Dancing with snakes: the real reason of Hopi snake dance

For thousands of years, the Hopi tribe in northern Arizona has been holding mysterious and sacred ceremonies, which embodies the diversity and rich archetypal nature of snakes.

In modern times, the so-called "Tsu'tiki" or "Tsu'tiva" is notorious, partly because its participants put live snakes in their mouths and wrap them around their necks.

This poisonous species may include banded snakes, gopher snakes, bull snakes, rattlesnakes and even rattlesnakes.

Hopi people believe that their close relationship with rattlesnakes and other Ophiuchus species will produce rainfall and fertility in the high desert.

On the other hand, it certainly does not represent the demonic elements displayed by most Pentecostal Christian churches.

In the alternate year with the flute ceremony, the local ceremony will be held in August every year.

In even-numbered years, the snake dance appeared in the villages of Orabi and Hotvira in the third station, Songobowei and Shipolowei in the second station.

In odd years, it was held in Misonovi, the second platform, and volpi, the first platform. The latter village retained the strongest tradition.

In fact, this ceremony can not be regarded as snake worship, nor can it be regarded as snake man worship.

On the contrary, it is a demand for land fertility and monsoon humidity in an amazingly beautiful but harsh desert landscape.

It is reported that in the one-year agricultural cycle, the 16-day ceremony will only promote the final maturity of crops (mainly corn, beans and pumpkins).

0), after collecting a snake from four directions (northwest, southwest, southeast, northeast, in turn), respectively, "baptize" it with ivory yucca root foam which may symbolize * * *.

These messengers of the underground world must be pure enough to bring people's prayers to the ancestors below.

They must also be clean enough to fit between the dancers' teeth.

This ceremony is called the Snake Antelope Ceremony, because it involves the Snake Association (Tsutsu't) and the Antelope Association (Tsutsu't)-pay attention to the phonetic similarity of these two words.

In Kiva, this is a (semi-) underground public prayer room. Pastor Antelope built an altar, a sand mosaic similar to Datura.

Its size is usually 30 inches (76.

2 cm) square, with a puma statue facing east in the middle and four snakes of different colors on both sides.

The color of sand corresponds to four types of corn and four directions: yellow/northwest, green (or blue)/southwest, red/southeast and white/northeast.

In this mosaic, you can also see four rows of semi-circular clouds and four serrated lightning snakes, each with its symbolic color, each with a triangular head and a curved corner on one side of the head.

Photo by James George Wharton.

The mud balls and bent sticks on the edge represent the bent back of the late old man.

Duke University anthropologist Weston Labarre (191-1996) explained this symbol. qalèetèataqt, who made prayer sticks for snake dance in winter and soon after, also provided a male medicine made from different roots for the ceremony in August.

"The reason why the samurai medicine is used is because the snake ritual is not only a prayer for rain, but also a manifestation of masculinity and fearlessness.

The hair band of the warrior leader passes through the chest band obliquely, and then it is coiled around the puma, with the medicine bowl of the warrior on it.

This bowl is a pinion stuck in the Apache basket.

) ",soldier Cacina and red beard long hair Cacina-author R. 。

Numkena, the second terrace in Hopi, Arizona.

(annehathen/CC times 2.

0), for the Hopi people, the main constellation in winter is Orion.

They and other Pueblos associate stars, especially Orion, with war.

His belt is sometimes considered as a soldier's hair band. E.C. Parsons observed: "Orion's belt is regarded as a belt ('Zriki') because it is a war leader (kahletaka).

Orion dominates the sky at midnight in winter, but it also appears at dawn in summer. After he left in late spring for several months, he stayed in the underground world, so he became invisible. For living humans, researcher Richard Maitland Bradfield discussed the importance of this constellation to the Hopi people.

"The night sky in northeastern Arizona is very clear. Orion is a great constellation. Only at this latitude, when the plough turns Polaris to the north, can the scorpion compete with Orion on the southwest horizon.

But when Orion rose, it dominated the sky in Hopi village. No matter from its size or the size of a single star, Orion can be seen with the naked eye. (copied by SA3.0), back to the Antelope Altar, we saw that it was not only the representative of the universe, but also an image of Mondi, and transformed it.

Writer Frank Waters wrote: volpi's snake dance is with the audience, and the "snake rock" is on the left.

(Provided by the author) Before midnight on the eleventh day of the ceremony, the snake lady and the antelope youth held a wedding ceremony, which symbolically integrated the two societies.

Then, start singing hymns.

This song was sung by "an unknown foreign language" for "snakes" instead of people, until Orion rose and hovered on the eastern horizon until 2 1 1. In August 2000, in the village of Shongopovi (a cathedral was built on Hopi Cathedral), Orion rose above the east.

The horizon is about 1:30 in the morning. Sirius cleared the horizon of Canis Canis at around 3 am.

Here we see the main Hopi synchronization of these major constellations.

The winter solstice ceremony called Soyal also saw Orion, this time at the morning of February 2 1: 00, shortly after the meridian, in Kiva's overhead hatch, Orion, Taurus, leps and some dogs (Sirius and Murzim).

(North Carolina National Television 2.

On the day before the last snake dance performance on Channel 0 (nate2b/CC) in the square, before sunrise, Orion and Sirius rose, and two fighters of the Snake Club circled around the snake and the antelope Kiwa several times, each with a bull growler (tovokìnpi) and a lightning rack, representing the lightning of monsoon storms, respectively, which lasted from July to August and early September.

These weather phenomena are also related to the Hopi god Sotuknam. Part II: The days of snakes. Above: Details of cornelia Casady Davis' Hopi Snake Dance.