In South America, too, there is no shortage of supreme
beings who are creators. Among them one may mention
Pelepelewa, god of the Trio of Surinam; Kamuscini, the talk-
ing sky-god of the Bakairi; Karu of the Mundurucú of the
Tapajós River; and El-al, a supreme being known in Patago-
nia. In Australia, one finds many creator supreme beings cel-
ebrated in scholarly literature. Among those not mentioned
above are Bunjil of the Kulin, Nurrundere of the Narrinyeri,
Mangarrara of the Larrakia people, and, as a collective name
for the high god of the Aboriginal peoples of southeastern
Australia, the All-Father.
Such examples by no means exhaust the number of su-
preme beings whose complicated nature includes the role of
creator. The supreme beings mentioned above seem princi-
pally interested in the creation of the sky, the stars, the earth,
and meteorological phenomena. They concern themselves
with the creation of vegetation only in a secondary way.
However, other creators, a smaller group of supreme beings,
interest themselves particularly in the creation of trees, vines,
herbs, grasses, and other forms of vegetation.
In general, this second group is more dramatically in-
volved with rain than with other, more ethereal celestial ele-
ments. Among many such supreme beings one may mention
uNkulunkulu of the Zulu peoples; Bego Tanutanu, the cre-
ator of the landscape, source of foods, plants, and instru-
ments of culture at Buin in the southern Bougainville straits;
Tsui //goab, Khoi celestial god who unites the clouds and
swells the rains; Teharonhiawakhon, the Iroquois twin divin-
ity who holds heaven at two points (or with his two hands);
and Yuskeha, the parallel Huron divinity who sends good
weather for crops and enjoys sexual relations with Ataentsic
(“she whose body is ancient”), who is also called “the dark
one” (i.e., the earth). One notices that supreme beings who
are creators of vegetation tend to absorb or acquire attributes
more commonly seen among culture heroes, specialized dei-
ties of vegetation, and storm gods.
Control over life is also reflected in the supreme beings’
ability to end life when they will. For example, among the
Yámana of Tierra del Fuego, the supreme being is called
“slayer in the sky”; among the Maidu of north-central Cali-
fornia, he is also called “a slayer.” Supreme beings often fig-
ure in deaths that are mysterious, summary, and sudden. Ce-
lestial supreme beings strike humans with their thunderbolts.
The Semang of Kedah believe that the supreme being Kari
created everything except the earth and humankind. These
last were fashioned by Ple, a subordinate deity. Kari sees ev-
erything from on high and punishes humans by dropping on
them a flower from a mysterious plant. Where the flower
lands, fatal lightning strikes. The Apapocúva-Guaraní su-
preme being, Nanderuvuçu (“our great father”), withdrew
long ago into a distant dark country where the only light that
exists comes from within his chest. Eventually, it is believed,
he intends to destroy the world and thereby bring about the
end of time.
Remoteness. More often than not, the sky is the princi-
pal manifestation of supreme being. From this preponder-
ance of historical facts has come the term high god, over
whose origin and nature the controversy surrounding su-
preme being once raged. Scholars have made clear the fact
that supreme being is not a simple personification of the
“natural” object, the sky. Rather, a supreme being is a dis-
tinct divine personality who reveals himself or herself in the
power of the sky. Many peoples are careful to make the same
distinction in various ways, speaking of their supreme being
as dwelling beyond the sky, or as the invisible sky that lies
beyond the visible one, or as wearing the sky for a vestment.
Puluga, in the Andaman Islands, is said to reside in heaven.
The sky is his house. For Baiame, an Australian high god,
the sky is a campground, brightened with stars that serve as
campfires and traversed by the river of the Milky Way. Num,
the Samoyed divinity whose name means “sky,” lies in the
seventh heaven, but he cannot be a simple personification of
the natural sky, for he is also believed to be the earth and the
sea. For many Ewe-speaking populations, the blue color of
the heavens is a veil that Mawu uses to shield her face, and
the clouds are her clothing.
Because a supreme being dwells in inaccessible heights
and displays a passive and transcendent character, his outline
tends to be left undefined. Although his personality is awe-
some and powerful, he often avoids dramatic action in favor
of inert omnipresence. He may remain mysterious and
vaguely delineated. Such is the case with Moma (“father”),
the supreme being of the Witóto of Colombia. Associated
closely with the power of the word in rituals and chants, he
created all things in the world from the mere “appearance”
(naino) of each thing’s “nonexisting substance.” Moma calls
himself Nainuema (“he who is or possesses what is not pres-
ent,” that is, illusive appearance). According to the Witóto,
Moma captured the specter of appearances in his dream and
pressed it to his breast until he could transform it into the
earth. Earthmaker, supreme being of the Winnebago, comes
to consciousness in the primordium in order to make the
world keep still. He then remains aloof. What Earthmaker
was like, or what there was before he came to consciousness,
the Winnebago do not know. The Pawnee contend that
Tirawa Atius (“father on high”) is in everything. However,
no one is able to know what he looks like.
The remoteness of the power of a supreme being may
even be portrayed as indifference. When the passivity of a su-
preme being is exaggerated to the point of his extreme with-
drawal from creation, he takes the form of a deus otiosus, a
god who has retired himself and his unique powers from the
active world. He no longer captures the religious imagination
in the commanding way of more dramatic supernatural be-
ings. He may, nevertheless, remain the ground for all created
and creative possibilities. The Lenape (Delaware), a southern
Algonquin group, believe that GicelamuDkaong (“he who
created us through his thought”) entrusted his supernatural
responsibilities to subordinate beings: the winds, the lord of8870 SUPREME BEINGS