Clark Wissler

“ Each individual usually brings to this subject strong sociological biases which distort his comprehension of the idea. Thus, our particular ideas of race values and our opinions as to heredity make the assumption of a fair attitude toward even the facts of culture, extremely difficult. The zoological sciences have for their own the conception of evolution which is the heart and soul of the whole subject. Man as a mammal, or even as a primate, falls under this conception and we have seen how fruitful was its application in the discussion of New World racial affiliations with the Old. ”

“ We must now take leave of our brief review of culture in the New World. We have found the highest centers of culture in Mexico and Peru to be not really unique growths, but to possess many of the fundamental traits common to the wilder folk in the marginal areas of both continents. New World culture is thus a kind of pyramid whose base is as broad as the two Americas and whose apex rests over Middle America. We have found no just ground for assuming that the culture of the Maya was projected into the New World from the Old, where it rested as an isolated replica of cultures beyond the Pacific. ”

“ Thus, if we accept the theory that man first reached America after the opening of the ice in Alaska, we are under the necessity of assuming a sudden unprecedented growth of culture, unless it turns out that the lapse of time has been greatly underestimated. It seems far more consistent with the facts to assume that the peopling of the New World was contemporaneous with that of Western Europe, and that the subsequent return of the ice practically isolated the two hemispheres, leaving each to develop as it might. ”

“ Turning back to North America and beginning at the farthest north with the extremely simple culture of the Eskimo, we find a considerable body of regulations, as must be the case in any well-formed culture, but still no effective judicial machinery to enforce them. If a man finds his conventional rights trod upon, he has no recourse except to resort to blood vengeance. Yet, we do find some incipient judicial procedure, for among the Hudson Bay Eskimo the men of a group may, in consultation, condemn an obnoxious individual and arrange for some one to dispatch him at the first opportunity. ”

“ For example, the system developed by systematic zoology is not strictly applicable, because the existing peoples of the earth are very near to each other. Our experience with zoological classification leads us to expect that when we offer a morphological grouping of mankind, we shall base it upon descent. While this may be asking too much of a mere classification, we must not overlook the fact that here is the real problem in the case. Thus, in the New World, we must eventually know from what kind of men the original stock sprang and what elements, if any, have been later assimilated by it. ”

“ Our initial task, a general review of the most important traits of culture for the various native social units of the New World is now finished. The one striking suggestion is that notwithstanding the great diversity we have found, there are, on every hand, the unmistakable signs of unity. The higher cultures of Mexico and Peru are, after all, merely the great centers where the fundamental elements in New World culture were full blown. ”

“ For this reason, if for no other, it seems advisable to begin our study of man in the New World with a general discussion of food complexes.
The almost universal tendency among the several groups of mankind is to specialize in some one kind of food which thereby becomes the staple, or main support, to be supplemented by secondary foods when opportunity permits. Even our own very complex culture has not fully overcome this disposition, as shown in our great dependence upon bread and beef. Another characteristic is that this specialization is uniformly distributed over a considerable area. ”

“ Again, the markings in the bark of the birch trees are explained on the ground that once a culture hero in anger gashed the tree with his knife. Yet, if we take native myths as they come, such explanations much more often apply to peculiarities of the heavens and the markings upon birds and animals than to other classes of phenomena. Another peculiarity is that the initial creation of the world is a single incident, generally disposed of in a single simple narrative, whereas we find many complex independent tales, each accounting for more or less trivial animal markings. ”

“ Under the general name of folklore, we have a more or less distinct department of inquiry, with its own particular societies and journals whose supporters consider the whole unwritten literature of the earth as their province, whether it pertains to primitive groups or to the most advanced nations. However, in our country, the American Folk-Lore Society has given its attention almost wholly to the mythology of the aborigines. Every such tribe, so far examined, has been found to possess two kinds of tales, those referring to a previous order of events, and those having to do with the present. ”

“ In so far, then, as anthropology deals with culture, which is, after all, the only distinctly human phenomenon in the objective sense, it conceives of it as historical phenomena and this conception is in so far the soul of its method. But anthropology is something more than the study of culture ”

“ But passing on to less material traits, we find even stronger claims to unity of culture. Thus, society itself was almost everywhere composed of the same kind of units, whose conceptions of property and political rights were the same. Ritualism, priestcraft, and shamanism, mythological conceptions, and religious attitudes also show many specific cases of uniformity. Hence, we are fully justified in regarding the New World as one distinct culture province. ”

“ The phenomenon of English culture is made the subject matter of English history, but it is a fair assumption that the causes that operate in it are of the same general type as those that operate in Eskimoan culture. Hence, in dealing with problems of culture, we must take our points of regard from the historian, because he deals with the phenomena where the approaches are most complete and direct. We assume, therefore, that the culture complex of the Eskimo grew up in the same type manner as that of England and is, in other words, a historical fact. ”

“ An important problem is the origin of Plains art as a whole. Though we have shown that bead technique imposes textile limits upon the decorations, the fact that the Plains area is in direct contact with basketry-making peoples and the weavers of the Southwest reveals the possibility of diffusion. While this, like most other problems, is one for the future, there are several good reasons for believing that the art of the bison, or Plains area, is in the main an independent development. In the first place, its center is in the very heart of the area, while it is weakest on the margins. ”

“ Nowhere do we find a plowing machine drawn by men. As an independent proposition it may seem strange that the Peruvians, with all their genius, should have missed the idea of harnessing either men or llamas to a digging tool, but when we note that maize grows best in bunches or "hills," while the Old World inventors of the plow sowed grain broadcast, we find a partial explanation. The heaping up of earth around the growing plant is still one of the fundamentals in maize culture. ”

“ Literature in all these areas is comprised in mythology, ritual, and song.
A naïve notion prevails among us that poetry and song belong to the most advanced states of culture, whereas, it is nearer the truth to say that they are the truly primitive modes of artistic expression. Modern Europe has a verse and song complex quite distinct from Asia and of very ancient origin. The scales of Bronze Age trumpets are said to prove its existence even at that early period. Versification must be as old as song, and both are found in all parts of the world. ”

“ It is thus plain that we have before us one of our greatest cultural assets, the source of the most original traits of our present-day culture and a heritage upon which we may realize more and more. Just the other day a student of Indian life in Dakota conceived the idea of training our farmers to raise maize in the great Northwest, in spite of the short season, by using the methods developed by the Indians of the same locality long before the white man's foot intruded. ”

“ Another invention of great significance is the art of writing. So far as we can tell, no form of writing was practised in South America, that achievement appearing to be a Maya contribution. The codices of Mexico and their official use at the time of the Conquest are a matter of common knowledge, but the more definite extinct Maya system of writing presents one of the great puzzles of our subject. ”

“ It is clear, however, that such migrations must have been but occasional and exceptional, for, unless the distinctive tribes remained in force at the culture center, the type would have been destroyed. Hence, we must assume very great stability of these centers and a fair degree of stability for the New World as a whole.
Now reverting to the correlations of language, culture, and somatic type, we are prepared to see that while the environment does not produce the culture, it furnishes the medium in which it grows, and that when once rooted in a geographical area, culture tends to hold fast. ”

“ We are thus brought to the conclusion that the phenomena of our subject manifest a strong tendency to expand to the limits of the geographical area in which they arise, and no farther. Language and blood seem to spill over the edges far more readily than culture, from which we must infer that their dispersion is a by-product of migration, but that these migratory groups seem unable to resist complete cultural assimilation. ”

“ Taking the New World decorative designs as a whole, we are impressed with their extreme geometric unrepresentative character and the rarity of realistic art. A stroll through a large museum reveals an astonishing complexity of geometrical design in contrast to similar collections from the Old World. Nowhere else do we find anything in basketry approaching the finest basketry decorations of the Pacific Coast or in pottery that of the Andean region. ”

“ And it is right and proper that every one of us should be interested in these questions, because we have not only displaced the Indian in this land but we have absorbed a great deal of his culture. For instance, what a void we should create if, by some magical power, we could strike from our history, geography and literature all that pertains to his race! ”

“ Our point is that the languages of a culture area, even when regarded as of independent stocks, still show a grouping that tends to be coincident with that for cultural characters. It is a reasonable expectation that a distribution of phonetic types alone would show a similar correspondence. The peculiar point is, however, that the unity is in the stock affiliation and not in practical speech, for the linguistic differentiation within a stock is often very great. Neither is there political unity, and it may be doubted if the latter can long exist without the other. ”

“ The shaman gets his power by an extraordinary experience. He usually seeks it in fasting and prayer; whence, if his tortured nervous system bring the desired illusion, he goes out among his fellows with the faith and confidence that convinces. While he has a great deal to learn from his fellow shamans, such learning is quite secondary and dispensable. The priest, on the other hand, may also fast and be fired with faith and zeal, but this is secondary to him, for he must master with infinite detail the arbitrary forms of rituals. In last analysis, the priest must be a man of intellect ”

“ Perhaps back of it is a habit of thought, since in Old World culture, in which we ourselves live and think, fundamental traits are often found to have a single origin. For example, the horse, ox, wheat, glass, printing, gunpowder, etc., seem to have had each a single place of origin from which they were diffused. Yet, in contemplating New World culture we must not forget that the comparisons between the two hemispheres should be specific. ”

“ When we take up the question of group resemblances, we may, upon a priori grounds, assume that contiguous groups will often mix to an extent sufficient to bring them very near to each other. The data for tribal social practices give every justification for this assumption. Then when one plots out a series of anatomical measurements on a map he finds that high values often tend to cluster in one geographical area and low in another. Thus, in case of stature, we rarely find a single tall social group surrounded by groups of low stature. ”

“ Hence, when there is continuity of distribution we may posit a single origin, or locality, from which the trait has been diffused, until we can find evidence to the contrary.
The most modern advocate of the diffusion theory is Graebner, [5] who is disposed to the extreme view that independent invention is practically impossible and that all similarities, however widely separated, are to be considered as having single origins. ”

“ It thus appears that in their original states, culture and political organization are independent phenomena, but that when the latter reaches a certain status, it seizes upon culture and standardizes it. On the other hand, it is by no means clear what causes led to the curious gradations of culture in regions occupied by many small political units. Standardization is a deliberate conscious process, but we may suspect that the causes underlying gradation lie outside of consciously directed activities. ”

“ Thus, among many tribes, it is not merely the shaman who goes out to fast and pray, but practically every individual, at least once in his life, such a procedure being one of the essential equipments of youth for the duties of life, as noted under our discussion of the individual guardian. This trait is prominent among the more warlike tribes of the bison area, the eastern maize area, and the guanaco area of South America, in all of which one of the primary equipments of the would-be warrior is to secure a personal guardian spirit, or power. ”

“ The culture of the whole may be characterized first by certain traits not yet found in our survey of the continent; viz., the main dependence upon maize and other cultivated foods (men did the cultivating and weaving of cloth instead of women, as above) ; the use of a grinding stone, or metate, instead of a mortar; the art of masonry; loom or upward weaving; cultivated cotton as textile material; pottery decorated in color; a unique type of building; and the domestication of the turkey. These certainly serve to sharply differentiate this culture. ”