244 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1210 



Similarly, Dr. Lowie in his comparative 

 study of the Age Societies — religious bodies 

 grouped or graded according to the age of 

 their members — although dealing with a set 

 of institutions much older than the Iruska 

 ceremonies, in fact far antedating the advent 

 of the Caucasian in the region, establishes 

 that the age-grade societies are an outgrowth 

 of a system of non-graded societies still pre- 

 vailing among the majority of Plains tribes; 

 that the grading originated among either the 

 Mandan or Hidatsa; and that the scheme 

 spread from them respectively to the Arapaho 

 and Gros Ventre and to the Blackfoot at a 

 time when these peoples were in closer con- 

 tact with the Mandan-Hidatsa than has been 

 the case within the historic period. Again, 

 the outcome of the investigation is a specifi- 

 cally founded reconstruction and a definite 

 tracing of the sequence of events. 



Dr. Lowie concludes by testing against these 

 positive determinations a theory devised ac- 

 cording to the old method by Schurtz, pur- 

 porting to discern age societies as an institu- 

 tion arising spontaneously and necessarily at 

 a certain stage of development of human 

 civilization. As a wholly abstract specula- 

 tion, the Schurtz hypothesis is scarcely as- 

 sailable and equally useless. Matched against 

 the analyzed facts in the Plains of N"orth 

 America, in Melanesia, and in East Africa, 

 it breaks down and dissolves utterly. In fact 

 Dr. Lowie shows convincingly that the age 

 societies in these regions are not identical nor 

 even parallel but represent diverse causes, 

 diverse characters, and diverse sequences. 

 Their uniformity and the supposed "laws" 

 governing them are in the assumptions of the 

 theorizer, not in the events. 



This, it may be added, is the type of finding 

 that invariably emerges when a critical and 

 inductive examination is made of any of 

 the smooth explanations that were the crop of 

 the anthropology of half a century ago, and 

 which are still the inviolable stock in trade 

 of the anthropology dealt out in the Sunday 

 newspapers, the drawing room, the books on 

 " social evolution " and the mass of semi-sci- 

 entific, unscientific, and pseudo-scientific lit- 



erature that sets solution before inquiry. The 

 matriarchate, the priority of female lineage, 

 the antecedence of the clan to the family, 

 promiscuity and group marriage, the funda- 

 mentality of the totem idea, the mana concept 

 as the basis of religion, the development of 

 alphabets from pictures, of geometric orna- 

 ment from symbols, strange vestigial survi- 

 vals generally — all these delightfully exotic, 

 fascinatingly romantic, and often alluringly 

 shocking views that have given anthropology 

 most of its broad appeal, have their glitter 

 crumble into dust as soon as critical method 

 is applied to them. To most ethnologists of 

 his own school. Dr. Lewie's elaborate demoli- 

 tion of the Schurtz speculation may seem un- 

 necessary. Its wider significance is as a symp- 

 tom of the growing conversion of anthro- 

 pology from the toy of fanciful half scholar- 

 ship to a product of scientific method. 



Finally, too great credit can hardly be be- 

 stowed on the institutional side upon the 

 American Museum of Natural History, its 

 anthropological department, and Dr. Wissler, 

 for the clean, business-like, and effective man- 

 ner in which the undertaking represented in 

 this volume was planned, carried through, and 

 concluded. Without announcement or formal 

 flourish an important scheme was formulated, 

 put into operation year after year, system- 

 atically but never unbendingly adhered to, 

 with cumulative results, and concretely ac- 

 complished through the cooperating efforts of 

 a staff of five participating students, one of 

 them a member of the native race whose in- 

 stitutions formed the subject of the inquiry. 

 The parts of the volimie were published 

 promptly, the summaries undelayed, the typo- 

 graphy, illustrations, and index are of the 

 best. The record is one with which the Mu- 

 seum may well be content administratively 

 as well as scientifically. 



A. L. Kroeber 



THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NA- 

 TIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The eleventh number of Volume 3 of the 

 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences contains the following articles : 



