ALLVATER. — This is an expression introduced into the specialized language of ethnology and the history of religions by the English explorer A. W. Howitt in his work The Native Tribes of South East-Australia (London 1904), by which he intended to include the superior beings venerated by those tribes under various names. From the same author and in the same sense, that is, restricted to the south-eastern Australians alone, it was also derived by the German scholar of the psychology of religion J. W. Hauer in the volume Die Religionen. Ihr Werden, ihr Sinn, ihre Wahrheit (Berlin 1923). The American J. H. Leuba subsequently extended the expression to the supreme beings of all primitive peoples (A Psychological Study of Religion. Its Origin, Function and Future, New York 1912). H. Cunow, for his part, in the work Ursprung der Religion und des Gottesglaubens (Berlin 1913), again referring to the Australians, changed the word to “Altvater,” that is, “old father,” as ancient, venerated, and venerable.
Nevertheless, as studies and research have progressed, the term has fallen into disuse, since the corresponding eminent religious concept of primitive peoples is now generally designated by expressions that, broadly speaking, correspond to our Creator, Supreme Being, etc.