This book is an attempt to give an analytical description of the
fundamental traits of primitive art. The treatment given to the
subject is based on two principles that, I believe, should guide all
investigations into the manifestations of life among primitive people:
the one the fundamental sameness of mental processes in all races and
in all cultural forms of the present day; the other, the consideration
of every cultural phenomenon as the result of historical happenings.
There must have been a time when man’s mental equipment was different
from what it is now, when it was evolving from a condition similar
to that found among the higher apes. That period lies far behind us
and no trace of a lower mental organization is found in any of the
extant races of man. So far as my personal experience goes and so
far as I feel competent to judge ethnographical data on the basis of
this experience, the mental processes of man are the same everywhere,
regardless of race and culture, and regardless of the apparent
absurdity of beliefs and customs.
Some theorists assume a mental equipment of primitive man distinct from
that of civilized man. I have never seen a person in primitive life
to whom this theory would apply. There are slavish believers in the
teachings of the past and there are scoffers and unbelievers; there are
clear thinkers and muddleheaded bunglers; there are strong characters
and weaklings.
The behavior of everybody, no matter to what culture he may belong, is
determined by the traditional material he handles, and man, the world
over, handles the material transmitted to him according to the same
methods.
Our traditional experience has taught us to consider the course of
objective events as the result of definite, objective causation.
Inexorable causality governs here and the outer world cannot be
influenced by mental conditions. Hence our hesitating wonder at the
phenomena of hypnotism and suggestion in which these lines seem no
longer sharply drawn. Our cultural environment has impressed this
view upon our minds so deeply that we assume as a fundamental fact
that material phenomena, particularly outside of the field of human
behavior, can never be influenced by mental, subjective processes.
Still, every ardent wish implies the possibility of fulfilment and
prayers for objective benefits or for help do not differ in principle
from the attempts of primitive man to interfere with the uncontrollable
course of nature. The credulity with which fantastic theories bearing
upon health are accepted, the constant rise of religious sects with
abstruse dogmatic tenets, as well as the fashions in scientific and
philosophic theory prove the weakness of our claim to a rational view
of the world.
Anyone who has lived with primitive tribes, who has shared their
joys and sorrows, their privations and their luxuries, who sees in
them not solely subjects of study to be examined like a cell under
the microscope, but feeling and thinking human beings, will agree
that there is no such thing as a “primitive mind”, a “magical” or
“prelogical” way of thinking, but that each individual in “primitive”
society is a man, a woman, a child of the same kind, of the same way of
thinking, feeling and acting as man, woman or child in our own society.
Investigators are too apt to forget that the logics of science,—that
unattainable ideal of the discovery of pure relations of cause
and effect, uncontaminated by any kind of emotional bias as well
as of unproved opinion,—are not the logics of life. The feelings
underlying taboo are ever-present among us. I remember that as a
boy, when receiving instruction in religion,—that is in dogma,—I had
an insuperable inhibition against uttering the word “God”, and I
could not be brought to answer a question that required the answer
“God”. If I had been older I should have searched for and found a
personally satisfying explanation for this inhibition. Everyone knows
by experience that there are actions he will not perform, lines of
thought that he will not follow, and words that he will not utter,
because the actions are emotionally objectionable, or the thoughts find
strong resistances and involve our innermost life so deeply that they
cannot be expressed in words. We are right in calling these social
taboos. It requires only a dogmatic standardization to transform them
into true taboos.
And magic? I believe if a boy should observe someone spitting on his
photograph and cutting it to pieces he would feel duely outraged. I
know if this should have happened to me when I was a student, the
result would have been a duel and I should have done my level best to
do to my adversary _in natura_ what he had done to me _in effigie_ and
I should have considered my success as a compensation for the harm done
me;—all this without any psychoanalytic meaning. I do not believe that
my feelings would have differed much from those of other young men.
Again a standardization and dogmatization would bring us right back to
“magical” attitudes.
Dr. Tozzer’s[1] collection of superstitions of College students with
the enlightening remarks by those who hold the beliefs will be read
with profit by all those who are convinced of our mental superiority
and the lack of ability of clear thinking among the primitives.
[1] A. M. Tozzer, Social Origins and Social Continuities, New York,
1925, pp. 242 et seq.
Still other considerations should caution us against the assumption
of a radical difference between primitive and civilized mentality.
We like to see this distinction in greater individual mental freedom
from social bondage expressed in a free critical attitude that makes
possible individual creativeness.
Our much admired scientific training has never proved a safeguard
against the seductiveness of emotional appeals, just as little as
it has prevented the acceptance as gospel truth of the grossest
absurdities, if presented with sufficient energy, self assertion and
authority. If anything, the late war with its organized governmental
and private propaganda should make us understand this truth. Opinions
energetically propagated and spurious facts diligently disseminated
color the thinking of the people, and not only of the uneducated. The
intellectual is deceived as easily as the untutored by sanctimonious
professions that conform to the moral code of time and place and
flatter the feeling of self-righteousness. They gloss over the conflict
of deed and word and, when uttered by those in authority, make
criminals appear like saints.
Our advantage over primitive people is one of greater knowledge of the
objective world, painfully gained by the labor of many generations, a
knowledge which we apply rather badly and which we, or at least most of
us, discard just as soon as a strong emotional urge impels us to do so,
and for which we substitute forms quite analogous to those of primitive
thought.
The much maligned introspective psychology proves to the unbiased
observer that the causes that make primitive man think as he does, are
equally present in our minds. The particular behavior in each case
is determined by the traditional knowledge at the disposal of the
individual.
* * * * *
The second fundamental point to be borne in mind is that each culture
can be understood only as an historical growth determined by the
social and geographical environment in which each people is placed
and by the way in which it develops the cultural material that comes
into its possession from the outside or through its own creativeness.
For the purpose of an historical analysis we treat each particular
problem first of all as a unit, and we attempt to unravel the threads
that may be traced in the development of its present form. For this
reason we may not start our inquiries and interpretations, as though
the fundamental thesis of a single unilineal development of cultural
traits the world over, of a development that follows everywhere the
same lines, had been definitely proven. If it is claimed that culture
has run such a course, the assertion must be proven on the basis of
detailed studies of the historical changes in single cultures and by
the demonstration of analogies in their development.
It is safe to say that the critical study of recent years has
definitely disproved the existence of far-reaching homologies which
would permit us to arrange all the manifold cultural lines in an
ascending scale in which to each can be assigned its proper place.
On the other hand dynamic conditions exist, based on environment,
physiological, psychological, and social factors, that may bring forth
similar cultural processes in different parts of the world, so that it
is probable that some of the historical happenings may be viewed under
more general dynamic viewpoints.
But historical data are not available and when prehistoric research
does not reveal sequences of cultural changes, the only available
method of study is the geographical one, the study of distribution.
This has been emphasized in the last third of the past century by
Friedrich Ratzel. It has probably been most rigidly developed in the
United States. I illustrated this method in 1891 by a study of the
distribution of folk-tales in North America[2] and it has become more
and more the method of analytical study of cultural forms.
[2] Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. IV, pp. 13-20; also Science,
Vol. XII (1888), pp. 194-196.
Its very fruitfulness, however, has led to extremes in its application
that should be guarded against. I pointed out, in print in 1911 and
often before and since that time in speaking, that there is a certain
homology between universal distribution of cultural facts and their
antiquity. The fundamental principle involved in this assumption was
fully discussed by Georg Gerland in 1875,[3] although we are hardly
ready to accept his conclusions. The data of prehistoric archaeology
prove that some of these universal achievements go back to paleolithic
times. Stone implements, fire and ornaments are found in that period.
Pottery and agriculture, which are less universally distributed, appear
later. Metals, the use of which is still more limited in space, are
found still later.
[3] Anthropologische Beiträge, Halle a/S, pp. 401 et seq.
Recent attempts have been made to raise to a general principle this
point of view which, with due caution, may be applied here and
there. Herbert Spinden in his reconstruction of American prehistoric
chronology, Alfred Kroeber in his analysis of cultural forms of the
Pacific Coast, and quite recently Clark Wissler have built up, founded
on this principle a system of historic sequences that appear to me
as quite untenable. That widely distributed cultural traits develop
special forms in each particular area is a truism that does not
require any proof. That these local developments may be arranged in
a chronological series, that those of the most limited distribution
are the youngest, is only partially true. It is not difficult to find
phenomena that center in a certain region and dwindle down at the
outskirts, but it is not true that these invariably arise on an ancient
substratum. The converse is often true, that an idea emanating from a
center is diffused over a wide area. Neither may the origin always be
looked for in the area of the strongest development. In the same way
as we find animals surviving and flourishing in regions far distant
from the locality in which they developed, so cultural traits may be
transferred and find their highest expression in regions far away from
their origin. The bronze castings of Benin; the wood carvings of New
Zealand; the bronze work of ancient Scandinavia; the giant stone work
of Easter Island; the early cultural development of Ireland and its
influences over Europe are examples of this kind.
Equally unsafe are the methods used by Fritz Graebner and Pater W.
Schmidt who claim the stability of certain very old and, as I fear,
fictitious correlations between cultural traits.
It is probably not necessary to point out the utter inadequacy of
Elliott Smith’s attempt to reduce all ethnological phenomena to a
single, and anthropologically speaking, late source and to assume a
permanence of cultural forms that exists nowhere.
It has often been observed that cultural traits are exceedingly
tenacious and that features of hoary antiquity survive until the
present day. This has led to the impression that primitive culture is
almost stable and has remained what it is for many centuries. This does
not correspond to the facts. Wherever we have detailed information we
see forms of objects and customs in constant flux, sometimes stable for
a period, then undergoing rapid changes. Through this process elements
that at one time belonged together as cultural units are torn apart.
Some survive, others die, and so far as objective traits are concerned,
the cultural form may become a kaleidoscopic picture of miscellaneous
traits that, however, are remodelled according to the changing
spiritual background that pervades the culture and that transforms
the mosaic into an organic whole. The better the integration of the
elements the more valuable appears to us the culture. I believe that it
may be said that the coherent survival of cultural features that are
not organically connected is exceedingly rare, while single detached
elements may possess marvellous longevity.
* * * * *
In the present book the problem of growth of individual art styles will
be touched upon only incidentally. Our object is rather an attempt
to determine the dynamic conditions under which art styles grow up.
The specific historical problem requires much fuller material than
what we now possess. There are very few parts of the world in which
we can trace, by archaeological or comparative geographical study,
the growth of art styles. Prehistoric archaeology in Europe, Asia,
and America shows, however, that, as general cultural traits are in a
constant state of flux, so also do art styles change and the breaks
in the artistic life of the people are often surprisingly sudden. It
remains to be seen whether it is possible to derive generally valid
laws that control the growth of specific art styles, such as Adama
van Scheltema has tried to derive for North European art.[4] With
increasing technical skill and perfection of tools, changes are bound
to occur. Their course is determined by the general cultural history of
the people. We are not in a position to say that the same tendencies,
modified by local historical happenings, reappear in the course of art
development everywhere.
[4] Die altnordische Kunst, Berlin, 1923.
I wish to express my thanks to those who have assisted me in gathering
the illustrative material for this volume. I am indebted to the
American Museum of Natural History, especially to Dr. Pliny E. Goddard
for permission to have drawings made of specimens, for liberal help in
their selection and also for the use of illustrative material from the
Museum publications. I am also indebted to the Field Museum, Chicago;
the United States National Museum, Washington; the University Museum
of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, the Free Public
Museum of the City of Milwaukee and to the Linden Museum at Stuttgart
for illustrations of specimens. The drawings were made by Mr. W. Baake,
Miss M. Franziska Boas and Miss Lillian Sternberg.