+644+. The character just described is that of the earliest known gods; it is embodied in certain figures found in various parts of the world. Such divine figures belong to the simplest form of social organization, the clan; it is in the clan that they are shaped, and they reflect the conceptions, political and ethical, of the clan. In Southeast Australia the personages called Daramulun, Baiame, Bunjil, correspond to this description: they are supernatural old men who have always existed; they are taken for granted without inquiry into their origin; they direct the affairs of the tribe in a general way in accordance with the moral ideas of the place and time.[1072] The Australians have other beings with vaguely expressed characters and functions, but our information regarding these is so meager that it is not possible to form a distinct judgment of their character. Similar figures are the Klamath Indian "Old Man"[1073] and the Zulu Unkulunkulu, an old man, the father of the people, only dimly understood by the natives who have been questioned on this point; they are uncertain whether he is dead or alive, but in any case he is revered as a great personage.[1074]
+645+. Other such deities are reported in South Africa, as the Qamata of the Xosa, Morimo of the Bakuana, and farther north Molungu.[1075] On the West Coast also, in Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba, a number of deities exist which were in all probability originally local.[1076] Such appears to be the character of certain gods of the non-Aryan tribes of India, as the Kolarian Sunthals and Koles.[1077] Perhaps also the god Vetala was originally such a local deity with the savage characteristics proper to the time and place, though later he was half Brahmanized and became a fiend.[1078] Among the Todas every clan has its god, who was the creator and instructor of the people. The large number of gods now recognized by the various Toda communities are essentially the same in character and function, and the existing system has doubtless been formed by the coalition of the clans.[1079] In North America the Navahos have a number of local deities, the _yei_ (Zuñi, _yeyi_), some of which are called by terms that mean 'venerable.'[1080] The Koryak guardians of occupations and houses may be of the nature of such objects of worship in the clans,[1081] and so also the Patagonian family-gods. Cf. the Greek κουροτροφος. In Japan the early system of supernatural beings has been obscured by the great religions of the later time--Shinto in its developed form, and Buddhism--but the indications are that the general term _kami_, a designation of all supernatural things, included local deities.[1082]