Snake-Dance of the Moquis

Description

Author: Bourke, John G.  (1846-1896)

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Pub Date: 1984 (reprint edition)

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No marks, folds.  Lower front cover corner has an approx. 2″ bend, extends diminishing through first ten pages or so.  Paper clip mark on upper edge pages 33-36 and (unnumbered) Plates III-VI.  Light edge wear.

Notes:  Facsimile reprint of the 1884 Scribner original printing.  Moqui was the Spanish word for Hopi.  The original title of the work “The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona: Being a Narrative of a Journey from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Villages of the Moqui Indians of Arizona, with a Description of the Manners and Customs of this peculiar People and especially of the revolting religious rite, The Snake-Dance…”..you get the idea.  Does dancing with snakes conjure up “devil worship” in 19th century Anglo eyes?  You bet.  The Hopi Snake Dance was probably the most photographed dance/ritual in American history.  No longer.  The Snake Dance was a combination of prayer for rain and fertility ritual.  Bourke, as a teenager, won the Medal of Honor for his bravery at the Battle of Stones River during the Civil War, and was nominated to West Point after the war.  He served with General Crook in Arizona (see https://joethebookguy.com/shop/memoir/an-apache-campaign-in-the-sierra-madre/ ) and Nebraska.  Over his career he wrote 120 volumes of diaries, and lived among several tribes.  He was an early advocate for fair treatment of Indians, not a popular position in the late 19th century.