694 THE TUSAYAN EITUAL. 



snake priests, their younger brothers, as they believe, to which I 

 especially refer, and to which I wish to call your attention. It is 

 impossible for me in the limited time at my disposal to give even a 

 sketch of this complicated rite, so weird and startling in its character 

 as to rival the most heathen ceremony in the wilds of Africa. Yet this 

 uncanny dance in all human probability will be performed in August 

 of the present year in our own country in a Territory which justly 

 aspires to be a State. The participants in it by treaty obligations are 

 citizens of the United States and their children pupils of the public 

 schools. 



There is little doubt, however, that this survival of aboriginal cere- 

 monials will soon become extinct, although up to the present time it has 

 been but little modified by the new environment which the white men 

 are bringing to the Tusayan Indians. The ceremony is not a hap- 

 hazard or temporary invention of priests to entertain, but a part of a 

 serious, precise ritual which has survived from prehistoric times to our 

 day. Fifteen years ago the existence of this dance was practically 

 unknown, and to-day, after searching study, comparatively little has 

 been discovered. It may be wholly abandoned before the scientific 

 man is able to collect material enough to make out what it all means. 



In order to consider some of the elements of rain-making rites in tbe 

 Snake Dance and accompanying secret ceremonials, let us first turn to 

 the altars used in this dramatization. The celebration of this uncanny 

 rite is performed by two religious societies or brotherhoods, which are 

 known as the Antelope and Snake priests. The secret ceremonials of 

 each of these priesthoods are very complicated and are performed in 

 subterranean rooms called kivas into which uninitiated are debarred 

 entrance. Each of these societies has in its own kiva an altar of com- 

 plicated nature about which the ceremonials of a secret character are 

 performed. 



The altar of the Antelope priests is of especial interest to us in con- 

 sidering the rain-making motives of the ritual. It consists of an elab- 

 orate mosaic or picture made of six different colored sands spread on 

 the floor and surrounded by a border of the same material. 



The picture represents sixteen, semicircular figures of four different 

 colors, the symbols of rain clouds of the four cardinal directions. From 

 one side of this composite picture are drawn parallel lines representing 

 falling rain. This sand picture, with accompanying fetishes, is known 

 as the rain-cloud altar, the home of the rain clouds. 



Seated about this altar for seven consecutive days the Antelope 

 priests daily sing sixteen songs to consecrate prayer sticks, which are 

 later deposited in shrines to the rain gods. These prayer bearers con- 

 sist of two sticks painted green and tied together midway in their 

 length. At the point where they are bound is fastened a small packet 

 of sacred meal, while to the same is also bound a feather of the wild 

 turkey. This feather is aptly chosen, for the turkey is associated in 



