Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/187

Rh (c) "On the other hand, it is among Northern and Central tribes with male descent and 'organization based on locality' that Messrs. Spencer and Gillen find the All-Father belief weakest or absent."

Having elaborated the above statements he then says, "We are here on the ground of facts carefully recorded, though strangely overlooked, by Mr. Howitt in the passages summarised by Mr. Hartland."

The facts stated in (a) and (b) are to be found in my work, although not in the pages 500 to 506.

The statement (c) is to be found in the works of Professor Spencer and Mr. Gillen.

What I do say in those pages summarises the evidence upon which I have based the theory of a belief in a "Tribal All-Father."

The following may be noted as occurring in the pages given by Mr. Lang:

(a) The part of Australia in which I find that belief is "the whole of Victoria and of New South Wales up to the eastern boundaries of the tribes of the Darling River. If the Queensland coast tribes are included, then the western bounds might be indicated by a line drawn from the mouth of the Murray River to Cardwell, including the Great Dividing Range with some of the fall inland in New South Wales" (p. 500).

(b) This excludes all the "Central and Northern Tribes" of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, which cannot properly be included.

It seems, therefore, that Mr. Lang is in error when he says that I have "strangely overlooked" certain facts (which he has enumerated), although I have "carefully recorded them in the passages summarised by Mr. Hartland" for I have carefully considered my own facts, among which for some reason Mr. Lang includes those of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.

When I read his remarks I was unable to understand