MCGEE] THE CULT OF THE HALVES $45 
The passage of the primeval concept of a Face-Back Ego into that 
notion of two cardinal points suggesting a Cult of the Halves is happily 
represented among those Polyne 

sian tribes who, according to Chur- 
chill, have a system of geographic coordinates dominated by two 
cardinal directions, primarily seaward and landward, and secondarily 
northward and southward, respectively; while the language and cus- 
toms connote a corresponding pantheon, capriciously malevolent on 
the sea side and steadily benevolent on the land side. This system of 
orientation is especially significant as a link in the chain of conceptual 
evolution, and equally as an explanation of the persistence of quasi- 
binary systems throughout Polynesia and Australasia with their shore- 
lands of antithetic potencies; and no less significant are the facts in 
their bearing on the question of the habitat of primeval man, or of 
the orarian prototype already inferred from other facts.” Although 
varving from tribe to tribe in its relation to the meridian, this nascent 
orientation is no fleeting figment, but a deep-laid instinct so firmly 
rooted as to control every serious thought and direct every vital indus- 
try; indeed the Samoans and related navigators have developed their 
orientations into one of the most marvelous instincts in the whole 
range of animal and human life, viz, a cognition of definite albeit invis- 
ible sailing paths, whereby they are able to traverse the open Pacific, 
far beyond sight of land, with a degree of safety nearly equal to that 
afforded by chart and compass. 
The Polynesian orientation at once illumines the unformulated Cult 
of the Halves, and opens the way to an explanation of the Cult of the 
Quarters; for each point of the shore is necessarily defined by sea in 
front and land in rear, and also by strands stretching toward the right 
and toward theleft. Moreover,assemblages of Polynesiansand Austral- 
asians, like the Iroquoian tribal councils, find it convenient to arrange 
themselves in coordinate groups or ‘‘sides,” so placed laterally as to 
face a speaker at the end of the plaza or prytaneum; and there is good 
reason for opining that the collective habit was soon strengthened, 
even if it was not initiated, by the slight asymmetry of the human 
body whereby the left brain receives blood a little more directly than 
the right and gives proportional excess of strength and cunning to the 
right hand. The initial inequality was doubtless too slight to yield 
more than barely perceptible physiologic advantage to the dextral fore- 
limb, as Brinton and Mason and others have shown; yet it may well 
have sufticed to set in operation a chain of demotic interactions leading 
to the survival of the right-handed and the extinction of the left-handed 

1 Personal communication. While United States consul at Samoa, Mr Churchill collected volu- 
minous linguistic and other data well worthy of publication, though not yet issued. Conformably, 
Lesson and Martinet note that in Tahiti north and south are distinguished by denotive terms bear- 
ing a suggestive relation to tempestuous and milder winds, while east and west are without denotive 
designations, and are indicated only by descriptive phrases (Les Polynésiens, vol. 11, 1881, p. 314.) 
2The Trend of Human Progress: American Anthropologist, new series, vol. 1, 1899, p. 423. 
