4960 x 7015 px | 42 x 59,4 cm | 16,5 x 23,4 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
1900
Ubicazione:
Arizona, USA
Altre informazioni:
The Sacred Hopi Snake Dance Impressed Theodore Roosevelt J. Jay Myers But most outsiders have not seen the ceremony. The men of the Snake Clan emerge from the kiva, the round adobe building used for sacred religious ceremonies. Silently the men walk to the plaza. There, they will pray by performing a centuries-old ritual, the most important religious ceremony of the year—the Hopi Snake Dance. Joining them are men of the Antelope Clan. A spectator describes the dancers: The bodies of the dancers in both clans are strangely painted. Their bodies are bare from the waist up, and their faces are painted black, except for their white foreheads. They also have white paint on their forearms and their lower legs. A cluster of eagle feathers is secured in their long black hair, and some of the men wear turquoise and silver necklaces. All of them wear a dark, earth-colored kilt with a colorful band around the bottom. A finely woven rain sash hangs from their waist. Tortoiseshell rattles are fastened behind their right knee, and they wear dark brown moccasins. The description dates from 1927. Among the major Hopi pueblos—Walpi, Oraibi, Moenkopi, Mishongnovi, Hotevilla and Shungopavi—there are some variations in costumes and procedures, but the basics have remained the same. When two-term U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt toured the Southwest in 1913, he made certain that seeing the Snake Dance was on his itinerary. “We were received with friendly courtesy, and that was partly due to showing good manners ourselves, ” he recalled. Other outsiders were not as well behaved: “There were hundreds of onlookers the day we were there. Many of the tourists did not show the proper respect for the religious observance they were watching.” Roosevelt was permitted to observe most of the solemn procedure, including some of the sacred preparations. “The Snake Dance represents a mystic symbolism which has in it elements that are ennobling, ” he concluded.
