re certain beings appear as patrons of
work.[1104] These are said by Codrington to be ghosts, yet to be prayed
to just as if they were gods; and in fact, being men with indefinitely
great powers, they can hardly be distinguished from such deities as
Daramulun and Unkulunkulu, except in the fact that their function is
specific. In Australia the published reports do not describe
departmental gods proper, with the possible exception of an undefined
being in the North. A more developed scheme exists in Polynesia. In New
Zealand there were deities of food-planting and of forests.[1105] The
highest point of Polynesian civilization seems to have been reached in
the Hawaiian Islands, where, besides several great gods, there were
deities of the sky, the sea, winds, and lightning, of agriculture, and
of various occupations and professions, such as fishing, and even
robbing.[1106]

+659+. The Sea Dyaks have a god of rice-farming and one of war.[1107] In
the Malay Peninsula there is a confused mingling of supernatural beings
of various sorts, with a great development of magic; the determination
of the functions of the better-developed gods is rendered difficult by
the fact that the Malays have been much affected by Hindu
influence.[1108] Such influence is possibly to be recognized also in the
systems of the Dravidian and Kolarian tribes, though in them there seems
to be a native non-Aryan element. The Khonds have gods of rain, fruit,
hunting, and boundaries. Among all these tribes the chief deity is the
sun-god, by whose side stands the earth-god; these may well be
primitive, though their present form may be due to Hindu
influence.[1109]

+660+. The Masai of Eastern Africa have two chief gods--one black, said
to be good; the other red, said to be bad.[1110] The only trace of a
recognition of cosmic powers appears in their myth that the sky and the
earth were once united in one embrace;[1111] but it is not clear that
they recognize a god of the sky and one of the earth. Among the Bantu,
who are largely, though not wholly, pastoral, there appears to be no
trace of an apportionment of natural phenomena among supernatural
beings.[1112] On the West Coast of Africa there is a somewhat elaborate
scheme of departmental deities. The sky is the chief god, but in Dahomi
and Ashanti there are gods of lightning, fire, the ocean, the rainbow,
war, markets, silk, cotton, and poison trees, smallpox, sensual desire,
discord, and wisdom; in Dahomi