Koshari
Keresan Pueblos · numen · Keresan Pueblos traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Koshari is the primordial clown of the Keresan world, made by the Corn Mother Iatiku and, in the Acoma origin myth, endowed with the singular nature of knowing everything and feeling no shame. From this first Koshari descends the Koshari clown society, whose painted, black-and-white-striped members accompany the katsina at the dances. Their sacred office is the license of reversal: they mock the solemn, invert the ordinary, break the rules of propriety, and by this transgression they instruct, purge, and bring fertility and rain. The word thus names at once the mythic first clown and the living society that continues him, and the clowns are understood as intermediaries between the people and the katsina.
Parentage
- parent: IatikuStirling, BAE Bulletin 135 (1942), pp. 34-37. (primary)
Domains
- ritual
- fertility
Powers
- instructs and sustains through licensed comic reversal
- accompanies and manages the katsina in their comings
Epithets
- Koshari — the first clown, made to know everythingStirling, BAE Bulletin 135 (1942), p. 34. (primary)
Relations
- parent: IatikuStirling, BAE Bulletin 135 (1942), pp. 34-37. (primary)
Sources
- Koshari is the primordial sacred clown made by Iatiku, said to know everything and be without shame, from whom the Koshari clown society descends.: Stirling, M. W., Origin Myth of Acoma, BAE Bulletin 135 (1942), pp. 34-37. (primary)
- The Koshari clowns attend the katsina and exercise ritual license of inversion and mockery at the dances.: Parsons, E. C., Pueblo Indian Religion (1939), vol. 1, pp. 130-135. (secondary)