December 8, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



701 



some cases it may even be said that the satis- 

 factory proof of the existence of the culture 

 area as a definite unit in contrast to other 

 areas still remains to be proved. This is par- 

 ticularly true of the Eastern Woodlands and 

 Plateau-Mackenzie regions, both of which are 

 perhaps more negatively than positively char- 

 acterized by contrast to neighboring cultures 

 that have a more definite individuality of their 

 own. It is yet to be demonstrated whether 

 there is really enough of fundamental impor- 

 tance in common to such widely differing 

 tribes as the Nascopie, Iroquois and Ojibwa 

 to warrant their inclusion in a single Ea&tern 

 Woodlands culture area. This reservation may 

 turn out to be justified also in the case of the 

 Athabascan tribes of the Mackenzie River re- 

 gion as compared with the Kootenay and 

 Salish tribes of the plateau to the west. 



Naturally, before these wider problems can 

 be intelligently discussed, more explicit data 

 than are now available must be obtained on 

 such tribes. Outside of the work already re- 

 ferred to of Hoffman on the Ojibwa and 

 Menominee, work moreover which concerns 

 itself with tribes located within the borders 

 of the United States, there is almost nothing 

 published of great merit on the aboriginal 

 cultures of the Eastern Woodlands. Nascopie, 

 Montagnais, Malecite, Micmac, Abenaki, 

 Algonkin, Ottawa, Cree are names frequently 

 enough met with in ethnological literature, yet 

 concerning which, when all is said and done, 

 little enough is known. Even the Iroquois 

 have been neglected to a most astonishing ex- 

 tent. Morgan's Iroquois work, as pioneer 

 work, was invaluable and still commands high 

 respect, yet, as is becoming increasingly evi- 

 dent, needs careful revision. Moreover, the 

 scale on which he worked was much too small 

 to satisfy the requirements of ethnological 

 students to-day. Many problems of interest 

 in the Eastern Woodlands await solution. 

 Some of these are: The extent of influence of 

 the Eskimos, if any, in the lower St. Law- 

 rence region; the extent and characteristics of 

 the birch-bark industry in this culture area; 

 the establishment of the range of the various 

 types of houses used; the clear understanding 



of the distribution and development of the 

 different types of social organization, from 

 the apparently amorphous bands of the Crees 

 to the complex organization of the Iroquois; 

 the possibly intrusive character of the Iro- 

 quois culture itself in this area; the develop- 

 ment of a distinctive maritime culture among 

 the Micmacs. 



The Eskimo, though, as already noted, al- 

 ready satisfactorily investigated, still present 

 many problems of interest. Several of the 

 less easily accessible tribes are as yet prac- 

 tically unknovm. Until these have been in- 

 vestigated it will be difficult to undertake a 

 satisfactory analysis of Eskimo culture as a 

 whole, and, consequently, of its relations to 

 the neighboring cultures. 



In the Plains region the Sarcee and West- 

 ern Cree are as yet hardly more than mere 

 names. The Assiniboine have not yet been 

 exhaustively treated, while Dr. Wissler's study 

 of the Blackfeet, though promising from 

 what he has already published to be eminently 

 satisfactory, will doubtless leave something 

 to be desired owing to the fact that his mater- 

 ial was not obtained with the help of lin- 

 guistic study.* Naturally the religious, so- 

 cial and other problems of the Plains region 

 can not be discussed without reference to the 

 Plains tribes of the United States, yet at 

 least two problems peculiar to the Canadian 

 Plains may be pointed out. Both of them are 

 studies of Plains influence exerted on an 

 originally Woodlands tribe. Eeferenee is had 

 to the culture of the Plains Cree and to that 

 of the Saulteaux or Plains Ojibwa. 



The Plateau-Mackenzie area is known least 

 satisfactorily of all. Teit's work on the inter- 

 ior Salish tribes of southern British Columbia 



' It may be said incidentally that all investiga- 

 tion of native mythology, rituals, songs and allied 

 subjects, undertaken without the help of linguistic 

 study, must fail to result in a complete understand- 

 ing of the native concepts involved. We would not 

 think much, for instance, of a student of the his- 

 tory of the Eoman Catholic church that knew no 

 Latin, or of a discussion of German folk songs, 

 even in their purely musical aspect, not based on 

 some familiarity with German itself. 



