240 Field Columkian Museum— Anthropology, Vol. 111. 



while the Snake priests waved their whips in their hand with a 

 movement which extended from right to left with a slightly upward 

 and downward motion for a few moments, their left hand with the 

 meal bag hanging rigid by the side of their body. Then both lines 

 danced, shaking the rattles and whips and also singing in a low deep 

 sonorous voice. The dancing was simply a backward and forward 

 swaying movement of the body with a vigorous stamping with the 

 right heel upon the earth, the toes of that foot not leaving the ground. 

 The tendency of this movement was to jar vigorously the turtle-shell 

 rattles upon the legs, and it formed an accompaniment to the singing 

 not unpleasing. Then the dancing and the singing ceased and the 

 Antelope priests continued shaking their rattles accompanied by the 

 Snake priests moving the whips. This was again followed by danc- 

 ing and then the singing and rattling, and so on with scarcely a pause 

 or break in the performance, each act having been repeated during 

 the course of the entire ceremony eight times. Sikanakpu asperged 

 and shouted in a loud voice, resembling a weird moan, from time to 

 time. The performance was continued now for a period of about fif- 

 teen minutes. The line of Snake priests now retired to a distance of 

 about ten feet from the line of the Antelope men. Hereupon Loma- 

 wungyai, an Antelope priest, and Tobenyakioma, a Snake priest, 

 stepped forward from their respective lines into the space between 

 the lines, the latter placing his arm around the Antelope man's body, 

 with his left hand on his shoulder. In this hand the Snake man held 

 his whip and meal bag which he slowly waved up and down by the 

 side of the cheek of the Antelope priest. In this manner they slowly 

 moved in a circle in front of the kisi four times, whereupon they 

 stooped down in front of the kisi and the Antelope priest took from 

 the kisi the bunches of green corn and melon vines which had been 

 prepared earlier in the day. The end of this he now placed in his 

 mouth, the Snake man supporting the lower end of it with his right 

 hand, and thus the two resumed their dance in an irregular circuit in 

 front of the kisi, and passing back and forth between the lines four 

 times, being asperged each time as they passed Sikanakpu. It is 

 perhaps not proper to speak of their motion as a dance, inasmuch as 

 it was a shuffling gait in which the feet rhythmically left the ground, 

 the movement being accompanied by a forward jerking motion of the 

 body. During all this time the two platoons of priests were stepping 

 backward and forward, all in unison, the Antelope priests singing 

 louder and louder and violently shaking their rattles, while the Snake 

 priests went through the step with interlocked arms, but with their 

 snake whips at rest. At the conclusion of the song the two men who 

 had been dancing between the lines returned to the kisi, where the 



