ALL-FATHER. Nineteenth-century reports on southeastern Australia showed a widespread belief in a male spirit who transcended others in this part of the continent. Known by diverse names, including Baiame, Bunjil, Daramulun, Kohin, and Munganngaua, he was said to live in the sky (although earlier he had been on earth). The Aborigines credited him with great achievements—laying down laws, instituting man-making ceremonies, shaping the earth, and teaching the arts of life. The amateur anthropologist A. W. Howitt (1830–1908), who collected much of the data on the topic, saw through differences in name and detail to underlying resemblances in the various tribal conceptions and suggested that this spirit be identified by the term All-Father. Howitt denied the being's divinity, while others voiced the suspicion that such a spirit must reflect Christian influence on the Aborigines. The extent of the area over which beliefs in the All-Father were known made this...