The ceremony of the Snake Dance begins many days before that public conclusion the tourist sees. The date of the dance is announced by the pueblo crier from the housetops. The priests of the Antelope and Snake clans go to their respective kivas where, amid chants and exorcism, the wardrobe is looked over and all necessary tools and sacred equipment are prepared. A certain number of songs are sung each day, according to a strict ritual. It is during this time that new members are initiated, whether or not with revolting rites is for those to answer who know.

Then comes the snake-hunt, occupying four days, each day to a different point of the compass, north, west, south, and east. One would think that snakes have fixed and respected neighborhoods, so readily do the hunters procure them; and one monster bull-snake, fully seven feet long and proportionately thick, must be trained by the Second Mesa devotees, for it always occupies the centre of the stage at Machongnovi. Very likely snakes live to participate in many dances.

This facility in procuring snakes caused me to ask a young Hopi how they were located.

“By tracking,” he answered, pointing to the dusty sand at our feet. “See! there is a snake’s track. We can follow him home and dig him out, if you want.” [261]

Well, we didn’t do it, because I had something less dangerous on hand; and I must confess that I could not discern the delicate trail of the snake he referred to. But then, too, I have followed Indian trackers as they sought to run down a man. They would call off his movements as if reading from a book. As a desert tracker, I was a good Indian Agent.

Armed with a hoe, for excavating the more retiring, with a buckskin sack of sacred meal,—for this must be sprinkled on the votaries,—a larger bag in which to carry them, and a snake-whip of feathers, the hunters go forth. They wear moccasins and a loin-cloth only. An ordinary member of the snake family, such as a bull snake, no matter what his size, is picked up with slight ceremonial fuss. But the rattlesnake often objects. He is most likely to sound his displeasure, and to coil swiftly for defense. Perhaps he has never attended a Snake Dance. In this event, the hunter blesses him with meal and proceeds to attract his attention with caresses of the snake-whip. After several strokes of the long eagle feathers, the snake uncoils and seeks escape; but swifter than he is the unerring hand that nips him just back of the head. He is waved in the air, stroked with a quick pressure along his spine, and dropped into the sack with the others. And no more attention is paid to the sack’s contents when carrying it back to the kiva than if it contained so much corn.

While the Hopi Desert contains large bull snakes and king snakes and long slender side-winders, the rattlesnake is a short specimen, seldom more than two feet in length. It is active enough for all purposes, however, and can produce extraordinary activity of movement on the part of those not initiated in the Snake clan. Once on a desert [262]road I alighted from my car to arrange something. I heard a sibilant noise, a whirring dryish whistle or hiss that, peculiarly enough, is neither. There is no English word to describe accurately the rattlesnake’s warning, but it is imperative, and procures immediate attention. In a thousandth part of a second I discovered the gentleman scuttling rapidly between my feet. He wished to avoid me, and I shared his emotions. It is of course impossible to assert exactly how many feet directly upward and sideward I impelled myself. There was a space of time in which I was oblivious to everything save the breaking of leaping records. I came to at a point entirely clear of the road, as my acquaintance disappeared into the sparse grass at the opposite side. Then, knowing where he was, and that he was safe and unharmed, I did not follow to put on any Snake Dance experiments. The swift grasp of the neck immediately behind the head, the triumphant wave in the air, the pressure along the spine, and the composure of the snake-gatherer, all may combine to render said snake harmless or indifferent; but—you try it!

The public part of the Snake ceremony consumes about twenty minutes of time. The kisi, a bower of cottonwood boughs, something like a miniature tepee, is erected midway of the plaza and to one side. The kisi screens a hole in the rock-floor, and just before the dance begins a mysterious bag is carried out and placed therein. It contains the snakes. The hole is covered or roofed by a thick piece of board.

Early in the day the crowd of sightseers has gathered on the mesa-top, and in late afternoon it begins massing at the Walpi plaza. There is the usual wrangle over prominent places, and the inevitable bickering as to who [263]engaged them first. Soon the roofs and terraces and balconies are hidden by the people. The odd stairways and other points of vantage cause the crowd to group as if arranged by a stage director. A dozen or more crown the Snake Rock itself. They wait patiently, expectantly, as small boys await the head of the circus parade. Old Judge Hooker arrives, garbed for the occasion, and harangues them with Hopi cries, announcing to all and several that this great ceremony will positively be held on this date, once, and once only this season, and imploring them to grant it the respect it deserves. The Indians present pay attention to his speech, for on this occasion at least the Judge has the Agency police within call; but the whites do not know what he has said, and so care very little about it. This waiting in a too-crowded place is a monotonous and tiring procedure. There is much stirring about, leaving a good place and then wishing one had not.

And suddenly comes a distant sounding of rattle-gourds, a faint but insistent noise, like dried peas blown against glass.

“Here they come!” calls the ever-present small boy, who perches perilously on a projecting house-pole.

Quietly, ceremoniously, the Antelope priests in single file enter the plaza. Their gourds sound steadily, and with slow measured steps they march about the stage four times. When passing the kisi, each man stamps with his right foot on the board that shelters the snakes. They sprinkle meal. And they are followed by the guardian of the bull-roarer, a tall man who carries a huge Indian bow ornamented with feathers, and who stops in mid-stage to sound his awesome instrument. With all the force of his arm he whirls that wooden plumb-bob on a sinew string. It moans with the wind voice of the Desert. Then the [264]Antelope men form a straight line with the kisi, their backs to the houses and their faces to the plaza.

Now sounds a hurried noise, much clatter and scuffling, as the Snake priests approach. They burst into the plaza as if determinedly answering a call to battle. They are headed by the most robust of the clan, large powerful men. With rigid faces, fixedly staring, their elbows set as runners, they stride down the plaza. The crowd massed at the far end is always in the way. The Snake priests must go to the farthest end of this shelf on their first round, after which they shorten each lap until four have been completed. The crowd must fall back. It has no license to be there at all, and there is nothing in Snake-clan etiquette signifying change because curiosity has come out of the East. Their rushing single-file of men is projected straight at the narrow end of the shelf. Finding that it was impossible to fix such a throng in place, I would station two guards at that point to warn and part the spectators. Just what would happen if the whites did not yield is problematical. I recall that once the head-man of the dancers took me in the side with his elbow. He did not stop to apologize. It was two hundred rapidly moving pounds meeting much less than that. I did not completely recover from the blow until the dance was over. A head-on crack like that might propel one over the cliff.

These Snake priests are nude to the waist, their upper bodies daubed in black, with the lightning sign traced in white. Their hair is disheveled and streaming, and crowned with red feathers. About their eyes are reddish smears, and a circle of white is thickly painted about each mouth. They wear ornamented kilts of knee-length, and moccasins; and with some show of uniformity each man packs all the trumpery the clan has adopted as part [265]of its regalia. They have armlets and bracelets of silver, and necklaces of many strands—beads and bone and turquoise. From the rear of each belt dangle one or more handsome fox-skins. Fastened just below the right-leg knee are curious clappers made of tortoise shells. Thus, as they stride tumultuously about, there sounds above the dry rattling of the Antelope gourds all the hurried clatter of this moving harness.

Each time they pass the kisi they stamp fiercely on the board. It gives back a hollow sound. And perhaps the snakes of former spectacles know that they will soon be wanted on deck. “All hands aloft!”

Then the Snake priests quiet down a bit and align themselves in a long row, facing the Antelope men. A chant is begun. It is low in tone and quite ceremonial in spirit. Their bodies sway. A curious waving motion is made with the hands, one dancer’s wrists engaging his partner’s. The gourds whir their singing sounds. And an old Indian, a feeble, aged man, passes down the line with a bowl of water. This he sprinkles at the kisi. The age of this participant and his evident fervor always attract notice. He appears and disappears. And it is just at this point, when the action is most impressive, when all touring eyes are bulging to a degree, that the inevitable dog wanders into the sanctuary and begins to investigate. I have never known a Snake Dance that did not produce its uninvited mongrel at this time. He is never shooed or kicked away. He is always the most disreputable animal of a people noted for their impoverished canines. Lank and lean, with a cringing expression of dog humility on his face, he contrives to spoil the scene.

There is a noticeable pause. The line of Snake priests breaks into pairs and, with a curious, half-stamping dance, [266]they pass to the kisi. The man on the right stoops, plunges his arm into the snake-hole, and brings forth a snake. The dancer is humped over now, his body bent forward, his head projecting. The one with him places an arm across his shoulders, and with a feather-whip attracts the weaving head of the reptile. The first dancer holds the snake by its middle for a moment, and then places it in his mouth, permitting the two ends to dangle freely.

Behind these two steps watchfully the “gatherer,” and follows them about. With a humping irregular motion the pair dance around the plaza, and finally the snake is dropped to the ground. The gatherer quickly retrieves it, if it is a patient, well-behaved snake; but if it is a rattler and acts unreasonably, proceeding to coil and sound its warning, the gatherer swiftly acts with the deftness of a juggler. His eyes never leave the defiant snake. He pinches a bit of meal from his pouch and sprinkles it toward the unwilling symbol of the gods. Then he waves his whip over the snake. If it strikes, he will let it alone for a brief time. There in the little plaza is a fighting rattlesnake, a vicious coiled spring, fangs darting, restless, angry. The dancers avoid it. The crowd shrills its approval of the scene.

But the gatherer is watching. Soon the snake gives a quick wriggle and is off, darting for the mesa edge, and those forming the crowd there begin anxiously to shift their feet. Another second and the Indian has pounced down on it, swishing the snake from under the very toes of the spectators. He waves it through the air in the motion of his capture, strokes it into limpness as he watches his pair of dancers. Then it dangles from his left hand, and he proceeds to the next adventure.

Meantime, other couples have approached the kisi and [267]have produced their snakes. The differences in reptiles now attract attention. There are long, thin, nervous snakes, and short, fat, sluggish ones. A shout of amazement goes up when a very large specimen of bull snake is seen, its tail almost trailing the earth. But varying snakes do not affect the priests. The Antelope men continue the whirring of their gourds, and with the Snake men the action becomes faster. Seven or eight couples are now stamping around, and the gatherers have a busy time of it.

And then comes the signal that the bag of the kisi is empty. All snakes have been produced in the open, and danced with, and dropped, and gathered up. Now two priests describe with meal a large circle on the ground before the Dance Rock. The dancers approach and throw all the snakes into this circle. They crowd around it as meal is sprinkled, and perhaps some exorcism is muttered. For a second they poise there, as if under a spell; and then certain appointed men thrust their hands into the squirming mass, catch up as many snakes as possible, and rush from the plaza to liberate the votaries in the far Desert.

Now one notes the reason for the tunnel leading through the houses to the west. At First Mesa they may go north, south, and west from the little plaza; but no dancer jumps off it to the east; the strict ritual suffers a change to accommodate this natural disadvantage. He seizes his allotted share of the snakes and proceeds along the edge to some convenient trail, turning eastward in the lower valley. The uninformed among the spectators have a happy faculty for packing themselves in that tunnel. The Indian runner means to go through it, without pausing or apologies, carrying an armful of active snakes. “Let them fall off” is his motto.

This distribution of the snake messengers ends what [268]one may term the intriguing features of the ceremony. Soon the panting runners return to engage in the so-called “purification” rites, the taking of the emetic; and a number of the curious follow them to be in at the death. It is not of importance that one should witness this part of the programme; it is simply a matter of taste. Physicians may wish to time the potency of desert brews. The priests are then washed from head to foot by the women of the clan. Water is poured over them from large bowls. Dripping, the priests disappear into their kiva. Soon the women are hurrying there too, bearing in trays all sorts of viands. The dancers, who have fasted, would absorb a bit of nourishment. God knows they have earned it!

Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes, the celebrated ethnologist, writes that after the Snake Dance of 1883 two of the liberated snakes were caught and taken to the National Museum at Washington for examination. He states that their fangs and poison-sacs were found to be intact. He does not accept the belief that these Hopi Indians have an antidote for the poison of rattlesnakes. It is his view that the desert rattler can inflict a deadly bite only after coiling and lunging viciously on its victim. And there is little to the theory that the snakes have been drugged or dulled into lethargy, since I have many times seen the rattlesnakes coil and fight wickedly. Several persons, particularly Mr. Herbert F. Robinson, the Government Engineer for the Navajo and Hopi country, claim to have seen Snake priests bitten in the dance. I could not make such a statement. But it is possible that the paint with which the priests are liberally daubed has, for snakes, a repugnant odor; and having anointed their hands and arms, and especially their mouths, faces, and necks with this ointment, they secure a certain immunity. And the stroking [269]of the snakes, when picked up, may explain the safety of the gatherer. This action no doubt produces a partial paralysis of the snake’s muscular system. But this does not answer for those who thrust bare hands and arms into the snake-bag at the kisi.

If one must see a Snake Dance, the best show is at Walpi in years of odd numbers. The ceremony is held also at Machongnovi, Chimopovi, and Hotevilla. Since 1918 there has been no dance at Oraibi, perhaps because of factional disputes, although a disciple of Christianity has claimed part of the credit. There is a solemnity observed at Hotevilla, among the reactionaries, with prophet Youkeoma, the second man in the line of Antelope priests; but the men of Walpi preserve more of Indian color and thrill of action in their performance. Perhaps they have realized the advantage of a good show, well staged and costumed and vigorously enacted. While they do not invite the tourists, they keep them coming, and business in Snake Dance week is brisk along all lines.

Not all of the Hopi people are members of the Snake clan. Those of the uninitiated are as diffident with rattlesnakes as the rest of us. This lodge has difficulty in keeping up its membership. Sometimes a Hopi is invited to join, or is ordered to report for duty in the Snake kiva, and he declines this honor. It is well for him to remain away from dances thereafter, or he may have to hold a punishment snake as a penalty.

It was through the courtesy of Mr. John Lorenzo Hubbell, that early pioneer and baronial trader of the Navajo Desert, that I chanced to view the most secret of the Snake Dance rites, the baptism or washing of the snakes in the kiva. This occurs in the morning of the day of the public ceremony. Perhaps one might call it the consecration of [270]the messengers; for, as I have understood it, the snakes are the tribe’s envoys to the gods, bearing its petition for rain and its thanks for harvests.

Perhaps, as Moungwi, I might have achieved this success earlier, but it was my method in dealing with the Hopi, an always suspicious people, not to display an interest in their secrecies. Of necessity—or perhaps I should say in good judgment—I had to police their dances, to prevent possible clashes between the non-understanding Indian and the nearly always unreasonable and overcurious tourist; but I have never asked an Indian, anywhere, to give me an “inside” concerning his primitive beliefs. Having to guide and often to judge that same Indian, it would have been an unfair advantage to take of my position, and would at once have classed me, the appointed mentor, as a piece of curiosity no different from the white men he so often wrangled with. Moreover, I had other means of acquiring information. The traders told me all they had garnered through the many years of trafficking with Indians, and each newcomer—tourist, artist, or itinerant official,—presented me with the varying chaff of his very swift and gullible gleaning.

The always helpful Mr. Hubbell bridged this dilemma by inviting me as his guest, and I could accept without losing caste. Hubbell had been admitted to the kiva many years before. Then Dr. Fewkes in 1899, as he relates, and since then the Indians have received Mr. Roosevelt, General Hugh L. Scott, and a few others. Perhaps not more than a score of white men have witnessed this ceremony.

In our little party were a visiting superintendent, an engineer of the Desert Service, and Mr. Ford Harvey, son of the immortal Fred who rescued so many hungry [271]travelers along the Santa Fe in early times, and to whom should be erected a monument of bronze.

From the poles of the kiva ladder flew the feather-plumes that signify the progress of secret rites. An Indian met us at the top, and we filed after him down the ladder, into the cool, dim atmosphere of that underground rock-walled vault. It had a peculiar odor—perhaps an earthy, perhaps a snaky smell.

Kivas usually are empty places. Bare and cold, unless filled with eye-stinging smoke from firebrands, I had not found them inviting on my rounds of the mesas. I had held councils in them when making the first steps against factional religious persecution. Again I had sat in them, chatting with the makers of costumes and drums, smoking their bitter and powerful tobacco—afterward wishing sincerely I had not. Most often the kiva is the club for retired old men of the tribe, lonely, feeble fellows, where they curl up to drowse and sleep, or where they weave some ceremonial scarf. It is not good form to idle in the neighborhood of kivas when the feather-plumes are displayed, and one very distinguished gentleman, who has been referred to as “the great Caucasian marvel,” was most thoroughly bawled out by the chief Snake Priest for seeking to introduce himself without first requesting leave.

The ladder ended on a stone platform, raised above the main kiva-floor. In the corners of this platform stood large clay jars, and greeting us, albeit silently, from the corners and about the jars, were snakes. Not just a few snakes that had wandered out of their pottery containers, but congested wads of snakes, piled carelessly in the corners of the kiva, and with nothing to prevent their leaving when the spirit moved them. However, they were now quiet, [272]somnolent, save for beady eyes and an occasional slithery movement that caused one to watch his step.

At the upper end of the kiva was an elaborate sand-painting after the fashion of the Navajo, no doubt another adoption, of foreign origin. A sand-painting is a mosaic-like picture of Indian symbols and fetishes, worked out in colored sands. This was surrounded or fenced by peeled wands, placed close together on end. And at this ceremonial altar stood, practically nude, two of my schoolboys, bronzed lads of about sixteen, who had taken part that morning in the sunrise race.

Under the ladder and on the main floor a number of older Indians were grouped, having close to them large bowls of clay holding water or other liquids. And these priests were arrayed for a ceremony. The sacred-meal pouches were in evidence. Soon a chant was intoned. The Hopi chants are primitive, but have in them an echo of Catholic litanies. I have seen a Hopi priest anoint with and toss the sacred meal just as his forbears saw the padres bless the people. The Hopi is an assiduous adapter. And while listening to the chanting, I have often expected to catch the response: “Ora pro nobis.” The padres were sacrificed to the desert gods in that red revolt of 1680, but their peaches dry each season on the pueblo housetops, and Hopi ceremonies carry an unconscious echo of the black-robes who taught the solemnity of ritual.

Around the walls of the kiva, at the height of one’s head, were wooden pegs set in the stone, and draped over these were masks and costumes. As my position at the end of the platform brought me close to one of these bundles, I leaned against it and the wall, half turned, to give an eye to the nearest snakes of my corner, and another eye to the proceedings of the elders. A snake wriggled out [273]from the pile and came closer; but the Indian who had received us waved him back with a feather-whip. Someone was watching that sector, and I grew more confident.

We stood there for a little time in silence. From above came the noises of the crowd, thronging through the village streets. One could look up through the square opening of the entrance and see the blue Arizona sky. The ladder was very comforting. Several of the guests sat down on the edge of the platform, but I did not. I leaned comfortably against my pile of regalia, and kept a wide-angled view of the whole interior.

Then one of the Indians crossed the platform, gathered a few snakes and passed them swiftly to the old men at the bowls. They uttered invocations, stretched the snakes out, and anointed them with meal, all the while chanting in a low tone. A number of the men had lined up against the wall, carrying rattles and insignia. They too began a chant. And then suddenly the old men plunged the snakes into the water of the bowls—a quick, unceremonious ducking; the choir raising its chant to a savage crescendo. It was no longer rhythmic and solemn. It was like a scream of death, a wild, unreasoning challenge that ended in a blood-curdling shriek; and at that final cry the snakes were hurled up the kiva, to fall on the sand-painting. The peeled wands were knocked over by their swirling bodies. Somnolent before, the snakes now waked up, and twisted about, seeking escape, their heads raised, their tongues darting in and out. A hissing and whirring sounded. Their movements in the sand caused the design to be obliterated.

Now came another handful of snakes, swiftly passed for the baptism, and again the low chanting, but faster now, faster, and always that wild ending of the chant, and [274]the throwing of the reptiles. More and more snakes squirmed on the wrecked sand-painting. All the wands were down now. And in among the snakes, with a calmness that chilled the blood, walked my two schoolboys, nude as Adam, hustling back to the sand those that darted for the walls. Twice snakes reached the stone bench along the kiva’s end and, climbing it, sought crevices of the upper wall. Each time a boy reached for the disappearing truant and nonchalantly dragged him back to his place in this wildest of pagan rites.

Finally all the snakes had been removed from our corners, and several inches of them made a moving carpet where had been the mosaic. There came a pause, a significant cessation of action, as if the priests had reached an unexpected, unforeseen part of the service. There was a quick consultation among the head-men. One of the boys, Edward, began looking around. He went to the nearest peg and removed some of the costumes, dropping a mask to the floor. He examined the mask. Then he went to another peg and performed this same search. And then he came straight toward me, at the end of the platform.

“What is it, Edward?” I asked him.

“We had sixty-five rattlesnakes, Mr. Crane,” he replied stolidly, “and now we count but sixty-four. Let me look through those dresses you are leaning against. That other one may be—”

“Excuse me,” I said hurriedly, as I went up the ladder. [275]