Overview
Secret or sacred brotherhoods existed among a great many American tribes, and likely among even more than those for which definite records survive.
On the Plains, many of these were war societies, often organized by age and achievement. The Buffalo society was especially important as a group devoted to healing disease. Among the Omaha and Pawnee, there appear to have been many societies created for a wide range of purposes. Some were concerned with religious mysteries, record-keeping, and the dramatization of myths. Others were ethical societies, while some were made up of mirth-makers who deliberately reversed the natural order of things in their performances. There was also a society believed to have the power to will people to death, a society of “big-bellied men,” and, among the Cheyenne, a society of firewalkers who trod barefoot across fires until the flames were extinguished.
According to Hoffman, the Grand Medicine society, or Midewiwin, of the Chippewa and neighboring tribes was a secret society made up of four degrees, or lodges, into which a person could be successively inducted by spending greater amounts of property on the feasts accompanying each initiation. Through these initiations, spiritual insight and power were believed to increase, especially the power to cure disease. On the material side, the initiate also received instruction in the medicinal properties of many plants. The name of this society, in the form medeu, also appears among the Delaware, where it referred to a class of healers. Near New York Bay there was a body of conjurers who had no fixed homes, claimed absolute continence, and both exorcised sickness and officiated at funeral rites. Brinton interpreted their name to mean “Great Snake,” and they took part in certain seasonal festivals in which a sacrifice was prepared and believed to be carried away by a huge serpent.
In the Southwest, each Pueblo tribe contained a number of esoteric societies that mediated between humans and the zoomorphic beings of Pueblo mythology. At Zuñi there were 13 such societies, primarily associated with healing, whether through collective ceremonies or through the actions of individual members. They also sought to bring rain, though only through the influence of beast gods over the anthropic beings who were thought to actually control it. Rain-bringing itself was properly the function of the rain priests and of the Kótikilli society, the latter made up mainly of Zuñi men, though sometimes including some women. Membership in this society was necessary in order to gain access after death to the dance-house of the anthropic gods. The Kótikilli had six divisions, each holding ceremonies in one of six kivas corresponding to the six world-quarters. During their performances, members wore masks representing the anthropic beings, whom they were then believed to embody, even while singing to them in order to bring showers. The Rain priesthood and the Priesthood of the Bow are usually discussed under shamans and priests, but they may also be classified as brotherhoods concerned respectively with rain-making and war.
At Sia, the Society of the Cougar presided over hunting, and there was also a Warrior society. Parents could apply for their children to be admitted into a society, and a person healed by a society might afterward be accepted into it. A person could belong to more than one society, and most of the societies were also divided into two or more orders, the most important being the order in which members were endowed with the anagogics of medicine.
Because Hopi clans have been shown by Fewkes to have originally been independent local groups, the secret society performances among them appear to have been little more than the rituals of those various groups. The societies themselves consisted of the members of the groups that owned such rituals, along with certain others who had been granted the right to take part. The principal war society, however, seems to have developed from a fusion of the warriors or war societies of all the Hopi pueblos except one. Aside from the two war societies and two societies devoted to curing disease, these brotherhoods were mainly concerned with bringing rain and encouraging the growth of corn. Each was headed by a chief, who was also the clan chief and the oldest man in his clan, supported by several subordinate chiefs, while the oldest woman of the clan held an important place as well.
Among the Californian Maidu there was a society into which certain boys chosen by the old men were admitted each year. These societies were called Yeponi and included all the notable men of the tribe. The ceremonies could be elaborate, involving fasting, instruction in tribal myths and traditions by the elders, and finally a great feast and dance at which the initiates performed their dances for the first time, dances probably received through visions.
Each village, or group of villages, usually had its own branch of the society under a leader called Húku, one of the most important figures in the community. He was often called on to settle disputes, lead war parties, or decide when the people should go out to gather acorns. He was usually also a shaman, and in that role was considered more powerful than any other. For that reason, people looked to him to make rain, ensure abundant acorns and salmon, keep the people healthy, and destroy enemies through disease. He guarded a sacred cape made of feathers, shells, and pieces of stone, created for him by the previous leader, and it was believed that anyone else who touched it would die. He was appointed by the most renowned shaman in the society, who claimed to have been instructed in a dream, and he usually held office for as long as he wished, though he could be removed. Powers quotes a local authority claiming that the Porno had a secret society that conjured infernal horrors in order to keep women in subjection, and they are also said to have had regular assembly houses, though this account appears garbled and distorted.
Among the Kwakiutl of the coast of British Columbia, the distinction between supernatural and purely secular relationships was recognized in a division of the year into sacred and profane periods, during which the social organization of the tribe, along with personal names, changed completely. Present members of the secret societies were called “seals,” while those temporarily outside them were called quéqutsa. These outsiders were further divided according to sex, age, and social standing into several bodies, generally named after animals.
The “seals,” meanwhile, were divided into societies according to the supernatural beings believed to inspire them. Those whose ancestors had encountered the same supernatural being were grouped together, and because only one person could represent each ancestor, membership in a society was limited and a new member could only enter when another retired. Each society had its own dances, songs, whistles, and cedar-bark rings. A place in a secret society could be obtained by killing a person of a foreign tribe and taking his paraphernalia, or, for one’s son, by marrying the daughter of the man who possessed it. At initiation, the novice was believed to be carried away for a time by the spirit that came to him, and upon returning he often went through the houses of the town accompanied by previously initiated members. If his spirit was violent, he might smash boxes, canoes, and other property, which the giver of the feast was required to replace. The most important of these societies were those inspired by the cannibal spirit, which Boas traced to the Heiltsuk tribe and to customs associated with war.
From the Kwakiutl and Heiltsuk, these secret society dances spread northward and southward. The Nootka are said to have had two principal secret society performances: the Dukwally, or Thunder-bird ceremony, believed to have been acquired from the wolves, and the Tsáyeq, or Tsiahk, into which a sick person was initiated when a shaman had failed to cure him. According to Swan, this latter ceremony was performed after the patient had seen a dwarfish spirit with long yellowish hair and four horns on his head, who promised relief if the rites were carried out.
The Songish of British Columbia had two societies called Tcivi'wan and XAnxAni'tAl, obtained from the Nootka. The first was open to anyone and included five subordinate societies, with a man’s membership determined by the dream he had after withdrawing into the woods. The second, unlike the first, was reserved for the wealthy, since large payments were required for initiation.
The XAnxAni'tAl novice also obtained his guardian spirit in the woods and then performed his first dance wearing masks and cedar-bark ornaments. Among the coast Salish of the Fraser Valley there was a brotherhood called Sqoíaqi, which held special prerogatives and possessed distinctive emblems and dances. Bellacoola secret societies were closely tied to festivals and tribal organization. They were of two types: the Sisaúk, derived from a being of that name who lived in the sun, and the Kfu'siut, said to come from a female spirit living in a cave in the woods who emerged only in winter when feasts were about to be held. Whoever saw her was required to invite people to dance the Kfu'siut. There were several societies or degrees of this type, corresponding to the highest ranks among the Kwakiutl. The dances, masks, and other ceremonial objects used at those times, and only then, seem to have belonged especially to the clans, though individuals had to acquire the right to wear them.
The Tsimshian societies were all said to have come from the Heiltsuk through Kitkatla, though Niska tradition claimed they had first been obtained from a man who went to live among the bears. There are said to have been five or six such societies among these people, with membership in each limited. Their performances resembled those of the Kwakiutl, though they were less elaborate.
The Haida have had secret societies only during the last 100 to 150 years. Their entire performance centered on the supposed possession of a novice by one of several spirits, who carried him away and caused him to behave in the manner of that spirit. Some of these behaviors were introduced from elsewhere, while others reflected native ideas. These performances were largely controlled by certain chiefs, who allowed only their own families to use them. Among the Tlingit, the society seems to have been used in much the same way, though among the northern Tlingit it had barely begun to appear.