snakes thrown by the chiefs and the fierce attitudes of the reptiles as they lashed on, the sand mosaic, made it next to impossible to sit calmly down and quietly note the events which followed one another in quick succession.  The sight haunted me for weeks afterward, and I can never forget this wildest of all the aboriginal rites of this strange people, which showed no element of our present civilization.  It was a performance which might have been expected in the heart of Africa rather than in the American Union, and certainly one could not realize that he was in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century.  The low, weird song continued while other rattlesnakes were taken in the hands of the priests, and as the song rose again to the wild war cry, these snakes were also plunged into the liquid and thrown upon the writhing mass which now occupied the place of the altar.  Again and again this was repeated until all the snakes had been treated in the same way, and reptiles, fetishes, crooks, and sand were mixed together in one confused mass.  As the excitement subsided and the snakes crawled to the corners of the kiva, seeking vainly for protection, they were pushed back in the mass, and brushed together in the sand in order that their bodies might be thoroughly dried.  Every snake in the collection was thus washed, the harmless varieties being bathed after the venomous.  In the destruction of the altar by the reptiles, the snake ti-po-ni (insignia) stood upright until all had been washed, and then one of the priests turned it on its side, as a sign that the observance had ended.  The low, weird song of the snake men continued, and gradually died away until there was no sound but the warning rattle of the snakes, mingled with that of the rattles in the hands of the chiefs, and finally the motion of the snake whips ceased, and all was silent.”

Several hours later these snakes are used in the public Snake Dance, and until that time they are herded on the floor of the kiva by a delegated pair of snake priests assisted by several boys of the Snake Clan, novices, whose fearless handling of the snakes is remarkable.

Already (on the eighth day) in the plaza has been erected the Kisa, a tall conical tepee arrangement of green cottonwood boughs, just large enough to conceal the man who during the dance will hand out the snakes to the dancers.  Close in front of the Kisa is a small hole made in the ground, covered by a board.  This hole symbolizes the sipapu or entrance to the underworld.

[Illustration:  Figure 9.—­Antelope Priest with Tiponi.

—­Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]