829+. The act of creation is commonly represented as a process. Mud is
brought up from a pool, or an island is raised from the sea (the
Maoris, the Redmen), and these are stretched out so as to meet the needs
of men; or a dragon or a giant is cut to pieces and the various parts of
the universe are made from the pieces (Babylonia, India, Scandinavia);
or, in still later times, an unformed mass of water is conceived of as
the original state out of which all things are fashioned (Babylonians,
Hebrews, Hindus, Greeks); or the universe issues from an egg (the origin
of the egg being left unexplained),[1420] or the earth is represented as
the mother of all things (California). Elaborate cosmogonies are found
in New Zealand (the Maoris), in North America (the Pawnees, the Lenape,
and so forth), in Australia, and elsewhere. An interesting example is
the Californian Achom[=a]wi cosmogony. In the beginning, according to
this scheme, were only the sea and the sky, and from the sky came down
the Creator; or a cloud, at first tiny, grew large, condensed, and
became the Silver-Gray Fox, the Creator, and out of a fog, which in like
manner was condensed, came the Coyote, and these two made the earth and
man.[1421]

+830+. In all these cases the creation is out of already existing
material[1422] and the creator is really a culture-hero or transformer,
a character that clings to deities in the most advanced religions, as
the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek. The character of these early
transformers and creators is that of the communities in which they
originate. Morally they represent both the higher and the lower sides of
life, and this is true in all periods--the Hindu Indra is as tricksy and
unmoral as the North American Coyote, and the early form of Zeus
resembles these and other savage figures.[1423] The conceptions of the
creator grew more and more ethically good, but the lower representations
continued to exist side by side with the higher.[1424]

+831+. It is not altogether strange that the two sorts of creative
Powers should be early thought of as mutually antagonistic. The Maidu
bad creator is constantly opposing and bringing to naught the work of
his good rival, and their collision produces the actual state of things
on the earth.[1425] It is probably by way of explanation of the evil in
the world that in this myth the bad Coyote finally overcomes his rival.
The resemblance of this scheme to the Mazdean dualism, except in the