The race as a whole has been classed among the “sun worshippers”[203] from their conviction that the sun is the highest manifestation of nature, without which no living thing can thrive. As their forefathers faced in silent adoration the golden globe coming out of the nebulous dawn, or, from that high-placed _kiva_ in the cliffs of the Rito de los Frijoles, stood mute and motionless till it sank from sight beyond the farthest reach of the eye, it was the omnipresent spirit within the sun, but never the orb itself, to which they paid reverence. Such a contemplative worship, with its touch of orientalism, permits us to accept the appellation of “The Great Mystery” as their idea of deity. In most tribes the spirits of the earth, the sky, and water are nearly or quite equal to the sun. Below these, whom we may call the Great Gods, who cannot descend to earth in visible form, there is an infinite number of lesser deities—the half-gods, and still further to complicate such a system every deity possesses many attributes, and may at any time manifest himself under any one of a great variety of forms. Among the lesser gods are the thunder and lightning, the serpent, and the bird. Each of these has his especial power and his appointed mission to perform. He must therefore be individually appealed to in prayer, propitiated by offerings at secret shrines of earth, or thanked at appropriate seasons for benefits conferred upon weak humans, watchers of “this ominous and treacherous world.”[204] From such a composite hierarchy it is apparent that the popular idea of “one Great Spirit” worshipped by the Indian race is a romantic fancy, unless by it is meant Nature—Nature in all of her manifestations of plants and animals, and rocks, and heavenly bodies. The Indian belief, in fact, belongs to the system called hecastotheism, the opposite extreme from monotheism, in which, to quote Cushing, all beings, whether deistic and supernatural, or animistic and mortal, are regarded as belonging to one system; and that they are believed to be related by blood seems to be indicated by the fact that human beings are spoken of as “the children of men,” while _all_ other beings are referred to as “the Fathers,” and “All-Fathers” and “Our Fathers.”[205]