active duties of what may be called citizenship. They
involve a distinct idea of the importance of the clan, the necessity of
maintaining its life unimpaired, and, to that end, preparing with the
utmost care the younger portion of the community to take up the duties
of the older. The boys are to be trained to be the hunters and rulers of
the clan, the girls are to be fitted to become the wives and mothers of
the next generation. But while the ceremonies in question have their
foundation in the needs of civil life, they inevitably receive a
religious coloring, since religion is intimately connected with all the
details of early life.

+147+. Among the details of the initiation of boys, tests of endurance
occupy a prominent place. In various ways the capacity of the lad to
endure physical pain or to face apparent dangers is tested,[295] and in
some cases one who fails to stand such tests is refused admission into
the clan and forever after occupies an inferior and despised position.
Such persons are sometimes treated as women; they are required to wear
women's dress and to do menial work.[296]

+148+. The seclusion of girls on arriving at the age of puberty, with
imposition of various taboos (of food, etc.), is a widespread custom.
The mysterious change in the girl is supposed to be produced by some
supernatural and dangerous Power, and she is therefore to be shielded
from contact with all injurious things. The details of the procedure
depend on local ideas, but the principle is the same everywhere. The
object is the preparation of the girl for civic life, and the ceremony
inevitably becomes connected with tribal cults of the supernatural
Powers.[297]

+149+. A rearrangement of taboos is a frequent feature in ceremonies of
puberty and initiation. Certain taboos, no longer needed, are removed
and others are imposed; these latter refer, in the case of boys, to
intercourse with the men and women of the clan or tribe--they are
instructed not to speak to certain persons, and in general they are made
acquainted with the somewhat elaborate social system that prevails in
many early tribes. These taboos are intended to prepare the boys to
understand their position as members of the tribe, responsible for the
maintenance of its customs. The taboos relating to food have arisen from
conditions whose origins belong to a remote and unrecorded past, and
remain obscure.[298]

+150+. When the ceremony of initiation is elaborate and s