There are two rudely carved stone animals at the ruined village supposed to have been visited by Po´shaiyänne. These the Sia always speak of as the cougar, but they say, “In reality they are not the cougar, but the lynx, for the cougar remained at the white-house in the north.” This cosmogony exhibits a chapter of the Sia philosophy, and though this philosophy is fraught with absurdities and contradictions, as is the case with all aboriginal reasoning, it scintillates with poetic conceptions. They continue: “The hour is too solemn for spoken words; a new life is to be given to us.” Theirs is not a religion mainly of propitiation, but rather of supplication for favors and payment for the same, and to do the will of and thereby please the beings to whom they pray. It is the paramount occupation of their life; all other desirable things come through its practice. It is the foundation of their moral and social laws. Children are taught from infancy that in order to please the pantheon of their mythical beings they must speak with one tongue as straight as the line of prayer over which these beings pass to enter the images of themselves. It will be understood from the cosmogony that the Sia did not derive their clan names from animal _ancestors_, nor do they believe that their people evolved from animals, other than the Sia themselves. The Zuñi hold a similar belief. The Zuñi’s reference to the tortoise and other animals as ancestors is explained in the “Religious Life of the Zuñi Child.”[11] I am of opinion that closer investigation of the North American Indian will reveal that the belief in the descent of a people from beasts, plants, or heavenly bodies is not common, though their mythological heroes were frequently the offspring of the union of some mortal with the sun or other object of reverence. There is no mystery in such unions in the philosophy of the Indian, for, as not only animate but inanimate objects and the elements are endowed with personality, such beings are not only brothers to one another, but hold the same kinship to the Sia, from the fact, according to their philosophy, that all are living beings and, therefore, all are brothers. This is as clearly defined in the Indian mind as our recognition of the African as a brother man. The spider is an important actor in Sia, Zuñi, and Tusayan mythology. Sia cosmogony tells us the spider was the primus, the creator of all. Sûs´sĭstinnako is referred to as a man, or, more properly, a being possessing all power; and as Sûs´sĭstinnako created first man and then other beings to serve his first creation, these beings, although endowed with attributes superior to man in order to serve him, can hardly be termed gods, but rather agents to execute the will of Sûs´sĭstinnako in serving the people of his first creation.