EVOLUTION OR DIFFUSION?

Abstract

N THE TWO preceding papers the distribution of clans and related social phenomena in two regions has been discussed. The inference must be drawn that in geographically extreme areas in these districts distinctive types of social organization occur, the intermediate regions showing transitional types. This phenomenon is by no means confined to these regions or to social organization, but may be observed to a greater or less extent in all other cultural phenomena and in other parts of the world. The component elements of folktales common to two areas decrease in number the greater the distance, and while in intermediate regions we may find much that reminds us 'of the extreme types, that are being compared, the extremes themselves may be fundamentally distinct. This condition may be observed in the folklore of the North Pacific Coast when comparing Alaskan tribes with those of Oregon, or the Coast tribes with those of the interior, or when comparing the folklore of the Plateau tribes with that of the Pueblos. The same condition may be observed also in material culture and is found when we compare the tribes of the Plateaus with those of the Plains, or the Eskimo and the Northwest Coast tribes. It may be seen in the distribution of art styles. All this does not preclude the possibility of a unified stylistic pattern originating in the intermediate areas, and it does not imply necessarily a greater purity of the extreme, and a more mixed character of the intermediate forms.