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snake dance

An annual Indian rain dance of Hopi origin.[1]

Performed every August by members of the Snake and Antelope clans of the mesa-dwelling Hopi Indians of the northeast Arizona Territory,[1] and borrowed by neighboring Ute of the Colorado Territory,[2] to worship their ancestors and bring rain.[1]

The Hopi believed snakes to be the guardians of the springs. They considered snakes to be their brothers, and relied on them to carry prayers for rain to their ancestors residing in the underworld.[1]

Trail West to Fury: In August[1] of 1871,[3] the Maverick Brothers and Dandy Jim Buckley were traveling[2] near Pueblo,[3] Colorado Territory and caught in a torrential downpour. The resulting flood trapped them in an abandoned house[2] along the rising Arkansas River.[3] Bret Maverick blamed the sudden rains to be the result of the snake dance performed by Ute[2] on the Indian reservation in the Rocky Mountains to their west.[3]