Similar ceremonies were gone through at the near-by spring as at the one farther away, and when they were completed the whole party formed in procession, and as solemnly as if it were a funeral march proceeded up the steep trail to the village and there repeated some of the ceremonies already described.
The purport of all this it is comparatively easy to understand. The Snake Dance is a prayer for rain, which, according to the Hopi's ideas, is stored in vast reservoirs in the heavens. He also believes that there are vast water supplies under the earth, and so, every other year, he petitions the powers that govern and control these subterranean reservoirs to loosen the waters and let them flow forth into the springs.
In one of the dances of the Navaho they symbolize the water from above and the water from below by linking the first fingers together. This gives us the Greek fret, and when this symbol is copied in their basketry, we see this classic design, purely the result of imitation, and having as clear a meaning to the Indian mind as the cross has to the Christian.
Reluctantly I am compelled to omit a brief account of the Basket Dance, which, however, I have partially described in my book on "Indian Basketry."
The Hopis have very clear and distinct conceptions of a spirit life beyond the grave. It is not the "happy hunting-ground," though, to which the general ideas of the whites consign them. Theirs is a world of spirits, with some advantages over the world of human beings, but where life is very similar to what it was on earth. There is neither punishment awarded for wrong done on earth, nor reward for good living. It is simply a continuation of previous existences. When a child is born the spirit is supposed to come from the underworld through an opening in the earth's crust called Shi-pá-pu, and when the grown man dies his spirit returns thither. His body is buried in a cleft of the rocks on the mesa side, a mile or so away from the village. The body is wrapped up and placed in the rocky grave, and then covered with loose rocks. Food and drink are placed on the grave, so that when the spirit ascends from the body and begins its long journey to Shi-pá-pu and thence to the underworld, it may have food wherewith to gain strength. The curious visitor will also notice the baho which is thrust between the rocks until it touches the body. Another baho touching this upright one is placed on the grave pointing toward the southwest. These bahos are especially prepared by the shaman, or "medicine man," and are for the purpose of guiding the spirit as it leaves the body. If no baho were there, the spirit might grope in darkness, trying to force its way down; but, being directed by the prayers of the shaman, the disembodied spirit immediately realizes the guiding power of the baho, and, following it, reaches the companion baho pointing to the southwest, the direction it must travel to reach the entrance to the underworld. This entrance to the underworld was long thought to be in the San Francisco Mountains near Flagstaff. But Dr. Fewkes explains this to be an error. The Shi-pá-pu is, to the Hopi, the "sun-house or place of sunset at the winter solstice. As seen from Walpi, the entrance to the sun-house is indicated by a notch on the horizon situated between the San Francisco range and the Eldon mesa," hence the conception that the entrance to the underworld was in that exact location.
A Hopi Belle at Shungopavi.
