kachina

[kuh-chee-nuh]

noun

any of various ancestral spirits deified by the Hopi Indians and impersonated in religious rituals by masked dancers.
a Hopi religious ritual at which such masked dancers perform.
a masked dancer impersonating such a spirit at a Hopi religious ritual.

kachina doll.

Also katcina, katchina.

Origin of kachina

1885–90; < Hopi ḳacína < Keresan (Santa Ana) k̉â˙cina (or a cognate word)

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for kachina

Historical Examples of kachina

The name of this Kachina was Hair Eater, and he was supposed to cut off the hair if he beat the boy, but he never did beat him.
The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi
Hattie Greene Lockett
The ruins about Kishyuba, connected with the Kachina people, also belong to Tusayan.
Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895
Jesse Walter Fewkes

British Dictionary definitions for kachina

kachina

noun

any of the supernatural beings believed by the Hopi Indians to be the ancestors of living humans

Word Origin for kachina

from Hopi qačina supernatural

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012