Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/131

 Reviews. 99

sickness. The feast of the dead is celebrated; the solstice is solemnly observed. In fact, the whole winter life is lived, it may be said, in a state of religious exaltation, in which every member of the community takes part. The place of assembly is the kashim ; and there individuals are arranged not by families (as in the houses), nor by houses, but according to their more or less vague social functions. The smaller social units of summer seem completely merged in the larger unit of the settlement, which attains its full presentation in the kashim and in the various rites expressing the collective life of the com- munity and shared in by every member.

Thus the settlement exhibits almost every feature of clan-life, as clan-life is known to us among peoples possessing the most highly organized clans. (Some of its features, I may observe, are either not to be found in clan-life or are here found in a more intense or developed form.) The only characteristic of clan-life wanting is that of exogamy. Even this is not uniformly wanting; and where it is so marriage is forbidden between housemates — a recognition of an inner circle of relationship within that of the settlement.

Such, if I understand it rightly, is M. Mauss' summary of the difference between the summer and winter organizations of the Eskimo. Anybody who has experienced the difficulty of summarizing the customs of a widely-extended group of peoples varying in all sorts of details, though agreeing in the main lines of their organization, will understand how many questions have to be determined in the course of an attempt to present a general statement, and will make allowance for difference of judgement as to the effect and importance of differing details. We are accustomed, and rightly so, to attribute to the French intellect a lucidity of which we, on this side of the Channel, often stand in need. M. Mauss' pre- sentation of Eskimo social characteristics does not lack lucidity. But it is not easy to summarize what is already itself a summary ; and I can hardly hope that I have reproduced all his points as they deserve to be reproduced.

In the main his account is doubtless correct. I am not quite sure, however, whether he has not somewhat overstated the