Abstract
Fiction and Fact in Cultural Diffusion WHEN, some years ago, battle was joined over the question of the diffusion of culture, it was categorically affirmed by members of the diffusionist school in anthropology that no element of culture, such as, for example, the wheel, was ever invented twice, but wherever it occurred it was a product of diffusion from a single centre of origin. Notwithstanding the obvious exaggeration of the statement in this extreme form, instances to the contrary susceptible of absolute demonstrable proof have not been found to be common. This has been especially true in one province, namely, the folk-tale. Here the argument for independent invention has to contend with a weight of evidence in the widespread occurrence of identities in character of motif and details of incident which, occurring time after time in a constant sequence, seem to preclude the probability of anything but a common origin. A familiar example is a folk-tale which occurs in a large number of variants distributed from India to Wales. Its motif is the faithful dog or other animal which is slain by its master on the evidence of bloodstains under the misapprehension that it has killed the child which it was its duty to protect. It occurs in the Pañcatantra as the story of the Brahman and the mongoose, and is widely current in India. In 1937 it was recorded among the Kotas of the Nilgiri Hills by Dr. D. G. Mandelbaum in the course of ethnological field-work, and has been studied for its bearing upon the diffusion problem by M. B. Emeneau with his collaboration (Proc. Amer. Phil, Soc., 83; 1940). The story as told among the Kotas deals not with ancient times, as is usual in their folk-tales, but professes to describe an event which actually took place “about eighteen years ago”, the actors in the drama being named, and three of them, including the woman who killed the mongoose, and her son, the infant whom the mongoose saved, being still alive. Investigation in the tribe, and interviews with the persons involved, established the conviction that the event really happened and the story is not here an instance of a borrowed motif. It is suggested by the investigator that, failing acceptance of this conclusion, two alternatives are open—either that the record of an actual event was remade in the classical form, of which, however, the persons concerned and narrators deny any knowledge, or that subconscious knowledge of the classical story forced the woman to act as she did. This latter explanation would, the author points out, involve a peculiarly subtle form of diffusion.
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Research Items. Nature 147, 60–61 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147060a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147060a0
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