phenomena.

+856+. Certain great myths have in the course of time taken on elaborate
literary form, and in this form show traces of advanced thought on some
fundamental questions. Such myths occur among half-civilized peoples.
There is, for example, the great mythical cosmogony of the Maoris of New
Zealand--a scheme seemingly so philosophic in form that it excites
wonder as to how it could have arisen in such a place.[1489] The story
of the adventures of Maui, a general Polynesian figure, constitutes a
Polynesian history of the rise of civilization. Among the North American
Indians the mythological systems of the Algonkins, the Pawnees, and
other tribes, include the origin of all forms of natural objects and all
institutions of society. The histories of the Great Hare of the Lenape,
the Thunder Bird of the West, and the various transformers or
culture-heroes, are scarcely less elaborate than the New Zealand
stories. The mythologies of the Finns also (given in the Kalevala) are
noteworthy. Passing to higher forms, it is sufficient to note the
suggestive story of Balder among the Scandinavians, and, in the ancient
world, the Egyptian Osiris myth, the Great Dragon myth of the Babylonian
cosmogony, the various forms of the story of a primeval paradise, and
the ceremonies and ideas that have arisen in connection with the death
of a god.

+857+. The motif of the _antagonism between light and darkness_ appears
to be attached to or involved in certain myths, especially the great
cosmogonies and stories in which solar deities figure prominently. The
original unformed mass of matter is often, perhaps generally, conceived
of as being in darkness, and its transformation is attended with the
appearance of light[1490]--light is an essential element in the
conditions that make earthly human life possible; in contrast with the
Upperworld the Underworld is dark. The diffusion of light is a main
function of the sun, and the high gods dwell in continual
brightness.[1491] Light is the symbol of right, security, and happiness.
But it is doubtful whether the expression of the antithesis and conflict
of light and darkness is the immediate object of the early portraitures
of deities and the mythical narratives of creation and the future of the
world. The Egyptian Ra has no conflict with darkness, and the struggle
between Osiris (and Horus) and Set, while it may be and often is
interpreted in this sense, is susceptible of other interpretation