September 29, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



389 



and a study of the terms themselves showed 

 that these fell into two main classes: one 

 class generally diffused throughout Oce- 

 ania, while the terms of the other class 

 differed very considerably in different cul- 

 tural regions. Further, it became clear 

 that the terms of the first class denoted 

 relationships which my comparative study 

 of the forms of the systems had shown to 

 have suffered change, while the terms which 

 varied greatly in different parts of Oceania 

 denoted relationships, such as those of the 

 mother and mother's brother, which there 

 was no reason to believe had suffered any 

 great change in status. From these facts 

 I inferred that at the time of the most 

 primitive stage of Melanesian society of 

 which I had evidence, there had been great 

 linguistic diversity which had been trans- 

 formed into the relative uniformity now 

 found in Melanesia by the incoming of a 

 people from without, through whose influ- 

 ence the change I had traced had taken 

 place, and from whose language the gen- 

 erally diffused terms of relationship had 

 been borrowed. It was through the com- 

 bined study of social forms and of lan- 

 guage that I was led to see that the change 

 I had traced was not a spontaneous evolu- 

 tion, but one which had taken place under 

 the influence of the blending of peoples. 

 The combined morphological and linguistic 

 study of systems of relationship had led me 

 to recognize that a definite course of social 

 development had taken place in an aborig- 

 inal society under the influence of an immi- 

 grant people. 



I turned next to a Melanesian institii- 

 tion, that of secret societies, concerning 

 which I had been able to gather much new 

 material, and it soon became probable that 

 these societies belonged properly neither to 

 the aboriginal culture nor to that of the 

 immigrants, but had arisen as the result of 

 the interaction of the two; that, in fact, 



these secret societies had had their source 

 in the need felt by the immigrants for the 

 secret practise of the rites they had brought 

 with them from their former home. A 

 comparison of the ritual of the secret socie- 

 ties with the institutions of other parts of 

 Oceania then made it appear that the main 

 features of the culture of these immigrants 

 had been patrilineal descent, or at any rate 

 definite recognition of the relation between 

 father and child, a cult of the dead, the 

 institution of taboo, and, lastly, certain re- 

 lations with animals and plants which were 

 probably allied to totemism, if they were 

 not totemism itself in a fully developed 

 form. 



Further study made it clear that those 

 I have called the immigrant people, though 

 possessing these features in common, had 

 reached Melanesia at diffei'ent times and 

 with several decided differences of culture, 

 but that probably there had been two main 

 streams : one which peopled Polynesia and 

 became widely diffused throughout Mel- 

 anesia, which was characterized by the 

 use of kava; another which came later 

 and penetrated much less widely, which 

 brought with it the practise of chewing 

 betel-mixture. Traces of a third stream, 

 the earliest of all, are probably to be found 

 here and there throughout Melanesia, while 

 still another element is provided by recent 

 Polynesian influence. It became evident 

 that the present condition of Melanesian 

 society has come into being through the, 

 blending of an aboriginal population with 

 various peoples from without, and it there- 

 fore became necessary to ascertain to which 

 of the cultures possessed by these peoples 

 the present-day customs and institutions of 

 Melanesia belong, always keeping in mind 

 the possibility that some of these institu- 

 tions may not have belonged to any one of 

 the cultures, but may have arisen as the 



