September 14, 191 1] 



NATURE 



559 



blending of one people with another either through war- 

 like invasion or peaceful settlement. The fundamental 

 weakness of most of the attempts hitherto made to analyse 

 existing cultures is that they have had their starting-point 

 in the study of material objects, and the reason for this 

 is obvious. Owing to the fact that material objects can 

 be collected by anyone and subjected at leisure to pro- 

 longed study by experts, our knowledge of the distribu- 

 tion of material objects and of the technique of their manu- 

 facture has very far outrun that of the less material 

 elements. What I wish now to point out is that in dis- 

 tinguishing between the effects of mere contact and the 

 intermixture of peoples, material objects are the least trust- 

 worthy of all the constituents of culture. Thus in 

 Melanesia we have the clearest evidence that material 

 objects and processes can spread by mere contact, without 

 any true admixture of peoples and without influence on 

 other features of the culture. While the distribution of 

 material objects is of the utmost importance in suggesting 

 at the outset community of culture, and while it is of 

 equal importance in the final process of determining points 

 of contact and in filling in the details of the mixture of 

 cultures, it is the least satisfactory guide to the actual 

 blending of peoples which must form the solid foundation 

 of the ethnological analysis of culture. The case for the 

 value of magico-religious institutions is not much stronger. 

 Here, again, in Melanesia there is little doubt that whole 

 cults can pass from one people to another without any real 

 intermixture of peoples. I do not wish to imply that such 

 religious institutions can pass from people to people with 

 the ease of material objects, but to point out that there is 

 evidence that they can and do so pass with very little, if 

 any, admixture of peoples or of the deeper and more funda- 

 mental elements of the culture. Much more important is 

 language ; and if you will think over the actual conditions 

 when one people either visit or settle among another, this 

 greater importance will be obvious. Let us imagine a 

 party of Melanesians visiting a Polynesian island, staying 

 there for a few weeks, and then returning home (and 

 here I am not taking a fictitious occurrence, but one which 

 really happens). We can readily understand that the 

 visitors may take with them their betel-mixture, and 

 thereby introduce the custom of betel-chewing into a new 

 home ; we can readily understand that they may introduce 

 an ornament to be worn in the nose and another to be 

 worn on the chest ; that tales that they tell will be remem- 

 bered, and dances they perform will be imitated. A few 

 Melanesian words may pass into the language of the Poly- 

 nesian island, especially as names for the objects or pro- 

 cesses which the strangers have introduced ; but it is in- 

 credible that the strangers should thus in a short visit 

 produce any extensive change in the vocabulary, and still 

 more that they should modify the structure of the language. 

 Such changes can never be the result of mere contact or 

 transient settlement, but must always indicate a far more 

 deeply seated and fundamental process of blending of 

 peoples and cultures. 



Few will perhaps hesitate to accept this position ; but I 

 expect ray next proposition to meet with more scepticism, 

 and yet I believe it to be widely, though not universally, 

 true. 1 This proposition is that the social structure, the 

 framework of society, is still more fundamentally important 

 and still less easily changed except as the result of the 

 intimate blending of peoples, and for that reason furnishes 

 by far the firmest foundation on which to base the process 

 of analysis of culture. I cannot hope to establish the truth 

 of this proposition in the course of a brief address, and I 

 propose to draw your attention to one line of evidence onlv. 



At the present moment we have before our eves an 

 object-lesson in the spread of our own people over the 

 earth's surface, and we are thus able to study how external 

 influence affects different elements of culture. What we 

 find is that mere contact is able to transmit much in the 

 way of material culture. A passing vessel, which does not 

 even anchor, may be able to transmit iron, while European 

 weapons may be us.-d by people who have never even seen 

 a white man. Again, missionaries introduce the Christian 

 religion among people who cannot speak a word of English 

 or any language but their own, or only use such European 



1 There .-ire definite exceptions in Melanesia; places where the social 

 structure has been transformed, though the ancient language persists. 



NO. 2185, VOL. 87] 



words as have been found necessary to express ideas or 

 objects connected with the new religion. There is evidence 

 how readily language may be attected, and here again 

 the present day suggests a mechanism by which such a 

 change takes place. English is now becoming the language 

 of the Pacific and of other parts of the world through its 

 use as a lingua franca, which enables natives who speak 

 different languages to converse not only with Europeans, 

 but with one another, and I believe that this has often 

 been the mechanism in the past ; that, for instance, the 

 introduction of what we now call the Melanesian structure 

 of language was due to the fact that the language of an 

 immigrant people who settled in a region of great linguistic 

 diversity came to be used as a lingua franca, and thus 

 gradually became the basis of the languages of the whole 

 people. 



But now let us turn to social structure. We find in 

 Oceania islands where Europeans have been settled as 

 missionaries or traders perhaps for fifty or a hundred 

 years ; we find the people wearing European clothes and 

 European ornaments, using European utensils, and even 

 European weapons when they fight ; we find them holding 

 the beliefs and practising the ritual of a European religion ; 

 we find them speaking a European language, often even 

 among themselves, and yet investigation shows that much 

 of their social structure remains thoroughly native and 

 uninfluenced, not only in its general form, but often even 

 in its minute details. The external influence has swept 

 away the whole material culture, so that objects of native 

 origin are manufactured only to sell to tourists ; it has 

 substituted a wholly new religion and destroyed every 

 material, if not every moral, vestige of the old ; it has 

 caused great modification and degeneration of the old 

 language ; and yet it may have left the social structure in 

 the main untouched. And the reasons for this are clear. 

 Most of the essential social structure of a people lies so 

 below the surface ; it is so literally the foundation of the 

 whole life of the people that it is not seen ; it is not 

 obvious, but can only be reached by patient and laborious 

 exploration. I will give a few specific instances. In 

 several islands of the Pacific, some of which have had 

 European settlers on them for more than a century, a 

 most important position in the community is occupied by 

 the father's sister. 1 If any native of these islands were 

 asked who is the most important person in the determina- 

 tion of his life-history, he would answer, " My father's 

 sister"; and yet the place of this relative in the social 

 structure has remained absolutely unrecorded, and, I 

 believe, absolutely unknown, to the European settlers in 

 these islands. Again, Europeans have settled in Fiji for 

 more than a century, and yet it is only during this summer 

 that I have heard from Mr. A. M. Hocart, who is working 

 there at present, that there is the clearest evidence of what 

 is known as the dual organisation of society as a working 

 social institution at the present time. How unobtrusive 

 such a fundamental fact of social structure may be comes 

 home to me in this case very strongly, for it wholly eluded 

 my own observation during a visit three years ago. 



Lastly, the most striking example of the permanence 

 of social structure which I have met is in the Hawaiian 

 Islands. There the original native culture is reduced to 

 the merest wreckage. So far as material objects are con- 

 cerned, the people are like ourselves ; the old religion has 

 gone, though there probably still persists some of the 

 ancient magic. The people themselves have so dwindled 

 in number, and the political conditions are so altered, that 

 the social structure has also necessarily been greatly- 

 modified, and yet I was able to ascertain that one of its 

 elements, an element which I believe to form the deepest 

 layer of the foundation, the very bedrock of social struc- 

 ture, the system of relationship, is still in use unchanged. 

 I was able to obtain a full account of the system as 

 actually used at the present time, and found it to be 

 exactly the same as that recorded forty years ago by 

 Morgan and Hyde, and I obtained evidence that the 

 system is still deeply interwoven with the intimate mental 

 life of the people. 



If, then, social structure has this fundamental and 

 deeply seated character, if it is the least easily changed, 

 and only changed as the result either of actual blending of 



