Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/847

 776 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [s. B., I, il

His fundamental principle is that we are not acquainted with the win range of ideas (the knowledge) of any given primitive tribe, but tl we know only the manifestations of their knowledge. This he cc siders partly due to lack of clearness of their concepts, partly to t lack of thorough investigation. The first point, according to his ide makes it unnecessary to make detailed inquiries into the connecii and history of ideas among the people who hold them (page 403). second principle is applied in the investigation of the historical cc nection of peoples as proved by their religions. He says (page 404 "The general traits of development from the animalistic to the so! concept of the world are the same the world over. The differences not lie in the dominant themes, but in secondary ones. Owing mixture of ideas which are generally connected with migrations, isolat and fragmentary parts of these ideas develop as customs, myths, ar facts, etc., which continue to exist among the tribes which have r produced them, but simply adopted them."

I have searched the book in vain for as much as an attempt to pro these principles and laws. In the very beginning we find the followin The sun-god Maui is identified by very risky etymologies with the wo for bird. The boat which often has the shape of a bird carries t souls into Hades. Birds play an important part in the myths referri to the death of Maui. Birds are used in ceremonials accompanying t burial. There are also ceremonies in which birds are used as symtx of life. This proves to the author's mind that the bird which carri away the soul has come to be considered as the bringer of life. Befc we accept such an agglomeration of beliefs and customs as proof of tl theory, Dr Frobenius must show that these beliefs have sprung from common source. Similar ethnic phenomena have so frequently c veloped from distinct psychical sources, that we decline to accept coi parisons which are not based on carefully analyzed facts. I think t absurdity of the author's applications of the " law of inversion " that has so easily found can best be shown by discussing his explanatio of the mythology of the North Pacific coast, with which subject I a familiar : A bird throws down a totem pole. According to his then this means that the bird which carried up the ancestors throws do« the carving representing the latter. Here I should object that oth totem poles come up in the same way from out of the sea, or we found in the woods. Why is the one brought by a bird more ii portant than the others? Secondly, the carvings on the totem pol

are not ancestors, but mostly protecting spirits ; and thirdly wh

seems to my mind most important — the Kwakiutl copied the custom erecting totem poles from their northern neighbors and adapted tbt

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