In Hopi culture, the spirit beings associated with messengers and ceremonial dancers are called kachinas, or katsinam.
Kachinas are supernatural beings in the religious traditions of the Hopi and several other Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest. A kachina may represent an ancestor, animal, plant, weather force, celestial body, place, or other power in the natural world. Different Pueblo communities have their own names, ceremonies, and interpretations, so the concept is not identical across all Pueblo cultures.
The word can refer to three related things: the spirit being, the masked human dancer who represents that being in ceremony, and the carved figure commonly called a kachina doll. During ceremonial seasons, dancers embody kachinas through masks, costumes, songs, and movement. These appearances are connected with teaching, community life, rain, fertility, healing, and protection.
Kachina figures are not themselves the spirits. Hopi carved figures, traditionally made from cottonwood root, serve as educational reminders of the beings and their attributes. Another common mistake is treating kachinas as interchangeable with totems, manitous, or skinwalkers; those terms belong to different cultural and religious contexts.