Ebook The Moki Snake Dance

Other dances of the Mokis are more pleasing, as the Kachina dances, with their mirth and music, or the Flute dance, full of color and ceremony, but the Snake dance attracts with a potent fascination. One gets so interested in the progress of the dance that the antici pated element of horror does not appear amid the rhythmic movement and tragic gestures of the dancers with here and there the sinuous undulation of a venom ous rattlesnake. Along the sky-line of the houses and on every available foothold and standing place are spec tators. At Wolpi, the top of the mushroom-shaped rock is a favorite seat. The crowd is hardly less inter esting than the dancers. Everyone, except the white visitor, is in gala costume, Moki and Navajo vying in gaudy colors. The Moki maidens have their hair doneup in great whorls of shining blackness at the sides of their heads. The women, who have brushed away the evidences of preparation for the feast to follow the dance, now appear at their best, and the children dash around, consuming unlimited slices of watermelon. Mormons, be-pistoled cowboys, prospectors, army officers, teachers from the schools, scientists, photographers, and tourists in the modern costume suitable for camp'life, mingle with the Indian spectators in motley confusion. Not less than one hundred white people witnessed the Snake dance at W'olpi in 1897. Each year there is a larger attendance.