Note 7 — Chapter XIV · Creation Myths and the God and Goddess Cults

It may be that the idea of a primeval giant like Pʼan Ku, or Ymir, was derived from the conception of Osiris as a world-god, which obtained in Egypt as far back as the Empire period. Erman translates a hymn in which it is said of the god: “The soil is on thy arm, its corners are upon thee as far as the four pillars of the sky. When thou movest, the earth trembles.…7 The Nile comes from the sweat of thy hands. Thou spewest out the wind that is in thy throat into the nostrils of men, and that whereon men live is divine. It is8 [alike in] in thy nostrils, the tree and its verdure, reeds, plants, barley, wheat, and the tree of life.” Everything constructed on earth lies on the “back” of Osiris. “Thou art the father and mother of men, they live on thy breath, they eat of the flesh of thy body. The ‘Primæval’ is thy name.”9