Page:The Moki snake dance.djvu/11

 up 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 Wolpi in 1897. Bach year there is a larger attendance.

If the visitor will look around he will see that at one side of the dance plaza there is a bower of green cottonwood branches, the kisi, where the snakes are to be kept in readiness during the dance. The descending sun casts a long shadow eastward from the kisi when a priest enters the plaza with a bag containing the reptiles and quickly disappears among the branches. This is the man who hands the snakes out to the dancers through a small opening in the