Allvater

ALLVATER. - This is an expression introduced into the proper language of ethnology and the history of religions by the English explorer A. W. Howitt with his work The Native Tribes of South East-Australia (London 1904), intending to include in it the superior beings venerated by those tribes under various names. From the same author and in the same sense, that is, limited to the south-eastern Australians alone, it was also derived by the German scholar of religious psychology J. W. Hauer in the volume Die Religionen. Ihr Werden, ihr Sinn, ihre Wahrheit (Berlin 1923). The American J. H. Leuba then 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, in turn, in the work Ursprung der Religion und des Gottesglaubens (Berlin 1913), returning to refer to the Australians, changed the term to "Altvater," that is, "old father," as in ancient, venerated, aged.

However, with the progress of studies and research, the term has fallen into disuse, inasmuch as the related and eminent religious concept of primitive peoples is now by common agreement customarily designated by expressions that more or less correspond to our Creator, Supreme Being (v.), etc.

Michele Schulien