Centuries ago, Hopi elders began carving these dolls as teaching tools for the children.
Kachina is the spirit essence of everything in the world.
Their existence if inferred from the steam which rises from food and whose loss does not change the form of the food, to the mist rising from the spring on a cold morning, or the cloud which forms above a mountaintop. As the breath of a dying Indian departs, it also must join the other mist-beings in a spirit world, the exact counterpart of the real Indian world but with different powers. Thus when the clouds come over the mountaintops and drift over the Indian villages it is the rain bringing Kachinas that are there. The clouds hide not only the faces of the departed ancestors who, taking pity on their grandchildren, are bringing them rain, but an almost infinite variety of Kachinas who have other functions besides rain bringing. This multitude of spirits range from Star Kachinas to Ash Kachinas.