Osage believe the spiderweb is a snare, ho e ka (Fig. 3.7). According to La Flesche (1932:63), it is “a term for an enclosure in which all life takes on bodily form, never to depart therefrom except by death. It stands for the earth which the mythical elk made to be habitable by separating it from the water.” In other words, it “refers to the ancient conception of life as proceeding from the combined influences of the cosmic forces.”
