dall.] SUMMARY 149 



we find parallel, and, in most cases, closely similar customs elaborately 

 developed, with local omissions or additions, but the thing at bottom 

 appears to be the same. 



In Melanesia we yet know almost nothing of the mythology. As they 

 have no sea eagles, they probably have no "thunder bird," but his 

 voice is recognized, and his portrait drawn from Mexico to the Polar 

 Sea in West America. 



I have already shown how the custom of labretifery passes from tribe 

 to tribe over ninety degrees of latitude, and I do not know how many 

 linguistic stocks. The custom of tatooing lines on the chins of girls is a 

 small thing, and widely spread. Perhaps it should be omitted from 

 this series as not sufficiently exclusively West American. However, it 

 prevails, or did prevail, from Melanesia to Peru, and from Mexico to 

 the Arctic, on the lines we have traced. 



Now, I have not a word in favor of any idea of common origin of the 

 people possessing these characteristics. Taken within visible limits I 

 consider it perfectly untenable. I believe, however, when we know 

 our aborigines better we shall be more surprised by the points on which 

 they agree than impressed, as we are now, by their remarkable differ- 

 ences. 



But from my point of view these influences have been impressed 

 upon people already developed to a certain, not very low, degree of 

 culture. I have stated why I believe it to have come to the western 

 Innuit since the chief and universal characteristics of that race, as a 

 whole, were fixed and determined. I have mentioned how such a 

 change may be seen in actual progress among the degenerate Tinneh on 

 the Lower Yukon. The adoption by the Haidaof the T'simpsian ritual 

 aud mythological or social dances described by Dawson, the same ac- 

 quisition by the Makah from the Nittinats, related by Swan, are cases 

 in point, though feeble ones. 



Of course this influence has not been exerted without contact. My 

 own hypothesis is that it was an incursion from Melanesia via South- 

 eastern Polynesia which produced the impact ; perhaps more than one. 

 In all probability too, it occurred before eilher Melanesian, Polynesian, 

 or American had acquired his present state of culture or his present 

 geographical distribution. 



The impulse communicated at one point might be ages in spreading, 

 when it would probably be generally diffused in all directions ; or more 

 rapidly, when it would probably follow the lines of least resistance and 

 most rapid intercommunication. 



It is true that there is no such arrangement in savage society as that 

 by which a fiat in Bond street determines that within six months every 

 white man's head shall be roofed with a particular style of hat. Never- 

 theless communication among them is rapid, and in things they under- 

 stand, or are interested in, faithful and effective, even between unfriendly 

 tribes. 



