ABSTRACT
The earliest reference to a ‘High God’ among the Aborigines appeared in the records of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842. The High Gods of Australia represent a transposition of the principles underlying clan totemism to higher levels of social organization. They are ‘the logical working-out of these beliefs and their highest form’. The critical step towards a true High God in Australia depended upon a surrender of some degree of clan autonomy in the interests of coalition and tribal unity. In 1908–1909 Wilhelm Schmidt, a Roman Catholic priest of Vienna, defended A. Lang against Hartland in the journal Anthropos and shortly afterwards began publishing a series of volumes that he described as a continuation of Lang’s work on High Gods. In his writings on Aboriginal religion, Radcliffe-Brown evinced little interest in the High God controversy, perhaps because he considered the matter had been settled by Emile Durkheim.
