Kroeber's Theory of Culture Areas and the Ethnology of Northwestern California

Author(s): Thomas Buckley

Source: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 1, Culture Theory and Cultural Criticism in
Boasian Anthropology (Jan., 1989), pp. 15-26
Published by: George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3317692
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 KROEBER'S THEORY OF CULTURE AREAS AND

THE ETHNOLOGY OF NORTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA

THOMAS BUCKLEY

University of Massachusetts/Boston

A. L. Kroeber developed his concept ofthe culture area in response both to Boas's work and to his

own field experience in California. Examination of his areal approach illuminates Kroeber's

general theory of culture as well as some ofhis eventual differences with Boas. Moving awayfrom

the scientific effort of causal explanation in favor of historical understanding, Kroeber held a

teleological view of history that reflected both a progressivist spirit and moral certainty. Ulti-

mately, whatever the merits of his areal theory, the facts of cultural diversity in northwestern

California do not support it, and the cataclysmic nature ofcontact history there makes his moral

optimism difficult to sustain. [Kroeber, culture areas, California Indians, history of anthropology]

The idea that the vast diversity of the world's cultures must be accorded to the Yurok" (ibid.: 6).

might be analytically simplified by organizing them Kroeber goes on to devote ninety-seven pages,

according to geographical areas of similar cultures almost a tenth of the massive "Handbook," to Yurok

gained increasing acceptance during the later nine- ethnography, far more than he gives to all other

teenth century, particularly among German scholars. groups in his northwestern California culture province,

In the United States, Franz Boas first formally pro- including the Hupas and Karuks, combined.

pounded, notjust this simple understanding of culture The Yuroks were among the first native Californ-

areas, but also the idea that these areas were historical ians that Kroeber met when he arrived on the west

as well as geographical units: the spatial coefficients coast in 1900. He revisited them several times for

of processes of cultural growth through time. By 1896 extended periods of field work between 1900 and

Boas had thoroughly developed this notion. He identi- 1907, and maintained a lifelong interest in them (for

fied the physical environment of culture areas, the example, T. Kroeber 1970). The emphasis that he

"psychology" of the peoples inhabiting them, and the placed on their culture influenced others, and Yurok

spread of technologies and other ideas as three in- Indians came to be known to undergraduate students

dependent variables governing cultural growth, or

of anthropology everywhere through a spate of widely

development, within culture areas over time (Boas read theoretical articles that took them as an ethno-

1896). His first successful Ph. D. candidate, Alfred graphic focus (for example, Erikson 1943; Gold-

Louis Kroeber, was to develop Boas's insight most schmidt 1951), to the neglect of their neighbors.

fully in arriving at his position that space and time Thus, while "Yuroks generally resent the way they

provide the proper contexts within which the signifi- have been depicted in the literature of anthropology

cance of cultural phenomena are to be understood (cf. and . . . focus their bitterness on Kroeber" (Keeling

Driver 1962; Freed and Freed 1983).

1982: 72), some Karuks today somewhat resent the

In Kroeber's scheme, northwest California was a

fact that their past has been under-vestigated and

sub-area of a greater Northwest Coast culture area: a

under-reported in that same literature (Buckley, field

marginal "sub-climax" (1939: 31) whose peoples

notes, 1988). Today, exploration of the role of the

were typified by the Yurok Indians of the lower

Yuroks in Kroeber's culture area theory addresses a

Klamath River.' In his "Handbook of the Indians of

general concern with the illusion of cultural homo-

California" (1925), Kroeber wrote that the Yuroks

geneity putatively created by anthropology, accord-

were "surrounded by peoples speaking diverse lan-

ing to its contemporary critics (see Coughlin 1988).

guages but following the same remarkable civiliza-

There are other compelling reasons to examine the

tion" (ibid.: 1); a civilization "shared ... in identical case anew.

form with their neighbors, the Hupa and Karok"

I draw heavily on Timothy H. H. Thoresen's excel-

(ibid.: 5). While the Yuroks, Hupas, and Karuks

lent work (1971, 1975a, 1975b) in the following

together comprised the cultural focus of the entire

paper. According to him, Kroeber's "California

region, according to Kroeber, the Yuroks enjoyed a

culture provinces" (Kroeber 1920, 1925: 898-918),

degree of pre-eminence, being the first, as it were,

with its important statement of areal theory and of the

among almost equals: "Even as between these three

position of the Yuroks in Californian ethnology, sum-

little peoples of such close interrelations, some prece-

marizes Kroeber's approach to cultural studies up to

dence of civilizational intensity, a slight nucleolus

1918, when he completed the paper (Thoresen 1971:

within the nucleus, can be detected; and the priority

224). Consideration of the seemingly local concern

15

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 16 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

for cultural similarity and diversity in northwest Survey of California at Berkeley in 1903. The follow-

California, then, gives us unique access to those his- ing year Kroeber published his first statement on

torically important studies. Finally, since Kroeber's culture areas in California, "Types of Indian culture

work on culture areas grew out of that of his mentor, in California" (Kroeber 1904). In this article he

Boas, study of Kroeber's theory, as illuminated by his suggests that California contains four distinct areal

treatment of the Yuroks and their California and cultures. These are defined by the patterned cluster-

Oregon neighbors, will shed light on ways in which ing of culture traits and complexes of such traits in

Kroeber both adhered to and diverged from Boas's regions, largely, though not exclusively, as perceived

approach (for example, Kroeber 1935; Boas 1936). by Kroeber through the comparative study of Cali-

For instance, Kroeber's theory of culture areas and fornian myth and religion. The four areal types were

the analyses he based in it shed interesting light on the found in the Colorado River region, along the southern

linguistic and psychological emphases in his anthro- coast, in central California, and in the northwest

pology that dominated his work on kinship, to the corner of the state, from the Oregon border to Cape

neglect of sociology (for example, Eggan 1950: 295, Mendocino. Kroeber mentions centers of cultural

influence on the south coast and in the northwest.

1955: 487). It also informs an understanding of the

ultimately subjective nature of his historiography (for Although he refined the ideas contained in the 1904

example, Driver 1962). article over the years that followed, it presented the

In what follows I describe Kroeber's theory of basis of the theoretical approach and areal analysis of

his 1925 "Handbook" chapter on Californian "Cul-

culture areas, his notions of cultural centers and

ture provinces" (1925: 898-918; first published

climaxes, and his reasoning in asserting that Yurok

separately in 1920). Indeed, his final, major work on

culture comprised the "hearth" of the northwestern

the subject, "Cultural and natural areas of native

California culture province, beginning to place all of

North America," finished in 1931 and published in

these intellectual moves in their historical and theor-

1939, is forecast by "Types of Indian culture in

etical contexts. Finally, I raise certain questions

California.
about Kroeber's work from the perspective of today's

Kroeber's "basic theoretical thrust was remark-

critical anthropology.

ably of one piece, was set very early, and was highly

consistent," writes Eric Wolf( 1981: 40-41). He saw

Culture Areas

the classification of cultures into types for the purpose

of comparison as the central task of the ethnologist

By 1918 Kroeber was able to state that "At least half

(ibid.: 50). In this, he viewed biology as the proper

of the anthropologists of this country have been reared

model for anthropology, although eschewing biology's

in an atmosphere over which the concept of the

goal of causal explanation. While scientific expla-

culture area hovered insistently" (1918: 209). He

nation might form an ideal, ultimate goal, "recogni-

was, of course, referring to anthropologists trained, as

tion of [cultural] pattern is the suitable goal of nearer

was he, by Franz Boas, and including Clark Wissler

understanding" (Kroeber 1952: 9).

and Edward Sapir. Sapir's "Time perspective in

In his now famous dictum, Kroeber held that cul-

aboriginal American culture," published in 1916,

ture was not behavior but content, not "mental action

and Wissler's The American Indian, published in

but a body or stream of products of mental exercise"

1917, comprised two of the finest achievements of

(1752: 40). These products formed "basic cultural

this school. Arguably, however, Kroeber himself

patterns" reminiscent of Boasian linguistic patterns,

provided "the best example of the best features of the

Boas-stimulated culture area approach" (Thoresen

the more pervasive and permanent forms assumed by a specific

1971: 239) in his "Handbook of the Indians of Cali-

mass of cultural content... [which] tend to spread from one

fornia," essentially completed in 1917 though not

society and culture to others. In short, basic patterns are

nexuses of culture traits which have assumed a definite and

published until 1925 (see Kroeber, in Golla 1984:

coherent structure, which function successfully, and which

241).

acquire major historic weight and persistence (1952: 92).

While Boas' concern with culture areas had been

influenced by an interest in cultural causality, Kroeber

Boasian linguistics provided, not simply the best

gave up entirely this nineteenth-century preoccupa-

model of culture, but the best methods for studying it.

tion to focus, after 1901, upon the distribution of

In his later writing ([1947] 1952: 107), Kroeber de-

cultural content in space and, after 1909, through

picted linguistic-and his own ethnological-method

time (Thoresen 1971: 64). It was in pursuit of the

as "characterized by several traits:"

first, spatial approach that he was instrumental in the

founding of the Ethnological and Archaeological (1) Its data and findings are essentially impersonal and anony-

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 KROEBER 'S THEORY OF CUL TURE AREAS 17

mous. (2) Its orientation is spontaneously historical, and

isolating and characterizing the "essences" of cul-

potentially historical even for languages whose past has been

tures (Boas's "psychology") are all clarified (Kroeber

lost. (3) The emphasis is on pattern, or structural interrelation,

1907b). By 1908, while he continued to stress the

and away from so-called "functional" interpretation involving

importance of languages in the ethnological classi-

need satisfaction, drives, stimulus-response, and other expla-

nations which "decompose" the phenomena dealt with into fication of cultures, he was also speaking of the inter-

something ulterior. (4) Explanation is not in terms of genuine

dependent roles of linguistic study in understanding

scientific cause, that is, efficient causes in the Aristotelian

peoples' "lives"-that is, psychology-and as an aid

sense, but of "formal causes," that is, of other forms as being

in grasping historical relations. He used the term

antecedent, similar, contrasting, or related. (5) Indeed,

"diffusion" for the first time in print (Kroeber 1908).

"explanation" in terms of producing cause is largely replaced

by "understanding" in terms of historic contexts, relevance,

While he had tentatively suggested in the 1904 paper

and value significance.

that northwestern California was a southern exten-

sion of a far larger Northwest Coast culture area that

In keeping with the "impersonal, anonymous"

extended north to Alaska, here, in 1908, he was far

nature of cultural data, as Kroeber defined these, and

more definite in making this assessment.

with Boasian linguistics, Kroeber emphasized statis-

During this time, before 1909, according to

tical methods in his approach (see Hymes 1961).

Thoresen (1971: 1), Kroeber's focus had been on

While the elements of cultures formed patterns, by

culture areas as geographical units within which

which the cultures themselves might be classified,

culture traits could be understood as forming patterned

they also formed "masses" and could be counted, a

and integrated systems that comprised cultural types.

culture's "intensity" statistically determined in terms

In the 1908 paper Kroeber drew an analogy between

of its mass, or total content. Thus human creativity

his areal studies and biology, comparing culture areas

could be numerically evaluated. "It should be

to genera and tribes to species. At the "genetic" level,

possible," Kroeber wrote in 1931, "to determine an

cultures were both integrated within themselves and

approximate objective measure of cultural intensity

related to surrounding cultures as systems of ideas, as

by measuring cultural content-by counting dis-

manifested in the "natural classification" of the pro-

tinguishable elements, for instance" (Kroeber 1939:

ducts of thought, culture "traits" (cf. Driver 1962: 2).

222).

Thus Kroeber wrote that the "culture area . . . is

These methodological tenets were central to

essentially intended to deal with the integration of

Kroeber's approach to culture areas as well as to

traits into wholes" (in Thoresen 1971: 218 n. 4).

individual cultures. A culture area was a geographi-

After 1909, however, Kroeber's interests became

cal region in which a given culture set a pattern of

increasingly historical and the spatial and classifica-

elements that was reflected by surrounding cultures to

tory emphases in his areal theory were refined and

diminishing degrees, ascertainable by counting, as

expanded to include temporal and diffusionist con-

one reached the boundaries of the area where the

cerns (see Thoresen 1971: 1). By 1931 he was to

influences of other patterns took over.

write that "the concept of culture area is a means to an

Although his approach to areal concerns remained

end. The end may be the understanding of culture

broadly constant between 1904 and 1931, Kroeber's

processes as such, or of the historic events of the

work in this domain developed and ramified through a

culture" (1939: 1). That is, the distribution of traits

series of publications, particularly between 1904 and

within an area gave clues to the historical relations

1920. Again, the understanding of culture or "civili-

between the area's groups. He was thus to write that

zation" that Kroeber was developing during these

"culture area and age area concepts have the common

years derived largely from Boas's understanding of

objective of converting space into time sequences"

language, and Kroeber's early approach to culture

(Kroeber 1931: 647). By 1918, the year that he

areas-in, for example, founding the Survey-stressed

finished the "Handbook," it was the embedded his-

the desirability of correlating "types" of cultures with

torical record, rather than the geographical areas per

language areas (Putnam and Kroeber 1905). As the

se, that was foremost in Kroeber's thinking: "In the

complexity of linguistic and cultural diversity in

stead of time, the geographical factor looms large....

California became apparent, Kroeber's explorations

lit] is on the whole the most available means through

of the relations between the region's languages and

which some glimpses of time perspectives are avail-

cultures became more complex in design. In 1907 he

able" (Kroeber 1925: v).

published an article on "The religion of the Indians of

Kroeber's emergent notion of cultures was of types

California" in which the assumption of a develop-

of historical accumulations of traits that were, like

mental frame of reference, a concern with areal

languages, patterned developments or growths occur-

distributions of culture traits, and a commitment to

ring within definable geographic areas. A specific

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 18 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

area itself, however, had come to be secondary to the Centers

integrated, whole, typal culture, for which it indeed

had come to stand. By 1920 "Culture in [Kroeber's]

By 1904 Kroeber had argued that culture types,

widening scope," writes Thoresen (1971: 229), had derived from demonstrable, patterned accumulations

"gradually lost any meaning of 'area' and become of traits, and cultural temperaments were empirically

wholly a 'type,' an attitude and a form of organization related. He identified four types-and hence four

or association." In the 1940s Kroeber himself wrote temperaments-in California, and suggested the

that "Culture areas are of course primarily not areas notion of the cultural center, the point at which an

at all but kinds of culture which are areally limited" areal type was most completely expressed. By 1907

(in Driver 1962: 19). Such areas were, for Kroeber, he had introduced the idea that a single tribe might be

comparable to the familiar periods of traditional regarded as the principal center of influence in an area

history; the "Southwestern" culture area of North (Kroeber 1907a). After 1909 he discussed these

America conceptually paralleled, for example, "the centers, now embodied in specifiable peoples, as

Reformation" (Kroeber 1948: 264). locations where the characteristic temperament of the

As has often been pointed out, the terms "culture" culture area was best exhibited (see Thoresen 1971:

and, earlier, "civilization" had, for Kroeber, multiple 78). Such typal centers, dense clusterings of traits,

references. They were used, in turn, with reference to were not environmentally determined, but had to be

integrated local organizations or units, like the Yuroks; understood in terms of the whole of human life.

to areal types created through historical diffusion, like Culture was as much an historical and habitual ex-

the northwestern California culture province; and to pression of attitude, or temperament, as a response to

ever larger and more inclusive historical-regional environment, and was thus to be apprehended through

associations or, in Kroeber's terms, "patternings." study of expressive systems-art, religion, mythology

Thus, northwestern California was a province of the (Thoresen 1971: 90).

Northwest Coast culture area, an area whose culture By 1917 Kroeber had refined this understanding,

was an historical amalgam of Asian and Western defining distinct areas and sub-areas with increasing

North American cultures, each of these in turn being specificity. The northwest California culture pro-

expressions of, on the one hand, a North American vince, for example, now occupied that comer of the

civilization that included the vast Eastern North present state as well as the Rogue and upper Umpqua

American culture area and, on the other, a Eurasian drainages in southwestern Oregon (see Kroeber, in

culture that included, ultimately, Europe (Kroeber Golla 1984: 237). The province was bounded on the

1923; 1939: 28). Ethnography had become, in east and south by a line running roughly from Mt.

Kroeber's work, history (Thoresen 1971: 233), and a Shasta to the lower Eel River, just south of Cape

small "sub-climax" regional patterning, like Yurok Mendocino (Kroeber 1920). Yet the seventeen named

culture or northwest California as a whole, was groups within the province were by no means equally

merely a "temporary historical eddy in the pan-human representative of the northwestern culture "type"-

sea of culture" (Beals 1968: 458). By the time he that integrated pattern of traits and "attitudes" that,

finished his monumental "Cultural and natural areas for Kroeber, were the characteristic results of the

of native North America" in 1931 (Kroeber 1939: v), area's historical growth. Rather the Yuroks, Hupas,

Kroeber recognized a total of eighty-four sub-areas in and Karuks formed the core of cultural "intensity," of

North America, each comparable to the northwest development of specialized trait inventory, in the

California province with its seventeen separate cul- region, with the Tolowas, Wiyots, and Chilulas ex-

tures. While the uniqueness of each of the seventeen- hibiting "minor departures in the direction of less

odd peoples in Kroeber's northwest California prov- intensive specialization" (1925: 5). These groups

ince or, later, Lower Klamath sub-area, may be were surrounded by a "peripheral" series of tribes-

the Shastas and Takelmas (Kroeber, in Golla 1984:

construed as vitally important, we must also recog-

nize that for Kroeber the differences between the 237), Konomihus, Chimarikos, Whilkuts, and Non-

gatls. The northwest Californian type began to be

Yuroks and, say, the Hupas or Karuks were minute

indeed, when viewed in the great context of what he diminished among these and then to give way to

"exterior" influences, as among the "Sinkyone and

envisioned as the "millennial sweeps and grand con-

Lassik until the last diluted remnants are encountered

tours'" of history (1952: 9). Yurok stood to Karuk as

Geneva stood to Wittenberg, not as the Reformation among the Wailaki" (1925: 5).

Kroeber's culture areas and provinces thus com-

stood to, say, the Enlightenment.

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 KR OEBER 'S THEOR Y OF CUL TURE AREAS 19

prised concentric rings of cultures around a central of a center, the "precise middle of cultural focus,"

cultural-historical "force" (ibid.). The central cul- located at the Yurok village of Wecpus, at the con-

tures, comprising a "district of greatest cultural pro- fluence of the Klamath and Trinity rivers or, maxi-

ductivity and richness" (Kroeber 1939: 5), exhibited mally, along the twenty miles of the Klamath below

the greatest "intensity," "force," and/or "influence." Wecpus (ibid.). The Yuroks, and specifically Yuroks

Those on the peripheries exhibited the least, as of the lower Klamath rather than the coast, had

determined by Kroeber's "humanistic statistics" emerged fully by 1917 as the typal people of the

(Hymes 1961: 17)- that is, by counting elements. northwestern province, in traits, temperament, and

Thus by the time he wrote the "Handbook," cultural "organization," or structure. Beside them, a

peripheral culture like "Shasta civilization is a pallid,

Kroeber's two approaches to cultural phenomena--element

simplified copy of the Yurok. . . as befits a poorer

distribution and typological associations- were unified in the

people of more easily contented aspirations" (ibid.:

concept of the culture center. Trait complexes and cultural

288).
attitudes coincided non-randomly, while both ethnographic

and archaeological evidence pointed toward the places of such

The Yuroks were the focal, prime token of an areal

coincidence as centers of special cultural activity, creativity,

type of civilization; a type that, as represented by the

and influence on neighboring peoples. Much of Kroeber's

Yuroks, "attains on the whole to a higher level, as it is

work was concerned with plotting the existence of such culture

customary to estimate such averaged values, than any

centers and measuring their influence. The product of such

investigations was called culture history (Thoresen 197 I: 212).

other that flourished in what is now the state of

California" (ibid.: 1). Kroeber established the hier-

After 1901, Kroeber had begun to distance himself

archical position of this areal civilization, and hence

from the Boasian search for scientific explanations of

of the Yuroks themselves, in terms of a material

cultural causality (Thoresen 1971: 64; see Kroeber

culture that he perceived as superior to any in the state

1935; Boas 1936). In a related vein, he began to

save that of the Chumash, of a (perceived) monetary

develop the notion of cultural centers, or "hearths,"

system and overriding concern for personal property,

not as points of origin or invention, but as foci of

and of an "elaborate and precise code of law" (ibid.:

accumulation, points of "gathering rather than radi-

2-3). That is, Kroeber established Yurok cultural

ation" (1925: 7-8). "The most intensive develop-

superiority in terms of the quantity of cultural content

ment or greatest specialization of culture has occurred

that could be "averaged." That which could not

at the hearth," he noted (ibid.: 901); "[b]ut where

easily be expressed as isolable elements, Kroeber

most is accumulated most must also be given out"

declared absent. Finding no rationalized political

(ibid.: 7-8). Nonetheless, shunning a scientific search

structure in the form of named levels of organization,

for causes in favor of the historiographic establish-

for instance, he deemed the Yuroks and their neigh-

ment of influences, Kroeber "avoided the implication

bors to have "no social organization" (ibid.: 3), to be

that greatest complexity meant the locus of inventive-

"an anarchic people" (ibid.: 35).

ness and called attention instead to cultural intensi-

The quantitative aspects of Boas's linguistics had

fication" (Steward 1961: 1058).

influenced Kroeber's approach to cultures, which he

Kroeber was to criticize Wissler for lack of pre-

sought to specify and compare in quantitative terms

cision and specificity in defining culture area boun-

with his "humanistic statistics." By 1917, when he

daries and in locating the centers of these areas

essentially completed the "Handbook," Kroeber was

(Kroeber 1939: 6-8). The problems were great,

comparing the "ethnic traits" of the entire Northwest

however, and for Kroeber cultural centers could be

Coast in tabular and quantified terms (Kroeber 1925:

established with far greater certainty than could the

904, Table 13). The approach was to culminate in the

outer margins of the areas whose historical and

"culture element survey" that his graduate students

analytic focus they provided. (This would seem to

compiled under Kroeber's direction between 1934

follow from the statistical bases of Kroeber's method.)

and 1938. Then Kroeber, finding no support for his

"It is the foci that can be tolerably determined, not the

statistical project among his fellow anthropologists

limits; the influences that are of significance, rather

due to the then "current folkways of anthropology"

than the range of influences" (Kroeber 1925: 6). In

(Kroeber 1952: 263), gave it up.2

northwestern California that focus clearly comprised

In the "Handbook" Kroeber's quantitative approach

the Yuroks, Hupas, and Karuks, though "the inner-

is already clear, both in the comparisons he draws and

most core of northwestern civilization is more clearly

in his selection of cultural centers. His selection of the

represented by the Yurok than by any other group"

Yuroks as the center of northwestern Californian

(ibid.: 7). In fact, Kroeber went farther, tying trait,

civilization, for instance, is to an extent justified in

temperament, and geography together in the concept

numerical terms:

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 20 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

surrounded them, so at "climax" cultures achieved

1) Their aboriginal population, estimated at 2500, was the

their "intensity" by dint of having "absorbed" through

largest of any group in the province (1925: 6).

time the influences of others, as well as being them-

2) This large population was a consequence of the Yuroks'

selves historically productive nexuses of influence

location on the largest part of the third largest stream entering

the Pacific on the west coast of North America (as measured in (ibid.: 223). Cultures like that of the Yuroks were

acre feet of water flow)-the Klamath River (ibid.: 902, 910-

typified by their wholeness and integration, as distinct

911).

from more complex societies with greater internal

3) The presence of redwood in Yurok territory made them the

diversity, such as Kroeber's own. Passing climax,

largest manufacturer and trader of canoes in the region (ibid.:

6). primitive cultures "went all to pieces" (1948: 427),

4) The Yuroks had the most major religious ceremonies of any

rather than continuing to develop diversity.

group-together with the least ritual emphasis on female

Alternatively, one might understand cultural

puberty, such adolescent rites being, for Kroeber, a mark of

"intensity" as a degree of progress toward higher

inferior cultural development (ibid.).

civilization, as defined by its "content": "accurate

5) Finally, and on a different level of analysis, all three major

groups-Yuroks, Karuks, and Hupas-placed the mythical time reckoning, a religious hierarchy, a set of social

births of their respective culture heroes at the Yurok village of

classes, a detailed property law" (1939: 223). Thus

Kenek (ibid.).

the cultures of native North America could be graded

in intensities from 1 to 7, by Kroeber, with the Yuroks

In his 1939 "Cultural and natural areas of native

being adjudged at 3+, precisely in the middle, half-

North America," Kroeber added further quantifica-

way between the small band foragers of the Great

tion to the environmental elements of his analysis by

basin (1) and the high urban civilizations of the

noting that the Yuroks were located near the con-

Mayan Yucatan (7), with their calendars, classes,

junction of three major vegetal zones (1939: 31). In

priestly hierarchy, and laws. Such was what Stanley

that publication, while he continued to refuse absolute

Diamond has called Kroeber's "overriding progres-

specification of the causes of cultural growth, Kroeber

sivism" (in Silverman 1981: 58).

sought to interrelate types of cultures with the natural

areas in which they occurred. He also related cultural

The Morality of Progress

"intensity" to degrees of economic surplus enabled

by natural environment as, among the Yuroks, by

Kroeber's culture areas and sub-areas comprise the

location on the abundant Klamath and in a region of

areal and temporal coefficients of cultural types

great vegetal diversity and productivity (1939: 3).

established through recognition of patterns of trait or

element accumulations with which definable cultural

Climax

attitudes or temperaments could be empirically

associated. While the cultural types thus established,

By 1931 Kroeber had refined and expanded his

through "natural" classification of culture content

notion of cultural centers to incorporate temporal as

(Driver 1962: 2), or "natural analysis and argument"

well as spatial dimensions. He did this through the

(Kroeber and Gifford 1949: 1), could be related to

concept of cultural "climax." As the "center" was

environmental conditions, they could not be explained

the focus of an areal culture or civilization in space, its

by such conditions for "the immediate cause of cul-

point of greatest influence, the "climax" was a culmin-

tural phenomena are other cultural phenomena"

ation in time, the highest degree of development or

(Kroeber 1939: 1). These phenomena were above all

growth reached within the area, before devolution set

else, for Kroeber, "real." "I don't give a red cent," he

in (Kroeber 1939: 228). The center, thus, "obviously

wrote to Sapir in 1917, "whether cultural phenomena

is the regional expression of a culmination whose

have a reality of their own, as long as we treat them as

temporal manifestation is the climax" (1939: 5).

if they had" (in Golla 1984: 262). Recognition of

Degree of development at climax was measured by

cultural types on the basis of trait patterns and their

Kroeber as "intensity," a quality measured in terms

associated attitudes was "realism," and hence Thore-

of the quantity of cultural content amassed together

sen calls Kroeber a "typological realist" (Thoresen

with an assessment of the degree of integrated systemic

1975b). Yet there was more to such "realism" than a

complexity achieved (ibid.: 222). "High intensity

pure empiricism, for throughout his career Kroeber

cultures are the most absorptive as well as the most

held that "Realism conveys a greater moral lesson

productive," wrote Kroeber(1939: 223). As cultural

than idealism" (in T. Kroeber 1971: 23).3 Kroeber's

"centers" achieved their influence not only by radi-

"realism" at once revealed a firm belief in progress

ating their inventiveness but also by absorbing and

and a particular morality.

maximizing the influences of lesser cultures that

Kroeber's progressivist comparisons of cultural

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 KROEBER 'S THEORY OF CULTURE AREAS 21

intensities in native America on a scale of 1 to 7 seem For Kroeber, history was "teleological" (Kroeber

1915: 287). Its direction was toward ever more

invidiously subjective in our relativist and doubt-

"massive" cultures with ever denser and more com-

ridden present moment. Kroeber himself admitted

that his judgments were, despite his quantitative plexly structured element accumulations (for example,

Kroeber 1939: 222). All cultures were viewed as

aspirations, "qualitative" rather than "analytic,"

striving toward climax (Wolf 1981: 54), and those

though he defended these judgments as "valid"

(1939: 3). Others have been less sanguine. Con- cultures whose typal attitudes achieved greater

"intensity" were thus those bound toward greater-

servative critics such as Harold Driver have long held

that Kroeber's assessments of intensity, and hence his that is, more massive--achievement. Human creativity

designations of cultural climaxes and centers, were seemed, for Kroeber, determined both culturally and

subjective and impressionistic (Driver 1962). Less teleologically, although toward the end of his career

conservative recent critics, like Bean and Blackburn such determinism had begun to make him nervous:

(1976: 9) and Norton (1979: 18), have been more

I was consciously Ia deterministl for decades. I am less sure

outspoken, calling Kroeber "ethnocentric." Yet

now. When one has acquired the habit of viewing the millen-

while Kroeber held a lifelong faith that measurements

nial sweeps and grand contours, and individuals have shrunk to

of intensity might be made fully objectively (Wolf insignificance, it is very easy to deny them any consequential

influence- and therewith one stands in the gateway of belief in

1981: 40), he acknowledged in the 1939 monograph

undefined immanent forces; a step more and the forces have

that "There are as yet no generally recognized objec-

become mysterious (Kroeber 1952: 9.)

tive criteria for judgments of Ithisi kind .. ." (1939:

Map 28).

That is, ultimately there was a conflict between

The problem, however, is not simply Kroeber's

Kroeber's "realism" and a mysticism that he feared

inescapable-and admitted-subjectivism in ranking

might be deeply embedded in it. He praised Toynbee's

cultures in terms of their content inventories and

teleological interpretation of history while at the same

systemic complexity. Rather, the problem for us

time criticizing his specification of God as history's

today is that Kroeber implies, throughout his oeuvre,

First Cause and salvation as its end (Kroeber 1952:

that the "attitudes" or "temperaments" that he asso-

373-78). Similarly, while finally rejecting pure cul-

ciated with cultural types might also be ranked. Thus

tural determinism, Kroeber nonetheless held that

statements of his such as "The Tolowa are clearly

"free will" was no more than a necessary illusion

sub-climax as against the Yurok, and the Tututni

without which humankind could not act at all (1952:

apparently more so" (1939: 30, n. 6) are highly

115-16). He had, thus, elevated the problem of cul-

problematic. They demand comparison with other

tural causation to its highest level, finding causation

statements, like the one quoted above on the Shastas'

itself as inexplicable there as he had at more mun-

"limited aspirations" in comparison to the Yuroks'

dane, or mundial, levels.

"intensity." The inference that we must draw is that

While there is conflict at the heart of Kroeber's

not only were the Shastas and Tolowas nearly like,

teleological culture history, and hence at the heart of

and best represented by, the Yuroks, but (like the

his culture area theory, there is also consistency in the

"identical" Hupas and Karuks) were also beneath the

way in which his rhetoric implies moral justification

Yuroks on the total scale of civilizations. They were

of "progress." In short, one must suspect that the

judged not just in terms of their content inventories

Yuroks' position in the overall cultural hierarchy is

and systems of organization, but in terms of their

established with ultimate reference to Kroeber's own

"attitudes" as well. So too, ultimately, were the

culture. Lacking rationalized political structure, they

"attitude" and "temperament" of all native Cali-

were "anarchic"--socially immature. On the other

fornians judged against the ranked "attitudes" of

hand, they rose above their provincial contemporaries

others, for instance, on the Plains. Kroeber, who in

on the basis of "qualities" comparable to keynote

his 1901 dissertation on the Arapahoe agreed with

traits in Euro-American culture: private property, a

Boas' position that "psychology" of different cultures

monetary system, an elaborate legal code (and equally

could not be ranked on a scale of civilizations

elaborate legalism), and a doting on material posses-

(Thoresen 1971: 238), ended in a radically different,

sions in which, Kroeber held, the Yuroks invested

progressivist position, as is made clear in his post-

unusual "interest and love" (ibid.: 2).

humously published Yurok myths in which he speaks

In practical historical terms, intensity and trait

of "the comparative lack of mental and physical

accumulation equated with the ability to survive:

tenseness in the life of the Californian tribes, a slack-

more massive societies with greater intensity out-

ness which is manifest in many phases of their civili-

lasted less massive ones and what was to be termed

zation" (1976: 466).

genocide by later generations had, for Kroeber, a

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 22 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

moral as well as historical inevitability. Thus the history of pitiful events" (Kroeber 1925: 141) which

Athabascan peoples of southern Oregon failed to Kroeber, as an ethnologist rather than an historian,

survive the mid-nineteenth-century invasion by Euro- was "not in a position to treat... adequately" (ibid.:

Americans (see Beckham 1971) due to a discernible vi). Such history "in the ordinary sense" (ibid.) was

"looseness of civilizational fiber" or integration seemingly at once inevitable and not very important

(Kroeber 1925: 910) which, both rhetorically and to History itself.

theoretically bears a certain resemblance to "moral "Anthropology is my religion," said A. L. Kroeber

fiber." By the same token, the Shastas, with their (in T. Kroeber 1971: x). By "anthropology," here, he

"more easily contented aspirations," did not fare as largely meant culture history, and by "culture history,"

well as the Yuroks of the lower Klamath (1925: 288). the progress toward climax that occurred within

In general, native Californians, with their lack of culture areas, the spatial equivalents of time in a study

"tenseness" (that is, intensity), their "slackness" that lacked documented chronology. "Religion" is

(Kroeber 1976: 467), could not survive the Euro- more than an ironic euphemism, for by it Kroeber

American invasion as well as, say, the Puebloans of suggests the nature of his anthropology as a record of

the southwest, with their greater average intensity, his belief in progress. While Kroeber sought, in

numerically (that is, "realistically") estimated.4 cultural explanation of cultural phenomena, to escape

While Yurok culture proved more hardy than, say, the nineteenth-century preoccupation with cultural

that of the Shastas, the Yuroks had their own atti- causality, or origins, he seems to have embodied the

tudinal flaws that perhaps correlated with the loss of progressivism of the terminal nineteenth century and

about 75 % of their aboriginal population. In Kroeber's thus to have shared much with its lesser lights.

view,

Discussion

For some unknown reason the (Yurok] culture had simply gone

hypochondriac, and all members of the society, whatever their

In introducing his "Handbook," Kroeber both honored

congenital individual positions, had fear and pessimism pounded

his predecessor, Stephen Powers, author of Tribes of

into them from childhood on. They were taught by all their

elders that the world simply reeked with evils and dangers,
California (1976[1877]), and criticized him, damn-

against which one sought protection by an endless series of

ing Powers, really, with faint praise (Kroeber 1925:

preventive taboos and magical practices (Kroeber 1948: 309).

ix). He lauded Powers' "astoundingly quick and

vivid sympathy" while condemning the "flimsy tex-

For Kroeber, as he once wrote to Carl Alsberg,

ture and slovenly edges" of his ethnographies. In

"confused thinking about religion was perhaps the

strengthening ethnography's texture and tidying its

most important bar to man's progress and freedom"

edges, it often seems that it was precisely "sympathy"

(in Steward 1961: 1043).

that Kroeber relinquished. As Eric Wolf has noted:

To recapitulate: Kroeber held that human behavior

"there are in fact no people" in Kroeber's ethnology;

could be attributed to a cultural attitude or tempera-

"it all remains very abstract, very Olympian-

ment (see Thoresen 1971: 263). Kinds of tempera-

frightening, ultimately" (in Silverman 1981: 57-

ments were empirically related to types of traits, or

58).

cultural content. As progress could be objectively

In much the same manner, Kroeber chided Clark

measured in terms of content, so could attitudes or

Wissler for the looseness of his culture areas' boun-

temperaments be ranked (ibid.: 238) in terms, I am

daries and for the vagueness of their centers (Kroeber

arguing, of cultures' abilities to survive, among other

1939: 6-8). Kroeber was far more assertive about

criteria.

centers, if not boundaries, precisely locating, for

The negativity of Kroeber's comparative formula-

instance, the center of his northwest California cul-

tions is consistent. Why not, for instance, "gentle-

ture province. Yet despite such certainty, Kroeber

ness" rather than "slackness," "independence"

was vague about how he arrived at his judgments,

rather than "lack of civilizational fiber?" Why not

stating only that with continuing study the "focus of

Yurok "fear and pessimism" as a response to contact,

each culture becomes narrower and more distinct"

rather than "hypochondriac" symptoms that preceded

(1920: 152; Thoresen 1971: 225). The traits charac-

it? Kroeber comes dangerously close to blaming the

teristic of different areal patterns emerged "natural-

"victims of progress" (Bodley 1982).

ly," as though self-evidently, and "the hundreds of

Be this as it may, within the "millennial sweeps and

tribal cultures in native America segregate them-

grand contours" of history (or History), the extermin-

selves into several dozen provincial areas of reason-

ation of more than 90% of the indigenous inhabitants

ably uniform culture" (Kroeber 1948: 785; my

of California by more massive and more densely

emphasis). In his rhetoric it is as though, sometimes,

patterned white civilization comprised but "a little

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 KROEBER 'S THEORY OF CULTURE AREAS 23

culties are of a largely technical nature and were

Kroeber himself was not there, as an historically

recognized by Kroeber himself. For example, al-

located individual and personality, making what finally

though populations of Athabascan-speaking peoples,

must be recognized as value judgments although, of

like the Hupas, Chilulas, and Tolowas, once numer-

course, he emphatically was.

ically dominated the area, it was an isolated minority

Kroeber's judgments were based on careful and

of Algonkian speakers, the Yuroks, who, according to

extensive consideration of the available ethnographic

Kroeber, dominated culturally. Although he recog-

evidence, and were not "impressionistic," as Driver

nized (1925: 913; 1939: 30) this seeming difficulty,

termed them (1962: 2), insofar as that term connotes

he did not resolve it.

haste and lack of rigor. But they were subjective, as

Secondly, a problem is created by the paucity of

Kroeber himself admitted, while defending their val-

data on a great many of these Athabascans. The

idity, and as is evident, I think, in his value judgments

regarding cultural "attitudes," "temperaments," or Athabascan groups of southern Oregon, whose

"psychology." To an extent this subjectivity was aboriginal population Kroeber estimated at 8800

(1939: 136, Table 7), were largely destroyed before

heavily conditioned by Kroeber's belief in progress,

his "overriding progressivism," historically construc- any systematic ethnographic reporting on them could

ted. By the same token, the devaluation of the human be done, and little reliable information was available.

body and of women embedded, I think, in Kroeber's Kroeber readily acknowledged the fact (1925: 910).

selection of female puberty rituals as diagnostic of These people could not, thus, be compared on empir-

limited cultural achievement, is reflective of histor- ical grounds with the Yuroks that Kroeber knew.

ically and culturally specific limitations (see Kroeber However, he suspected that the lack of data on the

1925: 106, 135, 861-62; cf. Buckley 1988). Oregon Athabascans itself could prove the superi-

The Yuroks were central to Kroeber's personal ority of the Yuroks, for the largely complete destruc-

history because it was among them that he did his tion of the Athabascans may have resulted from a

most extensive Californian fieldwork, and this involve- certain "looseness of civilizational fiber" (ibid.), in

ment seems to have created a bias by which he felt contrast to relative Yurok integration and "intensity."

that, knowing the Yuroks, he knew their neighbors What Kroeber did know of these peoples was to

equally well. However, his assertion that the Yuroks some extent extrapolated from what he knew of the

and the neighboring Karuks "are indistinguishable in Tolowas, to their immediate south, and that knowl-

appearance and customs, except for certain minutiae" edge was gathered largely from Yurok informants:

(1925: 98), for example, is not well founded by The name "Tolowa" itself derives from the Yurok

Kroeber's own, albeit implicit and internally incon- tolewa (Kroeber 1925: 124) or tolowel(Robins 1958),

sistent, account. While stating that the two peoples and most of the Tolowa place names that Kroeber

are for all intents and purposes the same, except-and gives in the Handbook are in fact Yurok equivalents

what a big exception it might be- in language, he goes (Kroeber 1925: 124).

on to state that (in 1917) "Data are scarcely available Turning to probably the best-known of north-

for a [full] sketch of Karok culture" (ibid.: 108). western Californian Athabascans, the Hupas, we are

Despite this absence of evidence, however, he holds assailed by further doubts. The Hupas had been

that "Nor is such an account necessary. ... In at least studied assiduously and quite sensitively by Pliny E.

ninety-five institutions out of every hundred, all that Goddard before Kroeber's arrival in California in

has been said of the Yurok or is on record concerning 1900; their culture was documented by Goddard in

the Hupa applies identically to the Karok" (ibid.). monographs long before Kroeber began to compose

This seems a suspect claim, considering Kroeber's the "Handbook" (for example, Goddard 1903-04).

immediately preceding admission that full data on the After Kroeber came to Berkeley and, especially, after

Karuks were not available to him.

he founded the Survey in 1903, he and Goddard were

There are, then, various problems with Kroeber's enmeshed, however politely (Kroeber, in Golla

construction of the northwestern cultural province 1984: 286-88), in a complex rivalry in which Leland

and with the designation of the Yuroks as its exemp- Stanford and Benjamin Wheeler were also implicated

lars and focus. In further suggesting these, I examine (Thoresen 1971 a). The Hupas were Goddard's as

some of the difficulties presented by Kroeber's rele- the Yuroks were Kroeber's and each man had certain

gation of Athabascan-speaking peoples in north- vested interests in promoting the academic signifi-

western California to a subsidiary relationship to the

cance of"his" people. That is another story, however,

Yuroks, in which they-and especially the Hupas-- and I leave to others the delicate task of interpreting

were the same, but slightly lesser. Although ultimately the effects of Kroeber's institutional politics upon his

they result from the limits of objectivity, these diffi- theories, methods, and findings.

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 24 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

A final set of concerns as well can only be suggested point of view." The humor was not dissimilar from

here. The pride, sense of cultural superiority, and that of the Kwakiutl orator who had once brought

competition among, particularly, the aristocratic down the house with his impersonation of a Haida

"high families" of the Yuroks, Hupas and Karuks speaker at a feast on the farther northwest coast,

have often been noted in the literature, and are still witnessed by Franz Boas in 1894 (Jonaitis 1988:

discussed among field workers today (as among 138). The intervening century of Indian experience

native northwestern Californians). Kroeber's desig- and of anthropological work had, however, added

nation of the Yuroks as the focal people in the north- enormously to the complexity of reference in the new

west was perhaps a partisan move in another sense. parodies. One of the implicit points made in 1985 was

Had Goddard been doing the designating he would that Boas's student, Kroeber, had been in error in

have chosen the Hupa as would the Hupa themselves. denying that significant cultural differences existed

By the same token, Kroeber's placement of the Yurok between the Yurok Indians and their neighbors, the

at the spatial center and historical climax of the Tolowas, Hupas, and Karuks, or among these four

province no doubt reflected elite Yuroks' own high peoples and the thirteen others who comprised

opinion of themselves and of their influence. What I Kroeber's northwest California culture province, or

Lower Klamath sub-area.

think he perhaps meant was that, according to the

Kroeber's theory of cultural patterns historically

Yuroks, the Hupas and Karuks were just the same as

them, only not quite so developed. accumulating and radiating back through an area

In 1985, at a large gathering of California Indians from its ethnic center has a compelling logic. The

and others, the audience was treated to a friendly Yuroks were central to its formulation. However,

given a knowledge of the peoples involved, the theory

demonstration of cultural differences by four Indian

men, all from the northwestern corner of the state.5 does not seem to hold for the Yuroks, their immediate

They were Loren Bommelyn (Tolowa), Sam Jones neighbors, and the northwestern California area that,

(Yurok), Julian Lang (Karuk), and Jack Norton according to Kroeber, the Yuroks culturally domin-

(Hupa). The subject was Brush Dance singing-the ated. Rather, the situation was more likely that of, as

lively, occasionally bawdy songs that accompany Victor Golla put it (personal communication, 1988),

dancing in a child-curing ceremonial performed by "a triple star," with the Yuroks, the Hupas, and the

each of the four peoples represented. The point of the Karuks constantly jostling for and claiming cultural

demonstration, underscored by jokes and parodies leadership and superiority, using-I suggest-the

and laughter, was that the four groups each had their shared "world renewal cult" (Kroeber and Gifford

own approach to such songs and each, of course, 1949) as a primary vehicle for such competition and

could view that approach as superior to the other claims. As Kroeber himself wrote, although to dif-

three. ferent ends (1925: 901), "It would, of course, be a

It was a celebration of cultural specificity that at grave mistake to assume that the whole of each type of

once illuminated the nature of shared "Indianness" culture had emanated from the group or small array of

and undermined the notion of simple sameness or groups situated at its focus." This is, again, another

cultural homogeneity among all Indians of even that story, however, and needs to be demonstrated ana-

comparatively small region-at least "from the native lytically in another place.

NOTES

Acknowledgments I presented an earlier version of this paper at the monographs were published (Kroeber 1952: 263). While Kroeber

Fourth Annual California Indian Conference, Berkeley, 1988. 1 ultimately abandoned the project that his student, Harold Driver, had

thank the participants in that conference and especially Lee Davis. pursued under his direction (Driver 1 939), Driver did not, continuing

Victor Golla. and Bill Simmons for their comments and encourage- to pursue scientific bases for cultural comparison (Driver 1962).

ment. Thanks. too, to Richard Handler for his valuable critique of an Driver's student, Joseph Jorgenson, has continued in this tradition in

interim draft. I trust that my debt to the work of Timothy H. H. a newly sophisticated way enabled by computer assistance (Jorgen-

Thoresen is made clear in the body of the paper. son 1980).

I When fully developed (for example, Kroeber 1939), Kroeber's 3 The phrase is the title of a paper presented at Kroeber's and

northwest California culture province comprised the following groups Carl Alsburg's Humboldt Scientific Society while they were both

in (present-day) southern Oregon and northern California: Kus. undergraduates (and before Kroeber had met Boas) at Columbia

Tututni. Takelma. Tolowa. Hupa. Chilula. Yurok. Karuk. Wiyot. University (T. Kroeber 1970: 22-23).

Shasta. Konomihu, Chimariko. Whilkut, Nongatl, Sinkyone. Lassik. 4 Kroeber estimated Puebloan cultural intensity at 5+ (1939:

and Wailaki. The area includes 38.000 sq. km. and Kroeber esti- Table 18).

mated its aboriginal population at 19.000 (Kroeber 1939: Table 18). 5 The event was a conference. "Weaving Ancient Traditions,"

2 Two hundred fifty-four tribes* or bands' responses to Kroeber's organized at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of

elements distribution lists were gathered and, eventually, twenty-five California, Berkeley, by Lee Davis.

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 KR OEBER 'S THEOR Y OF CULTURE AREAS 25

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