If supreme beings know all things in the world and even
think them into existence, such knowledge is not reciprocal.
Knowing everything, they often pass beyond the comprehen-
sion of lesser beings. Once again, paradox pervades the na-
ture of supreme beings. Present everywhere, they remain in-
accessible. Seeing all, they may remain invisible. In relation
to knowledge, supreme beings are the clearest revelation of
mystery—a sacred meaning that can never be exhaustively
known, despite its uninterrupted presence. Full knowledge
of a supreme being always remains hidden. In this connec-
tion, supreme beings are often associated with religious spe-
cialists and esoteric societies, whose knowledge of special
mysteries is made known in elaborate and secret initiations.
The majestic omnipresence of supreme beings involves
them in all that is. Their involvement with being as such
takes several particular expressions. They may create the uni-
verse directly, or they may create it indirectly through super-
natural agents over whom they exercise control. In religious
systems in which supreme beings have not bequeathed cre-
ation to the guardianship of other supernatural beings, they
may be viewed as sustaining all life, assuring the fruitfulness
of creation, or owning all that exists. As the foundation of
all that is real, they may be the sovereign upholders of the
world order, rulers of all beings, and even providers of moral
commandments and socioethical mores. As guarantors of
good order, supreme beings punish transgressions in passive
ways, by withholding fertility (famine), health (epidemic), or
the process of the seasons (drought). As creators and main-
tainers of life, they fertilize the vital forms of the universe.
Although a supreme being may be prayed to spontaneously
by individuals at any time and in any place, public invoca-
tion is often limited to times of calamity when life itself
seems threatened.
One response consonant with the enigmatic, transcen-
dent, and passive power of supreme beings is the human ten-
dency to replace them with other religious conceptions. In
fact, supreme beings per se do not usually dominate the reli-
gious imagination. When myths recount the withdrawal to
the transcendent heights appropriate to their nature, they are
replaced in importance by more active religious forms: gods
who specialize in fertilizing activity, vegetation deities, storm
gods, culture heroes, divine twins, ancestors, the dead, world
rulers, theological abstractions of virtues, or metaphysical
principles of cosmic law. The passive is overtaken by the ac-
tive. Transcendent station yields to the processes of the con-
crete world. Infinity gives way to the here and now. Yet, su-
preme beings reveal the very meaning of transcendence and
infinity in all its forms: omnipresence, omniscience, omnipo-
tence.
HISTORICAL FORMS. Although essential elements of the
power and structure of supreme beings may be recognized
and isolated for the sake of analytic discussion, it must be ac-
knowledged that they have appeared across human history
in complex forms that differ greatly in specific composition
from one culture to another. Their manifestations are not
limited to one or even several places on the globe. Nor does
geographic distribution entirely explain the process of the
historical development or diffusion of this religious idea. No
matter how marginal to the history of technological develop-
ment a culture might appear to be (e.g., the hunting cultures
of Tierra del Fuego), that culture’s complex notions of su-
preme being give evidence of a lengthy and complicated his-
tory. There appear to be no social or economic factors that
determine, in cause-and-effect fashion, the compound of ele-
ments that constitute the form through which a supreme
being reveals itself in a culture. After lengthy debate among
scholars, little doubt remains that sophisticated theologies of
supreme being predate the introduction, through missionary
or colonial influence, of theological ideas from historical mo-
notheisms. Because arguments based solely on geographic
and historical evidence have failed to be convincingly clear,
the survey of supreme beings presented here follows the logic
of the structures that are evident in the forms of supreme be-
ings themselves. Structures exemplified briefly include (1) at-
tributes, (2) activities, (3) relationships to other divinities,
and (4) the place of supreme beings in cult.
Attributes. Even when the forms of supreme beings are
only poorly outlined, they are more than vague supernatural
forces. Supreme beings are divine persons, with names and
epithets that convey their attributes and reveal something
about their nature. In addition to personality, their charac-
teristics include celestiality, primordiality, and omniscience;
associations with creation and death; remoteness and sym-
bolic means of access; and their tendency to be replaced by
other concepts.Celestiality. The names of numerous supreme beings
refer to their connections with the sky. Among the Sam-
oyeds, the supreme being is called Num (“sky”). Along the
Australian coast in the vicinity of Shoalhaven Bay, the name
Mirirul (“sky,” or “he who is in the sky”) indicates the su-
preme beings found among the Yuin and their neighbors. In
Africa, one of the names for the supreme being of the Galla
and other Oromo peoples is Waq (“sky”), as in the phrases
guraci waq (“dark sky”) and waka kulkullu (“calm sky”). He
is also called Cólok (“the sky”). Among some Ewe peoples,
the universal father is called Dzingbe (“sky”); his wife is the
earth. Northeast of the Ewe live the Akposo people, who call
the supreme being Uvolovu (“the high one,” or “the regions
above”). Among the SelkDnam hunters of Tierra del Fuego,
the name of the supreme being is Témaukel (“the one up
there”), although this name is seldom uttered aloud. In its
place, one uses the circumlocution so’onh-haskan (“dweller
in the sky”) or so’onh kas pémer (“he who is in the sky”).
Among the Tsimshian south of the Tlingit, an irascible su-
preme being named Laxha (also called Laxhage or Laha,
“sky”) deluges the earth. The Haida of Queen Charlotte Is-
lands call the supreme being Siñ or Sing (“bright sky”). The
connection of supreme beings with the sky is not exhausted
by the direct translations of their names. More important,
in accounts that describe them as dwelling in the sky, or as8868 SUPREME BEINGS