It must of course be remembered that the various points of view from which Schurtz approached his problem were so inextricably interwoven, that it is unwarranted to assume that every position he took was as distinctly analyzed as I have attempted to show.
From two points of view, a psychological and a biological one, Schurtz obtained similar conclusions. It is now only necessary, after we have seen how he established his psychological milieu and his sequence of norms, to investigate the manner in which he approached the ethnological data themselves.
Schurtz claims to have reached his interpretation from an inductive study of the available data. We have seen that there is good reason to suppose that he approached the data with certain preconceptions, the most important of which was the necessity of “ascending stages” in the evolution of society. He had to determine, before everything else, the initial stage of social evolution, and to look for it or for as close an approximation to it as might still be found to-day. However, as soon as we accept what Schurtz thought were the necessary consequences of the two tendencies,—of the instinct for association and of the sexual instinct,—obviously, then, that organization which conforms closest to the conditions there imposed would be the most primitive.
He thereupon found himself confronted with the relatively easy task of finding such an organization. He found it in Australia, and selected it as the starting-point of his series. In justice to Schurtz and other theoreticians, it should, however, be said that the Australian cultures impressed many then, and continue to impress many now, as cultures that either had been stunted in their growth, or had developed only as far as the most primitive stages. From that point on, the construction of a series was a simple task.
Such, in brief, is the position of Schurtz.
He wished to convey the impression that his theory was based entirely upon an inductive study of the data; but we have seen that, by means of two powerful tendencies, he in reality based his interpretation upon a deductive study. He does, it is true, claim that the existence of these tendencies was established inductively; but even if we were to grant this, it is apparent that he subsequently disassociated the tendencies from the data, and used them as new entities from which to re-interpret the facts.
It has been pointed out before that Schurtz did not believe that the absence of any or all of the “symptoms” constituted an argument against his theory. In the same way, any evidences of convergent evolution, of the appearance of “symptoms” of higher stages associated with those of a lower stage, would not militate against his position. Such phenomena were to be regarded as purely adventitious. Dissemination of cultures, he held, was possible; but, although similarities due to such an agency might obscure the normal development, this normal development could hardly be fundamentally disarranged thereby.
The theory of Schurtz might be examined from two points of view. One might critically examine the validity of the assumptions per se, and the justifiability of his inferences; or one might temporarily lay aside the theory entirely, and examine the data individually. It is the latter method of approach that I shall here adopt.
With this purpose in view, I have selected for examination and interpretation the data furnished by the Ojibwa-Menominee Midewiwin, the Winnebago Medicine Dance, and the Omaha Shell and Pebble Societies. The investigation of specific data will, however, not have any general validity, unless it can be shown that their specific content is the result of certain very general psychological tendencies.
The common elements in the ceremonial complexes have led to the predication of their identity, and it will be best therefore to begin our study with an analysis of them.