Research Items

Abstract

SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE BULL-BOABEB.—Mr. Edwin M. Loeb, in a study of tribal initiation and secret societies (University of California Publications in American Archceology and Ethnology, vol. 25, No. 3), makes a world-wide survey of the evidence and reviews the theories of previous writers on these features of social organisation. The tribal initiations fall into two classes, those which are exoteric, that is, those to which all members of the tribe are subject, but in which no attempt is made to preserve secrecy as to details, and the esoteric, of which the detailed rites are kept secret. It is out of these latter that the secret society grows, the distinctive feature being that they are exclusive. Secret societies are not, as in the opinion of certain writers, to be connected with the matriarchate, and though totemisin and the sib system attach themselves to secret societies in certain areas, tribal customs and secret societies belong to an older stage of social organisation than either. It is noted that while boys' initiations are tribal, that of girls is a family matter. Both boys' and girls' initiations are common among backward peoples. They occur among Negroids and Australians and regionally in the New World, but are lacking among other Mongoloids, and also among Caucasians, with the doubtful exception of the ‘mysteries’ of ancient Greece. From the distribution it is inferred that these traits are of archaic, possibly palaeolithic, origin, and not a matter of recent diffusion. As regards the bull-roarer, earlier theories are to be regarded as untenable. It would be possible to regard it as of independent origin in different regions only if attention were confined to its use as a toy or for purposes of magic. In connexion with initiation and secret societies, it is always associated with a form of tribal marking, a death and resurrection ceremony, and an impersonation of ghosts and spirits. It is tabooed to women and is invariably represented as the voice of spirits; but when found outside the area of initiation rites and secret societies it is neither. As there is no psychological principle which debars women from the sight of the instrument in Oceania, Africa, and the New World, it cannot be regarded as due to an independent origin and it must be inferred that it has been diffused from a common centre.