THE M A G A Z I N E - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Typical Hopi architecture. The mud and stones in this ancient dwelling in the
village of Shimgopovi were laid in the 16th century. Photo by Milton Snow.
mother make everything ready for the
dance with the snakes, but, childlike, she
absorbed it along with the excitement of
rabbit hunts, butterfly dances and the
sticky sweetness of peach drying days.
But the time came, in her eighth year,
when she was told that she was the only
girl in the Snake clan on that mesa, ana
she must prepare herself to carry on the
work when her grandmother was too old
to gather potent herbs, grind sacred meal
and take part in all the trying tasks incident
to her high office in the clan.
Small White Eagle is a grown woman
now and no longer carries the baby name
given her 21 days after birth when she was
carried to the edge of the mesa as the sun
rose and sprinkled with meal by the
Snake Priest.
When I asked her to give me a detailed
account of her duties as a daughter of the
Snake clan, she hesitated.
"My people would be very angry if they
knew I even told you," she said.
But I promised not to use the name she
carries now if she would tell me the story.
"I was about eight years old when my
grandmother, Snake Priestess of Walpi
told me I must now begin to learn my
duties so I could take her place when she
is gone away. Although I hate and fear
snakes I was born into the clan and will
always be a member no matter what I say
or do.
"My first initiation was down in the
Snake kiva. I carried a little plaque piled
high with meal I had ground on the metate.
My grandmother went down there
with me. When I descended the steep ladder
and looked around I saw a big white
screen stretched tight a few feet from the
wall, and a few inches above the floor. It
had seven bright suns painted on it and
on the floor in front of it was a miniature
field of growing corn and pumpkins.
Seven rattlesnakes came wriggling out
from under the screen and moved around
among the hills of corn. I was told by my
grandmother to sprinkle sacred meal from
my basket on each one of these snakes. So
dim was the light down there and I was so
terrified I did not know that the snakes
were stuffed buckskin painted and moved
around by my uncle the Snake Priest hidden
behind the screen. Anyway I passed
that test.
"The work connected with the dance
the first two times it was held in our village
after that did not frighten me. I had
only to go with my grandmother to get
white clay for plastering the outside of
the house and red clay for the floor. Every
house in which a member of the Snake
clan lives has to be thoroughly cleaned
and replastered before the Snake Brothers
come to dance with us. Water is carried
from springs at the foot of the mesa. Thev
are blessed by the Snake Priest and
sprinkled with meal, and the clay allowed
to soak into thin mud before it is put on
the house and rubbed smooth with our
hands.
"The floor is swept and then the red clay
spread smoothly on it. After about an
hour we take stones and polish the surface
into gleaming hardness. We work from
the wall toward the door thus polishing all
evil thoughts and evil spirits right out
into the yard and the floor is too slick for
them to get back into the house. Spirits
can't travel except under special conditions,
you know. That's the reason all our
stories and legends about our gods are
told down in the kivas in the winter time
while ice and snow keep the Kachinas
and other gods trapped on the San Francisco
peaks. We do not have books with
stories in our language and the only way
to learn is for the wise old men to teach
us.
"When the houses are all clean and the
rocky spaces around them swept until they
are bare and sweet smelling, it is time to
begin making the baho prayer sticks of
eagle feathers and pinon twigs to place in
the snake shrines and to hang from the
ceiling of our houses. These arc made by
members of the Snake clan. Then baskets
are to be woven from which to sprinkle
sacred meal on the snakes after the dance.
Long before now, grandmother and I had
gathered the yucca leaves, some of them
while they were tender green and others
after they had turned yellow, and these
were brought out now and torn into strips
and put in wet sand to soften. Bunches of
squaw grass, gathered the fall before, were
also put to soak in damp sand so the materials
would be flexible and easy to work
with.
"All the women of the Snake clan gather
in one place to work on these baskets.
And the work goes fast while they visit
and gossip just like white women do. In
between weaving baskets we grind meal
to make the sweet pudding to be eaten by
the dancers after the snakes have been
taken back into the desert. This pudding
is called pigime and is made of meal and
small brown seeds that grow near the
mesa. They are about like grains of brown
rice and give the pudding a sweet taste
and a flavor. The meal and seeds are
mixed with boiling water and then poured
into a big piki bowl lined with green corn
leaves and put in an outside oven to bake
all night. The next day it will still be
warm when the dance is over.
"Many rolls of piki, the thin wafer like
bread baked on a hot stone and folded and
16 THE DESERT MAGAZINE