Grandfather Spider is a teacher-being of Osage legend who became one of the people's life-symbols. When a searcher went out to find an emblem worthy of the people, the beasts and great powers each urged their own strength, but as he brushed a spider's web the Spider spoke: though small and seemingly weak, it watches and waits with patience, and in time all things come to it. The people took the Spider as a sign, so that patience, vigilance, and the certainty of endurance might be carried among them. The web and the spider thus stand in Osage thought for the quiet power that outlasts mere force.