We have seen throughout this book that conclusions based largely on predetermined assumptions have triggered debates over an ancient belief in a Supreme Being among indigenous societies. This became particularly clear in my analysis presented in Chapter 1 of the dispute between nineteenthcentury evolutionists, following Herbert Spencer and E. B. Tylor, and the primitive monotheists, exemplified in the writings of Andrew Lang, Wilhelm Schmidt and later Mircea Eliade. We saw that these mainly academic discussions were played out in crucial real-life situations in Australia at the end of the nineteenth century through the contentious arguments between the zoologist and evolutionist Baldwin Spencer, and the missionary and linguist Carl Strehlow.

In this chapter, after summarizing the empirical evidence I have provided throughout this book, I evaluate my conclusions through the conceptual category “cultural hybridity” and relate it to the idea of “the invention of tradition”. My aim is to disclose the motivations and underlying aims of those who have promulgated the God-idea in the societies I have reviewed. In my discussion, I contrast cultural hybridity with the related concept syncretism, which has been used widely as a term describing the mixing of religious beliefs. In the process, I indicate why syncretism provides a less satisfying tool for analysing the dynamic interaction among religions than cultural hybridity. Following my evaluation of each case using the categories cultural hybridity and invention of tradition, I return to the issues I raised at the beginning of this book by asking if my case studies can be generalized and applied more broadly to other inventions of God in indigenous societies.