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NATURE 



[September 14, 1911 



culture higher still, and, therefore, when we bring forward 

 any Melanesia!! institution or belief as an example of 

 primitive thinking or acting, our first duty should be to 

 inquire to which stratum of Melanesian culture it belongs. 



To illustrate my meaning, I have time for only one 

 example. No concept of Melanesian culture has bulked 

 more largely in recent speculation than that of tnana, the 

 mysterious virtue to which the magico-religious rites of 

 Melanesia are believed to owe their efficacy. This word 

 now seems on its way to enter the English language as a 

 term for that power or virtue which induces the emotions 

 of awe and wonder, and thus provides a most important 

 element, not only in the specific mental states which 

 underlie religion, but also plays much the same part in 

 the early history of magic. In recent speculation the idea 

 of mana is coming to be regarded as having been the 

 basis of religious ideas and practices preceding the animism 

 which, following Prof. Tylor, we have for long regarded 

 as the earliest form of religion, and mana is thus held 

 to be not only the foundation of pie-animistic religion, but 

 also the basis of that primitive element of human culture 

 which can hardly be called either religion or magic, but is 

 the common source from which both have been derived. 

 If I am right in my analysis of Oceanic culture, the 

 Melanesian concept of mana is not a suitable basis for 

 these speculations. It is certain that the word mana 

 belongs to the culture of the immigrants into Melanesia, 

 and not to that of the aborigines. It is, of course, possible 

 that though the word belongs to the immigrant culture, 

 the ideas which it connotes may belong to a more primitive 

 stratum ; but this is a pure assumption, and one which I 

 believe to be contrary to all probability. At any rate, we 

 can be confident that even if the ideas connoted by the 

 term mana belong to or were shared by the primitive 

 stratum of Melanesian society, they must have been largely 

 modified by the influence of the alien, but superior, culture 

 from which the word itself has been taken. I believe that 

 the Melanesian evidence can legitimately be used in favour 

 of the view that the power or virtue denoted by mana is a 

 fundamental element of religion. The analysis of culture, 

 however, indicates that it is not legitimate to use the 

 Melanesian evidence to support the primitiveness of the 

 concept of mana. This evidence certainly does not support 

 the view that the concept of mana is more primitive than 

 animism, for the immigrants were already in a very 

 advanced stage of animistic religion, a cult of the dead 

 being certainly one of the most definite of their religious 

 institutions. 



Further, I believe that the use of the term mana in 

 Melanesia in connection with magic, as a term for that 

 attribute of objects used in magic to which they owe their 

 efficacy, is due to an extension of the original meaning of 

 the term, and that it would only be misleading to use 

 the Melanesian facts as evidence in favour of the concept 

 of mana as underlying primitive magic. Here, again, I 

 do not wish to deny that a concept such as that denoted 

 by mana may be a primitive element of magic ; all that 

 I wish to point out is that the Melanesian evidence cannot 

 properly be used to support this view, for the use of the 

 term in connection with magic in Melanesia is not primi- 

 tive, but secondary aad relatively late. 



The point, then, on which I wish to insist is that if 

 cultures are complex, their analysis is a preliminary step 

 which is necessary if speculations concerning the evolution 

 of human society, its beliefs and practices, are to rest on 

 a firm foundation. 



I have so far dealt only with Melanesia. It is obvious 

 that the same principle that analysis of culture must pre- 

 cede speculations concerning the evolution of institutions 

 is of wider application ; but I have time only to deal, and 

 that very briefly, with one other region. 



No part of the world has attracted more attention in 

 recent anthropological speculation than Australia, and at 

 the bottom of these speculations, at any rate in this 

 country, there has usually been the idea, openly expressed 

 or implicitly understood, that, in the culture of this region. 

 we have a homogeneous example of primitive human 

 society. From the time that I first became acquainted 

 with Australian sociology, I have wondered at the com- 

 placent tain features of Australian social 

 organisation have been regarded, and especially the com- 



NO. 2185, VOL. 87] 



bination of the dual organisation and matrimonial classes- 

 with groups closely resembling the totemic clans of other 

 parts of the world. This co-existence of two different 

 forms of social organisation side by side has seemed to- 

 me the fundamental problem of Australian society, and I 

 confess that till lately, obsessed as I see now I have been 

 by a crude evolutionary point of view, the condition has 

 seemed an absolute mystery.' A comparison, however, of 

 Australia and Melanesia has now led me to see that prob- 

 ably we have in Australia, not merely another example of 

 mixture of cultures, but even another resultant of mixture 

 of the same or closely similar components as those which 

 have peopled Melanesia, viz. a mixture of a people possess- 

 ing the dual organisation and matrilineal descent with one 

 organised in totemic clans, possessing either patrilineal 

 descent, or at any rate clear recognition of the relation 

 between father and child. This is no new view, having, 

 been already advanced, though in a different form, by 

 Graebner : and P. W. Schmidt. 3 If further research 

 should show Australian society to possess such complexity, 

 it will at once become obvious that here also ethnological 

 analysis must precede any theoretical use of the facts of 

 Australian society in support of evolutionary speculations. 



It may be objected that we all recognise the complexity 

 of culture, and, indeed, in the study of regions such as 

 the Mediterranean, where we possess historical evidence, it 

 is this complexity which forms the chief subject of dis- 

 cussion. Further, where we possess historical evidence, as 

 in tlie cases of the Hindu and Mohammedan invasions into 

 the Malay Archipelago, all anthropologists are fully alive 

 to the complexities and difficulties introduced thereby into 

 the study of culture ; but where we have no such historical 

 evidence, the complexity of culture is almost wholly ignored 

 by those who use these cultures in their attempts to 

 demonstrate the origin and course of development of 

 human institutions. 



I have now fulfilled the first purpose of this address. I 

 have tried to indicate that evolutionary speculations can 

 have no firm basis unless there has been a preceding 

 analysis of the cultures and civilisations now spread over 

 the earth's surface. Without such analysis it is impossible 

 to say whether an institution or belief possessed by a people 

 who seem simple and primitive may not really be the 

 product of a relatively advanced culture forming but one 

 element of a complexity which at first sight seems simple 

 and homogeneous. 



Before proceeding further I should like to guard against 

 a possible misconception. Some of those who are interested 

 in the ethnological analysis of culture regard it not only 

 as the first, but as the only, task of the anthropology of 

 to-day. I cannot too strongly express my disagreement 

 with this view. Because I have insisted on the import- 

 ance of ethnological analysis, I hope you will not for a 

 moment suppose that I underrate the need for the psycho- 

 logical study of customs and institutions. If the necessity 

 for the ethnological analysis of culture be recognised, this 

 psychological study becomes more complicated and difficult 

 than it has seemed to be in the past, but that makes it 

 none the less essential. Side by side with ethnological 

 analysis there must go the attempt to fathom the modes 

 of thought of different peoples, to understand their ways 

 of regarding and classifying the facts of the universe. It 

 is only bv the combination of ethnological and psycho- 

 logical analysis that we shall make any real advance. To- 

 day, however, time will not allow me to say more about 

 this psychological analysis, and I must continue the subject 

 from which I have for a moment turned aside. 



Having shown the importance of ethnological analysis, I 

 now propose to consider the process of analysis itself and 

 the principles on which it should and must be based if it 

 in its turn is to have any firm foundation. In the analysis 

 of any culture a difficulty which soon meets the investi- 

 gator is that he has to determine what is due to mere 

 contact and what is due to intimate intermixture, such 

 intermixture, for instance, as is produced by the permanent 



1 I may note here thai Mr. 1 



Anthropological Essays presented 

 to E B. I ■ 1 i p. 203), concludes with the words. "We seem lost in a 

 of difficulties." 



2 Zeit . xxxvii., 28, and " Zur australischen Religions- 



'■''-, 341. 

 • Etlmol., 1000, xli 



