BOOK REVIEWS 28 1
between them described. On account of these differences Dr. Lowie concludes that they, or at least four of them, are the results of separate processes of evolution and arose independently of one another. Various reasons are given to show that the people of one area have not "borrowed" from another although such borrowing is supposed to have occurred within each area.
One who takes a more dynamic view of the mechanisms of diffusion will readily accept Dr. Lowie's facts and yet be not at all disturbed in his belief in historical connection. Even if the social beliefs and sentiments underlying the sib-organization were carried to America only by one immigrant influence, the differences which exist are just such as might be expected. Thus, elsewhere there is definite evidence that the dual or- ganization is independent of the sib-organization, and if moieties were already present in certain parts of America and absent in others when what I may call the "sib-idea" was introduced, we should expect to find just such differences in the relative importance of the moiety as exists among the Indians of the East and those of the Northern Plains. Or, the differences might be produced, though less probably, by the later introduction of the dual principle into the two regions. Again, the fact that in the east the sibs take their names from animals, while in the Northern Plains the people use nicknames for their sibs, would simply mean that for some reason the connection of the sibs with animals which is so frequent elsewhere, and was probably a feature of the introduced culture, failed to take root in the Northern Plains and was replaced by a nomenclature of a different kind. Once again, the special kind of cere- monial importance of the sib of the Pueblo tribes is not unknown else- where, and its presence, though in a specialized form, would be due to some feature of the Pueblo environment which led to the survival and accentuation of this feature of the sib-idea in that region. Lastly, the "crest" which forms the distinctive feature of the sib-organization of British Columbia becomes intelligible as an example of the development of totemism into heraldry which has almost certainly taken place else- where. The differences on which Dr. Lowie lays so much stress are capable of explanation on the lines of historical connection even if the sib-idea reached America only once, but they would be still more readily explicable if the ideas were brought on more than one occasion, and perhaps from different directions, not only, for instance, by way of the Pacific but by a pre-Columbian movement across the Atlantic by way of the Canary islands.
It is well to point out that in one sense such a process as I have out-
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