Mackey – Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry Vol. 1

300 SECRET SOCIETIESthe Racket, the Beaver, and the Eagle . This last wasthe title of the chief, corresponding with our rank ofcolonel ; the Beaver was a captain, commanding six Rackets,every Racket consisting of nine men ; the company of theBeaver consisted of seventy affiliates or Hunters . Everyaspirant had to be introduced by three Hunters to a Beaver,and his admission was preceded by fear-inspiring trials andterrible oaths. Though the society lasted two years only,it distinguished itself by brave actions in the field ; manyof its members died on the scaffold .704. Husdanawer. - The natives of Virginia gave thisname to the initiation they conferred on their own priests,and to the novitiate those not belonging to the priesthoodhad to pass through . The candidate's body was anointedwith fat, and he was led before the assembly of priests, whoheld in their hands green twigs . Sacred dances and funerealshouts alternated . Five youths led the aspirant through adouble file of men armed with canes to the foot of a certaintree, covering his person with their bodies, and receiving inhis stead the blows aimed at him . In the meantime themother prepared a funeral pyre for the simulated sacrifice,and wept her son as dead . Then the tree was cut down,and its boughs lopped off and formed into a crown for thebrows of the candidate, who during a protracted retirement,and by means' of a powerful narcotic called visocean, wasthrown into a state of somnambulism . Thence he issuedamong his tribe again and was looked upon as a new man,possessing higher powers and higher knowledge than thenon-initiated.705 . Indian (North American) Societies.-Nearly all theIndian tribes who once roamed over the vast plains of NorthAmerica had their secret societies and sacred mysteries, butas the different tribes borrowed from one another religiousceremonies and symbols, there was great similarity betweenthem all, though here and there characteristic signs or tokensdistinguished the separate tribes . Dancing with all ofthem was a form of worship from the aborigines of Hispaniolato those of Alaska, as, in fact, it was with all savagenations, whether African, American, or Polynesian . TheRed Indian tribes all had their medicine-huts and men, theirkivas, council-rooms, or whatever name they gave to whatwere really their religious houses . Most tribes kept up asacred fire, which was extinguished once a year, and thenrelighted . The sacred dogmas and rites of the Indians ofthe Gulf States bore so close a resemblance to those of the