The hä´chamoni convey to those to whom they are offered messages as clear to the Indian understanding as any document does to the civilized mind.
The following account of the initiation of a member into the third degree of the Snake order was given the writer by the vicar of the Snake Society.
I was very ill with smallpox caused by angry ants, and one night in my dreams I saw many snakes, very many, and all the next day I thought about it, and I knew if I did not see the ho´naaite of the Snake Society and tell him I wished to become a member of that body I would die. In two days I went to the house of the ho´naaite bearing my offering of shell mixture and related my dreams and made known my wish to be received as a member of the society. The man now ill with his heart notified the ho´naaite of the Snake Society that he wished to join the society. The ho´naaite sent for me and the other official member to meet him in the ceremonial chamber to receive the sick man, who, presenting the shell mixture to the ho´naaite informed him that he had dreamed of many snakes and knew that he must become a member of the society or die.
Such is the impression made upon these people by dreams. This man will be a novitiate for two years, as it requires that time to learn the songs which must be committed to memory before entering the third degree. He continued:
I was two years learning the songs, during which time I passed through the first and second degrees. I then accompanied the ho´naaite and the members of the society to the house of the snakes, when I was made a member of the third degree.
The ceremonials in which snakes are introduced are exclusively for the initiation of members into the third degree of the Snake division. These ordinances must be observed after the ripening of the corn.
The day of the arrival of the society at the snake house (a log structure which stands upon a mound some 6 miles from the village) hä´chamoni are prepared by the ho´naaite and the other members of this division of the society; they are then dispatched by the ho´naaite to the north in search of snakes; and after the finding of the first snake the hä´chamoni are planted; the number of snakes required, depending upon the membership, the ratio being equal to the number of members; there must be a snake from each of the cardinal points, unless the membership is less than four, which is now the case. There being but three members at the present time, only the north, west, and south are visited for the purpose of collecting snakes, but the members must go to the east and deposit hä´chamoni to the Snake ho´naaite of the east.
The war chief notifies the people each day that they must not visit the north, west, south, or east; should one disobey this command and be met by any member of the society he would be made to assist in the gathering of the snakes.
Bureau of Ethnology.
Eleventh Annual Report. Plate. XVII