I think this maybe resulted in people just sort of desperately gathering anything that looked cool. I also think the 90s were when cultural appropriation truly took off. Aided by the internet and the growth of the information age, people became more and more aware of global cultures outside their own. Fascination with other cultures had never been higher, and actual understanding of them had not nearly caught up. We knew that a bunch of this stuff looked cool, and didn’t yet have an inkling that maybe the people that actually created it might not have done so for the benefit of Pacsun shareholders.
The result of this was the explosion of a specific subset of turn-of-the-century fashion that people likely thought was “worldly” and “spiritual” but in honesty, made it look like someone bought all their clothes from an Epcot center gift shop. People basically dressed like airport keychains. It was the time of kanji tattoos, puka shell necklaces, and yes, Kokopelli everything. And as the past owner of a regularly worn kokopelli necklace, I accept my role in this.
Now, let’s do what our past selves never cared to do, and actually look into the origins of Kokopelli. The spirit is most commonly known as a figure among the Hopi tribes of the Southwest, but his origins even predate them. Glyphs portraying Kokopelli were left thousands of years ago by the ancestors known as the Hisatsinom, who are tracked back to the 12th century B.C. You may be more familiar with the Hisatsinom under the name Anasazi. The name Anasazi was recorded by a historian, Richard Wetherill, who was working with the Navajo people, and is Navajo for “ancient enemy”. For this reason, modern Puebloans discourage use of the word.