Chapter VI: Gods (1)

+635+. The climax of the organization of external religion appears in the conception of gods proper; this conception is always associated with more or less well-developed institutions. Early religious life expresses itself in ceremonies; the god is the embodiment of man's ideal of the extrahuman power that rules the world. It is not always easy to distinguish the true gods from the other supernatural beings with which early man's world is peopled.[1052] As far as concerns power, the ghosts and the spirits appear to do all that the gods are credited with doing; the sphere of ghostly action is practically unlimited, and the spirit that dwells in a spring, in a river, or in a mountain, is as mighty in his sphere as Indra or Apollo in his sphere; the difference between them and gods is a difference of intellectual and moral culture and of the degree of naturalization in a human society--a god might be defined as a superhuman Being fashioned by the thought of a civilized people (the term 'civilized' admitting, however, of many gradations). Still, gods proper may be distinguished from other Powers by certain characteristics of person and function. Ghosts are shadowy doubles of human beings, sometimes nameless, wandering about without definite purpose except to procure food for themselves, uncertain of temper, friendly or unfriendly according to caprice or other circumstances, able to help or to harm, and requiring men to be constantly on the alert so as not in an unguarded moment to offend them. Souls of recently deceased ancestors, more highly organized ghosts, conceived of also as attenuated bodies, have powers not essentially different from those of the simpler ghosts, but are differentiated from these in function by their intimate relations with the family or clan to which they belong, and by their more definite human nature; they are as a rule permanently friendly, are capable of definite sympathetic social intercourse with living men, and are sometimes controllers and patrons, hardly to be distinguished from local or departmental gods. Spirits are ethereal beings residing in, or closely connected with, certain objects (trees, rivers, springs, stones, mountains, etc.), sometimes permanently attached to these objects, sometimes detached; roaming about, sometimes kindly, more generally inimical, authors of disease and death, to be feared and to be guarded against, but sometimes in function (though not in origin) identical with ancestral ghosts. Totems, in their developed form, are revered, but rarely if ever worshiped. The term 'animal-gods' may mean either living animals regarded as divine, or animals believed to be the forms assumed by gods; in the latter case they may be taken to be real gods of an inferior type.

In distinction from the four classes of Powers just mentioned, a true god is a supernatural being with distinct anthropomorphic personality, with a proper name or a distinctive title, exercising authority over a certain land or people or over a department of nature or a class of phenomena, dwelling generally in a sanctuary on the earth, or in the sky, or in the other world, and in general sympathetic with men. Gods have rational human qualities, human modes of procedure, and are human beings in all things except power.[1053]

+636+. The god appears to have been at the outset a well-formed anthropomorphic being. His genesis is different from that of the ghost, spirit, ancestor, or totem. These, except the spirit, are all given by experience: totems are familiar objects plainly visible to the eye; ghosts and ancestors are known through dreams and appearances by day, and by tradition; and the conception of the spirit is closely allied to that of the ghost, though it is in part a scientific inference rather than a fact of experience. In distinction from these a god is a larger product of imagination, springing from the necessity of accounting for the existence of things in a relatively refined way. The creator is a beast only in low tribes, and in process of time, if the tribe continues to grow in culture, is absorbed in the cult of a true god. It is rarely, if ever, that a beast, whether a totem or only a sacred thing, becomes a god proper.

The best apparent examples of such a growth are the Egyptian bull Apis, who had his temple and ministers, the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, and the divine snake of the Nagas of India.[1054] But, though in these cases the beast forms receive divine worship, it is not clear whether it is the beast that is worshiped or a god incarnate in the beast; the question is difficult, the data being meager. The myths in which gods appear in beast forms do not prove a development of the former out of the latter. It is not necessary to suppose that Zeus was once a bull, Artemis a bear or a sow, Adonis a boar, and Aphrodite a sow or a dove. The myths may be naturally explained as arising from the coalescence of cults, the local sacred beast becoming attached to a local deity who had a different birth.

The god is a figure of slow growth. Beginning as a sort of headman, identified sometimes with an ancestor, sometimes with a beast, his character is shaped by all the influences that go to form the tribal life, and he thus embodies from generation to generation the tribe's ideals of virtue.

+637+. The list of classes of supernatural Powers given above must be regarded, as is there intimated, as a general one. One class appears sometimes to shade into another; in the theistic schemes of low tribes it is often difficult to define the conceptions of supernatural beings with precision.

_Early mythical founders of culture._ Before proceeding to a consideration of true gods, a class of beings must be mentioned that appears to stand on the borderland between divine animals, spirits, and gods. There are various sorts of beings that appear sometimes in animal form, sometimes in human form, their function being the arranging of the affairs of the world, the origination of institutions, and sometimes a definite creation of various things. The title "founders" or "transformers" or "culture-heroes" has been given them. They arise, just as the true gods do, from the necessity of accounting for the beginnings of things,[1055] and, from a comparison of the ideas of various tribes, a certain growth in the conception may be recognized.

+638+. In some cases the figure is that of a mere trickster, a mischievous being, the hero of countless stories, who acts from caprice or malice, though his actions may result in advantage to men. Such are many of the animal forms of the North American Indians: the coyote of the Thompson River Indians,[1056] the raven of North British Columbia,[1057] the mink and the blue jay of the North Pacific Coast.[1058] In other cases, as also to some extent in the Thompson River region, he appears in a more dignified form as a benevolent organizer.

This growth of the trickster into the real culture-hero may be referred to a progress in thought and refinement.[1059] Among the Northern Maidu of California there is a sharp distinction between the two characters: the coyote is tricky and mischievous in the bad sense, with no desire to do anything profitable to men; the benevolent and useful work of the world is ascribed to a personage called "the creator," who is always dignified and regardful of the interests of man.[1060] This sort of distinction, intended to account for the presence of both good and evil elements of life, is found in inchoate form among other low peoples (as, for example, the Masai and the Australians[1061]), but reaches its full proportions only in the great civilized religions.

+639+. In this class of vaguely conceived creators or transformers we may place the Central Australian Arunta ancestors, who embodied the idea of the identity of beasts and human beings, and are the originators of all the arts and institutions of the tribes; they established the totemic groups and the ceremonies, and, in the developed myth, perpetuate their existence by entering the bodies of women and being born as human beings.[1062] The relative antiquity of this conception of the origin of things is uncertain; in one point of view it is crude, but in another it is an elaborate and well-considered attempt to explain the world. These Arunta ancestors, notwithstanding their half-bestial forms, are represented as acting in all regards like human beings, and as having planned a complete system of tribal organization, but no religious worship is offered them--they figure only in sociogonic myths and in the determination of the totemic status of newborn children. Among the Navahos we find a combination of beast and man in the work of creation.[1063] In their elaborate cosmogonic myth the first actors are Coyote, First Man, and First Woman, and there is discord between Coyote and his human coworkers. Here again the object seems to be to account for the diverse elements of the tribal life.

+640+. Many such personages, originators or introducers of the arts of life and the distribution of territory, are described in the folk-tales and myths of the North American tribes. The conception, it may be concluded, existed all over the world, though for many communities the details have not yet been brought to light.[1064] A noteworthy personage of this class is the Melanesian Qat (especially prominent in the Banks Islands), a being credited with almost plenary power, the creator or arranger of seasons, the introducer of night, therefore an important cultural power, yet mischievous, the hero of numerous folk-stories; he does not appear in animal form but lives an ordinary family life. He is not worshiped--he is regarded rather as the explanation of phenomena, a genuine product of early cosmogonic science. He appears to be the nearest approach in Melanesia to a real creator (with the exception perhaps of a somewhat uncertain female being called Koevasi); but alongside of him stand a number of spirits and ancestral ghosts who play an important part in the organization of society.[1065] For the Koryaks of Northeastern Siberia the "Big Grandfather" is an arranger of all things out of preëxisting material;[1066] the Chukchee, on the other hand, regard as creator a benevolent being residing in the zenith. Vague stories of simitar arrangers are found among the East African Nandi, and the South African Zulus.[1067]

+641+. Traces of this function of organizing society appear in the mythical figures of some higher religions. Among such figures may be reckoned the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Old Testament Cainides, the Greek Heracles, Theseus, Orpheus, and others.[1068] But these personages generally take on human form and are treated as factors in the regular social development.

+642+. The "culture-hero" thus seems to be a natural product of incipient civilization. He represents the vague feeling that the institutions of society arose out of human needs and that the origination of these institutions demanded more than human wisdom and power.[1069] He partakes of the nature of both men and gods--he is all-powerful, yet a creature of caprice and a slave of accident. To him society is supposed to owe an incalculable debt; but his mixed nature affords a wide field for bizarre myths and folk-stories, and he of necessity gives way to more symmetrical divine figures.

+643+. The god, in the true sense of the word, is the highest generalization of the constructive religious imagination. In his simplest and earliest form he appears as a venerable supernatural man, wise according to the wisdom of his place and time--such is the natural conception of the lower tribes. His position is described by the titles "the old one," "the father," "the grandfather";[1070] he is a superhuman headman or chief, caring for his people, giving them what they need, sharing their ethical ideas and enforcing their ethical rules. He is an all-sufficient local ruler or overseer, his functions touching the whole life of his people and of no other people. In the progress of myth-making (that is, in the construction of early scientific theology) such gods are not infrequently represented as men who have gone up to the sky; this is a natural way of accounting for their superterrestrial abode. Savage conceptions of the origin and history of such figures are usually vague, and their theologies fluctuating and self-contradictory; but there are two points as to which opinion is firm: the god is like men in everything except power, and his functions are universal. He represents not a monotheistic creed (which takes the whole world as the domain of God), but a narrow tribal acceptance of the sufficiency of the local divine patron.[1071]

CLAN GODS

+644+. The character just described is that of the earliest known gods; it is embodied in certain figures found in various parts of the world. Such divine figures belong to the simplest form of social organization, the clan; it is in the clan that they are shaped, and they reflect the conceptions, political and ethical, of the clan. In Southeast Australia the personages called Daramulun, Baiame, Bunjil, correspond to this description: they are supernatural old men who have always existed; they are taken for granted without inquiry into their origin; they direct the affairs of the tribe in a general way in accordance with the moral ideas of the place and time.[1072] The Australians have other beings with vaguely expressed characters and functions, but our information regarding these is so meager that it is not possible to form a distinct judgment of their character. Similar figures are the Klamath Indian "Old Man"[1073] and the Zulu Unkulunkulu, an old man, the father of the people, only dimly understood by the natives who have been questioned on this point; they are uncertain whether he is dead or alive, but in any case he is revered as a great personage.[1074]

+645+. Other such deities are reported in South Africa, as the Qamata of the Xosa, Morimo of the Bakuana, and farther north Molungu.[1075] On the West Coast also, in Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba, a number of deities exist which were in all probability originally local.[1076] Such appears to be the character of certain gods of the non-Aryan tribes of India, as the Kolarian Sunthals and Koles.[1077] Perhaps also the god Vetala was originally such a local deity with the savage characteristics proper to the time and place, though later he was half Brahmanized and became a fiend.[1078] Among the Todas every clan has its god, who was the creator and instructor of the people. The large number of gods now recognized by the various Toda communities are essentially the same in character and function, and the existing system has doubtless been formed by the coalition of the clans.[1079] In North America the Navahos have a number of local deities, the _yei_ (Zuñi, _yeyi_), some of which are called by terms that mean 'venerable.'[1080] The Koryak guardians of occupations and houses may be of the nature of such objects of worship in the clans,[1081] and so also the Patagonian family-gods. Cf. the Greek [Greek: kourotrophos]. In Japan the early system of supernatural beings has been obscured by the great religions of the later time--Shinto in its developed form, and Buddhism--but the indications are that the general term _kami_, a designation of all supernatural things, included local deities.[1082]

+646+. It is not clear how early the practice began of giving these beings proper names. In the lowest known tribes we meet descriptive titles such as "old one," "grandfather," "grandmother"; and so among some civilized peoples, as the Semites, whose local deities are often known simply as _baals_ ('possessors,' 'lords'), sometimes as lords of particular places, as, for example, the Arabic Dhu ash-Shara (Dusares), 'lord of the Shara.' A god identified with a particular object may be called by its name; so 'Heaven' is said to have become the proper name of a Huron deity (cf. Zeus, Tien, Shangti).[1083] Names of Pawnee gods are Bright Star (Evening Star), Great Star (Morning Star), Motionless One (North Star), and many other such; the Navahos have The Woman Who Changes (apparently the changing year), White Shell Woman, Child of Water;[1084] the Kolarian Sunthals, Great Mountain;[1085] the Brazilian Arawaks, River-born.[1086] A proper name becomes necessary as soon as definite social relations with a god are established. Divine names in civilized religions, of remote origin, are often inexplicable.

+647+. Among the simple clan gods divinized men should be included. In many parts of the world, as is remarked above, chiefs and other great personages are regarded as divine; this attribution of divinity is a part of that general early conception according to which there was an element of power in all things, naturally embodied in a special way in important men. This sort of divinization is particularly prominent in Melanesia and parts of Polynesia; it exists also in Japan and in West Africa. As a rule it is only the recently dead that are thus regarded as divine objects of worship, and the cult would thus be substantially a part of the worship of ancestors; but such divinized men frequently bore a peculiarly intimate relation to the clan or community and became specific protectors.[1087] So far as their origin is concerned, this class of divine patrons differs essentially from the old clan god, whose genesis probably belongs to a remote antiquity and is based on the general consciousness of some powerful influence in nature.[1088]

+648+. Clan gods are found abundantly among the ancient civilized peoples, Egyptian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Arabian, Greek, Roman, and probably existed among other peoples as to whom we have no exact information. In Old Egypt every hamlet had its protecting deity; these continued to be the objects of popular worship down to a very late time, the form of the deity being usually that of a living animal.[1089]

+649+. A similar religious constitution obtained among the old Semitic peoples. This is obvious in the case of the Canaanites (including the Phoenicians), where every clan or community had its divine lord (the Baal), who was a universal deity sufficient for all the needs of the living, though particularly connected with the dominant interests of his people.[1090] Such, probably, was the original form of the Hebrew Yahweh (Jehovah); in his Sinaitic home he was naturally connected with the phenomena of desert and mountain, and in Canaan, whither the Israelites brought his cult, he was after a while recognized as the giver of crops also, and gradually became a universal god in the larger sense of the term.[1091] The Phoenician Baals--such as the Tyrian Melkart, 'the king of the city'--are obviously local deities.[1092] The same thing is true of the various gods that appear in pre-Mohammedan Arabia; the deity of any particular clan or tribe was known to the people as "the god" (Arabic _Allah_, that is, _al-Ilahu_), and the title "Allah," adopted by Mohammed as the name of the supreme and only god, thus in so far fitted in with the usage of the people.[1093]

+650+. In Babylonia also a very large part of the divine names found in the inscriptions must be understood to refer ultimately to local deities, each supreme in his own territory; the later theologians (probably priests) endeavored to organize these into a sort of pantheon, but never succeeded in differentiating the various deities distinctly. In general it may be said that all these old Semitic gods had one and the same character; each in his place was supreme, and it is difficult to find any difference in real character and function among the great gods, as Ea, Bel, Marduk, Sin, Shamash, Ishtar, Nabu, Ashur, Eshmun, and others.[1094]

+651+. The same remark will probably hold good of the popular worship of the old Greeks. When Pausanias traveled through Greece he found everywhere local cults which bore evidence of primitiveness, and obviously pertained to the clan gods of the various regions. In many cases these had been identified with old animal-gods or had been interwoven into the general later scheme and had been merged with the great gods of the developed pantheon.[1095] The functions ascribed to various deities in the Veda suggest a similar origin for them. When we find that many of them are credited with the same larger or smaller acts of creation, protection, or blessing, we may suspect that they were originally clan gods that have been incorporated in the great theologic system, and that "henotheism" is mainly a survival from this earlier scheme or an extension of it.[1096] Similar local gods appear in Peru[1097] and Mexico.[1098]

+652+. One class of _Greek "heroes"_ may be considered as belonging in the category of clan gods.[1099] When the hero appears to be originally a god his worship is identical in character with that offered to local deities; so in the case of Achilles and many others.[1100] Such an one is often a divine patron of a definite (usually small) territory, has his sacred shrine with its ministers, and his specific sacrificial cult. A trace of this type may perhaps be recognized in Hesiod's "halfgods,"[1101] the heroes of the Trojan war and others, whom he places just after the age of bronze and just before his modern age of iron; their origin is thus made relatively late, as was natural if they descended culturally from old gods.

+653+. A similar view appears in the fact that a hero is sometimes of mixed parentage--his father or his mother is divine: a local god, standing in close cultic connection with a greater deity, is easily made into a son of the latter. In general, in the popular worship there seems to be no distinction between old heroes and gods. Where such a hero stood in close relations with a community--if, for example, as was sometimes the case, he was the patron or tutelary divinity of a family, or a mythical ancestor--there was doubtless a peculiar tenderness in the feeling for him. But his general function probably was simply that of local patron.[1102]

+654+. Clan gods are specially important in the history of worship--they form the real basis of the great theistic development. Ghosts and spirits continue to be recognized and revered or dreaded, but they are not powerful social bonds--it is the local deity about whose person organized public worship grows up, and it is he whose functions are gradually enlarged till he becomes a universal god. The initial forms of religion are everywhere limited locally and intellectually; it is only by loyalty to the home as a center and standing-place that man's religious affections and ideals have expanded so as to embrace the world, and reach a high standard of ethical purity and logical consistency.

DEPARTMENTAL GODS

+655+. It must be regarded as an advance in religious conceptions and religious life when natural phenomena are divided into classes and assigned each to its special deity; such a scheme brings men into more intimate and sympathetic relations with the gods. It presupposes a relatively advanced observation of nature and some power of coördination and generalization, and seems to be found only in communities that have some well-organized communal life. In general it belongs to the agricultural stage and to the higher civilizations that have grown out of this stage. Care for food appears to be the starting-point; later, all sorts of social interests demand consideration.

+656+. This specialization of functions is possibly in part an elevation of the old scheme of spirits according to which every object in the world was conceived of as inhabited or controlled by some spiritlike being. It is not probable that the departmental gods are always developed directly out of spirits--they appear sometimes to belong rather in the clan system, are anthropomorphic, human, lending themselves more readily than spirits do to human intercourse.[1103] It is true that the lower cults of animals and spirits persist alongside of the higher religious forms, and the various groups often appear to blend with one another, as is generally the case in transitions from one system of thought to another.

+657+. Deities with this sort of specialized functions appear in all parts of the world and at various periods of culture. The particular sort of specialization differs according to climatic conditions and social organization--that is, it depends in any community on the nature of the phenomena that touch the life of the community closely. But the general principle remains the same--it is the effort to penetrate more deeply into the nature of the supernatural Powers, and to enter into more intimate and helpful relations with them; it is the beginning of a more practical study of theology proper.

+658+. A somewhat low and vague form of specialization of function is found in Melanesia, where certain beings appear as patrons of work.[1104] These are said by Codrington to be ghosts, yet to be prayed to just as if they were gods; and in fact, being men with indefinitely great powers, they can hardly be distinguished from such deities as Daramulun and Unkulunkulu, except in the fact that their function is specific. In Australia the published reports do not describe departmental gods proper, with the possible exception of an undefined being in the North. A more developed scheme exists in Polynesia. In New Zealand there were deities of food-planting and of forests.[1105] The highest point of Polynesian civilization seems to have been reached in the Hawaiian Islands, where, besides several great gods, there were deities of the sky, the sea, winds, and lightning, of agriculture, and of various occupations and professions, such as fishing, and even robbing.[1106]

+659+. The Sea Dyaks have a god of rice-farming and one of war.[1107] In the Malay Peninsula there is a confused mingling of supernatural beings of various sorts, with a great development of magic; the determination of the functions of the better-developed gods is rendered difficult by the fact that the Malays have been much affected by Hindu influence.[1108] Such influence is possibly to be recognized also in the systems of the Dravidian and Kolarian tribes, though in them there seems to be a native non-Aryan element. The Khonds have gods of rain, fruit, hunting, and boundaries. Among all these tribes the chief deity is the sun-god, by whose side stands the earth-god; these may well be primitive, though their present form may be due to Hindu influence.[1109]

+660+. The Masai of Eastern Africa have two chief gods--one black, said to be good; the other red, said to be bad.[1110] The only trace of a recognition of cosmic powers appears in their myth that the sky and the earth were once united in one embrace;[1111] but it is not clear that they recognize a god of the sky and one of the earth. Among the Bantu, who are largely, though not wholly, pastoral, there appears to be no trace of an apportionment of natural phenomena among supernatural beings.[1112] On the West Coast of Africa there is a somewhat elaborate scheme of departmental deities. The sky is the chief god, but in Dahomi and Ashanti there are gods of lightning, fire, the ocean, the rainbow, war, markets, silk, cotton, and poison trees, smallpox, sensual desire, discord, and wisdom; in Dahomi there is a tutelary god of the royal family. The Yorubans have a similar system, embracing gods of the Niger, nightmare, wealth, gardens, and divination.[1113] This more elaborate system corresponds to their more highly developed scheme of social organization.

+661+. The tribes of Northeastern Asia are less developed religiously. The Koryaks are said to have benevolent and malevolent deities, but appear not to have made much progress in the recognition of the distinct departments of nature.[1114] The Ainu have a large number of specific deities: the goddess of fire, whose title is "Grandmother"; gods of the kitchen, of doors, of springs, and of gardens.[1115] As the Ainu culture resembles that of Northeastern Asia in several respects, it is possible that in the latter region there exists a more highly specialized scheme than has yet been reported. In Central Asia also it seems that no great progress has been made in this direction by native thought. The statement of Herodotus[1116] that the Thracians in time of thunderstorms used to shoot arrows at the sky and threaten the god, may point to a recognition of a god of the sky or of storm. In the greater part of Central Asia the conception of local spirits has prevailed and still prevails (Shamanism), a phase of religion that stands below that of the division of nature into departments. In certain districts of Mongolia, in which the theistic system is complicated, departmental deities are now found, but the obvious dependence of this region on Buddhism (Lamaism) and other outside cults makes it doubtful whether or how far this scheme of gods is of native origin.[1117]

+662+. In North America the Algonkin and Maskoki nations and the Skidi Pawnee have deities of the sky, the heavenly bodies, the winds, and fire.[1118] In the western part of the continent the theistic systems are less developed, but the details of the cults have not yet been fully collected; so far as appears, a departmental organization has not been made. In Brazil there is a trace of such a conception among the Tupis; but the South American tribes remain at a low level of theistic development.[1119]

+663+. The three greater religions of America, the Maya, the Mexican, and the Peruvian, offer much more interesting material, in regard to which the information which has been handed down to us is often unfortunately meager. Particularly, little definite is known of the Maya system; the indications are that the Mayas were superior in civilization to the Aztecs, and their religious customs and conceptions correspondingly higher than those of the latter.[1120]

+664+. The Aztec religion is that which the Spaniards on their arrival found to be the dominant one in Mexico. It was the religion of a conquering race, formed in part by a coalition of tribes and a combination of cults. From the records (none of which are contemporaneous) it appears that there was a very considerable specialization of function in the Aztec deities. These were probably local gods with universal functions gradually differentiated. Huitzilopochtli, apparently a patron of vegetation (with three annual festivals corresponding to agricultural seasons), became especially the god of war, in accordance with the character of the Aztecs. Another side of social life was embodied in the conception of Tezcatlipoca, who represented law and justice, but naturally became also a god of war. In sharp contrast with these stands Quetzalcoatl, a milder god, apparently a representative of general culture and good life. But he is commonly held to be of foreign origin. If a foreigner, he was nevertheless adopted by the Aztecs and embodied one side of their life, particularly, perhaps, the protests against the human sacrifices, which were so prominent a feature in the cults of the other two deities. There were further a god of rain, a goddess of harvest, and a goddess of sensual pleasure, besides a great number of minor specialized deities. With this specialization of function, however, there was no corresponding development of character in the gods, no pantheon proper. The myths which have been preserved relate to the origin of social customs and to the birth of gods. They appear to have been developed only a step beyond the myths of the Redmen.[1121]

+665+. The Peruvian cult differs from the Mexican in that it recognizes, in its developed form, one preëminent deity, the sun-god, from whom issues all authority. Along with him stand two prominent figures, Viracocha and Pachacamac, who also are credited with great powers. Apparently they were local universal deities who were incorporated into the Peruvian system and subordinated to the sun-god. All three are only vague, general figures, having no histories except a few stories of origins, and the Peruvian myths do not differ in essential character from those of the Aztecs.[1122]

+666+. In this category we may include a large number of minutely specialized deities of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. As among some lower tribes already referred to, so here many common objects and pursuits are regarded as being under the fostering care of specific deities. In Egypt the ripe ear of the grain, the birth of a child and its naming, and other things had their special divinities.[1123]

+667+. The Greeks had such divine patrons of the corncrib, beans, plowshare, cattle, city walls, banquets, potters, physicians, athletic contests, and even one hero known as the "frightener of horses" and a deity called the "flycatcher."[1124]

+668+. The Romans carried out this specialization in even greater detail. Almost every object and every event of the communal life had its patron deity: the house, the hearth, the field, the boundary stone, sowing and reaping, the wall, breath, marriage, education, death; the Lares were the special protectors of the house or of the field, and all patrons of the home were summed up under the general designations _dii penates_ and _dii familiares_. Most of these beings have proper names, but even where there are no such names, as in the case of the _dii penates_, there can be little doubt that they were looked on as personal individualized beings.[1125] The tendency was, as time went on, to add to the number of these specialized patrons, as appears from the Roman _indigitamenta_[1126] lists of such divine beings redacted by the priests, who were disposed, naturally, to make the objects of worship as numerous as possible; but herein they doubtless responded to a popular impulse.

+669+. This disposition to define practical functions minutely appears also in the cultic history of the greater gods of the old Roman religion: the rôle of Jupiter as god of sky and rain was definitely fixed, and Tellus was not the divine mother of the human race but the beneficent bestower of crops. As the functions of such greater gods became more numerous and more definitely fixed, epithets were employed; Jupiter had a dozen or more of such adjectival additions, and it appears that at a later time such epithets were personalized into deities; but this academic or priestly procedure does not set aside the fact that the early Roman religion recognized a vast number of divine beings as the specific patrons of certain things and acts.

+670+. It was quite natural for the practical Roman mind to place everything of importance under the care of a divine being--a procedure which is simply carrying out in greater detail modes of thought which we have seen to be common in many of the lower tribes. Augustine thinks this specialization amusing, ridiculous, and difficult to understand. He brings up the whole question of origin when he asks why it was necessary to have two goddesses for the waves of the sea--one, Venilia, representing the wave as advancing to the shore; the other, Salacia, representing the wave as receding.[1127] This seems, to be sure, an unnecessary specialization; but, considered in connection with the whole Roman system, it is not less intelligible than the multiplication of deities attending upon the birth and education of a child, on the processes of farming, and on the fortunes of war. Since human life is guided by the gods, thought the Romans, there is no act that may not have its god; this system is the objectivation of the conception of divine special providence.[1128]

+671+. To certain Semitic deities highly specialized functions have been supposed to belong; but the known facts hardly warrant this supposition. In the names Baal-Marqod, Baal-Marpe, Baal-Gad, the second element may be the name of a place; that is, the Baal may be a local deity (as the Baals elsewhere are). The title Baal-berit[1129] has been interpreted as meaning "lord of a covenant"--that is, a deity presiding over treaties; but the expression is not clear. Baalzebub is in the Old Testament the god of the Philistine city Ekron, where he had a famous oracle;[1130] it is highly improbable that the name means "lord of flies" (which would rather be Baal-zebubim), but the sense is obscure. The New Testament Baal [Beel]-zebul[1131] (the only correct form) has been variously explained. The second element, _zebul_, occurs in the Old Testament as a name of the heavenly abode of the deity,[1132] and the title has been regarded as the Semitic rendering of a Greek or Roman title of a god of heaven (Zeus Ouranios; cf. Caelestis, epithet of Jupiter); as foreign deities were called "demons" by the later Jews, the chief of these deities, it is held, might well be taken to be the "prince of demons." However this may be, Beelzebul cannot be ranked among the deities with highly specialized functions.[1133]

+672+. The scheme of gods just described is closely allied to that of tutelary deities for individual human beings. A transitional step may be recognized in the assignment of special divine protectors to every house or village or grove, as among the Ainu (with whom the tutelary power is the head of a bear), in Borneo (where every house has a human skull as protector), among the Khonds, in the Vedic Vastoshpati, the "lord of the house," in the Hindu "house goddess," and in the Chinese tutelary god for every year.[1134] From such a scheme to the assignment of a protecting spirit to every human being there is but a step, and this is made natural or necessary by the increasing sense of the value of the individual. Such tutelary spirits or deities are found in Polynesia and Africa.[1135] The North American manitu and the Central American nagual,[1136] referred to above, are not only special objects of worship but also constantly present guardians of individual men. The Iroquois have special tutelary spirits.[1137] In Ashanti such a function is performed by the indwelling spirit, which is scarcely distinguishable from the man himself.[1138] The Roman _genius_ represents the man's individual life, but becomes also his guardian;[1139] and the _daimon_ of Socrates was possibly originally a being of the same sort,[1140] though he may have identified it with conscience.

+673+. In the great religions of antiquity every city and every state had its special divine protector. The Persian fravashis are the guardians of individual human beings. The later Jews held that there was a guardian angel for every nation and for every person.[1141] All such conceptions embody the human sense of dependence on divine aid and the demand for specific divine protectors standing near to man and sustaining special relations with individuals. In some forms of Christianity the function of protection is assigned to patron saints.

+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 Plout[=o]n 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]

+683+. _Division into good and bad Powers._ Among many savage and half-civilized peoples we find that a distinction is recognized between good and bad ghosts and spirits--a distinction at first vague, based on passing experiences in which all the fortunes of men, favorable and unfavorable, are referred to these beings. Their morals are those of the human communities with which they are connected: they may be amiable or malignant, beneficent or revengeful, but the ethical element in their characters and deeds is not distinctly recognized and is not made the basis of the distinction between the two classes. The world is seen to be full of Powers that make for weal or for woe--a conception that contains the germ of all the later development but is at first nebulous.

+684+. In a somewhat higher form of culture these two classes of Powers may be unified respectively into, or replaced by, two gods, one helpful, the other harmful. Such appears to be the scheme of the Masai, who have their black god and red god.[1163] A Californian cosmogonic myth describes a nonmoral conflict of work between the good "Creator" and the malicious Coyote.[1164] A real unification appears, however, to be rare; it supposes in fact a degree of reflection and organization that we should not expect to find among lower peoples. The story, for example, that has been told of a well-developed dualistic system of the Iroquois is based on a misconception.[1165] Dualism proper is not recognizable among the savages of America, Polynesia, Asia, or Africa.[1166] In the Old Testament prior to the sixth century B.C. the spirits, good and bad, which are not essentially different from those we find among the lower tribes, are massed under the control of Yahweh, and do his bidding without moral reflection; when he sends a lying spirit into the mouth of Ahab's prophets[1167] this spirit goes without malice merely to perform the will of the supreme god. This massing of all spirit Powers under the control of one god is a step toward unity and clearness in the conception of the government of the world.

+685+. At a later stage of social growth there appears the conception of a cosmic struggle, the conflict between the natural forces that tend to disorder and those that tend to order. Philosophical reflection led to the supposition of an original chaos, a medley of natural forces not combined or organized in such a way as to minister to the needs of human life; and a similar conception of conflict may have arisen from observation of the warring elements at certain seasons of the year.

+686+. The adjustment of the rival forces and the establishment of a system of physical order is referred to the great gods. Such a picture of the original state of things is contained in the elaborate Babylonian cosmologies that have come down to us; in these the dragon of disorder (Tiamat) is completely conquered by the god Bel-Marduk, who represents the Babylonian civilization of the time in which the cosmology arose. Of the same nature is the Egyptian myth of the contest between Horus (the light) and Set (the dark), in which, however, the victory of Horus is not described as being absolute[1168]--a representation suggested, possibly, by the recognition of the persistence of the good and bad elements of the world; compare the cosmologies of the Maidu and the Khonds mentioned above (§684). In the Greek and Teutonic myths in which the Giants are the enemies of the great gods a more humane and settled government of the world is introduced by Zeus and Wodan. Traces of this construction of the universe are to be found also among the Maoris, the Hawaiians, and other peoples of a like grade.[1169]

+687+. In the original form of these myths there is no moral element beyond the fact that the settlement of the cosmic powers was necessary in order to the establishment of good social life. Individual wicked deities do not appear at this stage, but the way is prepared for them by the picture of cosmic struggle in which powers friendly and unfriendly to men are opposed to one another. A similar conception is found in the figures of the Fates, who are the embodiment of the course of events in the world--the immovable, remorseless, absolute fortune of men, good and bad--a picture of life as it has presented itself, doubtless, to men in all periods of history. Out of this came the abstract conception of Fate, the impersonal power that controls all things.

+688+. The deeper conception of a conflict between the moral good and the moral evil in life belongs to the latest period in religious history. Here the determining fact is the control of the world by the high gods, who have their adversaries, but in general prove victors. At the foundation of this scheme of the world lies the conception of order, which is particularly defined in the Vedic _arta_ and the Avestan _asha_[1170]--the regulation of the world in accordance with human interests, in which the ethical element becomes more and more prominent as human society is more and more formed on an ethical basis.

+689+. Ethical dualism is most fully embodied in the Persian conception of two gods, good and bad, with the understanding that the good god, Ahura Mazda, exercises a certain restraint on the bad god, Angro Mainyu, who is finally to be crushed.[1171] This optimistic point of view, which has no doubt existed in germinal shape among all peoples, appears also in the modified dualism of the Old Testament and the late Jewish and Christian schemes. The Old Testament Satan is originally a divine being, one of the "sons of the Elohim" (that is, he belongs to the Elohim, or divine, class); his function is that of inspector of human conduct, prosecutor-general, with a natural tendency to disparage men and demand their punishment. As a member of Yahweh's court and council he makes regular reports to his divine lord and pleads cases before the divine court.[1172] In this character he is suspicious and mischievous but not immoral; but a little later a trace of malice appears in him,[1173] and in the uncanonical Jewish book of the Wisdom of Solomon and in the New Testament he advances to the position of the head of the kingdom of moral evil, so that he is called also "the god of the present age"[1174]--that is, he is the controller of the existing unregenerate element in human society, and is to be displaced when the ideal age shall be established.

+690+. _Man's attitude toward demons._ Demons[1175] (the term being taken to include all early malefic superhuman beings, whether ghosts or spirits) are feared and guarded against, but rarely receive worship. As they are the authors of all physical ills that cannot be explained on natural grounds, measures, usually magical, are taken to thwart their purposes--to prevent their intervention or to overcome and banish the evil begun by them. As they are not credited with moral principle, hostility to them rests not on ethical feeling but merely on fear of suffering.[1176] If they are placated, it is in cases in which they approach the character of gods and in so far cease to be demons in our sense of the word. They serve a useful purpose in that, taking on their shoulders all the ills of life, they leave the clan gods free from the suspicion of unfriendliness to men.[1177] On the other hand, the belief in them has created a pseudo-science of relief from suffering and a great host of pseudo-doctors who for a long time exercised a large control over society and bound men in fetters of ignorance.