Part 5

Nevertheless, before peoples can communicate their cultures to others with whom they come into contact, they must first evolve these cultures. The question thus remains, What determines this evolution? In order to gain a proper perspective in this matter, we must for a moment consider the progress of human civilization as a whole. Archæological research shows that the modern era of steel and iron tools was preceded by an age of bronze and copper implements, which in turn was preceded by a stone age subdivided into a more recent period of polished, and an earlier of merely chipped, stone tools. Now the chronological relations of these epochs are extremely suggestive. The very lowest estimate by any competent observer of the age of Palæolithic man in Europe sets it at 50,000 years;[9] since this is avowedly the utmost minimum value that can be assigned on geological grounds, we may reasonably assume twice that figure for the age of human culture generally. Using the rough estimate permissible in discussions of this sort, we may regard the end of the Palæolithic era as dating back about 15,000 years ago. In short, for more than eight-tenths of its existence, the human species remained at a cultural level at best comparable with that of the Australian. We may assume that it was during this immense space of time that dispersal over the face of the globe took place and that isolation fixed the broader diversities of language and culture, over and above what may have been the persisting cultural sub-stratum common to the earliest undivided human group. The following Neolithic period of different parts of the globe terminated at different times and had not been passed at all by most of the American aborigines and the Oceanians at the time of their discovery. However, from the broader point of view here assumed, it was not relieved by the age of metallurgy until an exceedingly recent past. The earliest estimate I have seen does not put the event back farther than 6000 B. C. even in Mesopotamia. During nine-tenths of his existence, then, man was ignorant of the art of smelting copper from the ore. Finally, the iron technique does not date back 4,000 years; it took humanity ninety-six hundredths of its existence to develop this art.

We may liken the progress of mankind to that of a man a hundred years old, who dawdles through kindergarten for eighty-five years of his life, takes ten years to go through the primary grades, then rushes with lightning rapidity through grammar school, high school and college. Culture, it seems, is a matter of exceedingly slow growth until a certain ‘threshold’ is passed, when it darts forward, gathering momentum at an unexpected rate. For this peculiarity of culture as a whole, many miniature parallels exist in special subdivisions of culture history. Natural science lay dormant until Kepler, Galileo and Newton stirred it into unexampled activity, and the same holds for applied science until about a century ago.

This discontinuity of development receives strong additional illustration from a survey of special subdivisions of ancient culture. Though the Palæolithic era certainly preceded the later Stone Age, archæologists have hitherto failed to show the steps by which the later could develop out of the earlier. This gap may, of course, be due merely to our lack of knowledge. Yet when we take subdivisions of the Palæolithic period, the same fact once more confronts us. There is no orderly progression from Solutrean to Magdalenian times. The highly developed flint technique of the former dwindles away in the latter and its place is taken by what seems a spontaneous generation of bone and ivory work, with a high development of realistic art.

In view of the evidence, it seems perfect nonsense to say that early European civilization, by some law inherent in the very nature of culture, developed in the way indicated by archæological finds. Southern Scandinavia could not possibly have had a bronze age without alien influence. In this case, discontinuity was the result of cultural contact. It may be that the lack of definite direction observed throughout the Stone Age may in part be due to similar causes, the migrations and contact of different peoples, as Professor Sollas suggests. But it is important to note that discontinuity is a necessary feature of cultural progress. It does not matter whether we can determine the particular point in the series at which the significant trait was introduced. It does not matter whether, as I have suggested in the discussion of racial features, the underlying _causes_ of the phenomena proceed with perfect continuity. Somewhere in the observed cultural _effects_ there is the momentous innovation that leads to a definite break with the past. From a broad point of view, for example, it is immaterial whether the doctrine of evolution clings to the name of the younger or the elder Darwin, to Lamarck or St. Hilaire; the essential thing is that somehow the idea originated, and that when it had taken root it produced incalculable results in modern thought.

If culture, even when uninfluenced by foreign contact, progresses by leaps and bounds, we should naturally like to ascertain the determinants of such ‘mutations.’ In this respect, the discontinuity of indigenous evolution differs somewhat from that connected with cultural development due to diffusion. It was absolutely impossible that Scandinavia should produce bronze in the absence of tin. But _a priori_ it is conceivable that an undisturbed culture might necessarily develop by what biologists call ‘orthogenetic evolution’, _i.e._, in a definite direction through definite stages. This is, indeed, what is commonly known as the classical scheme of cultural evolution, of which men like Morgan are the protagonists. Now, how do the observed facts square with this theoretical possibility?

As Professor Boas and American ethnologists generally have maintained,[10] many facts are quite inconsistent with the theory of unilinear evolution. That theory can be tested very simply by comparing the sequence of events in two or more areas in which independent development has taken place. For example, has technology in Africa followed the lines ascertained for ancient Europe? We know today that it has not. Though unlike southern Scandinavia, the Dark Continent is not lacking in copper deposits, the African Stone Age was not superseded by a Copper Age, but directly by a period of Iron. Similarly, I have already pointed out that the possession of the same domesticated animals does not produce the same economic utilization of them while the Tungus rides his reindeer, other Siberians harness their animals to a sledge; the Chinaman will not milk his cattle, while the Zulu’s diet consists largely of milk. That a particular innovation occurred at a given time and place is, of course, no less the result of definite causes than any other phenomenon of the universe. But often it seems to have been caused by an accidental complex of conditions rather than in accordance with some fixed principle.

For example, the invention of the wheel revolutionized methods of transportation. Now, why did this idea develop in the Old World and never take root among the American Indians? We are here face to face with one of those ultimate data that must simply be accepted like the physicist’s fact that water expands in freezing while other substances contract. So far as we can see, the invention might have been made in America as well as not; and for all we know it would never have been made there until the end of time. This introduces a very important consideration. A given culture is, in a measure, at least, a unique phenomenon. In so far as this is true it must defy generalized treatment, and the explanation of a cultural phenomenon will consist in referring it back to the particular circumstances that preceded it. In other words, the explanation will consist in a recital of its past history; or, to put it negatively, it cannot involve the assumption of an organic law of cultural evolution that would necessarily produce the observed effect.

Facts already cited in other connections may be quoted again by way of illustration. When a copper implement is fashioned not according to the requirements of the material, but in direct imitation of preëxisting stone patterns, we have an instance of cultural inertia: it is only the past history of technology that renders the phenomena conceivable. So the unwieldy Chukchee tent, which adheres to the style of a pre-nomadic existence, is explained as soon as the past history of the tribe comes to light.

Phenomena that persist in isolation from their original context are technically known as ‘survivals’, and form one of the most interesting chapters of ethnology. One or two additional examples will render their nature still clearer. The boats of the Vikings were equipped for rowing as well as for sailing. Why the superfluous appliances for rowing, which were later dropped? As soon as we learn that the Norse boats were originally rowboats and that sails were a later addition, the rowing equipment is placed in its proper cultural setting and the problem is solved. Another example may be offered from a different phase of life. Among the Arapaho Indians there is a series of dance organizations graded by age. Membership is acquired by age-mates at the same time, each receiving the requisite ceremonial instructions from some older man who passed through the dance in his day. These older men, who are paid for their services by the candidates, may belong to any and all of the higher organizations. Oddly enough, each group of dancers is assisted by a number of ‘elder brothers’, all of whom rank them by _two_ grades in the series of dancers. This feature is not at all clear from the Arapaho data alone. When, however, we turn to the Hidatsa Indians, with whom there is evidence this system of age-societies originated, we find that here the youngest group of men does not buy instructions from a miscellaneous assemblage of older men, but buys the dance outright from the whole of the second grade; this group, in order to have the privilege of performing a dance, must buy that of the third grade, and so on. In all these purchases the selling group seeks to extort the highest possible price while the buyers try to get off as cheaply as possible and are aided by the second higher group, _i.e._, the group just ranking the sellers. Here the sophomore-senior versus freshman-junior relationship is perfectly intelligible; both the freshman and the junior, to pursue the analogy, bear a natural economic hostility against the sophomore, and vice versa. The Arapaho usage is intelligible as a survival from this earlier Hidatsa condition.

Our own civilization is shot through with survivals, so that further illustrations are unnecessary. They suggest, however, another aspect of our general problem. Of course, in every culture different traits are linked together without there being any essential bond between them. An illustration of this type of association is that mentioned by Dr. Laufer for Asiatic tribes, _viz._, that all nations which use milk for their diet have epic poems, while those which abstain from milk have no epic literature. This type of chance association, due to historical causes, has been discussed by Dr. Wissler[11] and Professor Czekanowski.[12] But survivals show that there may be an _organic_ relation between phenomena that have become separated and are treated as distinct by the descriptive ethnologist. In such cases, one trait is the determinant of the other, possibly as the actually preceding cause, possibly as part of the same phenomenon in the sense in which the side of a triangle is correlated with an angle.

A pair of illustrations will elucidate the matter. Primitive terms of relationship often reveal characteristic differences of connotation from their nearest equivalents in European languages. On the other hand, they are remarkably similar not only among many of the North American Indians but also in many other regions of the globe, such as Australia, Oceanica, Africa. The most striking peculiarity of this system of nomenclature lies in the inclusiveness of certain terms. For example, the word we translate as ‘father’ is applied indiscriminately to the father, all his brothers, and some of his male cousins; while the word for ‘mother’ is correspondingly used for the mother’s sisters and some of their female cousins. On the other hand, paternal and maternal uncle or aunt are rigidly distinguished by a difference in terminology. As Morgan divined and Tylor clearly recognized, this system is connected with the one-sided exogamous kin organization by which an individual is reckoned as belonging to the exogamous social group of one, and only one, of his parents. The terminology that appears so curious at first blush then resolves itself very simply into the method of calling those members of the tribe who belong to the father’s social group and generation by the same term as the father, while the maternal uncles, who must belong to another group because of the exogamous rule, are distinguished from the father. In short, the terminology simply expresses the existing social organization. In a world-wide survey of the field Tylor found that the number of peoples who use the type of nomenclature I have described and are divided into exogamous groups, is about three times that to be expected on the doctrine of chances: in other words, the two apparently distinct phenomena are causally connected.[13] This interpretation has recently been forcibly advocated by Dr. Rivers, and I have examined the North American data from this point of view. It developed, as a matter of fact, that practically all the tribes with exogamous ‘clans’, _i.e._, matrilineal kin groups, or exogamous ‘gentes’, _i.e._, patrilineal kin groups, had a system of the type described, while most of the tribes lacking such groups also lacked the nomenclature in question. Accordingly, it follows that there is certainly a functional relation between these phenomena, although it is conceivable that both are functionally related to still other phenomena, and that the really significant relationship remains to be determined.

As a linked illustration, the following phenomena may be presented. Among the Crow of Montana, the Hopi of Arizona, and some Melanesian tribes, the same term is applied to a father’s sister and to a father’s sister’s daughter; indeed, among the Crow and the Hopi the term is extended to all the female descendants through females of the father’s sister _ad infinitum_. Such a usage is at once intelligible from the tendency to call females of the father’s group belonging to his and younger generations by a single term, regardless of generation, _if_ descent is reckoned through the mother, for in that case, and that case only, will the individuals in question belong to the same group. And the fact is that in each of the cases mentioned, group affiliation is traced through the mother, while I know of not a single instance in which paternal descent coexists with the nomenclatorial disregard of generations in the form described.

My instances show, then, that cultural traits may be functionally related, and this fact renders possible a parallelism, however limited, of cultural development in different parts of the globe. The field of culture, then, is not a region of complete lawlessness. Like causes produce like effects here as elsewhere, though the complex conditions with which we are grappling require unusual caution in definitely correlating phenomena. It is true that American ethnologists have shown that in several instances like phenomena can be traced to diverse causes; that, in short, unlike antecedents converge to the same point. However, at the risk of being anathematized as a person of utterly unhistorical mentality, I must register my belief that this point has been overdone and that the continued insistence on it by Americanists is itself an illustration of cultural inertia. Indeed, the vast majority of so-called convergencies are not genuine, but false analogies due to our throwing together diverse facts from ignorance of their true nature, just as an untutored mind will class bats with birds, or whales with fish. When, however, rather full knowledge reveals not superficial resemblance but absolute identity of cultural features, it would be miraculous, indeed, to assume that such equivalence somehow was shaped by different determinants. When a Zulu of South Africa, an Australian, and a Crow Indian all share the mother-in-law taboo imposing mutual avoidance on the wife’s mother and the daughter’s husband, with exactly the same psychological correlate, it is, to my mind, rash to decree without attempt to produce evidence that this custom must, in each case, have developed from entirely distinct motives. To be sure, this particular usage has not yet, in my opinion, been satisfactorily accounted for. Nevertheless, in contradistinction to some of my colleagues and to the position I myself once shared, I now believe that it is pusillanimous to shirk the real problem involved, and that in so far as any explanation admits the problem, any explanation is preferable to the flaunting of fine phrases about the unique character of cultural phenomena. When, however, we ask what sort of explanation could be given, we find that it is by necessity a _cultural_ explanation. Tylor, _e.g._, thinks that the custom is correlated with the social rule that the husband takes up his abode with the wife’s relatives and that the taboo merely marks the difference between him and the rest of the family. We have here clearly one cultural phenomenon as the determinant of another.

It is not so difficult as might at first appear to harmonize the principle that a cultural phenomenon is explicable only by a unique combination of antecedent circumstances with the principle that like phenomena are the product of like antecedents. The essential point is that in either case we have past history as the determinant. It is not necessary that certain things should happen; but if they do happen, then there is at least a considerable likelihood that certain other things will also happen. Diversity occurs where the particular thing of importance, say the wheel, has been discovered or conceived in one region but not in another. Parallelism tends to occur when the same significant phenomenon is shared by distinct cultures. It remains true that in culture history we are generally wise after the event. _A priori_, who would not expect that milking must follow from the domestication of cattle?

When we find that a type of kinship terminology is determined by exogamy or matrilineal descent, we have, indeed, given a cultural explanation of a cultural fact; but for the ultimate problems how exogamy or maternal descent came about, we may be unable to give a solution. Very often we cannot ascertain an anterior or correlated cultural fact for another cultural fact, but can merely group it with others of the same kind. Of this order are many of the parallels that figure so prominently in ethnological literature. For example, that primitive man everywhere believes in the animation of nature seems an irreducible datum which we can, indeed, paraphrase and turn hither and thither for clearer scrutiny but can hardly reduce to simpler terms. All we can do is to merge any particular example of such animism in the general class after the fashion of all scientific interpretation. That certain tendencies of all but universal occurrence are characteristic of culture, no fair observer can deny, and it is the manifest business of ethnology to ascertain all such regularities so that as many cultural phenomena as possible may fall into their appropriate categories. Only those who would derive each and every trait similar in different communities of human beings from a single geographical source can ignore such general characteristics of culture, which may, in a sense, be regarded as determinants of specific cultural data or rather, as the principles of which these are particular manifestations.

Recently I completed an investigation of Plains Indian societies begun on the most rigorous of historical principles, with a distinct bias in favor of the unique character of cultural data. But after smiting hip and thigh the assumption that the North American societies were akin to analogous institutions in Africa and elsewhere, I came face to face with the fact that, after all, among the Plains Indians, as among other tribes, the tendency of age-mates to flock together had formed social organizations and thus acted as a cultural determinant.

Beyond such interpretative principles for special phases of civilization, there are still broader generalizations of cultural phenomena. One has been repeatedly alluded to under the caption of cultural inertia, or survival--the irrational persistence of a feature when the context in which it had a place has vanished. But culture is not merely a passive phenomenon but a dynamic one as well. This is strikingly illustrated in the assimilation of an alien cultural stimulus. As I have already pointed out, it is not sufficient to bring two cultures into contact in order to have a perfect cultural interpenetration. The element of selection enters in a significant way. Not everything that is offered by a foreign culture is borrowed. The Japanese have accepted our technology but not our religion and etiquette. Moreover, what is accepted may undergo a very considerable change. While the whole range of phenomena is extremely wide and cannot be dismissed with a few words, it appears fairly clear that generally the preëxisting culture at once seizes upon a foreign element and models it in accordance with the _native_ pattern. Thus, the Crow Indians, who had had a pair of rival organizations, borrowed a society from the Hidatsa where such rivalry did not exist. Straightway, the Crow imposed on the new society their own conception, and it became the competitor of another of their organizations. Similarly the Pawnee have a highly developed star cult. Their folklore is in many regards similar to that of other Plains tribes, from which some tales have undoubtedly been borrowed. Yet in the borrowing these stories became changed and the same episodes which elsewhere relate to human heroes now receive an astral setting. The preëxisting cultural pattern synthetizes the new element with its own preconceptions.