Many primitive tribes living in arid regions have held special dances with the hope of producing rain. The Papago Indians of Arizona held a rain dance before they planted their crops. First, the women gathered jars of cactus juice. Then for two nights, while the liquid fermented, men and women danced around a fire and sang songs about rain. Next morning, they drank the cactus juice. They believed that, as they filled themselves with this juice, so would the earth become filled with rain. The masked dances of the Pueblo Indians and the Hopi snake dance were also rain dances.
