Semi=weekly graphic., 1899-07-26
SNAKE DANCE. a THRILLING RELIGIOUS CEREMONY OF THE MOKl
 INDIANS.
  A PRAYER FOR RAIN. The Ceremony Occurs in August and is Witnessed by Both Whites
 and Indians.

Special Correspondence of the Graphie'
 ORACLE, ARIz., July 18.-In the northern part of Arizona, just a little east of center and north of the Little Colorado river are located tbe s'seven cities of the Moki Indians The seven pueblos are just across the Pointed Desert, situated on two large mesas and are embraced in a locality not more than 50 miles across. They are about 100 miles due north of Winslow, a town on the Santa Fe railway, and are reached by a stage from that polnt. For scores upon scores of years the Mokis have occupied this semi desert country. They are said to have been discovered by Spanish explorers m the sixteenth century who named the country tue Province of Tusayan. The seven villages are built on three mesas, and originally were almost entirely inaccessible, being reached by narrow trail and defended at the entrance by sort of fortress. But the MolSis are among tue most intelligent and civilized of Indians, aud in modern times have constructed paths by| which ascent to sbeir pue5Ios are less difficult than formerly How eyer, the Mokis of the present day continue to live much as did their forefathers centuries ago. "The women toil up the trails with water from the spring below, and the men, returning from the fields, chmb a small mountains height daily They sobsist almost wholly by agriculture applied to the fields at the foot of the mesas, and are an industrious, hardy and thrifty race.
 But the M9kis find abudant time between their labors for amusement, entertainment and elaborate cere- monials During the month of| August in each year they bod a religious festival which hundreds Of whites as well as all the native tribes and many neighboring Navaios gather to witness. During this festival occur the grotesque Kaehina or masked Garces, the ideally poetic" Flute dance and the intensely dramatic" Snake dance The last two are religious eeremon ials in the shape of dramatized prayers for rain. There is an Indian legend to the effect that some of their ancestors descended to the lower wofld to consult the gods and bring rain upon their crops, and that these spirits returned to the upper world in the shape of ser pents. Therefore, in toe Moki mythology the snake Is sacred. Tor four days prior to their Antelope. Snake dance snake priests have secured the surrounding country iu search of the reptiles which are put into buckskin bags and carried to the village where the ceremony is to be held, Here the serpents are placed in a snake.k kiva, where they are washed and purified, as it were, for the final ceremony. "0ther dances of the Mokis are more pleas inq, says one who has witnessed them, "as the Kachina dances with 4heir mirtb and music, or the Flute dance, full of color and ceremony but the Snake dance attracts with potent fascination. One gets so interested in the progress of the dance that the anticipated element of horror does rot appear amid the rythmic movement and tragic ges lures Of the dancers with here and there the sinuous undalation of venomous rattlesnake.
 Let the ceremony proceed. One