morning invite to a feast of roast corn taken from the newly opened pit-oven. Then there is feasting while the ears are hot and jollity reigns. One thing will strike the visitor as curious: the Mokis do not gamble or drink fire-water, even when they have an opportunity. They do like tobacco, though, and the visitor who smokes will do well to lay in an extra supply, for after the first greeting, "piti," the next query will be "piba" (tobacco), followed by "matchi" (matches), and a friendly smoke council is held then and there.
The Mokis are the best entertained people in the world. A round of ceremonies, each terminating in the pageants called "dances," keeps going pretty continuously the whole year. The theaters and other shows in the closely built pueblos of the white man fall far short of entertaining all the people, as do the Moki shows. Then the Moki spectacles are free. The scheme of having a gatekeeper on the trails to demand an entrance fee, while it has great possibilities, has never entered the Moki mind. This, too, for a good reason. These ceremonies are religious and make up the complicated worship of the people of Tusayan. Even a visitor bent on sightseeing alone will be impressed with the seriousness of the Indian dancers and the evidence of deep feeling—perhaps it should be called devotion—in the onlookers. Not only in the somber Snake dance, but in every other ceremony of Tusayan the actors are inspired by one purpose and that is to persuade the gods to give rain and abundant crops. So the birds that fly, the reptiles that creep, are made messengers to the great nature gods with petitions, and the different ancestors and people in the underworld are notified that the ceremony is going on that they too may give their aid. The amount of detail connected with the observance of one of the ceremonies is almost beyond belief, and being carried on in the dark kivas has rarely been witnessed by others
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