The searcher for truth at the bottom of the Hopi well is likely to get various answers. Seeing the importance of the sun in Hopi thoughts and rites, one feels inclined to say "sun worship," but the clouds, wind, rain, rocks, springs, rivers that enter into this paganism make for "nature worship"; then the birds and beasts give "animal worship"; the plants for food and ceremony, "plant worship"; the snake means "serpent worship," and the communion with deified ancestors shows "ancestor worship" with unmistakable plainness. The oldest gods in the Hopi conception of the unseen world are the deified manifestations of Nature and the natural objects that force themselves to his notice. The lightning, the cloud, the wind, the snow, the rain, the water, the rainbow, the dawn, the fire, all are beings. The sun, the moon, certain planets and constellations, and the sky are beings of power. The surface of the earth is ruled by a mighty being whose sway extends to the underworld and over death, fire, and the fields; springs, rivers, and mountains have their presiding deities. Among animals also there are many gods,--the eagle, bear, deer, mountain lion, badger, coyote, and mole among the rest. Among the insects the butterfly, dragonfly, and spider are most important, the latter as the Spider Woman or Earth Goddess. She is spouse of the Sun and as mother of the warrior culture heroes of the race is revered by the Hopi. To the plants, however, the list of beings does not extend, except in few instances, as the Corn Maid or Goddess of Corn, and perhaps to the Goddess of Germs. There are beings of the six directions; a god of chance in games and of barter; gods of war and the chase; a god of the oven, and endless beings, good and bad, that have arisen in the Hopi fancy as the centuries rolled by with their changes of culture. At some period a group of beings called _Kachinas_ and new to Hopi worship was added to the pantheon. Most of these were brought in by the Badger clans, as tradition relates, from the East, which means the upper Rio Grande, and some were probably introduced during the great westward migrations of other clans from that region. The _Kachinas_ are believed to be the spirits of ancestors in some part, but the _Kachina_ worship is remarkable for the diversity of beings that it includes, from the representation of a tribe as the Apache _Kachina_, to the nature beings as the sun, but many of them are not true Kachinas. (See Chapter X, Intiwa, p. 227.)