Among the Aryans of India, as we have already seen, Death has a
protomartyr, Tama, 'the first of men who reached the river, spying out a
path for many.' In spying the path Yama corresponds to Tangaro the Fool,
in the myth of the Solomon Islands. But Yama is not regarded as a
maleficent being, like Tangaro. The Rig Veda (x. 14) speaks of him as
'King Yama, who departed to the mighty streams and sought out a road for
many;' and again, the Atharva Veda names him 'the first of men who died,
and the first who departed to the celestial world.' With him the Blessed
Fathers dwell for ever in happiness. Mr. Max Muller, as we said, takes
Yama to be 'a character suggested by the setting sun'--a claim which is
also put forward, as we have seen, for the Maori hero Maui. It is Yama,
according to the Rig Veda, who sends the birds--a pigeon is one of his
messengers (compare the White Bird of the Oxenhams)--as warnings of
approaching death. Among the Iranian race, Yima appears to have been the
counterpart of the Vedic Yama. He is now King of the Blessed; originally
he was the first of men over whom Death won his earliest victory.