BOWS AND ARROWS IN CENTRAL BRAZIL. 551 



This was unfortunately impossible in the case of the weapons. I must, 

 therefore, confine myself to the repetition of the reports of collectors or 

 quotations from literature. 



Since I have expressed these many difficulties which are in the way 

 of a thorough investigation, the reader will perhaps lightly criticise any 

 errors or shortcomings that may appear in my work, especially when I 

 here suggest this is to be merely an effort to throw a little light upon 

 the tangled ethnographic conditions in South America — only a first 

 effort in a larger inquiry, and laying no claim to enduring validity. 



The motive in ethnographic investigation is twofold. First, to fur- 

 nish a contribution to the ethnography of a single group, by which the 

 group as such may be set forth in its individuality. Second, it should 

 be sought to establish upon the foundation of the descriptive part a 

 scheme for fixing the relationship of this group to its neighbors, and, 

 above all, to mankind in general. I say advisedly a scheme, for every- 

 one must be conscious that such investigation can be only one-sided; 

 and as yet one is not entitled to draw larger conclusions and family 

 connections of the people in question. Only when the purely objective 

 ethnographic results compared with linguistic, anthropologic, and eth- 

 nologic investigations agree, can the perfect accuracy of the outcome 

 be accepted. Into what dreadful blunders one is led by precipitate 

 conclusions of all sorts drawn from one-sided data is sufficiently known. 



That ethnographic and linguistic studies in nowise always lead to the 

 same result may be realized in the examination of every ethnographic 

 collection. On the one side it may be seen that two hordes related in 

 speech have entirely different ethnographic characters, while, on the 

 contrary, the industries of two may agree while genetically they belong 

 to different stocks. This remark is very pregnant as regards South 

 American peoples, and I shall seek on the basis of my studies of mate- 

 rials and literature to establish a correct theory concerning the ethno- 

 graphic relationships of South America. 



We must here examine the imitative instinct of men as a motive. 

 Assume that different impulses and migrations of divers tribes having 

 unlike ethnographic characters have brought them to settle near one 

 another, one can recognize among most of these tribes a variation, 

 through a series of years, of their ethnographic characteristics. They 

 have become more or less assimilated in their mode of living and their 

 ethnographic peculiarities. This assimilation, that is external likeness 

 in type forms, may arise in different ways. If the tribes are inimical, 

 then captured objects have influenced the technique, but if the tribes 

 have entered into friendly commerce, then the possibility of acquiring 

 by trade, tools, weapons, etc., is easily afforded. If they are brought 

 into still nearer contact through the force of culture, through common 

 acculturation, then the preservation of old ethnographic peculiarities in 

 the tribe is rendered more difficult. Finally, among tribes that prac- 

 tice slavery there is still greater likelihood that these, owing to the 



