The writer has made no attempt to go into the very numerous minute details of this ceremony, such as the mixing of the liquid for snake washing, the making of the elaborate sand painting for the Snake altar, or descriptions of various kinds of prayer-sticks and their specific uses.  Authorities differ greatly on these points and each village uses somewhat different paraphernalia and methods of procedure.  These details occupy hours and even days and are accompanied by much prayer and ceremonial smoking, and the sincerity and solemnity of it all are most impressive to any fair-minded observer.

The Hopi year is full of major and minor ceremonies, many of them as deeply religious as those already described at some length; others of a secular or social order, but even these are tinged with the religious idea and invariably based on tradition.

If many elements of traditional significance have been forgotten, as they undoubtedly have in some instances, nevertheless the thing is kept going according to traditional procedure, and the majority of the participants believe it best to keep up these time-honored rituals.  Their migration tales, partly mythical, partly historical, relate many unhappy instances of famine, pestilence, and civil strife, which have been brought upon various clans because of their having neglected their old dances and ceremonies, and of relief and restored prosperity having followed their resumption.  Once, bad behavior brought on a flood.

Here is the story, and it will explain at least partially, the ceremonial use of turkey feathers.

=A Flood and Turkey Feathers=

Turkey feathers are much prized for ceremonial uses today.  If you want to carry a little present to a Hopi friend, particularly an old man, or an old woman, save up a collection of especially nice looking turkey feathers.  They will be put to ceremonial uses and bring blessings to their owners.

Here is at least one of the legends back of the idea, as collected by Stephen and reported by Mindeleff.[31] The chief of the water people speaks: 

“In the long ago, the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in Tusayan), but their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for rain the cloud sent only a thin mist.  My people then lived in the distant Palatkiwabi in the South.  There was a very bad old man there, who, when he met anyone, would spit in his face, blow his nose upon him, and rub ordure upon him.  He ravished the girls and did all manner of evil. (Note:  Other variants of the legend say the young men were mischievously unkind and cruel to the old men, rather than that an old man was bad.  H.G.L.) Baholikonga (big water serpent deity) got angry at this and turned the world upside down, and water spouted up through the kivas and through the fireplaces in the houses.  The earth was rent in great chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of mud; and across this the serpent deity told all the people to travel.