th the people, and we pride ourselves on
having made a good ethnologic collection. We are especially interested
in seeing the men and women spin and weave. In their courtyards they
have deep chambers excavated in the rocks. These chambers, which are
called _kivas,_ are entered by descending ladders. They are about 18 by
24 feet in size. The _kiva_ is the place of worship, where all their
ceremonies are performed, where their cult societies meet to pray for
rain and to prepare medicines and charms against fancied and real
ailments and to protect themselves by sorcery from the dangers of
witchcraft. The _kivas_ are also places for general rendezvous, and at
night the men and women bring their work and chat and laugh, and in
their rude way make the time merry. Many of the tribes of North America
have their cult societies, or "medicine orders," as they are sometimes
called, but this institution has been nowhere developed more thoroughly
than among the pueblo Indians of this region. I am informed that there
are a great number in Tusayan, that a part of their ceremonies are
secret and another part public, and that the times of ceremony are also
times for feasting and athletic sports.

Here at Walpi the great snake dance is performed. For several days
before this festival is held the people with great diligence gather
snakes from the rocks and sands of the region round about and bring them
to the _kiva_ of one of their clans in great numbers, by scores and
hundreds. Most of these snakes are quite harmless, but rattlesnakes
abound, and they are also caught, for they play the most important role
in the great snake dance. The medicine men, or priest doctors, are very
deft in the management of rattlesnakes. When they bring them to the
_kiva_ they herd all the snakes in a great mass of writhing, hissing,
rattling serpents. For this purpose they have little wands, to the end
of each one of which a bunch of feathers is affixed. If a snake attempts
to leave its allotted place in the _kiva_ the medicine man brushes it or
tickles it with the feather-armed wand, and the snake turns again to
commingle with its fellows. After many strange and rather wearisome
ceremonies, with dancing and invocations and ululations, the men of the
order prepare for the great performance with the snakes. Clothed only in
loincloth, each one seizes a snake, and a rattlesnake is preferred if
there are enough of them for all. It is managed in this way: The snake