PREFACE. 



Of the many rites and performances in the Hopi ceremonial 

 calendar, none is perhaps better known — in a general way — than the 

 Snake ceremony. This is not to be taken as evidence, however, that 

 the Snake celebration is the most important of all the Hopi ceremoni- 

 als, because there are others that are more complicated and play a 

 greater part in '^the ceremoniology of the Hopi than the Snake cere- 

 mony. But the fact that no other rite is attended by such a sensa- 

 tional public performance as may be witnessed in the "last act" of 

 the Snake ceremony, in the so-called "Snake dance," is the reason 

 that has brought this celebration to the foreground and that it has 

 been witnessed by far more white people than any other Hopi 

 ceremony. 



In Oraibi, as well as in the other Hopi villages, this "Snake 

 dance" is preceded by a preliminary ceremony which takes place six- 

 teen days before and by a nine-day ceremony which commences eight 

 days before the Snake dance. These secret ceremonies have thus far 

 been witnessed, as far as Oraibi is concerned, by very few white people. 



On the First and Second Mesas, Dr. J. W. Fewkes, of the Bureau 

 of Ethnology, Washington, has made extensive studies not only of the 

 Snake, but of other ceremonies. In Mishongnovi the Snake ceremony 

 has been observed throughout by Dr. G. A. Dorsey and the author of 

 this paper, and the results of these last-named studies have been pub- 

 lished in a special monograph by this Museum. 



On the Third Mesa, on which Oraibi, the largest Hopi village, is 

 situated (PI. 149), no white person had ever been permitted to witness 

 the secret part of the Snake ceremony until the writer of this paper 

 gained admittance in August, 1896. He has since then been permitted 

 not only to witness the ceremony in the different years, but also to take 

 full notes and pictures, and make sketches, etc. On a few occasions 

 he has obtained the permission of the priests to admit a few others to 

 the kiva rites for short periods, one of them being Dr. P. Ehrenreich 

 of Berlin, Germany; but the entire ceremony and the' preliminary 

 ceremonies have unfortunately never been studied by any one but the 

 author, and while he does not claim that his studies are exhaustive 

 and complete, they are perhaps nearly so, and hence he accedes to the 

 requests to publish the result of his observations, that have repeatedly 

 been made by ethnologists and others. 



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