Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/448

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434 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

spring from a sense of strangeness due to geographical isolation and non-contact with other human varieties. Some remote peoples have conceived of themselves as the only ones of their kind, and this idea has been reflected in the group name. Experi- ence requires only that the name distinguish members of the group from animal kinds with which its members come in contact, and they call themselves merely "men" or "human beings."^ Strangers, especially those of a markedly different physique, are looked upon as beings of another order with whom it is dangerous or wicked to interbreed. Hybrids resulting from the earliest crossings with strangers are regarded as monstrosities. Darwin mentions that the offspring of the earliest white settlers of Aus- tralia with native women were killed off by the pure blacks. The Makhelchel and Nishinam Indians of California formerly put their women to death for marrying or committing adultery with white men, and blue-eyed or fair-haired children were killed with- out remorse.^ After intercourse has become so general as to bring about familiarity with the new type, pairing itself and the resultant offspring come to be regarded as humanly normal. Con- quest often results in the killing off of the adult males and the taking of the women as wives by the victors, but in the ordinary contact of a masterful with a passive race pairing is chiefly through chance mating or concubinage. These illicit unions, by breaking down the first barriers of prejudice, open the way to a possible blending of races which, in the absence of positive checks, leads to an ultimate fusion of the types.

Contact through conquest may result variously. If there exist no marked difference of physical type, the natural outcome is gradual and complete fusion. Such has been the history of the various Teutonic invasions of Great Britain since the fifth century, of eastern France, of northeastern Spain, and of north-

  • A surviving example is the Alaskan Eskimo name Innuit, and the name

Yuit found in the adjacent part of Asia. The Nishinam and Maidu tribal names in California also signify "men" or "Indians." Something of the same kind is found among some of the tribes of Borneo. For the California names see Powers, Contributions to North American Ethnology, III, 282, 312. For Borneo see Haddon, Head Hunters, Black, White, and Brown, 414.

  • See Powers as above, 214, 320.