Masks and Moieties as a Culture Complex. Author(s): A. L. Kroeber and Catharine Holt Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 50 (Jul. - Dec., 1920), pp. 452-460 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2843493 Accessed: 01-02-2016 04:49 UTC

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MASKS AND MOIETIES AS A CULTURE COMPLEX.

By A. L. KROEBERAND CATHARINEHOLT.

IN 1905, Graebnerand Ankermannpublished synchronous articlesL in which they distinguisheda nlumberof successivelayers of culturein Oceania and Africa. This scheme Graebnersubsequently developed in an essay which traced at least some of these culturestrata as far as America.2 Graebner'stheory has been accepted, with or without reservations,by a number of authorities,including Foy,3 W. Schmidt,4and Rivers.5 The sequence of culturesrecognized is Tasmanian Nigritic, Southeast AustralianNigritic, West Papuan or PatrilinealTotemic, East Papuan or Matrilineal Two-class, Melanesian or Bow, Proto-Polynesian,Late or North Polynesian,Indonesian. Each of these culture strata is characterizedby a com- binationor complexof certainelements. Some of the principalof thesedistinguish- ing componentsof the severalculture complexes are

Tasmanian: cremation,windbreak, throwing sticks, scarification. Southeast Australian: boomerang, bee-hive huts, parrying shield, coiled basketry,knocking out of teeth. WVestPapu(an: patrilineal and totemic local groups, totem increase rites, scaffoldburial, circumcision,spear-thrower, conical hut, bark or dug-out canoe. East Papuan: matrilinealmoieties, secret societies with masks,skull worship, gabled houses and tree houses,carpentered canoe of planks,fire-saw, pan- pipe, knobbedclubs. Melanesian: flat self-bow,crutch paddle, bamboo comb, pile dwellings,skin drum,hammock, head-hunting, pig, betel, sago, spiral ornamentation.

1 " Kulturkreiseund Kulturschichtenin Ozeanien" and " Kulturkreiseund Kulturschichten in Afrika,"Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, XXXVII, 28-53 and 54-90, 1905. 2 "Die MelanesischeBogenkultur und ihre Verwandten,"Anthropos, IV, 726-780, 998- 1032,1909. 3 F9hrerdurch das Rautenstrauch-JoestMuseum, Cologne, 1906. 4 c"Die KulturhistorischeMethode in der Ethnologie,"Anthropos, VI, 1010-1036,1901; "Die Gliederungder AustralischenSprachen," ibid., VII, 230 seq., 1912; " Kulturkreiseund Kulturschichtenin Suid-Amerika,"Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, XLV, 1014-1124,1913. 6 cc The EthnologicalAnalysis of Culture,"Report of theBritish Association for the Advance- mentof Sciencefor 1911, 1-10. Rivers accepts Graebner'smethod of attack ratherthan his results.

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Proto-Polynesian: canoe with single outrigger,triangular sail, composite fish-hook,flattened clubs, fire-plough,caste and taboo system. NorthPolynesian : sail attachedto mast,shark tooth weapons. Indonesian: double outrigger,square sail, blow-gun.

UTnderthe Graebnerianhypothesis, the foregoingelements, in whateverpart of the worldthey may now be found,go back to a migrationof people or a stream of influenceemanating from the culturethat firstevolved the elementsin question. The presentstudy was undertakenat the personalsuiggestion of Foy to test a portionof the hypothesis,as a sample of the validityof the whole.against the facts as they are available in North Americanethnography. If for instance moieties and masks were really associated as integral membersof the " East Papuan" culture,and thisculture spread as a unitfrom Oceania or Asia to America,then those AmericanIndian tribes that were seriouslyaffected by this East Papuan culture should normallypossess both moieties and masks, while those that remained uninfluencedshould lack both. In otherwords, two elementsassociated in one of Graebner'scultures should show a positivecorrelation in theirdistribution. If the correlationproved negligibleor absent, the elementsmust have developed inde- pendentlyor have been introducedseparately. In the lattercase the historyof the diffusionof each elementmight still be tracedfrom one continentto another,but the unifiedor integratedculture complexesthat Graebnerposits as originswould be provedunreal. The assemblageand analysisof the data that followhas been the workof Holt, whileKroeber is responsiblefor the methodologicaldiscussion. A reviewof the literature,for- America, north of Mexico,results as follows'

1. Tribeshaviny masks and exogamousmoieties. Tlingit(Swanton, B.A.E.-R., XXVI, 398, 435-436,463, 1908; Dall, B.A.E.-R., III, 110-136, 1884-; Boas, U.S.N.M., 1895, 323, 1897; Boas, B.A.E.-R., XXXI, 498, 1916). Haida (the three last cited, pp. 110-120, 323, 480, respectivehy). Miwok (Gifford,U.C., XII, 139-141, 1916). Salinan (Mason, U.C., X, 189, 1912; Gifford,U.C., XI, 295, 1916; and inf'nKroeber).2

1 Abbreviations: A.A., AmericanAnthropologist; A.A.A.-M., Memoirs of the American AnthropologicalAssociation; A.M.N.H.-A.P., -B, -H, -M, AnthropologicalPapers, Bulektin, Handbooks,Memoirs of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History; B.A.A.S., Reportsof the BritishAssociation for the Advancement of Science; B.A.E.-B., -IR,Bulletins, Reports of the Bureau of AmericanEthnology; C.I.A., CongresInternational des Am&ricanistes;J.A.F.L., JournalOj AmericanFolk-Lore; U.C., Universityof CaliforniaPublications in AmericanArchceology and Ethnology;U.S.N.M., Reportsof the U.S. NationalMuseum. 2 Curtainsof cord,grass, or feathersworn by initiateddancers impersonating spirits in the Californiaarea have been countedas masksbecause theydisguise the identityof the wearerin ritual.

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Tribeshaving masks and non-exogamousmoieties. Tewa (Goddard,A.M.N.H.-H., No. 2, 98, 107, 1913). Hidatsa (Lowie, A.M.N.H.-A.P., XI, 292, 315, 1913, and inf'n). Mandan (Wlilland Spinden,Pap. Peabody Museum, III, 129-131, 1906; Brower, Mem. Explor. Basin Mississippi, VIII, St. Paul, 1904). Omaha (Fletcher and La Flesche, B.A.E.-R., XXVII, 370, 481, 1911). Iowa (Skinner, A.M.N.H.-A.P., XI, 713, 1915; B.A.E.-B., XXX). Iroquois (Dall, B.A.E.-R., III, 144-145, 1884; Goldenweiser,Anthropology in North America,1915). 2. Tribeshaving masks but no moieties. Eskimo of Alaska (Dall, B.A.E.-R., III, 110-136, 144-145, 1884; Nelson, B.A.E.-R., XVIII, 322, 393, 1899). Eskimo of Hudson Bay (Boas, B.A.E.-R., VI, 608, 1889). Eskimoof Baffin Land (ibid.,605-606). Kutchin (Chapman,C.I.A., XV, pt. 2,16-32,1907; Swanton,A.A., n.s. VII, 667,1905). Tsimshian(Boas, U.S.N.M., 1895, 323, 1897; Boas, B.A.E.-R., XXXI, 480, 539, 1916). Niska (Boas, B.A.A.S., LXV, 569-571, 1895). Bella Coola (Boas, B.A.A.S., LXI, 412-414, 1891); Heiltsuk (Boas, B.A.A.S., LIX, 825-827, 1890 ; U.S.N.M., 1895, 621-661, 1897). Kwakiutl (Boas, B.A.A.S., LIX, 825-827, 1890 ; ibid., LX, 617, 1890; U.S.N.M., 1895, 328, 435, 1897). Nutka (B.A.A.S., LX, 583-584, 1890). Maka (Dall, B.A.E.-R., III, 106, 1884; Lewis, A.A.A.-M., I, 153-156, 1906). Clallam, Lummi, Squamish (ibid.), Lkungen (Boas, B.A.A.S., LX, 569, 1890, U.S.N.M., 1895, 645, 1897). Lillooet (Teit, A.M.N.H.-M., IV, 257-258, 1906). Thompson (A.M.N.H.-M., II, 299, 1900). Shushwap(Teit, A.M.N.TI.,IV, 612, 1909). Pomo (Barrett, U.C., XII, 407, 1917, and inf'n Gifford). Maidu (Dixon, A.M.N.H.-B., XVII, 223, 289, 1905). WVintun,Costanoan (inf'n Kroeber). Hopi (Fewkes, B.A.E.-R., XIX, 573-633, 1900 [1902]: Fewkes, B.A.E.-R., XXI, 3-126, 1903). Zuiii (Stevenson,B.A.E.-R., XXIII, passim, 1904; Kroeber,A.M.N.H.-A.P., XVIII, 94, 1917). Navaho (Matthews,A.M.N.H.- M., VI, 55-57, 1902; B.A.E.-B., XXX, pt. 2, 44, 1910). Wescalero Apache (Goddard, A.M.N.H.-H., No. 2, 127-128, 1913). Chiricahua Apache (ibid., B.A.E.-B., XXX, 282-284). Pinma(Russell, B.A.E.-R. XXVI, 266, 1908; Goddard,A.M.N.H.-H., No. 2, 161, 1913). Arikara (B.A.E.-B., XXX, 83-86; Lowie, A.M.N.II.-A.P., XI, 661, 1915). Crow (ibid., 207; Goldenweiser,Anthropology in NorthAmerica, 370, 371, 1915). Assiniboine (Lowie, A.M.N.II.-A.P., IV, 65-66, 1909). Black- foot (Wissler, A.M.N.II.-A.P., VII, 424, 1911). Plains Cree (Skinner, A.M.N.H.-A.P., XI, 517, 530, 1914). Plains Ojibwa (ibid., 481-482, 500). Delaware (Skinner,A.M.N.H.-A.P., III, 21, 1909; Swanton,A.A., n.s. VII, 666, 667, 1905).

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3. Tribeshaving moieties but no masks. Cahuilla, Cupe-no,Serrano, Western Mono (non-exogamous),Central Yokuts (Gifford,U.C., XI, 292, 1916, and U.C., XIV, 155-219, 1918, and inf'n Kroeber). Winnebago(inf'n P. Radin). 4. Tribeshaving neither moieties nor masks. GreenlandEskimo (Dali, B.A.E.-R., III, 145, 1884). Hupa (Goddard,U.C., I, 1-88, 1903). Chimariko(Dixon, U.C., V, 301, 1910). Shasta (Dixon, A.M.N.H.-B., XVII, 451, 1907). LuiseTio, Dieguefio, Cocopa, Kamia, Yuma, Mohave ((Gxifford,U.C., XIV, 155-219, 1918). Southern Yokuts, Tiibatulabal, Kawaiisu (ibid.). Yurok, Karok, Kato, Wappo, Yana, Achomawi(inf'n Kroeber). Gros Ventre (Kroeber, A.M.N.H.-A.P., I, 117, 1908). NorthernShoshonie (Lowie, A.M.N.H.-N.P., II, pt. 2, 1909). Yuchi (Speck, Anthr. Publ. Univ. Penn., I, 73, 113, 1909). To sum up, there are 72 groups or tribes forwhich the fact was definitely establishedwhether or not they used masksand whetheror not they had moieties. These classifyinto- Masks and moieties(exogamous) ...... 5 (non-exogamous) .. .. 5 10 Masks but no moieties ...... 35 Moietiesbut no masks ...... 6 Neithermasks nor moieties ...... v. 21

72 That is, there are 41 instanceswhere the Graebnertheory fails as against 31 whereit holds true. But out of these 31 " favourable" instances,21 are negative. If moietieswere of more general occurrence,or masks less general,and if the two occurredtogether more oftenthan not, then the absence of the one featurewhen the otheris absent mightbe significant.- But as it is, the scarcityof positivecases wouldseem to renderthe negativeones of less value. The case can also be put thus: 45 tribesout of 72 use masks,or 5 out of every 8 of the total numberexamined. If a true correlationexisted between the two traits,then the 16 moiety-dividedtribes ought to use masksin a heavypreponderance of cases whilethe moietylesstribes would rather tend to be also maskless. But ofthe 16 tribeswith moieties, 10 have masks,6 are maskless,giving a ratio of 5 : 3; and of the 56 moietvlesstribes 35 have masks, 21 have not, givingthe identicalratio of 5: 3. That is, a tribeis equally likelyto have masks whetheror not it possesses moieties. In short,the occurrenceof the two traitsin relationto each othercomes out exactlyaccording to the laws of randomchance; the correlationis zero.

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Further,the Graebnertheory assumes as a matterof method that a culture traitnever develops twice. All cases of geographicallyisolated occurrences of a trait mustbe laid to migrationor diffusionand subsequentloss ofthe traitin the,interven- ing regions. A culturewave characterizedby two traits is establishedas having affecteda people even if only one of the two traitsis now foundamong them. On this basis, the majorityof NorthAmerican tribes, perhaps all of them,would have been reached by the East Papuan or " Two-class" culture; 10 have both masks and moieties,35 masks only,6 moietiesonly, or a total of 51 out of 72. Even the remaining21 mighthave come underthis culturalwave and thenhave happenedto lose both traits. But of the 51 concerningwhich the theorywould be positive, only 10 now show both traits. For four-fifthsof the tribesthe theoryis forcedto assume that the evidencefor coupling once existed,but can no longerbe brought. This is not so verydifferent from the old methodologyof survivals; whereyou founda survival,it provedyour case, but whenyou failedto findit, somethinghad happenedto cause a changeinstead of a survival. So much for the " criterionof quantity" as applied to the Graebnertheory in a particularregion.

The Graebnermethod as it has been used in practicepossesses several critical virtues:- (1) It representsan honest and importantendeavour to free culture history fromthe ban of being resolveddirectly into psychology,and attempts instead to explain it in termsof culture. (2) It does not resolve culturephenomena directly or principallyinto factors of geographicalenvironment. (3) It attempts,professedly at least, to explain the historynot only of discrete cultureelements, but also ofthe culturewholes or organismsin whichthese elementsoccur. (4) It aims to introducethe timefactor into data whichcome to us in momen- tary section. That is, it triesto convertethnography into history. On the otherhand, this methodis open to criticismat the followingpoints (1) It denies the possibilityof parallel independentinvention or convergence, instead of delimitingapparent cases by criticalexamination. It is true that " converged" culturetraits are rarelyidentical; but neitherare the several occurrencesof traits which we know to have had a single originever quite identical. What is neededin everyinstance is analysis, not a rulingout of anything. (2) The methodwipes out, practically,the space factor,from which the time elementcan best be reconstructedwhen it is not given by the data. Of course, knowledgeof geographicaldistributions alone will not answer all problems even of. relative chronology. But to disregard spatial

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continuitiesand discontinuitiesis a gratuitousrenunciation of perhaps the most productiveof all media of sure attack. This faultthe method shareswith the old psychologico-evolutionisticmethod of ethnology. (3) While thereundoubtedly are not only isolated culturetraits but complexes of culturetraits that spread frompeople to people,the Graebnerscheme posits elaborate complexes, entire cultures,in fact, to operate with. Except where the diffusionof such complete cultures is historically documented,an explanationin termsof themis obviouslyless sound- more hypothetical,and more summary-than explanationsin termsof singleelements, or of small complexesthat have been determinedon the basis of~what is knownabout the singleelements. (4) Essentially the Graebner reconstructionof the historyof civilizationis only partlyinductive. In the main, it is not the outcomeof a gradual synthesis of investigationsof narrower scope. It emerged without preliminariesand virtuallycomplete from the first. The detailedevidence in its behalfhas been nearlyall presented subsequently,in ratification or expansion of the ready-madetheory. Very largely this has been the genesis also of the migrationhypothesis of Elliot Smith, Rivers, and Perry,which agrees with the Graebner-Ankermann-Schmidttheory in certain of its methodologicalassumptions, even thoughits concrete content is different.Essentially, therefore,in spite of their greater modernity,these theories pursue the same method of preconception and subsequent substantiationby selected evidence as the unilinear evolutionisticexplanations of the older orthodoxanthropology. The Graebnermethod then is not " the methodof culturehistory '; it is only one special formof this method, characterized by the outrightdenial of possiblevalue to the principlesof convergenceand distributionalcoherence and by the assumptiQn. that culturescan be adequately resolvedinto mixturesof a few large units. In thislast assumptionlies the fundamentalmethodological quality. Graebnerand his supporterswork with factorsthat are themselvesnothing but undocumentedcom- posites-much like the earth,air, fire,and waterwith which the ancientssaved them-, selves the determinationof the elementswith which scientificchemistry operates. In other words, the Graebnermethod leaps at synthesisbefore it has pursued exiaustive analysis. In this it differs,to name only one example,from Wissler's "American Indian," the methodof whichis also that of thoroughlynon-evolution- istic and non-psychologicalculture history. It is mucheasier and moresensational, when,one is confrontedby hundredsof cultureelements, to weld these rapidlyinto less than a dozen great masses and then to manipulatethese blocks,than to follow out in detail the intricatehistory of the elements. While the Graebnerplan of operatingwith a few large, compositeunits of hypothesisresults in a plausiblescheme as long as one remainson a level of merely

This content downloaded from 204.235.148.92 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 04:49:06 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 458 A. L. KROEBER AND CATHARINEHOLT. outliningculture history in wide sweeps,most of his detaileddiscussions, and those ofSchmidt, it willbe noted,refer after all to singleculture elements and not to whole cultures as they actually exist as entities. As soon as such real culturesare examinedby his method,an interminabletangle results which would require an ever- increasingnumber of special hypotheses to fitthe facts. Withsuch special hypotheses, it is true, Graebneris chary; but at the cost of not having really elucidatedthe courseof developmentof any singleactual culture. Two exampleswill illustrate. The Chumashand Luisenioare two groupsbelonging to the southernsub-culture of the Californiaarea.1 The Chumashhad bee-hivehouses and coiled basketry- featuresof the "Australian " complex; the spear-thrower-WestPapuan; the plank canoe- - East Papuan; the double-bladedpaddle, whichthey share withthe Eskimo but whichdoes not appear in any of the complexespostalated by Graebner, and wouldtherefore belong to still anotherculture or migrationwTave. Theirsocial organizationhas been lost but may have been based on moieties. The Luiseino practise " Tasmanian" cremation; throwa sort of boomerang,which would be " Australian"; are divided into patrilineallocal groups-W-estPapuan; have a secretsociety (though without masks) and a death cult (thoughwithout particular referenceto skulls)-both East Papuan traits; make pottery,which would be due to the Melanesianor a later complex; and practisethe Mediterraneanbow-release, whichin Americahas been reportedonly from the Eskimo,and fromits distribution wouldseem to be Eurasian in originand post-Polynesian. This makes a sufficiently complicatedresolution of the culturemass of each of the two tribesby the Graebner method. But we are only begiining. The two tribeslive almostin geographicaljuxta- position,and have withoutdissent been looked upon as similar. Yet the Luiseno lack thesetraits of the Chumash: the Australianbee-hive house; the WestPapuan spear-thrower; and the East Papuan moietieswhich the Chhumashmay have had (theyare extinctnow). The Chumash,on the otherhand, lack these J:uisefiotraits: the Tasmanian cremation; the Melanesianor subsequentpotterv; and perhaps the Australianboomerang, the West Papuan local exogamicgroups, the East Papuan secret society, the post-Polynesianbow-release. Now an explanation of these differenceswould necessarilybe intricate,because it would have to account forthe particulartraits which the Luisefnoand Chunmashrespectively retained and lost, or failedto acquire fromthe half-dozengreat culturecomplexes which reached both of them. That is, a numberof special subsidiaryhypotheses would have to be devised to explain the differences.If on the other hand these differencesare not accountedfor, Luiseino and Chumashculture as such is reallynot explainedat all. The contentionis not that Oceanic and Asiatic influencesfailed to reach these Californiantribes, or that it is unsoundto try to trace them. But it does seem a

1 This culturearea, like all thoseusually recognized by Americanists,is of purelyempirical ethnographicdetermination, without reference to theoriesof its originor developmentin time.

This content downloaded from 204.235.148.92 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 04:49:06 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Masks and Mlowtwsas a CultureComplex 459 fair point that there is somethingarbitrary about a methodwhich correlates two Californiancultures with Oceania, but cannot correlatethem with each other. The second exanmplemay also be initiatedin California. There are in this regionpeoples with exogamous totemic moieties without local groups,and withlocal groups; withnon-exogamous moieties; withtotemic unlocalized groups and with non-totemiclocalized groups. All these are patrilineal.1 Besides thereare peoples withouttotems, groups, moieties, or exogamy,but withsome inclination to recognize matrilinealdescent. A similar variabilityobtains in the contiguous Southwest. There are tribes that are patrilineal (Pima), matrilineal(lHopi), totemic (Keres), non-totemic(Navaho), dually divided (Tewa), and moietyless(Zuiii). In the quite separate area of the NorthwestCoast there are similar conditions; descent is matrilineal(lHaida), patrilineal (Salish), and compromised(Kwakiutl); moieties obtain (Tlingit)or fail (Tsimshian). And so in easternNorth America,in an area whichis again geographicallydiscrete, we findmatrilineal and patrilinealreckoning, clans alone or moieties,totemic and non-totemicgroups, among adjacent and otherwisesimilar tribes. All this sounds like Australia,where Graebneraccounts for the analogous variabilityin social organizationas the result of the collidingand interminglingof two chronologically.separatestrata of migrantsor cultures,the West Papuan and East-Papuan. The same sort of collisionshould then account for the phenomena in the Southwest-California,Northwest Coast, and Atlantic-Mississippiregions. But how then about the Arctic, Mackenzie, Columbia, Great Basin, and Texas areas, in whichmoieties, clans, totems, and exogamyare altogetherlacking ? Either the West and East Papuan culturesnever reached these tracts,or theydid reach them and were subsequentlywholly obliterated, while in the threefirst mentioned areas both of them entered,collided, and were both preserved. Thereis a lot here that is unexplainedand difficultto explain,without piling new assumptionson the originalGraebnerian ones. The most general fact in the welteris that in three separate areas in North America,and a fourthin Australia-Melanesia,we findthe supposed hall-marksof West Papuan and East Papuan social organization,not only among contiguous tribes,but actually blended among singletribes, whereas in interveningareas both are wanting. That is, we have a definitecorrelation for the " West Papuan " and " East Papuan " complexes,both as to occurrenceand non-occurrence.So far as social organizationis concerned,the two alleged culturecomplexes or migrational streamsare not two but one. In fact,there is no compellingreason for assumingany Graebneriancomplex or migrationor diffusionat all. For the three North Americanareas of totemic exogamy such diffusionfrom a single originmay seem likely,though it is as yet supportedneither by documentsnor by serious inteirnalevidence. But to derive 1 Gifford,UJniv. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch.Ethn., XIV, 155-219,1918.

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the NorthAmerican block and the Australian-Melanesianblock froma singlesource in the face of all the interveningmasses of peoplesthat have remainedunaffected by this source,is as purelyspeculative as any assumptionever made by a psychological evolutionist. That the matrilineateis a mere episode in the historyof human civilization, as the Graebneriansclaim, does seem extremelylikely. But its episodiccharacter can be establishedwith economy of hypothesison the basis of the distributionof the matrilineateand equivalent or analogous featuresof social organization. That is, the matrilineateevidently tended to develop where and when definitepatrilineal reckoning,totems, clans, and moietiesdeveloped, and usually only in association withthem or some of them. What the Graebnerscheme superadds is the assertion that the episodedid not possiblyoccur two or threeor fourtimes in humanhistory, but that it happened only once as the consequLenceof the developmentof a single culture wlhichoriginated under unknown circumstancesin an unknownregion, spread forunknown reasons, and survivedor died out in this and that place from unknown,causes. Thereare undoubtedlymany particular affirmations in the Graebnerscheme that will provetrue or that possessstimulative value. As a whole,however, the concep- tion is a fabricof the imagination; as appears fromits failureto correlatewith any anthropologicalconclusions but its own. It almost whollydisregards physio- graphic and climatic environment. It makes no serious attempt to localize the beginnings'orspecify the spread of its culturecomplexes. It does not explain the originof theirdiversity. And it makes no provisionfor reintegrating the resultsof culturehistory, after they have been attained by purelycultural means, with the psychologythat underliescultural phenomena. In short,it condensesthe history of a large part of the worldinto a sort of formula,forgetting that so faras formulae can be used in historyat all, they are obviouslyapplicable to its mechanismsand notto its events.

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