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It must, therefore, be considered doubtful whether the Arabs had a true star-god. +718+. A well-defined instance of such a god is the Avestan Tistrya. His origin as an object of nature appears plainly in his functions he is especially a rain-god, and, as such, a source of all blessings. Alongside of him stand three less well defined stellar Powers.
The redoubtable No-cha having, by means of his Heaven-and-earth Bracelet, vanquished Fêng Lin, a star-god and subordinate officer of Chang Kuei-fang, in spite of the black smoke-clouds which he blew out of his nostrils, the defeated warrior fled and sought the aid of his chief, who fought No-cha in some thirty to forty encounters without succeeding in dislodging him from his Wind-fire Wheel, which enabled him to move about rapidly and to perform prodigious feats, such as causing hosts of silver flying dragons like clouds of snow to descend upon his enemy.
In their feasts and ceremonies the natives have hymns and prayers to the rain-spirit, the sea, the star-god, the good birds, and the winds. Little has been done toward the preservation of their myths, for the Spaniards, during their centuries of control, suppressed learning, except as it pertained to religious studies, and tolerated but scant liberty of opinion.
As time went on, there was a general demand for a sensible, concrete representation of this star-god: a simple character did not satisfy the popular taste. But it was no easy matter to comply with the demand.
In the Aryan Hindu cults stars were revered, and by the non-Aryan Gonds were worshiped, but there is no star-god proper. The early Hebrews may have practiced some sort of star-worship; there are traces of such a cult among their neighbors the Arabs. It has been supposed that the pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped the planet Venus under the name Al-Uzza, but this is not certain.
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