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 preexisting materia