Here it seems necessary to advert to a remark of Mr. Howitt's which
appears to be erroneous. He says 'that part of Australia which I have
indicated as the habitat of that belief' (namely, in an All Father),'
is also the area where there has been the advance from group marriage
to individual marriage; from descent in the female line to that in the
male line; where the primitive organisation under the class system has
been more or less replaced by an organisation based on locality; in
fact, where these advances have been made to which I have more than
once drawn attention.'[Howitt, NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA,
p. 500.]

Mr. Howitt forgets that he himself attributes the early system of
descent through women, and also the belief in an All Father (Nurelli),
to the Wiimbaio tribe [IBID. p. 489] to the Wotjobaluk tribe,[NATIVE
TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, pp. 120, 490.] to the Kamilaroi, to the
Ta-Ta-thi,[IBID. p. 494] while female descent and the belief in Baiame
mark the Euahlayi and Wir djuri.[JOURNAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE,
XXV., p. 297.]

These tribes cover an enormous area of country, and, though they have
not advanced to male kinship, they all possess the belief in an All
Father. That belief does not appear to be in any way associated with
advance in social organisation, for Messrs. Spencer and Gillen cannot
find a trace of it in more than one of the central and northern tribes,
which have male kinship, and a kind of local self-government. On the
other hand, it does occur among southern tribes, like the Kurnai, which
have advanced almost altogether out of totemism.

In short, we have tribes with female descent, such as the Dieri and
Urabunna, to whom all knowledge of an All Father is denied. We have