"On the fifth evening of the ceremony and for three succeeding evenings
low clouds trailed over To-ko-na-bi, and Snake people from the
underworld came from them and went into the kivas and ate corn pollen
for food, and on leaving were not seen again. Each of four evenings
brought a new group of Snake people, and on the following morning they
were found in the valleys metamorphosed into reptiles of all kinds. On
the ninth morning the Snake Maidens said: 'We understand this. Let the
Younger Brothers (The Snake Society) go out and bring them all in and
_wash their heads_, and let them dance with you.'"[29]

[Footnote 29: Fewkes, J.W., The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi: Jour. Am.
Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol. IV, 1894, p. 116.]

Thus we see in the ceremony an acknowledgment of the kinship of the
snakes with the Hopi, both having descended from a common ancestress.
And since the snakes are to take part in a religious ceremony, of course
they must have their heads washed or baptized in preparation, exactly as
must every Hopi who takes part in any ceremony. The meal sprinkled on
the snakes during the dance and at its close is symbolic of the Hopi's
prayers to the underworld spirits of seed germination; and thus the
Elder Brothers bear away the prayers of the people and become their
messengers to the gods, to whom the Elder Brothers are naturally closer,
being in the ground, than are the Younger Brothers, who live above
ground.

Rather a delicately right idea, isn't it, this inviting of the Elder
Brothers, however lowly, to this great religious ceremonial which
commemorates the gift of rain-making, as bestowed by their common
ancestress, and perpetuates the old ritual so long ago taught by the