288 TUSAYAN SNAKE CEREMONIES (ETH. ANN. 16 
sticks and two supported sticks crooked at the extremities. The tiponi 
was placed on a small hiliock of sand somewhat back of the rear right- 
hand corner of the sand picture. In the rear of the left-hand corner, 
leaning against the wall of the kiva, were two rectangular slabs, the 
symbolism on which was not distinct, recalling the so-called Butterfly 
virgin slab of the Walpi Antelope altar. Around them were tied 
strings with appended nakiwakwwoct. 
At the time I studied the Cunopavi altar of the Antelopes there 
were finger marks on each rain cloud of the sand picture, where the 
chief had taken a pinch of each colored sand to carry to his field, these 
being symbolic of the different colored corn which he hoped would 
grow there. 
THE SNAKE DANCE 
The Snake dance at the pueblo of Cunopavi was performed on August 
24, and was the only event of this complicated observance which I wit- 
nessed. While, therefore, my observations were limited, they consti- 
tute the first ever made by an ethnologist in this interesting and little 
known pueblo. Seventeen Antelope and eighteen Snake priests partic- 
ipated in the ceremony; each Antelope carried two ' rattles, one in each 
hand, and there were three small boys among the Antelope priests, 
one of whom could not have been more than five years of age. The 
youngest of the lads was naked, but painted like his elders, and when 
he lined up with the other Antelopes before the kisi he held his place 
without shrinking, even when the venomous rattlesnakes crawled near 
him, an exhibition of infantile pluck which I have never seen excelled. 
This is not simply want of fear through ignorance, for again and again 
in their songs and talks the priests pray that they may not be bitten. 
He must have known the power of the snakes, but the same belief 
which controlled his elders gave him courage. The Cunopavi priests 
handled the rattlesnakes more fearlessly, if that were possible, than 
the participants at any of the other pueblos. 
The differences noted between the events and paraphernalia of the 
Antelope and Snake men at Cunopavi and the other villages were the 
following: In addition to cottonwood boughs the kisi had cornstalks 
in its construction and a circle of sacred meal was made about it. 
The costume and body painting of the Antelopes were the same as at 
Walpi; there was no warrior with a whizzer or bullroarer, and the 
asperger did not call out the invocation to the cardinal points. The 
kilts of the Snake priests were as a rule without rattles, and the par- 
allel lines with which the zigzag figure of the plumed snake were 
marked extended across the figure. The bandolier was cylindrical, the 
medicine pellets few or wanting. 

'This is an interesting innovation at Cunopavi. At Walpi and Oraibi each priest carries but one 
rattle. ‘Chese rattles are made of buckskin stretched over a pair of circular disks and fastened to a 
wooden handle; they contain small objects for rattles, and are painted white. 
