THE ORAIBI SNAKE CEREMONY 
GENERAL REMARKS 
On account of the isolation of the pueblo and the persistent way in 
which its people have resisted innovations, the presentation of the 
snake ritual at Oraibi has long been regarded as the most primitive of 
all the Hopi ceremonials. 
In an article! on the ‘* Ancient Province of Tusayan,” Major Powell 
partially described an Oraibi ceremony, but too briefly to be identified. 
So far as I know this was the first account of Tusayan kiva rites. A 
large oil painting of a Tusayan ceremony and altar has long hung in the 
pottery court of the National Museum. This painting, I am informed 
by Major Powell, was made under his direction and represents a scene 
in a Tusayan kiva. Several priests, apparently engaged in rites about 
a medicine bowl, are figured, and from the arrangement of the maize of 
different colors about it I suppose the picture represents the making 
of charm liquid. The attitude of the priest in the act of blowing smoke 
into the bowl confirms me in this interpretation. 
The representation of the reredos is unlike anything which has been 
reported from Tusayan. The room has a hatchway, but is unlike any 
Oraibi kiva which I have seen. 
In 1895 I figured and described? the altar of one of the Flute societies 
at Oraibi. Mr H. R. Voth, a resident missionary, has recently given 
much time to the study of the Oraibi ritual, and has shown me several 
sketches of highly characteristic altars, accounts of which he intends 
later to publish. We are, therefore, on the way to a more exact knowl- 
edge of the ceremonials, religious paraphernalia, and altars of this inter- 
esting pueblo which has so long resisted the efforts of ethnologists. 
THE ANTELOPE ALTAR 
The Antelope priests at Oraibi were not overgenial to strangers 
wishing to pry into their secret rites, and the Snake priests positively 
refused to allow me or any white man, except the missionary, Mr Voth, 
to enter their kiva.? I entered the Antelope kiva uninvited, but my 

1Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. x1, No. 2, New York, December, 1875. 
2The Oraibi Flute Altar; Journal of American Folk-lore, Vol. vi, Oct.—Dec., 1895. 
3One or two white men told me that they ventured into the Snake kiva when the priests were way 
and saw nothing there but stone images, probably twins, or the Little War Gods. As the Snake 
chief at Oraibi has no tiponi, he makes no altar, and the stone image was the tutelary god of warriors, 
known as the Little Gods of War, Piitikonhoya and Palunhoya. 
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