Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/703

I am unable to say. Perhaps when the initiation ceremonies of Western and Northern Australia have been carefully studied and described, it may be possible to form some opinion as to this question.

There is an absence in the western tribes of a belief in an anthropomorphic Being by whom the ceremonies were first instituted.^[1]

1. I observe that Spencer and Gillen, in their new work The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 20, are also of the opinion that "changes in custom have been slowly passing down from north to south."