Angak'china - Long-Haired Kachina

[Dave Shaddix]

The Long-haired Kachina is one of the most pervasive of all kachinas. It is danced from the Rio Grande to the Hopi Mesas in almost the same form. Their purpose is to bring rain, and it is said that they seldom dance without the appearance of a soft gentle rain to help the crops grow.

They appear in a group and sing a very melodious song which may be one of the reasons that they are such favorites. They are often used for the Niman Kachina on First Mesa coming with the Kocha Mana. In fact they have danced in late August on First Mesa in direct contradiction to the feeling that only Masau'u can be danced out of season. Probably this was due to the presence of the Tewa people who do not have a closed kachina season.

More on flickr

Edited June 2, 2011 by Rufus
Indexed

[meschepers]

This is INCREDIBLE. My grandfather's cousin was married to Tony Hillerman, a best selling, award winning mystery author who set most of his books in the area of Arizona, New Mexico that Kachinas are from. This looks great and I would LOVE to see some more Kachinas from you.

[XimenaPaulina]

Very interesting build Dave! Nice historical background info and I would assume you captured the overall look of a Kachina in this creation of yours. Great job!

[Flare]

Great work, and a good history lesson as well

[vlai23]

Wow, this (and your others on flickr) are extremely stunning. I grew up in Phoenix & have always been struck by Hopi Kachinas, from being creeped out by them as a small child. Your MOCs are much better than the "authentic Navajo (?!) kachinas" I recently saw in some catalog, haha. These look like the real thing and belong in the Heard Museum! :)

[Big Cam]

Very impressive, it's much larger than I first realized. Counting studs helped me there.

I'd keep that built.

[Legostein]

Hello!

That's a great sculpture! Attaching an agled head to the main torso is quite challenging I guess. The hair decoration using the new 1x2 clip plates works quite decently here.

Cheers,

~ Christopher

[Zepher]

That's awesome. It's nice that you included the sutds, and the coloring is really bright and exciting.