Note 238 — Chapter XVI · CEREMONIALS AND RITUALS

Fewkes says that, while it is as yet impossible to determine the priority of Tusayán or Keresan snake dances, he is positive that the songs and incantations are more ancient than other elements of that ceremonial. “Legends say that the Snake dance is the Cult of the oldest people of Tusayán”; which means, among other things, “that the original Tusayán Cult has kinship with that of the Keresan, the oldest of the linguistic stocks of the pueblos.”—Comparison of Sía and Tusayán Ceremonials, American Anthropologist, Vol. VIII, April, 1892, p. 132.