OUTLINE:
I. The science and its task
II. The science united with history, geography, and the study of races
III. The science as an independent discipline
IV. The beginning of the historical approach (Ratzel, Peschel, Schurtz, Weule)
V. The historical-cultural school: the concept of “migration” and the basic criteria of “quality” and “quantity” (Frobenius, Foy, Ankermann, Gräbner, Schmidt, Kopper, Pinard de la Boullaye, van Bulck)
VI. Clarification of the term “primitive.” –VII. The most archaic cultures not accessible
VIII. Comparison among the most archaic cultures to determine which is closest to the origin
IX. Conclusion.I. THE SCIENCE AND ITS TASK
There has often been confusion between the terms anthropology, ethnography, and ethnology, which in some nations are still used interchangeably, causing harmful confusion to a discipline that, as an independent science, is still young.Anthropology studies man from the anatomical and physiological standpoint and deals with the general problems of the human family connected with this study: the origin, classification, and intermingling of the various races. Anthropology belongs to the natural sciences, with which it shares its method. Ethnography limits itself to collecting information on the manifestations of man: the psychic life of peoples, their economy, sociology, religion, art, language, etc. The arrangement and comparison of these data, the study of the formation of the various cultures, their development, and their fusion—i.e., their history—constitute the task of ethnology, as also indicated by its etymology: *ethnos* (people) and *logos* (discourse, reasoning). In recent decades, ethnology has increasingly defined its object of study—the cultural manifestations of living primitive peoples—detached itself from anthropology, to which it had long been linked, and has tended to forge ever closer ties with prehistory, which studies extinct primitive peoples. Ethnology and prehistory are historical disciplines because they study the spiritual manifestations of man; the method of the natural sciences cannot be applied to them, but only the historical method.
II. ETHNOLOGY UNITED WITH HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND THE STUDY OF RACES
Ethnology as an independent discipline is rather recent, although good and accurate ethnographic information on the customs and mores of peoples can already be found in ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin writers.The Middle Ages ignored Greek classical literature and thus most of the ethnological knowledge acquired by the ancients. However, the missionaries who first evangelized Europe and then ventured into other parts of the world left precious ethnographic information in manuals for confession, sermons, and conciliar acts.
The great geographical discoveries greatly expanded the field of ethnology in breadth but not in depth, because travelers, often driven only by material interests, were concerned above all with lands and treasures and regarded the natives as an encumbrance and burden, sometimes eliminating them in a brutal manner.
The Enlightenment and the encyclopedists of the 18th century, especially Montesquieu and Rousseau, often tried to base their theories on ethnology, but their amateurism, precisely because it was lively and brilliant, was particularly harmful.
The suppression and secularization of religious congregations in many nations interrupted missionary activity for almost a century and limited ethnographic information to the reports of travelers alone. Little effort was made in this period (1820–39) to study the spiritual manifestations of peoples. Ethnology turned predominantly to the study and classification of races, but the documentation available was still insufficient and was moreover reworked with little preparation. Thus hasty syntheses were reached: from the correct observation that the commonality of language is often joined by the commonality of customs, mores, and beliefs, the commonality of language was erroneously identified with that of race, and one spoke not of an Indo-European, Semitic, but even of a Germanic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Gallic race. In this period J. A. Gobineau laid the foundations of racism in his work *Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines* (4 vols., Paris 1853–55).
III. ETHNOLOGY AS AN INDEPENDENT SCIENCE
With 1859 a completely new period begins for ethnology: the theory of degeneration definitively collapses, and the application of biological evolutionism to historical and moral disciplines begins (v. CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM).IV. THE BEGINNING OF THE HISTORICAL APPROACH (RATZEL, PESCHEL, SCHURTZ, WEULE)
Around 1880 materialism, at least in its crudest forms, began to decline, and it was recognized that the method of anthropology and physiology is not applicable to the study of spiritual manifestations. In Germany, the study began of man’s reactions to the external environment (territory, climate, flora, fauna), reactions that are more passive than active and which form the object of anthropogeography, founded by Fr. Ratzel and O. Peschel and continued by H. Schurtz.Historical research has shown that cultural elements have a single origin, but when they migrate from one people to another they are modified, perfected, and transformed; sometimes they undergo such changes that they seem unrecognizable when compared to their initial phase. H. Schurtz had already recorded sixty different forms for the African adze alone. Similar observations could be repeated for all the weapons, tools, and utensils of primitives studied so far, and the evidence would be strengthened further when passing to sociology and the other manifold manifestations of spiritual culture. Explorers and
Ethnologists have demonstrated that songs, myths, and religious practices arise in a given place, created by a particularly gifted individual, and are accepted or rejected by the members of the same tribe, who in turn transform them. Once reworked, these creations pass from one tribe to another; sometimes they become the cultural heritage of one or even several peoples, while at other times, after a short time, they fall into disuse. It is impossible to predict with absolute certainty what will happen to a given cultural element: it may live on or disappear because human beings act freely.
V. THE HISTORICAL-CULTURAL SCHOOL: THE CONCEPT OF "EMIGRATION" AND THE BASIC CRITERIA OF "QUALITY" AND "QUANTITY" (FROBENIUS, FOY, ANKERMANN, GRÄBNER, SCHMIDT, KOPPERS, FINARD DE LA BOULLAYE, VAN BULCK)
Had the evolutionist method definitively prevailed, ethnology would have failed because it would have had to renounce its essential characteristic as a historical discipline. Fortunately, beneficial reactions first arose in Germany and then in other nations, restoring the discipline to its proper place.
Fr. Ratzel, already noted for the impetus he gave to anthropogeography, must be considered the founder of the theory of emigration, a concept that is eminently historical and forms the basis of modern ethnology. From the study of material culture, he arrived at the observation that an object (for example, a weapon), often widely diffused across the earth, sometimes continuously and sometimes not, had a single origin, and that cultural elements, now distant and separated, arose at a single point and from there spread to different continents. The same author established the first kinship between a particular form of bows in Mesoamerica and West Africa, based on the criterion of form, also called the criterion of quality—that is, on characteristic similarities not determined by the nature of the weapon or the material from which it is made. The two forms of bows are characterized by a stick with an oval cross-section, wrapped at one end with rings of woven vegetable fiber; the string is made from a strip of cane called *rolang* and is formed at the end of the stick by a round bulb. The arrows have the same imposing appearance. This first discovery, which remained famous, was destined to overturn the study of ethnology, because it demonstrated the need first to establish the place of origin of a given object or institution and only afterward to investigate the psychological reason for that origin. The psychological method, typical of evolutionism, which saw inventions everywhere, was replaced by the historical method; the theory of convergence was replaced by that of emigration, on which modern ethnology is founded.
Ratzel’s students successfully applied the new method: H. Schurtz, already mentioned, studied the diffusion of the throwing knife in Africa, and K. Weule the diffusion of arrows. Leo Frobenius developed the theory of emigrations in an organic and systematic way: from the observation that a common cultural relationship generally is not limited to a single object or isolated elements (such as the mere concordance in the form of bows or some other weapon or utensil) but extends to sociology, mythology, and religion—that is, to an entire organic whole—he introduced the second basic canon of the discipline: the criterion of quantity, which is the sum of independent similarities, both in sequence and in environment, presented by the elements that make up two or more cultures. The more numerous these similarities are, the greater the probability that the cultures compared have the same origin. The same author first formulated the concept of cultural cycle, which, subsequently reworked by other authors, can be defined as “the cultural complex that includes all the essential and necessary manifestations of human culture: ergology (material culture: dwellings, utensils, weapons, etc.), economy, society, customs, and religion” (W. Schmidt). The territory over which this cycle extends is called a cultural area. Cultural cycles generally migrate as a whole. W. Foy, B. Ankermann, Fr. Gräbner, and W. Schmidt successfully applied the new approach to the study of the cultures of Oceania.
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**Figure 1.** The historical-cultural school: the concept of "emigration" and the basic criteria of "quality" and "quantity" (Frobenius, Foy, Ankermann, Gräbner, Schmidt, Koppers, Finard de la Boullaye, van Bulck). Had the evolutionist method definitively prevailed, ethnology would have failed because it would have had to renounce its essential characteristic as a historical discipline. Fortunately, beneficial reactions first arose in Germany and then in other nations, restoring the discipline to its proper place.
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**Figure 44.** The historical-cultural school: the concept of "emigration" and the basic criteria of "quality" and "quantity"
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Divided by great stretches of water, narrow valleys closed off by mountains, poor soil such as that of the deserts of Africa and Asia, the tundras of northern Asia and North America, and the humid forests of central Africa and South America—that is, the regions still inhabited and until recently inhabited by primitive peoples or by peoples of low culture—are geographical factors unfavorable to progress. Favorable geographical factors are fertile regions with easy communication, and above all countries irrigated by great rivers. The most ancient civilizations indeed developed along the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, and the great rivers of India and China.
Among the elements unfavorable to progress, wars must be singled out in particular: they deprive the population especially of young people, who are the most suitable subjects for founding and continuing a family; they produce an imbalance between the number of men and women; and in small populations these losses are felt even more severely than in large ones. They favor the transition from original monogamy to polygamy. Great poverty due to the soil and famine also contribute to undermining the foundations of the family. Polyandry—an institution that allows a woman to have several husbands—is often due to the inability of men to pay the dowry necessary to acquire a wife. Even among primitive peoples, the great impetus toward progress is due to gifted, bold, and far-sighted individuals—men and women—who have exercised their influence in the economic, religious, political, social, medical, and linguistic spheres. The existence of such personalities is now an established fact, and travelers, missionaries, colonial officials, and ethnologists have been witnesses to the activity of these exceptional men.
But great individualities require masses that accept, discuss, and transmit the innovations they introduce; without the masses, progress would have little resonance, and the small, slow, yet countless improvements that perfect an invention would be lacking—indeed, even the very impetus for improvement would be absent. Too often it is forgotten that both among primitive peoples and among those with advanced civilizations, radical inventions and changes are few; very often cultural elements are transmitted in a conservative manner, subject only to slow and continuous variations that perfect them rather than abrupt changes. The history of cultural elements teaches us this. And it is well that it should be so, for if every generation were to claim to sweep away the results achieved by the preceding one and start anew from scratch, we would still all be at the dawn of civilization.
Moreover, the smaller a people is, the less chance it has of producing strong individualities; it may even lack them entirely, and if they do arise, they find no resonance. Many primitive populations are small in number, weak, and isolated, and thus in conditions favorable to rigidity. Ethnological research has also highlighted another fact of paramount importance: within the same civilization of a people, progress has not been uniform in all respects but has often advanced in one direction while regressing in another. Thus, matriarchy developed and perfected agriculture but in many cases destroyed the family; totemism greatly advanced hunting techniques and undoubtedly contributed equally to the progress of science and art, yet it too weakened the family and replaced religion with magic; nomadic pastoralists were the first to domesticate and raise animals, but in certain aspects of religious and social life, they represent a regression compared to primitive populations. These disharmonious developments—a civilization should progress in all respects, even in those elements that impose duties or burdens, such as the family and religion—largely explain the decline of great civilizations that had developed primarily only those elements from which they could derive enjoyment while suppressing or weakening those that entailed sacrifice. Unbridled selfishness is undoubtedly one of the most detrimental factors to progress, for it undermines the family, diminishes the masses, and obstructs relations between peoples.
From what has been outlined, certain conclusions—completely overlooked by the old evolutionist schools—become evident, though they can never be emphasized enough: 1) there are no absolutely primitive peoples, that is, entirely devoid of civilization and history; 2) the so-called primitives have experienced periods of stagnation in their development; 3) it is not possible to place all primitives on the same level but distinctions must be made between more and less primitive; 4) the ethical, social, and religious factors of a people do not necessarily progress with greater economic development.
It remains to determine which peoples constitute the subject of ethnology. Some scholars have so broadened the boundaries of the discipline as to include practically even most of the great ancient civilizations. Insisting on this point is an error that rightly provokes a reaction from Sinologists, Egyptologists, Semitologists, and others. It is true that certain aspects of great civilizations can only be understood and explained by recourse to ethnology, for they have deep roots in older cultural strata that elude the investigation of the archaeologist and the linguist: it is now acknowledged that Egyptian art received a great impetus from totemism, and W. Koppers, in a series of works published over the last two decades in the journal *Anthropos*, has explained many hitherto unknown aspects of the culture and religion of the Indo-Europeans through ethnology. Among the common people, beliefs, customs, and traditions that are survivals of cultures that have disappeared as a whole centuries ago still persist in many places. Closer collaboration between scholars of ancient civilizations, of popular ethnography (folklore), and of ethnology would be beneficial to all these sciences. Each, however, has its own task and boundaries that it cannot overstep. Ethnology studies the cultures of those peoples that may still be called primitive, not in an absolute sense (for none now exist), but in a relative one.
In many parts of the world (Sudan, Indonesia, Polynesia, India, China, Central and South America) there are still, or there are reliable traces of, populations that had reached a high level of cultural development. Many have had contact with Islam, Lamaism, Confucianism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism, which have been superimposed upon the original religions, now largely unknown to us. From these mixtures new cultures have emerged in which, alongside manifestations proper to great civilizations, many archaic elements often thrive vigorously.
It is therefore not easy, indeed impossible, to formulate an absolute criterion by which a population or a culture may be included in the concept of “primitive.” Yet perhaps no invention has had as profound an influence on human thought and the development of civilization as writing. It marks the need to fix knowledge previously transmitted orally, abolishes the distances of time, and makes it possible to record more rapidly, accurately, and completely the progress of one generation to transmit it to science. By fixing concepts in a more objective manner than is possible through tradition alone, it sharpens critical sense and reflection. Only with writing can there be cultural development on a broad scale that utilizes the work already accomplished by previous generations. True progress is possible only when one builds upon, in depth and breadth, the cultural heritage that previous generations have labored to create with effort and tenacity.
Writing has been the invention that elevated still-poor cultures to the level of great cultures, and it is the most comprehensive division that can be made of human civilization. The first period comprises peoples without writing, whom we call primitive, characterized by a still-naïve thought; the second, peoples with writing, characterized by critical and reflective thought. Ethnology studies the entire cultural complex of primitives and the manifestations of great civilizations that can only be explained through knowledge of primitive cultures.
VII. THE MOST ARCHAIC CULTURES ACCESSIBLE TO US
Ethnology, as a historical discipline, must first and foremost study the problem of the age and succession of cultures and cultural cycles. In its inquiry, it does not presuppose the postulates of evolutionism (progress from the crude to the perfect, uniformity of evolution in all places) or of any particular historical or theological thesis; rather, like all historical disciplines, it proceeds by first preparing solid monographs devoted to individual peoples and regions, and where possible to well-defined cultural periods. From this analytical work, it then moves on to synthesis and the study of the relationships between various cultural cycles, whether near or distant.Based on data from anthropology and related sciences, some ethnologists of the historical school believe they can accept outright as a postulate (the only one they employ) the monogenesis of man; others, though likewise convinced that the arguments in favor of monogenesis are far stronger and more convincing than those for polygenesis, yet at the same time anxious to remain free from any thesis, prefer not to give this premise the status of a postulate but use it only as a provisional hypothesis to guide research, later drawing on the convergent conclusions of other sciences such as paleoanthropology, prehistory, and linguistics, etc. (These conclusions have been set forth by M. Schülein, *L'unità del genere umano alla luce delle ultime riutilizzate antropologiche, linguistiche ed etnologiche*, 3rd ed., Milan 1947).
In the primitive cultures still extant or recently extinct, three or four very ancient cultural cycles can already be distinguished (which present knowledge has so far been unable to reduce to a single cycle).
1. The central primitive culture, characterized sociologically by monogamy and local exogamy (v. Exogamy), to which belong the Pygmies and Pygmoids of Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania—peoples dwelling predominantly in tropical regions, all south of the equator and therefore central.
2. The southern primitive culture, characterized sociologically by exogamy and the levirate (now extinct), including the extinct Tasmanians and the Australians of the southeastern region. It seems that the Bosjesmen (Southern Africa) and the Fuegians of South America (especially the Yamana) form a transition from the central to the southern primitive culture.
3. The northern or Arctic primitive culture, also characterized by a particular form of marriage, but with equal rights for husband and wife. To this culture belong certain peoples inhabiting the northernmost parts of Asia and America (the Paleoasiatics and the Eskimo, west of Hudson Bay). It seems that the most ancient populations of California, the Agonchini (North America), and the Ge-Tapuya (South America) form a transition from the central to the northern primitive culture.
4. The ancient Australian culture (also called boomerang culture from the name of that weapon. The boomerang is a throwing weapon consisting of a very flat, elbow-bent stick, whose shape facilitates its rotation in the air. If thrown correctly and it does not strike an object or another obstacle, it returns to the thrower. This weapon is characteristic of this culture). This culture has already undergone influences from other, no longer primitive, cultures. It is widespread in nearly all of Australia (where it includes populations following the second cultural cycle), in some parts of Africa (only remnants along the Nile: among the Shilluk and Dinka in the southern region), in North America (among the Agonchini and in eastern California), and perhaps also in South America.
All the populations belonging to these cultures occupy, on each continent, the most remote and isolated peripheral regions, difficult of access.
Representatives of the southern culture in Australia are certain populations pushed to the limits of the continent: the northern groups (Cepara and others) and the southern (Kulin, Kurnai, and Yuin); the Australians inhabited the southernmost part. The Paleoasiatics (Samoyeds, Koryaks, Ainu, etc.) were pushed into the northeastern northern regions by the great agricultural peoples, the pastoralists who came from Central and East Asia. In the northeastern region, the Eskimo reached Greenland and served as a bridge to America; they have been influenced by other cultures. The most primitive populations of North America consist of the oldest stratum of the Agonchini, pushed to the extreme northwest of the continent into the neighboring islands and prairies by the warlike and matriarchal populations coming from the south and west.
Even the most primitive tribes of California (Hoka, Penutian, and Yuki) have been pushed between the coast and the mountains. The Ge-Tapuya of Brazil were first pushed toward the coast and from there again into the interior among the Guaraní-Tupi. Finally, in the southernmost region of the world, Tierra del Fuego, there still live two very primitive populations, the Alakaluf and the Yamana. Their very geographical position would already be a strong argument in favor of their great primitiveness. Their isolation has made them difficult to reach, has posed—especially in the past—a serious obstacle to their study, and has been the cause of their having preserved their cultural characteristics and remained untouched by external influences. Other elements also confirm the great primitiveness of these peoples. All are in the first stage of civilization; they live on what hunting, fishing, and gathering provide, hence they are called gathering peoples, and their cultures are (relatively) original because they are closest to the original culture (in the absolute sense) of humanity, which ethnology will never be able to reconstruct. Their dwellings, weapons, utensils, ornaments, and family structures show great simplicity. They lack the elements that characterize the younger cultures surrounding them (totemism, agriculture, matriarchal succession, livestock breeding, pottery, weaving, metalworking, etc.). There is not the slightest indication to support the supposition that these populations once had a higher culture. It can therefore be concluded that each of the original cultural cycles (central, southern, and northern), considered in isolation within the continent in which it is found, appears more archaic than all the other primary cultural cycles of the same continent (totemism, matriarchy, nomadic pastoralism). From this first conclusion, a second follows: the aggregate of the original cultures is older than the primary cultures.
VIII. COMPARISON OF THE MOST ARCHAIC CULTURES TO DETERMINE WHICH IS CLOSEST TO THE ORIGINAL
— Given the geographical and cultural elements that demonstrate the primitiveness of the original cultures, research must still attempt to discover which culture is the most ancient. In this investigation, comparative methods and criteria of quality and quantity are also employed. However, in the study of the history of the most complex cultures, difficulties have increased. Indeed, the application of qualitative and quantitative criteria, to be probative and allow secure conclusions, must be based on a sufficient number of truly characteristic similarities. A single element of material culture (e.g., a particular type of club) found identical in two separate cultures may be a good starting point for comparing these cultures, but it can never, by itself, lead to the conclusion that the two cultures are related and were once united. To reach this conclusion, the cultural similarities must be both characteristic and abundant.
The possibility of comparison and the certainty of conclusions are always greater the richer the cultures being compared are in elements. This is precisely the case with the younger cultural cycles, composed of elements drawn from different cultures. But in the earliest stages of civilization, cultural elements are simple in form and limited in number. Moreover, the more primitive populations, made up of small isolated groups, have suffered in their evolution greater losses of characteristic cultural elements than have more advanced populations. Yet the investigation into the stability of the oldest living culture (i.e., the one closest to the truly original culture of man) could not be abandoned simply because of its difficulties. The problem has been resolved through the comparative study of (relatively) original cultures.
1. The cultural cycle of the boomerang
In this cycle, the economy is still based on hunting and gathering; the house is in the form of a round beehive. The characteristic weapons and tools are: a) the boomerang, b) the shield, of very rough form, called the stick-shield or parrying-stick, because rather than being a true shield it is a simple stick used to parry blows from a club, c) in Australia the ubiquitous adze is already present.The first manifestations of tattooing by scarring begin. Monogamy predominates, but there are already cases of polygamy. Populations belonging to this cultural cycle therefore already have elements of younger cultures, and moreover they do not occupy the most isolated or least accessible territories but only those bordering on them. Hence they cannot be the representatives of the most archaic cultures known to us.
2. The Paleoasiatic cultural cycle — that is, the most archaic layer of northern culture — is already an adaptation of a primitive culture to the ancient climate, as shown by the economy and the entire complex of ergology among the populations that compose II.
a) The economy is based almost exclusively on hunting and fishing (which is essentially a form of hunting). In the ancient climate there are generally no plants, so gathering is not possible. Hunting is still widely practiced individually and in family groups — the most archaic form — in which only a few people participate, but also in collective hunting, a more recent and more advanced form. In all forms, dogs are used. With their help and through practice, the hunter discovers under the snow the breathing holes that the seal makes in the surface of the water and strikes the animal. In the course of the hunt, the dog also appears. Reindeer hunting is highly developed and done in groups. The Chukchi, with the help of dogs — through well-organized drives — push wild herds into narrow passages and kill them with arrows and spears. The sling and the harpoon also belong to this culture.
b) In relation to the Arctic environment, this culture has had to reduce the use of wood and has specialized increasingly in the working of bone. Only later did it come to know the use of stone, worked with a technique similar to that of the Neolithic.
In the preparation of fire, an interesting case of this evolution is found. In the most archaic phase, fire was obtained by rubbing a stick with the hands in a special hole in a lower rod or tablet (the drill and the fireboard). In several places this form has been replaced by the percussion of iron pyrites. Wood is used for the bow, the shafts of arrows and spears, the ice-scraper, snowshoes, parts of the sledge, goggles and visors to protect the eyes from the sun, some containers, and a few other objects. Bone constitutes at least the essential part of weapons and many tools: arrowheads and spearheads, parts of the bow, fishhooks, harpoons with one or more points (even tridents), parts of the sledge, and even parts of the bow. From it are also made several other objects (pipes, antler carvings, etc.) which, however, belong to more recent cultures. Stone is used for lamps — absolutely necessary given the brevity of the polar day — and for cooking pots that the Eskimos heat on the lamps. The fire is fed with wicks of moss soaked in seal fat.
c) In the polar climate, clothing and housing are of great importance. The clothing of the Eskimos is essentially the same for both sexes. It consists of a closed jacket, put on over the head, with sleeves, hood, and attached gloves, and of padded boots. These garments are made almost entirely from reindeer skin, which is the warmest and lightest of the polar furs and also the easiest to keep dry. In winter they wear double garments, with the inner one worn with the fur against the skin. From seal they make boots padded with fur and waterproof outer garments. In the populations belonging to the most archaic cultural layer, women prepare the skins by chewing them, scraping them with a characteristic knife called a *nolo* — which has the shape of a crescent and is used only by them — and soaking them in hot water, in cold running water, or in urine.
The most archaic dwelling is round in form and consists of two parts: a lower one, subterranean or semi-subterranean, accessed by a corridor, and an upper one that is culturally connected to the type of round beehive hut.
d) Even burial has been influenced by the environment. Since it is difficult to dig a grave in frozen ground, the dead are simply laid on the ground. This form is called platform burial.
e) In social organization, influences of more recent institutions such as ownership and especially matriarchy are already noted.
f) Finally, the artistic tribes of America have been linked to the same Paleoasiatic cycle, a more recent cultural aspect, because, with the very simple means of navigation at their disposal during their migrations, they reached the new land only by passing through the artistic regions. Moreover, according to the most common opinion of scholars, no people entered America before the beginning of the Neolithic, which is confirmed by the technique with which stone was worked.
From all the elements examined so far, it emerges that the Paleoasiatic cultural cycle as a whole presents itself as a secondary formation. Hence it cannot be considered the representative of the most archaic culture known to us. This does not exclude the possibility that it may still contain some very archaic cultural elements that have been lost in other original cultures.
We must now compare only the central primitive culture and the southern primitive culture, in their individual elements.
3. The Tasmanian cultural cycle is the cultural cycle of the pygmies
If these two cultural cycles were to come into contact at any point, a sure criterion would be provided for establishing which of them is the more ancient: it would suffice to study carefully at such points the mixtures, overlappings, and divisions. But so far no point of contact has been found because the two cycles are separated by vast distances.The only criterion remaining is to compare the two cultures: to see, from an intrinsic examination of the elements that compose them, which is the more ancient.
A culture, even the simplest imaginable, must have had from the very beginning—expressions such as a certain form of economic life (e.g., gathering), family organization, a certain language, etc.—which distinguish human life (culture) from that of animals (which have no culture). If, as seems obvious, the first manifestations of material culture arose solely from necessity, they must naturally have been simple, dependent on the limited possibilities available to humans at the time, lacking any additions based purely on a criterion of refinement. Foy, for instance, has demonstrated that the flat club developed from the round stick as found in nature. As for bodily care, humans would not have immediately begun practicing forms of tattooing, mutilation, or deformation. New elements were successively added—whether due to internal progress within individual peoples or their contact with others—which constituted cultural enrichment.
The criterion discussed above is valid only when dealing with material culture, and even in this case it must be applied with discernment, for it can easily lead back to the preconception of materialistic positivism, according to which the development of humanity in every sphere would have been an ascent from lower to more evolved forms.
From two weapons or tools or any object of material culture, one cannot simply conclude that humans constructed the one requiring less intelligence first. Historical research has shown that the opposite has sometimes occurred. Among the various examples provided by ethnology, the bow is one of the most instructive. This weapon demonstrates an inventive and reflective talent undoubtedly far superior to that commonly exhibited by other primitive weapons. Based on this fact alone, some ethnologists have attributed it to more recent cultures, while careful investigations have shown that it belongs, from its very origin, to the culture of the Pygmies, where it is generally still found in its simplest form—a round stick (as found in nature) smoothed and bent, with a vegetable fiber cord attached to its ends, which serves to propel the arrow. Many of its refinements cannot be immediately associated with the bow, as they require tools and means that original cultures do not yet possess. Indeed, these refinements are found only in the bows of more recent cultures. After establishing the limits within which the criterion of intrinsic examination can be used, the particular aspects presented by the Tasmanian and Pygmy cultural cycles are examined to determine which is more archaic. These two cycles are the most primitive known and take us back to the most archaic phase of human culture that ethnological research can reach. Although the origins of this culture remain obscure, it can be affirmed that the cultural cycle whose elements most closely resemble the starting point of human culture (i.e., absolute original culture) is undoubtedly the most archaic. In these investigations, two methodological criteria formulated by Pinard and Schmidt are particularly useful:
- Every cultural element that presupposes another is necessarily more recent than the one it presupposes (the principle of "necessary presupposition" enunciated by Pinard).
- Of two cultural elements of the same order, the one that presupposes a change from the original state is more recent than the one that does not (Schmidt).
4. Bodily care
In original cultures, young men and women who have reached puberty must undergo special ceremonies called initiations, which aim primarily to instruct the initiates, now approaching marriage, in their future duties toward family and state. The candidates must abstain from certain preferred foods but are not subjected to painful practices. Only later—under the influence of more recent cultures, where initiations are now practiced only for males—are young men required to have a tooth removed with a wooden chisel without uttering the slightest complaint. In an even later phase, circumcision (or incision and subincision) of the initiates is introduced. Circumcision consists in the total removalof the foreskin, though in some cases it may involve only an incision or subincision.
Some scholars have sought to characterize this cultural trait by claiming that the Pygmies lack suitable stone material for working, since it is a priori inconceivable that stones could not be found in the vast territories of southern Asia and Africa where the Pygmies live scattered. However, there is decisive evidence contradicting this assertion and proving instead that groups of Pygmies do use stones found in nature that are already suitable for working or require only slight retouching. Brown, for example, writes that in the territory of the Andamanese there is quartz and another type of rock with which the natives make blades for shaving hair and for tattooing. To obtain these tools, they hold a quartz pebble or another suitable rock in the left hand and strike it with another rounded stone of any appropriate hard material; a flake detaches and falls into the palm of the left hand. If needed, it is used immediately; otherwise, it is discarded and another is made. Blades and knives are prepared only when necessary and used until they lose their edge or point, after which they are thrown away. A woman shaving someone’s head may consume, one after another, up to twenty blades, for which at least twice as many flakes must be produced. Harder stone flakes are obtained like those of quartz, but before use, they are left in the fire for several hours and then allowed to cool. The natives themselves confirm that they have never used stone for cutting (except in the cases mentioned) or for making arrowheads. For the latter, they use shells. Brown also presents various arguments against ancient authors who claimed to have found polished stone tools among the Andamanese, concluding that the most plausible hypothesis is that this people has never worked stone but has always made all its tools from wood, bone, and shells. From the above, it is clear that the limited working of stone is a characteristic of Pygmy culture, attesting to the greater primitiveness of the central cultural cycle compared to the southern one.
c) The production of fire. — The Andamanese Pygmies are the only people in the world that does not know how to produce fire; they therefore maintain burning pieces of wood continuously alight. All other Pygmies and Pygmoids, Australians, and Tasmanians obtain fire by friction between two pieces of wood. However, the methods vary:
a) The Tasmanians (now extinct) used "groove friction," i.e., horizontal friction made with the point of a piece of wood in the longitudinal groove of another piece of wood. Since the Tasmanians have preserved several archaic cultural elements that have been lost or replaced by more recent ones among the southeastern Australians, it can be considered that groove friction is a more archaic method of fire-making than the others used by southeastern Australians.
b) Southeastern Australians either rotate a stick in a hole in a flat piece of wood beneath it (simple rotation or drill fire) or saw a piece of wood with another ("saw friction"). There are also two
ETNOLOGY — Examples of 'geometric designs' and archaic interlacings which the Andamanese Pygmies incise or painted on these wooden tablets, that is, hides of large animals, shells. All the populations of Australia and Tasmania already worked stone, especially in the form of adzes and blades. Therefore, from the standpoint of material processing, the Pygmies belong to a cultural phase still eolithic, more archaic than the Paleolithic, which instead characterizes the populations of the southern culture. It is possible to explain, as some have attempted to do,
populations of Pygmies — one in Asia, the Semang, and another in Africa, the Batwa of the Congo — who obtain fire by friction in a groove. The presence of this method in each of the two main groups of Pygmies — the Asian and the African — and moreover in such distant points from one another, attests to the persistence among these peoples of a cultural element more archaic than the corresponding one found among the southeastern Australians.
d) Weapons: the Pygmy bow. — The adze and the spear are the characteristic weapons of the southern culture; the bow is the weapon of the Pygmies. The bow is a weapon consisting essentially of a long, thin, flexible stick or cane, to whose ends a cord of vegetable fiber or a strip of skin or leather is attached. This serves to impart motion to the arrow. The arrow is an integral part of the bow. In its most archaic forms, it is furnished with feathers or leaves or small pieces of skin that help maintain its direction once it has been shot. In more evolved cultures, the fletching disappears and is replaced by other refinements of the bow and arrow. Among primitive weapons, the bow is perhaps the one that demonstrates the greatest ingenuity, reflection, and refinement. This has led some authors (Gräbner) to argue that the Pygmies did not originally possess this weapon but only the arrow, which they launched by hand at their prey. This hypothesis, however, is not confirmed by the facts, because among the Pygmies the bow and arrow are always associated.
This bow acquires a much greater launching force, but like the round bow, it is not very flexible. The cord is therefore again made of rattan. In certain regions (Malaysia, West Africa) it is fixed to the bow on supports shaped like cushions, rings, disks, or balls, carved or woven onto the stick. However, in further and earlier India — where the culture to which this bow belongs probably originated — the step-like support at the ends of the stick was initially maintained, to which the rattan — which breaks more easily than a cord — is attached with a braid of more flexible material. This is a bow found even outside the area of the Pygmies; indeed, it is characteristic of later matriarchy (a culture widespread especially in further India, Indonesia, and Malaysia but also represented in West Africa and America).
8) The Andamanese have a much more refined bow, similar to that of Malaysia: large, very wide at both ends, with the upper limb curved toward the archer. The lower limb curves slightly in the opposite direction. To construct it, they choose a stick already bent while still in the ground and reinforce the curvature as it grows. Then they fashion the bow, which, at the center where it is gripped by the fist, has a circular cross-section and then immediately widens on both sides, which, however, end again in points. When the archer bends the bow, he pulls the string toward himself, that is, in the direction opposite to the upper limb, which, as soon as the string is released, snaps back with doubled force. In the resting position, it has the shape of an S; when bent, it acquires a uniform curvature. Therefore, it is already a "semi-recurve" bow and has the advantage of not subjecting the stick to very different tensions in its various phases of movement. The northern Andamanese further increase the power of this bow by keeping the bent side continuously suspended over a weak fire, which contracts the fibers. The Andamanese bow retains the step-carved points. The string, made of vegetable fibers, is looped around the ends of the stick.
1) The Semang have a true "recurve" bow, which they construct from a stick already curved by nature, on which they add another curve opposite to the first. The bow is bent in the direction opposite to that of the natural curve.
The northern Asian and central Asian pastoral peoples have a bow with a semicircular cross-section, which is even more refined. In the resting position, the convex side is outside and the flat side inside, but when the bow is bent, the convex side moves inside and the flat side outside. The tension is further increased by a very elastic material intimately joined to the stick. This bow is at once composite and recurve. Deep notches are made at its ends, into which a strong cord is fixed. The making of this bow requires much time and labor. This type is completely absent among the Pygmies and is instead found in the great civilizations (China, India, Persia, the classical world) that received it from the culture of the nomadic pastoralists. To the semicircular-section bow, convex inside and flat outside, are associated more refined forms of fletching in which the feathers, by means of more or less tight stitching, adhere to the arrow along its entire length. Sometimes the fletching is completely absent, but these evolved forms of bow and arrow are characteristic of later matriarchy and essentially foreign to the culture of the Pygmies.
ETNOLOGY - Pictography on bark representing hunting scenes. North American Indians, Rome, Museo preistorico etnografico Luigi Pigorini.
From what has been set forth, it emerges that the forms of the bow and arrows that prevail among the Pygmies (typical α, β) are the most primitive known, because they are the closest to the forms found in nature itself. Therefore, the presence of this weapon among the Pygmies cannot be invoked against their great ethnological antiquity. Its refinements are due both to the nature of these peoples—who are not rigid but capable of improvement, as attested by ethnologists who have studied them in situ—and to external influences. The most significant differences are indeed noted between the African and Asian groups, separated by a greater distance. Nor is the hypothesis sustainable that some ethnologists have advanced, according to which the Pygmies would have received the bow and arrow from more evolved cultures, particularly from the later matriarchate; on the contrary, there are numerous indications in favor of the opposing thesis, namely that the bow and arrow migrated from Pygmy culture to that of the later matriarchate, which would subsequently have refined this weapon. That the forms α, β are the most primitive is confirmed by the fact that, outside Pygmy culture, they are used (either alone or alongside more refined forms) only by peoples who still belong to original cultures and have had no contact either with nomadic herders or with the more recent matriarchate. The round bow (typical α) is still used by the Ainu, who represent the most archaic cultural stratum of northern Japan, and by the Ge-Tapuya of eastern Brazil, who, together with other neighboring populations, belong to the most archaic cultural cycle of those regions, which shares many similarities with that of the Pygmies. The bow with a semicircular cross-section, with the curved part on the outside and the flat part on the inside, is still used by the Ainu, by the Paleoasiatic peoples (Koryaks, Chukchi, Aleuts, and several groups of Eskimos), and by Indians along the northwestern coast of America as far as California.
African Pygmies. Only the Bushmen—who, it seems, constitute a transition from the central primitive culture to the southern one—have produced a great deal of realistic rock art, which has close connections with that of the European Upper Paleolithic (caves of Cogul, Alpera, Tortosilla in Spain) and is the result of a blending of a primitive culture with a totemic one, and thus more recent. Art is not the only point in which the Bushmen differ from the Pygmies. The Australians already show some manifestations of carving and relief sculpture. Therefore, even in the realm of figurative art, the Pygmies are more primitive than the Australians.
f) Totemism. — The basis of totemism is the belief in a magical relationship between a social group (clan) or an individual or a sex and a particular animal species (more rarely a plant, and even more rarely an element of nature: sun, moon, water), relationships generally founded on the belief in a common ancestor. There are three different aspects of totemism: the social, the individual, and the sexual. The southeastern Australians already have elements of social totemism, borrowed from neighboring populations belonging to more recent cultures, and a rather developed individual and sexual totemism (regarding the Tasmanians, who are extinct, there are no reliable reports on this matter). Manifestations of totemism are also found among the Pygmies, but they are far fewer and less significant than among the Australians. Therefore, from this sociological standpoint, the Pygmies belong to a more archaic phase than the populations of southeastern Australia.
g) Funerary customs. — The funerary customs of the Paleocustrians include complex elements that are lacking among the Pygmies, such as: a) the consumption of some part of the deceased’s flesh and the anointing of the relatives’ bodies with the fluids from the corpse; b) the removal of the intestines and other mutilations of the corpse; c) magical practices intended to discover who caused the death—practices not proper to more recent cultures, which attribute death solely to magical influences—in order to exact vengeance. Therefore, even in this cultural aspect, the Pygmies are more archaic than the Paleocustrians.
From a comparison of the two cultural cycles, it has been seen that: a) in both cycles there are elements belonging to the same ethnological age; b) there are then many other characteristic cultural elements which, among the Pygmies, have a more archaic character than among the Paleocustrians, while no opposite case occurs. From the sum of these facts, one may conclude that the cultural cycle of the Pygmies is more archaic than that of the Paleocustrians.
These facts lead to the conclusion that the cultural cycle of the Pygmies is more archaic than that of the Paleocustrians.
IX. CONCLUSION
The origin and formation of the earliest cultures can be summarized as follows:I. From the truly original ancient culture, which seems to have been located in East Asia, there separated out, even before the beginning of the Stone Age, the peoples belonging to the central culture (Pygmies), which soon divided into the two main branches: the Asian and the African. Despite the differences found, these two groups still constitute, as a whole, a genuine cultural cycle, the most archaic known in East Asia. From an anthropological standpoint, the Pygmies seem to belong to the most ancient race, not in the sense that they should be considered the progenitors of all or even many races, but rather as a detached branch of the main front, a branch that did not undergo the great subsequent evolutions of the other races and gave rise to none of them, not even to the so-called “negroid” ones (W. Schmidt).
2. Subsequently, there separated out the peoples that make up the northern or ancient culture—whose most archaic stratum is still Neolithic—and those of the southern culture, which are already Paleolithic.
3. Still later, the culture of the Fuegians (Tierra del Fuego) was formed, occupying the southernmost part of America.
These cultures, which for millennia remained almost completely isolated, slowly adapted to their new environments and thus underwent different specializations: enriching themselves, especially in material culture (though not exclusively), with new elements, but also losing others they once possessed because they were no longer suitable. Therefore, none of these cultures can be called absolutely original. The reconstruction of the original phase of humanity has perhaps been the most arduous task undertaken—and, as far as possible, accomplished—by the ethnologists of the historical-cultural school.
It must be acknowledged that this reconstruction cannot consist solely in the sum of the elements that make up the more archaic cultures still accessible to ethnology; on the contrary, proceeding backwards, one must discard one by one, as more recent, all those elements that are due to specialization and external contacts. In this comparative work it is absolutely necessary to consider all the more archaic cultures still accessible to ethnology and to prehistory, because the fact that one culture is more recent than another does not mean that all the elements of the former are more recent than the corresponding elements of the latter. Ethnological research has in fact demonstrated that some elements—undoubtedly very archaic and probably already belonging to the truly original culture—now lacking among the Pygmies have been preserved in the ancient Arctic culture or in that of the Tasmanians. But even after eliminating all the more recent elements, ethnology could not presume to have reconstructed the truly original culture of humanity in its entirety, because certain manifestations, in the long and almost complete isolation of the central, northern, and southern cultures, have inevitably become rigid, causing impoverishment in culture. This has always happened to all isolated and closed cultures, whether large or small. And there is no reason to believe that there was an exception in the case of the most primitive ones.
This loss occurred above all in spiritual manifestations.
Therefore, ethnology is very sceptical about the possibility of reconstructing in its fullness the truly original culture of humanity.
Similar observations could be made regarding anthropology, linguistics, and prehistory when they directly address the problem of origins. This finding, in itself quite sobering, should not diminish interest in these sciences, which have proven capable of reconstructing, if not the whole, at least much of the history of humanity that seemed definitively lost.
Ethnology in particular has shed light on the earliest manifestations of economic, social, and religious life of man. — Vedi tavv. XLV-XLVII.