Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/51

 GOLDENWEISER] A NEW APPROACH TO HISTORY 39

So completely was the individual subordinated to the community that art was just the repetition of tribal designs, literature the repetition of tribal songs, and religion the repetition of tribal rites (pp. 86-7).

And, once more:

the traditional ideas entertained have, in general, been transmutted into customary actions and ways of doing things. So, religious ideas are concentrated in rites and observances, and explanations of natural phenomena are embodied in sym- bolic ceremonies. In short, the whole body of custom and tradition represents ideas fixed in action. Since these modes of action, which are associated with the essential activities of life, must be prosecuted with rigid adherence to precedent, it is evident that any reconsideration of the validity of the ideas upon which they rest is practically out of the question. Primitive man does not "think," he per- forms definitely prescribed actions under the eye of the community, which, in turn, is vitally concerned in the exactness with which the repetition of formula or ceremony is carried out (p. 108).

It would be futile to dispute the profound significance for progress of the free creative individual, as attested to in the above passages. Also, the contrast, from this standpoint, between modern and primitive conditions, is, in the main, indubitably correct. But when we are asked to look upon the terminal points of migrations with their cultural conflicts, as the birthplaces of individualism, agreement must be withheld. However tradition-ridden primitive society may be, it is far from presenting the characteristics of a well-nigh automatic perpetuator of traditional usage with which the author attempts to endow it. .A superficial survey of primi- tive art, religion, and mythology would suffice to show that over- socialized though primitive man may be, he does not merely draw to pattern, repeat by rote ancestral stories and mutter timeworn incantations. While the range of individual creativeness is cer- tainly limited, when compared with modern standards, while the self-consciousness of the primitive artist may impress us as insig- nificant, there is creativeness, in art, religion, myth-telling and myth-making, in which man and woman participate. That primitive man does not think is as little true as the obsolete dogmas that he has no power of abstraction or that his language has no grammar. It must also be remembered that Professor Teggart, like so many before him, portrays primitive man as if he were free from those matter-of-fact activities, which, in fact, constitute to

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