Now to one lecturing on Anthropology in Homer, the difficulty is to find enough material. In the case of the early saga outside Homer, the difficulty is only what to choose and where to stop.
One might begin by discussing the remnants of primitive secret societies. The remains are fairly rich. Mr. Webster, in his instructive book,[41] has traced the normal genesis of these bodies which exercise such an enormous influence over savage life. The first stage he takes to be the ordinary system of ordeals and puberty rites through which all males of the tribe have to pass before they can be admitted as full men. The ordeals of the Arunta and of the various Red Indian tribes are familiar to most of us. These ceremonies are often involved in a good deal both of mystery and of charlatanry. The youths initiated, for instance, sometimes are supposed to die and be born again. The process is secret. The women of the tribe are kept carefully away. The neighbourhood is filled with the warning sound of the Rhombos or Bull-roarer--that ‘whirring of immortal things’ which Hesiod perhaps means when he speaks of the air resounding ῥιπᾖ ὑπ’ ἀθανάτων.[42] The next stage begins when this initiation ceremony ceases to be compulsory. This sometimes depends on the separation of the War Chief from the medicine-man or the elders. For of course the initiation ceremonies are specially the department of the last named. In the third stage we find a full-flown Secret Society. The initiated form a definite body and work together for the maintenance of such conduct as is pleasing to the gods and themselves.
Take the case of Dukduk, a powerful society in the Bismarck Archipelago, north-east of New Guinea. I will not dwell on its power nor on the advantages which accrue to its worshippers. But I cite from Mr. Webster an eyewitness’s account of an epiphany of Dukduk.
Dukduk arrives about six times a year, and always on the day of the new moon. His arrival is announced a month beforehand by the Old Men--the Gerontes. During that month great quantities of food are made ready for Dukduk, and are ‘taken care of’ by the Old Men, his votaries. The day before the epiphany all women disappear from sight. It is death to them to look on the divine being. Before daybreak all the males of the tribe assemble on the beach, most of the young men looking frightened. At the first streak of dawn singing and drum-beating is heard out at sea, and as soon as there is enough light five or six canoes are seen at a distance, lashed together and with a platform built over them. On this platform are two Dukduks, dancing and uttering shrill cries. They are got up like gigantic cassowaries, some ten feet high, surmounted by a grotesque human mask. At least, says Mr. Romilly, the witness whom I cite, the body looks much like the body of the cassowary, but the head is like nothing but the head of a Dukduk. The canoes make the beach. The natives fall back in apprehension, for if Dukduk is touched he frequently tomahawks the offender on the spot. They proceed through the settlement, always dancing and screaming, to the secret house which has been prepared for them in the bush. They stay about a fortnight. They beat people a good deal, and exact money from suitable sources, especially plundering the women; if any one has shown disrespect of any sort to any member of the Dukduk society, not to speak of Dukduk himself, the punishment is swift and terrible.