to oaths, as witness to what is. In northwestern Sumatra,
among the Batak peoples, reference is made to Debata.
When he smiles, his mouth opens to reveal his teeth in the
form of lightning. He is invoked in oaths taken over serious
matters. He punishes perjury with bolts of lightning. On
Ceram, people swear to the truth by Upu Langi (“lord heav-
en”) and his female counterpart, Upu Tapene. Otherwise,
there seems to be no regular cult offered to them. Swahili
speakers frequently testify to the truth of an assertion by
swearing to “Mungu mmoja” (“the one god”) or by saying
“Mungu anaona” (“God is watching”).
By no means are supreme beings always portrayed as
creators. Nevertheless, cosmogonic activity is the single activ-
ity that befits their foundational character, their role as the
ground of all existence. Some supreme beings leave no room
for doubt about their cosmogonic activity. Their powerful
thought alone brings the world into being. Such is the man-
ner in which Wakonda, the Omaha supreme being, created
the world. At first, all things were in his mind. The same is
true of the Winnebago creator, Earthmaker. Creation pro-
ceeds from his thought. When he wishes something, it comes
to exist, just as he wishes. It has already been seen how the
Witóto supreme being, called Nainuema (“he who is appear-
ance only”), ties a phantasm to his breast with his dream-
thread in order to create the world. The Maidu of California
believe that Ko’doyanpe (“earth namer”) brought about cre-
ation after long and intense thought. Likewise, Dasan, the
high god-ancestor of the northern Pomo, called the world
into being with his words. Whether such sublime notions are
preserved from the most archaic traditions or whether they
are the fruit of more recent theological speculations that have
purified and rarefied earlier ideas is a matter of some dispute.
As evident in several examples above, supreme beings’
involvement with creation may be more subtle and compli-
cated. They may take responsibility only for the initial cre-
ative impulse toward form, leaving the final shaping of the
world to other supernatural beings, especially to a “trans-
former,” or culture hero. In many cases, the supreme being
is only indirectly involved in creation. He engenders, em-
powers, or presides over those beings who create the world
and its creatures. His creative activity remains supervisory.
In other instances, he may create in cooperation (or in com-
petition) with other powerful beings. In any case, a supreme
being appears to be more than a rational “first cause” of cre-
ation. Life and existence, as a whole, stem from and are
maintained in accordance with his own inner nature. I do
not speak here of a necessary pantheism or emanationism,
since a supreme being is a distinct personality who remains
distinguishable from creation.
Regardless of the degree of his active participation in
creation, once the universe exists a supreme being’s major job
is done. He then “retires” at some remove, often to the heav-
enly heights, where he devotes himself to the passive and
transcendent pursuits of maintaining and sustaining life. He
may thus leave the world to powers who preside directly over
specific domains that are less than cosmogonic in scope and
whose activities—the accomplishment and functioning of
specific world processes—make sense in a world that already
exists. Myths often recount the withdrawal of the high god
as the event that marks the end of the primordium.
Relationship to other divinities. A supreme being
rarely occupies the dominant position in a pantheon or a di-
vine hierarchy. Once creation has ended, if indeed he was in-
volved actively in the cosmogony, the supreme being yields
the mythical stage to more active beings whose personalities
are more clearly delineated.
A supreme being’s link to the very foundations of being
is often expressed in temporal terms (for example, he may
exist before the other gods exist). Consequently, in the cases
in which more active beings take over the religious imagina-
tion, his eventual passivity in relation to them may be ex-
pressed in terms of old age and its inactive fragility. In the
Akkadian text Enuma elish, the primordial couple, Apsu and
Tiamat, now grown old, are nettled by the noise and games
of younger divinities, by whom they are eventually de-
stroyed. The god El, as reported in the Ugaritic texts, is weak
and senile. While in his palace in Mount Tsafon, El is at-
tacked by Baal. The younger god not only usurps the previ-
ously dominant position of the supreme being but routs him
to the farthest reaches of creation. In explicitly sexual terms,
younger gods may deprive a supreme being entirely of his no
longer exercised potency by castrating him. Ouranos, the
Greek cosmocrat and husband of Gaia (Ge), was castrated
by his son and successor Kronos. This event interrupted the
unbroken coitus between sky and earth during the primordi-
um. When his sexual organs were tossed into the sea, Aphro-
dite came into being. In the Hurrito-Hittite theogony, which
appears to bear North Syrian and Sumerian influences, Alalu
was replaced by the god Anu. After nine years had passed,
Anu himself was attacked by Kumarbi, who bit Anu’s loins.
Swallowing part of the god’s sexual organ, Kumarbi became
pregnant with three children. These violent divine beings ex-
press attributes quite different from those of the unchanging
supreme beings. Their dynamism tends to alienate still fur-
ther from myth and cultic activity the transcendent and pas-
sive character of supreme beings. Supreme beings are thus
often obscured and their power eclipsed.
As is characteristic in the above examples, the younger,
“champion” divinities who usurp a supreme being’s position
are often associated with the fertility of fields and animals.
In their connection with agriculture and fecundity, they are
often known in the violent but necessary manifestations of
weather and storm gods. Their character is bound up with
tempestuous change, the violence of concrete life processes
that make fertility of seed and stock possible but unforesee-
able. Such violence is one important aspect of Indra, hailed
as “bull of the world,” “lord of the plow” ( ́siraspati), and
“master of the fields” (u ̄rvavapati). He uses his vajra (thun-
derbolt) to kill the monstrous Vrta and thereby release the
waters. Also in South Asia one finds Parjanya, son of the sky8872 SUPREME BEINGS