Our first object, therefore, when we find certain elements associated, is to determine whether there is any reason for believing that we are dealing with some such ultimate complex or unit.
On the other hand, when we find a magical ceremony for punishing offenders (viewed from its social aspect) associated with the Shell Society, or mortuary ceremonies associated with the Menominee Midewiwin, these associations cannot be considered as being ultimately connected with any particular aspect of the society’s function, as the complexes which they form exhibit an extreme variability. Their presence in various societies must be interpreted as secondary associations of some kind. As secondary associations, however, they may have been conditioned either by their specific nature or by the specific development of the society. As such we might, for instance, view either certain aspects of the shamanistic practices of the Ojibwa Midewiwin, or the mortuary ceremonies connected with the Menominee Midewiwin, or the punishment of offenders in the Shell Society.
When, however, we find cultural phenomena, which are generally possessed by a tribe, associated in varying degrees with this or that ceremonial, this association must be looked upon as due to the influence of the cultural environment. This influence may be conceived as setting in at any time during the historical development of the ceremony, while the ceremony itself remains passive; as, for instance, if the journey to the spirit land is connected with the Medicine Dance, or with the wake, with the telling of truth, or with membership in a clan. Here it is obviously the cultural environment that has been active. If, however, the mide, united in an organization, develop certain phases of this general cultural environment, such as magic and shamanistic practices, in a specific way, we have a right to credit this development as due to the activity of the society, and we have consequently a real secondary association of definite practices with an historically older organization. Of course, a good deal in this particular case would be caused by the fact that the members are mide; but after this historically preliminary stage, the Midewiwin became an active unit as a society; and in this sense, if it then specifically utilizes certain beliefs in a special manner, it can be said to be secondarily associating them.
It is thus seen that the mechanism of the association is both psychologically and historically highly complex. One thing, however, seems to be quite demonstrable; namely, that there is always one constant element,—the specific cultural background or type of each tribe.
Bearing this in mind, the similarities in the association of the Midewiwin of the Ojibwa-Menominee, the Medicine Dance of the Winnebago, and the Shell and Pebble Societies of the Omaha, do not necessarily indicate an historical relationship, but would most likely tend to show that a number of ideas and customs were common to a large cultural area. This does not of course interfere in the least with the possibility of an historical connection, but this historical connection must in each case be demonstrated. However, even if it were proved, an historical connection alone cannot possibly explain the entire phenomenon; for the cultural environment, if it is the same, will condition general similarities and resemblances in ceremonies that historically are quite unrelated, so that the convergent evolution thus resulting will completely obscure at times the individual history of a ceremony. It is, for instance, possible that historically the journey to the spirit land was connected with the wake among the Winnebago. The general prevalence of the same idea among so many social and ceremonial groups to-day, however, makes it unjustifiable to assume such a connection in the absence of any direct historical data; so that, although there is to my mind little doubt that these associations are all historically different, owing to the influence of certain general cultural ideas, they present to-day the same picture.
It is quite safe to assume that, just as we have shown that the shooting ceremony in the Medicine Dance is the borrowed initiation ritual of the Midewiwin, so it would be possible to demonstrate, were we in the possession of fuller historical data, that other elements have been borrowed. However, when we have demonstrated the borrowing of a certain element, we have only partially, and often only inadequately, explained it. Its further explanation is possible only in terms of the specific type of ceremony, and of the general cultural environment with which it has been associated. Both of these may change. It does not follow that because, among the Winnebago to-day, all the societies are practically associations of individuals who have obtained supernatural communication from this or that spirit, this was therefore always the basis of the societies. To-day the Medicine Dance and the Night Spirit or Sore-Eye Dance have a different type of organization. Originally the latter had the former type, and the Medicine Dance may have had it. It is, for instance, barely possible that we may in this case be dealing with the beginning of a change of type of organization, and that, similarly, types of organization preceded that, whose essence to-day lies in the possession of common visions.
We have now finished the examination of a number of definite ceremonies. Our object in analyzing them was to determine in what the significance of the common elements lay, and what general historical and psychological tendencies were operative in their growth. We may now examine the results of our study in the light of Schurtz’s theory, and examine the data upon which Schurtz based his theory in the light of the leading points of view emphasized above.
VII. Résumé and Conclusion.—The main thesis Schurtz sought to establish was the demonstration of the parallel historical development of society as determined by certain psychological tendencies of the race. It is of prime importance to remember that he claimed to have found certain survivals by means of which he was able to reconstruct the stages in the history of society. Initiation degrees, the exclusion of women, etc., he considered “symptomatic” of these stages. His main object was to prove the existence of these symptoms. Wherever he found them, he was satisfied that he was dealing with vestiges of the stages through which society had passed. All these symptoms, according to Schurtz, had definite and specific connotations, and were associated with definite and specific stages in the development of society.
We have seen, in the analysis of the ceremonies of a limited area, that the common elements which were supposed to be symptomatic of historical relationship had no such value, and that they entered into a number of cultural complexes historically distinct one from another. In the same way we will now examine the more fundamental symptoms—initiation, degrees, and the exclusion of women—to see whether any specific significance attaches to them, and whether they, too, have not become associated with a number of cultural complexes historically distinct. If they have thus become associated, then their value as criteria for definite stages of social evolution is nil.
1. Initiation.—It was our main purpose, in analyzing the above ceremonies, to examine them quite apart from any theoretical presuppositions. In so proceeding, we obtained as a resultant the fact that initiation connoted psychologically and historically a number of different things, and that this difference seemed dependent upon the historical and psychological individuality of each tribe. To Schurtz, however, initiation meant primarily an initiation into puberty, and into that social status with which puberty has been so long and closely associated,—an association that seemed, historically speaking, almost an ultimate complex; namely, initiation into the tribe. He assumes that if it is found to mean anything else, then this new meaning is either a secondary association, or, preferably, an historical development from the first conception. Carried out logically, we should therefore have to consider initiation into a masonic order or into a college fraternity as a transformation of an original tribal initiation. To this, I think, Schurtz would have taken serious exception, on the ground that we are here dealing with a purely rational and artificial social group. But are we not to a certain extent dealing with the same phenomenon in the primitive societies discussed?