SECRET SOCIETIES. This term has been loosely used for a medley of associations which have little in common beyond an element of secrecy, which may vary from a mere password to an elaborate ritual of initiation with a private language, peculiar ceremonials and symbols and every circumstance calculated to lend an air of mystery. It may be applied to the Masonic Order or the Ku Klux Klan as well as to similar phenomena in prim itive cultures.
From this angle Maciver's definition of an Association as "an organization of social beings . . . for the pursuit of some common interest or interests" applies equally to secret societies with the proviso that it must be re-enforced by secrecy either for the maintenance of the internal solidarity of the society or for its more effectual domination over non-members. Secrecy alone how ever does not necessarily imply a secret society, and other criteria have to be taken into consideration. Thus many systems of age grades (q.v.) contain rites or doctrines, knowledge of which is prohibited to such members of the tribe as have not yet been affiliated ; but age-grades cannot properly be termed secret so cieties. What differentiates age-grades from secret societies is the fact that initiation into the former is compulsory to every member of the tribe, but entrance into a secret society is optional. More over in all secret societies entrance or promotion from rank to rank is purchasable, whereas in age-grades promotion is inevitable and automatic. The Crow Indians combine the two systems by compulsory purchase, the compulsory element of age-grades hav ing been added to the idea of purchase inherent in secret societies.
perceptibly, as in the change which has transformed the Human Leopard Society from a Mendi war medicine to a definitely can nibalistic institution. Thus, societies which are secret in one area are elsewhere public associations though their functions appear to be identical.
Secret societies, like all other associations, cut across the social units of the family and the clan, though instances do occur which suggest a connection with a totemic clan system. Among the Pueblo Indians the totemic clans on uniting into the tribe still continued to exist as esoteric fraternities, and in certain parts of Melanesia where totemism flourishes fraternities are unknown, but are found where totemism does not exist. This may be due however to other factors. In Africa there is evidently a correlation between secret societies and the political structure of the tribe, and with the evolution of authority from local councils to a tribal autocracy there is a parallel development of secret societies, which though often extra-legal serve to uphold the law and at the same time to act as checks on what would otherwise be complete des potism. The secret societies, or at any rate the higher degrees of the societies, become the ruling aristocracy, and in certain cases, such as the Tenda in French Guinea, it is the secret societies which are the sole means of government.
From the point of view of function secret societies among prim itive peoples may be roughly classified as magical, religious and social, and the last must again be subdivided into mutual help societies, like the Nkimba of the lower Congo, certain occupational groups, such as doctors and blacksmiths, feasting clubs, sexual so cieties, like the Kore of the Mandingo, and governmental or police organizations, the last of which not infrequently degenerate into a system of extortion and tyranny. The Ogboni society of the Yoruba is probably the most conspicuous of these political so cieties, with the Oro society as their subordinate police. However for all these social functions a religious sanction must be predi cated.