Antelopes, and all of them, for about five minutes, wave their wands and chant some unintelligible words.  Suddenly one Antelope and one Snake man rush to the kisi, and the priest who is presiding over the serpents presents them with a snake.  The Snake man immediately places the wriggling reptile in his mouth, and holds it by the centre of its body between his teeth, as he marches around the little plaza, taking high steps.  Meantime the, Antelope man accompanies him, stroking the snake continually with a wand tipped with feathers.  Then all the members of the two fraternities follow in couples and do the same thing.  Finally, each Snake man carries at least two snakes in his mouth and several in his hands; and even little boys, five years old, dressed like the adults, also hold snakes in their hands, fearlessly.  Once in a while a snake is purposely dropped, and a man whose special duty it is to prevent its escape rushes after it and catches it up.

[Illustration:  THE SNAKE DANCE.]

All the time that this hideous ceremony is going on, a weird chant is sung by the men and women of the tribe; and, at last, the chief priest draws on the ground a mystic circle with a line of sacred meal, and into this the men unload their snakes until the whole space becomes a writhing mass of serpents.  Suddenly the members rush into this throng of squirming reptiles, most of which are rattlesnakes, and each, grabbing up a handful of them, runs at full speed down the mesa and sets them at liberty, to act as messengers to carry to the gods their prayers for rain.  This ends the ceremony for the snakes, but not for the men; for after they have liberated the reptiles, the members of the brotherhoods return and bathe themselves in a kind of green decoction, called Frog-water.  Then they drink a powerful emetic, and having lined up on the edge of the mesa, vomit in unison!  This is to purge them from the evil effects of snake-handling; and lest it should not be sufficiently effectual, the dose is repeated.  Then they sit down, and eat bread, given them by the women as a kind of communion or religious rite.

[Illustration:  AFTER THE EMETIC.]

[Illustration:  CHIEF SNAKE PRIEST.]

The seventy or eighty snakes used in this dance are treated from first to last with the utmost kindness and respect, especially the rattlesnakes, a dozen of which will frequently be squirming on the ground at once.  It is noticeable that the Indians never pick up a rattlesnake when coiled, but always wait until it straightens itself out under the feather stroking, for it is claimed that the rattlesnake cannot strike uncoiled.  At all events, when one is at its full length, the Indians not only catch it up fearlessly, but carry it with impunity in their mouths and hands.  As might be supposed, however, the Moquis are said to possess an antidote against the poison of a rattlesnake, which, if a man is bitten, is given to him at once; and it is said that none of them ever dies from the effects of a snake-bite.