is not required, and is superfluous, even contradictory.  The early thinkers who developed these beings did not need to know that men die (though, of course, they did know it in practice), still less did they need to have conceived by abstract speculation the hypothesis of ghosts.  Baiame, Cagn, Bunjil, in their adorers’ belief, were there; death later intruded among men, but did not affect these divine beings in any way.

The ghost-theory, therefore, by the evidence of anthropology itself, is not needed for the evolution of the high gods of savages.  It is only needed for the evolution of ghost-propitiation and genuine dead-ancestor worship.  Therefore, the high gods described were not necessarily once ghosts—­were not idealised mortal ancestors.  They were, naturally, from the beginning, from before the coming in of death, immortal Fathers, now dwelling on high.  Between them and apotheosised mortal ancestors there is a great gulf fixed—­the river of death.

The explicitly stated distinction that the high creative gods never were mortal men, while other gods are spirits of mortal men, is made in every quarter.  ’Ancestors known to be human were not worshipped as [original] gods, and ancestors worshipped as [original] gods were not believed to have been human.’[4]

Both kinds may have a generic name, such as kalou, or wakan, but the specific distinction is universally made by low savages.  On one hand, original gods; on the other, non-original gods that were once ghosts.  Now, this distinction is often calmly ignored; whereas, when any race has developed (like late Scandinavians) the Euhemeristic hypothesis (’all gods were once men’), that hypothesis is accepted as an historical statement of fact by some writers.

It is part of my theory that the more popular ghost-worship of souls of people whom men have loved, invaded the possibly older religion of the Supreme Father.  Mighty beings, whether originally conceived of as ‘spirits’ or not, came, later, under the Animistic theory, to be reckoned as spirits.  They even (but not among the lowest savages) came to be propitiated by food and sacrifice.  The alternative, for a Supreme Being, when once Animism prevailed, was sacrifice (as to more popular ghost deities) or neglect.  We shall find examples of both alternatives.  But sacrifice does not prove that a God was, in original conception, a ghost, or even a spirit.  ’The common doctrine of the Old Testament is not that God is spirit, but that the spirit [ruah = ‘wind,’ ‘living breath’] of Jehovah, going forth from him, works in the world and among men.’[5]