A Quick and Simple Dictionary

kachina

1. Noun.  A system or cult of (often secret) religious rituals and ceremonies involving masks and dances concerned with bringing rain and good crops and with community welfare and integration found in typically western Pueblo cultures in the North American Southwest.
2. Noun.  The vaguely ancestral anthropomorphic entities ("raw people" in Zuni terminology) that are associated with clouds and rain, that personify the power in the sun, the earth, corn (among other things), that are responsible for rain production and crop welfare, that are impersonated in Puebloan kachina cult dances and masked ceremonies.
3. Noun.  The masked dancers that represent the kachina supernaturals in ceremonial dances.