ANTHROPOLOGY: C. WISSLER 
403 
called only for policing a buffalo hunt and rarely for ordinary services. 
Again, we have the policing of the buffalo hunt among some tribes by 
appointed individuals and so independent of a society. 
3. Among some tribes these societies are predominately military and 
based upon military ideals while in others they have serious ceremonial 
and religious characters. This is well illustrated in the kit-fox society, 
one of the most widely distributed which among the Teton-Dakota is 
controlled by military ideals but among the Blackfoot is one of their 
most sacred organizations. 
4. If a general resume of the characteristics of societies for the different 
tribes is made, we find their ideals of organization or conceived functions 
exceedingly variable, much more so than the objective forms of organi- 
zation, for there is marked uniformity in the number and duties of officers, 
kinds of regalia, and even in the names of individual societies. It is 
therefore difficult to consistently interpret these organizations as ex- 
pressions of any special function in the tribal life, but rather as due to 
many and various causes. 
While the data make it clear that by culture diffusion these societies 
have been spread from tribe to tribe, it has been diffusion of a desultory 
kind since in no case has a system of societies been carried along but 
only separate organizations. We have just noted how the same society 
appeared in different associations among different tribes. Further, a 
statistical study of the details of organization reveals a similar con- 
dition for it often happens that what is a distinctive feature of a society 
in one tribe will be found associated with quite a different organization 
in another. From this it appears that the phenomena can be most 
readily explained as due to mutual tribal borrowings. We have suc- 
ceeded in tracing certain features of organization to particular tribes, 
so it is now clear that no one tribe can be the originator of the society 
system as a whole. 
Whatever may be the ultimate interpretation of the data our work 
shows clearly that such ethnic phenomena can be made the object of 
scientific investigation and that very fundamental social problems can 
be successfully approached by proper inductive methods. 
^ H. Schurtz, Alter sklassen and Mdnnerhnnde^ eine Darstellung der Grundformen der Gesell- 
schaft, Berlin, 1902; H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, New York, 1908. 
2 Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History, volume 9. The de- 
scriptive papers are on the Teton-Dakota, Blackfoot, and Pawnee by Clark Wissler; the East- 
em Dakota, Crow, Hidatsa-Mandan, Arikara, and Shoshonean tribes by Robert H, Lov/ie; 
the Plains-Cree, Plains-Ojibway, Iowa, Kansas, and Ponca by Alanson Skinner; the Sarsi 
and Kiowa- Apache by Pliny E. Goddard; and the final discussions will be contributed by 
Lowie and Wissler. 
