976 TUSAYAN FLUTE AND SNAKE CEREMONIES [ETH. ANN. 19 
all the snakes they could carry darted down to the mesa side and 
distributed them to the cardinal points. A shower of spittle from 
the assembled spectators followed them, much to the discomfort of 
those who did not happen to be on the housetops. This habit of expec- 
torating after those bearing important prayers is also noticeable in the 
Niman-katcina, or Departure of the Katcinas, and may be considered 
as a form of prayer for benefits desired. Before the reptiles which 
had been thrown into this ring of meal had been seized by the priests 
they crawled together and the girls and women threw what meal 
remained in their plaques upon the writhing mass. Some of the spec- 
tators were likewise observed to throw pinches of meal in that direc- 
tion. This is a symbolie prayer which will later be discussed. After 
the reptiles had been seized by the Snake men and carried down the 
mesa, one or two persons, among others a Navaho woman, scraped up 
some of this meal from the ground. About sixty reptiles were used, 
of which more than a half were rattlesnakes. 
The reptiles are carried in the mouths of the Snake priests at Mi- 
shongnoyi in the same manner as at Walpi, hence the descriptions of the 
functions of carrier, hugger, and gatherer in the Walpi variant will 
serve very well for the same personages at Mishongnovi. With minor 
differences in ceremonial paraphernalia and symbolism, the public 
Antelope and Snake dances in the largest pueblo of the Middle mesa 
and at Walpi are identical. 
One of the Snake priests did not obtain any of the snakes in the 
rush for them as they lay on the ground. He seized, however, a large 
snake which a fellow priest held and for a moment there was a mild 
struggle for the possession of it, with apparently some ill feeling. 
But at last he gave it up, and after his companions had departed he 
made several circuits of the plaza alone, each time stamping on the 
plank before the kisi, and then marched off. In an account of the 
termination of the Shumopovi Snake dance of 1896, a similar failure 
of Snake men to obtain reptiles at the final mélée is mentioned. It is 
apparently not regarded an honor to depart from the kisi at the close 
of the dance without a snake, and in both instances some merriment 
was expressed by the native spectators at the man who had left the 
plaza empty-handed. 
After the reptiles had been deposited in the fields the Snake men 
returned to the pueblo, took the ‘‘emetic,” vomited (plate 11), and 
partook of the great feast with which the Snake dance in the Hopi 
pueblos always closes. 
SNAKE DANCE AT WALPI IN 1897 
Several of the more important features of the Walpi Snake dance 
were witnessed in 1897, and a few new facts were discovered regarding 
obscure parts of this variant. In the year named, the author sought 
