THEMES

IN CULTURAL

GEOGRAPHY

11

Cultural Diffusion: A 100 Percent American

Our solid American citizen awakens in a bed built on a pattern that originated in the Near East but that was modified in northern Europe before it was transmitted to America. He throws back covers made from cotton, domesticated in India; or linen, domesticated in the Near East; or silk, the use of which was discovered in China. All of these materials have been spun and woven by processes invented in the Near East. He slips into his moccasins, invented by the Indians of the Eastern woodlands, and goes to the bathroom, whose fixtures are a mixture of European and American inventions, both of recent date. He takes off his pajamas, a garment invented in India, and washes with soap, invented by the ancient Gauls. He then shaves-a masochistic rite that seems to have been derived from either Sumer or ancient Egypt. ... On his way to breakfast, he stops to buy a paper, paying for it with coins, an ancient Lydian invention. At the restaurant, a whole new series of borrowed elements confronts him. His plate is made of a form of pottery invented in China. His knife is of steel, an alloy first made in southern India; his fork, a medieval Italian invention; and his spoon, a derivative of a Roman original. ... When our friend has finished eating, ... he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites upon a material invented in China by a process invented in Germany. As he absorbs the accounts of foreign trouble, he will, if he is a good, conservative citizen, thank a Hebrew deity in an Indo-European language that he is 100 percent American.

From Linton, Ralph. 1936. The Study of Man: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1936, renewed 1964: 326-327. Adapted by permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

CONTAGIOUS Early Stage

EXPANSION DIFFUSION Later Stage

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION DIFFUSION Early Stage Later Stage

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Figure 1.9 Types of cultural diffusion. These diagrams are merely suggestive; in reality, spatial diffusion is far more complex. In hierarchical diffusion, different scales can be used, so that, for (

example, the category "very important person" could be replaced by "large city."