BOSTON OPERA HOUSE 
The program for the fourth week 
of the season at the Boston Opera 
House will carry on the high stand- 
Sard that has been set, both as_ re- 
gards the diversity and interest of 
the works produced, and also the uni- 
formly excellent nature of the casts 
that have presented them, 
meen Monday, “Dec. 15th, Saint- 
‘Saens’s “Samson et Dalila,” which 
was heard but once last season, will 
be presented. The role of Dalila will 
will offer Mme. D’Alvarez an oppor- 
tunity worthy of her rare vocal and 
histrionic powers; and those who 
heard her rendition of the “My Heart 
‘at Thy Sweet Voice” aria at last 
Sunday’s concert will not doubt that 
the performance will be notable. 
At Wednesday night’s performance 
of “Thais” Mary Garden will make 
her last appearance in Boston until 
the latter part of the season. This is 
-one of Miss Garden’s most famous 
characterizations, and additional in- 
_ terest will be lent to the performance 
by the fact that the Athanael is to be 
the popular Vanni Marcoux. 
On Friday night “The Jewels of 
the Madonna” will be repeated, and it 
is very probable_that this will be the 
last repetition of the brilliant Wolf- 
Ferrari piece for the present. Mme. 
- Saturday afternoon will present a 
notable performance of “La Travia- 
Ma,’ as Luisa Tetrazzini will sing 
Violetta on that occasion. It will be 
Mme. Tetrazzini’s first appearance of 
the season. 
Especial attention is directed to the 
‘unusual excellence of tht popular- 
priced performance on Saturday 
night. The bill will be double,— 
“Cavalleria Rusticana” and “I Pag- 
_liaeci,” and these works will be sung 
by regular subscription artists. 
Tt 1s TIME 
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Boston Evening Transcript, provid- 
ing a daily feast of the best literature 
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Subscriptions are received for any 
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Edvina will sing the role of Maliella. - 
selection than a subscription to the 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
21 
The Snake Dance of the Moquis 
Wonderful Religious Ceremony Dating Back Before Conquest 
By (M. J. BROWN) 
The Mogqui snake dance is a relic 
of ancient savagery, more weird and 
horrible than anything that can be 
seen in darkest Africa. Yet it is per- 
tormed by our native sons, our first 
Americans, 
Roosevelt wrote it up in the Satur- 
day Evening Post. He saw it last 
August. I never saw it, but I am go- 
ing to write of it. I have visited two 
of the Moqui cliff cities. I have seen 
the flat rock where the snake dances 
are held; the ceremonial rooms where 
the actors make their preparations; 
the Indians who have taken part in 
the mystic rite and I have talked with 
many a white man who has seen the 
famous rattlesnake dance. 
But first let me locate the Moqui 
land. It is the most remote of any of 
the Indian reservations, with the pos- 
sible exception of Zuni, and the Hupi 
people remain the nearest to what 
they were before Columbus landed, of 
any. of the American Indians. 
Far from any other tribe (except 
the wandering Navajos) and seldom 
visited by white men, these Indians 
retain their old customs and ways of 
lfe—are practically as they were 
when Coronada found them 375 years 
ago. And how many ‘hundreds of 
years they had lived there before this 
adventurous Spaniard ran onto their 
villages, none can tell, but many claim 
at least a thousand years. 
But I was locating their Moqui 
towns. 
The petrified forest is about the 
only place of beginning, thence due 
north 100 miles, be the same more or 
less, and before you get there you will 
say it is about 50 miles more. That 
Arizona desert is some desert, and 
when you have traveled along its edge, 
1oo miles from a railroad, you will 
know it. The wonderful places of 
our country are pretty well hidden. 
There are seven cities in the Moqui 
country, so | am told. I saw two of 
them, and when a white man told me 
how they spelled the second one | 
dared not tackle the third. Si-chom- 
wi. You pronounce it. The first was 
not so bad—Hualpi. 
These Indian villages are all built 
on the top of mesas (hills) of solid 
rock, built up of dobi blocks, and 
built in just the same way they were 
built hundreds of years before the 
conquest. The houses are all one 
great house, all built adjoining, and 
cut up with partitions like stock yard 
pens. They ere wonderful sights the 
first time American eyes see them 
and the American has to pinch him- 
self to be sure he is not dreaming. 
There are, 1 am told, from 1,500 to 
1,200 Indians in these several towns. 
And far out in this remote corner 
of the U. 5. way back where the Am- 
erican desert forbids many to go, 
here is held, once in two years, one 
of the most barbaric ceremonies the 
world has ever seen—and right here 
almost in the center of our country, 
and in the year 1913. 
Lhe man who started that slogan 
“See America First,” had probably 
been to the snake dance. 
I intended to have seen this year’s 
rattlesnake dance. A friend at Espa- 
nola, N. M., wrote me it would be 
held about the middle of September. 
But it was in August, and I missed 
it. 
There is no particular date for it. 
it is held once in two years at a cer- 
iain time when the moon does a cer- 
tain thing, but only a Moqui Indian 
can tell the day a month in advance. 
Fte..can. 
You don’t care about the legends 
and the religious ceremonies that go 
with this weird dance, so I will cut it 
short and get down to the snake danc- 
ing and snake eating. But I will say 
that in every one of the seven pueblos 
I have visited, Santa Clara, Isleta, 
Acoma, Laguni, Zuni and Moqui, the 
deadly rattlesnake is held sacred by 
this medicine. 
For about two weeks before the 
snake dance the priests who are to 
take part in the ceremony, begin to 
train, and that training is drinking 
daily large quantities of bitter medi- 
cine made from secret herb, and for 
a week before. the ceremony not to 
touch food in any form. It is also 
said the Indians rub their bodies with 
this medicine. 
It is said if an Indian is bitten dur- 
ing the dance, the effect of the snake 
poison on his system, full of the herb 
tea, is only a stomach sickness and 
that after the dance many of the In- 
dians may be seen, bending over a 
trough, vomiting. 
There are from 15 to 20 of the 
priests who take part in the cere- 
mony. They march into the court and 
do a few preliminary stunts, and then 
the game starts. 
One after another, they reach into 
buckskin bags, grab a huge rattler, 
