ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH OUTSIDE AMERICA. 11 



as completely as possible from the general throng. Friederici's explanation 

 applies especially to the short visits of a survey, but there are other factors 

 which apply also to intensive work and to a long-continued stay among a 

 people. 



It is one of the characters of rude culture as compared with that of 

 civilized peoples that it is far less easy, often indeed impossible, to separate 

 those different aspects which are readily distinguished in a higher culture. 

 Among ourselves it is possible to distinguish clearly religious from political, 

 educational, and artistic activities, and each of these from the useful arts. 

 The different domains often overlap, but those who wish to study one of these 

 aspects of life find no difficulty in doing so, and are able to enter into any one 

 subject thoroughly without having more than an ordinary and superficial 

 working knowledge of the rest. Such specialistic treatment is difficult or 

 impossible among peoples of rude culture or, if it be attempted, can result 

 in nothing but incomplete and largely barren work. Thus, for instance, 

 among many peoples of rude culture a useful art is at the same time a series 

 of rehgious rites, an aesthetic occupation, and an important element in the 

 social organization. One who studies the art merely on the obviously 

 utilitarian side will miss whole worlds of thought and custom, by means 

 of which alone the art and its details become intelligible. Similarly, the 

 student of religion or of sociology who regards such technical occupations 

 as without his province will pass over large fields of I'eligious or social activ- 

 ity without which any complete understanding of his subject is impossible. 

 Even a subject which seems as independent and self-sufficient as linguistics 

 is now suffering severely from the attempt to separate it from other aspects 

 of human activity with which it has the most intimate and vital connections. 

 It follows that specialism in the collection of ethnographical details must be 

 avoided at all costs, and one of the reasons why individual workers have been 

 so successful in ethnology is that their isolation has driven them to- take an 

 interest in every aspect of the life of those among whom they are working, 

 and whole departments of knowledge have not been allowed to remain below 

 the threshold because they did not interest a specialist. Once this danger 

 has been recognized, it is evident that it is one which can be avoided in collec- 

 tive work even of any magnitude. The work of an expedition will attain 

 its highest efficiency if it takes note of this feature of ethnographical inquiry, 

 and seeks to combine the advantages of individual enterprise with the work 

 of specialists where this seems indispensable. Such combination should take 

 the form of a division of the members of an expedition into workers who 

 attempt to cover the whole field of ethnographical inquiry within a limited 

 district, and experts and specialists whose task will be the survey and assist- 

 ance of the intensive workers and the coordination of their results in the 

 special departments in which they are interested. 



Two other features of ethnographical work may be considered which 

 may help the decision as to the kind of inquiry from which the most profitable 



