Show au whai 10 L L ID arl av in S BEVERLY HILLS all I 1 know is just what I 1 read in the papers or what I 1 run into as I 1 prowl hither and thither well a week or ag 30 ago I 1 prowled thither and run into the awful y r est mess 0 of f 13 snakes you ever 7 saw all my life I 1 have heard of v the hopi snake 1 dance out in r arizona well people and writers are such liars that I 1 aident know but what they was loading us about this snake thing so I 1 grabbed up my two boys who had bad done a bit of snake xea reading ding and we lit out for the wilds of arizona it took place at a place called Hat ivilla so you notice that the french and the imitating americans are not the first to use the word villa the indians called it that even before it wets agis fashionable this town is near the oldest town that is known on this continent and that is arabi that one is just a few miles away and goes back hundreds of years this new village was formed by an old chief who moved away from the old one because he was trying to get the children away from the government school they go out in the desert days before and catch these snakes then on the day of the dance they bring them into the dancing place a kind of square between houses on each side the actual space that the white people leave to them is about 30 by fifty feet r here is a little thing like a shock of i corn or a teppee made of green bows and bushes and into chrt an old indian takes a couple of f gunny sacks full of snakes he stays in there and hands em out to the dancers as they go by each dancer carries one snake around for three circles then he puts it down just turns it loose and it makes for the crowd and there is three indians that do nothing but catch the ones that are turned loose and they let ern em get almost in the crowd before grabbing em and of all the hollering and screaming some of these old blue racers go into the crowd so fast that they are out among the people before the catcher can get em then the dancer goes by this little tepee and gets another snake he takes it generally a rattle snake and some big ones in his hands and they go through the same plan he puts the snakes neck about four or five inches back of its head into his own mouth and then he be takes his two hands and holds the body of the snake kinder out straight he handles it exactly like a saxophone his hands ahe on the snake in the very same position as ones hands on a saxophone phone his hands are on the actual head that is in the mouth now we coul dent tell if any got bit or not if they did they aident let on there is one man behind each snake dances who dont have a snake dancer who dont have a to attract the snakes attention in in case he might want to bite he himself is not near enough to be bit so I 1 guess he directs the snake where to bite the other fellow each dancer must have danced with as many as 10 snakes there was about 20 taking pait in the whole dance at the finish they grab up all the snakes and run to the four corners comers of tha compas down over the hill and turn the snakes loose if the white people keep on interfering with the dance I 1 think they will tut tull em loose in their automo biles ailes that will take the snakes to the four corners of the earth these men train for the dance ay 71 they fast for days and then ti tl y drink some kind of a bite preventative vent venta aUve tive t tha thata h a t tj makes makes them very ill afterwards and that is is supposed to discharge a any n y poison then they have a big feast like our athletes had 41 during t their h e i r stay in in amsterdam it is a I 1 very impressive I 1 thing there is nothing of the make believe or show angle to it it is the greatest dramatic religious spectacle in this country all the indians are very courteous and obliging while ebe whites are arc our usual arrogant fiut dutt tinn inns it makes a great spectacle for there is hundreds of the Nava Navajo joes cs indians there they are the ehe tall lanky horsemen type that live out with their stock all the time and not in villages at all the hopis chopis all live together in towns the dance is to get rain and before the last snake was caressed wily why it begin to rain I 1 just thought suppose our dances were made as an appeal to the di virie vine for something and they got what they deserved the varsity drag diaff would be followed by an earthquake and the charlston by maby a famine |