Hopi Butterfly / Various

• Track Listing

The Butterfly Dance, a traditional social dance of the Hopi, is held in August after the gathering of the harvest and presentation of the Snake Dance. It is a thanksgiving dance for the harvest, chiefly for the corn crop and features dancing by young Hopi maidens wearing elaborate headdresses. This rare and unique recording is the first commercially released recording of an actual Butterfly Dance in progress. Recorded in Hotevilla Village in 1967 by Ben Setima, it captures the beauty of a culture that is rarely glimpsed by outsiders.