AT LOS ANGELES V EARLY CIVILIZATION AN INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY 6258 ' SOME RECENT BORZOI BOOKS IN DAYS TO COME By Walter Rathenau FACING OLD AGE A STUDY OF OLD AGE PENSIONS By Abraham Epstein HUMAN NATURE IN POLITICS By Graham Wallas HOW ENGLAND IS GOVERNED By C. F. G. Masterman PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY By James Mickel Williams THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT By Dr. F. Miiller-Lyer For sale at all bookshops NEW YORK: ALFRED A. KNOPF EARLY CIVILIZATION AN INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY By ALEXANDER A. GOLDENWEISER Lecturer on Anthropology and Sociology at The New School for Social Research, New York; sometime Lecturer on Anthropology in Columbia University. NEW YORK ALFRED - A - KNOPF MCMXXII COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. Published, May, 1922 Set up and electrotyped by the Burr Printing House, New York, N. Y. Paper furnished by W. F. Elherington & Co., New York, N. Y. Printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y. Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Library GB 30| TO MY FATHER PREFACE THOSE whose common preoccupation is with ideas are wont to cherish the illusion of originality. But if the his- tory of mental contents were disclosed we should find that most of what we know and think is derived from others. My more clearly discernible obligations are due to many. It is hard to express the extent of my indebtedness to Pro- fessor Franz Boas, of Columbia, whose glowing enthusiasm and colossal knowledge have for many years served as guidance and inspiration. Of the many intellectual com- panions of my academic years I want to single out four whose ideas and criticisms have aided in the formation and shaping of my own thoughts : Professors Robert H. Lowie and A. L. Kroeber, of Berkeley, Doctor Edward Sapir, of the Victoria Museum, Ottawa, and Paul Radin, of every- where and nowhere. My gratitude is due to my friend and colleague, James Harvey Robinson and to Mrs. Etta Stuart Sohier, of Los Angeles, for reading and criticising the first version of this book. Their suggestions proved so valuable that the origi- nal plan of revising the first draft was abandoned and a new book written. I want to thank my old chum and com- panion, Samuel Joseph, for reading the page proof. I also want to express my obligation to my classes in anthropology at Columbia and The New School for Social Research, for without the experience gained in the prepara- tion and delivery of these lectures, the book could not have been written. My final obligation is due to my secretary, Miss Anne V. Cooper, who has fulfilled the enormous task of typing and retyping the manuscript, has read the proofs and made innumerable suggestions as to the form and con- tent of the pages that follow. ALEXANDER A. GOLDENWEISER New York, December 16, 1921. vii CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii INTRODUCTION MAN AND CIVILIZATION The Unity of Man 3 The Nature of Civilization 15 The Evolutionary Theory: An Exposition and a Criticism 20 PART I EARLY CIVILIZATIONS ILLUSTRATED INTRODUCTION 31 A CHAPTER I. THE ESKIMO: A CASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADJUSTMENT 34 n AFTER II. THE TLINGIT AND HAIDA OF NORTHWEST AMERICA 53 CHAPTER III. THE IROQUOIS MATRIARCHATE 70 CHAPTER IV. UGANDA, AN AFRICAN STATE 83 CHAPTER V. CENTRAL AUSTRALIA, A MAGIC RIDDEN COM- MUNITY ico CHAPTER VI. REFLECTIONS ON PART I 115 PART II INDUSTRY AND ART, RELIGION AND SOCIETY OF EARLY MAN INTRODUCTION 131 CHAPTER VII. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRY 132 The Economic Adjustment 132 Applied Knowledge 138 Kwakiutl Industry 138 x CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER VIII. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRY (Continued) 150 Applied Knowledge (Continued) 150 Hopi Pigments 150 Tewa Ethnobotany 152 Invention 157 CHAPTER IX. ART 165 CHAPTER X. RELIGION AND MAGIC 184 The Basic Factors of Religion 184 The Guardian Spirit in American Indian Religion 184 Modern Magic 193 Mana or Impersonal Supernatural Power 197 CHAPTER XL RELIGION AND MAGIC (Continued) 202 Anthropomorphism and the Higher Gods 202 Chukchee Supernaturalism 202 Bella Coola Gods 207 The All Father 211 The Individual in Religion 214 Medicine-men Among the Chukchee and Others 214 The Ghost-Dance Religions of the North American Indians 224 Supernaturalism as a World View 231 CHAPTER XII. SOCIETY 235 Foundations of Society 235 The Disabilities of Women 259 CHAPTER XIII. SOCIETY (Continued) 265 [ The Foundations of Society (Continued) 265 x Political Organization 270 - ' The Geographical Distribution of Social Forms 279 ) Totemism 282 CHAPTER XIV. REFLECTIONS ON PART II 292 Culture and Environment 292 Diffusion versus Independent Development in Early Civi- lization 301 CONTENTS xi PART III THE IDEAS OF EARLY MAN PAGE INTRODUCTION 327 CHAPTER XV. THEORIES OF EARLY MENTALITY 330 Spencer's Theories 330 Frazer's Theories 337 Wundt's Theories 348 CHAPTER XVI. THEORIES OF EARJLY MENTALITY (Con- tinued) 360 Durkheim's Theories 360 Levy-Bruhl's Theories 380 Freud's Theories 389 CHAPTER XVII. EARLY LIFE AND THOUGHT 399 BIBLIOGRAPHIC GUIDE 416 INDEX 425 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE 1. Plan of Eskimo Singing-House 37 2. Eskimo Snow House 4 3. Ground Plan of Eskimo Snow House 40 4. Cross Section of Eskimo Snow House 41 5. Framework of Eskimo Kayak 42 6. Eskimo Kayak 42 7. Eskimo Harpoon 43 8. 9, 10, ii. Parts of Eskimo Harpoon 43 12. Eskimo Harpoon in Action 44 13. Eskimo Bird Spear 45 14. Throwing Board 45 15. Eskimo Seal-Skin Floats and Hoop 46 1 6. Eskimo Sledge 47 17. Eskimo Dog in Harness 48 1 8. Eskimo Wooden Bow 49 19. 20. Eskimo Antler Bows 50 21. Eskimo Bow Drill 51 22. Kwakiutl Copper 60 23. Diagram of Iroquois Maternal Family 74 24. 25. Diagrams of Australian Marriage and Descent in, 112 26. Kwakiutl Wood-Bending 140 27. Kwakiutl Pole-Raising 143 28. Raising of Kwakiutl Roof Beam 144 29. 30, 31, 32. Kwakiutl Black Horn Spoon 145, 146 33, 34. Kwakiutl Eel Grass Bundles 148, 149 Xlll xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 35. Beaded Bagobo Bag Plate I F gp 178 36. Bagobo Embroidered Shirt Plate I 37. Chilkat Blanket Plate II 38. 39. Haida Memorial Columns Plate II 40. Haida Horn Spoon Plate II 41. Bushongo Wooden Cup Plate III 42. Benin Bronze Casting Plate III 43. New Ireland Ceremonial Head-Dress Plate IV 44. Maori Door Lintel Plate V 45. Hawaiian Feather Cloak Plate V 46. Chiriquian Chalice Plate VI 47. California Basket Plate VII 48. California Basket Plate VII 49. California Basket Plate VII 50. 51. Australian Ground Drawings Plate VIII PAGE 52. Diagram of Australian Marriages 255 53. Diagram of Totemic Complex 288 54. Map of Distribution of Clothing in America 302 55. Map of Distribution of Garments in Africa 303 56. Map of Distribution of Huts in Africa 304 57. Map of Distribution of Pottery in America 305 58. Map of Distribution of Totemism in Africa 308 INTRODUCTION: MAN AND CIVILIZATION THE UNITY OF MAN Truth comes hard. The recognition of man's animal de- scent has been a slow growth. When Darwin wrote, over half a century ago, the evidence in favor of our animal an- cestry began to be irresistible. This did not prevent a storm of protest from breaking over the head of the great biologist when in his "Origin of Species" he began to prepare the ground for the new doctrine. In "The Descent of Man" his position became categorical. But it remained for the more uncompromising and temperamental Haeckel to sweep man's pedigree clean of all traces of supernaturalism and to popularize the idea of man's natural evolution among wide circles of the educated and semi-educated laity. Though similar to the animal in many ways, man differs markedly from even the highest animals, including his closest known relatives, the anthropoid apes. Erect gait, shape of the cranium, size of the brain, position of the head, develop- ment of the hand; and with these, the use of tools, articulate language, and the gift of abstract thought such are some of the traits that set off man as an unique achievement of biological evolution, as a super-animal, immeasurably re- moved from all his precursors. In this connection, the claim is sometimes made that some races are closer to the animal than others. The prognathic jaws of the Negro, the prominent supra-orbital ridges of the Australian, the dark skin color of most primitive men, are a few of the features pointed to as suggestive of animal traits. A somewhat more careful glance at the facts, how- ever, at once introduces distracting complications. The ape-like character of the Negro's jaws cannot be denied, but his very jaws are fitted out with a pair of lips that remove him as far from the animal as the jaws bring him near it. For developed external lips are a specifically human trait, and in this particular the Negro represents "man physical" 3 4 EARLY CIVILIZATION more distinctly than any other race. Again, the prominent supra-orbital ridges of the Australian carry an unmistakable animalistic suggestion, and one might be inclined to add to this another trait, namely, the great hairiness of the Aus- tralian, if not for the disturbing thought that in the latter respect the white man is his worthy rival, while the other races are much less hairy. And the same applies to other features. Is it not clear, then, that the races, with their complexes of more or less characteristic traits, cannot be arranged in an ascending series from the animal upward? In particular instances, one race may prove to be an offshoot of another, the American Indians, for example, of the Mongolians; but if all structural peculiarities of each racial stock are taken into consideration, the races, all animal and all human though they are, must be regarded as anatomical varieties specialized in different directions. Prompted by motives partly scientific in their nature and partly otherwise, the advocates of white man's supremacy have utilized another set of facts. In this case the evidence adduced referred to the size and weight of the brain and to the macroscopic as well as microscopic structure of this organ. White man's claim to psycho-physical superiority receives but little support from a consideration of brain size and weight. It must, of course,, be admitted that the physical evolution of the vertebrates was accompanied by a progres- sive development in the relative size and weight of the nerv- ous system and, in particular, of the central organ of nerv- ous control, the brain. In the case of man, the brain has indeed reached unprecedented dimensions. In proportion to the bulk of his body, man's brain is much larger and heavier than is that of any other animal, including our closest known precursor, the anthropoid ape. And with the increased bulk of the brain, there went an unmistakable rise in intelligence. It is, however, by no means easy to apply the insight thus reached to the human level itself. First of all, bulk of body INTRODUCTION 5 again comes in as a factor. All in all, large people have large brains. But bulk of body is not discernibly related to intelligence. Hence, doubt arises whether among mod- ern white men any connection obtains between brain size and weight and intelligence. The evidence gleaned from post mortem examinations of brains is equally inconclusive. In one series of brains of great men, for example, it was found that Turgenev's brain was extraordinarily large and heavy, while that of Gambetta, also a man of no mean mental capacity, scarcely reached the average. As the case stands to date, it seems not improbable that the brains of a selected group of eminent men when compared with those of a non-selected group of men, would not show any signifi- cant differences in size and weight. It follows from this that any inferences in regard to in- telligence based on comparisons of brain size and weight must be drawn with great caution. But are there such dif- ferences between the white race and other races and, if so, what is their nature? Students of the subject tell us that if a sufficiently large set of white man's brains were com- pared with a similar one representing another race, the vast majority of the brains of the two sets would be strictly com- parable in point of size and weight. The only difference would be this : a small number of white man's brains would be heavier and larger than any brains in the other set, while a small number of brains in that set would be smaller and lighter than any brains of white man. Would it not be hazardous, then, to base any conclu- sions as to racial capacity on differences that are so tenuous, particularly in view of the highly dubious relation between brain size and weight and intelligence? With the brain structure the case stands somewhat dif- ferently. In addition to the data on white man's brains, we have the results of Professor Bean's painstaking in- vestigations of a large set of Negro brains. These investi- gations have disclosed the presence of distinctive structural peculiarities which must be recognized as racial. There is, 6 EARLY CIVILIZATION however, no indication that the revealed differences between white and Negro brains stand for potential intellectual in- feriority on the part of the Negro. Those who desire to see such inferiority demonstrated will naturally tend to in- terpret Professor Bean's results in this sense; the sober student, on the other hand, will reserve judgment, 1 pending further research, which, he may well expect, will disclose peculiarities of racial psychology correlated with the ob- served differences in brain structure. In what direction these peculiarities will lie cannot at this time be foreseen. The foregoing examination of the biological and neuro- logical evidence leaves us very near where we were at the beginning of our inquiry. No proof has been forthcom- ing of the inferiority of the other racial stocks to the white. But what is the tenor of the direct evidence of psy- chology? Here we are confronted by the time honored allegation that the senses of the "savage," his vision, hear- ing, smell, are more acute than are those of white man, and that this very superiority bespeaks his closeness to the animal. In the power of abstract thought, on the other hand, in the capacity for sustained labor, the ability to en- dure pain, he is supposed to lag far behind the standards established by white man. Old travelers' accounts abound in references to the amaz- ing sense acuity of the "savage." Scarcely audible sounds, we are told, are perceived by him and interpreted as a warn- ing of danger. He observes the tracks of animals and of man under conditions that seem impossible to his white companions. From the appearance of a bush in the thicket or the grass under foot, he infers what kind of animals have 'That apart from interpretation, Professor Bean's concrete results are not above criticism may be gathered from the constructive and critical essay by F. P. Mall ("On Several Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain, etc.," American Journal of Anatomy, Vol. IX, pp. 1-32). See particularly p. n, where Mall compares his results with those of Bean, derived from the measurement of the same set of brains. INTRODUCTION 7 been there and may even roughly guess their number. He possesses a complete inventory of the sounds produced by the beasts and birds of his habitat and is able, moreover, to reproduce many of them with striking fidelity. Accounts such as these were eagerly sought by the ad- vocates of white man's superiority. The "savage," it was held, is like the animal in the sharpness of his senses. White man, with his higher intelligence, has passed beyond that stage. He is no longer in need of such extraordinary keen- ness of the lower faculties, for nose, eye or ear could never serve his vital needs as effectively as does his mind, with its superior acumen and resourcefulness. Whatever may be said of these interpretations, the facts themselves, when examined with an open mind, do not imply any inborn superiority of the "savage" in sense perception. It must be remembered that aboriginal man lives in close and constant contact with nature, its forces and its dangers. His natural economy requires a very delicate adjustment to the peculiarities of his environment. ) If he is to live, he must learn to use his senses as well or nearly as well as do the animals and birds of his wild habitat. All this, however, is merely a matter of habituation. If transferred to an un- accustomed environment, the master of the woods and the prairie would promptly lose his superior sense capacity. A Bushman or Australian, suddenly removed to Broadway, would succumb to the natural dangers of his new milieu even before he had realized the inadequacy of his equip- ment for dealing with the changed situation. White man, on the other hand, has more than once shown his ability to develop the very qualities of the senses which are so neces- sary in a primitive setting. The frontiersman and the settler, the trapper and the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, excelled in the very characteristics that were thought to constitute an innate peculiarity of the American Indian, and any of these, including the Indian, would un- doubtedly meet their peer if not their master in psychic 8 EARLY CIVILIZATION equipment in a member of the mounted police of the Cana- dian Northwest. The very high degree to which the sharpness of the senses can be developed by constant application is attested by the experiences of modern civilization. Our experts on cloth and tapestry, on tea, tobacco and wine, achieve after some years of practise, a power of delicate sense discrimination which to the uninitiated seems wellnigh incredible. Equally remarkable is the high sensitiveness of touch acquired by the professional typist, and the even greater delicacy of that sense as well as of the sense of hearing possessed by the accomplished violinist and cellist. The recent development of experimental psychology has provided a tool by means of which the psychological equip- ment of the "savage" could be tested with greater exacti- tude. In a number of instances opportunity presented itself to apply the procedure of the experimental laboratory to the native populations. Doctor W. H. R. Rivers, as a member of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, subjected the natives of these islands to an extended series of psychological tests ; Mr. Richard Thurn- wald applied somewhat similar methods in the course of his expedition to the Solomon Islands; while Professor R. S. Woodworth, of Columbia University, was fortunate enough to find himself in a position to experiment with representa- tives of a variety of primitive tribes gathered for purposes of exhibition at the St. Louis Fair. The verdict of the above investigations is unanimous and unmistakable: the senses and the elementary mental reactions of aboriginal man are strictly comparable to those of his white brethren. No disparity whatsoever has appeared that would suggest congenital racial differences of superiority or inferiority of sense equipment, although some interesting facts that could not have been foreseen have come to light, such as the pre- vailing yellow-blue color blindness of some Melanesian natives, which contrasts with the red-green color blind- INTRODUCTION 9 ness of white man, and may prove to be a sub-racial characteristic. It is easy to show that the alleged inferiority of early man in the higher mental functions is also based on deficient knowledge and an erroneous point of view. Followers of Herbert Spencer are wont to say that the "savage" is lacking in capacity for sustained labor. But are the reports from which such generalizations are derived based on a fair view of the primitive laborer? Certainly not. The evi- dence gleaned from plantation conditions, for example, cannot be expected to throw much light on the natural capabilities of the native worker. Recent studies, such as those of J. A. Hobson, Carleton Parker and Miss Marot, have done much to popularize the information we now possess about the effects of the worker's psychic state on his efficiency. The striking results of the reputed "Saturday- ings" and "Sundayings" of Soviet Russia bring, perhaps, the most recent evidence of what labor can do under stimu- lating psychological conditions. And the reverse is, of course, equally patent. If- the experiences of housewives with their domestic help were available as comparative data, would not the standing of white men and women as exemplars of efficiency in sustained labor receive a decided setback? Those who have had the opportunity of studying native man in his normal setting were often impressed by the apparently limitless care and assiduity with which he de- voted himself to those tasks of industry or art which to him were of prime concern and emotional value. Primitive in- dustries, in particular, often call for intense and persistent application extending over days and weeks, and these re- quirements are faithfully fulfilled by the natives without visible signs of distress or any necessity for social compulsion. Similarly ill-founded is the alleged inability of primitive man to endure pain. The statements responsible for this judgment were, of course, based on those many instances io EARLY CIVILIZATION where, as slave, forced laborer, or hired soldier, primitive man had displayed but slight disposition to withstand pain or suffering. Here again, familiarity with native life cannot but dispel the illusion that any congenital disability is in- volved. The tortures of the Sun Dance are stoically en- dured by the Indian youths of the American Plains. The native boys of the Australian bush show equal stolidity dur- ing the protracted initiation ceremonies, in the course of which the old men subject them to trying and often painful manipulations. Maori tatooing provides another example. In the case of a chief this process occupies weeks and months, and in the course of the daily seances, the subject must endure almost continuous pain. The arduous task of the artist presents equally striking evidence of native capacity for sustained labor. A rite of initiation wide- spread in Africa and Australia involves the knocking out of teeth or the filing of teeth into triangular shape. The common requirement thereby is that the excruciating pain must be borne without whimpering. If records of such per- formances were collected and compared with others that might be supplied by our dentists, would the results be likely to support the belief that aboriginal man is our inferior in his capacity for withstanding pain? Among the higher functions of the mind with which early man was thought to be but inadequately endowed, mathe- matics and language have figured most prominently. It is quite true, as alleged, that many tribes those of central Australia, for example are unable to count further than four or five. But afe they really unable to do so be- cause of psychic incapacity? Nothing could be further from the truth than this inference, and ethnologists have repeat- edly made the experience that the learning of our numerical system with its corollaries presents but little difficulty to the average native. Whenever such deficient numerical systems occur, they merely represent a peculiarity of the civiliza- tional setting, and not at all a psychical disability. Among tribes where no medium of exchange has developed, where INTRODUCTION n exact measurement is unknown and ideas of property re- main relatively undefined, there is little need for numerical expression and computation, and progress in this domain is likely to be slow. The case of language is equally instructive. That primitive languages consist of a scant collection of words, that the very phonetic elements of these languages tend to fluctuate, that they are practically devoid of grammatical structure all such generalizations have long since been relegated to the rubbish heap of discarded dogmas. In the course of the last fifteen or twenty years, the languages of the American Indians have been studied in great detail, while only less systematic work has been accomplished in other regions, especially in Africa. As a result of these re- searches, our ideas of early languages have been thoroughly revolutionized. It is now known that the vocabularies of more than one Indian tongue comprise several thousands of words and possess phonetic characteristics comparable in fixity and complexity to those of the ancient and modern languages. But most important of all are the grammars of these native tongues, the reconstruction of which we owe to the ingenuity and untiring labors of the ethnological linguists. For these grammars are always definite and often elaborate, and while displaying certain characteristics com- mon to all grammars, also possess many individualized peculiarities. 1 It is, of course, true that the linguistic processes under- lying grammatical structure are wholly unconscious. They are, nevertheless, psychological; and the evidence of classi- fication, generalization and abstraction involved in the cate- gories of these native grammars may not be disregarded in any attempt to understand the workings of primitive men- tality. When the Kwakiutl distinguishes by an instrumental suffix all verbs designating an action performed by a sharp 1 For a highly interesting as well as original presentation of linguistic facts, in which full justice is done to primitive languages, see Edward Sapir's recent book, "Language" (Harcourt, Brace and Company). 12 EARLY CIVILIZATION object, the category involved Implies generalization and abstraction, and this particular language has a whole series of such instrumental suffixes. When the Algonquin lan- guages classify all nouns into animate and inanimate, a generalization is once more implied. The very existence of categories in grammar and what is grammar but a set of categories? is evidence of classification, generalization and abstraction. That the conditions of aboriginal life do not foster a per- sistent occupation with ideas is true enough, but we shall have more than one occasion to show that our own wonted predilection for abstract thought has been greatly over- estimated. Enough has been said to indicate that the evidence of biology, neurology and psychology fails to supply any data on the basis of which could be inferred either a primitive superiority in sense development or an inferiority of early man in his capacity for abstract thought and in other achievements supposedly peculiar to white man. To all this the objection may well be urged that we do not judge of civilization indirectly, through the biological or psychological traits of the individuals who represent it. We judge of civilization directly, on its own merits. Now, if primitive, ancient and modern societies are juxtaposed, is it not patent that the achievements of the modern civili- zation of white man, surpass beyond comparison all that has been attained before in history or pre-history? How can this superlative excellence be explained except through some advantage in congenital capacity? Unanswerable though it may seem at first glance, this criticism greatly overstates the case. For is the superiority of our own civilization really so obvious and demonstrable all along the line? That this is not so is readily revealed by a more careful survey. It is undeniable that in the mass of accumulated knowledge we loom far above all our pred- ecessors. The same is true of the application of knowledge to abstract thought: the domain of thought based on con- INTRODUCTION 13 crete and verifiable data is vaster today than ever before, and in many instances this experientially-controlled thought process is both highly elaborate and equally exact. This applies to the abstract domains of science, philosophy and social and political ideology in some of its aspects. The high degree to which knowledge is utilized in practical activity is equally peculiar to present day civilization. It may well be, in fact, that this aspect is more character- istically modern than any of the others. The application of biology to medicine and bacteriology, of chemistry to industry, agriculture and sanitation, of psychology to educa- tion, criminology and business, of the theory of probability and other branches of mathematics to life insurance and statistics, are distinctively modern phenomena incalculable in their bearings on civilization. So far, then, white man's cultural achievement stands supreme, lending at least a prima facie justification to his claim of innate superiority. It must, however, be remem- bered, that in his command of knowledge with its theoretical and practical adjuncts, modern white man is superior not only to the Australian bushman, to the Indian of America, to the African Negro or to the Mongol of Eastern Asia; but in all of these respects he also towers above the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, nay even over our most immediate precursors in the history of Europe. Go back five hundred years and nothing is left of modern civilization; go back two hundred years and some of its most distinctive traits are still absent; go back one hundred years and you find a civilization lacking in most of the things we feel to be of the essence of our own cultural life. The aeroplane and the wireless, the telephone and the telegraph, and the very use of electricity; railroads and steamships and automobiles; scientific agriculture and in- dustrial chemistry; the doctrine of evolution and the very natural sciences with their highly precise measurements and methods; trusts and trade unions and the very essentials of machine production and of capitalism; all of this, his- i 4 EARLY CIVILIZATION torically speaking, dates of yesterday. And further: do these represent typical developments that have taken place again and again in civilizations born of white man? Far from it. This complex of achievements must rather be re- garded as an unique excrescence of the historic process, as a singular historic twist that has favored our civilization. Who can tell whether a similar precipitation in cultural growth might not have occurred in the case of another people and race, or may not occur in the future ; or whether, if the historic process were to begin anew, white man would prove equally successful? But the case does not stand as favorably for white man as would appear from this presentation. Knowledge, theoretical and applied, is not the whole of civilization. Now, in art, religion and ethics, or in social and political organization, our superiority over the peoples of antiquity, or even over those of pre-history, is not by any means as definite nor as indisputable. While a detailed consideration of the comparative aspect of the problem falls outside the scope of this book, it will be well to keep in mind that our superiority in any of these respects can only be established in the light of special and highly subjective standards. The problem, in other words, passes from the domain of measurement to that of value from that of ob- jectivity to that of taste and opinion. Enough has been said to show that the view still gener- ally held of the relation between race and civilization may well be reversed. According to the prevailing view, man is many and civilization one, meaning by this that the races differ significantly in potential ability and that only one, the white race, could have and actually has achieved civiliza- tion. The reverse view, forced upon the ethnologist and the historian by a more critical and open-minded survey of the facts, reads thus: man is one, civilizations are many, meaning by this that the races do not differ significantly in psychological endowment, that the variety of possible civili- zations is great and of actual ones, considerable, and that INTRODUCTION 15 many civilizations other than ours have achieved things of genuine and unique worth. With this as a background, we may proceed to examine somewhat more closely what it is that is called civilization. To this problem the next section is devoted. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATION What, then, is civilization? Our attitudes, beliefs and ideas, our judgments and values; our institutions, political and legal, religious and economic; our ethical code and our code of etiquette; our books and machines, our sciences, philosophies and philoso- phers all of these and many other things and beings, both in themselves and in their multiform inter-relations, con- stitute our civilization. In many of these things it differs from the civilizations of antiquity and from those other remoter ones of pre-history. It is characteristic of civilization that it persists; a large part of it, most of it, in fact, is passed on from generation to generation. But also, it changes: at no two points in time is it quite the same, and the differences in the civiliza- tion of two succeeding generations are often perceptible and at times striking. It takes but little thought to realize that the changes in civilization are each and all due to the emergence of new things, inventions, ideas, which, in the last analysis, are always emanations of the minds of individuals. Whether the change is in a mechanical device, or a detail of social organization; in a new scientific idea or ethical value; in a method of simplifying or improving economic production or distribution; in a new play, or a novel form of stage art; in an article of use, comfort or luxury, a new word, a witticism, a proverb all of these things originate in in- dividual minds and there is no other place where they can originate. Nor is this generalization in the least affected 1 6 EARLY CIVILIZATION by whatever view one may hold as to the relative impor- tance of the individual and society in the production of civilization. Even though the individual were wholly de- termined by the social setting, all of the civilizational changes just referred to, including those in material things, would remain psychological in their derivation and, as such, they could only originate in individual minds, for there are no other minds but those of individuals. Thus the whole of civilization, if followed backward step by step, would ultimately be found resolvable, without residue, into bits of ideas in the minds of individuals. But civilization also persists and accumulates. Some ele- ments carry over from generation to generation through the sheer objective continuity of material existence. Most of the paraphernalia of our complicated mechanical equip- ment, the roads, vehicles and houses, the books in our libraries, the specimens in the museums, persist in as crass and material a way as does man's physical environment. The institutions, those crystallized depositories of attitudes, ideas and actions, persist in a less objectified form, for they are only in part represented by material or mechanical ar- rangements, such as fixed organizations, recorded codes and archives, in whose prolonged existence the change of gener- ations appears as but an incident. But there is still another and more important mechanism through which civilization is passed on from fathers to sons. This mechanism, more dynamic and plastic than the others, is education. Through education, in the home, at school, in society, the past molds the present and sets a pattern for the future. Here it is important to remember that civilization, psy- chological and individual though it may be when resolved into a chronological series, is not at all the outgrowth of the minds of individuals of any particular generation. On the contrary. It comes to them from without, it molds them, it forces itself upon them through the material per- sistence of its objective elements, through its codes and institutions, and through the deep cutting tools of education. INTRODUCTION 17 A large part of the educational process strikes the mind of the individual during the years of highest receptivity and plasticity. Without accepting the extreme verdict of psy- choanalysis on this matter, it suffices to realize that what . is deposited in the mind during the early years of child- * hood, persists throughout later life with often but slight modification. Not only is man at the mercy of civilization, but he gen- erally remains either partly or wholly unaware of what he is thus forced to accept. While we regard the language in which we think and express our ideas as very particularly our own, the gram- matical structure of that language rests in the unconscious. The complicated system of classifications, categories and nuances, which make up grammar, are used by the individual without the least realization of their presence. In primitive communities, where writing is unknown, individuals are totally unaware of the very existence of a grammar under- lying the language they daily use. - The situation is not so very different today, for the fact that grammar is taught does not prevent us from absorbing the structure of our mother tongue without the least reference to whatever con- scious knowledge we may acquire of its grammatical prin- ciples. Only at the cost of a deliberate and persistent effort can the mind be brought to deal analytically with the elements of the grammar it constantly employs in thinking. The same is almost equally true of art, particularly of music. The theoretical structure of our musical system is known to but few. Many of those who appreciate music or even produce it by singing or playing an instrument, may remain almost wholly unconscious of the basic prin- ciples with which they operate. And, again, in primitive society or among the peasant populations of Europe or among the singing and banjo-playing masses of our cities, the theoretical foundations of the music they enjoy, use and abuse, remain altogether unknown. What applies so dras- tically to language and art is only to a slighter degree true 1 8 EARLY CIVILIZATION of other elements of civilization. Rules of etiquette, re- ligious dogma, political convictions, and to a great extent the specialized outlook of a social or professional class, become fixed in the mind of the individual before he is quite aware of what is taking place. Then, when self-consciousness comes and to many of ; us it never comes we discover ourselves fitted out with all the paraphernalia of a world view, with a code of morality, behavior and belief. Then we may indulge in a deliberate effort to change these ideas and attitudes or, more com- monly, to provide for them an exculpating background of explanations and justifications. Many of our theories of edu- cation, of criminology or of etiquette, for example, consist of nothing but such accumulated afterthoughts, invented with greater or less ingenuity to render our unconsciously acquired habits, attitudes and convictions, more congenial to ourselves and better prepared to hold their own in the face of criticism or attack. It appears from the above that the individual and the group have their share both in the persistence and the originality of civilization. The individual is responsible for the creation of the new, society provides it with a back- ground and the occasion. For the new is never more than a slight ripple on the deep foundation of the old and estab- lished. The conservative dead-weight of society opposes the new, but should it appear, molds it to its pattern by prescribing the direction it is to take as well as by limiting the range of its departure from the old. This is most clearly seen in inventions and artistic creations. The talent of an Edison is a congenital gift. Even though born in early pre-history, he would have been Edison, but could not have invented the incandescent lamp. Instead, he might have originated one of the early methods of making fire. Raphael, if brought to life in a Bushman family, would have drawn curiously realistic cattle on the walls of caves as well as^steatopygous Bushman women. Had Beethoven been a Chinaman, he would have composed some of those delight- H'< ^ INTRODUCTION 19 fully cacophonous melodies which the seeker for the quaint and unusual pretends to enjoy in Chinatown. Stability and persistence, on the other hand, are mainly brought about by social factors. Apart from the historic persistence of the material substratum of the group, the institutional norms and the directing pressure of public opinion, custom and law, are functions of the social setting. But these factors alone would be powerless to achieve stability in the absence of the inertia of the individual mind, with its readiness to adhere to once established conceptions and its predilection for the beaten path. A civilization in its unique individuality is fascinating to behold and to study. This charm of specific cultural values eluded the eye of the evolutionist of a generation ago, whose interest centered in the task of reconstructing the ante- cedents of modern society. To him the civilizations of antiquity and to an ever greater degree those of pre-history, were but stepping-stones on the road to modern civilization, but stages in an ascending series "of development. The modern student, whether historian, sociologist or anthrop- ologist, having freed himself from the dogmatic preconcep- tions of the evolutionary approach, is seized with renewed zeal toward a better understanding and deeper penetration of the total range of human civilization. But the data for his study are limited. Beneath manifold differences, a level of great uniformity underlies all modern civilizations. A comparison of the latter with those of antiquity contributes a wider range of contrasting colors, but the number of such ancient civilizations is small, and on analysis, they also dis- play many common elements with our own. Pre-history, as it stands revealed by the researches of the ethnographer, belongs to a totally different plane. Each one of its civili- zations is individual and unique, is carried by relatively few individuals and covers but slight territory. Of such highly individualized civilizations, pre-history reveals a great variety, even though the list be made to include only those tribes whose cultural possessions have been studied with 20 EARLY CIVILIZATION care and in detail. Primitive North America alone com- prises a greater number of well authenticated civilizations than can be found in the whole range of modern and ancient history. The early world, then, presents an ideal field for the study of the achievements of man, for the extension of our understanding of cultural problems and our appreciation of the great range of civilization. THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY: AN EXPOSITION AND A CRITICISM. Evolution is an old idea. If one comes to think of the past at all and most men do there is a limited number of ways in which one can think of it. Persistence is one way in which the past can be visualized : things always were as they are today, history is a self-reproducing continuum. The Eskimo affect this attitude toward their cultural past: on the evidence of their mythology, their customs, beliefs and ideas always were what they are today. Another way to interpret the past is through creation : things have come to be as they are through the will of a supernatural being. Before that, if they existed at all, they were ideas in the mind of their creator. Origins by creation are not peculiar to the recent historic past; they are common in primitive society. The supernatural culture heroes of North America are the creators or the introducers of the arts and crafts. The All Father of Australian mythology is held responsible for the creation of the world, with the sole exception of man, who is supposed to have existed from the beginning in the form of half-finished creatures. These creatures were completed and transformed into men by two supernatural beings who traveled about the earth. The idea of creation is also known to the authors of Polynesian mythologies. Another way of accounting for the past is through trans- formation, some sort of evolution of things from one state INTRODUCTION 21 into another. This idea is deeply rooted in the mythologies of Polynesia, and in more recent times it was congenial to the Greeks and the Romans (vide H. F. Osborne's book "From the Greeks to Darwin") . The philosopher Kant has been shown by Professor Lovejoy to have been an evolu- tionist in some of his conceptions; and Hegel's dialectic trilogy contains an evolutionary theory in nuce. The potential evolutionism of Hegel's philosophy did not come into its own, however, until one of his disciples, Karl Marx, translated Hegel's spiritualistic ideology in terms of matter, thus laying the foundation for an economic interpretation of history with its definitely fixed stages of economic development. Strictly modern evolutionism dates from Herbert Spencer. His ideas took shape under the stimulating influence of Malthus' law of population, the evolutionary geology of Charles Lyell, the embryological generalizations of von Baer, who first drew the parallel between ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, and the biological evolutionism of Charles Darwin. The relatively scant data marshalled by Spencer in his "Biology" and "Psychology" were suf- ficient to provide him with the groundwork of his evolu- tionary system. When approaching the social field, he was confronted with more serious difficulties. His ideas were, of course, fashioned beforehand, as may be seen from the early publication of a skeletal outline of his philosophy. In its bearing on social phenomena, the theory of evolu- tion was to comprise the three following principles of de- velopment: evolution is umforjn, gradual and progressive, meaning by this that social forms and institutions pass everywhere and always through the same stages of develop- ment; that the transformations which they undergo are gradual, not sudden or cataclysmic; and that the changes implied in these transformations point in the direction of improvement from less perfect to more perfect adjustments, from lower to higher forms. Spencer was aware of the necessity of an extensive colla- 22 EARLY CIVILIZATION tion of data to demonstrate his theory. He also realfzed that he could not himself cover any fraction of the necessary reading. He was, moreover, a very poor reader. Hence, he engaged the services of a number of assistants who did his reading for him. His evolutionary stages were all worked out in considerable detail before this reading process had be- gun, and what his assistants were expected to do was to find illustrations for the stages of development comprised in the philosopher's scheme. This they did by covering a tremen- dous literature of unequal worth and without attempting to study in a systematic way the ideas and customs of any par- ticular tribe. The method thus ushered in by Herbert Spencer into the study of society presently became known as the com- parative method of anthropology, and for a generation it remained in undisputed possession of the field. It has since been shown, however, that this method, if used uncritically, could be made to yield proof of any theory of social devel- opment whatsoever. 1 'The essential principle of the comparative method can be illustrated by the following diagram: II III IV V VI 2 3 ~"~ Suppose I, II, ... represent tribes in different parts of the world, and i, 2, . . . , stages in the development of an institution or form of society or religion; vertical lines stand for the presence, horizontal ones for the ab- sence, of a stage in a particular tribe. Now suppose stage i is illustrated by an example from tribe I, stage 2 by one from tribe II, etc. What the classical evolutionist did was to connect stages i, 2, ... 6, each exemplified in one of the six tribes, into a chronologically successive series of stages. Thus, he claimed, the evolutionary theory stood vindicated. As a matter of fact, however, each one of the stages belongs to a different historic series, that, namely, of the tribe in which it was found. What then would be the only possible justification for the evolutionist's procedure? It would con- INTRODUCTION 23 Although Spencer speaks in unmistakable terms of civili- zation at large as evolving uniformly, gradually and pro- gressively, his better insight, without being deliberately ex- pressed, is revealed in the formal subdivisions of his sociology. He does not there attempt to trace a scheme of social development in its entirety, but subdivides his treatise into distinct studies of the development of industrial, political, military, professional and other institutions. Nor does he even supplement this separatistic treatment of the different phases of civilization by any attempt to correlate the diverse strands of development. 1 A brilliant galaxy of works followed in the wake of Spencer's comparative studies. In the field of religion one may note the writings of Grant Allen, Frazer, Lang, Hart- land and Jevons; in that of art, the books by Haddon and Balfour; in social organization, the researches of Bachofen, McLennan and Morgan, who became the epigoni of an era of social investigation and hypothetical reconstruction, and list in the assumption that the stages of development in the six tribes are identical. If so much is taken for granted then the particular stages of development in the six tribes are interchangeable and it becomes possible to construct a chronologically successive series out of the bits of evidence un- earthed by the evolutionist. But is not the assumption of the identity of developmental stages in different tribes one of the fundamental principles of social evolution ? Thus the theory of evolution must be accepted as a postulate before the comparative method can be used. It follows that the results of this method cannot be regarded as proof but merely as a series of illustrations of a postulated evolutionary theory. 1 While this is so with reference to Spencer and while most other evolu- tionists followed a similar procedure, it must, nevertheless, be remembered, as a matter of historic interest, that the classical formulation of the evolu- tionary theory referred to civilization as a whole, over and above its separate aspects. "A common misconception of the principle involved in the evolutionary method may be noticed," writes Marett in his book on "Psychology and Folk Lore." "According to this version, or rather perversion, of its meaning, it would run as follows: while the evolution of culture has taken place inde- pendently in a number of different areas, the process as a whole has re- peated itself more or less exactly; so that we either may treat any one development as typical of all, or, if no one complete history be available, may patch together a representative account out of fragments taken indif- ferently from any of the particular areas concerned." pp. 80-81. What M'arett here calls a common misconception of the evolutionary method must, nevertheless, be reaffirmed to be the classical form of it. The services of the early evolutionists to the science of human civilization are undeniable and conspicuous, nor does it seem necessary to whitewash the record of their achievement by befogging the historic perspective. 24 EARLY CIVILIZATION the somewhat later studies of Westermarck which are per- vaded by a more critical spirit; in the domain of material culture, finally, there is once more the work of Morgan, that of Buecher, as well as the superficial writings of Letourneau, who combined the convictions of a dogmatic evolutionist with the literary form of a careless popularizer, thus repre- senting classical evolutionism at its worst. A few illustrations will make clear the contrast between the reconstructions of classical evolutionism and those of the modern ethnologists. In the development of social organi- zation the series of stages posited by the evolutionist was as follows: promiscuity, that is, a chaotic state of society without any structure whatsoever and characterized by un- regulated sex intercourse; followed by group marriage, in which groups of women, related or not, were regarded as the wives of groups of men, related or not; followed by the clan, a much more clearly defined form of social organi- zation, in which a tribe was divided into hereditary social units, clans, which comprised blood relatives as well as un- related persons and were based on the maternal principle, children belonging to the clans of their mothers; followed by the gens, which was like the clan except that the children belonged to the gentes of their fathers ; followed by a state of society in which the individual family and the local group or village became the basic forms of organization. This scheme was regarded as an universally applicable outline of social development, through which all tribes inevitably passed. Now, what is the verdict of modern ethnology on this generalization? The conclusions derivable from more critical investiga- tions are, in brief, as follows: There seems to be no evi- dence that a stage of promiscuity ever existed; again, the condition of group marriage, far from being an universal antecedent of individual marriage, seems to constitute, in the rare instances where it occurs, an outgrowth of a pre- existing state of individual marriage. The family and local INTRODUCTION (2$ group are universal forms of social organization, extending to the very beginning. In some tribes the clan organization never develops. In others the clan follows the family- village organization. In still others, the gens follows directly upon this early organization. The development of the gens out of the clan has apparently occurred only in a few instances. It must, moreover, be remembered that the family-village grouping persists through all the other forms of organization. In the domain of art the evolutionist claimed that realistic designs were uniformly the earliest. From these, geometric designs developed through a series of transformations which represented ever higher degrees of conventionalization. This scheme also was regarded as universally applicable. In the light of further study the priority of realistic art can no longer be sustained. Geometric and realistic designs and carvings are equally basic and primitive. The process of conventionalization which figured so prominently in the evolutionist's reconstruction, does represent a frequently occurring phenomenon, but this process is neither necessary nor universal, nor is it by any means always gradual. More- over, the reverse process of the development of realistic designs from geometric ones also occurs. In material culture, the evolutionist, basing his conclu- sions upon the archeological reconstruction of European pre- history, posited the three stages: stone, bronze and iron. But in the only other culture area where the use of iron was known, namely, that of Negro Africa, the stage of iron followed directly upon that of stone, omitting the bronze stage. In the domain of economic pursuits the evolutionist is responsible for the famous triad: hunting, pastoral life, agriculture. But we know today that while hunting belongs without question to one of the earliest economic pursuits, it persists through all subsequent stages; that agriculture was practiced by many tribes that had never passed through a pastoral stage, nor kept domesticated animals, excepting 26 EARLY CIVILIZATION the dog, a condition exemplified by many tribes of North America. Again, in Negro Africa, agriculture and pastoral life are pursued on an equally wide scale. Historic agricul- ture, moreover, which involves the domestication of animals as well as the cultivation of plants, insofar as animals are used for agricultural purposes, represents a much later cultural phenomenon, to be clearly distinguished from earlier agriculture in which the domestic animal and the plow were unknown and the hoe was the only agricultural implement. In the light of better historic insight, another error of the evolutionary approach must fall to the ground. Follow- ing biological precedent, the evolutionist conceived of hf- toric transformations as gradual, as consisting of slight, slowly Accumulating changes. While it is true that slow changes in attitudes, knowledge or mechanical accomplish- ments are actual processes with which history makes us familiar, this should not obscure the equally conspicuous presence of relatively sudden, cataclysmic changes ushered in by social or political revolutions, great wars, important inventions. The history of modern art, science, philosophy and literature, abounds in examples of periods of precipi- tated change due to the emergence of great ideas or of dominant personalities, followed by protracted periods of relative stability, mere imitativeness, stagnation, or even regression. The third principle of evolution is equally at fault. JW6gress is no more constant a characteristic of cultural change than is uniformity or gradual development. Progress must be regarded as but one among several types of change characteristic of the historic process. The idea of progress, moreover, cannot be applied with equal success to all phases of civilization. Another vital defect of the evolutionary approach con- sisted in the evolutionist's failure to appraise at their true worth the processes of cultural diffusion in the course of historic contact between tribes. Whether Professor Thorn- dike is right or not in his assertion that the relation of INTRODUCTION 27 indigenous to borrowed traits in any civilization is as one to ten, the fact is undeniable that the borrowing, adoption and assimilation of imported commodities and ideas is an ever present and culturally significant phenomenon, equally con- spicuous in modern as well as in primitive society. The evolutionist was, of course, aware of the presence of this aspect of the historic process, but he tried to justify his disregard of it by affecting a cynical attitude toward dif- fusion: the phenomena of inner growth were organic, reg- ular, explanatory; those of diffusion or borrowing, were irregular, accidental, disturbing. How artificial and unreal does this approach appear to any one who views history with a clear eye and an open mind ! For is it not patent that historic borrowing is as constant and basic a process as growth from within? The civilizational role of borrowing is fundamental. The importation of foreign products and ideas enables a group, whether modern or primitive, to profit by the cultural opportunities of its neighbors. The juxtaposition, moreover, of varying and contrasting at- titudes, ideas and customs ever tends to break down tradi- tional rut and to stimulate change. Culture contact thus appears as the veritable yeast of history, and to disregard it is to develop a blind-spot in one's historic vision, which cannot but prove fatal to any theory of historic development. PART I EARLY CIVILIZATIONS ILLUSTRATED INTRODUCTION In this part of the book our primary concern is with civil- ization. Civilization is a continuum and cannot be under- stood unless justice is done to all its aspects. This is true even though some of these or perhaps only one may rise to extraordinary importance in particular instances. No adequate idea could be given of Tsarist Russia by describing its agricultural activities alone, nor of ante-war Germany by sketching only its political structure, nor of France by pre- senting a picture of its artistic attainments. The different aspects of civilization interlock and intertwine, presenting in a word a continuum, which must be studied as an organic unit. This applies to modern society and even more emphatically to primitive society. That is why the realities of early life remain wholly for- eign to a reader, well versed though he may be in history and sociology, as long as his only sources of information are books like E. B. Tylor's "Primitive Culture" or N. W. Thomas' "The Native Tribes of Australia." Tylor's is a very great book, but early civilization appears in it in the form of disjointed fragments of custom, thought and belief, and the task of rearranging these fragments into a picture of primitive culture is wholly beyond the powers of a non- professional reader. Thomas' book is of a very different order: he deals with only one continent and attempts to cover all aspects of civilization. But Australia is the home of many tribes, and their cultures comprise many differences. Thus, the meshes of Thomas' descriptive network must be spread so wide that concrete reality, once more, slips through them. The only way, then, to know early civilization is to study it in the wholeness of its local manifestations. This task will be attempted in the following five chapters. But first two possible queries must be answered : to what extent do the 31 32 EARLY CIVILIZATION brief sketches here presented deserve to pass as descriptions of early civilizations? and, what determined the selection of the tribes to be described? A detailed description of one of the better known tribes or tribal groups readily assumes considerable bulk. Before one has adequately dealt with the mythology, the minutiae of ceremonial life, the wellnigh interminable odds and ends of material culture, several volumes barely suffice to cover the accumulated mass of data. The individual sketches presented here, on the other hand, do not exceed some twenty or twenty-five pages. To achieve this, the data had to be selected, and the selection had to be based on one's judgment of the indispensable, the typical, the significant. Such judgments are bound to be subjective, to a degree, and the responsibility rests with the one who selects. Over and above this general sifting of data, one aspect of civilization has been chosen in each case for somewhat more careful treatment, the choice having been determined by the suggestiveness or theoretical importance of that aspect. Thus, decorative art is given prominence in dealing with the Tlingit and Haida of Northwest America; eco- nomic and industrial adjustments to environmental condi- tions are emphasized in the Eskimo sketch ; among Iroquois traits, their socio-political system is treated somewhat more minutely, with especial emphasis on the great prominence of women in this group; similarly, in the description of the Australian tribes their magical beliefs and practices are stressed, while the African Baganda are represented as a type of Negro state organization. It must not be imagined, however, that the cultural traits thus given prominence in our discussion would loom as high in the estimation of the natives themselves. To assume this, in fact, would be introducing a distinct bias into one's cul- tural vision of these people. The Australian, for example, might well express surprise that his magic had been made so much of rather than his hunting, his loving or his playing; while the Eskimo might object, with equal justice, that his INTRODUCTION 33 domestic habits, his visiting and story telling constituted as essential a part of his life as the kayak, sledge, drill and harpoon. Why, finally, the particular selection? Why just the Tlin- git, Haida, Eskimo, Baganda and Arunta? The answer is simple and I hope sufficient. In view of the treatment here adopted, a thorough knowledge of the tribes described was an indispensable prerequisite. Therefore, I selected the tribes I knew best, restricting the number and the length of the sketches in accordance with the space available. It seemed desirable to use the American tribes as the backbone of the descriptive section; therefore three of the groups be- long to this continent. The comparison with one African and one Australian civilization serves to bring into relief the similarities and differences of the American groups as well as to emphasize the continental contrasts. It must be remembered, then, that the Zuni, Omaha or Thompson would have served just as well for America, the Bushongo, Yoruba, Massai or Zulu for Africa, and for Australia the Dieri or Wotjabuluk. Thus, whatever general conclusions may be reached on the basis of the descriptive sketches in this section, will have to be regarded as correlated with the particular five tribes selected only in an incidental, not in a specific way. CHAPTER I THE ESKIMO: A CASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADJUSTMENT The Eskimo, like the American Indians, represent an off- shoot of the great Mongolian stock, but the physical char- acteristics as well as the cultural peculiarities of the Eskimo are so distinct that it is customary to speak of this curious people as separate from the Indian./ The Eskimo tribes in- habit in America the entire Arctic littoral from Greenland to Alaska. Their habitations, consisting of small clusters of snow houses, prefer the neighborhood of the coast and but seldom extend far into the interior. In this remote and detached environment, almost out of reach of foreign civilizations, and under the stress of ex- ceedingly hard climatic and topographical conditions, the Eskimo have worked out their salvation with a very remark- able degree of ingenuity and success. In their stories and myths the Eskimo display a peculiar lack of imaginativeness. They are not given to speculation nor do they show much concern for the origins of things and the development of the present order. In nature as in the affairs of man things always were much as they are now. The pictures of Eskimo life represented in the myths faith- fully reflect their life of today. Attempts at explaining the peculiarities of animals or the origin of the animals them- selves, a common feature of early mythologies, occur but seldom among the Eskimo, and when that is the case, the themes are treated lightly and without much detail or embel- lishment. Their stories, however, do tell of encounters with giants and dwarfs. The giants, very large but stupid, fall an easy prey to Eskimo skill and wits, while the dwarfs, diminutive in size but exceedingly strong, are in the end also overcome by the Eskimo. A wide-spread theme is the story of an orphan boy who lives among strangers, being ill- 34 THE ESKIMO 35 treated in all sorts of ways. He endures everything in si- lence, until one day he encounters a wolf or some semi-super- natural creature, from whom, in a variety of ways (accord- ing to the version of the myth), he acquires superhuman powers. On his way home he performs miraculous feats of strength, such as picking up rocks and tossing them about. At home he hides the fact of his great strength from his as- sociates and pretends to be meek and submissive as before. After a while, some untoward accident happens, such as an attack by a polar bear. Then the orphan rises to the occa- sion, seizes the bear by the hind legs, and whirling him through the air, smashes his head against a rock. The peo- ple are overcome with gratitude and prepared to do him homage for his valor, but he will have none of it; and usu- ally the story ends by his humiliating them or even putting them all to death. The myth which is most current among the different Es- kimo tribes and plays a conspicuous part in their mythology and religion is the story of Sedna, the goddess of the winds and the sea mammals. Sedna was living with her husband, the dog, until one day, in the absence of the dog, she was kidnapped by a hostile petrel. When the dog returned and found her gone, he started out in pursuit in his kayak ac- companied by Sedna's father. They reached the home of the abductor and, in his absence, recaptured Sedna and started back across the sea. After a while the wind rose, waves began to shake the kayak, threatening to upset it. Then Sedna's father, realizing the approach of the petrel, seizes his daughter and throws her into the sea. She clings to the gunwale with the first joints of her fingers. The father chops them off. The joints fall into the sea and are -transformed into killer whales. She clings on with her sec- ond joints. They also are chopped off and are transformed into ground seals. She clings to the boat with her third joints, which, when chopped off, become transformed into seals. She still clings on with the stumps of her wrists. Then her father hits her on the head with a club. She lets 36 EARLY CIVILIZATION go of the boat, sinks and drowns. The father and the dog reach the shore safely, and the old man falls asleep on the beach in front of his tent. Then the sea rises and over- whelms him. Since then, Sedna lives at the bottom of the sea, with her father. Sedna, the great goddess, is believed to be in control of the sea-mammals as well as of the weather; and when angered she shows her ire by sending storms and famine. Many versions of the Sedna myth occur among the dif- ferent Eskimo tribes. Next to Sedna the most important beings of Eskimo cos- mology are the inua, supernatural creatures who may be- come the helpers and protectors of man. Then they are known as tornaq. While most men can thus acquire tornaq, the ones that are most favored by the supernatural helpers are the angakut or magicians. The three most powerful tornaq are conceived as a person, a bear and a stone. The human tornaq is a woman with one eye in the middle of her forehead. Another human tornaq that is deemed very powerful is the so-called "Master of the Dancing House" ; this creature is shaped like a bandy-legged man with his knees bent outward and forward. The bear tornaq is a huge creature without hair, except on the points of the ears and of the tail and about the mouth. The stone tornaq is shaped somewhat like an irregular boulder, has no legs, but goes about wobbling on the ground. The tornaq are in the habit of bestowing presents upon their favorites in the form of amulets, which bring to their owners various forms of good fortune. Some of these amu- lets may also be inherited from individual to individual. Among the most common amulets are a feather of an owl, a bear's tooth, a chip of some rare mineral, or a bit of a child's first garment. Great snow structures, the so-called singing or dancing houses, are built to some of the more important tornaq; in these houses ceremonies are per- formed. The arrangement of the ceremonial participants in one of the singing houses can be seen from the drawing. THE ESKIMO 37 IMM LAM* O MARRItO WOMEN -a c = o J2 W h o t> M Q M -o p TO 1^ T 3 .3 '5 1 O n! EK C t + + c, Ci c II D " " 4 ~d* -\-. d t + e, * e* i i* Q .1 i- + 7, * /* i-/ FIG. 52 For simplicity it is assumed here that each phratry, comprises only three clans. The diagram shows that the classes and clans intersect. Each class contains sections of all three clans and each clan comprises members of both classes. Thus a = ai (class A) + a 2 (class B), d = di (class C) + d 2 (class D), and so on; and Class A = Class C = and so on. (clan a) + b\ (clan b), + Ci (clan c) (clan d) + * (clan e), -f A (clan /) 256 EARLY CIVILIZATION three each!), the grouping of the clans into phratries is not the same. Three further kinds of grouping are to be considered. They are of a different order from the preceding insofar as the limits of these groups cannot be fixed with the pre- cision attainable in the case of the family or those of the clan, the gens, the local group or even a set of relatives united by blood bonds. These groupings are based on age, generation and sex. In all primitive societies age is an important factor, in some it stands out very prominently. Generally speaking, the following rough classifications of individuals obtains practically everywhere. First come the infants or babies, who are important enough in their immediate families and in their relation to their mothers, but count for little, often for next to nothing, as members of the community. Espe- cially before a name is ceremonially bestowed upon an infant, it is in many primitive groups practically outside the society. Its life counts for naught and its death is of little conse- quence. The next class is that of children. These count in many ways. They are subject to instruction in the affairs of the household, in the arts and crafts, the accomplishments of the hunt and the gathering of the products of wild nature. During this period, the child usually begins to participate in some at least of the ceremonial activities of the group. It is in general characteristic of primitive conditions that relatively young children, say of the age of eight or nine, have already absorbed most of the fundamental industrial accomplishments, a great deal of the ethics and much of the traditional lore of the group. The next class is that of young men and women, just before and through the period of puberty. At this time the girls become full-fledged active members of the household, while the boys may excel in the arts of the chase and of war and are emphatically subject to the political and religious teachings emanating from the old men, the chiefs and the medicine-men. At this time, also, the important initiatory ceremonies are performed, wher- SOCIETY 257 ever they are present, ushering the young people and this applies more universally to men than to women into at least the early stages of the ceremonial cycles of religious or secret societies. The class above this is that of mature men and women. They are full-fledged members of the group, participating in all industrial, religious, social, mili- tary and educational activities and forming the backbone of family life. The last and in some respects most influential group is that of old men and, in some communities, also old women. While these take a less active part in the everyday activities, their leadership in ceremonial and political mat- ters is pronounced and they do everywhere constitute the great depositories of tradition, figuring as the mouthpiece, as it were, of the conservative status quo. They know the past, in fact they know all there is to be known, and they see to it that this knowledge is passed on without much loss as well as without much addition. They are the great sta- bilizing fly-wheel of the civilizational mechanism. 1 The rigidity with which these age classes are separated and this separation is of course always flexible to a degree varies among different tribes. Thus the old men are not by any means everywhere as influential, in fact all-powerful, as they are in Australia, nor are the infants always so unim- portant and negligible as they seem to be among some of the Melanesian tribes. 2 'The role of the "fathers" in the conflict of Ac generations has been well brought out in the works of Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons, who has dealt with this topic in a great many articles as well as in most of her books. Cf., for example, "The Old Fashioned Woman" and "Fear and Conventionality." Cf. also pp. 402-403. 2 The exaggerated prestige of old age is one of the differentia of primitive civilization. While the life wisdom, sophistication and balanced outlook that come with ripening years continue to command their share of respect even in modern society, the prestige of old age has been shaken by the growing artificialities in the acquisition of knowledge and the ever-increas- ing demands which participation in social life makes upon the energy and vigor of its carriers. In a young, boisterous and hurried community, like that of the United States, age at times appears as being definitely outclassed, so that in many industrial and, not without regret be it said, educational and academic positions, young men receive decisive preference. In family life, also, the prestige of the highest age group is visibly on the decline. It is curious to note that in villages and on farms, where life approaches in certain respects that of more primitive communities, the prerogatives of old age at once reassert themselves. 2 5 8 EARLY CIVILIZATION The principle of generation never appears with any great distinctness, but it might be described somewhat as follows : from the standpoint of the middle-aged men and women, they themselves represent the present generation, below this is the generation of the children, and below this, that of the grandchildren. Above the present generation is that of the mothers and fathers, and above this, that of the grand- parents. This rough classification of the generations is especially noticeable in the study of relationships, where terms are often used to cover individuals of one or both sexes belonging to one generation. It has also been ob- served that the memory of informants in ethnological field work runs most naturally along generation lines. In obtaining information on the basis of genealogies, for ex- ample, it is usually preferable to first group the questions around individuals who belong to 1 - the same generation rather than to begin by following up each line of descent, upward and downward, to the limits of the informant's memory. This principle obtains to a degree also in modern society. Men and women of the same generation share certain ele- ments of knowledge, habit and attitude which create a bond and vaguely separate them from preceding and suc- ceeding generations. The one remaining grouping is that on the basis of sex. While this principle of classification has often been exag- gerated by Schurtz, for example, who builds upon it his entire theory of social organization it is undeniable that the sex division gives rise to a set of formal and functional divisions in society, and that this is on the whole more emphatically true of primitive than of modern com- munities, although certain forms of discrimination against women, in particular, are characteristic of later rather than of earliest civilizations. It might prove of interest to discuss this aspect of the subject under the heading of the disabilities of women. SOCIETY 259 The Disabilities of Women It must have appeared from the foregoing discussion that with reference to the primary economic pursuits, a division of labor between men and women is practically universal. The division persists in the wider domain of economic life and industry, except that here the line is less sharply drawn. The case of the Iroquois will be recalled, where the making of clearings in the woods in preparation for agriculture, is largely the work of men, while the agricultural activities themselves fall wholly to the share of women. The erec- tion of the bark houses, again, is a task in which the sexes cooperate. Among the tribes of the Plains, women tan the buffalo hides, make the tents, as well as erect and raise them when camp is made and broken. The preparation of cloth- ing, whether by sewing or otherwise, is throughout North America in the hands of women, while men are, without exception, the wood workers and carvers of the Northwest Coast, and elsewhere in North America where wood industry occurs. That wood work is a man's art can, in fact, be stated as a general principle, for it applies everywhere in primitive society where there is work in wood. Women are the basket makers of California and of the Plateau tribes and the potters of the Southwest. In Negro Africa as well as in India, wherever pots are fashioned by hand, the potters are generally, although not invariably, women. But in both these areas there are certain districts where pots are turned on the wheel; and here men are the potters. Again, it is commonly, although not uniformly, true that early agriculture is in the hands of women, and that this important series of activities passes into the domain of men only after the introduction of domesticated animals as helpmates in agriculture. From the above presentation, which might be further ex- tended, the economic division of labor in early society seems fairly equitable. It would, however, be an error to con- clude that in primitive economy there is no woman's dis- 26o EARLY CIVILIZATION ability. An inspection of the important domain of prop- erty ownership would promptly dispel all such illusions. There are, without question, instances where the economic prerogatives of women are wholly on a par with those of men. Of this the American Iroquois and Zufii and the Khasi of Assam may serve as examples. But these are exceptions. It has been pointed out that among many primitive tribes descent of group membership follows the mother. But inheritance of property is not always pat- terned after the descent of group membership ; in Australia, for example, the general rule is that proprietary rights, including such features as ceremonial prerogatives, are in- herited in the paternal line, without regard to whether de- scent is through the father or the mother. Again, on the Northwest Coast of America there is both maternal descent and maternal inheritance of property and privileges, but much of the material and spiritual property thus passed on through the women, is not actually utilized or controlled by them, this right falling to the mother's brother or to some other maternal relative. This androcentric trend of property and proprietary pre- rogatives, a trend only less characteristic of the present than it was of the past, has played an important part in history and pre-history. Everywhere and always, it has reflected as well as enhanced that systematic disenfranchisement of woman which constitutes one of the least pleasing aspects of human civilization.. In art, the division of labor between men and women prevails everywhere. As the plastic arts are in their origin and development closely related to industry, it is to be ex- pected that the artistic embellishment of objects would fall to the lot of their makers. This is actually the case. Thus, among the Eskimo and the tribes of Northeastern Siberia, women are responsible for the relatively simple decorations in embroidery and applique on the fur garments, which they also cut and sew, while the men do all the carving and etching on bone for which these arctic tribes are noted. The SOCIETY 261 elaborate wood industry of the tribes of British Columbia and Southern Alaska is entirely in the control of >men, in- cluding the intricate and in part highly finished carvings and paintings on totem poles and memorial columns, boxes, spoons and canoes. The famous blankets are, of course, woven by women, but in this case all aesthetic activities are so thoroughly swayed by the man-made art, that the highly conventionalized designs woven into the blankets are easily discerned to be but slavish reproductions of patterns bor- rowed from the wood technique, which are painted by men on wooden boards and copied by the women weavers. The decorative patterns of Californian baskets and Pu- eblo pots are altogether the product of woman's imagina- tion and skill. In the Plains, the embroidery in porcupine quill or beads on garments, moccasins, bags and sheaths, is always made by women, who also tan the skins, design and cut the patterns, and sew them together into various ar- ticles of wear and use. A point of interest in this connec- tion is that the symbolism of the moccasin designs is often suggested by a man who asks a woman to make him a pair, but the design itself is originated and carried out by the woman. The paintings on the tents and shields of this area are made by men, but the style of these semi-decorative, semi-pictographic productions is entirely different from the art of women. There is a marked tendency toward realism and an almost complete absence of the highly characteristic geometrical designs of the woman-made articles. Among the Iroquois, men execute the rather crude, mildly realistic carvings in wood or bone with which they adorn their houses, some household utensils and ceremonial ar- ticles. Men also make the wampum belts with their sym- bolic figures carried out in colored wampum beads. Men, finally, carve and paint the False Face masks, grotesque distortions of the human countenance, with a style all their own. Woman's art among these people is of a totally dif- ferent order. It consists of embroidery in wampum or glass beads, on shirts, skirts and moccasins. The patterns used 262 EARLY CIVILIZATION in this embroidery are taken exclusively from the plant kingdom, and represent flowers and leaves in different stages of development, in a style which combines distinct features of conventionalization with suggestive touches of realism. The conditions thus found prevailing in North America are equally typical of the art life of other primitive areas. In Melanesia and Polynesia, for example, the elaborate work in wood, shell and stone is carried out by men artists, while the manufacture and decoration of tapa, the famous Polynesian bark cloth, is an industry monopolized by women. In early art, therefore, there is no woman's disability. In religion woman is scarcely anywhere on a level of equality with man. It is true that some religious customs, such as the cult of the guardian spirit in North America, apply to women and men alike. Even here, however, there is some difference: as one examines tribe after tribe, the supernatural experiences seem to apply more regularly to men than they do to women; in other instances the cult is less elaborate when applied to women; in still others, the experiences of women are patently copied after those of men, as is the case, for example, among the Iroquois, as well as among some of the Salish speaking tribes of the interior of British Columbia. Religious societies are known to occur in North America to which only women are ad- mitted, but these are rare. All in all, participation in these semi-esoteric brotherhoods is distinctly a man's privilege. This applies equally to the Pueblo and the Plains, the Wood- land and the Northwest. Again, while medicine-women are not unknown among the Indians, the magic healers as well as the shamans of the northern continent are almost invariably men. What is generally true in North America applies with almost unfailing rigor in Melanesia and Australia. The secret societies of Melanesia are men's societies, and the ceremonial edifices in which these organizations hold their sessions and performances are "Men\ Houses." The SOCIETY 263 priests, who are important personages in Melanesia, are also men, never women. With reference to Australia, it was shown before that the power to work magic was not re- stricted to men; but apart from that, the religious disabilities of women are pronounced. In Central Australia, every wo- man owns her sacred slab or churinga, but she may never see it; even the spot where the churinga are hidden is supposed to remain unknown to the women. The entire cycle of to- temic ceremonies, which constitute the very crucible of the religio-ceremonial life of these natives, is taboo to the wo- men. Not only may they not participate, but they are for- bidden even to witness the performances. The only public ceremonies to which women are admitted are the rites of ini- tiation and some of the funeral rituals. The initiation cere- monies mark the passing of the young boys from the control of women, and it is here that the initiates are first told by the old men of some of those secrets the women are never to know, such as the real identity of Twanyirika, the mysterious spirit that is supposed to emit the weird sounds accompany- ing these ceremonies. Henceforth the boys are aware that the sounds are produced by a bull-roarer whirled about by an old man hidden in the bush, and by and by some of them learn to do it themselves. On some islands of the Malay Archipelago, as well as in Negro Africa, the participation of women in religious life is more pronounced, especially in the capacities of mediums and of priestesses, but here also their prerogatives are far from attaining a common level with those of men. It would, of course, be absurd to assert that woman is excluded from religious life. The limitation of her partici- pation falls in the domains of privileges, of official repre- sentation, as well as of creativeness, such as is manifested in the rationalizing activities of priests and the visions of prophets, the originators of new religions. Women's pas- sive part in religion was at all times at least equal to that of man; and if pre-history is to be judged by history, her role as 264 EARLY CIVILIZATION a recipient and tool of religion must have always been pro- nounced, perhaps more so than that of man. The most categorical of woman's disabilities in early soci- ety are the political ones. In social life, the economic im- portance of primitive woman ever tends to raise her to a level of approximate equality with man. She is, for ex- ample, the mistress of the home, where her activities in the capacity of housekeeper, mother, nurse and wife are indis- pensable. The home is thus not only woman's place but her kingdom; the validity of this dictum, moreover, ante- dates the very existence of a home in any but a metaphorical sense. Apart from a few highly exceptional cases, women are never chiefs in North America, and the same is true of the tribes of Northeastern Siberia. In Australia the arbiters of the fates of the young are always the old men, never the old women. The powerful chiefs of Polynesia are males, and so are the relatively in- significant chiefs of Melanesia. In Africa the situation is somewhat different. As was shown before, the king is here associated with two queens, his mother and his sister, personages of great prestige and considerable actual power. A woman, however, can never become the supreme ruler of the state, nor does the fact that some women become queens, in any way represent the political status of African women. In all matters pertaining to political office and functions, their disenfranchisement is tomplete, even as was that of European women under Queen Elizabeth, Catherine II, or Maria Theresa. The ministers serving an African king are always men, and so are all public officials down to the pettiest chief. 1 'The impatient why? aroused by this enumeration of woman's disabili- ties cannot be answered here. It may be noted, however, that the basic politico-economic disenfranchisement of woman goes back, in the main, to a more primary fact, namely the monopolization by man of the weapons and acts of war. Thus the tragedy of woman symbolizes, in the last in- stance, the enslavement of the powers of peace by the powers of war. CHAPTER XIII SOCIETY (Continued) THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY (Continued) In looking back upon the impressive array of social forms passed in review in the preceding chapter, one fact stands out with great clearness: society has seized upon a large number, if not all possible, kinds of relation, spacial, temporal and organic, of man to nature and of man to man; and on the basis of these relations, social divisions hake grown up. First, there is the spacial relation, the territory occupied by the group. This is the foundation of local groups, villages, towns, tribal territories and states. Then there is the organic relation, which appears in two forms, actual blood relationship and assumed or fictitious blood relationship. Actual blood relationship is repre- sented in the ties connecting children with their parents in a family, 1 or the members of an Iroquoian maternal family, or the individuals comprised in one of those loose groups covered by a system of relationship. Fictitious or assumed blood relationship is represented in such groups as the clan, the gens, the dual .division (in many instances) and the Australian classes and sub-classes. Then there is the group- ing based on sex. And finally come the two forms of tem- poral relation of man to man, as comprised in the principles of age and generation. Now, the units based on these different principles all per- form multifarious functions in society. In fact, the civili- zational status of a social division is no more and no less than the sum total of its functional relations to society. As aforesaid, a social unit is what it does. For this reason 'Of course, it must be remembered, as noted before, that only the rela- tion of parents to children and vice versa, is strictly organic or biological. The relation of the parents to each other, on the other hand, unless they happen to be blood relatives, is a reciprocal functional relationship, such as is implied in the sex tie and the correlated psychological attitudes. 265 266 EARLY CIVILIZATION it has often been felt that it would be both scientifically justifiable and most convenient if social units could be de- fined by their functions. This, unfortunately, cannot be done, for the simple reason that the functions of the differ- ent social units constantly overlap. In fact, some functions occur in connection with all of the social units enumerated. Such, for example, are ceremonial rites. Economic func- tions are exercised by families, clans or gentes, local groups, sex groups. Political functions may be exercised by fam- ilies, clans, phratries, tribes or groups of tribes. And so it goes, throughout the entire line of possible social functions. Thus, not only must the idea of terminological differentia- tion between social units, based on functional distinctions, be given up except in specific instances and places, but it also be- comes clear that in their civilizational status the different kinds of social units may often be equivalent to one another. A clan in one tribe may stand for what a family represents in another, a local group here may mean the same that a phratry or dual division stands for there, a tribe or group of tribes may function in one place as a clan or a village or an age group function in another. One must be warned, therefore, against accepting this analytical presentation of social units too pedantically, as it were, for the lines of demarcation between the different units are not by any means always distinct, either when identical units are com- pared in different tribes or even when different units in one and the same tribe are juxtaposed. The analytical dis- tinctions introduced are nevertheless of the greatest sig- nificance, insofar as they aid to present the principal forms of social units and insofar, also, as they disclose the basic natural roots of social structure. This does not complete the survey of social units, for in all primitive society there are discernible still other groups which, in distinction from those enumerated above, are purely functional. Among these groups those based on industrial lines may be mentioned first. It is, of course, true that in early times SOCIETY 267 industrial specialization was relatively inconspicuous, that each family resembled every other family in its industrial functioning, and that a large number of the individuals of a tribe could and did perform the same economic functions. This view, however, constitutes but an approximation of the truth, and is mainly valuable when a contrast is drawn be- tween modern and primitive conditions. For industrial spe- cialization is old indeed. Thus, one finds that in communi- ties like the Haida and Tlingit, where all men pass as wood workers, or like the Zufii and Hopi, where all women can qualify as pot makers, or like the Maidu, where the same may be said of the women basket workers, there is notice- able a distinction between those who are but average work- ers and those who have become experts, and to that extent there is an incipient specialization of an industrial group, over and above the sex specialization. Even in the much cruder industrial conditions of Australia, the specialization of the men of certain localities in the manufacture of one or another weapon, has been noted. In certain Australian tribes the messengers 1 constitute a class by themselves. In more advanced communities, such as the Negroes of Africa or the Polynesians, industrial differentiation has proceeded much further. Among many of the Bantu speaking Negro tribes, the agriculturists and the herdsmen are separated into veritable classes of society. There also one finds the salt diggers, the ironsmiths and the silversmiths and the mer- chants. In Polynesia, the boat makers constitute an ancient and honored class. Another type of functional grouping is represented by the various kinds of societies or associations, religious, military, medicinal. Such societies are widely distributed in the primi- tive world. They thrive in northern Melanesia, in West Africa, among the Indians of Brazil, and in a number of wide tribal areas in North America. The societies may be purely male or purely female or mixed. Admission to membership may be based on age, guardian spirit initiation 'See p. 277. 268 EARLY CIVILIZATION or payment by an individual or a group of individuals. The functions of the societies may be purely religious and ceremonial, which is most frequently the case, or medicinal in addition, as for example, among the Iroquois and the Zuni, or military, as in certain well known Plains organi- zations, or juridical, as in Melanesia and West Africa. But what is characteristic of all of these instances is that the bond between the members of a society remains a purely functional one; remove the common functions, and the or- ganization based upon these must also disappear. 1 Still other groups are based on the principles of birth and inheritance of privileges, and birth and occupation. An illustration of the birth and privilege grouping is found on the Northwest Coast, where the hereditary prerogative of chieftainship, with all its accruing distinctions, belongs to the class of nobles. The same is true of many groups in Polynesia. The reverse situation is found in the case of slaves. This institution is a much more widespread phenom- enon in primitive society than has often been supposed, for it is common in Polynesia, Africa and North America. Bar- ring those instances where a slave or a descendant of a slave may pass into another social class, a man born a slave dies a slave, and with this status there go the inevitable restrictions in social participation. The best known instance of the birth and occupation prin- ciple are the Indian castes, where different occupational groupings have become hereditary, and with this occupa- tional status there go the well known privileges and restric- tions, social, ceremonial, matrimonial. Caste-like traits are also observed, for example, in the Baganda gentes, with their hereditary specialization in different industrial pur- suits. In connection with hereditary or acquired privileges, the principle of rank makes its appearance. 2 Rank may be 'For a much more extended treatment of societies, the reader is referred to Dr. Lowie's "Primitive Society," Chapter X, "Associations." 'Here the reader is once more referred to Lowie's "Primitive Society," Chapter XII, "Rank." SOCIETY 269 static, as when different social classes are firmly fixed by birth and are kept apart with greater or less stringency. Rank may also be dynamic as, for example, in the graded societies of the American Plains or of Mota (one of the Banks Islands). Again, riches although perhaps without all of the strictly economic connotations of the modern idea may be- come the mark of a group with somewhat fluctuating out- lines, as is so commonly the case among the Bantu speaking herd owners of Africa and the reindeer breeding Chuk- chee, Koryak, or Tungus, of Northeastern Siberia. In comparing these purely functional groupings of society with those based on spacial, temporal or organic factors, one may distinguish the two by designating the latter as groups of status, the former as groups of function. The groups of status are based on principles which flow directly from certain relations that obtain between man and Nature and man and man, and imply civilization only in a most gen- eral sense, the psychological proclivity of mankind to form groups on the basis of such lines of cleavage always being taken for granted. The groups of function, on the other hand, emphatically presuppose civilization, as these func- tions are really the dynamic aspects of civilization, and the groupings are built up into social units on the basis of com- mon functional preoccupations. In the concrete life of a tribe these distinctions between the two kinds of groupings are not by any means always marked. A clan that exercises a ceremonial function like that of a religious society in the same or in another tribe, is to that extent equivalent to that religious society. A family or local group which specializes in an industrial pursuit is equivalent to a corresponding industrial group in another tribe, the only bond of union of whose members is that of their industrial occupation. The blurring of the distinction between the groups of status and those of func- tion is, moreover, precipitated by the fact that both kinds of groups tend to assume new functions, or, it may be, lose 270 EARLY CIVILIZATION some of the old ones. However that may be, the comparison of the two kinds of groups reveals an important sociological principle. It is this : social divisions of whatever proveni- ence ever tend to exercise cultural functions and to assume new ones; functions, on the other hand, ever tend to attach themselves to pre-existing social units or to create new ones. In concluding this survey of social units and their func- tions, it must also be noted that a member of a primitive tribe is usually subject to the simultaneous control of a con- siderable number of such units. He is a family man and a clansman, a member of a local group and of one or more grades of a society or of several societies; he functions as part of an age, sex, generation and relationship group, and he may also share in the privileges and obligations of an in- dustrial or a hereditary rank group. Thus the intellectual and emotional participation of an individual becomes highly complex. On the general background of the mental disposi- tion of early society, these multifarious participations carry with them much that is characteristic of the behavior, the emotional attitude and the intellectual outlook of early man. 1 POLITICAL ORGANIZATION In a sense, political organization is one phase of social organization. But there are historical as well as socio- psychological reasons for making a distinction, and in the history of the subject such a distinction has usually been made. Political organization proceeds from a tribe to intertribal relations and to the integration of tribes into higher political units. Social organization proceeds from a tribe or nation to the social subdivisions comprised in it. Speaking in general terms, political organization tends toward integration, social organization toward differen- tiation. 2 l Cf. pp. 414-415. It is not implied that this distinction is inherent and inevitable. Certain recent tendencies may serve as proof of the opposite. It is true that political integration still continues in the form of imperialistic expansion, alliances, SOCIETY 271 We have discussed the League of the Iroquois, as a high type of American tribal federation, and the state of the Baganda, as an example of African political integration. There remain many further problems of primitive politics which, for lack of space, can only be indicated here. The general political democracy of America and the prevailing limitation of the power of chiefs; the striking similarities of African states to those of ancient Asia and Europe, their growth by conquest and consequent territorial expansion, their dependence on edicts, roads, tribute, taxes and "graft" ; the three types of states in Africa: the bureaucratic (Ba- ganda), the type characterized by a religio-ceremonial exal- tation of the king (Dahomey), and the military state (Zulu Kaffirs) ; the slight development of chieftainship and of political unity and control in Melanesia, where secret soci- eties take over much of what in other places is the business of the state; the military chieftains of Polynesia, with their curiously exaggerated power of the imposition of taboo and their retinue of genealogising priests all of these and many other interesting phases of the subject must be passed over in silence. But before leaving the topic of political organization, we must supplement the two sketches of relatively higher or- ganized political systems by a few remarks on the political organization of the tribes of Southeast Australia. Although politically amorphous, these tribes do not fail to present in- teresting illustrations of individual influence and promi- nence. Among the Dieri, the oldest man of a totem is a pinnaru or headman. While he may occupy this position by dint of his age alone, he will not become the headman of a local division, embracing sections of many clans, or of a tribe, and international tendencies, and that such minor group* as families or local communities still are and always will remain the basic elements of social organization. On the other hand, there is a marked tendency toward political differentiation in such principles as national self-deterrninatioa and local autonomy, while elements of social organization, such as industries, societies, clubs and churches, display equally conspicuous leanings toward international expansion and integration. 272 EARLY CIVILIZATION unless he has achieved distinction as a fighting man, or medi- cine-man or orator. The headmen of a tribe, in a body, are the seat of political power. Thus, while age alone is insufficient claim for supreme political prestige, it does count for a great deal, as is seen, for example, in the case of the Yaurorka headman cited by Howitt, who was almost childish from old age and had to be carried about, but whose prestige remained unshaken. Together with the headmen, the old men in their leisure hours instructed the young men in the laws of the tribe and in the proprieties of conduct; and the old women instructed the young girls. The prominence to which some of these headmen attain among their people is illustrated by the following quotation from Howitt, whose statement is based on the observations of S. Gason, an officer of the South Australian Mounted Police, and refers to Jalina-piramurana, who, in the early sixties was the head of the Kunaura totem and the recog- nized leader of the Dieri tribe : "He has described him to me as a man of persuasive eloquence, a skilful and brave fighting-man, and a powerful medicine-man. From his polished manner the whites called him 'the Frenchman.' He was greatly feared by his own and the neighboring tribes. Neither his brothers (both of them inferior to him in bravery and oratorical power) nor the elder men presumed to interfere with his will, or to dictate to the tribe, except in minor matters. He decided disputes, and his decisions were received without appeal. The neighboring tribes sent messengers to him with presents of bags, Pitcheri, red ochre, skins, and other things. He decided when and where the tribal ceremonies were to be held, and his messengers called together the tribe from a radius of a hundred miles to attend them, or to meet on inter-tribal matters. "His wonderful oratorical powers made his hearers be- lieve anything he told them, and always ready to execute his commands. He was not by nature cruel or treacherous, as were many of the Dieri, and when not excited was con- SOCIETY 273 siderate, patient, and very hospitable. No one spoke ill of Jalina-piramurana, but on the contrary, with respect and reverence. This is understood when Mr. Gason adds that he distributed the presents sent to him amongst his friends to prevent jealousy. He used to interfere to pre- vent fights, even chastising the offender, and being some- times wounded in so doing. On such an occasion there would be great lamentation, and the person who had wounded him was not infrequently beaten by the others. "As the superior Headman of the Dieri, he presided at the meetings of the Pinnarus, sent out messengers to the neighboring tribes, and even had the power of giving away young women, not related to him, in marriage, of separating men from their wives, when they could not agree, and of making fresh matrimonial arrangements. "He periodically visited the various hordes of the Dieri tribe, from which he also periodically received presents. Tribes even at a distance of a hundred miles sent him pres- ents, which were passed on to him from tribe to tribe. "He was one of their great Kunkis or medicine-men, but would only practise his art on persons of note, such as heads of totems or his personal friends. "He was the son of a previous Headman, who was living during Mr. Gason's residence in the country, and who, al- though too infirm to join in the ceremonies, gave advice to the old men. He boasted that he had the command of the tribe before his son acquired it. He was believed to be proof against magical practices, such as 'striking with the bone.' "Jalina-piramurana had succeeded to and indeed eclipsed his father." 1 Among the Kamilaroi there were two 'or three headmen in each local division of a tribe. Their position depended on the valor of the respective individuals. Headship was not hereditary, but prominent warriors would become lead- ers and their sons were respected, and if deserving, might 'Howitt, "Native Tribes of South-East Australia," pp. 297-299. 274 EARLY CIVILIZATION become leaders in turn. The oldest headman was the chief of the tribal council. His influence was often considerable and on occasion he could carry a measure by his own voice. "When the Headman of a totem died," writes Howitt, all the totemites were called together by the man next in age, and not only the men of the totem, but everyone, men, women, boys and girls "When all were assembled at the appointed place, they formed a ring, the old men with their wives in the front row, the younger men with their wives in the next, and outside were the young men and the girls to look on, but not to take any other part in the proceedings. These were commenced by one of the elders speaking, followed by other men; finally, the sense of the meeting was taken, and then the old men stated who should be the Headman. The choice being thus made, presents were given to the new head by the other Headmen, who had collected things from their people, such as opossum or other skin rugs or weapons." 1 At least among the Kurnai old women shared with the old men the confidence of their people. Such women were often consulted by the men and their authority in the tribe was great. Howitt refers in particular to two Kurnai women whom he knew, who together with the old men were great experts on the tribal legends and customs and the ever-watchful guardians over the stringent marriage rules, which play so important a part in the lives of these tribes. The tribal councils of the Dieri consisted of the heads of local divisions, the medicine-men, the influential old men and the fighting men. From time to time they met in council, the deliberations being held secret; in fact, whosoever was guilty of revealing to an outsider the subject of a council's deliberations, was doomed to die. The usual topics of discussion at councils were death by magic, other forms of murder, breaches of the moral code, especially with refer- l lbid, p. 305- SOCIETY 275 ence to the marriage regulations, and the revealing of coun- cil secrets to women or the uninitiated. As mentioned before, most deaths were ascribed to magic. The punishment for this offence was usually admin- istered by a pinya or avenging party. This procedure is described by Howitt, in the following passage : "... a man with several companions came to a camp near Lake Hope. A man had lately died at Perigundi, from whence they came, and in order that they might be received by the people at Lake Hope, they halted twenty yards from the camp and there gathered the spears and boomerangs that were thrown at them ceremonially by one of the Lake Hope men, they being as usual easily warded off. Then going nearer, they again halted and warded off the weapons thrown, and again moved on, until, being close together, the man from Perigundi and the man from Lake Hope should have taken hold of each other, and sat down together. But the former, not taking heed of the position of the sun and being dazzled by its rays, was unable to ward off the spear thrown at him, which entered his breast, and he died in the night. His companions fled to Perigundi and there formed a Pinya of a number of men, and returned to Lake Hope. The leader of this was a man called Mudla-kupa, who suddenly appearing one evening placed himself before him who had killed the Perigundi man, and seizing his hand announced his sentence of death. An elder brother of this man drew Mudla-kupa to one side, saying, 'Don't seize my Ngatata, 1 nor even me, for see, there sits our Neyi; 1 seize him.' At the same time he threw a clod of earth in the direction in which the man was. Mudla-kupa now turned to him, seized him by the hand, and spoke the death sentence over him, which he received with stoical composure. Mud- la-kupa led him to one side, when the second man of the Pinya came up, and as Mudla-kupa held the man out to him as the accused, he struck him with a maru-wiri 2 and split l Ngatata and Neyi arc relationship terms. *A weapon shaped like a great boomerang, which is used with both hands like a sword. 276 EARLY CIVILIZATION his head open. The whole Pinya then fell upon him with spears and boomerangs. In order that they should not hear how he was being killed, the other men, women, and children in the camp made a great rustling with boughs and broken- off bushes." 1 As the carrying out of a pinya involves considerable risk of life and limb to both parties concerned, the Dieri have elaborated a substitute method of settling the blood debt This method is a peaceful one, consisting of an exchange of articles by barter. Howitt tells of an instance of this sort which occurred after the death of a Lake Hope man in the year 1899. The debt of blood revenge or the initiation of a pinya ex- pedition devolved upon the older brother of the Lake Hope man, who was much feared for his great strength. To avoid bloodshed, the blacks among whom the Lake Hope man had lived sent to his brother a cord known as yut-yunto. This cord, when tied around his neck, authorized him to collect articles for barter with the senders. These articles were secured from his blood relatives in the surrounding country. When a sufficient number were amassed, mes- sengers were sent out, indicating the time and place of the meeting. The recipient of the cord, now called yut-yunto- kana, accompanied by a large following, proceeded to the ap- pointed spot, receiving and sending messengers on the way. The two parties met as if prepared for combat. The men were all armed and painted as if about to carry out a pinya. Behind the armed men were the women, carrying the ar- ticles intended for barter. As the two parties stood facing each other, the yut-yunto-kana danced a war dance. Then the leader of the other party approached him, ceremonially seized the cord around his throat and breaking it, cast it into the fire. Then he addressed him, "How do you come? Do you come in enmity?" "Oh, no," was the response, "I come peacefully." "That being so," said the other, "we will exchange our things in peace." Then they embraced 1 lbid, pp. 327-328. SOCIETY 277 each other and sat down amicably. Meanwhile a war dance was going on, executed by both parties. When the leaders had sat down, the men stopped dancing and gathered behind the two headmen. The women were crouching behind the men, carefully concealing the articles for barter from the eyes of the opposite party. Then an article, a shield or boomerang, was passed to the leader of one of the parties. This article was passed on from the last man to the first, the men all standing in a row, each one passing the object between the legs of the man in front of him, so it could not be seen until produced by the leader, who stood at the head of the line. Having received the article, the leader threw it down between the parties with an air of importance. Then one man from the other side threw on it some article in exchange. Thus the barter continued for some time, until one of the leaders finally asked, "Are you peaceable?" And the reply was, "Yes, we are well satisfied." Each man took the articles he had obtained by barter, and the parties sep- arated in peace. Had the bartering failed in its purpose so that one or both parties had remained dissatisfied, there would have been an argument followed by a regulated com- bat between all men present. In connection with the political organization of these tribes the institution of messengers is of interest. Mes- sengers are used by the headmen, councils, and other groups or individuals to communicate to other individuals, groups, villages or tribes that a ceremony is to be held and when, that a meeting for barter is to take place, that a pinya party is on its way, or that the people are to gather for the purpose of a communal feast. In some tribes messengers are specially selected on each occasion, in others there are definite men in each locality who are known in a wide district as messengers and who are permitted to pass unmolested through the territory of all tribes in that district, even though some of them may be at war with the senders of the messenger. Among the Kamilaroi each clan claimed its own messenger. When 278 EARLY CIVILIZATION messengers are to be sent to a hostile tribe and on other occasions where danger is involved, women are chosen for the commission. If possible, women are selected who have come from the tribe to which they are sent. Such a mis- sion, if successful, is accompanied by a period of license, in which the members of the mission and the local tribesmen participate. No resentment is shown on such occasions on the part of the women of the recipient tribe. The tribe sending the messengers, at least in the case of the Dieri, is equally insistent that this period of license be observed. Should the women shirk this obligation, they do so at the risk of death on their return. What happens upon the re- turn of such a mission of women has been described by Mr. Gason: "The Headman and the principal old men received them kindly, and congratulated them on their safe return, but appeared anxious, and clutched their spears in an excited manner. No one but the Headman spoke to the women immediately on their return; but when all the men were seated, they were questioned as to the result of their mission. The result was at once told to all the people in the camp, who rejoiced if it were favourable, but who became fearfully excited and seemed to lose all control over themselves if it had failed, rushing to and fro, yelling, throwing sand into the air, biting themselves, and brandishing their weapons in the wildest manner imagin- able." 1 Among the Dieri, a messenger announcing a pinya wears a net on his head with a white band around it in which a feather is stuck. He is painted with yellow ochre and pipe clay and in the string girdle, at the point of his spine, a bunch of emu feathers is stuck. With him he carries part of the beard of the deceased or some balls of pipe clay taken from the heads of the mourners. A messenger announcing a death is smeared all over with pipe clay. On his approach there is a great ceremonial dis- play of grief on the part of the women. After the par- , p. 683. SOCIETY 279 ticulars of the death have been made public to the camp, only the close relatives of the deceased weep. On the fol- lowing morning they paint themselves all over with white pipe clay. Until this clay has worn off, widows and widow- ers are prohibited from speaking. They do not rub off the clay but permit it to wear off by itself and during this period they communicate with others in gesture language. The messengers often carry messenger sticks, which are crude slabs of wood with notches cut in them to assist the messenger in remembering his message. Howitt, for ex- ample, refers to a communication from one of his inform- ants, who in 1840 saw two young men of the Ngarigo tribe, one of whom was carrying two peeled sticks, each about two feet long, with notches cut into them. They were sent to the different branches of their tribe to announce a gathering on the Australian Alps. These gatherings took place about mid-summer on the highest ranges of the mountains, where as many as five to seven hundred natives often congregated in order to feast on roasted moths. The moths, great quantities of which filled the crevices of the rocks, were first stifled with smouldering brush. Then they were roasted on hot ashes, whereupon they shrivelled to about the size of a grain of wheat. Then they were eaten. THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL FORMS In the study of industries and art, certain geographical features appear with great clearness. These features are less readily discernible in a survey of religious phenomena, on account of the greater illusiveness of the religious con- tent. In social organization the facts of distribution are once more clear cut and convincing. Certain forms of social organization are ubiquitous; others are distributed in wide areas, more or less continuous; still others repre- sent purely local variants. 280 EARLY CIVILIZATION The local group, the family, the relationship group, some differentiations on the basis of sex, age and generation all of these are found everywhere, and it is not devoid of interest to note once more that the universality of these social forms extends also to modern society. The emphasis, however, is changed: in our own civilization the family and the local group are more conspicuously developed, whereas in primitive society the relationship group and the differentiations on the basis of sex, age and generation are pre-eminent. The sort of social organization usually designated as the family-village grouping meaning by this that clans, gentes, phratries and the like are absent and the family and local group alone are found is decidedly restricted in its dis- tribution. In North America, for example, a line drawn from Greenland to the coast of southern California would roughly divide the continent into two triangles, the north- western being characterized by the family-village system, barring only the tribes of the Northwest Coast, the south- eastern, by the clan and gentile systems. In Africa, the more primitive tribes, such as the Hottentot and the Bush- men of the southern extremity of the continent and perhaps some of the Pygmy tribes in the great forests of the upper Congo, are organized on this basis of local group and family. In Australia, some relatively non-numerous tribes along the southern, southeastern and western coasts have the same type of organization. The clan and gentile systems, while not as restricted in their distribution as the family-village type, are not found everywhere, as appears from what was said in the preceding paragraph. In addition to the areas in North America where clans and gentes prevail, and equally large although at present not as clearly defined areas in South America, gentes are widely distributed in the whole of Africa between the desert of Sahara in the North and that of Kalahari in the Souih, while clans occur here and there within this area. In Australia alone are clans and gentes wellnigh universal, SOCIETY 281 barring only the relatively few tribes noted above as having the family-village system. Some other forms are much more restricted in their distribution. The Australian classes and sub-classes are not found anywhere else. The maternal family seems to occur only among the Iroquois, with the possible addition of one or two other tribes. Dual divisions are present in a large number of areas in North America, in the whole of Australia and in part of Melanesia, but are wholly absent in Africa and India. Now, as soon as any functional specifications are added to these purely formal divisions, the area of distribution of each becomes more and more restricted. The clans of the Northwest Coast are not those of the Crow nor those of the Iroquois. The dual divisions of the latter are not those of the Omaha, nor those of the Tlingit and Haida, and all of these are markedly different from the dual divi- sions of Australia. Magical totemic ceremonies are an ex- clusive functional peculiarity of the gentes of the Aranda. Differentiation in the ways of cutting the hair of boys is peculiar to the gentes of the Omaha. Definite association of families with hunting territories is apparently nowhere as clearly developed as it is among some of the eastern Algonquin tribes. And so on, throughout the entire line of social divisions in their functional capacity. Recent studies of relationship systems show a similar differentiation from locality to locality. Again, in political organization, the geographical factor is definitely recognizable. First come the characteristics of wide continental areas, such as the presence of federated tribes and the slight development of chieftainship, in Amer- ica ; the centralized state and the high status of the king, in Africa ; the relative vagueness of the political unit combined with the great prominence of the old men, in Australia. Within these wider geographical districts further subdivi- sions are discernible. In North America, a comparison of those groups characterized by relatively high political or- 282 EARLY CIVILIZATION ganization, such as the Zufii, the Dakota, the Iroquois, dis- closes differences of structure and function. In Africa, the political organization of the Yoruba differs from that of the Herrero or the Zulu or the Masai or the Baganda, and these differ among themselves. It will be seen, then, that certain forms of social organi- zation belong to the common-human. Their distribution is universal ; their congeniality to human society is such that no amount of historic caprice seems able to dislodge them. Other forms of social and political organization are widely distributed but are not by any means universal. While these forms must also be regarded as singularly well adapted to the purposes they fulfill, their uniform distribution in certain areas and their absence from others, strongly sug- gest the importance of diffusion through historic contact as an explanatory factor. More specialized forms of social units and the functional differentiations between correspond- ing units in different tribes have as a rule a limited distribu- tion, while the more minute peculiarities are restricted to single groups. Here there can be only one interpretation: just as variants of industry, of art, of religion, arise in par- ticular localities, so also does social organization become changed in minor details under the specialized conditions of individual tribes and local groups. Some of these spe- cialized developments prove congenial to an ever widening circle of neighbors, and the new form or function may thus reach a wide distribution; other specialized developments remain characteristic of a narrow area or even of an indi- vidual tribe. The principles laid down in the "Reflections to Part I" are thus once more vindicated. TOTEMISM Few primitive institutions have aroused such general in- terest as has totemism, few have provoked so many theories SOCIETY 283 and such heated controversies. Spencer, Frazer and An- drew Lang, Rivers and N. W. Thomas, Thurnwald, Graeb- ner and Father Schmidt, van Gennep and Durkheim, Wundt and Freud, all of these and many others have contributed their share to the discussion of this wellnigh inexhaustible subject. What, then, is totemism? What is its nature and its dis- tribution in the primitive world? One speaks of totemism when a tribe comprises a social organization mostly of the clan or gentile pattern, as well as a peculiar form of supernaturalism, consisting in the most typical cases of certain attitudes toward species of animals or plants or classes of natural objects. In totemism the social organization and the supernaturalism are com- bined in a distinctive way presently to be indicated. The geographical distribution of totemic tribes is extra- ordinarily wide. In North America totemism occurs in the Northwest, among such tribes as the Tlingit and Haida; among the Zuni, Hopi and related tribes of the Southwest; among large groups of tribes in the Southeast (Natchez, Creek, etc.), as well as among such Woodland tribes as the Algonquin Delaware and to include an exceedingly attenuated form of totemism among the Iroquois speak- ing tribes of the League. In the Plains, the so-called South- ern Siouan tribes (the Omaha and others) have totemism. Our South American material is still full of gaps, but totemism has been described by Im Thurn in British Guiana, some of the native groups of Brazil certainly are totemic, and it does not seem unlikely that, after further investiga- tion, totemism will be found as prevalent in the southern continent as it is in the North. In Africa the tribes of the Mediterranean littoral must be eliminated as belonging to a distinct cultural layer, nor is totemism found at the ex- treme southern end of the continent, among such tribes as the Bushmen and Hottentot. But in the enormous inter- vening area, among the Bantu and Sudanese speaking Ne- groes, totemism is very general if not universal. Anker- 284 EARLY CIVILIZATION mann's recent presentation, moreover, indicates that further totemic tribes are certain to be discovered in this region. In aboriginal India the more developed forms of totemism do not seem to occur, but many of the gotras or clan-like social groupings of that area have some form of totemism, while others seem to have had it in the past. Australia is the totemic continent par excellence. There all the tribes are totemic with some possible exceptions among the groups of the southeastern and northwestern shores, and even among some of these the evidence for former totemism is not unsatisfactory. Among the islanders of the Torres Straits and in Melanesia totemism is sporadic, but in the latter area it is in some cases highly developed. In Po- lynesia the evidence is doubtful but it is not improbable that some at least of the western island clusters had totem- ism in the past. This enormous geographical distribution of totemism can only be interpreted in one way. An historic accident of singular origin followed by diffusion could not account for it. Totemism must have originated independently several, if not many times, and among those tribes to whom totemism was brought by their neighbors, there must have been a marked receptivity for this institution. In other words, the complex of ideas, attitudes and practices which is totem- ism, is congenial to early mentality and therefore charac- teristic of it. As one analyzes totemic clans or gentes in a broad sur- vey of the globe, a variety of beliefs and practices with reference to totems are observable. The totemites mem- bers of a totemic group trace their descent from an animal or bird or thing, or they regard themselves as in some other way related to the totem; the totem and the totemite share physical and psychic traits; the totem pro- tects the totemite against danger; the totem is represented in art and figures as a sacred symbol at ceremonies; the totem is taboo it may not be eaten or killed or seen or touched, or all of these; the totemic group is named after SOCIETY 285 the totem; ceremonies are performed by the totemites to multiply the supply of the totem animal these are only some of the positive and negative rules observed by totem- ites with reference to their totems. In addition to this it must be noted that the totem is scarcely ever some one animal or plant or thing; no, it is an entire species or class of creatures or things that figure as totems. And, finally, the members of a totemic group may not intermarry this rule is almost as wide as totemism itself. It is, however, not quite satisfactory to thus characterize totemism by a number of features of belief and practice. For, if the question is asked whether these totemic features are found everywhere comprised in totemism or whether some appear in one tribe, others in another, the latter proves to be the case. Discarding the differences between minor totemic dis- tricts, broad continental areas appear clearly differentiable from the standpoint of totemism. In North America the artistic side of totemism is often developed and among the tribes of the Northwest Coast this is highly marked. The totemic name is common but not universal, and the same is true of the totemic taboo. Where totemism is richly de- veloped it becomes associated with the belief in guardian spirits. Then again, there are tribes like the League Iro- quois and many tribes of the Southwest, where the only dis- cernible features are clan exogamy and the animal or bird name of the clan barely enough to justify the designation "totemic," and perhaps scarcely enough. In Africa, the gentile totemic name for here gentes pre- vail is often absent and so are the artistic representations of the totem. Double totems occur, as among the Baganda, where most of the gentes have two totems. The idea of descent from the totem is very rare, instead a variety of stories are told among the different tribes to explain how the totems first made their appearance. But the most typical trait of African totemism is the taboo the prohibition to eat or kill the totemic creature. The term for totem among 286 EARLY CIVILIZATION many Bantu speaking tribes means "that which is for- bidden." The punishment for the transgression of this taboo is severe, the usual conception being that nature it- self takes revenge upon the offender: he (or she) is af- flicted with a skin disease, which is interpreted by the natives as at least a partial transformation of the culprit into the tabooed animal. In Australia the number of totemic groups in a tribe is frequently very large much larger than either in Africa or in North America and the number of individuals in each totemic group is correspondingly small. The totemic clan or gentile name is universal and so is the taboo. The con- ception is common that the totemite and the totem are closely related. The idea that the totemites are in one way or another descended from the totem is general. Totemic art, where it occurs, is peculiar insofar as identical designs are used to represent their totems not only by different totemic groups of one tribe but even by totemic groups belonging to separate tribes. On the other hand, each to- temic group interprets these designs in accordance with its own totemic ideas. In Central Australia individuals of one totem and locality perform magic ceremonies which are be- lieved to bring about the multiplication of the totemic species. This characterization of the three continental areas will suffice for our purpose. It will be seen that what might be called the "totemic complexes" of these areas differ con- siderably in the number as well as in the character of the totemic features they contain. There is further difference in the prominence accorded certain traits. Thus, in Cen- tral Australia the magical aspect predominates, in Africa it is the taboo aspect, in North America the guardian spirit aspect, and specifically on the Northwest Coast the art is the dominant feature. If we cared to push our analysis still further, we might note that the degree to which the culture of different tribes is saturated with totemism is by no means always the same. SOCIETY 287 Thus, among the Northwest tribes almost every side of civi- lization is touched by a totemic flavor, religion and mythol- ogy, social organization, ceremonialism and economics, in- dustry and art; while among the Omaha, material culture seems wholly free from totemic connection, and ceremonial- ism almost entirely so. Here totemism is relegated largely to the religious and mythological domains. In Africa, again, totemism is often little more than a system of food restric- tions. It is, however, possible to overemphasize these differ- ences at the expense of equally fundamental similarities. In the first place, some features are much more common than others. For example : whereas magical ceremonies to mul- tiply totems are performed only in central Australia and totemic art has nowhere developed so prolifically as on the Northwest Coast, other traits occur with fair uniformity in most or all of the major totemic areas. Among such widely diffused totemic attributes are totemic clan or gen- tile names, totemic taboos and the idea of some form of re- lationship with the totem. Nor is this all. Exogamy of the totemic unit is an almost universal trait of totemism. Whether one holds with some that exogamy is of the very essence of totemism, or with others that it is merely a clan or gentile attribute and enters into the totemic relationship secondarily, the fact remains that the prohibition to marry one's totem mate is almost co-extensive with totemism it- self. 1 And now we come to still another trait which is even more characteristic of totemic communities than exogamy; this trait is a negative one: totems are not worshipped. Animal and plant worship and the deification of inanimate Nature, are not totemism. Almost everywhere, in fact, these forms of religion exist side by side with totemism. This brings us to the kernel of the totemic situation. The most distinctive thing about this institution is not the vio- this negative aspect is not all there is to exogamy and that in a particular social system clan or gentile exogamy may be a secondary, not a primary feature, has been explained before (see pp. 249 sg.). 288 EARLY CIVILIZATION lence of the religious regard for the totem that, as just noted, is not discernible but the way totemic ideas and rites are interwoven with a social system. 1 It would be wholly satisfactory to regard this peculiar re- lation of an ideological and behavioristic supernaturalism to a social system as the most distinctive trait of totemism, if not for one circumstance which, at first sight, seems not a little disturbing: our diagram would serve as well to illus- trate a tribal set of religious societies; for here also a tribal pattern of traits appears in a variety of concrete forms. It thus becomes necessary to stress with added emphasis the character of the social skeleton underlying a totemic complex. The skeleton is always a social system. following diagram may serve to illustrate how a totemic complex fits into a social organization: FIG. S3 Here the segments I, II, III, . . . are social units (in totemism generally clans or gentes), while a, b, c and d are totemic features, say taboo (a), nAme (b), relationship (c), and artistic representation (d). Now a+b+c+d is sufficient to characterize the totemic complex, if one notes in addition that in each segment these features appear in somewhat different form (fli, 02, tb, . . ., b\, bt, bz, etc), for each totemic unit has a different animal or bird or plant or thing for its totem, and to that extent its taboo, its rela- tionship, its artistic representation are different in their concrete aspects from the corresponding features in the other totemic units of the complex. SOCIETY 289 It may be a tribal set of families or of local groups, but in a surprisingly large majority of cases it is either a clan or a gentile system. The totemic complex may constitute the very flesh and spirit of that system, but if the totemic com- plex were conceivably removed, the skeleton would remain : there would still be a social system. Thus it appears that neither the socio-psychological na- ture of totemism, nor its geographical distribution, nor its historic role can be understood without a proper appraisal of the underlying social skeleton. This, in a majority of cases, will be found to be a clan or a gentile system, although instances where families or villages appear as carriers of a totemic complex are not unknown. Socio-psychologically this means that there is some delicate correspondence be- tween the supernaturalistic aspect of totemism and clan or gentile systems, some fitness 1 in their inter-relation. Geo- graphically this means that wherever clans or gentes occur, there also totemism is likely to be (although there are excep- tions). And historically this means that whatever elements of primitive life clans and gentes expressed, whatever ele- ments they brought into it, totemism had its share in the pro- cess. For it must be remembered that whereas families and local groups are shared by early and modern civilization, clans and gentes are known to primitive life alone; they are equally foreign to earliest man and to historic man. Before we leave the subject of totemism a further query must be met. Has totemism and all it stands for been left definitely behind? or can certain adumbrations of it be dis- cerned in modern society? It can be shown that neither the supernaturalism involved in totemism nor the peculiar form of socialization implied in it, are wholly foreign to modern life. While plants and inanimate things have long since been relegated to the realm of the matter-of-fact, animals still inhabit a region where fact and fancy are peacefully wedded 'C/. my article, "Form and Content in Totemism" (American Anthropol- ogist, vol. 20, 1918, pp. 280-295). 2 9 o EARLY CIVILIZATION together. As between the animal and its human master, verbal usage reveals a common range of physical and psy- chic qualities. One thinks of the eagle eye, the lionine heart, the dogged perseverence, the bull's neck. Current metaphor, half earnest half in jest, has introduced the fox and the beaver, the bear and the rabbit, the cat and the cow, the hog and the ass, the ape and the shark, as charac- ters of the human scene. Some mothers treat their children with an affection we think ape-like, while others make chil- dren of apes, and of cats, dogs and parrots as well. And it is typical that phychic qualities intellect, affection, understanding, sensitiveness are wont to be ascribed to these creatures by their masters, who, curiously enough, often tend to deny these traits to man. From the days of Lavater's physiognomies to those of Lambrosian criminology, note has been taken of animalistic suggestions in human countenances, and these were bal- anced, perhaps less commonly, by the reading of human features and expressions into the faces of animals. In that inimitable fragment of life, "Marie Claire," unique in its simplicity and directness, Marguerite Audou has given us a rich collection of such observations. To those who love animals, live with them, learn their ways, the temptation to see them as what they are not is wellnigh irresistible. The "true" stories of most "nature fakers" are quite sincere, and the highly imaginative pages of Georgette Leblanc represent but a literary culmination of the opinions about dogs of many women and men. To this must be added the often noted tendency on the part of equivalent social units to adopt as classifiers names, badges, pins, flags, tatoo marks, colors. One thinks of high- school and college classes, baseball and football teams, po- litical parties, the degrees of the Elks and Masons and the regiments of our armies. The names and things that are thus used as classifiers and symbols, habitually rest against a background of emotion. In the case of regimental banners, the emotions aroused SOCIETY 291 may reach great violence, while in the instance of animal and bird mascots there arises a complex of attitudes and rites so curiously exotic as to invite an exaggerated analogy with primitive totemism. The fact remains that the supernaturalistic as well as the social tendencies of totemic days live on in modern so- ciety. But in our civilization these tendencies, in the ab- sence of a crystallization point, remain in solution, whereas in primitive communities the same tendencies, clustering about the skeletons of clan and gentile systems, function as highly distinctive vehicles of culture. CHAPTER XIV REFLECTIONS ON PART II CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT Before us is a survey of many aspects of primitive civili- zation. In economics and industry, in art and religion, in social structure and political organization, early society presents a multiplicity of forms and functions. After an analysis of these features, one question naturally suggests itself. How can they be explained? Why so many differ- ences? Are there any general conditions with which these differences can be correlated? It was hinted in the open- ing sections of this book that racial factors cannot be held responsible for the variety of civilizational forms. It would indeed be absurd to refer the civilizational pecu- liarities disclosed to racial or sub-racial factors, for a multi- plicity of differences in all of the aspects of civilization reviewed have repeatedly appeared within the range of one physical type. Another favorite explanation lies in the direction of physical environment. Granted the psychic unity of man- kind, it is the environmental differences, climate, Flora, Fauna, geographical position, which are responsible for the differentiations of civilization. This type of explanation has often been attempted. Montesquieu must be counted among the early environmentalists. Taine once made a great stir by his attempts to interpret forms of civilization, especially in its artistic and literary aspects, by environ- mental conditions. And the staunch environmentalism of Buckle still has its charms for many of his readers. The whole subject was placed on a more scientific foundation by the German geographer-anthropologist, Friederich Ratzel. Ratzel was primarily interested in material culture, and being by training a geographer, he conceived of civilization 292 REFLECTIONS ON PART II 293 as a sort of an outgrowth of physical environment, a psycho- sociological culmination of the geological process. Among more modern writers, Miss Semple, the talented American interpreter and translator of Ratzel, must be classed as a non-compromising environmentalist, having embodied her creed in a brilliant discussion of American history and its geographic environment. But undoubtedly the most suc- cessful of modern environmentalists is Ellsworth Hunting- ton, author of "The Pulse of Asia," whose work centers around the idea of a climatic rather than a general environ- mental interpretation of civilization. Whether true or not, environmental interpretations of civilization are often accepted with favor on account of their apparent objectivity and definiteness. Culture and mind are evanescent and elusive; environment is definite, con- crete, measurable. Hence the modern mind, ever eager for measurable results and mathematical formulations, is : easily thrown off its guard by any at all ingenious attempt to reduce civilization to environmental determinants. But let us glance at the facts. It is clear from the start that of all aspects of civilization, material culture is the one most closely allied with environmental factors. People eat, dress, build and move about in accordance with the re- quirements and by the use of the facilities and materials furnished by their physical environment. Industry is also clearly affected by the materials available and the uses sug- gested by the character of the physical milieu. That ma- terial culture should thus be found in close touch with the physical factors of Nature is indeed to be expected for is not material culture the physical environment itself, or part of it, transformed into civilization through the creativeness of man? Plausible though all this seems, an inspection of the actual conditions at once introduces a variety of complicat- ing factors. People do not use all that is offered them by their physical environment, and they often use things which can be obtained only with great effort or by transgressing 294 EARLY CIVILIZATION the narrow limits of the immediate physical surroundings. Thus the wood industry of the Northwest Coast would readily suggest an environmental interpretation. The great trees are there, and the wood industry, including the won- derful art, seem almost preordained by the very nature of the physical environment. But further south, along the Pacific slope, is a great region inhabited by the tribes of the California area, a region almost unique in the vastness of its forests. Now, in the culture of the California Indians this is in no way reflected, for among them wood industry has not developed. The distribution of pottery in North America is another case in point. The clay necessary for this industry is avail- able practically throughout the entire expanse of the conti- nent, but pots are made only among certain tribes. Roughly speaking, a line drawn from the northeastern corner of the continent to the southwestern one would divide North America into a pot making district south and east of the line and one in which no pottery is made north and west of it. The fact that the tribes with pottery as well as those without, cluster in continuous geographical areas at once suggests that an entirely different factor is involved here, namely the diffusion of an industry from tribe to tribe. The oft cited example of the Eskimo of arctic America and the Chukchee of Northeastern Siberia might once more be adduced here in view of its suggestiveness. What is more natural, exclaims the lusty environmentalist, than that the Eskimo should build snow houses ! Are they not plenti- fully provided with this material almost the whole year round and does it not lend itself admirably for structural purposes, its use being, moreover, suggested by the natural forms assumed by the snow? Yes, for once the environ- mentalist seems to stand on firm ground until a glance across Bering Strait reveals to one the cultural conditions of the Chukchee. Here is another arctic people, living' under conditions practically identical with those of the Eskimo. The snow, in particular, is supplied by Siberian REFLECTIONS ON PART II 295 Nature as generously as it is in the arctic of the New World. The Chukchee, however, do not build snow houses. In- stead, they build their large clumsy tents of hide over heavy wooden supports and, in the face of considerable incon- venience, drag them along in their frequent migrations. Again, among the same two peoples reindeer are avail- able in large quantities and both peoples do indeed make use of them. But in what way? When the Eskimo needs a reindeer whose meat he eats, whose hide he uses to line the outside of his kayak and the inside of his house, and whose horns form an essential part of his sledge, he goes out and kills one with his bow and arrow. To drive his sledge he uses dogs, but he has never domesticated the reindeer, a much faster and stronger ani- mal. The Chukchee, on the other hand, have achieved this and use the reindeer to draw their sledges. Evidently the environment is powerless to furnish an explanation of this important civilizational difference. The historico-geographical relations of the two peoples, on the other hand, readily supply an answer. The Eskimo repre- sent the northern-most inhabitants of North America, where domestication, barring only the dog, is unknown. The Eskimo did not achieve domestication nor had they any one to learn it from. Thus, they never advanced beyond a relatively crude utilization of this important feature of their physical environment. The Chukchee, on the other hand, have lived in long historic proximity and association with the Tungus, a Turkish people, among whom the art of domesticating the horse had been known for generations. From them the Chukchee learned this useful technique, applying it to the animal available in their forbidding en- vironment, the arctic reindeer. It is clear, then, that not all the elements in the physical environment are culturally utilized by any given tribe. Also, that the use made of similar or identical features differs from tribe to tribe, thus resulting in a variety of cultural forms. 296 EARLY CIVILIZATION To this must now be added that elements not available in one's own physical environment are secured and cultur- ally transformed. The Australian Dieri of the neighbor- hood of Lake Eyre, for example, send a yearly expedition to a region in Central Queensland in order to secure supplies of the pituri root, which they chew. As the country traversed by the expedition is inhabited by hostile tribes, the men must be numerous and well armed. When they reach their destination they encounter further opposition from the tribes inhabiting the district where the pituri root is found. However, they usually succeed in collecting and carrying off huge quantities of the desired commodity. The home- ward journey proves a more peaceful one, as part of the supply of pituri is traded off on the way. The remainder is consumed at home or bartered to other tribes further south. Similar expeditions are sent to the southern coast to obtain ochre, a mineral utilized as a coloring substance for ceremonial designs on the ground and the decoration of the dancers. The Todas of southern India are supplied by their neigh- bors, the Kota, with the earthenware indispensable in their dairies, as well as a variety of iron objects. Nor is this case exceptional, for such dependence on one's neighbors for important or even essential commodities is not uncommon among tribes in the South and Southeast of Asia. All of these, moreover, are merely special instances of the inevitable dependence of any local civilization on other civilizations for numerous articles and appliances which are brought in through barter, war or accident, as well as for ideas, customs, ceremonies, myths, which percolate from individual to individual, from tribe to tribe, in all kinds of contact, whether regulated or non-regulated. It is true that this aspect of civilization does not play as conspicuous nor as regular a part in the cultural life of early societies as it does in modern civilization; but the factor is present nevertheless, and its importance can be easily under-esti- mated. REFLECTIONS ON PART II 297 In Africa, with its markets and regulated trade, and in Melanesia and Polynesia, with their orderly and frequent trading expeditions by sea, the relation of a tribe to its own physical environment is constantly and inevitably ampli- fied by its relation to other tribes. Still, all in all, it must be said that in early civilization every tribe utilizes in its material culture at least part of its physical environment, and also that it depends, as a rule, on its own physical environment more than on its contact with other tribes. In modern conditions all this is changed. The diffusion of labor between groups and within groups, local industrial specialization, the wellnigh unlimited sweep of modern means of transportation, the advent of large populational centers in the form of great cities, the highly developed system of credit, have completely revolutionized the environmental relations of civilization. Today, any hamlet may find itself in touch with the civilization and the physical environment of almost any spot in the world, while it may be free or almost free from any relation to its own physical environment. 1 But it is most important of all to realize thafphysical'jj^^ environment can at best but provide what Wissler called e* in the "brick and mortar" of material civilization, it cannot b determine the form. Now, while it is true that material culture must have some concrete things to operate with, which come from the physical environment, although not necessarily from that of the group itself, material culture, like all culture, is in the main a matter of form, shape, cut, pattern, fashion, style these are the real characteristics of a culture. And as between these and the materials util- ized, the latter are relatively negligible. *A stray example from the show window of a drug store: a bit of Gentian root from the mountains of Southern and Central Europe; some seeds of Nux Vomica, extracted from an orange-like fruit raised in Bombay, India; some roots of rhubarb, grown in Tartary in the interior of China; drops of aloes which flow from the cut base of a plant common in the Cape of Good Hope; a dose of peppermint herbs and bicarbonate of loda, natire in the United States all of these combined in proper proportions go to the making of certain digestive tablets. 298 EARLY CIVILIZATION Thus, if the material cultures of the primitive tribes of the world were classified from the standpoint of the ma- terials used in their economic pursuits and industries, the result would be a very imperfect classification of the floral, faunal and mineral characteristics of the different regions and to that extent the partial dependence of the different cultures on physical environment would be demonstrated but hardly any idea could be derived, from this computation, of the material cultures of the different tribes. Now, what is true of economic life and industry, of food and clothing, of habitat and the means of transportation, is more emphatically true of the other aspects of civili- zation, social and political organization, art and religion. In the case of religion and art the dependence on environ- mental factors is almost disappearingly small. It is true enough that the natural features, animals or plants of a region are more likely than not to figure in the religious con- ceptions of its inhabitants, although imported deities are not by any means uncommon. But then, in how far is this significant as a characterization of a religion? Surely what makes a difference, is not the particular mountain, river or tree, animal, fish or bird, figuring in a religion, but the way any of these are utilized or transformed by the re- ligious ideology of a group. Similarly, it is undeniable that certain relations obtain between the substance of an object of art and its artistic elaboration: not all ma- terials lend themselves equally well to the same processes. Nevertheless, the greatest variety of artistic styles and devices may rest against a uniform background of raw material, as is strikingly exemplified in Melanesia and Polynesia. A word, finally, is due to social and political organization and to economic pursuits. Next to material culture these elements of civilization are evidently most closely involved here. Contrary to what one so often hears, neither social nor political structure seem to be significantly correlated with environmental factors. The fundamental forms of social REFLECTIONS ON PART II 299 organization, such as the family, clan, phratry, and so on, are distributed over primitive areas without any regard to environmental peculiarities. And the same applies to forms of political organization. The confederated political unit, for example, is the highest form assumed by political ag- gregates in North America, while the centralized state reigns in a large part of Africa ; and in both cases environ- mental differences are brushed aside in the geographical sweep of these institutions. It has sometimes been pointed out that the absence of relatively inaccessible physical boundaries favors the development of huge centralized empires, the great plains of Russia providing a favorite example. But history belies this generalization so conspicu- ously that it cannot be seriously considered. The trans- continental sweep of ancient Rome, the world empire of Holland, or that of France, or the imperial domains of Great Britain, held together in a grip of steel reaching out across the waters all these and similar examples show clearly enough how little environmental factors contribute to the formation of political aggregates. Another striking example is provided by the island kingdoms of Polynesia, where hosts of relatively tiny bits of land are held together under the unified control of great chiefs or kings, notwith- standing the intervening expanse of ocean, the crossing of which, even for the seaworthy boats of the Polynesians, is at best a difficult and hazardous undertaking. The same is true of economic life. ''Hunting, fishing, agriculture, the gathering of wild fruits and berries, all of these pursuits are possible only in the presence of certain environmental factors, but not one is definitely correlated with any type of environment. That physical environment is not to be disregarded in any historic study of a civilization is obvious enough, but no physical environment can in itself be held responsible for producing a definite type of civiliza- tion, nor can any environment, barring extremes, prevent a civilization from developing. "Do not talk to me about environmental determinants," the philosopher Hegel is re- 300 EARLY CIVILIZATION ported to have said: "where the Greeks once lived the Turks live now. That settles the matter!" In view of the preceding, it need occasion no surprise when different civili- zations are found in similar environments, as is the case in continental Europe, and similar civilizations in differ- ent environments, as exemplified by England, the United States and Canada. That this should be so is indeed obvious from a compara- tive analysis of civilization and of physical Nature. For all things considered, civilization is dynamic, a thing of growth and development; while environment is compara- tively inert and static. It is sometimes asserted that this very stability of the environment enables it to become a powerful directing factor in civilization. But surely civili- zational changes cannot be derived from the character- istics of an environment that does not change. Here comes the rejoinder that the environment does change, that the elements contributed to civilization by environment con- stantly shift, multiply, as civilization progresses. That this is so is, ideed, undeniable. But then, is the environment responsible for the changes? Another example: once the pre-Iroquoian Algonquin hunted in the forests on and about Manhattan; later the Iroquois cut the forests and cultivated the soil; still later the white settler applied more inten- sive agricultural methods to the same land; the modern population of the island, finally, erected on it and about it a great metropolis and utilized its remarkable facilities as a harbor. These different kinds of relation between culture and environment are evidently not derivable from any peculiarities of the environment, which all along remained the same, but from the fluctuating and developing interests and technical facilities of succeeding generations, facilities and interests which were history made and not environ- ment made. The basic formative factors of all civilization are these : creativeness of the individual, which is responsible for the origination of cultural forms; psychological and sociological REFLECTIONS ON PART II 301 inertia, which determines institutionalism and cultural sta- bility; and the historic relations between human groups, which bring stimuli for change and determine the dissemina- tion and exchange of ideas and commodities. It will be seen that these factors are psychological, sociological, his- torical, but not physical-environmental. Adjustment to en- vironment is an important urge, especially in primitive society. But the necessity or desirability of such adjust- ment nowhere figures as an univocal determinant of cultural form. There is always more than one adjustment pos- sible, and the particular solutions of the problem adopted by a given civilization can never be foreseen or derived from an inspection of the environmental factors alone. DIFFUSION versus INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CIVILIZATION In our examination of the relation of civilization to physical environment, one factor constantly appears as a striking refutation of the very possibility of an exclusive dependence of any local civilization upon its own physical milieu. This factor is the presence in every civilization of imported elements, which appear in large numbers in every group, no matter how primitive. As these elements come from outside the group, they are evidently independent of its physical environment. The phenomena of borrowing and diffusion as they ap- pear in the preceding chapters amply support the conclusion reached in the "Reflections to Part I," for no matter what aspect of civilization is considered, certain elements rep- resenting this aspect are distributed everywhere (or nearly so), others cover wide continuous areas, while still others are restricted to narrowly localized civilizations. In material culture, for example, some things are univer- sal. Everywhere there is some form of habitation; some means of transportation is used, by land, by water, or both; some garments are worn, however scant; some tools, how- 302 EARLY CIVILIZATION ever crude, are employed for cutting and hammering ; some weapons appear, and among these are those used in close combat, like stone knives and clubs, and those others that strike at a distance, like javelins and throwing boomerangs and the bow and arrow. The reasons for the universally distributed features can <> FIG. 54 Wissler, "The American Indian," p. 62. not be doubted. They can be summarized under three heads: the general psychic unity of mankind, the identity of the primary needs of life and the general similarity of, the physical conditions available for their satisfaction, aK lowance being made, moreover, for the limitation of the possible ways in which such primary adjustments can be achieved. But as soon as any of these cultural features are speci- fied more distinctly, the distributions begin to narrow down. From Wissler's map of the distribution of types of cos- tumes in the two Americas, for example, it appears that tailored clothing cut to pattern, not unlike our own, is found in a wide area in the North; textile clothing is distributed from the North American Southwest, through Mexico and Central America and along the western districts of South America down to Peru ; while robes are worn in the central area of North America and in the Southern of South America. I'Bark Garments Palm Fibre Garments [Fur and Hide Garments FIG. 55 B. Ankermann, "Kulturkreise and Kulturschichten in Afrika," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, Vol. 37, 1905, p. 62. Or again, to follow Ankermann's African map; gar- ments made of fur and hide occur practically throughout the entire expanse of Africa south of the Sahara and east of the western states of the Gulf of Guinea, excepting only a large area embracing most of the water-shed of the Congo and its tributaries; garments made of bark are worn in an area starting with a broad base on the Gulf of Guinea and around the lower Congo and extending eastward across the continent in a gradually narrowing wedge which reaches to the Island of Madagascar. Through part of this area the distribution of fur and hide garments, on the one hand, and of bark garments, on the other, overlap. Again, 304 EARLY CIVILIZATION clothes are also made of palm fibre in parts of the Congo area where fur and hide garments do not occur, as well as throughout Madagascar and in a few small districts in the west of the mainland. Similarly, Ankermann's map of the distribution of types of huts in Africa shows more or less wide localization of certain types as well as an occasional overlapping. Such features as pottery and agriculture, while extending >eyond the limits of one continent, are_far from universal in their distribution. Pottery is widely prevalent in Amcr- A Huts with rectan- ==' gular base and ,/, Gabled Roofs ^zBee Hive Shaped Huts III Huts with Cylin- 1 drical Base and Conical Roofs FIG. 56. B. Ankermann, "Kulturkreise," etc., p. 56. ica (Fig. 57) ; it is found throughout most of Africa south of the Sahara, except among the Bushmen in the South; it occurs throughout India, although some of the Indian tribes, like the Todas of the South, do not manufacture the pots themselves. In Australia there is no pottery nor is any made in Polynesia, while in Melanesia it occurs sporadic- ally. Again, agriculture is distributed in America in an area considerably narrower than that of the distribution of pottery; it is carried on in Africa almost throughout the enormous expanse south of the Sahara and north of the desert of Kalahari, excepting only some large thickly wooded districts; it does not occur in Australia, and is 305 found only in the form of garden culture in Melanesia and Polynesia. More particular features have a much narrower distribu- tion, while details of technique and pattern, finally, are localized in small groups of tribes or even in individual / FIG. 57 Distribution of pottery (Wissler, "The American Indian," p. 68) tribes. Wissler's study of Plains shirts, for example, shows a differentiation of pattern from tribe to tribe, and as indicated before, the guardian spirit cults in this area are similarly differentiated. To take another illustration from the domain of art. The art work of Melanesia taken as a unit can be clearly differentiated from that of Polynesia. Although wood 306 EARLY CIVILIZATION industry is the predominant artistic pursuit in both areas, open work or filigree, which is characteristic of Melanesia, is almost unknown in Polynesia except among the Maori of New Zealand; the use of color is almost universal in Mel- anesia and absent in Polynesia, in this case, with the sole exception of the Maori; animal patterns are constantly used in Melanesia in fairly realistic or semi-conventionalized form, while in Polynesia only the human figure is used as a pattern and the conventionalization is almost always ex- treme; again, the polishing of art objects has reached a high degree of perfection in Polynesia, while almost un- known in Melanesia. And once again, a more detailed study reveals unmistak- local differentiations. The pottery of Fiji, the shields and spear throwers of New Guinea, the wooden gongs of the New Hebrides, the open work totemic columns and masks of New Ireland, the clubs and wooden foot rests of the Marquesas, the spears set with shark teeth of the Gil- bert Islands, the feather work of Hawaii, the great wooden idols of Easter Island, and the grotesque jade neck orna- ments of New Zealand; all of these are unique, highly dis- tinctive features, each one of which may serve to identify a particular locality. Similar phenomena encounter one on all sides. Some so- cial units, the conditions for which are given everywhere, are universal; such are the family and the local group, as well as one or another form of age, sex and relationship groups. Other social units the clan, gens, dual division are widely distributed in different continents, but not omnipresent. Other more specialized forms, like the class or the maternal family, have strictly limited distribution, the former as a typical Australian feature, the latter as a peculiarity of the Iroquois League. Again, as soon as the social functions of these units are considered, the distribution of those with uniform functions narrows down still further. It is clear, then, that the generalization reached on the basis of the analysi's of the five test tribes in Part I, is borne REFLECTIONS ON PART II 307 out by a wider comparative material. What we find is an universal or nearly universal distribution of such cul- tural features as flow directly from man's psychic nature d his relation to his physical and social environment, n come other features, some distributed in great con- uous areas, others in ever narrowing districts, down to specific highly individualized traits characteristic of just a few localities or only one local group. \As an interpretation of the distributions of the features that are not universal yor near universal, we must repeat our former conclusion: / they can only be explained by the constant origination, in particular localities, of new cultural peculiarities or of variations of old ones, and the subsequent spread of these from tribe to tribe, by diffusion. At times certain very general historical conclusions can be derived from these distributions alone. Thus some cul- tural features are widely distributed in great continuous areas, but absent in others equally great. Apart from other evidence, this would suggest that the feature in question originated only a very few times or perhaps only once in the area of its distribution. This would apply, for ex- ample, to the wheel, found in the Old World alone, to the riddle, or to institutionalized legal procedure. The most complicated and difficult aspects of the diffusion problem arise in cases different from the above, in those namely, where the geographical distribution of a trait is dis- continuous. In some cases of discontinuous distribution the geograph- ical facts alone may furnish an answer to the problem. In the following map, for example, the distribution of totemism in Africa is represented. It is strikingly discontinuous. Now totemism, as we saw, is a widespread cultural phe- nomenon, not restricted to Africa, but common to many primitive areas. It must therefore be assumed that it has originated independently a number of times. It would, nevertheless, be against all probability to assume a separate origin of totemism for each one of the distribution areas of 3 o8 EARLY CIVILIZATION Africa, especially on account of the highly comparable forms of totemism which occur here. It must therefore be assumed that historic contact has taken place at least be- tween some of these areas, or that there were connecting links of totemic tribes among whom totemism has subse- quently fallen into decay. The alternative or subsidiary hy- pothesis would be that the investigation of African tribes not being complete, cases of totemism have been overlooked. FIG. 58 B. Ankermann, "Verbreitung und Formen des Totemismus in Afrika," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic , Vol. 47, 1915, p. 180. There are innumerable other instances where an answer cannot be so readily provided. Religious societies, for example, occur in northern Melanesia, in West Africa, among some natives of Brazil, and in several areas in North America. Must historic contact be assumed here or a remote common historic origin, or are the societies in the several areas to be derived from disparate historic sources? Another case is provided by the art of New Ireland when compared with that of the Northwest Coast of America. In both areas the art objects in question con- sist of decorated poles. The carved decorations to which color is applied represent animals intertwined in various ways. In both localities, finally, these poles have a symbolic religious significance and figure in ceremonies. Such are the similarities. But there are differences. The totemic poles of New Ireland are small ceremonial objects, some REFLECTIONS ON PART II 309 three to five feet high ; the carved decoration is in the form of open work or filigree, the whole carving producing a light lace-like effect. The totem poles of the Northwest Coast, on the other hand, are gigantic posts looming far above the roofs of the houses, while the carving is in high or low relief, but not in open work, the total effect being ponderous and massive. Without pressing the parallel too closely, the New Ireland carvings might be likened to the Gothic, those of the Northwest Coast to the Egyptian styles of decoration. Now, under these conditions, should the similarities between the arts of the two areas be ascribed to historic contact or to independent origin? Another illustration of a different type is provided by a special variety of panpipe, in which each closed pipe is coupled with an open one of approximately the same length which sounds the octave of the closed one. This musical instrument occurs only in two widely separated areas: in the Solomon Islands and western Polynesia, and again, in Peru and Bolivia. It was also found that a panpipe of Northwestern Brazil was built to produce a system of sounds which agreed very closely with the sound systems of some specimens from the South Sea area. The similarity is un- questionably a striking one, but the distance between the two areas is great and the probability of historic contact slight. Should the hypothesis of diffusion be adopted in the face of such difficulties, or is independant origin to be held responsible for the striking similarities in question, which, in this case, would have to be regarded as accidental? Numerous examples that have puzzled investigators and have led to acrimonious discussion, are provided by the domain of mythology. The so-called tale of the Magic Flight is one. This tale contains the following incidents: a flight from an ogre, objects thrown by the one pursued, forming obstacles to the ogre's advance: first a stone which turns into a mountain, then a comb which becomes a thicket, and finally a bottle of oil which changes into a body of water. This tale is widely but not continuously distributed 3 1 o EARLY CIVILIZATION both in the Old and in the New Worlds. Can it be assumed that the above group of incidents as part of one tale origi- nated independently in the several areas? The classical evolutionist was not greatly troubled over examples such as this. To him all such instances attested the similarity of the human mind and the parallelism of cultural development. But we may not share the consoling faith of the evolutionist. The universality of the phe- nomena of diffusion amply attested to by the preceding dis- cussion, does not permit one to stress the theory of inde- pendent development at the expense of the alternative possibility of explaining cultural similarities through a com- mon ultimate origin or through historic dffusion from one tribe to another. Now, one factor will always favor the hypothesis of diffusion: it is its demonstrability in specific instances; whereas independent origin must at best always remain problematic. Prompted by the historic ubiquity of diffu- sion as well as by its demonstrability, a number of modern students of cultural phenomena turned their backs upon the generalizations of the evolutionist, showing a decided ten- dency to interpret most or even all similarities of culture through historic contact or ultimate unity of origin. First among these students stands Ratzel, the geographer, to whom we had occasion to refer in connection with his en- vironmentalism. He was primarily concerned with objects of material culture, having himself carried out several in- tensive investigations of the distribution of material objects, for example, of African bows, of a special variety of armor, and the like. His view was that the interpretation of similarities in this domain must lie in the direction of his- toric contact. In spiritual factors he was less interested, and here he allowed for the possibility of the independent origin of similarities. More recently, F. Graebner, a young student of history, embraced the creed of Ratzel and developed it into a more systematic as well as dogmatic ideological structure, at the 3" foundation of which lies the theory of diffusion. Graebner rejects as improvable all explanations of similarities through independent origin, pinning his faith on the possibility of proving historic connection in all such instances. Graebner is also primarily interested in material culture. In still more recent years the theory of diffusion as a system of interpretation of cultural similarities received a fresh impetus through the work of Rivers, who in his two- volume book on "The History of Melanesian Society" has attempted a hypothetical historic reconstruction unprece- dental in its complexity, with the theory of diffusion as his principal tool. Among his followers, Elliot Smith has achieved the questionable distinction of outdoing the dog- matism of the evolutionist by his reckless utilization of diffusion as an interpretation of widespread cultural simi- larities, supporting his theory by a comparative material apparently as inexhaustible in quantity and handled as un- critically as was the comparative material of the evolu- tionist. The value of the last-named theory cannot be examined here. The idea of a Megalithic culture originated in the Eighth Century B. C., in Egypt, spreading thence through the Mediterranean region, over the southern areas of Asia and the island expanses of Melanesia and Polynesia to the remote countries of Mexico and Peru; this idea, however alluring, would require a delicate technique and categorical demonstration before it could claim serious attention. The methods used by Elliot Smith are, on the contrary, so loose that the entire speculative edifice erected by him can at best be regarded as another link in that chain of top-heavy hypotheses, born of uncontrolled flights of the imagination and unchecked by either patient research or a strict method of procedure. The works of Graebner and Rivers stand on a different level. The fundamental principles of Graebner's position are these: the independent development of cultural simi- larities can be assumed only after all attempts to demon- 3 i2 EARLY CIVILIZATION strate diffusion have failed. The criteria of similarity are two, one is qualitative in its nature, referring to the details of similarity in the compared objects, beliefs or institutions; the other criterion is a quantitative one, indicating how many items of similarity can be discerned between two areas or cultures, or separate aspects of such cultures. If an examination from these two standpoints reveals con- spicuous similarities, diffusion must be assumed, however great the distance between the two areas in question and however difficult or improbable historic contact between them. On the basis of these assumptions Graebner builds his theory of cultural strata and of "culture areas" 1 into an examination of which we need not enter here. Now, our discussion has shown that independent develop- ment of similarities must be assumed as a general postulate in connection with civilizational interpretations, although it is, of course, true that rigorous proof of independent de- velopment as against diffusion can but seldom be furnished. It will have been noted that Graebner regards cultural similarities as readily ascertained and evaluated. That, however, is by no means the case. Two simple objects of material culture, two stone knives, for instance, or two paddles, can be compared with little difficulty; but as soon as the elements compared reach a certain degree of com- plexity or comprise psychological or sociological factors, comparison becomes difficult and the concept of similarity itself, vague. In the instance of the religious societies referred to before, as well as in that of the decorative arts of New Ireland and the Northwest Coast, numerous differ- ^raebner's "culture areas" (Kulturkreise) must be sharply distin- guished from the culture areas of American ethnology; for whereas the latter represent conceptualized descriptions of cultural complexes consti- tuting actual geographical and historical units, Graebner's Kulturkreise are purely hypothetical reconstructions, inferred from the geographical dis- tributions of separate elements of culture. A detailed statement of Graebner's position will be found in his "Methode der Ethnologic," and brief expositions and criticisms, in Lowie ("The Concept of Convergence in Ethnology," Journal of American Folk- Lore, 1912) and Boas (review of Graebner's book in Science, 1911). For American culture area concept, see Wissler's "American Indian," Chapter A.1 V* REFLECTIONS ON PART II 313 ences are combined with equally numerous similarities. Here the value of the qualitative and quantitative standards as tests of the similarities involved is limited, if any con- clusions are to be drawn with reference to the probability of the independent development or of diffusion of such similarities. It is precisely this difficulty of establishing similarities and of appraising their extent and significance which forces the student to introduce the geographico-his- torical factor whenever questions of independent or derived origin of similarities are to be decided. 1 Rivers' contributions to, the theory of diffusion are of especial interest, as this investigator deserves great credit for the introduction of a number of highly accurate and serviceable methods into the domain of ethnological study. He himself, moreover, regards his later works as distinct contributions to the theory and methodology of diffusion. There is, without question, a great difference between the approach of Graebner and that of Rivers. The latter evaluates psychological factors more justly than does Graebner, thus achieving a closer approach to cultural reality. Rivers insists, for example, that new cultural ele- ments may appear as a result of culture contact, which were not present in either of the two civilizations before contact was achieved. A mere reference must suffice to his great work on "The History of Melanesian Society," the second volume of which represents a closely knit theoretical argu- ment which stands alone in the entire domain of ethnology. 2 Two of the author's smaller contributions, however, readily 'In explanation of Graebner's extreme diffusionism, it must be said that it reflects the outlook of a man who has dealt largely with material culture. All of Graebner's principles apply more readily to this domain of civiliza- tion than to any other. Diffusion, for example, is more easily demonstrable with reference to objects than it is with reference to social customs or religious ideas. Again, similarities between things are more readily de- tected, described and evaluated than similarities between ideas, faiths or forms of behavior. Also, material culture, if it persists at all, is more likely to persist in a relatively unchanged form than is spiritual culture, owing to the fact that material things are relatively immune against the transforming influences of psychological agencies. 2 Unfortunately Rivers has not escaped the pitfalls of dogmatic diffusion- ism (Cf. my review of Rivers' book in Science, Vol. 44, pp. 824-828, 1916). 3 1 4 EARLY CIVILIZATION lend themselves to a brief critical examination. Both refer to Australia, and in both the author attempts to intercept certain peculiarities of Australian civilization by an argu- ment designed to demonstrate its cultural complexity. In the article on "The Contact of Peoples," 1 Rivers notes the contrast between the physical uniformity of the Australians and the general cultural homogeneity of the continent, and the strange diversity of the methods of disposal of the dead. As Rivers states, nearly every one of the known methods of disposal are practiced here : inhumation in the extended and contracted positions, preservation on platforms and trees and in caverns, a simple kind of embalming and also crema- tion. It is next to impossible to assume, claims Rivers, that so great a variety of burial methods should have originated independently in the continent of Australia. They must have been brought from without. But how explain the fact that the people who bestowed these many varieties of the disposal of the dead upon the Australians did not simi- larly influence the other aspects of their civilization and left the physical type of the Australian untouched by intermar- riage? Rivers' answer is this. As a guide to our inter- pretation we must assume the following postulates: i, a profound influence may be exerted by a foreign civilization, although represented by but a few immigrants, if that civili- zation is sufficiently superior to that of the natives to im- press them as great and wonderful; and 2, civilizational elements, even though useful, may disappear through a change in fashion or, if the elements are imported, through the non-adaptability of the recipient civilization. 2 Now then, it must be assumed that an immigrant people with a superior civilization have found their way to Aus- J In "Essays and Studies Presented to William Ridgeway, 1913, pp. 474 sq. 2 In a previous article on "The Disappearance of Useful Arts" (Wester- raarck Anniversary Volume, 1912) Rivers has presented an argument for this position. As an instance, he utilized the case of Polynesia, where the once widespread bow and arrow has been relegated to the position of a weapon of sport, the club having taken its place as a weapon of more essential use. REFLECTIONS ON PART II 315 tralia. Their number was small, but their civilization su- perior. The natives were impressed. Especially striking to the aborigines appeared the foreign funeral rites, and in the course of time the new method of disposal of the dead was adopted by the natives. The number of intruders hav- ing been small, they were subsequently absorbed by the native population without leaving any physical traces of their former presence. Most of the civilizational changes which they brought with them also disappeared, the crude culture of the Australians proving a non-receptive soil; but the new method of disposing of the dead persisted and re- mained. Then there came another immigration, similarly carried out by a few individuals representing a higher civili- zation. Once more, the same process was gone through, another method of burial being adopted by the natives among other civilizational peculiarities. This was followed by a second relapse, most of the newly imported cultural features being again lost, excepting only the new method of burial, which persisted. And as the number of the sec- ond immigrants was also small, they were similarly absorbed without any visible effect upon the native population. This process was repeated again and again, until all the methods of disposal of the dead now current in Australia were one by one imported and adopted by the natives. Now, can a theory of this sort be seriously considered as an interpretation of a phase of Australian culture? The feasibility of Rivers' postulates taken in themselves cannot be denied, but the very number of hypothetical factors in- troduced into his theory renders it so highly artificial that even approximation to historic truth must in this case be regarded as outside the range of probability. In his essay on "The Sociological Significance of Myths," 1 Rivers argues that myths are made about the unusual. Now, social organization, being one of the basic elements of civili- zation, is, therefore, least likely to rise into conscious- ness and to become a subject of mythological speculation. "Folk-Lore, Vol. 23, 1912. 3 i6 EARLY CIVILIZATION How is it, then, that myths in Central Australia are in- vented about the clans as well as about the dual divisions? The answer once more favors an interpretation through culture contact. The myths about the clans are readily explained, claims Rivers: these groups here are no longer mere units of social organization, rather have they become a ceremonio-religious institution, and, as such, they may be expected to stimulate the myth building imagination. As to the dual divisions, they must be regarded as of foreign origin, this being the only way in which the mythologies that have grown up about these divisions can be accounted for. A people with a clan organization must have encoun- tered one with dual divisions, and having adopted the lat- ter, invented myths about these strange social units with which they were formerly unacquainted. Once more, the high artificiality of the theory must dis- pose of it as a serious attempt at cultural interpretation. For, what is the probability of the picture drawn by Rivers actually reflecting historic reality? If space permitted we might have discussed here Wiss- ler's comparative sketch of Blackfoot material culture, in which a minute comparison of traits between this tribe and other Plains tribes leads to the conclusion that the Black- foot must have borrowed all of the fundamental elements of their material culture, having originated none. Or, we might have followed the same author in his careful historic reconstruction of the diffusion of horse culture in the Plains. The horse, originally of Spanish importation, gradually made its way northward, spreading from tribe to tribe. Wissler argues convincingly that the presence of the horse, which added nothing but itself to Plains civilization, nevertheless contributed to the cultural physiognomy of this area by precipitating intertribal intercourse and thereby stimulating the diffusion and interpenetration of cultural traits. Still another essay that would have deserved espe- cial attention is Lowie's monograph on the Age Societies of the Plains Indians. In this historical and comparative sum- REFLECTIONS ON PART II 317 mary, the tribal societies are subjected to a most minute analysis from the standpoint of the features which they comprise, and are, as a result of such an analysis, ultimately classified as originators, borrowers or transmitters of the various traits. It must suffice here to merely refer to these meritorious contributions, while taking time to deal somewhat more carefully with Berthold Laufer's essay "The Potter's Wheel." 1 It is well known that among primitive tribes pots are made by hand, but among tribes on a higher civiliza- tional level pots are often turned on the wheel, a much more expeditious and efficient method. Now the potter's wheel, argues Laufer, is distributed through a well defined area. It is found only in the Old World: in ancient Egypt, the Mediterranean and west Asiatic civilizations, Iran, India and China with her dependencies. In this area the distribu- tion of the potter's wheel has remained practically un- changed for milleniums. On the other hand, primitive tribes do not seem to adopt it even when surrounded by more civilized groups who have it. Thus, the Vedda of Ceylon fashion pots by hand, while the neighboring Singa- lese use the wheel. The African Negroes, who might have learned the use of the wheel from the ancient Egyptians or later from the Arabs, never seem to have been acquainted with its use. The Yakut of Northeastern Siberia continue to produce pottery by hand, notwithstanding their inter- marriages with the Russians and the fact that wheel-made Russian pottery is for sale at Yakutsk. Now, hand-made pottery, argues Laufer, is as a rule woman's work, the par- ticipation of men in this pursuit being always strictly local- ized and limited. The potter's wheel, on the other hand, is the creation of man. It must therefore be regarded as an entirely distinct invention which entered the field of pot- *In his monograph on the "Beginnings of Porcelain in China," Field Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Series, Vol. XV, No. z, pp. 148-177. 318 EARLY CIVILIZATION tery from the outside, as it were, and when it came, man came with it and took over the pot-making industry. This historic distinctness of the two methods of pottery making is reflected in the customs current in different coun- tries. In India and China the division of ceramic labor sets apart the thrower or wheel potter and separates him from the molder. The potters of India who work on the wheel do not intermarry with those who do not. They form a caste by themselves. There is also a functional dis- tinction between the two kinds of pots. And most impor- tant of all, wherever the potter's wheel is in use, it is manipulated by men, never by women. Technically speaking, the potter's wheel is nothing but a primitive cart wheel turning on its axle. The existence of the potter's wheel therefore presupposes the existence of the wheel adapted to transportation. In accordance with this, it is found that in all of the civilizations with the potter's wheel, the cart wheel is also in use. Further, wherever the potter's wheel occurs, while the