In the Ruk-Ruk Society the novices retire to the woods, work for their sponsors, lay out their plantations, etc. They are also supposed to converse with spirits.[31] Similar conditions are found in the Matambala Society of the Island of Florida.[32] This retirement to the woods and to a holy precinct, and consequent re-appearance, are characteristic of a large number of initiations. The work the novice performs for his sponsor must also be regarded as a characteristic of this area. The tests of the novice have been spoken of before. They are, as might be expected, of the most diverse kind. In Fiji, for instance, a ceremonial attack upon the novices occurs, which is said to symbolize their death.[33]
In Africa we find many of the characteristics noted above. In the Purrah the novices retire to a holy precinct, and are said to endure extreme hardship. Only warriors thirty years of age can be initiated.[34] In the Mumbo-Djumbo only youths older than sixteen are admitted.[35] The other conditions are similar to those of the Purrah. In the Simo organization novices were circumcized and lived seven years in the woods.[36] In the Mwetyi Society, in addition to probations, the youths adopt a taboo of certain foods or drinks, to which they remain faithful ever after.[37] In the Ndembo Society novices are shot by a rattle, and fall down as if dead. They are then carried away to some holy precinct, where often as many as from twenty to fifty individuals remain at the same time. At this place they stay sometimes as long as three years. Their bodies are supposed to disintegrate during this time. When they are supposed to return, the shaman gathers their bones and restores them to life. On the return to their villages, they behave like unknown children, fail to recognize their relatives, to understand their own language, etc.[38] In the Nkimba similar conditions are found.[39]
The variability of the method and concept of initiation is thus seen to be enormous. It might be interesting in this connection to point out how certain ideas will cluster around initiation in one large geographical area, and how the same ideas will cluster around a different cultural complex in another large geographical area. For instance, in the South Seas and in Africa, initiation is found generally associated with tests or probations; whereas in North America tests are not associated with initiation into the society, but with the obtaining of visions at the age of puberty.
2. Degrees.—To Schurtz, degrees are symptomatic of age classes. Wherever he finds them in societies, and wherever they seem to be correlated with certain ages, he concludes that they are vestiges of former age groups. However, he seems to have overlooked one fact,—that the same social and individual forces that would tend toward the formation of societies would necessarily tend toward the development of distinctions within them. It will depend entirely upon the nature of the people and the individual history of the organization, in what manner these distinctions will be emphasized. One of the possible methods of emphasizing them is marking off those with common possessions in some definite manner. Here, again, much will depend upon the kind of group into which the individual is initiated. If, when he enters the society, he is initiated into all that pertains to it, gradations will not be likely to arise. Generally, however, there is certainly a marked tendency for some sort of gradation, be it due to length of membership, insistence upon separate payments, unwillingness of the older members to impart all to a new member who may withal be quite young, a desire to impart piecemeal in order to enhance the value of the teachings, etc. Whether these possible lines of cleavage will associate themselves with definite markings or rites, is a question of individual cultural development. They may or they may not. In Melanesia, for instance, they did not.
In the Ruku-Ruku[40] of the Fiji Islanders we find three gradations,—those of uninitiated youths, grown-up men, and old men. In the Purrah[41] there were two gradations, consisting respectively of those over thirty and of those over fifty years. In the Egbo[42] Society there are eleven degrees, into which membership may be purchased one after the other in an ascending scale. In Old Calabar[43] there are five classes.
In the Purrah we are dealing with an exceedingly intricate complex, in which military and judicial functions are quite prominent. The age factor seems secondary and artificial. In the Egbo there is no age factor at all. In the Ruku-Ruku an age factor exists. Owing to the social value of the Ruku-Ruku, all individuals seem to be potential members at birth. At the same time, the oldest members always have specific functions to perform. In this way two groups are formed. Those who do not belong to these two groups belong to the third group. All that can be said here is, that a society has utilized a rough age factor for specific purposes. That in reality the entire tribe is divided into three divisions, is due to the fact that all the members of the tribe are members of the society. This is therefore not a phenomenon that has any general significance in the evolution of society, but is purely and simply a phenomenon of certain secret societies. The threefold division is not due to a persistence of a former threefold division of the tribe, but grew out of the needs of a specific society. The same remarks hold for the twofold division of members in the Purrah. Similarly the four and eight degrees found among the Ojibwa Midewiwin are due to a development within the society. To-day practically all the members of the tribe belong to the Midewiwin, and the tribe may be said to be divided into four divisions. (However, in this case the main element, that of the association of a certain age with a certain degree, does not exist, because there is no fixed age at which a man buys admission into the higher degrees.)
It will consequently be necessary to determine the significance of degrees in each particular case before any general significance can be attached to them.
3. Exclusion of Women.—The admission of women into a society is, according to Schurtz, a secondary feature. This followed directly from his negative position with regard to women’s Geselligkeitstrieb, and from his assumption that societies were merely transformed men’s associations, which in turn were transformed age groups. The question of the Geselligkeitstrieb of women hardly lends itself to any accurate discussion, as, generally speaking, women have not been surrounded by those conditions which played an important part in developing that trait among men. In our own civilization, where men and women are to a certain extent subjected to the same conditions, a large number of women societies has developed, and large numbers of women have been admitted into men’s societies. Among us, this admission of women is due to the fact that they are now in the same industries that men are. However, there are manifold factors which can and do bring about the admission of women into men’s societies or their exclusion therefrom. The nature of some societies may exclude men, just as it may exclude women. A soldiers’ society will exclude women, because women are not soldiers. Similarly a sewing society will probably exclude men. The exclusion of women will therefore depend upon the specific functions of a society; but the right of women to participate in certain activities will again depend upon the manner in which each specific culture area separated the spheres of action of men and women.
The possibility of infinite variation must force upon us the conclusion that we can only begin to investigate the reasons for the exclusion or admittance of women when we have a clear understanding of the ideas each tribe possesses with regard to the specific functions of the men and women. This determination is in a large number of cases utterly impossible, because we are in no position to know whether the reasons now given are historically the true ones. If, for instance, in a men’s college fraternity women are debarred on the ground that the fraternity is interested in fencing, card-playing, etc., which are occupations of men, historically this is not the true reason. Originally fraternities were merely social gatherings of individuals who attended a college. There were no women students to admit. To-day, when women attend the colleges, wherever new fraternities arise, women are admitted. It is thus apparent, that, in the absence of historical evidence, we must be extremely careful in interpreting the reason for this exclusion.
In Melanesia, for example, women are entirely excluded from the societies. However, in Melanesia, societies are associated with a multitude of religious and social functions in which women are not permitted to participate. In other words, the Melanesians draw the line of demarcation between the activities of men and women along these lines. If, for instance, in the New Hebrides, women have nothing to do with the funeral and mortuary rites, and a secret society is intimately connected with such rites, then we ought not to be surprised that women are not admitted into the society. It seems to me, therefore, that we should make much better progress in our study of this phenomenon in Melanesia and in Polynesia, if we were first to examine whether either the conceptions of the tribe, or the nature of the specific society, or the cultural elements with which it was associated, debarred women from membership.