, "I can do nothing."

Then Utset called Badger, and he tried. She called Shrew, and he failed.
She called Wolf, and he failed.

Then Utset returned to the lower world and asked Sussistinnako what she
could do to harden the earth so that her people might travel over it. He
asked, "Have you no medicine to make the earth firm? Have you asked
Cougar and Wolf, Bear and Badger and Wolf to use their medicines to
harden the earth?"

Utset said, "I have tried all these."

Then Sussistinnako said, "Others will understand." He told her to have a
woman of the Kapina (spider) clan try to harden the earth.

When the woman arrived, Utset said, "My mother, Sussistinnako tells me
the Kapina society understand how to harden the earth."

The woman said, "I do not know how to make the earth hard."

Three times Utset asked the woman about hardening the earth, and three
times the woman said, "I do not know." The fourth time the woman said,
"Well, I guess I know. I will try."

So she called together the members of the Spider society, the Kapina,
and said,

"Our mother, Sussistinnako, bids us work for her and harden the earth so
that the people may pass over it." The spider woman first made a road of
fine cotton which she produced from her own body, and suspended it a few
feet above the earth. Then she told the people they could travel on
that. But the people were afraid to trust themselves to such a frail
road.

Then Utset said, "I wish a man and not a woman of the Spider society to
work for me."

Then he came. He threw out a charm of wood, latticed so it could be
expanded or contracted. When it was extended it reached to the middle of
the earth. He threw it to the south, to the east, and to the west; then
he threw it toward the people in the north.

So the earth was made firm that the people might travel upon it.

Soon after Utset said, "I will soon leave you. I will, return to the
home from which I came."

Then she selected a man of the Corn clan. She said to him, "You will be
known as Ti-amoni (arch-ruler). You will be to my people as myself. You
will pass with them over the straight road. I give to you all my wisdom,
my thoughts, my heart, and all. I fill your mind with my mind."

He replied: "It is well, mother. I will do as you say."

The Origins of the Totems and of Names
Zuni (New Mexico)

Now the Twain Beloved and the priest-fathers gathered in council for the
naming and selection of man-groups and creatu