The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1902-08-23

2 &
Superstitious savagery and modern
science bend their widest extreme to meet
at the snake dance of the Moqui Indians
of Northeastern Arizona. There is cur
ling, twisting. dance of naked, painted
aborigines about IA missing pile Of snakes
Around about, from all points Of vantage,
are pointed cameras Of every style.
Sometimes an enthusiastic, amateur . in
his excitement, breaks away from the
ring and runs in among the crawling
rattlers for closer shot. To the cele-
brants his intrusion Is as though a lay
man foot had desecrated cathedral
sanctuary in the hottest moment of the
service of the mass
1t ts varied assemblage indeed tina.
gathers at the snake dan .e. Whites of
both sexes from all over the Union. many
Of them clad in the impossible costumes
the Eastern visitors consider 1.-THE proper
thing in the West, army officers and
negro soldiers, scientists, +, cowboys, "a
large number of solemn and attentive
Navajo and Sopai Indian visitors, and
a swarm of the Moquis themselves The
housetops and every point of vantage
are crowded, the upper mesa has a fringe
of sightseers, and even from the sacred
rock depend the legs of sacrilegious spec
tators. III s. .r-gl s@g , h., - T..
The attendance of whites was less this
year than ordinarily, because of the fear
of smallpox, The fear was we'll gr ounded.
Every Indian has been vaccinateG, though
force. in the presence of a detachment
of negro cavalry, was necessary to COM
plete the operation. The government in
spectors burned all the infected blankets
and property that could be found and
whitewashed the walls within every
house. Yet it was plain at the dance
that much had been saved by the Indians
from the destrOyers hands, says the New
York Herald, and with these. articles, so
freely bought by the visitors, goes the
fear of the plague. 80, H. 4,
The villages are easily to be reached
from Flagstaff, Winslow or Canon d.
sablo. all on the line of the Santa Fee
railway. The shortest route is that from
the last named place, 1O3 miles. The way
is mainly over plain of wondrous
geological features, of rare co1orings of
red and grey and white sandstone that
would battle a painter, The dance is held
in August, the time being. announced a
month before, according to the setting
of the sun beyond a cleft in the jagged
hills to the westward.
The Moqui tribe numbers about two
thousand 1t is not concrete, and has no
tribal government, though In each pueblo
are leaders who, to degree. are obeyed
The pueblos, seven in number, were To-
Gated for purpose OF defence upon the
tops of curious detached limestone mesas,
IN IN several cases $50 SO small that the walls
tinuation of the walls Of the encom-
passing principles The tribe is a peace
full one, though ,intolerant OF interfer-
ence with It's tribal customs ..~TE5 d
To the villages have been sent teachers
of the white mans learning and Of the
white mans system Of husbandry, but
little good has been done thereby. A few
Moquts speak English, but would rather
not. The situation is we'll expressed by
Godfrey Sykes. an Intelligent English
man who lived among the Moquis for
years, and who Is an initiate Of the Order
of the Antelopes: 80 ., 4 - a,.... ..
"a Moqui is an Indian, and you never
can make him white. He is nothing to
brag of as an Indian, but the further
you take him from his natural station
the worse he is. Naked, he is picturesque
and in keeping with the country and with
his" nature; clothed, he Is a worthless
scarecrow The youngsters now look like
a pack Of charity school children. Inc
customs of the whites are being forced
upon the Indians little by little, and soon
the tribal pride will be broken and the
tribe will pass away in misery" n
Every male Moqui at manhood joins at
least one Of the of the tribal societies.
Each is as secret In its work as is the
Masonic order. The main esoteric So,
cety is that of the 'Antelopes," and
through it is exercised the greatest tribal
influence. Next in rank, and to a degree
affiliated with the first, is the Snake
priesthood. The Bear People is an or
der particularly select and is almost ex-
tinct.--s 90 , y e. s-.,,f,s. .l,ss 81 -.
,r;r obi te
several orders of the Smoke People" the.
Dawn People" or "Song Singers. the
Thinkers" the Home People" and a
few societies Of lesser Importance In
almost every pueblo each of the main
orders has cellar, lodge room or "kiva,' =
the 'cn 1ni ssavss as Mea. as ciun
of leisure. Here are woven blankets, the
work only Of men, and here, when the
ground is frozen and the spirits are gone
to the under world, are told the stories
of mystery in which the Indian delights.
Primarily the dance is a rainmaking
ceremony. though the snakes are pre-
sumed to carry to their homes in the
under WORLD to the deities who sway
the fortunes of mankind the prayers of
the people for prosperity and happiness.
The snakes are called elder brothers,"
and IN them are believed to exist the
spirits of ancestors held for while
swixt the surface and the neither worlds
sn purgatorial condition. Thus it comes
that no Moqui Will harm snake, though
the rattlers are feared and no dernur is
made when the white man kills them.
When Moqui is bitten he is cons L.
cred favored of the .-Snakes People,, and
he is made a member of the snake clan
if he were not member before. Several
effectua1 remedies are known to the
woman doctors of the tribe, and the bit
ten one never dies if the old women
can be found.
The dance this year had not the pro-
fessional swing that has heretofore
marked it. Many of the more prominent
actors were missed. During the winter
the pueblos had been scourged by small
pox,. and the dead had been so many that.
the burial ceremonies had perforce to be
omitted and the bodies had to be thrown
without order into small canyon in the
limestone near Wolpi, there to poison the
air and to bring the carrion birds. Later
a government officer courageously broke
over the tribal bars, saturated the pile
with Kerosene, and made a funeral pyret
such as had never before been known in
america.
There had been seven hundred deaths in
the villages. and fully half the bodies
had been thrown into the cleft In the
rocks Burial ordinarily is made beyond
this place, on subordinate plateau, in
small cracks in the limestone, where the
bodies are laid in order and covered with
rocks
In August of the odd numbered wears
is held the main dance, that at Wolpi.
with preliminary ceremonies at Michong-
uavi. The others. held in the even NUM-