The Chemawa American, January 01, 1914, Page 7, Image 7

THE
CHEMAWA
AM ERICAN
5
or so w ith them ; and the little girls made a pretty spectacle as they re ­
ceived th e little boys m uch as the women and elder girls greeted the
m en. T h en come th e corn scram ble, or m ock-tight over th e ’corn; and
then in each house a feast was set, especially for th e children.
A t noon, th an k s to M r. H ubbell, and to the fact th a t I w as an ex-
P resident, we were adm itted to the sacred kiva—th e one-room ed tem ple-
house w hich I had already visited—w hile the snake priest perform ed
the cerem ony of w ashing th e snakes. Very few w hite men have ever
seen th is cerem ony. T h e sight was th e most in terestin g of our entire
trip .
T here were tw enty In d ian s in th e kiva, all strip p ed to th eir breech-
clouts; only about ten actually took part in h an d lin g th e snakes, or in
any of th e cerem onies except the rh y th m ic ch an t, in w hich all joined.
E ighty or a hundred snakes, half of them rattlers, the o th ers bull-snakes
or ribbon-snakes, lay singly or in tangled groups against th e wall at
th e raised end of th e room . T h ey were quiet and in no way nervous
or excited. Tw o men stood at th is end of th e room . Tw o more
stood at the o th er end, w here the altar was; th ere was some sand
about the altar, and th e eagle feathers we had previously seen there had
been rem oved, b u t th e u p rig h t th u n d e r-stic k s rem ained. T h e other
Ind ian s were squatted in the m iddle of the room , and half a dozen of
them were in the im m ediate neighborhood of a very big ornam ented w ood­
en bowl of w ater, placed on certain w hite painted sym bols on the floor.
Tw o of these In d ian s held sacred rattles, and there was a small bowl of
sacred m eat beside them . T h ere was some seem ingly cerem onial p ip t-
sm oking.
A fter some m inutes of silence, one of the sq u a ttin g priests, who
seemed to be th e leader, and who had already puffed sm oke tow ard the
bowl, began a low prayer, at th e same tim e holding and m an ip u latin g
in his fingers a pinch of the sacred meal. T h e others once again
d u rin g this prayer uttered in unison a single w ord or exclam ation a
kind of selah or am en. A t th e end he threw the meal in to th e bowl of
w ater; he had already p u t some in at the outset of the p ray er. T hen
he began a rh y th m ic ch an t, in w hich all th e others joined, the rattles
being shaken and the hands moved in harm ony w ith the rh y th m . T he
ch an t consisted seem ingly of a few w ords repeated over and over again.
It was a stran g e scene, in the half lig h t of the ancient tem ple-room . T he
copper-red bodies of the priests sw ayed, and their strongly m arked faces,
h ith erto changeless gained a certain quiet in ten sity of em otion. T he
ch an tin g grew in fervor; yet it rem ained curiously calm th ro u g h o u t ( e x ­
cept for a m om ent at a tim e, about w hich I shall speak la te r). I hen
the two men who stood near the snakes stooped over, and each picked
up a handful of them , these first handfuls being all rattlesnakes. It was