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Show 1 : in Arizona Invoke Rain H God with Dance of Serpents ' H ifo Up WfJt'mg Word frcm th: Prkct to Ruii for Siuin. ABOUT the middle of Au;;tm the Moqui Indians of Ariioua held their annual snake dance in an effort to I appease tbe (Jod of Kaiu, so that lie j would send thoweis to ripen their dying crop of porn, foAruona had been yhri veiling vei-ling under a long drought. Tbe Great Snake tlod who lives in the idn Kmue.:.co luountauis. whose rattling tail is thunder uud whose forked tongue lr? the lightning, they believe can tend rain. The Moquis are an intelligent tribe who learned sun worship from the Aztecs and unakc worship from northern ancestors. Nine days previous to the dance the Snakes, priests nt the tribe, scour the desert, bugging between two and three hundred venomou.s snakes, chiedy rattlers from four to live feet ia length. They are washed and" cleansed in the sacred brook uud imprisoned in the Klsi, the uucred temple. On the day of the dance the snakes nre put in n tepee made of cottonwood brush. Just before sundown hundreds of Indians', the matrons und maidens of the tribe, and many American tourists gather on the roof; and walls of the adobo houses. b'iret the Antelope priests file out of the Iviv.i, march around the brush tepee chanting a weird Indian song, each stumpiug ou a plank at the entrance nnd throwing a pinch of sacred com meal aa nn offering to die five foot messengers of the great Snako God. The procession is led by the chief of the Antelope Clan, who is followed by tho medicine inan.j called Ihe Asperger, who carries a medi- H cine bowl in both hnnds. At once fifty Snakes or dancers begin i chanting n weir! song which uoue bui the priest can understand. Suddenly the high priest npriugs to the front, and, with many gestulatious, makes a long appeal to the Snake God for rniu so that his children's crops will ripen. H The high priest plungcrf his arm iuto a mass of writhing s or pen Us. draws out l a half a dozen and bauds them to tbe nearest of the snake dancers. This con- H tinucs until all are supplied -with reptiles. (toiiud and round they go. The dance H rajiidly turus to a frenzied dcmonsini- l lion, the carriers often have two or three snakes in their mouths nud four In each hand, the "bite of uny ono of which is H enough to cause I ho death of nn ordinary IH uiau. The chant increases lo shouts and H screams, (he snakes uiadueued by this H unusual treatment, writhe about the danc' jers' nc'' ' -hrough their long black hair, nnd bits coittiuuously. IH At sundown tbe high priest gives u H signal uud the 'dancers throw their snakes H into a pile and draw buck. But one H dancer is known lo have been bitten and H he Recovered. IH The dancers, after libcntticg tb IH suakes, divest themselves of their gar- H ments und troop back to the mesa for H their annual cleansing bath in a sticky H black fluid, which is supposed to be uu antidote for bites of the mi tier's. IJ Such is the snake dance nt Arnibc. in IH the ucw Stut of Arizona, within -jl few H miles of a large town. H |