Snake Dance, ceremony of the Hopi or Moqui people of northeastern Arizona that includes the skilled handling of live snakes. The ceremony is held every two years near August 20. The celebrants are the Snake and Antelope fraternities of the Hopi tribe. The dance, which is performed in public after eight days of secret ceremonies, is a petition to the nature gods to bring rain. The Hopi believe that snakes are their brothers, the children of their ancestors the Snake Maid and the Snake Hero, who were changed into snakes, and that they therefore have special powers of intercession.