row 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_ (Zuni, _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