496 



SECRET SOCIETIES 



[b. a. e. 



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 tlie Priesthood 

 of the Bow are considered under the cap- 

 tion Shamauii and Priests, but they may 

 be classed also as brotherhoods concerned 

 respectively with rain-making and war 

 (see Stevenson in 23d Kep. 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 chil- 

 dren admitted into a society, or a person 

 Avho 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 "be- 

 ing that in w'hich the members are en- 

 dowed with the anagogics of medicine." 



Since the Hopi clans have been shown 

 by Fewkes to have been originally inde- 

 pendent local groups, the secret society 

 performances among them would appear 

 to he 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 

 l)een granted a right to participate. The 

 principal war society, however, has re- 

 sulted from a fusion (^f the warriors or war 

 societies of all the clans of the Hopi pue- 

 blos except one. Besides the two war so- 

 cieties, and two societies devoted to the 

 curing of diseases, all of these brother- 

 hoods devote themselves to bringing rain 

 and stimulating the growth of corn. 

 Each is headed by a chief, who is the 

 clan ciiief 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 socie- 

 ties were called Y6poni, and included all 

 the men of note in the tribe. ' ' The cere- 

 monies were more or less elaborate, involv- 

 ing 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 per- 

 formed their dances, which were proba- 

 blv received through visions." (Dixon, 

 Maidu Myths, 1902.) Each village or 

 group of villages commonly had a sepa- 

 rate branch of the society under a 

 leader called Hiiku, who was one of the 

 most important personages in the place, 

 being frecjuently called upon to settle 

 disputes that could not otherwise be com- 

 posed, lead a war-})arty, 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 sup- 

 plies of acorns and salmon, keep his peo- 

 ple 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 ofhce 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 Pomo which conjured up in- 

 fernal 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 distin- 

 guished from purely secular relationships 

 received its logical recognition among the 

 Kwakiutl of the coast of British Colum- 

 bia 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 ai)pellations of the tribe 

 changed coni})letely. In the first place, 

 a distinction was made between present 

 members of the secret societies, called 

 "seals," and the qucqutsa, those who 

 were for the time being outside of them. 

 These latter were furthermore divided, in 

 accordance with sex, age, and social stand- 

 ing, 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 nnnd)er 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 kill- 

 ing 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 mem- 

 bers 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 



