Pokračování textu ze strany 68
… shoulders of the one ahead and heads low. Now, keeping in the “two step,” they chant some good Indian song, from the snake dance if they can learn it, or failing that, a song from Alice Fletcher's Book say – the Zonzimondi.
The procession circles about imitating the movement of a snake until back again before the Chief's chair. Here all form a half circle, facing the Chief, and crouch down around the priest who holds the snake, and the two feather bearers. Then the priest addresses the snake in a loud voice as follows:
“O Brother Blacksnake” (or whatever it is), “the Great Spirit made you, even as he made me, and set you free to enjoy this beautiful world.” (The other dancers applaud, crying, “Ho, Ho, Ho,” here and after each sentence of the pirest, who continues):
“You do no harm, O Brother Snake, except to kill such little things as you need for your food, even as I do. That is your natural right.
“You have taught us some of the secrets of the underbrush; how to go in silence through the thickets; that legs are not speed; neither are giants the masters of the fields. You have shown us the beauty of swift going.
“You are not poisonous, O Brother! You do no harm to me or mine. So I have no right to harm you. Now, therefore, go in peace.” (He sets it free.) “May you enjoy the tall waving grass even as I do. And take a message for us to the hidden world: tell the rulers of the rain clouds to send us rain, for our crops are suffering. So when you are gone we will dance in your honor.”
After the snake has wriggled away, dancers applaud with outstretched hands, the procession reforms, but now with heads erect, one hand high in the air, the other laid on the shoulder of the one ahead. So they pass out quickly in a line to music as before. Sometimes the last one carries a rattle and the front one a snake-head mask.
