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Cultural Implications

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A modern, commercialized Kokopelli figure

The construction of the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880s brought about the rise of Southwestern Indigenous arts and crafts as commodities.[1] This commodification was the result of the growing tourist industry in the Southwest and the appeal of directly purchasing artwork from Indigenous makers.[1] Kokopelli represents these commercial facets of the Southwest, and his humpbacked, flute-playing figure can be found on a variety of merchandise and marketing products.

The commodification of Kokopelli represents cultural appropriation – a single element from a single Indigenous culture is appropriated and misrepresented to stand for an abundance of unique Indigenous nations, cultures, and identities.[2] The cultural appropriation of the hyper-sexualized Kokopelli ties in with the practice of “othering” in the United States, in which the white hegemony romanticizes the pre-European contact “primitive other.” The 1900s saw a rise in this form of cultural appropriation.[2] Also, in this process, the true cultural meaning and value of Kokopelli is lost, because it has been replaced by an Anglo-modified, distorted version of itself.

Scholars argue that on a sociological level, Kokopelli represents the tension between the civilized masculinity of Anglo-America and the primitive masculinity of the “other."[2] In the process of “othering,” the primitive masculinity of Kokopelli is projected onto Indigenous males as a single entity and highlights sexual virility and immorality. The contemporary iconography of Kokopelli is that of a castrated flute-player, and with dismissal of pre-existing cultural connotations, his commercial abstraction represents the function of neo-colonialism in modern, Anglo-American society.[2]

  1. ^ a b Tisdale, Shelby J. (1996). "Southwestern Indian Arts and Crafts as Commodities: Introduction". Journal of the Southwest. 38 (4): 387–394. ISSN 0894-8410.
  2. ^ a b c d Rogers, Richard A. (2007-9). "Deciphering Kokopelli: Masculinity in Commodified Appropriations of Native American Imagery". Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. 4 (3): 233–255. doi:10.1080/14791420701459715. ISSN 1479-1420. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)