244 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1158 



hypothesis when closely analyzed was tanta- 

 mount to claiming the existence of highly spe- 

 cialized human instincts. I am, of course, 

 not unaware of the way in which this essential 

 question is usually evaded, by the attempt to 

 explain how similar needs, circumstances and 

 environment, can call forth men's activities 

 and shape them so as to lead to identical cul- 

 tural developments, quite independently one of 

 the other. But such theorizing inevitably ig- 

 nores the fact that in the majority of cases 

 such identities of culture actually occur 

 under circumstances and to meet needs as dis- 

 similar as they possibly can be. Whereas of 

 two kindred peoples living under precisely 

 similar circumstances in neighboring islands, 

 say in Indonesia or Melanesia, one of them 

 may possess the whole of the complex cultm-e 

 of the stone-using peoples (Perry), and the 

 other not one of the numerous constituent ele- 

 ments of this exotic civilization. It is when 

 we leave vague speculation and consider spe- 

 cific eases that the so-called " evolutionary " 

 doctrine in ethnology collapses. 



The common line of argument is that which 

 is displayed in its frankest form by the late 

 Daniel G. Brinton, and his disciples, such as 

 Spinden and Joyce. In his " Myths of the 

 New World," Brinton writes (pp. 126-127): 



No citizen of tlie TJnited States will be apt to 

 assert that their instinct led the indigenes of our 

 territory astray when they chose with nigh unani- 

 mous consent the great American eagle as that 

 fowl beyond all others proper to typify the su- 

 preme control and the most admirable qualities, 

 and he explains what he means by this in the 

 previous paragraph: 



For the winds, the clouds, producing the thunder, 

 and the changes that take place in the ever-shift- 

 ing panorama of the sky, the rain-bringers, lords 

 of the seasons, and not this only, but the primary 

 type of the soul, the life, the breath of man and 

 the world, these in their role in mythology are sec- 

 ond to nothing. Therefore as the symbol of these 

 august powers, as messenger of the gods, and as 

 the embodiment of departed spirits, no one will be 

 surprised if they find the bird figure most promi- 

 nently in the myths of the red race. 



This is rationalization pure and simple, 

 which can be proved to be false in every item. 



For we are now sufficiently acquainted with 

 the earliest literatures of Egjrpt, Babylonia 

 and India, to know that the association of the 

 eagle or hawk with all these varied phenomena 

 was not due to the reasons Brinton gives. 

 Every one of these manifold attributes became 

 added to the eagle's repertoire as the result of 

 fortuitous circumstances utterly alien to those 

 assumed by Brinton. The mingling of eagle- 

 people with sun-people, and the association of 

 the latter with serpent-people and with the 

 worshippers of Osiris (the controller of water) 

 was the beginning of the complex blending of 

 the symbolism of the sun, the serpent, the 

 eagle and water. In the Babylonian thunder- 

 bird further attributes were added, and others 

 again in India, the Far East and America. 



If the followers of Brinton deny that the 

 American thunder-bird came from the Old 

 World they will be faced with this dilemma: 

 — as the origin of the confusion is known 

 (from the earliest Egyptian writings) to be 

 the result of wholly fortuitous circumstances, 

 if the American symbolism (which arrived at 

 essentially the same arbitrary result — on this 

 see Brinton) was developed in a totally difFer- 

 ent manner, what becomes of the sacred prin- 

 ciple of " psychic unity," the " similarity of 

 the working of the hmnan mind " ? I wonder' 

 which of the two explanations Dr. Golden- 

 weiser would call the " dogmatic or uncritical 

 method"? To indulge in pure speculation, 

 dogmatic assertion and unsupported ration- 

 alization, or to go straight to the facts and rec- 

 ognize that the American thunder-bird and 

 the winged snake with deer's antlers certainly 

 came from the Old World? 



We can trace the association of the deer 

 with control of the waters from Babylonia 

 along the whole Asiatic littoral, watching the 

 symbolism gradually increase in richness and 

 complexity as, in its passage from west to 

 east, it blends with a variety of other ele- 

 ments, until eventually it emerges in the 

 Chinese dragon, which it supplies with 

 antlers.^ 



5 I have discussed the whole subject in the forth- 

 coming report of my lecture on "Dragons and 

 Eain-Gods. ' ' 



