The Coconino sun., 1919-08-15

the green clouds of the west, the red clouds of the south and the white clouds of the east. At the termina- tion of the eighth song the young couple are relieved.
 1 This ceremony is repeated on the seventh and eighth days, with the glorious antelope race occurring on the latter day.
 At noon of the ninth day a mys- terious silence hangs over the village, apparently silence of reverence and awe. A large bowl is brought into the Snake kiva and in it holy water l is prepared. Sand is spread over the floor, and the priests take their places facing the wall and surrounding the sanded area.
 Another priest, costumed as the war god, stands in the center, with q bowl of holy water in front of him. Two or three of the priests proceed to corner of the kiva, where the snakes are kept, and picking up the snake jars, put them in canvas sacks and take them to the Snake priests The most solemn moment of the cere- mony is at hand. Beginning low chant, the priest reaches his hand into the sacks and draws out as many snakes as he can hold. He repeats this, until the sanded area is a wrig- gling mass of reptiles. He then picks up the bowl of holy water, leaves the kiva, and deposits a part of it at the four trails leading out from the In- dian village.
 In the meantime the snakes are herded by naked boys from seven to twelve years old, who play with the snakes, permitting them to crawl over, around and under them, with no apprehension of the danger whatso. ever.
 At sunset the final performance oc- CUTS on the plaza.
 Two lines of men enter, singing. One of the Snake priests, the carrier, approaches, receives a snake from the the kisi, which he places in his mouth, while another man, the hugger, fol- lows immediately behind and places his arm over his shoulder to guard the mans face from the snakes head with his snake whip. A third priest follows, the gatherer. All the other priests follow in trios similar to the first.
 If snake wriggles from the car rier's mouth, it is bounced upon by the gatherer. By and by all the snakes are deposited in a circle form ed by the sacred corn meal, about five feet in diameter. The whole line passes by immediately afterward, and each man as he passes plunges his hands into the mass of rattlesnakes. takes double handful and starts off over the side of the mesa. the first man north, the second west, and so on, until the last snake has been gath. cred from the pile. The snakes are deposited at the foot of the mesa, and after the purification rites, during which all the men who have handled the snakes take violent emetics, the dance is over.
 Frank Marks, son of E. A. Marks. superintendent of the Oraibi Indian school, gave The Sun man much ad- ditional information about these cele- brated snake dances.
 "The Snake God of the Hopi is not a good spirit, but an evil spirit. The Indians don't need any extraordinary ceremonies to propitiate the good spirits, because they know they will be good to them anyway. But they want to keep on the right side of the devil, because they want him to leave them alone.
 There will be no dance at Boeaibi, because the snake chief of that village is dead. There has been none at Oraibi for three years. This is be- cause of quarrel between the chief of the snake clan and the village chief. One of the sons of the former lost his wife, another Indian taking her. The village chief refused to in tervene, so the snake clan chief is on a prolonged strike.
 "The dances this year will be at the First and Second Mesas.
 "The dances next year will be at the Second and Third Mesas.
 "Some of these snakes have been sent to Washington to verify the claims that their fangs had not been extracted. They were found to be fully equipped to deal out death.
 q saw one old chap who was bitten in the cheek by big rattler, which, of course, he held in his mouth. He never lost step. The Indian dancing next him leased the snakes head away with his feathers. A little boy, who was bitten at the beginning of a dance was all in when it came time for him to drop out of the dance. And then he did drop out literally. There was no time to get him to the kiva, so they doctored him right there, and he got out of it all right.
 There are only nine or ten Snake Clan men in Hoteville, and three boys who belong to the clan. Contrary to the usual belief, not all Hopis are Snake Clan men. Some belong to the Antelope Clan, some to the Beaver Clan, others to the Corn, Elk, and other clans.
 Membership in the Snake Clan is strictly hereditary, except when a Hopi is bitten by rattler, when he is eligible to the clan. There is an Indian boy here in Flagstaff now who was bitten by rattler when he stuck