There are various aids to all ceremonies, such as the sprinkling of the sacred meal, and the use of pollen in prescribed ways. The ceremonial pollen is gathered from hundreds of plants according to very rigid rules. But the chief method of bringing man into harmonious relations with “those above” is through fasting,[232] self-castigation, and prayer, a discipline followed by bodily purification. The well-being of man is so dependent upon water that its use, both actual and emblematic, was apparently made in very early days an established part of all religious ceremonies. Perhaps nothing more amazed the Christian missionaries than to find the Indian, in order to free himself from sin and make himself fit to appeal to his gods, using the rite of sprinkling the face and head with medicine water, very closely akin to “holy baptism.” The weekly sweat-bath, the frequent head-washing with soapsuds made from yucca roots, and the purging induced by emetics are strictly enforced before or after almost every ritual, and have probably been a prime source of physical healthfulness in the pueblos.[233] It follows that the lustration of snakes at Hopi before the snake dance is a logical part of that ceremony, for the snakes are the “elder brothers” of their clan, and since they are brought in from the field, covered with dust, their cleansing is an essential preliminary to their totemistic share in the dance. After taking the snakes back to the fields, the men on their return to the pueblo go through the vomiting, or inward purification, before sharing the feast that ends the ceremony of several days. There are ceremonial hunts, as well as those for the gaining of essential food, and the races at their _fiestas_ were not merely an expression of athletic prowess or primarily a struggle for individual supremacy. Indeed, the adult Indian seems to do nothing purely for fun. Since Ácoma has succeeded better than most of the pueblos in preserving her ancient way of life, it is far more difficult to penetrate her ritual than that of any other. We are told by Lummis of the impression, at the time of the great festival, of a mystery in the surrounding air—of an alert anticipation or watchfulness for magic, good or evil—and how in hidden crannies of her most inaccessible cliff one may find plume sticks, because “the feathers of the eagle’s breast symbolize to the natives that, as the eagle soars by means of these feathers into the very eye of the sun, so may their prayers ascend to the sacred precincts of ‘Those Above.’”