Snake Dance

“ The Snake Dance is an elaborate ceremony of several days’ duration, during which live rattlesnakes are on occasion carried in the hands and even held between the teeth while a dignified and ‘stamping’ sort of dance goes forward. ”

“ Although these men always asked us to "See the snake dance?" we always saw every other trick but the one that had caught us. One morning, when a man urged me to "See the snake dance?" I said that I would, but that I would pay to see the snake dance and for nothing else. Quite unwillingly the men lifted the lid of the basket, and the cobra crawled slowly out, curling itself up on the ground. ”

“ It is the Snake order that gives every two years the great snake dance, in which, after many secret rites and prayers in their kiva, or sacred house, the members perform a public dance, during which they carry live and deadly rattlesnakes dangling from their mouths. ”

“ The ceremony of the Snake Dance begins many days before that public conclusion the tourist sees. The date of the dance is announced by the pueblo crier from the housetops. The priests of the Antelope and Snake clans go to their respective kivas where, amid chants and exorcism, the wardrobe is looked over and all necessary tools and sacred equipment are prepared. A certain number of songs are sung each day, according to a strict ritual. It is during this time that new members are initiated, whether or not with revolting rites is for those to answer who know. ”

“ When I began to visit the Hopi Indians in Northern Arizona, who celebrate that wonderfully thrilling religious ceremony known as the Snake Dance, I found that their lives conformed exactly to this aura assumption. They handle deadly rattlesnakes with fearlessness, putting small ones into their mouths so that nothing but their heads protrude, and larger ones, up to five feet in length, in their teeth, head on one side of the mouth, the writhing, wriggling body on the other. ”

“ Though the Indian uses musical instruments for his social ceremonies, such as the turtle-shell harp, wooden flute and whistles, he never applies their tunes to the dances that have a more serious or religious meaning. The Snake Dance, like the Dream Dance, is based on a legend, but the story of it is more involved, tragic and mystic, therefore its ghastly nature and weird symbolic gestures appear42 more vivid and direct than the themes of any other of the Indian folk-dances. But the steps and poses of every Indian dance are similar to each other, slow, compact, impassive and dignified. ”

“ The Snake dance is an elaborate prayer for rain, in which the reptiles are gathered from the fields, intrusted with the prayers of the people, and then given their liberty to bear these petitions to the divinities who can bring the blessing of copious rains to the parched and arid farms of the Hopis. ”

“ The most remarkable exhibition of dancing, still in vogue, is the repulsive Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, which takes place every year alternately in four villages between the 10th and the 30th of August according to the phase of the moon. ”

“ Remote, incredibly remote it all seemed even at that time, and some of that charm I put into an account of it which Harper's published—one of the earliest popular accounts of the Snake Dance.
One night as I was standing on the edge of the cliff looking out over the sand to the west, I saw a train of pack horses moving toward Walpi like a jointed, canvas-colored worm. It was the outfit of another party of "tourists" coming to the dance, and half an hour later a tall, lean, brown and smiling man of middle life rode up the eastern trail at the head of his train. ”

“ At Oraibi, where one of the three Snake dances held in Tusayan in the even years occurs, painted baskets of wicker are made. They are very decorative. The potter also plies her craft for the advent of the white man. The clay has been gathered, prepared, and made into vessels of forms tempting to the visitor, painted and burned at the foot of the mesa so that the villainous smoke will not choke everyone. ”

“ These ceremonies are religious and make up the complicated worship of the people of Tusayan. Even a visitor bent on sightseeing alone will be impressed with the seriousness of the Indian dancers and the evidence of deep feeling—perhaps it should be called devotion—in the onlookers. Not only in the somber Snake dance, but in every other ceremony of Tusayan the actors are inspired by one purpose and that is to persuade the gods to give rain and abundant crops. ”

“ When all the snakes have been duly danced around the ring, and the nerve tension is at its highest pitch, there is a pause; the old priest advances to an open place and sprinkles sacred meal on the ground, outlining a ring with the six compass points, while the Snake priests gather around. ”

“ The Snake-king is passionately fond of dancing, and yet it is only men who dance before him. Now, if a woman were to do so, who knows but he might be so pleased that he would grant her anything she asked? ”

“ After the men are all washed and puked they re-enter the Kiva, where the long fast is broken by a feast and the formal ceremonies of the snake dance are ended.
The snake dance is annually witnessed by many visitors who gather from different sections of the country and even foreign lands. As there are no hotels to entertain guests every visitor must provide his own outfit for conveyance, eating and sleeping. Even water is scarce. Local springs barely furnish enough water to supply the native population ”

“ There is recorded also on the phonograph, with the song, the invitation to the dance in the Passamaquoddy language. An invitation is extended to all to come to the dance. It is a proclamation that there will be a good time, much to eat, "Indian dances," snake dance, and Micmac dances. The shell of the turtle was used in old times for a rattle, in place of the horn, and in a story of the origin of the rattlesnake the conqueror is said to use a rattle of this kind. In the Zuñi dances, and in the Moqui snake-dance, a turtle rattle is tied to the inside of the left leg. ”

“ The dance step of this first pair is a rhythmic energetic movement, almost a stamping, with the carrier dancing with closed eyes. The gatherer merely walks behind, and is an alertly busy man. The writer has seen as many as five snakes on the ground at once, some of them coiling and rattling, others darting into the surrounding crowd with lightning rapidity, but never has she seen one escape the gatherer, and just once has she seen a snake come near to making its escape. ”

“ Here it was that the earliest visitors came and saw the thrilling Snake Dance. Its southeastern trail, with the wonderful detached rock leaning over on one side and the cliff on the other, between which the steep and rude stairway is constructed, has been so often pictured, as well as the so-called "Sacred Rock" of the Walpi dance plaza, that they are now as familiar as photographs of Trinity Church, New York, or St. ”

“ It is not true, as was formerly believed, that the snake-charmer can entice snakes out of their holes by the soothing tones of his flute and make them dance to his piping. The dancing is a much simpler affair. When the captured snake rears up and sways the upper part of his body to and fro, the charmer holds out some hard object, perhaps a fragment of brick. The snake bites, but hurts himself, and after a while gives up biting. Then the charmer can put his hand in front of the snake's head without being bitten. ”

“ The dance is supposedly a religious one, in honor of the Rain God, and at first the snakes were not used, but as the dancers became wrought up and excited by their antics one by one they reached within the kisi and drew out a snake, allowing the reptiles to coil around their almost naked bodies and handling them with seeming impunity. A few were harmless species, as bull snakes and arrow snakes; but mostly the Moki used rattlesnakes, which are native to the mesa and its rocky cliffs. ”

“ The Antelope men continue the whirring of their gourds, and with the Snake men the action becomes faster. Seven or eight couples are now stamping around, and the gatherers have a busy time of it.
And then comes the signal that the bag of the kisi is empty. All snakes have been produced in the open, and danced with, and dropped, and gathered up. Now two priests describe with meal a large circle on the ground before the Dance Rock. The dancers approach and throw all the snakes into this circle. They crowd around it as meal is sprinkled, and perhaps some exorcism is muttered. ”

“ The dance itself has no method in its madness, I have been told. The participants, who are not all Voodoos by any means, have been on short rations or none for nine days; they are full of tobacco-smoke or whiskey, and their nerves are still further excited by fear of the snake and the god or devil he represents. They howl in any key, without words or rhythmic sounds, the same as they do at a religious revival or camp-meeting. ”

“ When the weddings took place all the snake brothers of the brides attended, and a great dance was made in their honor. Since that [Pg 113] time a yearly dance and feast is held for the snakes, and they then descend to their Snake God father and tell him the Hopis still need rain.
While the men garner snakes and perform in the kivas, the women are not idle. Far from it! Pottery-makers are busy putting the last touches of paint on their pottery, and basket makers add the last row of weaving to the baskets. ”

“ Men who have attended as many as ten dances in various Moki pueblos say that they have never seen a dancer bitten by a poisonous snake, while others have seen a reptile strike or perhaps fasten upon the hand of a dancer and require to be shaken off. In the present state of the question everyone must judge for himself. One thing is very certain, the Mokis are extremely careful with a poisonous snake. At Wolpi, in 1897, two
ENTRANCE OF SNAKE PRIESTS, WOLPI.Vroman, photo. ”

“ In that case he may have divined his daughter's fate with greater insight and love than he is credited with. As she herself admitted, she is sometimes more irresistibly drawn by what is ugly than by what is pure and beautiful; and the dance follows a logical course leading on pitilessly to tragedy."
The new phase of the dance began, in which the dancer looks at the spider again, takes it to be harmless, and laughs at herself, as it were, for her fears. Ingigerd portrayed this with inimitable grace, innocence and merriness. ”

“ The voices of the dancers make the music. At first the song is a mere humming sound, but after a time, it grows gradually louder, until the participants in the dance, being excited to the highest attainable pitch with interest in the ceremonies, it becomes terribly hideous. Almost naked, with tomahawk and hunting-knife in hand, the warriors imitate the process of dispatching and tearing off the scalps of their victims. So excited do the dancing savages sometimes become while reveling in these fantastical scenes, that they frequently are aroused to a pitch which borders on frenzy. ”

“ His dancing is distinguished by its reserve. It always leaves something to the imagination. His gestures in the “Arrow Dance” derive no little of their effectiveness from what they suggest, but leave unsaid. It is the warrior not at war but at play, and like the gambolling of young tigers affects us by the passion that it only hints at. His dancing has a constant tendency to forsake motion for repose. In his entrechats and pirouettes I seemed to note a certain reluctance, as though they were a concession demanded by popular taste, or a lingering tradition of the ballet technique. ”

“ Should the performance not be ended, the snakes are called to attention by being sharply pulled back by their tail, when up they rise with hood expanded, and with just enough of power and spirit left in them to recommence the ‘dance,’ more truly to make one more futile attempt to strike their tyrannical masters. ”

“ In mid-advance they stop, face each other, chassée, retire, and again come further forward, stop, and the peculiar portion of the dance begins, which is not dancing at all, but a quivering, undulating motion given to the body, as the girl stands with feet planted wide apart. The feet are still, the head scarcely stirs, except with an almost imperceptible snakelike movement, but the muscles of the body to the hips quiver in time to the monotonous music, in muscular thrills, in waves running down, and at intervals extending below the waist. ”

“ There follows a passage between captive and captor, which can scarcely be described as a dance, yet is something more than the mere acting of a scene. Desperately and repeatedly the Fire Bird strives to escape from the strong arms which imprison it; again and again the Prince, though hard put to it to retain the elusive creature in his grasp, frustrates these fluttering efforts. Though dancing, in the sense of rhythmic movement, is not the precise descriptive term for these expressive postures and motions, one needs it to convey the poetic sense of beauty which Karsavina here reveals. ”

“ The dance commences by the men springing forward towards the centre of the circle and back again, flashing their knives about over their heads, and singing in time to the music in a low tone, but gradually the music, singing, and dancing become louder and quicker, belts and turbans are thrown off to allow of greater freedom of movement, and the knives flash more rapidly, until at last the men seem in a very frenzy, and the dancing becomes a series of wild leaps in the air, knives are thrown up and caught again, and the singing changes to a chorus of wild yells. ”