CHAPTER 6. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—THE HOPI 124
boy stood at the end of some dancers and an Indian handed him a huge snake nearly as long as he was tall. The boy held it bravely in front of him, very close to the head of the snake. I fancied I saw a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes, but he held on.
Finally a circle was drawn in the sand and marks were made dividing it to four corners. This was done with sacred cornmeal until the whole circle was covered. Then all dancers threw the snakes in this circle and the small boys threw them back if they tried to get outside. They danced around with a certain chant for a time and then each Indian dancer grabbed a handful of snakes and ran—some to the North, some to the East, some to the South and some to the West. Then these snake-brothers of the Hopi would go in these directions and give notice that the Hopi desired rain for their corn and other crops. And woe to the white man who did not bring an umbrella, for soon the rain came. Once a stranger in a new car was caught in a flood that came thus after a Snake Dance and his new car remains yet in the vast middle of Oraibi Wash.
Don tells in his book about the time when he was young and was lying under a tree. A rattle snake came up and touched his foot and then went away. Came again and crawled up to his knee and went away; then up to his cheek and went away. Don tried not to allow fear and he said to the snake, "Dear brother snake; I know I have not been a very good Hopi; but really in my heart I mean well. Please do not hurt me. Look into my heart and see that I am good." The snake came up again and coiled around his neck and kissed his cheek and went away. Don then said a prayer of thanks, for brother snake had looked into his heart and found him good.
Visiting Carmen and Sharon in San Francisco
I had not seen my daughters since that few minutes around Christmas of 1945. They were now mature enough to understand that conversation with their father was not a sin, so they asked me to meet them around the first of September in San Francisco. I left on the bus from the Snake Dance and met them at the home of my friend Vic Hauser with whom I was staying. Vic is a kind-hearted, rattle-brained, half radical who had read the CW and had written to me. Carmen and Sharon were beautiful and somewhat bashful. They had been attending a meeting of their cult at Mt. Shasta and were going back to Northwestern University to continue their musical education. They knew that I considered their cult simply a scheme for its founders to get easy money out of the uneasy consciences of the rich, by their super-denunciation of radicals and labor leaders. This cult, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, claims to use the blazing sword of God to destroy mortal enemies on earth whenever the time comes. My girls appreciated the emphasis on love and the whole Rosicrucian vegetarian, non-medical discipline which I felt was a cover up for the luxurious life of the avaricious founders of the cult. They figured that my anti-tax and anti-war activity was good enough but hardly in the class of the super-prayers which went forth from the cult. However they were sincere, and the materialism of the cult had not made them mean-minded and hateful. Vic drove us up and down
