254 
ANTHROPOLOGY: C. WISSLER 
THE DIFFUSION OF HORSE CULTURE AMONG THE NORTH 
AMERICAN INDIANS 
By Clark Wissler 
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK CITY 
Presented to the Academy, March 17, 1915 
Investigation of the horse-culture complex among the American In- 
dians was undertaken to discover the procedure in a concrete case of 
culture diffusion, an important anthropological problem of the day. 
One of the most difficult tasks confronting the anthropologist is the elu- 
cidation of the precise complexes by which various traits of culture are 
produced. Since there is on every hand abundant evidence that many 
traits of culture are borrowed, or diffused, over large areas, the study 
of typical concrete instances of diffusion are of the first importance. 
A number of European anthropologists have been so impressed with 
the significance of diffusion, that they have developed from it a theory 
to account for the origin of culture traits. This theory is usually known 
as that of single origin as opposed to the theory of independent inven- 
tion. The former asserts that all important traits of culture were in- 
vented but once and subsequently gradually diffused; the latter, that 
the same invention was made independently in many parts of the world, 
whence its diffusion is but apparent. As everyone knows, the discus- 
sion of such problems comes to naught unless concrete cases can be 
investigated. 
The horse-culture complex of the American Indian offers an excellent 
opportunity to study diffusion, because most of the essential facts are 
obtainable. The horse was introduced by Europeans at an early date 
and spread ahead of interior exploration. In particular, many of the 
tribes west of the Mississippi River became horsemen before their dis- 
covery by Europeans. The history of their introduction is briefly out- 
lined by me in the American Anthropologist, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 1-25. 
The investigation here reported is the intensive study of collections of 
riding gear and horse-using appliances to be found in anthropological 
collections. The material available gives us a representative series for 
each important tribe in the horse-using area. The detailed compara- 
tive study of these specimens has developed many interesting points 
among the most significant of which are: 
1. The Indian has shown no originality. He devised no important 
