d [Greek: gignesthai], to
be born), a theory, however incomplete, of the origin of heaven and
earth, such as is produced by primitive races in the myth-making age,
and is afterwards expanded and systematized by priests, poets or
philosophers. Such a theory must be mythical in form, and, after gods
have arisen, is likely to be a theogony ([Greek: theos], god) as well as
a cosmogony (Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Polynesia).

1. To many the interest of such stories will depend on their parallelism
to the Biblical account in Genesis i.; the anthropologist, however, will
be attracted by them in proportion as they illustrate the more primitive
phases of human culture. In spite of the frequent overgrowth of a
luxuriant imagination, the leading ideas of really primitive cosmogonies
are extremely simple. Creation out of nothing is nowhere thought of, for
this is not at all a simple idea. The pre-existence of world-matter is
assumed; sometimes too that of heaven, as the seat of the earth-maker,
and that of preternatural animals, his coadjutors. The earth-making
process may, among the less advanced races, be begun by a bird, or some
other animal (whence the term "theriomorphism"), for the high idea of a
god is impossible, till man has fully realized his own humanity. Of
course, the earth-forming animal is a preternaturally gifted one, and is
on the line of development towards that magnified man who, in a later
stage, becomes the demiurge.[1] Between the two comes the animal--man,
i.e. a being who has not yet shed the slough of an animal shape, but
combines the powers--natural and preternatural--of some animal with
those of a man. Let us now collect specimens of the evidence for
different varieties of cosmogony, ranging from those of the Red Indian
tribes to that of the people of Israel.

2. _North American Stories._--Theriomorphic creators are most fully
attested for the Red Indian tribes, whose very backwardness renders them
so valuable to an anthropologist. There is a painted image from Alaska,
now in the museum of the university of Pennsylvania, which represents
such an one. We see a black crow tightly holding a human mask which he
is in the act of incubating. Let us pass on to the Thlinkit Indians of
the N.W. coast. A cycle of tales is devoted to a strange humorous being
called Yehl or Yelch, i.e. the Raven, miraculously born, not to be
wounded, and at once a semi-developed creator and a culture hero.[2] His
bitter foe is his