The social life of the Eskimo assumes two clearly opposed forms which parallel a twofold morphology. Undoubtedly, between the two, there are transitions: a group does not always abruptly take up winter quarters nor leave them; similarly, a small summer camp is not always composed of one single family. But it still is generally true that the Eskimo have two ways of grouping, and that in accordance with these two forms there are two corresponding systems of law, two moral codes, two kinds of domestic economy and two forms of religious life. In the dense concentrations of the winter, a genuine community of ideas and material interests is formed. Its strong moral, mental and religious unity contrasts sharply with the isolation, social fragmentation and dearth of moral and religious life that occurs when everyone has scattered during the summer.
The qualitative differences that distinguish these successive and alternating cultural patterns are directly related to quantitative differences in the relative intensity of social life at these two times of the year. Winter is a season when Eskimo society is highly concentrated and in a state of continual excitement and hyperactivity.1 Because individuals are brought into close contact with one another, their social interactions become more frequent, more continuous and more coherent; ideas are exchanged; feelings are mutually revived and reinforced. By its existence and constant activity, the group becomes more aware of itself and assumes a more prominent place in the consciousness of individuals. Conversely in summer, social bonds are relaxed; fewer relationships are formed, and there are fewer people with whom to make them; and thus, psychologically, life slackens its pace.2 The difference between these two periods of the year is, in short, as great as can possibly occur between a period of intense social activity and a phase of languid and depressed social life. This shows quite clearly that the winter house cannot be accounted for exclusively in technological terms. It is obviously one of the essential elements of Eskimo culture, appearing when the culture attains its maximum development; it becomes an absolutely integral part of it, and disappears when the culture begins to decline.3 The winter house is, therefore, dependent on this entire culture.
Social life among the Eskimo goes through a kind of regular rhythm. It is not uniform during the different seasons of the year. It has a high point and a low point. Yet though this curious alternation appears most clearly among the Eskimo, it is by no means confined to this culture. The pattern that we have just noted is more widespread than one would at first suspect.
First, among the American Indians, there is an important group of societies, quite considerable in themselves, that live in the same way. These are mainly the tribes of the northwest coast:4 Tlingit, Haida, Kwakiutl, Aht, Nootka and even a great number of Californian tribes such as the Hupa,5 and the Wintu. Among all these peoples there is an extreme concentration in winter and an equally extreme dispersion in summer, though there exist no absolutely necessary biological or technological reasons for this twofold organization. In keeping with this twofold morphology there are very often two systems of social life. This is notably the case among the Kwakiutl.6 In winter, the clan disappears, giving way to groups of an entirely different kind: secret societies or, more exactly, religious confraternities in which nobles and commoners form a hierarchy. Religious life is localized in winter; profane life is exactly like that among the Eskimo in summer. The Kwakiutl have an appropriate saying for expressing this opposition:7 ‘In summer, the sacred is below, the profane is on high; in winter, the sacred is above, the profane below.’ The Hupa show similar variations which were probably more marked than they are today. Many Athapascan societies, ranging from those in the far north such as the Ingalik and Chilcotin, to the Navaho of the New Mexican plateau,8 also have the same character,
These American Indian societies are not, however, the only ones that conform to this type. In temperate or extreme climates where the influence of the seasons is clearly evident, there occur innumerable phenomena similar to those we have studied. We can cite two particularly striking cases. First, there are the summer migrations of the pastoral mountain peoples of Europe which almost completely empty whole villages of their male population.9 Second, there is the seemingly reverse phenomenon that once regulated the life of the Buddhist monk in India10 and still regulates the lives of itinerant ascetics, now that the Buddhist saṅgha no longer has followers in India: during the rainy season, the mendicant ceases his wandering and re-enters the monastery.
What is more, we have only to observe what goes on around us in our western societies to discover these same rhythms. About the end of July, there occurs a summer dispersion. Urban life enters that period of sustained languor known as vacances, the vacation period, which continues to the end of autumn. Life then tends to revive and goes on to increase steadily until it drops off again in June. Rural life follows the opposite pattern. In winter, the countryside is plunged into a kind of torpor; the population at this time scatters to specific points of seasonal migration; each small local or familial group turns in upon itself; there are neither means nor opportunities for gathering together; this is the time of dispersion. By contrast, in summer, everything becomes reanimated; workers return to the fields; people live out of doors in constant contact with one another. This is the time of festivities, of major projects and great revelry. Statistics reflect these regular variations in social life. Suicides, an urban phenomenon, increase from the end of autumn until June, whereas homicides, a rural phenomenon, increase from the beginning of spring until the end of summer, when they become fewer.
All this suggests that we have come upon a law that is probably of considerable generality. Social life does not continue at the same level throughout the year; it goes through regular, successive phases of increased and decreased intensity, of activity and repose, of exertion and recuperation. We might almost say that social life does violence to the minds and bodies of individuals which they can sustain only for a time; and there comes a point when they must slow down and partially withdraw from it. We have seen examples of this rhythm of dispersion and concentration, of individual life and collective life. Instead of being the necessary and determining cause of an entire system, truly seasonal factors may merely mark the most opportune occasions in the year for these two phases to occur. After the long revelries of the collective life which fill the winter, each Eskimo needs to live a more individual life; after long months of communal living filled with feasts and religious ceremonies, an Eskimo needs a profane existence. We know, in fact, that the Eskimo are delighted with this change, for it seems to come as a response to a natural need.11 Undoubtedly, the technological factors which we have noted account for the order in which these alternate movements succeed one another during the year; but if these factors did not exist, this alternation would still perhaps take place, though in a somewhat different way. One fact would tend to confirm this viewpoint. When favourable circumstances such as a major whale catch or the possibility of a large market bring the Eskimo of the Bering Strait and of Point Barrow together in the summer, the kashim temporarily reappears.12 And with it come all the ceremonies, wild dancing, feasts and public exchanges that usually take place there. The seasons are not the direct determining cause of the phenomena they occasion; they act, rather, upon the social density that they regulate.
The climacteric conditions of Eskimo life can be accounted for only by the contrast between the two phases of the year and the clearness of their opposition. As a result, among these people, the phenomenon is so easily observed that it almost springs to view, but very likely it can be found elsewhere. Furthermore, though this major seasonal rhythm is the most apparent, it may not be the only one; there are probably other lesser rhythms within each season, each month, each week, each day.13 Each social function probably has a rhythm of its own. Without wishing for a moment to offer these speculations as established truths, we believe that they are worth mentioning,14 for they offer serious possibilities for fruitful research.
Whatever the value of these remarks, however, there is another general conclusion to this work that deserves the same attention.
We have proposed, as a methodological rule, that social life in all its forms – moral, religious, and legal – is dependent on its material substratum and that it varies with this substratum, namely with the mass, density, form and composition of human groups.15 Until now, this hypothesis has been verified in only a few important cases. It has been shown, for example, how the respective evolution of criminal and civil law depends on a society’s type of morphology;16 how individual beliefs develop or decline depending on the degree of integration or disintegration of familial, religious or political groups;17 and how the mentality of primitive tribes directly reflects their social organization.18 But the observations and comparisons upon which these laws depend allow some room for doubt that may apply a fortiori to the general principle that we initially stated. The phenomena we have studied could well be dependent on other unknown factors in addition to morphological variations. Eskimo societies, however, offer a rare example of a test case which Bacon would have regarded as crucial. Among the Eskimo, at the very moment when the form of the group changes, one can observe the simultaneous transformation of religion, law and moral life. This case has the same clarity and precision as an experiment would have in a laboratory and it is repeated every year with an absolute invariability. Henceforth we can say that this sociological proposition is relatively established. Therefore the present study has, at least, this methodological advantage: it has shown how the analysis of one clearly defined case can establish a general law better than the accumulation of facts or endless deduction.19