Yet in every particular case it is difficult or impossible to establish by incontrovertible evidence that heredity is the specific cause of this accomplishment, of this point of view, or of this mode of life; that it is the determining factor to such and such degree of such and such customs. This is not a denial of the probability that inborn racial differences exist. It is an affirmation of the difficulty, discussed in Chapters [I], [IV], and [V], of knowing what is inborn; and more specifically, of the difficulty of tracing particular customary activities back to particular racial qualities. The problem of connecting specific race traits with specific phenomena of culture or group conduct, such as settled life, architecture in stone, religious symbolism, and the like,—of determining how much of this type of architecture or symbolism is instinctive in the race and how much of it is the result of traditional or social influences,—remains unsolved.
For example, should one try to apply to the explanation of the mode of life or culture of the Indians of the Southwestern United States biological facts, such as their head form, one would be confronted by the difficulty that long heads are characteristic of some of the town-building tribes, or Pueblos, and also of some of the tribes living in brush huts. Broad heads are also found among both the settled and nomadic tribes. The Pueblo Taos and non-Pueblo Pima are narrow-headed, the Pueblo Zuñi and non-Pueblo Apache broad-headed. So with the pulse rate, which has been already mentioned (§ [70]) as unusually slow among the Southwestern Indians. It is the same for the nomadic Apache who lived by fighting, and for the Hopi and Zuñi who are famous for their timidity and gentleness. Similar cases might be cited almost endlessly. It is evident that they are of a kind with the lack of correspondence between race and speech, or race and nationality, among the European peoples.
83. Geographical Environment
When it comes to the second factor by which culture might theoretically be explained—physical environment or geography—similar difficulties are encountered.
It is of course plain that a primitive tribe under the equator would never invent the ice box, and that the Eskimo will not keep their food and water in buckets of bamboo, although it is possible that if the Eskimo had had bamboo carried to them by ocean currents, they would have been both glad and able to use it. The materials and opportunities provided by nature may be made use of by each people, while other materials not being provided, other arts or customs can therefore not be developed. But evidently this correspondence is mainly negative. Not performing an act because one lacks the opportunity by no means proves that the opportunity will necessarily lead to the performance. Two nations will live where there is ice to store and one will invent and the other fail to invent the ice chest. Whole series of peoples possess bamboo and clay, and yet some of them draw water in bamboo joints and others in pots. Obviously, natural environment does impose certain limiting conditions on human life; but equally obviously, it does not cause inventions or institutions.
The native Australians have wood and cord and flint but do not make bows and arrows. Their civilization had not advanced to the point where they were able to devise an efficient bow, and the requisite idea failed to be carried to them from elsewhere as it was to other peoples who also did not invent the weapon. The Polynesians, on the other hand, seem once to have had the weapon, as evidenced by their retaining it as a toy, but to have disused it, perhaps because they specialized on fighting with spears and clubs. Modern civilized people fight at long range, but have let bows go out of use, except for sport, because their knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry centuries ago progressed to the point where they could produce firearms. Development or lack of development or specialization of other cultural activities—social causes—thus determine more directly than other factors whether or not a people employ the bow and arrow. Of those mentioned, the Australians are the only ones with whom a factor of natural environment might be alleged to enter: namely, their isolation, which cut them off from communications and the opportunity to learn from other races. Yet such isolation is as much a matter of inability to traverse space as it is a matter of physical distance. A developed art of navigation would have abolished the Australian isolation. Thus, this seemingly environmental cause of a cultural fact depends for its effectiveness on a co-existing cultural cause. It is the latter which is the most immediate or specific cause.
In general, then, it may be concluded that the directly determining factors of cultural phenomena are not nature which gives or withholds materials, but the general state of knowledge and technology and advancement of the group; in short, historical or cultural influences.
84. Diet
The greater part of the Southwest is arid. Fish are scarce. The result is that most of the tribes get little opportunity to fish. Most of these Southwestern Indians will not eat fish; in fact, think them poisonous. This circumstance might lead to the following inference: nature does not furnish fish in abundance; therefore the Indians got out of the habit of eating them, and finally came to believe them poisonous. At first blush this may seem a sufficient explanation. But it is well to note that the explanation has two parts and that only one of them has to do with nature: the habit of not eating fish because they are too scarce to make it worth while. As soon as one proceeds to the second step, that the disuse led to aversion and then to a false belief of poisonousness, one has gone on to a different matter. Disuse, aversion, and belief lie wholly within the field of human conduct. To derive a psychological phenomenon, such as a belief, from another psychological phenomenon such as a particular disuse, because this disuse is founded on a geographical factor, would of course be a logical fallacy. It can also be shown not to hold, since we prize caviar and oysters and venison in proportion to their rarity. Scarcity in this case thus leads to the contrary psychological attitude, and either fails to establish beliefs or establishes favorable ones.