a mere automaton in the face of his surroundings, nevertheless believes in a far-reaching influence of the environment and cites in particular the resemblances between inhabitants of arid territories. Unfortunately for his argument we have glaring instances in which desert-like conditions coexist with disparate modes of culture not only in similar but in identical regions of the globe.

Thus, the Hopi and Navajo Indians have both occupied for a long period the same part of northeastern Arizona and on the environmental theory we should therefore expect among them the same mode of life. In this, however, we are thoroughly disappointed. The Hopi are intensive farmers who succeed in raising crops where white agriculturists fail; the Navajo also plant corn but to a distinctly lesser extent and under Spanish influence have readily developed into a pastoral people, raising sheep for food and wool. Though the same building material is available, the Hopi construct the well-known terraced sandstone houses with a rectangular cell as the architectural unit, while the Navajo dwell in conical earth-covered huts. North American ceramic art attains one of its highwater marks among the Hopi, while the pottery of the Navajo is hopelessly crude in comparison. Cotton was raised by the Hopi, but there is no trace of its use by the neighboring people. What is true of the material aspect of native life applies equally to its less tangible elements. There is at least one marked difference in the sexual division of labor: with the Hopi it is the man’s business to spin and weave while this work falls to woman’s share among the Navajo. The Hopi were always strict monogamists, while among the Navajo polygamy was permissible. In conjunction with their agricultural pursuits Hopi ceremonialism centered in the magico-religious production of rain; the Navajo applied often the identical ritualistic stock-in-trade to the cure of sickness. A stringent regulation of the Navajo social code forbids all conversation between son-in-law and mother-in-law; but the Hopi merely view the taboo as a Navajo idiosyncrasy. The general cast of Hopi psychology, as fashioned by Hopi society, is that of an eminently peaceable population; the Navajo rather recall in their bearing the warlike and aggressive tribes of the Plains. Where resemblances occur, as e.g., in the objective phase of the native cults, we are able to prove that the parallelism is due not to an independent response to environmental stimuli, but to contact and borrowing. But quite apart from such cases, the basic differences in Hopi and Navajo civilization show that the environment alone cannot account for cultural phenomena.

If we pass from the southwestern United States to South Africa, a corresponding situation confronts us. The same area at one time formed the habitat of the Bushmen and the Hottentots; yet, their mode of life varies fundamentally. The Bushmen are essentially hunters and seed-collectors, while the Hottentots are an eminently pastoral people. Caves and crude windbreaks form the Bushman’s original dwellings, while the Hottentots have mat-covered portable beehive-shaped huts. The Bushman’s principal weapons are bow and arrow, with the Hottentot these implements are of secondary importance as compared with the spear. It is true that not only material objects but even myths and folktales are shared by both tribes, but in many instances of this sort we have clearly a case not of independent response to the same external conditions but rather the result of borrowing. Thus, some of the traits common to Hottentot and Bushman, for example, a fair number of mythic episodes, occur likewise among the Bantu Negroes inhabiting contiguous but geographically different territory. One of the most interesting traits of ancient Bushman culture is the life-like representation of animals on rocks and the walls of caves. Oddly enough, these engravings and mural paintings, which distinguish the Bushmen from their South African neighbors, have their nearest parallels in the Spanish cave-paintings of Palæolithic Europe. The picturing of the mammoth and reindeer by these old South European artists clearly proves that they belonged to a glacial epoch, during which geographical conditions could hardly have resembled those of the Kalahari desert.[2-iii]

One other illustration from the same general region of the Dark Continent is suggestive. The Ovambo and Herero, neighbors though they are, differ in the essential features of their economic life. While the Ovambo depend only to a very limited extent on their herds, deriving their sustenance mainly from the cultivation of millet and other plants, the Herero are the only non-agricultural Bantu people, being predominantly pastoral.

Instead of comparing the effect of environment as a whole on different peoples, we can also isolate its single factors, such as the presence of particular species of plants or animals. One of the strongest cases against the creative influence of environment on culture lies in the phenomena relating to the domestication of animals in the Old and the New World. The one animal domesticated in both hemispheres is the dog, which occurs in Neolithic Europe and is also found with archæological remains in America. But while in the Old World there is in addition an imposing series of species subjected to man for definite economic utilization, it is only in Peru that the American natives entered into a symbiotic arrangement with other animals, viz., the llama and the alpaca. Why was not the bison of the great Plains tamed like the buffalo of southern Asia or the various races of cattle in the Eastern Hemisphere? No valid reason can be advanced on geographical grounds. More striking still in this regard is the difference between the hyperborean populations of Asia and North America. The Chukchee of north-easternmost Siberia and the Eskimo share the same climatic conditions and their territories are both inhabited by the reindeer (caribou). Yet the Chukchee breed half-tamed reindeer on a large scale, using the animals for food and draught with sledges, while no attempt in this direction was made by the Eskimo or any of their Indian neighbors. The same external condition fails to produce the same cultural result. But even among the Chukchee there is evidence that the use of reindeer did not take place in response to an environmental stimulus. It appears that the extraordinary development of reindeer breeding is a relatively new thing with the Chukchee, who were formerly hunters of sea-mammals like the Eskimo. Before the recent efflorescence of their reindeer culture, the Chukchee waged war on their southern neighbors, the Koryak, for the purpose of carrying off their herds; and altogether it seems that both Chukchee and Koryak adopted the idea of taming the reindeer from tribes of the Tungus stock living to the west and south.[3-iii] We are, then, dealing with another instance of acculturation due to contact.

The facts of domestication are unusually suggestive as regards our general problem for they show in an absolutely convincing manner that even where the same animals have been domesticated by different peoples the use to which they are put may differ widely and give a distinct aspect to this phase of culture. Thus, we find that of Siberian reindeer-breeders the Tungus and Lamut use their animals only for transportation, not for slaughter, and that many bands, unlike other Arctic populations, ride on their reindeer instead of harnessing them to sledges. It is true that a rationalistic motive can be given for the fact that