Grandfather Spider
Osage · numen · Osage traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
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.
Domains
- wisdom
- life force
Powers
- waits patiently until all things come to it
Epithets
- the Patient One — the one to whom all things comeRobert Liebert, Osage Life and Legends (1987). (secondary)
Sources
- The Spider offered itself as a life-symbol of patience, saying that though small and weak, all things come to it in time.: 'The Spider and the People,' Osage legend (First People collection). (secondary); Robert Liebert, Osage Life and Legends (1987). (secondary)