Druids’ old rituals are used now ‘mainly for fun’

Press, 7 March 1984, Page 13

Druids’ old rituals are used now ‘mainly for fun’

By

KEN COATES

American tourists sometimes mount the stairs to the Druids Friendly Society’s offices in Manchester Street, Christchurch, to enquire about secret signs, hooded mystics and ancient religious rituals.

The business-like grand secretary, John Elderton, patiently explains yet again that this image does not fit the modern Druids, that passwords and rites are rarely used, and that when they are, it is mainly for fun.

“And no, Druids are not religious, nor does the friendly society run to sending out masseurs to the tired and weary, as one caller requested,” he says. It is certainly not preoccupation with regalia and ritual that has enabled the Druids in the North Island to buy Rotorua’s famous Geyserland Hotel for $2 million. Changing times and the accumulated savings of past and present members have left Druids’ lodges very comfortably off. In Canterbury, they are administratively separate from those in the North Island, and have $3 million invested in medical insurance and mortgage finance schemes for about 2000 members. Druids was the name the Celts gave to learned men whose authority was unquestioned in religion and law as far back as 200 B.C.

They memorised a vast amount of traditional lore, but were suppressed by the Romans, degenerating to the status of magicians. The Ancient Order of Druids, a social and benevolent society, dates back in Britain to 1781, a time of political intrigue, religious persecution and bigotry, and widespread and continuing violence. About the only place to meet in those days was in the bar parlour or tap room of a club or tavern. Discussions frequently led to heated argument, anger and blows. Duels were fought, especially by the well off.

“The field of thirty steps,” then an open space behind the British Museum, was often used, as was. Leicester Square. As the Druids tell it, there were people in those days who preferred peace and quiet, music and harmony, to brawling and bloodshed. A group who met at The King’s Arms, a tavern still standing in Poland Street, off Oxford Street, decided to form a society and hired a room for meetings. To guard against gate-crashing roisterers, they instituted a password and secret signs. One of the group, Henry Hurle, suggested that as the ancient Druids of Britain had been patriotic and skilled in music, verse and oratory, they should adopt the name for their new society. They banned talk of politics and religion, a rule that still stands today.

The early Druids, said Hurle, were learned men who sought to ameliorate the conditions of mankind “and we should do likewise.”

With the great surge of workers into the burgeoning industrial cities of Britain, Druids lodges took on a vastly different membership from the well-heeled gents meeting for polite conversation and port off London’s Oxford Street.

Most industrial employers paid no sick pay if a worker had to stay home through illness, so sick bene-> fit schemes were organised through payment to the lodge of a few pence a week. Secrecy for the lodges became

vital, for factory bosses would discriminate against a man who would take time off work on a sickness benefit. Providing enough money for a man’s funeral was another role of early lodges in Britain, and in New Zealand where the Druids were established in 1876, in Christchurch. Not only was there grinding poverty among workers, but they had a superstitious fear of being condemned through lack of money to lie in a pauper’s grave in unhallowed ground. Clergymen were prominent in

promoting the early friendly societies, but too often through financial mismanagement, claims exceeded cash in hand.

Inevitably many lost their life savings. During the second half of the 18th century, friendly society orders took shape as an offspring of freemasonry, the ceremonial and fraternal aims of which they copied. The orders met a social and convivial need, and brought centralised control and some financial expertise to societies. In 1846, an Act was passed setting up a Registrar of Friendly Societies in Britain, and the New Zealand legislation is modelled on this.

When social security took away the need for individual sickness benefits, many Druids considered continued lodge membership unnecessary. They ceased to pay dues and forfeited the money they had paid in. Invested funds accumulated over the years have left today’s Druids well off.

Membership has been kept relatively small, as too many participants would dilute the value of the funds.

A financial reorganisation in 1979 provides for a $6OO funeral benefit (most funerals these days cost well in excess of $1000). Medical insurance — up to $7 a doctor’s visit with no limit on the number of visits — is offered to members, together with specialist insurance to the tune of 50 per cent of a claim, with a maximum of $2OO a year. A credit union offers members 10 per cent on savings, but no loans. Mortgage money is available, or has been, at slightly below solicitors’ rates, but it is now lent at the Government-imposed 11 per cent.

Most of the 200 mortgages range from >20,000 to $30,000 and interest is used to meet office overheads — a trim staff of grand secretary and two part-time women office workers.

At present, after an unprecedented run on mortgage money, spurred by the lower interest rate, the Canterbury Druids have no funds available for new mortgages. John Elderton, an Englishman who has been in New Zealand for 25 years, has experience in insurance and is a trifle regretful that the Druids did not get into medical insurance in a big way a few years ago.

But in an arrangement with Southern Cross, members can buy additional hospital and specialist insurance on favourable terms. The name, “the United Ancient Order of Druids” was changed to the Druids Friendly Society which, together with kindred societies, owns U.F.S. Dispensaries at which members receive discounts.

Mr Elderton doubts whether the Canterbury Druids favour buying a

luxury hotel as the best kind of .investment. Best value for money, he argues, is the range of medical benefits and services offered members for a relatively small outlay. The Druids own the building they occupy in Manchester Street. Future development could see lodges amalgamating to provide new or modernised premises which could be let as a business venture. Druids in Nelson have a modern reception centre which is frequently rented for functions. The title “grand secretary” seems inappropriate in offices that are utilitarian rather than plush. But Druids’ terminology is linked with centuries-old ritual which today interests only about 2 per cent of members.

The central or headquarters

lodge is the “grand lodge” — hence a grand president and secretary. Lodge meetings were once a welcome refuge for a weary working man weighed down with the financial burdens of bringing up a large family on a small wage in cramped housing. Today, only older members tend to show up, and although social doings include pool, cards, indoor bowls, socials, picnics and debating, younger people are staying away in droves.

Though not anxious to publicise the fact because it is not consistent with a modern image, the Druids still do, on rare occasions, dress up in hooded robes for the initiation of new members.

Under the prescribed ritual, the candidate is admitted, blindfolded,

by an outside guardian who speaks through a “wicket” or door flap, to an inside guardian, into the presence of the Arch Druid and a circle of lodge members. In a bygone age, an altar flame was lit when the new member’s eyes were unbound. Today a small

electric table lamp is switched on. Instruction is given about a series of signs, the password and “the grip.” Druids the world over recognise each other by their special handshake.

Female Druids are sisters, And there are all-female lodges. Mrs Fran Priest has been a member of one, Queen of Oak, for 11 years. Finding herself on her own with two children, she was advised to join the Druids and meet people. "I have never regretted it,” she says. “It gave me confidence to stand up and speak, and to run a meeting. I don’t get knock-kneed and weak in the stomach now.” Fran Priest has held most offices and last year was grand president of the Canterbury lodges. Some Druids’ lodges admit both men and women, but most are allmale. Queen of Oak has remained all-women since 1896, has 93 members and 29 honorary members. “Various ones have tried to get men in, but it has not come off,” she says. “It wouldn’t worry me, and anyway, we have men in on special occasions for social functions.”

Fran Priest has a fistful of badges for becoming proficient in the Druids’ ritual, learning by heart the ceremonial which extends even to a funeral oration.

She can also see ritualistic Iqdge meetings dying a natural death if young members do not join in greater numbers. A junior lodge for eight to 16-year-olds attracts about 15 at monthly meetings — hardly a sellout.

Of ritual she says: “An initiation ceremony done properly is quite impressive and dignified if you like that sort of thing, and are impressed.” In another day and age, becoming a Druid could have been one of the biggest things that could happen in a workingman’s life. He felt he belonged to a caring brotherhood.

For those experienced Druids who can afford it, membership of the International Grand lodge offers meetings and socialising in other countries.

The Druids apparently have high status in West Germany. People join not so much for the benefits, which are marginal, but for the honour of belonging, and 70 or 80 are admitted at a time, according to Fran Priest.

In their early days, Druids’ lodges formed useful support groups in times that were harsh. The initiation ceremony states: “You will be required to contribute your fair proportion towards the resources by which benevolence is maintained, in order that you, should you ever need it, may be entitled to the assistance and sympathy of the Brotherhood.” As Fran Priest puts it: “You only get out of the Druids what you are prepared to put in.”