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—
"The god, in the sense we use the word, is in essence the same in all of the Bantu tribes I have met with on the Coast: a non-interfering and therefore a negligeable quantity. He varies his name; Anzarnbi, . . . Nyam, Ukuku, Suku, and Nzam, but a better investigation shows that Nzam of the Fans is practically identical with Suku south of the Congo. . . . They regard their god as the creator of man, plants, animals, and the earth, and they hold that having made them, he takes no further interest in the affair. But not so the crowd of spirits with which the universe is peopled, they take only too much interest and the Bantu wishes they would not and is perpetually saying so in his prayers, a large percentage whereof amounts to "Go away, we don't want you." "Come not into this house, this village, or its plantations.""[1]
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
- ↑ Travels in West Africa, pp. 442-3. See also Mrs. L. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, pp. 4-10.
