HEBKDITY. ESV I IIOX M KST . AM) (I V / L/ZATKLX 



3oi 



aiul ]ic;iMUH wen- jit'tcr nil I-'iTiicli- 

 iiu'ii. wiioivas no .■^ucli IVvliiiji' ol' coiii- 

 luunity oi lan,<ruaii\' or nationalily 

 unites till' Xavalio. .\|)ach('. Ziifii. and 

 Afoma. 



This (lill'civiu-c cuts across the South- 

 west rather deeply and shows in minor 

 ways that may he very siiiiiiiicant. At 

 Zuni it is the custom for women to sit 

 liat on the i;-round hut for lueii not to 

 do so. Sometimes the luau uses an 

 empty hox: ordinarily he has huilt 

 around the walls of his i'()i)m a litth' 

 led*:e tliat i'orms a hnv soil of hcncli. 

 In general, he no more thinks of sitting' 

 cross-leiiii"ed on the ground than we do. 

 The Xavalio or Ai)ache sits right down 

 on the ground and crosses his legs. The 

 \ariou.- trihes arc perfectly conscious 

 of these customs. Once when I sat 

 Turk-fashion, my Zuni companion im- 

 mediately said. "Ah. you are Apache- 

 sitting." Xow. trivial as this is. such 

 a departure of hahits might easily cause 

 different methods of serving food, or 

 create different types of implements or 

 of etiquette. Even where such a minor 

 peculiarity results in nothing further, 

 it may often be deeply suggestive of 

 much greater distinctions. 



In the discussion of a recent address 

 before the Xew York Academy of Sci- 

 ences,^ Dr. Pliny E. Goddard called at- 

 tention to one of these greater distinc- 

 tions. The Apache and Navaho fear 

 the dead body as they would fear small- 

 pox or any other contagious disease. A 

 person that has no near kin is likely 

 not to 1)0 buried. If a man dies in a 

 house his people move off and abandon 

 the vicinity. Even if he dies out of 

 doors, his house is not lived in again. 

 Among the Pueblos it is different. Peo- 

 ple die in their rooms and the building 

 is not pulled down. The Pueblo's atti- 

 tude toward his dead lacks entirely this 

 element of horror that the ghost may 

 come back and work an injury— he feels 

 slightly or not at all certain powerful 



1 By Dr. Clark Wissler, January 28, 1918, on 

 "Cultural Problems in the Soutliwest." 



emotions to which so many otlu'r In- 

 dian tribes are intensely susceptiljle. 

 Dr. (iodihird suggested that somehow 

 the auccstiM's of the I'ueblos got rid of 

 theii- di'cad and therefore were enabled 

 to cougi'cgate in houses of stone. One 

 obviously cannot build a town and 

 then move halt' a mile away when the 

 iirst inhabitant dies. My own inter- 

 ])retation wouhl rather be the reverse of 

 \)\\ (;o(hhii-(rs. I should say that the 

 i'uehh)s found it exceedingly inconve- 

 nient to h'avc their stone dwellings 

 every litth' wiiile. and unprofitable or 

 dangerous to live in temj)orary ones. 

 'I'hcy therefore subdued their feeling 

 of dread as best they could and finally 

 got rid of it. That is, 1 should give the 

 economic cause precedence over the reli- 

 gious one. But it matters very little 

 whether 1 am right or Dr. Goddard is 

 right. We agree, and I think all an- 

 thropologists would agree, that there is 

 a connection between the two factors 

 involved in this matter. 



This connection is in a sense cultural, 

 in a sense psychological. It refers to 

 an attitude of mind bearing on other 

 attitudes of mind or habits. And that 

 brings us to the last aspect under which 

 we luust consider human civilization: 

 namely, as a product of interacting cul- 

 tural factors each with its peculiar psy- 

 chological coloring. The mental atti- 

 tude that fears the dead is more than a 

 mere psychological phenomenon. It is 

 something that can be formulated in 

 terms of culture and connected with 

 cultural elements. The ISTavaho's emo- 

 tion is to us no longer a pure or 

 abstract emotion, but something that 

 we can bring into positive causal re- 

 lation with directly institutional fac- 

 tors such as architecture in stone or 

 wood. 



For instance, in temperament the 

 Pueblo Indians are gentle. They are 

 an exceedingly amiable people, showing 

 some reserve, but not the stubborn reti- 

 cence characteristic of so many of our 

 Indians. They do not evince the manly, 



