Septembee 29, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



393 



blending of peoples which must form the 

 solid foundation of the ethnological analy- 

 sis 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 institu- 

 tions 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 fun- 

 damental 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 Mela- 

 nesians visiting a Polynesian island, stay- 

 ing there for a few weeks and then return- 

 ing home (and here I am not taking a fic- 

 titious 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 remembered, 

 and dances they perform will be imitated. 

 A few Melanesian words may pass into the 

 language of the Polynesian island, espe- 

 cially as names for the objects or processes 

 which the strangers have introduced, but 

 it is incredible 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 proc- 

 ess of blending of peoples and cultures. 



Few will perhaps hesitate to accept this 

 position, but I expect my next proposition 

 to meet with more scepticism, and yet I be- 

 lieve it to be widely, though not univer- 

 sally, true.^^ This proposition is that the 

 social structure, the framework of society, 

 is still more fundamentally important and 

 still less easily changed except as the re- 

 sult 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 can not 

 hope to establish the truth of this proposi- 

 tion in the course of a brief address, and I 

 propose to draw your attention to one line 

 of evidence only. 



At the present moment we have before 

 our eyes 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 cul- 

 ture. "What we find is that mere contact is 

 able to transmit much in the way of mate- 

 rial culture. A passing vessel which does 

 not even anchor may be able to transmit 

 iron, while European weapons may be 

 used by people who have never even seen a 

 white man. Again, missionaries introduce 

 the Christian religion among people who 

 can not speak a word of English or any 

 language but their own, or only use such 

 European words as have been found neces- 

 sary to express ideas or objects connected 

 with the new religion. There is evidence 

 how readily language may be affected, and 

 here again the present day suggests a 

 mechanism by which such a change takes 

 place. English is now becoming the lan- 

 guage of the Pacific and other parts of the 

 world, through its use as a lingua franca, 



'^ There are definite exceptions in Melanesia; 

 places where the social structure has been trans- 

 formed, though the ancient language persists. 



