The Iroquois in many ways were the finest Amerinds of all. Brinton says, “unsurpassed by any other on the continent [physically], and I may even say by any other people in the world.”[338] “In legislation, in eloquence, in fortitude and in military sagacity they had no equals,” says Morgan.[339] He also maintains that they represented “the highest development the Indian ever reached in the hunter state.” “Crimes and offences were so unfrequent under their social system that the Iroquois can scarcely be said to have had a criminal code.” Theft was barely known, and “on all occasions, and at whatever price, the Iroquois spoke the truth without fear and without hesitation.”[340] The Iroquois, Algonquins, and other stocks carried on a considerable commerce with far-distant points. “The red pipe-stone was brought to the Atlantic coast from the Coteau des Prairies, and even the black slate highly ornamented pipes of the Haidah on Vancouver Island have been exhumed from graves of Lenapé Indians.”[341] The wide extent of Amerindian commercial traffic has hardly been appreciated. [Illustration: MOKI “SNAKE DANCE” AT WALPI Snake priests in action Photograph (reversed) ] The religion of most of the Amerinds was zoötheism—that is, their gods were deified men and animals. The heavenly bodies, personified as men and animals, also formed a part of their galaxy. Their worship of these various deities, who were believed to control each his division of human affairs and earthly phenomena, was through numerous ceremonials, many of them embodying their form of dancing, and called by the whites “dances,” though this term fails properly to describe them. Often there is very little dancing, and even that has a minor part. The ceremonials take place at all times and seasons, many being as absolutely fixed to a certain date as our own holidays or church celebrations. The Eastern tribes had ceremonials on tapping the maple trees, and others for the close of the maple-sugar season. There were also the Corn-Planting Festival, the Strawberry Festival, the Bean Festival, and the famous Green Corn Dance of the Iroquois, followed by the Harvest Dance. Some ceremonials occur in their perfection only at specified intervals, as the Snake Dance of the Mokis, which, while performed annually at some one of the towns, is seen in its full glory only once every two years at the village of Walpi. This now famous ceremonial, in which a hundred or more rattlesnakes are used alive, covers altogether a period of nine days, including the search for the snakes, as well as rites performed in the kiva. It is only on the last two days that there are public ceremonies. Spectators who are known or have a proper introduction are sometimes allowed to visit a kiva when it is reserved by the order owning or controlling it; at other times a visitor is generally freely admitted. During my stay in the Moki country I never was barred from any place that I desired to