wupamo

Updated: May 27, 2025

The fragment in question is of ancient ware, resembling the so-called orange type of pottery, and is apparently a part of the neck of a vase. The figure represents Wupamo, the Great-cloud katcina, and is marked like the doll of the same as it appears in the Powamû or February celebration at Walpi.

Jesse Walter Fewkes - Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American: Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,: 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898,: pages 519-744

While there may be some doubt of the validity of my identification, yet, taken in connection with the fragment of a vase with the face of Wupamo, I think there is no doubt that the katcina cult was practiced at Awatobi.

Jesse Walter Fewkes - Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American: Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,: 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898,: pages 519-744