Anthropology

by A. L. Kroeber

176. Representation Showing Contemporaneity and Narrative Representation

So far as possible, the traits in each column of the diagram have been disposed in the order of their presumptive appearance in time. In the lowest level, for instance, have been set those elements that are likely to have been common to all the first immigrants into America. Local developments tending on the whole to be late, have been placed toward the heads of columns; and, roughly throughout, widely diffused and therefore apparently early elements are nearer the bottom. In general, accordingly, the sequence upward of traits indicates their approximate sequence in time. But this arrangement obviously holds chiefly for each column as a unit. As between the columns, it breaks down, since the top of each column would represent the same period, the moment of discovery, and these tops are not on a level.

The display of the same data in such a manner that vertical position would adequately represent proportional lapse of time as the horizontal placing suggests geographical contiguity, would necessitate another arrangement. In such a diagram the height of each column would be the same, but the richer cultures would have their constituent elements more closely crowded. That is, each new invention or institution or importation followed more rapidly on its predecessor than in the peripheral areas. For instance, while maize agriculture was spreading from Middle America to the Southwest and thence to the Northeast, the Middle Americans were adding varied agriculture and metallurgy, human sacrifice, and astronomy. The strata in the diagram would therefore generally not be level but would slope upward from their origin in the middle. This would be a more accurate schematic representation of what happened.

On the other hand, difficulties would arise in the graphic representation. The domestication of the llama, for instance, is confined to a single area, the Andean. Yet the domestication is rather ancient, as archæological discoveries prove; perhaps older than the spread of many culture elements from the Andes into the Tropical Forest, or from Mexico into the United States. The llama could therefore not be placed properly near the head of the column representing Andean culture, because the top of this column would signify recency. It would have to be inserted lower down, thus breaking the continuity of strata extending through several areas. Thus the diagram would quickly become so intricate as to lose its graphic value.

It would simplify the problem if the large mass of culture elements could be segregated into a small number of groups, each assignable to a stratum or period, much as the constituents of the religion and then of the whole culture of the California Indians were analyzed and then regrouped in the preceding chapter. Such a procedure, however, is much easier and more accurate for the subdivisions of one limited area than for an entire hemisphere, because the interrelations of the areas constituting this are naturally very complex and at many points imperfectly known. Such a schematic representation of the course of culture in the whole of the Americas on the basis of as many traits as are included in [Figure 35], is therefore not attempted here. Instead, there is reproduced an analogous but simpler scheme ([Fig. 36]) recently published by an author whose primary concern is with Middle America, who has presented his story in the form of a treatment by larger periods, and in his diagram extends these to the remainder of the two continents. If his figure seems different from the preceding one, it should be remembered that the two approaches are not only from somewhat different angles but independent of each other, besides which it will be found that the divergence between the two illustrations (Figs. [35] and [36]) is more apparent than intrinsic.

Fig. 36. Diagrammatic representation by Spinden of the development of native American culture. Fewer elements of culture are included than in [figure 35], but these are definitely placed according to their indicated sequence in time. While this diagram was prepared with particular reference to Middle American civilization and therefore has reference only to the culture areas cut by the line ABCD, and while it carries the peopling of the continent a few thousand years back of the time assumed in this book, it is in substantial agreement with the views expressed in the present chapter.

At best, however, all diagrams are not only schematic but static; and it may accordingly be worth while to try to narrate some of the principal events of the history of American civilization in order to bring out their continuity and relations as they appear in perspective. But the reader must remember that this is a reconstruction from indirect and often imperfect evidence, probably correct in the large and in many details, certain to be incorrect in some proportion of its findings, tentative throughout and subject to revision as the future brings fuller insight. It aims to give the truth as it can be pieced together: it is never a directly documented story like those familiar to us from orthodox “history.”