In Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, argues against the suggestion of God as 'First Cause', writing: “It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said 'How about the tortoise?' the Indian said, 'Suppose we change the subject.'”¹ It may seem to some that what has been established within argument of this chapter is merely like the re-positioning of Russell's elephant from atop his tortoise onto a different type of elephant. It is clear that the monotheisms we can recognize in Zoroastrianism and Judaism must have their roots in proto-monotheistic religious systems to which monotheistic worldviews would have been central. While it seems implausible that Zoroastrianism and Judaism could be the products of the sorts of grand religious revolutions which would throw off the framework of long established polytheisms, the question remains: “'How about the tortoise?'” The present discussion has operated under Theophile James Meek's question of 'whence came monotheism?' but we have arrived at a point where, having addressed this inquiry, we must ask: whence came the monotheistic worldview? Or: whence came proto-monotheism? It is important to acknowledge that this question, however difficult to answer, is set along a more accurate direction in which to seek the fundamental origins of the historically curious monotheistic religions of the Jews and Zoroastrians. If our answer to the question of whence came monotheism is any indication of how to approach the same inquiry of proto-monotheism, we may find Dorothy Gale's conclusion appropriate advice for such an effort: “'If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard.'”² In the next chapter, then, we must look to the ecological 'backyards' of the ancient Iranians and Israelites to find not just 'whence came proto-monotheism' but what effect the landscapes of those 'backyards' might have had on the development of such religious systems.