he race; and so they have a grizzly-bear god, an
eagle-god, a rattlesnake-god, a trout-god, a spider-god--a god for every
species and variety of animal.

By these animal gods all things were established. The heavenly bodies
were created and their ways appointed, and when the powers and
phenomena of nature are personified the personages are beasts, and all
human institutions also were established by the ancient animal-gods.

The ancient animals of any philosophy of this stage are found to
constitute a clan or _gens_--a body of relatives, or _consanguinei_ with
grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers. In _Ute_ theism, the ancient
_To-go-aev_, the first rattlesnake is the grandfather, and all the
animal-gods are assigned to their relationships. Grandfather _To-go-aev_,
the wise, was the chief of the council, but _Cin-au-aev_, the ancient
wolf, was the chief of the clan.

There were many other clans and tribes of ancient gods with whom these
supreme gods had dealings, of which hereafter; and, finally, each of
these ancient gods became the progenitor of a new tribe, so that we have
a tribe of bears, a tribe of eagles, a tribe of rattlesnakes, a tribe of
spiders, and many other tribes, as we have tribes of Utes, tribes of
Sioux, tribes of Navajos; and in that philosophy tribes of animals are
considered to be cooerdinate with tribes of men. All of these gods have
invisible duplicates--spirits--and they have often visited the earth.
All of the wonderful things seen in nature are done by the animal-gods.
That elder life was a magic life; but the descendants of the gods are
degenerate. Now and then as a medicine-man by practicing sorcery can
perform great feats, so now and then there is a medicine-bear, a
medicine-wolf, or a medicine-snake that can work magic.

On winter nights the Indians gather about the camp-fire, and then the
doings of the gods are recounted in many a mythic tale. I have heard the
venerable and impassioned orator on the camp-meeting stand rehearse the
story of the crucifixion, and have seen the thousands gathered there
weep in contemplation of the story of divine suffering, and heard their
shouts roll down the forest aisles as they gave vent to their joy at the
contemplation of redemption. But the scene was not a whit more dramatic
than another I have witnessed in an evergreen forest of the Rocky
Mountain region, where a tribe was gathered under the great pines, and
the temple of light from the blazing f