306 TUSAYAN SNAKE CEREMONIES [ETH. ANN. 16 
While this bifid element of corn worship and rain ceremonials runs 
through the whole festival, that part of it which pertains to rain-making 
is most prominent in the work of the Snake priests, while corn rites 
pertain to the Antelopes. The two elements are interwoven, but, as 
would naturally be the case, the corn rites are most prominent in the 
kiva celebrations of the Antelope priests. The Antelope chief controls 
the ceremony, and his priests dance with the wad of cornstalks in the 
Corn dance.! 
My efforts to discover the identity of the asperger who calls out the 
Keresan words, ‘Teamahia,” ete,’ at the kisi, have not been rewarded 
with great success. He apparently is not represented at Cipaulovi and 
Cunopavi, but is personated at Oraibi and Walpi. He alone wears the 
coronet of cottonwood, and his body is characteristically decorated. 
Undoubtedly he is not one of the Antelope priests, for he takes no 
prominent part in Antelope secret rites. He is not a Snake priest in 
function or dress. Two facts throw a glimmer of light on his identity. 
The words which he calls out are Keresan words, and in the legend * of 
the Snake hero, “Tcamahia” is said to have left the Snake people and 
to have been joined by other clans at the Keresan pueblo, Acoma. In 
addition there may be quoted the statement of the Antelope chief that 
a personified representative from Acoma joins them biennially and 
assists them in the public exhibition of their dance. It seems as if the 
asperger who utters the Keresan invocation may personate a Keresan 
visitor, the ancestral wanderer, who left the Snake people in ancient 
times, and met other people from another direction at Acoma. His dress 
and speech are different, for he is not a Hopi; he is of the older stock, 
known by the same name as the ancient stone implements on the Ante- 
lope altar, teamahia, the ancients, whom some of the Hopi claim did not 
come upon the earth through the same sipapw as themselves, but who 
at their advent were living in the far east.* 
IT have given much thought to the question why Antelope priests are 
so called, and what connection there can be between the antelope and 
the snake in this nomenclature. At one time I even doubted whether 
I could believe my Hopi friends in their statements that they were 
Antelope priests, notwithstanding their name, Tciibwympkiya, has the 

The erroneous statement that the ‘‘hugger’’ in the Snake dance is an Antelope priest is repub- 
lished in many accounts of the Snake dance. This inaccuracy arose from the fact that in the Antelope 
dance an Antelope priest carried the wad of cornstalks and vines. Throughout the Snake dance ali 
the Antelopes remain in line, singing, and holding such reptiles as are passed to them by the gather- 
ers, but the ‘‘hugger”’ in the Snake dance is always a Snake priest. 
‘Journ. Amer. Eth. and Archeol., Vol. 1v, pp. 73, 92. 
‘Op. cit., p. 117. 
4 With our present light it would be little more than plausible speculation to conclude that the Snake 
dances of the Rio Grande pueblos of Keresan stock originally came from Tusayan. That the Snake dance 
at Sia is closely alike that in Tusayan there is no doubt, and that Acoma had a Snake dance in 1583 is 
well known. A colony of Kawaika (Keresan) once lived in Antelope valley of Tusayan, or at least 
there is a ruin there called by the same name as Laguna, where there was also formerly a Snake dance, 
The indications are that the Keresan Snake dances are of the same source as those of the Hopi, but 
Keresan words in the Hopi invocation may admit of a different interpretation. 
