HOWITT, A. W. (1830–1908), was an English-born explorer, geologist, and amateur anthropologist who made first-hand studies of Aboriginal life in southeastern Australia. To the many aspects of indigenous culture that he described (social and political organization, as well as religion), Alfred William Howitt brought a comprehensive and systematic approach. He did have blind spots, however. He doubted, for example, whether Aboriginal beliefs in the supernatural were religious, apparently because of their remoteness from an ideally conceived Christianity. One of his notable achievements was to show that prolonged and highly organized ceremonies could be celebrated by people with a simple economy and material culture.

Howitt's descriptions of human-making ceremonies (initiation rites) in Southeast Australia, such as the Kuringal and Jeraeil ceremonies, stand comparison with the renowned studies of such rites in other parts of Australia made by Walter Baldwin Spencer and Francis James Gillen. His studies...