ANTHROPOLOGY: C. WISSLER 
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other obvious objections to the interpretation, so that the tendency 
of the critical is to reject these conclusions. Somewhat analogous 
attempts have been made in the study of industrial arts and technology, 
but with equally unconvincing results. Consequently, as the case 
stands today, we can point to scarcely a single example in which the 
life history of a trait can be satisfactorily demonstrated in objective 
data. 
In the course of some technological studies in the American Museum 
of Natural History, the writer observed that certain structural styles 
of skin clothing among the Indian tribes of the Mississippi and Great 
Lakes areas were clearly due to the forms of the original materials. The 
skins of deer were used and practically always removed from the animal 
in the same way. Whole skins were then combined to form a garment, 
their natural outlines being preserved, but usually trimmed to a sym- 
metrical form. That the cut, or style, thus resulting became a recog- 
nized feature in the native mind is shown by its survival after cloth 
was introduced by traders. Here the form of the material did not lend 
itself to the style but nevertheless was cut to conform to it. Hence, 
we have a case in which the evidence for the genesis of a trait is 
satisfactory. 
Next our attention was turned to the decorations upon these costumes. 
Here it can be shown that these same stylistic lines, determined by the 
contours of the material, were followed in the embroidered decorations, 
resulting in peculiar curved designs. Thus on the old specimens in our 
collections, the design follows the cut of the skin material, but upon the 
modern ones it is repeated upon an even unbroken surface. So without 
going into details we may state that satisfactory proof can be given to 
show that this particular design rose from the decoration following the 
contour of a part of the garment. 
The investigation was then extended to moccasin decoration in the 
same geographical area. In this case satisfactory evidence can be 
found for the same kind of genetic relation between three different 
styles of decoration and as many different types of structure. For in- 
stance, north of the Great Lakes, for a considerable distance, east and 
west, the moccasin is made by folding a piece of skin up over the foot 
and joining on the top and at the heel. The shape of the foot prevents 
its covering the entire instep, leaving a U-shaped space. This is closed 
by an insert. The decoration is placed upon this insert, for which there 
are good technological reasons, and so has in its entirety a U-shape. 
Then among some of the neighbors of these tribes, particularly the Black- 
foot, we find a similar decoration upon a mocassin of an entirely different 
