June 4, 1886. J 



SCIEXCE. 



513 



more skilful or more rash than the others, would 

 then approach, and tease the snake with his wand 

 until it struck, the blow being received on the 

 feathers. This would be repeated until the snake 

 became frightened and attempted to escape : but, 

 as soon as it uncoiled, the collector would seize it 

 with a quick movement of the hand from the tail 

 toward the head, the snake being grasped by the 

 neck. This movement is accomplished with 

 lightning-like rapidity. The wand is retained in 

 the hand ; and the feathers, during the operation, 

 cover the snake's head. After the seizure, how- 

 ever, it seemed to make little difference how they 

 held the snake, holding it by the middle or tail as 

 often as by the neck. No one was bitten at this 

 dance ; though at Wolpi, the next day. one of the 

 young performers, a boy of eight, made the rounds 

 with a rattlesnake fastened to one of his fingers. 

 During the final scramble I lost sight of him, and 

 was unable to discover what course of treatment 

 he underwent, or whether he survived or not. 



One of the striking accessories of the dance, 

 are the groups of women in holiday attire, who 

 stand along the walls and along the margin of the 

 dancing-space, holding in their arms large trays 

 of sacred meal, which they scatter on the per- 

 formers and on the snakes as they pass. The boy 

 who was bitten at Wolpi was almost covered with 

 meal by these women. 



At the second dance, at Wolpi, we were on the 

 lookout for the after-proceedings, and had an 

 opportunity of seeing a part of then. Immediate- 

 ly after the dance the women were seen coming- 

 in from all directions with baskets of peki or 

 paper-bread, great quantities of wheat-bread or 

 rolls, bowls of mutton-stew, and the various 

 eatables which formed the Indians' holiday food. 

 The quantity seemed sufficient for an army. 

 These were sent down into the simke-kiva. In 

 the mean time other women were scurrying along 

 with great bowls of a brownish liquid with a very 

 disagreeable smell. I followed several of these 

 women around to the back of the pueblo, and 

 there saw a number of the late dancers drinking 

 this liquid, and vomiting most violently. I after- 

 wards learnd from Weeki, the snake-priest, that 

 this process continues for four days, — a period 

 occupied in alternate feasting and vomiting. This 

 is the so-called purification. 1 



1 This is the way our interpreter translated it : It should 

 be constantly born in mind, however, that the idea of purity 

 — of moral goodness — is one which does not make its ap- 

 pearance until we get well along in the scale of develop- 

 ment, to a point much beyond the position occupied by 

 these Indians. The savage or barbarous mind recognizes 

 no physical cause for phenomena. Poison, as such, is an 

 idea which is wholly inconceivable ; and death from that 

 cause, from a snake-bite for example, would be attributed 

 to some evil influence exerted by man, as in witchcraft or 

 by a supernatural being, or to some mistake or omission 

 in the incantation. 



This number, 4, runs through the entire per- 

 formance : four days are spent in collecting the 

 snakes, — one day for each of the cardinal points 

 of the compass ; the dancers retire then to the 

 Jciva for four days, fasting and praying during the 

 day, and eating only one meal, and that one after 

 dark ; on the fourth day of this period the dance 

 takes place, and is followed by four days of puri- 

 fication and prayer : each figure in the dance, 

 except the last, is repeated four times. 



A description of the Moki snake-dance w hich 

 occurred at Wolpi in 1881 has been published by 

 Capt. John G. Bourke of the arni} T , in his book 

 1 The Mokis of Arizona.' This description differs 

 in many important points from mine. It is true, 

 we describe dances at different villages ; but I 

 have already said there was no essential difference 

 between the two performances witnessed by us : 

 in action the two dances were identical. As 

 Captain Bourke's account is probably a close one, 

 the ritual of the dance must have undergone 

 many important changes in the period which 

 elapsed between the dance witnessed by him and 

 the one here described. The dance is performed 

 under the auspices of the antelope gens or the 

 antelope order, we were unable to determine 

 which ; but the men who handled the snakes be- 

 longed to the snake order, and not to the snake 

 gens. I think that one of the requirements is, 

 that all those taking part in this dance shall be 

 members, either congenital or adopted, of the 

 antelope gens, or order, whichever it may be. 

 The snake gens has nothing to do with the dance ; 

 and, contrary to the opinion of Captain Bourke, 

 it is not referable, I think, to ancestor- worship, at 

 least not directly. It is not even serpent-worship, 

 unless the word be taken in its widest sense, — 

 the sense which includes not only serpent-adora- 

 tion and reverence, but also serpent-symbolism. 

 It is in this sense that I have used the word. r Ihe 

 Moki Indian loves and reveres the snakes, and 

 will never, unless under the greatest necessity, do 

 them harm; but he does not adore them, nor 

 sacrifice to them as he does to his gods, but uses 

 them simply as the most appropriate messengers 

 to the rain-god. 



The underlying ideas which have given rise to 

 this dance are, and must remain so long as our 

 knowledge is in its present incomplete state, un- 

 known. From the point of view of the great 

 majority of the Moki Indians, it is simply an in- 

 vocation, — a ceremony having for its sole pur- 

 pose the procuring of rain ; but the fact that there 

 is an esoteric legend, one very jealously guarded, 

 too, seems to point to another and a deeper signifi- 

 cation. An investigation in this direction would 

 probably result in throwing much fight, not only 



