Two Hopi figural carvings
Each depicting a Snake Dancer with distinctive body paint and clad in a dance kilt painted with an Avanyu water serpent, the first rendered holding a snake in its mouth, the second with the reptile in its hands, the second with losses.
heights 13 3/4in and 12 1/4in
Footnotes:
Provenance
Purchased from Fred Harvey in 1917
A New Mexico Collection
Taylor A. Dale, Santa Fe, NM
The Collection of William Dana Lippman, acquired from the above July 31, 1997

Literature
For a similar pair of Snake Dancer figures, see those featured in the Aspen Center for the Arts' 1979 exhibition Enduring Visions: One Thousand Years of Southwestern Indian Art (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 15, fig. 13).

See also Wright, Barton Classic Hopi and Zuni Kachina Figures, 2006, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, p. 19, plate 25. When the Chusona, Snake Dancers, come, they dance in pairs. The lead person holds a snake in his mouth, and the one behind him uses a feather wand to distract the snake if it becomes too active.' Ibid. p.134

See also Sotheby's, New York, NY, Important American Indian, African, Oceanic and Other Works of Art from the Studio of Enrico Donati, 14 May 2010, lot 13: A large Hopi polychrome wood kachina doll, depicting a Snake Priest. Notes accompanying the lot include the following observations:

'Snake Priest kachinas first appeared in the late 1800s, probably to satisfy the desires of Euro-Americans who 'discovered' the Hopi Snake Dance ceremony in the late 1870s. Colorful descriptions of the ceremonies were written and tourists, as well as eminent anthropologists and academics of the day, flocked to Hopi.

The ceremony which so attracted their attention was an ancient petition to the gods for rain, in which snakes, the supernatural messengers to the divine, are danced while carried in the mouth. The ceremony, which occurs in August of each year, also commemorates and gives thanks to Ti'yo, the ancestral snake youth and patron of the Snake Priesthood order. In addition, the ceremony bears both military and memorial aspects, as the dancers are marked with the symbols of Pookanghooya, the Little War God, and deceased members of the society are represented on the Snake altar. Ritual footraces and the snake dance occur on the last day of the elaborate ritual observance which originally spanned nine days.

On the day of the dance, lines of Antelope and Snake Dance Priests face one another and sing. At the conclusion of the song, the Antelope Priests remain in position singing and shaking their rattles while the Snake Dancers pair off. The rear man in the pair places his left hand on the left shoulder of the one in front, and together they dance forward to a covered bower. Here the forward man (the Carrier) kneels and receives a snake, which he holds between his lips as he rises and continues to dance. The rear man (the Hugger) follows behind the carrier with one or both hands draped over his shoulders, and calms the rattlesnake by fanning it with a feather wand. A third Snake Priest, a Gatherer, picks up the snake after the Carrier releases it, returning it to the ceremonial bower, or kisi.

Snake Priest kachinas (Chusona) are found depicted as either a Carrier, with a snake in his mouth, or a Hugger with a straight mouth and one arm outstretched. Up until the 1930s, kachina dolls retained the plank-like attributes of the indigenous Tihu (small dolls given to young girls, to teach them about the Hopi deities). Snake Priest and Clown kachinas were the earliest kachinas to be created in more active poses, with separately carved arms and legs.'

Each with scattered scratches, scuffs, liquid drips, dust accumulation and abrasions with corresponding paint loss commensurate with age. The first (taller) with elements missing from the hands and losses to hide sash and a couple of cracks to applied dance kilt. The second with an approximately 1in x 1in loss to right foot and an approximately 1/2in x 1/2in loss to the hand holding the snake. Hide sash is likely replaced.