ouldn't reach it; it's a shame for visitors to crowd up and get in the
way unless they are prepared to sit perfectly still, whatever happens."
Really one feels ashamed of the squealing and frightened laughter of
careless white visitors who stand or sit nearer than they should and
then make an unseemly disturbance when a snake gets too close. The
priests resent such conduct, but always go right on without paying any
attention to it. The rattles and singing voices of the Antelope priests
furnish a dignified, rhythmic accompaniment throughout the dance, and
the Snake men move in perfect time to it.

When all the snakes have been carried and the last one has been dropped
from the mouth of the carrier, the chant ceases. A priest draws a great
round cloud symbol on the ground. Quickly the Hopi maids and women, (a
small selected group), who stand ready with baskets of meal, sprinkle
the ground within the circle. At a signal all the snakes, now in the
hands of the gatherers and the Antelope priests, are thrown upon this
emblem. The women hastily drop sacred meal on the mass of snakes, then a
second signal and the Snake priests grab up the whole writhing mass in
their hands and run in the four directions off the steep mesa, to
deposit their Elder Brothers again in the lowlands with the symbolic
sacred meal on their backs, that they may bear away to the underground
the prayers of their Younger Brothers, the Snake Clan. The Antelope
priests now circle the plaza four times, stamping on the sipapu in
passing, and then return to their own kiva, and the dance is over. The
Snake priests presently return to the village, still running, disrobe in
their kiva and promptly go to the nearest edge of the mesa, where the
women of their clan wait with huge bowls of emetic (promptly effective)
and tubs of water for bathing. This is the purification ceremony which
ends the ritual. Immediately the women of their families bring great
bowls and trays of food and place them on top of the Snake Kiva, and the
men, who have fasted all day and sometimes longer, enjoy a feast.

A spirit of relief and happiness now pervades the village and everybody
keeps open house.

Far more often than otherwise, rain, either a sprinkle or a downpour,
has come during or just at the close of the dance, and the people are
thankful and hopeful, for this is often the first rain of the season.
The writer has herself stood soaked to the skin by a thunder shower that
had been