[4]. This must not be understood to mean that every primitive language is in a constant state of rapid modification. There are many evidences of a great permanence of languages. When, however, owing to certain outer or inner causes, changes set in, they are apt to bring about a thorough modification of the form of speech.
[5]. The Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island.
VI. THE UNIVERSALITY OF CULTURAL TRAITS
There remains one question to be discussed; namely, whether some tribes represent a lower cultural stage when looked at from an evolutionary point of view.
Our previous discussion has shown that almost all attempts to characterize the mind of primitive man do not take into account racial affiliations, but only stages of culture, and the results of our efforts to determine characteristic racial differences have been of doubtful value. It appears, therefore, that modern anthropologists not only proceed on the assumption of the generic unity of the mind of man, but tacitly disregard quantitative differences which may very well occur. We may therefore base our further considerations on the theory of the similarity of mental functions in all races.
Observation has shown, however, that not only emotions, intellect, and will-power of man are alike everywhere, but that much more detailed similarities in thought and action occur among the most diverse peoples. These similarities are apparently so detailed and far-reaching, that Bastian was led to speak of the appalling monotony of the fundamental ideas of mankind all over the globe.
Thus it has been found that the metaphysical notions of man may be reduced to a few types which are of universal distribution. The same is the case in regard to the forms of society, laws, and inventions.
Furthermore, the most intricate and apparently illogical ideas, and the most curious and complex customs, appear among a few tribes here and there in such a manner that the assumption of a common historical origin is excluded. When studying the culture of any one tribe, more or less close analogues of single traits of its culture may be found among a great diversity of peoples. Instances of such analogues have been collected to a vast extent by Tylor, Spencer, Frazer, Bastian, Andree, Post, and many others, so that it is not necessary to give here any detailed proof of this fact. A few examples will suffice. Among the more general ideas, I may mention the belief in a land of the souls of the deceased, located in the west, and reached by crossing a river,—known to all of us from Greek mythology, but well known also among the native tribes of America and Polynesia. Another example is the idea of a multiplicity of worlds,—one or more spanned over us, others stretching under us, the central one the home of man; the upper or lower, the home of the gods and happy souls; the other, the home of the unhappy,—an idea familiar to us from the positions of heaven and hell, but no less developed in India, Siberia, and arctic America. The idea of the ability of man to acquire protecting guardian spirits offers another example. Another domain of mental life furnishes equally striking instances. The universal knowledge of the art of producing fire by friction, the boiling of food, the knowledge of the drill, illustrate the universality of certain inventions. Still other phenomena of this class are furnished by certain elementary features of grammatical structure, like the use of expressions for the three persons of the pronoun,—namely, the speaker, the person addressed, and the person spoken of,—or the frequent distinction of singularity and plurality.
Special curious analogues that occur in regions far apart may be exemplified by such beliefs as the possibility of foretelling the future by the cracking of burnt bones (Andree), the occurrence of the Phaëton legend in Greece and northwest America (Boas), the bleeding of animals by the use of a small bow and arrow (Heger), the development of astrology in the Old World and the New, the similarity of basketry technique and design in Africa and America (Dixon), the invention of the blow-gun in America and Malaysia.