Note 10 — THE TUSAYAN RITUAL: A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON ABORIGINAL CULTS.[1]

For an account of the Snake Dance at Walpi, see Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, Vol. IV; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. I have elsewhere pointed out the small part which the Great Plumed Serpent plays in this ceremony, and the absence of fetishes or idols of this personage in the secret portions of the ceremony. The only symbol of the plumed snake which is found is on the kilts of the snake priest. As nearly as I can judge of its place in the components of primitive supernatural concepts, it seems to be an example of animal totemism and ancestor worship in which special powers to bring the rains are believed to belong to the reptiles, descendants, like the living participants, of a snake mother. The conditions are so often paralleled in the beliefs of other primitive people that there seems to be no exception among the Hopi. Cf. King, op. cit., Vol. I, pages 165-207.