Kokopelli

Library Journal

K-Gr 2-Kokopelli, a figure associated with ancient Southwestern pottery paintings and rock carvings of a flute player with a hump or bag of seeds on his back, has been appropriated by the purveyors of tourist items such as mugs, welcome mats, T-shirts, and money clips. His current incarnation as a Native American icon appears to be an amalgam of several different characters depicted by prehistoric pueblo-dwelling cultures, sanitized by Anglos who disapproved of his rapacious sexual appetite. Into this m lange steps Haley, with her rambling account of how the First People were led to the surface of the earth by a cicadalike Kokopelli. She seems to weave a variety of legends from Southwestern peoples into her narrative. It is unfortunate that she fails to explain how she came to mingle Grandmother Spider or Salt Man and Salt Woman with Kokopelli and, since she doesn't cite her source materials, readers may be confused by the resultant hodgepodge. The artwork is frequently arresting, but the creation mythlike story is sketchy and unsatisfying, and the lack of documentation in a book that the author seems to suggest is based on scholarly research is a glaring flaw.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.