Note 26 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Lang's 'All-Father' deities forcibly suggest evolution from the old 'sky-god,' if, indeed, they were not that deity without much alteration. The 'Sky-Father' in opposition, or at least in contradistinction, to the 'Earth-Mother' was merely the sky personalized as a 'magnified non-natural man.' Let us enumerate his attributes, given by Lang in the Encyclopædia Britannica:
(1) His home is in the sky. (2) He is the maker of things. (3) Mankind are his disobedient progeny, whom he casts out of heaven.
This specification can allude to no type other than sky-gods, which are wholly 'animistic' in origin. If Lang had chanced to think of this resemblance himself, he would probably have been the first to admit the correctness of such a statement. His The Making of Religion bears proof of its obviousness on every page. The 'All-Father' idea certainly evolves from the personalization of the sky. He quotes the Zuñi Indian god Awonawilona as an 'All-Father'; Awonawilona is a Sky-Father pure and simple, as his myth shows; and practically all his other examples may be traced back in the same manner.