BOAS] HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES 11 



vails. Another case in point is the coast of New Guinea, where, 

 notwithstanding strong local differentiations, a certain fairly char- 

 acteristic type of culture prevails, wliich goes hand in hand with a 

 strong differentiation of languages. Among more highly civilized 

 peoples, the whole area which is under the influence of Chinese cul- 

 ture might be given as an example. 



These considerations make it fairly clear that, at least at the present 

 time, anatomical type, language, and culture have not necessarily the 

 same fates; that a people may remain constant in type and language 

 and change in culture; that they may remain constant in type, but 

 change in language; or that they may remain constant in language 

 and change in type and culture. If this is true, then it is obvious 

 that attempts to classify mankind, based on the present distribution 

 of type, language, and culture, must lead to different results, accord- 

 ing to the point of view taken; that a classification based primarily 

 on type alone will lead to a system which represents, more or less 

 accurately, the blood relationships of the people, which do not need 

 to coincide with their cultural relationsliips ; and that, in the same 

 way, classifications based on language and culture do not need at 

 all to coincide with a biological classification. 



If this be true, then a problem like the much discussed Aryan 

 problem really does not exist, because the problem is primarily a 

 linguistic one, relating to the history of the Aryan languages; and 

 the assumption that a certain definite people whose members have 

 always been related by blood must have been the carriers of this 

 language tliroughout history; and the other assumption, that a cer- 

 tain cultural type must have always belonged to tliis people — are 

 purely arbitrary ones and not in accord with the observed facts. 



Hypothesis of Original Correlation of Type, Language, and 



Culture 



Nevertheless, it must be granted, that in a theoretical considera- 

 tion of the history of the types of mankind, of languages, and of 

 cultures, we are led back to the assumption of early conditions during 

 which each type was much more isolated from the rest of mankind 

 than it is at the present time. For tliis reason, the culture and the 

 language belonging to a single type must have been much more 

 sharply separated from those of other types than we find them to be 

 at the present period. It is true that such a condition has nowhere 



