snake carried nothing in his hands. I have been told that the men who took this part kept their eyes tightly closed during the whole performance. This, however, I did not notice myself, though these dancers were always led back to the hut when it was desired to procure more snakes. The snake is held in the mouth between the lips, not between the teeth; and the mouth is filled with some substance, resembling meal in appearance, to avoid biting the snake when the dancer becomes excited. When a snake became unmanageable, the dancer simply opened his mouth, letting it fall to the ground.

Each of the couples described was followed by a single man or boy, whose duty it was to pick up the snakes as they were dropped. These also carried feather wands. I shall hereafter refer to these as collectors. As the snakes were dropped haphazard, at any place, and at any time, and as they manifested a lively disposition to get out of the way as soon as possible, the position was hardly a sinecure.

This second figure of the dance occupied about twenty minutes; though, after the first round, the order became somewhat broken, the collectors being grouped in the centre, and darting here and there after snakes, while the dancers pranced around in an irregular circle. Each performer, as he dropped his snake, was led back to the hut by the companion for a new one; and this continued until the supply was exhausted. The low chant of the antelopes, the dismal though rhythmical clank of the tortoise-shell rattles, the peculiar motion of the dancers, the breathless attention of the spectators, all gave this part of the performance a weird character.

The latter part of the figure, when the snakes had accumulated in the hands of the collectors, and the dancers became excited, was very interesting. One of the collectors had a dozen or more snakes in his hands and arms. When the number became too great for proper management, part of them were turned over to the antelope-men, who remained in line on either side of the hut, and were held in their hands until the final figure.

The final figure was the most exciting. One of the performers, going a little to one side, drew in sacred meal a circle about thirteen feet in circumference. Two diameters at right angles were drawn, and another line passing obliquely through their intersection, representing the cardinal points and the zenith and nadir. The latter are expressed by the line drawn from north-west to south-east.

The chant suddenly ceased, and all those holding snakes made a rush for this circle, and dropped them into it. The snakes formed a writhing mass, nearly filling the circle longitudinally, and about

six inches in height, so nearly as could be distinguished, as the whole figure lasted but a few seconds. The snake-men then literally threw themselves into the circle. Each man seized as many of the reptiles as he could, and made off with them at full speed, through the passage by which the procession had entered, and through the other opening; and the public part of the performance was finished.

The snakes thus carried off were taken down to the foot of the mesa, and there released. On our way back to camp we met several parties returning from the performance of this duty.

The object of this part of the ceremony, as nearly as could be made out from the various descriptions which we received, was this: the snakes were released at the four quarters of the earth in order that they might find a rain-god (whose form is that of a gigantic serpent), wherever he might be, and tell him of the honor which his children had done him, and of the urgent need of rain among them. This is symbolized in the circle and cross lines before mentioned. The part of the heavens from which rain came indicated the region where the god was at the time that he received the message. This helps somewhat to explain the reverence, we might almost say fondness, which the Moki feels for the snakes. The released snakes act not only as messengers, but also as ambassadors, to the rain-god; and a snake which had been well treated would present the Moki's prayer much more forcibly than one which had been roughly handled.

Snakes of all varieties procurable were used, including the rattlesnake, about twenty per cent of the latter. Many of them were numbed from long confinement and frequent handling, though when given a chance to escape, as when they were dropped on the ground, they showed decided signs of life. A great rivalry is said to exist among the dancers as to who shall handle the largest and finest rattlesnakes; but, I must confess, I failed to see it. On the contrary, there seemed to be a preference for a small, thin snake, not poisonous (the whip-snake, I think). Several of the dancers held two of these in the mouth, and one man even had three. When a man happened to get a rattlesnake, however, he did not seem to mind it much; though, when a snake of this variety was dropped by one of the dancers, the collectors did not show any great eagerness to pick it up. Several of these rattlesnakes were in a very ugly mood, and, when dropped, immediately coiled themselves, sounding their rattles, and showing a disposition to fight. These were not picked up quickly, as the others, but were given a wide berth by dancers and collectors alike. One of the elder collectors,

more skilful or more rash than the others, would then approach, and tease the snake with his wand until it struck, the blow being received on the feathers. This would be repeated until the snake became frightened and attempted to escape; but, as soon as it uncoiled, the collector would seize it with a quick movement of the hand from the tail toward the head, the snake being grasped by the neck. This movement is accomplished with lightning-like rapidity. The wand is retained in the hand and the feathers, during the operation, cover the snake's head. After the seizure, however, it seemed to make little difference how they held the snake, holding it by the middle or tail as often as by the neck. No one was bitten at this dance; though at Wolpi, the next day, one of the young performers, a boy of eight, made the rounds with a rattlesnake fastened to one of his fingers. During the final scramble I lost sight of him, and was unable to discover what course of treatment he underwent, or whether he survived or not.

One of the striking accessories of the dance, are the groups of women in holiday attire, who stand along the walls and along the margin of the dancing-space, holding in their arms large trays of sacred meal, which they scatter on the performers and on the snakes as they pass. The boy who was bitten at Wolpi was almost covered with meal by these women.

At the second dance, at Wolpi, we were on the lookout for the after-proceedings, and had an opportunity of seeing a part of then. Immediately after the dance the women were seen coming in from all directions with baskets of peki or paper-bread, great quantities of wheat-bread or rolls, bowls of mutton-stew, and the various eatables which formed the Indians' holiday food. The quantity seemed sufficient for an army. These were sent down into the snake-kiva. In the mean time other women were scurrying along with great bowls of a brownish liquid with a very disagreeable smell. I followed several of these women around to the back of the pueblo, and there saw a number of the late dancers drinking this liquid, and vomiting most violently. I afterwards learnd from Weeki, the snake-priest, that this process continues for four days, — a period occupied in alternate feasting and vomiting. This is the so-called purification.'

1 This is the way our interpreter translated it: It should be constantly born in mind, however, that the idea of purity - of moral goodness - is one which does not make its appearance until we get well along in the scale of development, to a point much beyond the position occupied by these Indians. The savage or barbarous mind recognizes no physical cause for phenomena. Poison, as such, is an idea which is wholly inconceivable and death from that cause, from a snake-bite for example, would be attributed to some evil influence exerted by man, as in witchcraft or by a supernatural being, or to some mistake or omission in the incantation,

This number, 4, runs through the entire performance four days are spent in collecting the snakes, one day for each of the cardinal points of the compass; the dancers retire then to the kiva for four days, fasting and praying during the day, and eating only one meal, and that one after dark; on the fourth day of this period the dance takes place, and is followed by four days of purification and prayer; each figure in the dance, except the last, is repeated four times.

A description of the Moki snake-dance which occurred at Wolpi in 1881 has been published by Capt. John G. Bourke of the army, in his book The Mokis of Arizona.' This description differs in many important points from mine. It is true, we describe dances at different villages; but I have already said there was no essential difference between the two performances witnessed by us: in action the two dances were identical. As Captain Bourke's account is probably a close one, the ritual of the dance must have undergone many important changes in the period which elapsed between the dance witnessed by him and the one here described. The dance is performed under the auspices of the antelope gens or the antelope order, we were unable to determine which but the men who handled the snakes belonged to the snake order, and not to the snake gens. I think that one of the requirements is, that all those taking part in this dance shall be members, either congenital or adopted, of the antelope gens, or order, whichever it may be. The snake gens has nothing to do with the dance ; and, contrary to the opinion of Captain Bourke, it is not referable, I think, to ancestor-worship, at least not directly. It is not even serpent-worship, unless the word be taken in its widest sense, the sense which includes not only serpent-adoration and reverence, but also serpent-symbolism. It is in this sense that I have used the word. The Moki Indian loves and reveres the snakes, and will never, unless under the greatest necessity, do them harm; but he does not adore them, nor sacrifice to them as he does to his gods, but uses them simply as the most appropriate messengers to the rain-god.

The underlying ideas which have given rise to this dance are, and must remain so long as our knowledge is in its present incomplete state, unknown. From the point of view of the great majority of the Moki Indians, it is simply an invocation, a ceremony having for its sole purpose the procuring of rain; but the fact that there is an esoteric legend, one very jealously guarded, too, seems to point to another and a deeper signification. An investigation in this direction would probably result in throwing much light, not only

And

on this particular ceremony, but on serpentworship in general. The rites connected with this form of worship have always been secret, secret even in the tribe where it is found. while the worship of the serpent has been associated with some of the highest conceptions of the barbarous and semi-civilized minds, with, for example, the principles of reproduction and of the immortality of the soul among the Hindoos, and with the idea of divine wisdom among the Egyptians, and while it has been so widely distributed, in one form or another, that there is hardly a nation or tribe which does not carry traces of it in its history, but little is known about its details or origin. The performance takes place every second year at the village I have named, and is ostensibly, as I have before said, for the sole purpose of procuring rain. I have been assured by several of the old men in Moki that this dance has never failed to do this; and, in fact in the present instance, it was preceded by several months of the dryest weather known in that country for years, and was succeeded, on the very day of the dance, by such copious and prolonged showers, that many of the Mokis lost their crops by washouts.

KOSMOS MENDELIEFF.

THE ARTICLE PSYCHOLOGY' IN THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.'

IN the eighth edition of the Britannica' the article on metaphysics covered seventy-four pages, and there was no article on psychology at all; in the ninth edition the article on psychology covers forty-nine pages, and that on metaphysics is reduced to twenty-three pages. This change in the apportionment of space to these two topics is a reflection of the change of base which has occurred in the study of the philosophical sciences within the last few decades. Psychology has become, or at least has plainly declared that it intends to become, strictly scientific; and metaphysics has withdrawn to a field of its own.

In an encyclopaedia article on such a topic the author has a bewildering choice of possible modes of treatment. The average reader, referring to an article on psychology, will perhaps expect a general statement of the results obtained in the different departments of psychological research, treated from a broad modern point of view, and perhaps some account of the history of past doctrines, and explanations of the similar topics. Such a reader will be disappointed in Mr. Ward's article on psychology. The article is a very puzzling one for a reviewer. To find fault with it, is simply to say that it is not the kind of an

article which he himself would have wished for or have written, and, on the other hand, shows a neglect for the very learned and bright treatment which the subject receives at the author's hands. On the other hand, he cannot refrain from expressing the very unsatisfactory impression which the reading of Mr. Ward's work leaves upon him. In analyzing this disappointment, one would lay the blame either on the fact that the reader's expectation was wrongly founded, or that Mr. Ward had chosen to write an article which did not have practical utility as its chief aim, or more probable, perhaps, than either of the above two, that the present condition of psychology is reflected in this unsatisfactory, rather scattered treatment. Perhaps, after all, this is the real appearance of a cross-section of the science at the present moment.

Beginning with the argument that the peculiarity of psychology rests, not in its subject-matter, but in its point of view, he proceeds to develop a theory of presentations which is fundamental to his whole treatment. Then, under seven or eight headings, he treats such subjects as perception, imagination, association, feeling, self-consciousness. But under each section the reader finds himself at once in medias res. No general outline of the topic is given, or of its connection with other subjects. The author is evidently perfectly at home in the literature of the topics; but only here and there, by way of illustration, are the results of recent experiments in this field brought in. The section on feeling is recommended as especially well treated.

He then develops the theory "that there is pleasure in proportion as a maximum of attention is effectively exercised, and pain in proportion as such effective attention is frustrated by distractions, shocks, or incomplete and faulty adaptations, or fails of exercise, owing to the narrowness of the field of consciousness, and the slowness and smallness of its changes."

In a general review of this volume of the encyclopaedia a writer referred to the article as the most abstruse article in the volume. This abstruseness seems to come from the fact that the author has given a series of minute dissections, but neglected to give the relation of the different parts which were under the knife. He has used the microscope without describing the naked-eye appearances.

THE replacement of a diseased eye by the healthy eye of an animal has now been done five times, with one success, says the Medical record. In the four cases the cornea sloughed; in two however, firm vascular adhesions took place.