l;[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 nar