Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/200

188 The statements which he then makes may be thus condensed:

(1) Anyone who wishes to verify the above remark has only to look up "All-Father" in my Index and then compare my "account of the social condition of the tribes with an All-Father."

(2) The belief is common to many both of the more or less socially advanced tribes of the South East.

(3) And is reported as absent among almost all the socially advanced Northern and Central tribes with local organization.

I quite agree with Mr. Lang in inviting inspection of the reference in my Index to "All-Father," namely to pp. 488-508, where the facts noted in paragraph 2 will be found at p. 500, with a western boundary assigned to the belief which excludes all the "Central and Northern tribes."

Therefore the statement 3 does not at all come within my "collection of social facts," for those tribes have been dealt with by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, who nowhere speak of there being a belief in a Tribal All-Father.

Such being the case I must ask Mr. Lang to be so good as to say who reported what he quotes in 3 as being part of my collection of facts, and where the passage, which is his authority for his statement, is to be found.

As to the belief in the Tribal All-Father, which is held by the tribes mentioned by me in my Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 500, and is not held by any others, I see no reason to alter anything I have said.

I believe that it has originated through the development, in the more socially advanced tribes, of a belief such as that of the Kaitish, in a supernatural anthropomorphic being like Atnatu.