Page:American Indian Freemasonry.djvu/11

. But the door soon closed, and hours afterward the sounds of a peculiar chant, the blend of wild forest sounds mingled with a strange rushing noise, like that of a great cataract, floated out from the walls of the lodge-house. What was happening within?

When the traveler or the ethnologist returns from his journey to one of the world's out of the way places and comes again into the society of his friends and brothers, he finds that there are certain subjects that are of perennial interest and that men are curious to know what he has learned of them. Not the least among these subjects is Freemasonry. It is not the Freemason alone who is curious of Freemasonry; every man who enjoys the society of his fellow men and who sees in the symbols that are found in the world about him moral lessons that admonish him to virtue, sees also in all Cosmos the potentialities of Masonry. Thus the student who has penetrated the strange lands and places of Earth is called upon to tell what other races and peoples know of mystic orders that bind men to morality and brotherly devotion.

In America we are asked what the native Red Man has of Masonry and if he has signs, grips and words like those of the ancient craft. Oftentimes the question comes direct: "Are American Indians Masons?" Rumors have long been afloat that there are tribes that have Masonic lodges and that Masons traveling amongst them have been greeted by familiar signs and words and even led into lodges where ceremonies were conducted in due form. Is it then true that in some way our ancient brethren have traveled in unknown parts and among 7