Naha, Rainy – 10″ Wide Jar with Male and Female Salako Katsinas

10"w x 6"h

$ 2,400.00

This large jar by Rainy Naha is intricately designed and painted.  This jar has a wide shoulder and a sloping side.  It is painted with a male Salako Katsina on one side, and a female Salako on the other.

“The Hopi Salako Taka towers seven or eight feet tall.  It is a shoulderless figure that bows and dips as he moves in a most graceful manner. He is always accompanied by his sister, the Salako Mana, as well as Hahai-i Wuhti and the Tukwinong Kachinas.  The two Salakos are distinguishable only by a few details. The male has a pink face, earrings that are pendant eagle plumes, and the turquoise-colored moccasins of the men.  The Hopi Salako Mana represents the Corn Maiden and is believed to direct the clouds to the Hopi mesas. She has terraced bodies representing rain clouds on her head. The Hopi Shalako Mana always appears with her brother, Shalako Taka (Sa’lakwtaqa).

The two Salako figures are tightly painted and note how the feathers on each tablita is a version of her own feather signature!  Separating the two figures is a panel Rainy described as “the Dance Shawl”.  Each of the squares has a different design from classic Hopi-Tewa pottery.  Note the very intricate checkerboard, and rain designs, along with all the various colors!  So why the Awatovi designs? Rainy’s mother, Helen “Feather Woman” Naha, lived on a ranch in the Jeddito Valley, below the Awatovi Ruins and Helen was the first revivalist of their black and white pottery.  Rainy has continued this revival with her innovative designs.  The jar is painted with various clay slips, including bee-weed, which is black.  It was traditionally fired and it is signed on the bottom with a feather and “Rainy”.  Rainy has won numerous awards for her pottery at Santa Fe Indian Market and the Heard Market and her work continues to be a creative inspiration in Hopi-Tewa pottery.  The last photo is one that Rainy send me of the jar in process (before it was fired, while it was being painted).

In stock