Page:The American Indian.djvu/417

Rh cooking, etc., each of which may be quite complex in itself, but all are dependent one upon the other. They thus form a kind of logical sequence, the ultimate aim of which is to provide a specific type of food. As another example, we may cite pottery: here we again see a complex in which are a number of unit cycles of processes, as making the paste, modeling, drying, decorating, baking, etc. Now it appears that there is a functional association of some kind between the unit processes within one of these complexes—they are at least knit into a logical whole. On the other hand, our previous discussions have shown a tendency for the whole pottery-complex to accompany the maize-complex. Yet it is not apparent that one of these is necessary to the other. Since the natives of California cooked acorn meal in baskets (page 212), it appears equally possible to cook maize meal in the same manner. The coincidence, then, between the distribution of the maize-complex and the pottery-complex can scarcely be due to any objective functional relation between the two complexes themselves.

Another interesting example of such association has been noted among the tribes intermediate to the North American Plains center of culture. These tribes lived in tipis at all times except when engaged in the production of maize, during which period they occupied permanent houses of a different type. Now, if the tipi sufficed as a residence in one case, it could do so equally well in the other. The most satisfactory explanation for this peculiarity is that the tribes from whom the art of maize culture was borrowed, used a shelter of that kind. In the same way, we could assume that pottery vessels and maize were diffused. Such explanations for trait-complex associations are classed as historical interpretations. The tacit assumption is that if two complexes once happen to get associated there is small chance of diffusing one without the other.

We have taken our illustrations from material life, but they could be duplicated in about every aspect of culture. The distinguished English anthropologist, Tylor, once discussed such associations between social trait-complexes under the name 'adhesions,' which, in a way, rather closely characterizes the