VICE HO´-NA-AI-TE OF SNAKE SOCIETY.
An emetic is taken these four days for purification from conjugal relations, and continency is observed during this period. The emetic is composed of the stalks and roots of two plants, which are crushed on a stone slab by the ho´naaite and mixed with water when he designates the member to place it over the fire. It is drunk slightly warm.
The decoction so constantly drank by the Tusayan Indians previous to their snake ceremonial is an emetic, and is taken for the same purpose, and not, as some suppose, to prevent the poisonous effect of snake bites. Medicine for the snake bite is employed only after one has been bitten; for this purpose the Sia use the plant Aplopapus spinulosus (Indian name ha´-ti-ni) in conjunction with ka´-wai-aite, a mixture of the pollen of edible and medicinal plants. An ounce of the plant medicine is put into a quart of water and boiled; about a gill is drunk warm, three times daily, during the four days and the afflicted part is bathed in the tea, and wrapped with a cloth wet with it. An hour after each draught of the tea a pinch of the ka´-wai-aite is drunk in a gill of water. The patient is secluded four days; should one suffering from a snake bite look upon a woman furnishing nourishment for an infant, death would be the result. The Zuñi have the same superstition.
The fifth day a conical structure of cornstalks bearing ripe fruit is erected some 70 feet east of the log house, in a ravine parallel with the side of the house, and a sand painting is made by the ho´naaite on the floor of the house; and when the painting is completed he takes his seat in the west end of the room (the entrance being in the east end), the male members of the society sitting on his right and left, and the women forming right angles at either end of the line. The novitiates are seated southwest of the sand painting, and all are necessarily close together, as the room is very small.
The ritual begins with the rattle and song, and after the song the ho´naaite passing before the line of women on the north side takes a snake from a vase, and, holding it a hand’s span from the head, advances to the east of the sand painting (which is similar in Pl. xiv, with the addition of two slightly diverging lines, one of corn pollen, the other of black pigment, extending from the painting to the entrance of the house), and lays it between the lines, with its head to the east.
There are two vases in niches in the north wall near the west end (Pl. xxxv); one holds the snakes, and the other receives them after they have been passed through the ceremony. At the close of the prayer now offered, he says, “Go to your home; go far; and remain there contentedly.” He then sprinkles corn pollen upon the snake’s head, which rite is repeated by each member; the snake, according to the vice-ho´naaite’s statement, extending its tongue and eating the pollen, “the snake having no hands, puts his food into his mouth with his tongue.” The snake is then placed around the throat and head and over the body of the novitiate.
Though the snake can not speak, he hears all that is said, and when he is placed to the body he listens attentively to the words of the ho´naaite, who asks him to look upon the boy and give the boy wisdom like his own that the boy may grow to be wise and strong like himself, for he is now to become a member of the third degree of the Snake division of the society. The ho´naaite then prays to the snake that he will exhort the cloud rulers to send their people to water the earth, that she may bear to them the fruits of her being.
The snake is not only implored to intercede with the cloud rulers to water the earth that the Sia may have abundant food, but he is invoked in conjunction with the sun father in the autumn and winter to provide them with blankets and all things necessary to keep them warm.
Propitiatory prayers are not offered to the snakes, as, according to the Sia belief, the rattlesnake is a peaceful, and not an angry agent. They know he is friendly, because it is what the old men say, and their fathers’ fathers told them, and they also told them that it was the same with the snakes in Mexico. “In the summer the snake passes about to admire the flowers, the trees and crops, and all things beautiful.”