sun-god obtained universal
homage. But there were creator-gods in the background. A theoretical
supremacy was accorded by the Incas to Pachacamac, whose worship, like
that of Viracocha, they appear to have already found when they conquered
the land. Pachacamac means, in Quichua, "world-animator."[9] The
"philosophers" of Peru declared that he desired no temples or
sacrifices, no worship but that of the heart. This is conceivable; Maui,
too, in New Zealand had no temple or priests. But most probably this
deity had another less abstract name, and the horrible worship offered
in the one temple which he really had under the Incas, accorded with his
true cosmic significance as the god of the subterranean fire. Viracocha
too had a cosmic position; an old Peruvian hymn calls him "world-former,
world-animator."[10] He was connected with water. A third creator was
Manco Capac ("the mighty man"), whose sister and wife is called Mama
Oello, "the mother-egg." Afterwards, the creator and the mother-egg
became respectively the sun and the moon, represented by the Inca
priest-king and his wife, the supposed descendants of Manco Capac.[11]
Dualistic tendencies were also developed. Las Casas[12] reports a story
that before creation the creator-god had a bad son who sought, after
creation, to undo all that his father had done. Angered at this, his
father hurled him into the sea. We need not suspect Christian
influences, but the parallelism of Rev. xx. 3, Isa. xiv. 12, 15, Ezek.
xxviii. 16 is obvious.

5. _Polynesian._--Polynesia, that classic land of mythology, is
specially rich in myths of creation. The Maori story, told by Grey and
others, of the rending apart of Rangi ( = Langi, heaven) and Papa
(earth) can be paralleled in China, India and Greece, and more remotely
in Egypt and Babylonia. The son of Rangi and Papa was Tangaloa (also
called Tangaroa and Taaroa), the sea-god and the father of fishes and
reptiles.[13] In other parts of Polynesia he is the Heaven God, to whom
there is no like, no second. In Samoa he is even called Tangaloa-Langi
(Tangaloa = heaven). And if he is the sea-god, we must remember that
there is a heavenly as well as an earthly ocean; hence the clouds are
sometimes called Tangaloa's ships. It is true, the popular imagery is
unworthy of such a god. Sometimes he is said to live in a shell, by
throwing off which from time to time he increases the world; or in an
egg, which at last he breaks in pieces; the pieces