ribes, with a
well-developed pantheon, have deities who may be called creators; such
are Obatala, who, according to one account, made the first human pair
out of clay, and Ifa, the restorer of the world after the flood.[1151]
In North America the New England Kiehtan and the Virginian Oki have
creative functions.[1152] The Navahos ascribe the creation of certain
animals to a god Bekotsidi, whose character and role, however, are
vague.[1153] The Brazilian Tupan and Jurupari appear to be divine
creators.[1154] For a good many tribes in all parts of the world the
published reports give no precise information regarding the beginning of
things, but it seems probable that fuller acquaintance with them would
reveal conceptions similar to those described above.

+679+. The great civilized nations, with their well-formed
anthropomorphic deities, have constructed elaborate cosmogonies, which
commonly begin with the conception of an unshaped mass of material out
of which the gods arise and create the world. There is no great
difference in these various schemes: Babylonians and Greeks have fallen
upon substantially the same general view of creation; the variations
among the various peoples are due to circumstances of place and culture.
It is noteworthy that the Maoris have a cosmogony which is not unlike
that of the great civilized nations of antiquity, but the origin of
their scheme of the world is not clear.[1155]

+680+. _Gods of the other world._ The class of departmental gods
includes those who have charge of the other world. As soon as the abode
of men after death is definitely fixed, it is natural that a deity
presiding over this other world should arise. Among the lower tribes
this sort of god is not frequent.[1156] One of the clearest cases of
such organization occurs in Fiji.[1157] Here, in addition to other
deities who deal with the dead on their entrance into this farther
world, the great deity Ndengei has his abode, and one of his functions
is to pass on the merits of those who present themselves from the world
of living men. He is, however, in part an otiose deity and can hardly be
said to rule over this otherworldly realm. Similar undeveloped deities
are found among the Maoris and the Finns.[1158]

+681+. But fully formed and effective divine rulers of the other world
occur only in the more advanced religions, such as the Babylonian, the
Egyptian, the Hindu, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman.[1159] From the
nature