While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Societies or brotherhoods
of a secret and usually sacred character existed among very
many American tribes, among many more, doubtless, than those
from which there is definite information.
On the Plains the larger number of these were war societies, and they were
graded in accordance with the age and attainments of the members. The Buffalo
society was a very important body devoted to healing disease. The Omaha and
Pawnee seem to have had a great number of societies, organized for all sorts of
purposes. There were societies concerned with the religious mysteries, with the
keeping of records, and with the dramatization of myths, ethical societies, and
societies of mirth-makers, who strove in their performances to reverse the
natural order of things. We find also a society considered able to will people
to death, a society of "big-bellied men," and among the Cheyenne a society of
firewalkers, who trod upon fires with their bare feet until the flames were
extinguished.
According to Hoffman the Grand Medicine society, or Midewiwin, of the Chippewa
and neighboring tribes, was a secret society of four degrees, or lodges, into
which one could be successively inducted by the expenditure of a greater and
greater amount of property on the accompanying feasts. As a result of these
initiations the spiritual insight and power, especially the power to cure
disease, was successively increased, while on the purely material side the
novitiate received instruction regarding the medicinal virtues of many plants.
The name of this society in the form medeu occurs in Delaware, where it was
applied to a class of healers. In the neighborhood of New York Bay there was a
body of conjurers who "had no fixed homes, pretended to absolute continence,
and both exorcised sickness and officiated at the funeral rites." Their name is
interpreted by Brinton to mean " Great Snake," and they participated in certain
periodical festivals where "a sacrifice was prepared, which it was believed was
carried off by a huge serpent."
In the southwest each Pueblo tribe contains a number of esoteric societies, which
mediate between men and the zoomorphic beings of Pueblo mythology. At Zuñi there
are 13 of these societies, and they have to do especially with healing, either
collectively in their ceremonies or through individual members. They also
endeavor to bring rain, but only by means of the influence which the beast gods
are able to exert over the anthropic beings who actually control it.
Rain, bringing itself is properly the function of the rain priests and of the
Kótikilli society, the latter consisting of Zuñi of the male sex, and
occasionally some females. Admission to this is necessary in order that one may
have access after death to the dance-house of the anthropic gods. There are six
divisions of the Kótikilli, holding their ceremonies in as many kivas
corresponding to the six world-quarters, and in their performances members wear
masks representing the anthropic beings, which they are then supposed actually
to embody, although they sing to them at the same time in order to
bring showers. The Rain priesthood and the Priesthood of the Bow are
considered under the caption Shamans and Priests, but they may be classed also as brotherhoods
concerned respectively with rain-making and war (see Stevenson in 23d Rep. B. A.
E., 1905).
At Sia the Society of the Cougar presides over hunting, and there is also a
Warrior society. Parents apply to have their children admitted into a society,
or a person who has been cured by the society may afterward be taken in. A
person may belong to more than one society, and most of the societies also
consist of two or more orders, the most important "being that in which the
members are endowed with the anagogics of medicine."
Since the Hopi clans have been shown by Fewkes to have been originally
independent local groups, the secret society performances among them would
appear to be nothing more than the rituals of the various groups, the societies
themselves being the members of the groups owning such rituals and certain
others that have been granted a right to participate. The principal war society,
however, has resulted from a fusion of the warriors or war societies of all the
clans of the Hopi pueblos except one. Besides the two war societies, and two
societies devoted to the curing of diseases, all of these brotherhoods devote
themselves to bringing rain and stimulating the growth of corn. Each is headed
by a chief, who is the clan chief as well and the oldest man in his clan, and
contains several subordinate chiefs, while the oldest woman of the clan occupies
a conspicuous place.
The Californian Maidu had a society into which certain boys chosen by the old
men were annually admitted. The societies were called Yěponi, and included all
the men of note in the tribe. "The ceremonies were more or less elaborate,
involving fasts, instruction in the myths and lore of the tribe by the older
men, and finally a great feast and dance at which the neophytes for the first
time performed their dances, which were probably received through visions."
(Dixon, Maide Myths, 1902.) Each village or group of villages commonly had a
separate branch of the society under a leader called Húku, who was one of the
most important personages in the place, being frequently called upon to settle
disputes that could not otherwise be composed, lead a war-party, or determine
when the people should go to gather acorns. He was usually a shaman also, and
was then considered more powerful
than any other, for which reason he was looked to, to make rain, insure good
supplies of acorns and salmon, keep his people in good health, and destroy
their enemies by means of diseases. He was the keeper of a sacred cape made of
feathers, shells, and pieces of stone, which was made for him by the previous
leader and would kill anyone else who touched it. He was appointed by the most
noted shaman in the society, who pretended that he had been instructed in a
dream, and usually held office as long as he chose, though he might be deposed.
Powers quotes a local authority to the effect that there was a secret society
among the Porno which conjured up infernal horrors for the purpose of "keeping
their women in subjection," and they are also said to have had regular assembly
houses, but the account of this society is evidently garbled and distorted.
The sense of supernatural as distinguished from purely secular relationships
received its logical recognition among the Kwakiutl of the coast of British
Columbia in a division of the year into a sacred and a profane period, during
each of which the social organization and along with it personal appellations of
the tribe changed completely. In the first place, a distinction was made between
present members of the secret societies, called "seals," and the quéqutsa, those
who were for the time being outside of them. These latter were furthermore
divided, in accordance with sex, age, and social standing, into several bodies
which received names generally referring to animals.
The "seals," on the other hand, were subdivided into societies in accordance
with the supernatural beings supposed to inspire the various members. All of
those whose ancestors had had an encounter with the same supernatural being were
thus banded together, and, since only one person might represent each ancestor,
the number in a society was limited, and one might join only on the retirement
of a member. Every secret society had its own dances, songs, whistles, and
cedar bark rings. The right to a position in a secret society might be acquired
by killing a person of some foreign tribe and taking his paraphernalia, or for
one's son by marrying the daughter of him who possessed it. At the time of
initiation the novice was supposed to be carried away for a season by the spirit
which came to him. and after his return he usually went through the different
houses in the town accompanied by other members of the society who had been
initiated previously. In case his spirit were a violent one, he might break up
boxes, canoes, etc., which the giver of the feast had to replace. The most
important part of these societies were the ones inspired by the cannibal spirit,
the origin of which has been traced by Boas to the Heiltsuk tribe and to
customs connected with war.
From the Kwakiutl and Heiltsuk these secret society dances spread northward and
southward. The Nootka are said to have had two principal secret society
performances, the Dukwally (i. e. Lū'koala), or Thunder-bird ceremony,
supposed to have been obtained from the wolves, and the Tsáyeq (Kwakiutl
Ts'ā'eqa), or Tsiahk, into which a patient was initiated when the shaman had not
succeeded in curing him. According to Swan the latter was performed after the
patient had seen a dwarfish spirit with long, yellowish hair and four horns on
his head who promised relief if the ceremonies were performed.
The Songish of British Columbia have two societies called Tcivī'wan and
XAnxAnī'tAl, obtained from the Nootka. The first is open to anybody and consists
of five subordinate societies. That to which a man belongs depends on the dream
he has after retiring into the woods. Unlike the other, only rich people can
become members of the XAnxAnī'tAl, as heavy payments are exacted for initiation.
The XAnxAnī'tAl novice also obtains his guardian spirit in the woods, after which
he performs his first dance with masks and cedar-bark ornaments. Among the coast
Salish of Fraser valley is found a brotherhood or society called Sqoíaqī, which
enjoys special prerogatives and possesses certain emblems and dances. Bellacoola
secret societies are closely bound up with the festivals and the tribal
organization. They are of two varieties, the Sisaúk·, obtained from a being of
that name who resides in the sun, and the Kfū'siut, which were derived from a
female spirit who lives in a cave in the woods and comes out only in winter when
the feasts are about to be held. He who sees her has to invite people to dance
the Kfū'siut. There are several different societies or degrees of this, however,
corresponding to the highest ones among the Kwakiutl. The dances, masks, etc.,
used at such times, and only then, seem to be the special property of the
different clans, but right to wear them has to he acquired by ,the individuals.
The Tsimshian societies were all received from the Heiltsuk through Kitkatla,
but according to Niska tradition they were obtained by the former from a man who
went to live among the bears. There are said to have been five or six of these
societies among the latter people, and the number of places in each was limited.
The performances were similar to those seen among the Kwakiutl, except that they
were not so elaborate.
The Haida have had secret societies only during the
last 100 to 150 years. The entire performance consisted in the
supposed possession of the novice by some one of a number of spirits,
who carried the youth away and made him act the way the spirit himself
was supposed to act. Tome of these ways of acting were
introduced, while others were in accordance with native conceptions.
They were largely the property of certain chiefs who would allow only
their own families to use them. Among the Tlingit the society
appears to have been employed in a very similar manner, but with the
northern Tlingit they had barely made their appearance.
