632 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



remarkable ceremony of several days' duration, whose purpose is to 

 beseech the gods to grant rain for their crops. The culmination of 

 the ceremony is an open-air rite in which live snakes are carried, 

 and the most striking episode of this dance is presented in this 

 group, which shows a trio of Snake priests, respectively, the " car- 

 rier," the " sustainer," and the " collector," a line of priests of the 

 Antelope Society, who act as chorus, and a maid and matron whose 

 office is, along with others, to scatter sacred meal on the participants 

 as a sacrifice to the gods. 



The dance takes place in the plaza of the village, on one side of 

 which is built a bower of cottonwood branches in which the keeper 

 of the snakes sits with jars containing venomous species, which he 

 hands out from time to time to the carriers. The dancers march 

 in file around the plaza, each stamping on a small board set in the 

 ground in front of the bower as he passes, as a notification to the 

 gods of the underworld that a ceremony is in progress. They then 

 assume their places in two files, facing each other, the Antelope 

 chorus flanking the brush house, where they sway and chant for a 

 few minutes, shaking their rattles. The file of Snake priests then 

 breaks up into groups of three, and they dance around in a circle, 

 receiving the snakes as they pass the brush house, the carrier hold- 

 ing one or more in his mouth, the sustainer diverting the attention 

 of the snakes with a feather wand, while the collector attends to 

 gathering the stray snakes. After dancing around for a while, they 

 drop the snakes on the ground, to be seized by collectors, who keep 

 them in their hands until the completion of the ceremony, when the 

 priests carry the snakes swiftly to the country below the mesa on 

 which the village stands, where they are released. 



The ceremony originated and is kept up in accordance with the 

 belief that the first children of the union between an ancestral culture 

 hero and a mythical Snake princess were rattlesnakes, and hence the 

 elder brothers of the later generations. Being sprung from a source 

 in some respects supernatural, snakes are believed to be in close touch 

 with the gods that control rain, which insures the crops and other 

 blessings needed by the Hopi, whose country is arid and desolate. 



None of these people would willingly kill a snake, poisonous or 

 harmless, as they are regarded as sacred and imbued with some of 

 the peculiar attributes and powers of the gods. Rattlesnakes are 

 generally used in this ceremony, but, due to the care in handling 

 them, accidents rarely or never occur. The ceremony, as practiced 

 to-day, is usually witnessed by large numbers of strangers. (See 

 pi. 37.) 



FAMILY GROUP OF THE ZUNI INDIANS. 



These Indians occupy the most important of the adobe pueblos 

 situated in western New Mexico. They are of medium height, strong. 



