500 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



totemic culture of the South Seas, a secondary form with certain definite 

 characters having been carried by a pastoral people into South Africa. In West 

 Africa there is a different culture allied to the matrilineal cultures of the South 

 Seas, and wherever the totemic culture has come into contact with it we find 

 that the totemism has taken on matrilineal descent, though in a form different 

 from that of the South Seas. 



In South America the older totemic form is to be found in the western region 

 of the Amazon ; in North America it is present in the majority of the Algonkin, 

 while in the North- West local totemism can also be recognised as the older form. 

 The cultures of those regions with matrilineal totemism are again related to the 

 matrilineal cultures of the South Seas. 



Since the same relations also hold good in Asia, I believe the position of 

 group-totemism as a cultural entity wherever it is found to be established. 

 Whether the so-called individual totemism and sex totemism belong to the same 

 culture as group-totemism is not so clear. Even if it were so, however, group- 

 totemism could not have arisen from individual totemism, for, apart from other 

 difficulties, individual totemism is too weakly developed in the older regions of 

 the totemic culture. There is no older condition from which group-totemism 

 can be derived. Its explanation must be sought in its own characters. The 

 older form is that in which the totems are animals. In this form there is 

 an indefinite and unstable relation of sympathy between man and beast which 

 can be explained simply by certain groups of men and animals having coexisted 

 locally in a region of diversified physical characters. 



(iv) On the Relations between Totemic Clans and Secret Societies. 

 By Professor Hutton Webster. 



The esoteric associations found among aboriginal peoples may be conveniently 

 described as secret societies, though this appellation covers a wide range of ethnic 

 phenomena not easily brought within the confines of a single definition. The 

 many remarkable similarities characterising secret societies in widely separated 

 regions must be assumed to have had an independent origin ; nevertheless, an 

 intensive study of cultural areas will probably disclose a vast amount of borrow- 

 ing between related peoples. Comparative studies of the technique of masks and 

 costumes, together with a systematic analysis of initiatory rituals, should clear up 

 many puzzling problems of diffusion. 



To outside observation the judicial and political functions of the secret 

 societies appeared their most impressive feature, and quite naturally were the first 

 to attract attention. In West Africa and Melanesia, particularly, they punish 

 criminals, act as the native police, collect debts, protect private property, and, 

 where they extend over a wide area, help to maintain intertribal amity. Such 

 secret societies are more or less limited in membership, are divided into degrees 

 through which candidates able to pay the cost of initiation may progress, and are 

 generally localised in some lodge where the initiates resort for their ceremonies. 

 The use of masks, bull-roarers, and other devices serves to indicate the relation- 

 ship of the members with spiritual beings and to terrify those not admitted into 

 the mysteries. In spite of the great evils often attaching to these bodies, we are 

 permitted to see in them one of the most significant forms of primitive social 

 institutions. 



But it would be a vital error to infer that secret societies of this type were 

 consciously devised to preserve law and order in a savage community. Further 

 investigation reveals the singularly important part played by many of them in 

 the conduct of funereal rites and especially of initiation ceremonies at puberty. 

 Under their direction the youth is removed from defiling contact with women, 

 subjected to numerous ordeals, instructed in all matters of religion, morality, 

 and traditional lore, provided with a new name, and given new privileges — 

 in a word, made a man. Puberty rites of this nature may be best studied in 

 Australia, but are also characteristic of many Melanesian and African secret 

 orders. It is not impossible to reconstruct, at least in outline, the steps whereby 

 the rude but powerful aristocracy of a secret society may have emerged from a 

 more democratic association which enrolled in its ranks every male and adult 

 member of the community. 



