[674]. Certain classes of departmental or specific gods may be mentioned here for the purpose of indicating their development.
[675]. Creators. The work of the creation of the world is assigned among various peoples to a great variety of beings. In the earliest strata of religious belief animals play a great rôle as creators. The known examples of their creative function are so numerous that we may well be disposed to regard it as universal. In general it is the best-known animal, or the one credited with the greatest sagacity, that is regarded as creator.[1142]
[676]. But the natural progress of thought involved the advance to the conception of anthropomorphic creators. A transitional stage is presented by the Australian Arunta, in whose mythical system the authors of tribal institutions and the makers of heavenly bodies are the half-animal, half-human ancestors; this seems to be an attempt at a transformation of the old scheme of creation by animals—unwilling to abandon the earlier conception, these tribes have satisfied themselves by the theory that the ancestors and creators, though animals in nature, must at the same time have been human.[1143] We may compare with these the Melanesian and Samoan supernatural beings who are incarnate in animal forms and are at the same time originators of civilization.[1144] These zoömorphic beings are not necessarily totems, as in Australia; outside of the Arunta it does not appear that totems as such are ever regarded as creators[1145]—they are ancestors, but at that point their function appears to cease.
[677]. There are however ghosts, which, while of course representing ancestors, are regarded not specially in their ancestorial capacity, but rather as powerful beings who have been more or less active in framing the constitution of society. This form of ghost occurs in Melanesia, where also spirits, vague beings who never were human, play a great rôle. The best authorities find it somewhat difficult to distinguish between such ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and gods on the other hand.[1146] The Qat of the Banks Islands is in one sense a creator, since he determines the regular courses of the seasons and is the introducer of night; yet, since he does not actually create the world, but only rearranges the existing material, he belongs rather in the category of transformers or initiators. Real anthropomorphic gods appear as creators in very early tribes. Such, for example, are Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil of Australia,[1147] perhaps Supu of the Melanesian island of Vate.
[678]. In Polynesia there is a better-defined cosmogonic anthropomorphism. The Hawaiian creators Kane and Tangaloa appear to be fully formed deities.[1148] The Maoris have the divine figures Heaven and Earth, whose children are the producers of all things in the world. But Maui, who seems to be a general Polynesian figure, is rather a culture-hero than a god, though his achievements were of a very serious sort. The Tapa of the Borneo Land Dyaks,[1149] and the Boora Pennu of the Khonds[1150] may be regarded as real gods. On the West Coast of Africa the Yorubans, the most advanced of the coast tribes, with a well-developed pantheon, have deities who may be called creators; such are Obatala, who, according to one account, made the first human pair out of clay, and Ifa, the restorer of the world after the flood.[1151] In North America the New England Kiehtan and the Virginian Oki have creative functions.[1152] The Navahos ascribe the creation of certain animals to a god Bekotsidi, whose character and rôle, however, are vague.[1153] The Brazilian Tupan and Jurupari appear to be divine creators.[1154] For a good many tribes in all parts of the world the published reports give no precise information regarding the beginning of things, but it seems probable that fuller acquaintance with them would reveal conceptions similar to those described above.
[679]. The great civilized nations, with their well-formed anthropomorphic deities, have constructed elaborate cosmogonies, which commonly begin with the conception of an unshaped mass of material out of which the gods arise and create the world. There is no great difference in these various schemes: Babylonians and Greeks have fallen upon substantially the same general view of creation; the variations among the various peoples are due to circumstances of place and culture. It is noteworthy that the Maoris have a cosmogony which is not unlike that of the great civilized nations of antiquity, but the origin of their scheme of the world is not clear.[1155]
[680]. Gods of the other world. The class of departmental gods includes those who have charge of the other world. As soon as the abode of men after death is definitely fixed, it is natural that a deity presiding over this other world should arise. Among the lower tribes this sort of god is not frequent.[1156] One of the clearest cases of such organization occurs in Fiji.[1157] Here, in addition to other deities who deal with the dead on their entrance into this farther world, the great deity Ndengei has his abode, and one of his functions is to pass on the merits of those who present themselves from the world of living men. He is, however, in part an otiose deity and can hardly be said to rule over this otherworldly realm. Similar undeveloped deities are found among the Maoris and the Finns.[1158]
[681]. But fully formed and effective divine rulers of the other world occur only in the more advanced religions, such as the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Hindu, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman.[1159] From the nature of their abode such deities have very little to do with the life on earth except when, as in the Egyptian system and to some extent in the Fijian, there is a judge of conduct, with authority to assign the dead their places, good or bad. In such cases they become important moral factors in life.
[682]. An ethical god of the other world appears not to have been created by the Semites. The Babylonian Underworld goddess or god has nothing to do with moral character, and among the Hebrews, so far as the statements in the Old Testament go, no special deity was assigned to the other world; whether such an Underworld deity once existed and was lost by the Hebrews, or has been expurged by the later editors of the Old Testament books, must remain uncertain;[1160] in the late pre-Christian period the national god, Yahweh, was regarded as controlling the Underworld as well as Heaven and Earth.[1161] The Greek Aïdes or Ploutōn and the Roman Pluto also are not ethical gods in the higher sense, as indeed no early deity of any people has such a moral character. At a later period ethical distinctions were introduced into the administration of the other world.
By reason of paucity of data it is difficult to determine the precise characters of various Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic deities whose names appear in the records. They are gods of clans and of departments of nature; none of them can properly be reckoned among the great gods.[1162]