ike the Indian Brahma, he may have
been in his highest form an impersonation, or symbol, of the "self
power" or "world soul" of developed Naturalism--the "creator",
"preserver", and "destroyer" in one, a god of water, earth, air, and
sky, of sun, moon, and stars, fire and lightning, a god of the grove,
whose essence was in the fig, or the fir cone, as it was in all
animals. The Egyptian god Amon of Thebes, who was associated with
water, earth, air, sky, sun and moon, had a ram form, and was "the
hidden one", was developed from one of the elder eight gods; in the
Pyramid Texts he and his consort are the fourth pair. When Amon was
fused with the specialized sun god Ra, he was placed at the head of
the Ennead as the Creator. "We have traces", says Jastrow, "of an
Assyrian myth of Creation in which the sphere of creator is given to
Ashur."[359]

Before a single act of creation was conceived of, however, the early
peoples recognized the eternity of matter, which was permeated by the
"self power" of which the elder deities were vague phases. These were
too vague, indeed, to be worshipped individually. The forms of the
"self power" which were propitiated were trees, rivers, hills, or
animals. As indicated in the previous chapter, a tribe worshipped an
animal or natural object which dominated its environment. The animal
might be the source of the food supply, or might have to be
propitiated to ensure the food supply. Consequently they identified
the self power of the Universe with the particular animal with which
they were most concerned. One section identified the spirit of the
heavens with the bull and another with the goat. In India Dyaus was a
bull, and his spouse, the earth mother, Prithivi, was a cow. The
Egyptian sky goddess Hathor was a cow, and other goddesses were
identified with the hippopotamus, the serpent, the cat, or the
vulture. Ra, the sun god, was identified in turn with the cat, the
ass, the bull, the ram, and the crocodile, the various animal forms of
the local deities he had absorbed. The eagle in Babylonia and India,
and the vulture, falcon, and mysterious Phoenix in Egypt, were
identified with the sun, fire, wind, and lightning. The animals
associated with the god Ashur were the bull, the eagle, and the lion.
He either absorbed the attributes of other gods, or symbolized the
"Self Power" of which the animals were manifestations.

The earliest germ of the Creation myth was the idea that night was the
pa