THE BUILDER February, 1917
MASONRY AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES

BY BRO. J.W. NORWOOD, KENTUCKY

MUCH has been said and written about Freemasonry among the Indians,
the Arabs, the Chinese, the Australians and even the Africans. The
recognition of Masonic signs and the use of various Masonic symbols
in the rites of these people have given color to the supposition
that they had Masonry, not of the sort we moderns can recognize as
such to be sure, but sufficient to convince students that "the
landmarks" are there.

If by Freemasonry we mean merely the grand lodge system established
in 1717, then all these tales of white Freemasons saving their
lives among savages or in strange countries by the use of Masonic
signs, mean nothing. But if the legends of our Order have any
significance whatever, then Freemasonry is very ancient though it
has been arranged and rearranged in the form of rites and degrees
many times. And if this is true, that no man can say when or where
it first began, then it is not folly to investigate the evolution
of what we now term Freemasonry. Stanley in Africa, travelers in
Australia, shipwrecked sailors on the coast of Arabia, have been
reported as meeting with primitive Freemasonry.

The Chinese have frequently been referred to as having a rite they
claim to be the most ancient on earth. Chinese classics abound in
references to the square and compasses used speculatively. And as
often denials have come from Masonic notables, declaring it could
not be so.

Here is an anecdote that may illustrate why students of Freemasonry
are not so sure the Chinese may not have what they claim. In San
Francisco there is a lodge of what is popularly called the "Chinese
Freemasons." Needless to say they do not themselves call it so,
though they recognize kinship with the great fraternity.

A number of years ago, the writer had a conversation with a
gentleman who had traveled extensively in this country, Alaska and
Mexico. He had visited this lodge of "Chinese Freemasons." He was
admitted in company with a friend, editor of a daily paper and a
32d Scottish Rite Mason, who merely vouched for the man as a Mason.

My informant stated that he saw the opening and closing in three
degrees but no initiatory ceremonies. Aside from the general
disposition and number of officers, he did not observe much that
reminded him of our Masonry.

I asked him about the signs given in the three degrees. He arose
and proceeded to give me the signs as he declared the Chinese made
them. They were identical with those of the three degrees save that
they were given with two hands where we give them with one. There
were no due guards. My friend was astonished that he had overlooked
this fact. He was no student. He was not a close observer.


He did remark that his Scottish Rite friend had told him the grand
hailing sign was the same with ours but the words accompanying it
were different and sounded like those words Jesus uttered on the
cross and which have been a puzzle to linguists--"Eloi, Eloi, Lama
Sabacthani." The Chinese translated them "Brother, Brother, has
thou forsaken me?" They declared that they were not Chinese or even
Sanskrit. No one could say whence they originated, but they had
come down from time immemorial.

A number of years ago, the Masonic Home Journal reported an
instance of "Chinese Masonry" according to which a mandarin had
captured some white prisoners, including an English general who
made the sign. He was recognized by the Mandarin and advanced upon
the five points. He was well treated.

In Louisville, Kentucky, the writer once had the pleasure of seeing
a young Korean about to return to his country as a Christian
missionary, raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason. When
called upon for remarks, he said that he had wanted to become a
Mason in order to surprise his father and brothers in Korea, for
his family had been Masons for thousands of years. Their system and
rite differed, but the Masonry was there.

If we begin with the formation of the modern Grand Lodge system of
government in London, 1717, and trace backward, we will find many
curious things connected with that era which cannot be relegated to
the rubbish by contemptuous or skeptical writers.

Nothing has been more clearly proven than that one source of the
rite then formed by Drs. Anderson, Desaguilers and others, was the
operative gild.

These gilds can trace their history back through the middle ages to
ancient Rome and Greece, when they were connected with various
mysteries, as in the case of the builders of Solomon's Temple, who
were actual Tyrians and built similar temples throughout Asia
Minor. They were under the jurisdiction of the Dionysian priesthood
then as their successors were governed by the clergy during
Christian times.

But there was another source from which Freemasonry drew its
inspiration--the Hermetic philosophy. The "Hermeticists," whether
Astrologers, Alchemists, Rosicrucians, Theosophists or Kabbalists,
used the same symbols or many of them, and explained them in much
the same way as the ancient Chinese, the Egyptians and Hindus.

Prior to the "Revival" of 1717, this "Hermetic" element is to be
found giving expression to itself in Elias Ashmole's "Astrologers"
on the "esoteric" side and to the "Royal Society" on the exoteric.
To both of these associations and their members, closely affiliated
with the "Masons Company" in London at that time, the subsequent
Revival owed much. The idea of the founders of modern Masonry in
1717, seems to have been to divest the degrees of all mysterious
terms and ambiguous language, make it universal and open to all men
of average intellect, so that a common platform could be
established upon which men of all creeds could stand without being
diverted by too much study of inessentials.

As Dr. Charles Merz has recently suggested in his excellent little
booklet, "The House of Solomon," the Rosicrucian movement of Andrea
seemed to have been the inspiration of the English forerunners of
the Masonic system of 1717. Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis" had a
powerful influence upon the Elizabethan age because of his
description of "The House of Solomon" on Bensalem island.

But before Francis Bacon's time, there were other ideals written
about Solomon's Temple. The "Mystics" and "Hermetics" of the
Christian era find their parallels in similar philosophers in all
ages.

Perhaps no more striking instance showing the connection between
the gilds and philosophical societies can be found than in the use
of the two pillars represented as standing before the Temple by
both. The legends connected with these pillars should alone be
sufficient to convince one of their antiquity, even had we not the
evidence left by the gilds in Christian Cathedrals and pagan
temples back into prehistoric times. The Totem poles of savage
rites today are survivals of this ancient custom and from the Totem
pole our modern pillars doubtless sprang.

To the student and scientific observer, Freemasonry is an
evolution. Because it is a "progressive science," many have
imagined that any rearrangement of its degrees, its symbols or its
ceremonies would destroy the "landmarks." Such a suspicion does
little credit to one's understanding of Freemasonry or its spirit.
The landmarks are the tenets of Freemasonry--not some peculiar form
of ceremony.

From the signs of recognition, the symbols by which certain
primitive facts in nature were preserved in a "universal language"
among early peoples, to our modern use of them even while so few
understand or care about their meaning, is a long step.

It is not to be expected that a primitive people possessing these
but not the standards of education of the more enlightened races,
should have kept pace with modern research and progress in
civilization.

As a nation evolves so does its scientific, religious, and
philosophical standards. Freemasonry, the repository of truth as
understood by its votaries, naturally undergoes variation in form
according to the deposit made in its archives. One system can no
more hope to become the dictator of other systems than one lamp can
hope to shine all other lamps out of existence.

Like Christianity, which some of the early Christian Fathers
declared had existed from time immemorial and long before the
advent of the Great Master whose name they adopted, Freemasonry is
a thing of the heart and mind which has also existed from time
immemorial.

It cannot be confined within arbitrary jurisdictions. The most that
our modern system can hope to do is to clear away the rubbish from
our speculative lodges and say, "This is the system of degrees we
will recognize as Freemasonry and this alone, for here we have some
approach to a standard of form and ceremony. All others we will not
call Freemasonry."

In Orthodox Jewish circles, the Rabbis are almost as much opposed
to Freemasonry as the Roman Church, though for a different reason.

To them it is too much like their own rituals, symbols and
ceremonies--too much like taking sacred things and imitating them.

The Jewish rituals have in them the elements of the Masonic but
applied to religious and racial uses entirely.

Take the ceremony of laying on the tphillin or "phylactery" as the
Bible puts it. There one may find the "Word," the "Substitute," the
"Ark" the sign of the Fellowcraft, and even the "flight of winding
stairs" of fifteen steps, together with much more pertaining to the
Masonic degrees. The three lights and the Master's sign are to be
found in another ceremony and so one might continue through these
ancient Mosaic ceremonies and duplicate practically everything to
be found in Masonic ritual.

But even here we must go back to Egypt where Moses was educated to
discover the origin of these things. There the "Holy Royal Arch" is
no less prominent than the very sign of the Fellowcraft above
alluded to. Egypt has left the records of a Masonry where may be
found all our signs and most of our words.

The writer is acquainted with a gentleman who many years ago spent
some time in Palestine and Arabia in Masonic research. His
description of his own initiation into what the Arabians claim to
be a Freemasonry as old as the pyramids, embraced certain signs,
and simple dogmas, exactly like those of our Masonry. The rite was
much simpler. There was no splendid regalia, but the initiates of
the Arabic degrees keep their obligations to the letter and lay
down their lives if need be, for a brother.

Another very profitable field of research for those who are
interested in studying the evolution of this thing we now call
Freemasonry is to be found in philology--study of word derivations.
One is astounded at the almost universal dispersion of certain well
known Masonic terms, never used in any other connection.

The word "Jehovah" for example is discovered to be practically
world wide and age old. Its pronunciation differs, but not the
"landmarks" by which it may be identified. The Jewish JHVH or YHWH,
is the same as the "Jah" whom the Phoenician father-in-law of Moses
worshiped and served as priest. It is identical with the Roman
JOVE, or Yowe. The Greek IAO, the Druid HU, the Chinese YAO and the
seven vowels of India and Egypt, find repetition among American
Indians and in African and Australian cults.

So HIRAM (Hebrew Ch'Huram) goes back to the ancient name for LIGHT
as world wide as the pillars of Hermes.

And John is to be seen in the Etruscan Janus, whose temple
consisted of these two pillars; in the Chaldean Ea-n whom the
Greeks called Oahnnes and in other names of "gods."

Such studies invariably convince the open minded, that while
rituals and ceremonies undergo many changes in the course of
evolution, the teachings inculcated have never undergone material
change because they are the result of profound research by the
world's greatest masters of science and philosophy.

The speculative or spiritual use of the square and compasses is the
same today as when the Chinese sages urged statesmen and those who
sought knowledge to use them for a nobler purpose than the
operative Mason.

The philosophers and fathers of Masonry used the Masonic symbols as
BUILDERS and the craft has always been the BUILDERS craft. Only
when we desert the plan outlined for BUILDING the temple of
Humanity will we infringe the "landmarks" which are the same today
as thousands of years ago. Methods of building and styles of
architecture may and will change. The material changes with every
age and we hope gets better. But the injunction to first make each
part perfect and fit for the temple of the whole, stands as true
today as when the science of architecture was first discovered.

When we arbitrarily dismiss the use of Masonic signs and symbols by
others than regular Freemasons from mind, let us not forget that
they are the common possession of "Negro Masonry" and various
unrecognized rites today we deem "spurious" or "clandestine." Dr.
Oliver was accustomed to dub the Masonry of the ancients as
"spurious," but where there is something "spurious" it must of
necessity follow that there is a "true" and "regular." Unless there
existed an "authentic" rite, there could be no imitator.

"WHENCE CAME YOU?"

Daily this question is asked by Masons without the slightest
thought as to its real meaning. It is fitting that the answer we
make to it in the lodge is well nigh unintelligible, for it is
about as intelligible as any ever given it or as probably ever will
be given it. Who can answer the question "Whence came you?" Who has
ever answered it ? Who will ever answer it ? Equally baffling and
profound is that companion question, familiar in some
jurisdictions, "Whither art thou bound?" Equally an enigma is the
answer we give it. Simple as these questions appear, they search
every nook and cranny and sound every depth of every philosophy,
every mythology, every theology, and every religion that has ever
been propounded anywhere by anybody at any time to explain human
life. They allude to the problems of the origin and destiny of
mankind; they lie at the foundation of all the thinking and of all
the activities of man except such as are concerned with the purely
utilitarian question "What shall we eat and wherewithal shall we be
clothed?" All our better impulses, all our loftier aspirations, all
our faiths, all our longing for and striving after a nobler state
of existence, either in this or a future life, are but attempts to
answer these two questions. They are the supreme questions which
men have been asking themselves and each other ever since men were
able to think and to talk, and they are the questions which men
will continue to ask oftenest and most anxiously until the time
when we are promised that we shall know even as we are known. It is
thus that study and reflection bring out the beauty and the
profound significance of the simplest of Masonic formulae.
--Bro. O. D. Street, Alabama.

THE HEART OF GOD

O great heart of God 
Once vague and lost to me, 
Why do I throb with your throb tonight, 
In this land, eternity?

O little heart of God 
Sweet intruding stranger, 
You are laughing in my human breast, 
A Christ-child in a manger.
--Vachel Lindsay.

THE IMMEASURABLE

We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is unmeasured
by its works. Love is inexhaustible, and if its estate is wasted,
its granary emptied, still cheers and enriches, and the man, though
he sleep, seems to purify the air, and his house to adorn the
landscape and strengthen the laws. People always recognize this
difference. We know who is benevolent by quite other means than the
amount of subscriptions to soup societies.
--Emerson.

