Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/184

 162 as much on the propensity of Christians to discover at the beginning of society beliefs in agreement with their own, as on actual facts concerning these peoples. Although this opinion suffered temporary discredit from the discovery that in several instances the alleged monotheistic beliefs really proceeded from the teaching of missionaries, recent anthropological researches furnish sufficient evidence to warrant a return to this view. It seems now established that in every part of Australia except perhaps among the Arunta, a tribe of the central regions, there is a belief in an All Father, who is perhaps always regarded as creator. He is variously named in the different tribes,—Baiame, Duramulum, Mungamongana, Nureli, etc., that is, our father, father of the whole people, father of all the tribes who observe the law, great master, and the like.

In Africa there also exists, it seems, a general belief in a great god conceived as creator. Miss Mary Kingsley says that—

Concerning the natives of central Australia,—the most primitive of that continent,—Spencer and Gillen write,—"In all of the tribes there is a belief in the existence of