THE HOPI SNAKE-DANCE 77 



livable. Give him a chance to utilize his own 

 inherent sense of beauty in making over his 

 own village for himself. Give him a chance to 

 lead his own life as he ought to; and realize 

 that he has something to teach us as well as 

 to learn from us. The Hopi of the younger gen- 

 eration, at least in some of the towns, is chang- 

 ing rapidly; and it is safe to leave it to him 

 to decide where he will build and keep his 

 house. 



I cannot so much as touch on the absorb- 

 ingly interesting questions of the Hopi spiritual 

 and religious life, and of the amount of def- 

 erence that can properly be paid to one side of 

 this life. The snake-dance and antelope-dance, 

 which we had come to see, are not only in- 

 teresting as relics of an almost inconceivably 

 remote and savage past — analogous to the 

 past wherein our own ancestors once dwelt — 

 but also represent a mystic symbolism which 

 has in it elements that are ennobling and not 

 debasing. These dances are prayers or invoca- 

 tions for rain, the crowning blessing in this dry 

 land. The rain is adored and invoked both as 

 male and female; the gentle steady downpour 

 is the female, the storm with lightning the male. 

 The lightning-stick is "strong medicine," and 

 is used in all these religious ceremonies. The 



