One the more famous ceromies of the Anasazi decendents would have to be the Hopi Snake Dance. The Snake Dance is
just another prayer for rain. The snakes represents the intrest or the belief that the snakes have power over the rain.
The time of the ceremonies are not chosen usually until ten days before they are performed.
From the kiva will enter twelve antelope preists, painted red-brown with zig-zag stripes running up and down the upper
body. The wore the usual Corn Dance Apron, and the sash of the Zuni Rain Dance. From the waistline, hung animal
hides, mostly grey foxes, on their heads they wore redish brown feathers, brown moccasins, and rattle and a bag of sacred
meal in their hands.
As they enter, they march in beat to their rattles. They march around the plaza four times. As each priest
passes the sipapu they stamp their feet. This hole in the ground represents an entrence to the underworld. The
stamping is a message to the nether-spirits to the Great Plumed Waterserpent that the snake dance is about to be peformed.
Each time they pass the snake altar they spinkle sacred meal onto it.
Then they will stand in a line with their backs to the sipapu, and marked time. They raise the right
foot higher than the left with each step. This will continue for about two minutes, until the snake preist arise from
the kiva. Their bodies are usually painted brown, and their faces, up to their foreheads black. The body paint
rubbed off in a six inch oval from each breast to the naval. They wher nothin but a scant breach clout, a brown leather
skirt fringed down to their feet, and brown moccasins. The headdress was of red-brown feathers. In their
hands they carry a cotton staff, about six inches long, tipped with two eagle feathers.
In the particular snake dance I researched, their were two young boys that danced around the plaza in a circle so
wide that the croud moved back to give them some room. They too would stamp on the board over the sipapu as they passed
it. As the two boys finally finish their entrence they stood on the opposite side of the plaza of the Antollope preists,
and in marked time.
After everyone finished the enterence into the plaza, they began to sway back and forth, chanting, then they began to
tap their eagle feather staffs in the air, they kept time with the staff and the song at the same time. Alternating
between the song and the eagle staffs. They tap them twice to one side and twice to the othe side and sometimes three
times to one side, and three times to the other side.
