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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



form to our custom of invitation or making 

 presents, and the obligations arising from the 

 offering, not from the acceptance, of such in- 

 vitations and presents. Indeed, the system 

 is almost exactly analogous, with the sole 

 exception that the Indian is more anxious to 

 outdo the first giver than the civilized Euro- 

 pean, who, however, has the same tendency, 

 and that what is custom with us is law to 

 the Indian. Thus by continued potlatches 

 each man becomes necessarily the debtor 

 of the other. According to Indian ideas, 

 any moral or material harm done to a man 

 can be made good by an adequate potlatch. 

 Thus, if a man is ridiculed by another, he 

 gives away a number of blankets to his 

 friends, and so regains his former standing. 

 I remember, for instance, that the grandson 

 of a chief in Hope Island, by unskillful man- 

 agement of his little canoe, was upset near 

 the beach and had to wade ashore. The 

 grandfather felt ashamed on account of the 

 boy's accident, and gave away blankets to 

 take away the occasion of remarks on this 

 subject. In the same way a man who feels 

 injured by another will destroy a certain 

 amount of property ; then his adversary is 

 compelled to do the same, else a stain of dis- 

 honor would rest upon him. This custom 

 may be compared to a case where a member 

 of civilized society gives away for no good 

 purpose a considerable amount of money 

 ostentatiously in order to show his superior- 

 ity over a detested neighbor. A remarkable 

 feature cf the potlatch is the custom of giv- 

 ing feasts going beyond the host's means. 

 The procedure on such occasions is also ex- 

 actly regulated. The foundation of this cus- 

 tom is the solidarity of the individual and 

 the gens, or even the tribe, to which he be- 

 longs. If an individual gains social distinc- 

 tion, his gens participates in it. If he loses 

 in respect, the stain rests also on the gens. 

 Therefore the gens contributes to the pay- 

 ments to be made at a festival. If the 

 feast is given to foreign tribes, the whole 

 tribe contributes to these payments. The 

 man who intends to give the potlatch first bor- 

 rows as many blankets as he needs from both 

 his friends and from those whom he is going 

 to invite to the feast. Every one lends him 

 as many as he can afford, or according to 

 his rank. At the feast these are given away, 

 each man receiving the more the higher his 



rank is. All those who have received any- 

 thing at the potlatch have to repay the double 

 amount at a later day, and this is used to re- 

 pay those who lent blankets. At each such 

 feast the man who gives it acquires a new 

 and more honorable name. In one tribe the 

 chief's son, some time after his father's death, 

 adopts the latter's name. For this purpose 

 he invites all the neighboring tribes to a 

 potlatch. During the festival he stands on 

 the permanent scaffold in front of his house, 

 assisted by two slaves, who distribute the 

 presents among the guests sitting or stand- 

 ing in the street. As it is necessary to give 

 a great festival at the assumption of the 

 chief's name, the new chief continues some- 

 times for years and years to accumulate 

 wealth for the purpose of celebrating this 

 event. 



Persistence of Life. The distinctions 

 between plant and animal, pointed out by 

 Prof. Dana, in the introduction to his Manual 

 of Geology, have reference to the absorption 

 by the plant of carbonic acid and by the 

 animal of oxygen ; of manufacturing organic 

 food for the animal by the plant from inor- 

 ganic materials, etc. matters which Prof. 

 Persifor Frazer does not regard as concern- 

 ing the question of the essential continuity 

 of inorganic with organic force, and the sepa- 

 ration of the phenomena of the latter from 

 those of the former by an indefinable line. No 

 hard-and-fast line, in Prof. Frazer's view, can 

 be drawn to separate animal from plant, and 

 none to separate plant from crystal. The 

 force which is the cause of production and 

 of change seems as if it were simply modi- 

 fied to suit the various structures whieh it 

 builds. The material in all three kingdoms 

 of nature is the same. Having reviewed the 

 modes of growth in the three kingdoms, the 

 author concludes that there are strong anal- 

 ogies between them, the divergence being 

 progressive as we go from mineral to plant 

 and from plant to animal. Common charac- 

 teristics of the three kingdoms are the pres- 

 ence of force, its action upon matter, and ita 

 renewal by the change of one form of mat- 

 ter to another, in the course of which energy 

 is manifested. In the crystal kingdom the 

 restrictions on the existence and growth of 

 the individual being least, and the variations 

 of conditions and environment in which ex- 



