SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 419 
concept of culture areas which is both objective and psychological, both realisti- 
cally historical and critical in its evaluation of the alternative principles of 
interpretation of cultural features. 
Other contributions of the American School to the study of primitive cultures 
are the linguistic and statistical methods and the concepts of convergence and 
pattern. 
10. Mr. W. D. Wautis.—Diffusion as a Criterion of Age. 
The identification of extent of distribution of a trait with age of the trait cannot 
be accepted. When one trait displaces another the newer trait is the more widely 
distributed. The rapidity of diffusion differs with various traits. History shows 
that the relative distribution of culture traits differs from century to century, as 
notably in the Mediterranean area. Only at a chosen point in the time perspective 
is relative distribution an index to relative age. Traits do not spread equally in all 
directions, hence place of origin seldom remains the centre of distribution. Neither 
is the area of intensive development always the area of origin. A law regarding the 
distribution of traits in primitive culture can be checked only by history, not by 
studying cultures of which the historical development is unknown. 
Conclusion: Comparative distribution is not evidence of comparative age. The 
tendency to spread differs with traits, with culture areas, and with historical epochs. 
11. Prof. H. J. Rosze.—The Bride of Hades. 
Why is death so often equated with marriage in Greece? This is true not only 
of references in literature (as in Sophocles’ Antigone) but of cult (water-jar, for nuptial 
bath, on tombs of virgins), and has parallels elsewhere (as in the Rumanian ritual 
for the burial of an unmarried girl). It is not a case of Todtenhochzeit, which does 
not seem to have been a Greek custom at any date; the sacrifice of Polyxena is not 
an instance. 
Compare (1) the common equating of human fertility with that of the earth, 
(2) the myth of the marriage of Persephone to Hades, (3) ritual, such as that of Kybele, 
the Roman Fordicidia, and the cult of the Eumenides at Sikyon, in which something 
or someone capable of being fertile is prevented from using his own fertility for the 
normal purposes in order that it may be given to a fertility-power. The virgin’s 
potential fertility is regarded as going to increase the fertility of earth or of the under- 
world powers. This naturally finds expression in the metaphor of her marriage. 
It is possible that this led to sacrifice of virgins in early times. Mythical and 
historical examples of a girl being sacrificed to get, not fertility, but its congener, 
luck in warfare, &c., were given. 
12. Mrs. Ruts Fuuron Benevict.—Religious Complexes of the North 
American Indians. 
All over North America, except in the one intericr region of the south-west 
pueblos, religion was planted squarely upon the idea and practice of the 
vision. During this psychic experience the manitou or guardian spirit was made 
known, along with taboos, songs, privileges, and immunities of various sorts. 
In each diverse region of North America this basic Indian religious trait. has 
made the most intimate associations with other interests of the cultural back- 
ground: puberty initiation, hereditary rank, hunting, tribal warfare, clan 
organisation, and the like. In no case is the origin of one associated trait to be 
looked for in the other, since both have independent distributions and are found 
unassociated with one another. Necessarily, also, these complexes cannot be so 
old as the basic continent-wide concepts they embody. The cultural connota- 
tions of rejiigion, therefore, are not stable over great lapses of time, nor is 
religion genetically related to them; they are local associations of ideas which 
are essentially fortuitous. 
13. Mrs. Erna Guntuer Sprer.—An Analysis of the Ceremony of the 
First Salmon on the Pacific Coast. 
: 14, Col. E. Lamwrer.—Some Ojibwa Nature Stories. 
