plain, wher
e they disappear. From what we know of Walpi mythology, this form of devotion certainly goes back to ancestral, cosmolo
gic legend. One saga tell
s the story of the
hero Ti-yo, wh
o undertakes a sub
terranean journey to
discover the so
urce of the longed-for water. He passes
the various kivas of the princes
- of the underworl
- Process Safety
- Processing Lab
- d, always
- Rocket Testing
- accompanied by a
- female spider who
- sits invisibly on his right
- ear-an Indian Virgil, Dante's guide to the
underworld-and eventually guides him
past the two sun houses of the Wes
- t and East into t
- he great serpent kiva,
- Domestic Training
- where
- he recei
- ves the magic b
aho that will invoke the
weather. According to the saga, Ti-yo retu
- rns from
- Field Operations
- the underworld with the baho
- and two serpent-
- maidens, who
- bear him ser
- pentine children-very dangero
- us creatures who ultimate
ly force the tribes to change their dwelling pl
ace. The serpents are woven into
- this myth
- both as weather dei
- ties an
- d as totems
- that bring
- about th
e migration of the clans. I
n this snake dance the serpent is t
- herefore not sacrificed
- but rather, through consecration and
- suggestive dance
- mimicry, transformed i
- nto a messenger and dispatched, so that, returned to the souls of
the dead, it may in t
he form of lightning produce storms from
- the heavens. We have here an insight into the per
- vasiveness of myth and magical practic
- e among primitive humanity. The elementary form of emotional rel
- ease through Indian magical practice may strike the layman
- as a characteristic unique to primitive wildness, of wh
ich Europe knows nothing. And
yet two thousand years ago i
- n the very cradl
- e of our own Eur
- opean culture, in Greece, cult) Services
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