564 ETHNOLOGY 



usually of the most imperfect character; this, however, is not at 

 all to be wondered at when we consider the training of those who 

 collected the information or the manner in which it was obtained. 

 The reliable collector is as fully aware as is the helpless student of 

 the imperfection of his record, and for this there is only one remedy, 

 more extensive and more thorough investigations in the field carried 

 on by trained observers. 



Travelers and residents, naturalists as well as anthropologists, 

 continually point out that throughout the world a very rapid change 

 is taking place among nearly all peoples. The expansion of Europe 

 has affected the less civilized peoples in very diverse ways, and 

 this pressure has resulted in social upheaval, the upsetting of tradi- 

 tional safeguards to morality, and weakening of old faiths. 



Owing to the withering influence of the white man, the more prim- 

 itive peoples are more or less rapidly disappearing; either they are 

 actually dying out, as are the Australians, who are quickly following 

 the now extinct Tasmanians, or they are becoming so modified by 

 contact with the white man and by crossings with alien peoples who 

 have been deported by Europeans that immediate steps are neces- 

 sary to record the anthropological data that remain. Not only are 

 thp opportunities for study fast slipping away, but this process is 

 actually fastest in those countries where the most important results 

 are likely to be obtained. There is no exaggeration in this. The 

 delay of each year in the investigation of primitive peoples means 

 that so much less information is possible to be obtained. 



A word of warning is not unnecessary. There is still a great 

 danger that travelers will make it their first endeavor to amass 

 extensive collections, quite regardless of the fact that a sketch or 

 a photograph of an object about which full particulars have been 

 collected is of much greater scientific value than the possession of 

 the object without the information. The rapid sweeping-up of speci- 

 mens from a locality does great harm to ethnology. As a rule only 

 the makers of an object can give full details respecting it, and no 

 traveler who is here to-day and gone to-morrow can get all the 

 requisite information; this takes time and patience. The rapid 

 collector may get some sort of a story with his specimen, but he has 

 no time to check the information by appeal to other natives, or to 

 go over the details in order to see that he has secured them all and 

 in the right order. 



It is now recognized that many native objects have a deeper 

 significance than would be suspected by the casual observer. This 

 can only be coaxed out of the native by patient sympathy. Some 

 information may be "rushed," but the finer flowers of the imagina- 

 tion, the spiritual concepts and sacred aspirations, can only be 

 revealed to those with whom the native is in true sympathy, and, 



