “Millie Mudhead,” or simply Mudhead. Fortunately, she shed the nickname before college rolled around.
The Koyemsi Kachina
Most often in Hopi and Zuñi Pueblo dances, the Mudheads accompany other kachinas: they play games with the audience when the dancers hit a lull. In those moments of rest and preparation for the next dance steps, they create pantomime guessing games. They also get the audience to attempt to balance or juggle objects; if successful, the Mudheads hand out prizes of food or clothing to the crowd.
Mudhead kachinas are widely known as “Koyemsi.” However, Mudhead and Koyemsi (or Koyemshi) are technically nicknames used to describe a sacred, multidimensional figure with origins in the Zuñi Pueblo. The figure was later integrated into Hopi culture, due to early traders and anthropologists who popularized the term, while interacting with the Zuñi Puebloans. Koyemsi and Mudhead became the universally recognized names for this Sacred Clown, across the Southwest art market and Native American cultural studies.
Should a dancer show up to the ceremony without the proper mask, or if he is late in arriving, he can easily be handed an earthy Mudhead mask and required to don it immediately. The Mudhead Kachinas sometimes appear as a chorus on Hopi First Mesa and possibly other villages. The Mudhead songs are also sung in the Zuñi Pueblo.
As to physical appearance, the Mudhead figure wears a distinctive primal mask: it is a knobbed, round hood, usually made of fabric or leather, featuring bulbous nodules or “balls” on the top and sides of the head. The eye holes and mouth of the mask are rudimentary circular, donut-shaped rings that represent uniform, incomplete and embryonic states.[3] The Mudheads arms, mask and torso are coated in a layer of local reddish-brown clay or mud. The mud layer signifies their connection with the raw earth. Beyond the mask and headdress traditions, the Mudhead typically wear a simple kilt or a dark, woolen waist wrap. They also wear a native belt and bracelet, a colored kerchief around their necks and deerskin Kaibab moccasins or bare feet. Their clothing articles are always less elaborate than those of the other spirits, represented in the dance.
To get more granular about the naming of Kachinas (or Katsina), the traditional Hopi name for the figure, “Tachukti,” translates as with “Ball-on-his-Head.” The name “Mudhead” was the literal English description of the figure that the traders and outsiders spotted in the Hopi and Zuñi dances with their masked heads covered in mud. The cultural role of the Koyemsi is as dance assistants and “Clowns” in the ceremonial dances. The Mudhead is also a deeply religious and complex figure.[5] They are the Sacred Messengers in the ceremonies, who bridge the gap between the audience and the other visiting spirits.
They are also Pueblo teachers, interjecting humous, erratic, and clumsy interactions with the crowd. In essence the Mudhead and other Kachinas are all teaching the children and the community. They dance and remind them about proper social behavior, humility, and cooperation, which are the hallmarks of their Pueblos.
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References:
[1] https://kachina.us/mudhead.htm
[2] http://loxoco-facade.blogspot.com/2012/02/blog-post.html
[3] https://www.maskmuseum.org/mask/hopi-mudhead/
Henry E. Hooper 