With the Amerind a group of myths, traditions, and legends developed along with each particular stock. Each language had its own accumulation of these tales, etc., relating to animals, to natural forces personified, and sometimes to real personages. Savage races worship animal gods and natural objects personified as animals.[353] In the middle state called barbarism the religion becomes a worship of the phenomena of nature, pure and simple, frequently personified as animals or beings, as in the case of the thunder and lightning generally attributed by the Amerinds to the mysterious “thunder-bird,” which is also believed by some to be a great being who takes on the form of a bird. In civilisation the worship of one God takes the place of all the others, while the myths and legends of earlier days survive in mythological literature and in unconscious thoughts and acts of individuals. Looking at the moon over the right shoulder for luck, objections to a certain number, the belief that one stone is lucky and another unlucky, are all remnants of the era of zoötheism, physitheism, and other early beliefs.[354] Races cannot shake off earlier beliefs entirely, but continue them under changed forms. Thus we celebrate many pagan rites in our holidays, and pay a tribute to the Druid priests every time we suspend a branch of mistletoe in our parlours in the season when the sun turns his course towards the vernal equinox. To primitive man night was a mysterious phenomenon, and dawn often became personified to him as a bright and fair deliverer, a beneficent being who comes out of the east bringing a train of blessings. Many myths recounting the coming of a hero, prophet, and teacher among the Amerinds and other races are accounted for as being dawn myths, but there is danger of overworking this convenient hypothesis.