Yet they are said to lack entirely that belief in a moral and kindly
'All Father,' such as Byamee, which Mrs. Parker describes as potent
among the less advanced Euahlayi, and which Mr. Howitt has found among
non-coastal tribes of the south-east, with female descent of the totem,
but without matrimonial classes--that is, among the most primitive tribes
of all.

Here occurs a remarkable difficulty. Mr. Howitt asserts, with Mr.
Frazer's concurrence, that (in Mr. Frazer's words) 'the same regions in
which the germs of religion begin to appear have also made some
progress towards a higher form of social and family life.'['The Beginnings
of Religion and Totemism among the Australian Aborigines,' Fortnightly
Review, September 1905, p. 452.] But the social advance from maternal to
paternal descent of the totem, we have seen, is not necessarily an advance
at all, in Mr. Frazer's opinion.[ IBID. p. 462.] The Arunta, for example,
he thinks, never recognised female descent of
the totem. They have never recognised, indeed, he thinks, any
hereditary descent of the totem, though in all other respects, as in
hereditary magistracies, and inheritance of the right to practise the
father's totemic ritual, they do reckon in the male line. By such
advantage, however it was acquired, they are more progressive than,
say, the Euahlayi. But, progressive as they are, they have not, like
the more pristine tribes of the south-east, developed 'the germs of
religion,' the belief in a benevolent or ruling 'All Father.' Unlike
the tribes of the south-east, they have co-operative totemic magic.
Each totem community does magic for its totem, as part of the food
supply of the united tribe. But the tribe, though so SOLIDAIRE, and
with its eight classes and hereditary magistracies so advanced, has
developed no germs of religion at all. Arunta progress has thus been