Deciphering Kokopelli: Masculinity in Commodified Appropriations of Native American Imagery
Kokopelli "the hump-backed fluteplayer" has become an icon of the Southwest as well as a metonym for the region's Native American cultures. Guided by the trope of the primitive, this essay analyzes contemporary Kokopelli imagery as a projection of Euro-American masculinist fantasies and as a contemporary commodity form, the cipher. Kokopelli imagery models a virile and promiscuous heterosexual masculinity while erasing its anatomical signs. It articulates intersections of gender, race, and culture that simultaneously highlight and obscure primitive masculinity and racial difference, enabling the use of Native American culture and spirituality to (re)vitalize Euro-American masculinity and promote (neo)colonial appropriations.
Keywords: Cipher; Commodification; Masculinity; Native American Culture; Primitive
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 September 2007
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content