Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1904-08-13
primitive condis.iols still prevail,
and grow up witt fhe country
Praying For Rain.


they implore their deities to supply.
Rain. ran, rain, on the parched
fields of Mokiland in the far-off
Painted Desert of the Colorado in
Arizona /; at this time of the year the
supplicaton that is waited heaven
wards 10y the Moki and Zuni priest,
descendt IT'S of the ancient, now totally
extinct Cliff Dwellers. The Snake
dance, really the Rain dance of the
miracle working Zuni priests and
medicine men has become famous
Throughout the Mesa-land of the
unknown West, This Snake dance,
in all its native wizardry, is being
repeated several times daily, Sun
days alone excepted, at the Cliff
Dwellers Concession at the Worlds
Fair in st. Louis. Twenty 1.-the
Iimbed medicine men, twenty for
biddingly caparisoned priests, an
entire Indian orchestra of tom-t
beaters and full choir of Zuni
incarnation chanters, no such
scenic, vocal or instrumental
investure, strictly native and
aboriginal, has ever before been seen
at any Worlds fair or public, exhibit
tion of any kind. The Cliff Dwellers
Concession was the first organization
at the ST. Louis fair to grasp the
possibilities of the theatrical as we'll
as the educational side of such dis
play and their Theatre Moki in the
midst of their handsome and complete
exhibit is daily and nightly thronged
by thousands of the interested and
diverted spectators, including all
sorts and conditions of men. The
strange part of the attendance is
found in the presence at all times
of Indians from the United States
Government and other exhibits,
drawn thither by the fame and
wonderful Shungopavi, chief of the
Moki medicine men, but greater than
that, necromancer, miracle worker
and sleight-of hand performer, ALSO
lutely the best among the North Amer
lean Indians yet brought within the
confines of civilization. The ordinary
mountebank stands abashed at the
skill and dexterity of the Mesa, whose
keen eyes have a fascination all their
own. All the passes, paintings and
other exhibitions of wizardy of which
the theatres and the- honks-arA fall
invents as he goes along the neatest
little tricks in mystification and
duplicates instantly all those which
the spectators, having seen them else.
where, ask him to repeat. He does
all this amid strictly Zuni environ
ment, and without the slightest use of
apparatus, covered tables, assistants
or paraphernalia of any kind. But
the Cliff Dwellers exhibit has other
great features. 1t is first and fore.
most an chronological exhibit. II
reveals in all its parts the intention
OF its projectors, to afford World
Fair visitors the fullest opportunityto
study the manners, customs and
tribal relations of the earth's stranp.
est people in what is today the United
States. These Zunis, Moks and
Pueblos, direct descendants of the
famous, though now extinct. Cliff
Dwellers of the unknown West. have
since time immemorial been n
peaceable people. Slaughter of or by
the whites is not in their records.
They have lived an isolated exist.
ence, cultivating the arts of peace
rather than those of war, and thew
are today the best opponents of the
fine old adage peace hath her
victories, no less renowned than war. y
Iheir ways are gentle and the elements
so mixed in them, nature might rise
up and say to all the world These are
men. Naturally with people, though
aboriginal, SO constituted, the care
OF women and children is of first i'm.
portance. 1t is amusing to watch
the Zuni children. Only Yesterday
on the Mesa, and today in the metro
Polls OF the Mississippi valley, dis
port themselves with all the ease
and unconcern of their native state.
The mothers have infinite patience
with their little ones. The youno.
Sters are strong, supple, agile and
Fear is not in them.
They trust their elders and are
happy.