Before the last of these had appeared, began the arrival of the young athletes from across the plain to the left. Swiftly them came, and gracefully, their lithe brown bodies glistening in the early sunlight, across the level lowland, then up the steep trail, to be met at the mesa edge by a picturesque individual carrying a cow bell and wearing a beautiful garland of fresh yellow squash blossoms over his smooth flowing, black hair, and a girdle of the same lovely flowers round his waist, with a perfect blossom over each ear completing his unique decoration.
As the athletes, one at a time, joined him they fell into a procession and, led by the flower bedecked individual, they moved gracefully in a circle to the rhythmic time of a festive chant and the accompaniment of the cow bell. When the last racer had arrived, they were led in a sort of serpentine parade toward the plaza. But before they reached that point they encountered a waiting group of laughing women and girls in bright-colored shawls, whose rollicking role seemed to be that of snatching away from the young men the stalks of green corn, squash, and gourds they had brought up from the fields below. The scene ended in a merry skirmish as the crowd dispersed.
Later, Dr. Cummings unobtrusively followed the tracks of the priests back along their sunrise trail and out across the desert for more than two miles, to find there a simple altar and nine fresh prayer-sticks.
About noon occurs the snake washing in the kiva. This is not for the public gaze. If one knows no better than to try to pry into kiva ceremonies, he is courteously but firmly told to move along.
A few white men have been permitted to see this ceremony, among them, Dr. Fewkes; an extract from his description of a snake washing at Walpi follows:[30]
"The Snake priests, who stood by the snake jars which were in the east corner of the room, began to take out the reptiles and stood holding several of them in their hands behind Supela (the Snake Priest), so that my attention was distracted by them. Supela then prayed, and after a short interval, two rattlesnakes were handed him, after which venomous snakes were passed to the others, and each of the six priests who sat around the bowl held two rattlesnakes by the necks with their heads elevated above the bowl. A low noise from the rattles of the priests, which shortly after was accompanied by a melodious hum by all present, then began. The priests who held the snakes beat time up and down above the liquid with the reptiles, which, although not vicious, wound their bodies around the arms of the holders.
"The song went on and frequently changed, growing louder, and wilder, until it burst forth into a fierce, blood-curdling yell, or war cry. At this moment the heads of the snakes were thrust several times into the liquid, so that even parts of their bodies were submerged, and were then drawn out, not having left the hands of the priests, and forcibly thrown across the room upon the sand mosaic, knocking down the crooks and other objects placed about it. As they fell on the sand picture, three Snake priests stood in readiness, and while the reptiles squirmed about or coiled for defense, these men with their snake whips brushed them back and forth in the sand of the altar. The excitement which accompanied this ceremony cannot be adequately described. The low song, breaking into piercing shrieks, the red-stained singers, the snakes thrown by the chiefs and the fierce attitudes of the reptiles as they lashed on, the sand mosaic, made it next to impossible to sit calmly down and quietly note the events which followed one another in quick succession. The sight haunted me for weeks afterward, and I can never forget this wildest of all the aboriginal rites of this strange people, which showed no element of our present civilization. It was a performance which might have been expected in the heart of Africa rather than in the American Union, and certainly one could not realize that he was in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. The low, weird song continued while other rattlesnakes were taken in the hands of the priests, and as the song rose again to the wild war cry, these snakes were also plunged into the liquid and thrown upon the writhing mass which now occupied the place of the altar. Again and again this was repeated until all the snakes had been treated in the same way, and reptiles, fetishes, crooks, and sand were mixed together in one confused mass. As the excitement subsided and the snakes crawled to the corners of the kiva, seeking vainly for protection, they were pushed back in the mass, and brushed together in the sand in order that their bodies might be thoroughly dried. Every snake in the collection was thus washed, the harmless varieties being bathed after the venomous. In the destruction of the altar by the reptiles, the snake ti-po-ni (insignia) stood upright until all had been washed, and then one of the priests turned it on its side, as a sign that the observance had ended. The low, weird song of the snake men continued, and gradually died away until there was no sound but the warning rattle of the snakes, mingled with that of the rattles in the hands of the chiefs, and finally the motion of the snake whips ceased, and all was silent."
Several hours later these snakes are used in the public Snake Dance, and until that time they are herded on the floor of the kiva by a delegated pair of snake priests assisted by several boys of the Snake Clan, novices, whose fearless handling of the snakes is remarkable.
Already (on the eighth day) in the plaza has been erected the Kisa, a tall conical tepee arrangement of green cottonwood boughs, just large enough to conceal the man who during the dance will hand out the snakes to the dancers. Close in front of the Kisa is a small hole made in the ground, covered by a board. This hole symbolizes the sipapu or entrance to the underworld.