274 TUSAYAN SNAKE CEREMONIES (ETH. ANN. 16 
accounts of the 1894 presentation, which may be consulted in files of 
that date. In 1892 Mr R. H. Baxter observed parts of the Cipaulovi or 
Cunopavi dances and published a short notice of them in the American 
Antiquarian. It can hardly be said, however, that the accounts by 
Politzer and Baxter advanced our knowledge of the Snake dance to any 
considerable degree, as the secret ceremonials were wholly neglected 
and the public events superficially, often inaccurately, described. They 
have a value, however, in verifying the statements which had already 
been made after personal observation of the dances in these three 
pueblos. Mr Politzer’s photographs showed an unexpected fact, that 
the numbers of participants in the Oraibi dance were small, a feature 
on which I have elsewhere commented. 
From reasons which need not be enumerated, the majority of the 
descriptions of the Tusayan Snake dance have been limited to the 
exhibition at Walpi, and our knowledge of this variant far exceeds 
that of the other pueblos. It is, therefore, but natural that the Walpi 
dance should be regarded as the most complicated, and while extended 
research tends to support such a conclusion, it does not necessarily 
demonstrate that the ceremony at Walpi is the most primitive, but 
rather tends to show tie reverse. To obtain what light we can on this 
point, as a preliminary to generalizations in regard to the nature and 
meaning of the Tusayan Snake dance, it is desirable to investigate the 
details of the presentation in the villages where our knowledge is more 
fragmentary. The present article is, therefore, offered as a contribu- 
tion to a study of the Snake dances of Oraibi, Cipaulovi, and Cunopavi, 
with generalizations which, it is believed, are warranted by new data 
obtained from these observations. 
The duration of the Snake dance ceremonial at Walpi, where it is 
celebrated in the most elaborated form, may be stated as twenty days, 
of which only nine days are marked by active ceremonials, secret 
or open. Sixteen days before the Snake dance occurs it is formally 
announced, and on the preceding night the chiefs gather, engage in 
ceremonial smoking, and commission the town crier to call out the date 
on the following sunrise.! The next seven days are not days of cere- 
mony, although the Antelope chief is engaged in preparations. The 
eighth day (on which he and others enter the kiva, or ‘‘pakit,” as it is 
called) is the yiinya, or assembly, and for nine days the secret cere- 
monials continue, closing at sunset of the ninth day by a dance in the 
plaza, when snakes are carried in the mouths of the participants. The 
following four days are included in my enumeration, as they are days 
of purification, but are conspicuous to public eyes only as the frolies, 
called niiatiwa, which I have described elsewhere. If these different 
components are rightly embraced by me in the Snake ceremony, we 
have, in the twenty days’ proceedings, five groups of four days each; 

1 The * Oraibi Flute Altar,’’ Journ. Amer. Folk-lore, Vol. vi, No. xxxi. 
