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Hopi - How Grandmother Spider Named the Clans
After Tawa, the Sky God and Grandmother Spider had made Earth and all of the things upon it, Tawa went back up into the heavens. Grandmother Spider remained with the animals and all of the people there in the four great caves of the underworld. It was left to Grandmother Spider to put things on Earth into order. So Grandmother Spider gathered all of the living creatures around her. She began to separate the people into the different Indian nations, telling them how it would be from then on for them. So it was that she made the Ute and the Zuni and the Comanche and the Pueblo people and the Hopi and all of the others. She named them and from then on they knew their names. So too she gave all of the animals their names so that they also would know who they were. Then Grandmother Spider saw that life would not be good for the many animals and people there in the darkness of the underworld. With her two grandsons, the Hero Twins, beside her, she led the animals and the people up out of the four caverns. She led them till they came to an opening into the world above. They came out there next to the Colorado River in the place where the people still go to gather salt. As they came out, the turkey dragged his tail in the mud and his tail has been black-tipped ever since then. Grandmother Spider sent the mourning dove ahead to find good places for the people to settle, places where there were springs and good soil for corn. Then Grandmother Spider separated the people into clans. She chose one animal to lead each of those groups of people and from then on those people carried the name of that animal. So it was that the Snake Clan and the Antelope Clan, the Mountain Lion Clan and the Deer Clan and the other clans came to be among the Hopi. The people each followed their clan animal and when they came to the place to build their homes, there they settled and there they live to this day.
Taken from the book Keepers of the Animals by Joseph Bruchac
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