XXX BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



the cradk- in which iudustiy is rocked, tor the eurhest jjleas- 

 ures of mankind are mimetic industries. 



2. Although less perfect than in higher culture, the indus- 

 trial instinct of the American aborigines is developed to a 

 suogestive degree. Observably springing from the desire 

 for sustenance and the need for protection from unfriendly 

 environment, the industries of the tribesmen, as the researches 

 among them indicate, are developed through the regulation or 

 control of spontaneous activities. The impulse toward regu- 

 lation arises in various ways. Doubtless the initial impulse is 

 physiologic, and hence pertains to the individual i-ather than 

 the group; ))ut the observably effective impulses are predomi- 

 nantly mimetic and subordinatelv rational, and in either case are 

 essentially collective. Throughout primitive industry, mimicry 

 plays a leading role; tlie activities of food-getting are learned 

 by example, not merely the example of human food-getters 

 but that of beasts deitied in recognition of tlieir strengfth and 

 swiftness and ferocity. Teeth, claws, horns, spines, and shells 

 are chosen as implements by reason of a mythic magnification 

 of their ethcienc}' in offense and defense, and wholly artificial 

 implements and weapons are fabricated in imitation of the 

 animal structures, in the faith that they are thereby endowed 

 with superj)hysical potency. As the amicable workers multi- 

 ply their devices ai"e interchanged, with the effect that the 

 more efficient are retained and the less efficient abandoned. 

 Even when the workers are inimical some interchano-e Sfoes on 

 under the process of accultvu-atioii, for the leading motive of 

 strife in savagery and barbarism is the conquest of deities 

 symbolized by the devices of warfare. With the growth of 

 faculty example is integrated and experience coordinated and 

 mysticism measurably eliminated, so that induslri;d activity 

 is regulated by rational arrangement of realities — and thus 

 invention begins; but invention arises with exceeding slow- 

 ness among lower men, and remains dominated by primitive 

 imitation until the higher culture-stages are attained. The 

 factors involved in regulating- spontaneous impulses and direct- 

 ing them toward individual and collective welfare appear to 

 be (1) heritage, (2) environmental interaction, (3) imitation, 



