it does not exist, for it is a secret belief, but it is not reported by
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. On the other hand, among tribes of the
south-east very far from the coast, we find the lowest grades of social
progress, but we also find the All Father belief. I am ready, of
course, to believe that good conditions of life beget progress, social
and religious, as a general rule. But other causes exist; speculation
anywhere may take crudely scientific rather than crudely religious
lines. Especially the belief in ancestral spirits may check or nullify
the belief in a remote All Father. We see this among the Zulus, where
spirits entirely dominate religion, and the All Father is, at most, the
shadow of a name, Unkulunkulu. We may detect the same influence among
the northern tribes of Australia, where ancestral spirits dominate
thought and society, though they receive no sacrifice or prayer.
Meanwhile, if we accept Mrs. Parker's evidence, among the Euahlayi
ancestral spirits are of no account in religion) while the All Father
is obeyed, and, on some occasions, is addressed in prayer; and may even
cause rain, if property approached by a human spirit which has just
entered his mansions. Clearly, climatic causes and natural environment
are not the only factors in producing and directing the speculative
ideas of men in early society.

We must also remember that the neighbours of the Arunta, northwards,
who share certain peculiar Arunta ideas, possess, beyond all doubt,
either the earliest germs of belief in the All Father, or that belief
in a decadent condition of survival. This is quite certain; for,
whereas the Arunta laugh at all inquiries as to what went before the
'Alcheringa,' or mythic age of evolution, the Kaitish, according to
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, aver that an anthropomorphic being, who
dwells above the sky, and is named Atnatu, first created himself, and
then 'made the Alcheringa,'--the mythic age of primal evolution. Of