REINTERPRETATION AND THE MECHANISMS OF CULTURE CHANGE1

For the past twenty years or more, acculturation studies have been taking an ever more prominent place in anthropological field research, and understand-ably so. The more we turn toward the contemporary condition of primitives and others, the more we find ourselves involved in a discussion of the contact situ-ation, its effects and its consequences. However, although we have a great deal of data available concerning the results of acculturation, as Hallo well (1952) has pointed out, we still know very little indeed about the complex mechanisms in-volved in the formation of a new cultural amalgam. Nor is concern with such mechanisms merely a matter of academic interest, since application of anthropo-logical principles to practical problems rests heavily oh an understanding of the processes involved precisely in situations of contact, whatever their specific nature may be. Various psychological tools have been applied to the problems of acculturation. Hallo well (1945) and Gillin (1945) have, each in a different way, attempted to utilize concepts of learning theory, speaking of rewards and incentives implie