294 TUSAYAN SNAKE CEREMONIES [BTH. ANN. 16 
chaplet of cottonwood leaves and carried a medicine bowl and aspergill 
with both hands. Each Antelope wore a white “‘ breath-feather” in his 
hair, which hung down his back, but none had a bunch of feathers on 
his head. The chin was painted black and there was a white line along 
the upper border of the black from ear to ear across the upper lip. All 
wore necklaces of shell or turquois and each was adorned with zigzag 
lines of white pigment along the body, on each breast, from shoulder 
to belt, continued on the back on each side to the waist. There were 
also zigzag white lines on the arm, and the forearm was painted white. 
Each wore a bandolier of woolen yarn over the right shoulder, and 
everyone, Save the asperger, carried a rattle in the right hand. All 
the dancers wore kilts and embroidered sashes, with pendent fox-skins 
behind, and all had moccasins. Thus appareled they lined up in a 
platoon, the chief at the left, the kisi midway in the line, shaking 
their rattles while awaiting the Snake priests. 
The Snake priests then came from their kiva headed by their chief, 
who had no tiponi. Hach Snake priest wore a bunch of feathers in his 
hair, and curious feathered objects on the back of the head. Their 
faces were blackened, but there was no white paint on the chin. All 
wore shell and turquois necklaces, armlets, and wristlets, and daubs of 
white on their foreheads, breasts and backs. 
Their kilts were colored red, with zigzag figures of the plumed snake, 
bearing tripod-shape and alternate parallel bars as ornaments. Less 
than half their number had a fringe of antelope hoofs on the lower edge 
of the kilt; all wore fox-skins pendent from their loins, turtle-shell 
rattles on the leg, moccasins stained red with sesquioxide of iron, and 
red wristlets. Hach carried a snake whip. After the preliminary 
forward and backward steps, and after shaking their whips in unison 
with the songs of the Antelopes, they divided into groups of three, 
ealled carrier, hugger, and gatherer. 
The snakes are carried at Oraibi in a way peculiar to this pueblo and 
differently from that adopted in any other Tusayan village. The posture 
of the hugger is likewise exceptional. When the carrier approaches the 
kisiin which the snakes are confined, he places his whip in his belt, seizes 
the reptile, puts its neck in his mouth, with head pointing to his left, 
and grasps the body of the snake with his two hands, the right above 
the left. The carrier does not close his eyes, and he takes but one reptile 
at atime. In this way he ambles about the plaza in a circle, the center 
toward his left. When he has completed the circuit, he takes the rep- 
tile from his mouth and lays it on the ground, with the head pointing 
away from the kisi. The hugger follows the carrier, placing his left 
hand on the left shoulder of the carrier, whose back he strokes with 
the snake whip. He stands behind the carrier, and not at his side, as 
at Walpi. The gatherer picks up the reptiles after they have been 
placed on the ground. If the reptile coils for defense, he strives to 
make him uneoil by movements of the whip; otherwise he takes a little 
