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.