indepth research in the British Library of the origins & practices of the Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloes:
'The Buffalo Society was first established in August, 1822, by an eccentric young man of the name of Joseph Lisle, an artist, in conjunction with Mr. W. Sinnett, a comedian, to perpetuate according to their ideas upon the subject that hitherto neglected ballad of “We’ll chase the Buffalo”' *
[ W.H.Rose’s Historical Review]
the order suffered schisms in the 1860s when reformers dulled down their practices and they became chiefly charitable in a Rotary club manner.
The most prolific writer on the subject Primo J.P.Dowling referred to early members as 'bon-vivants, well tinctured with the practical joking of the period, responsible in my opinion for much of the hilarious buffoonery that used to disgrace Buffaloism.'
However much my attitude towards the elaborate buffoonery may differ from his, it was Dowling who most excited me with his tantalising few lines of reference to the initiation he endured in 1863, details of which rite, frustratingly, i could find nowhere elaborated upon
'The so-called glories in the estimation of some old Buffs of a past Buffaloism as ensouled in the Knights of the Burning-Brush, the salacious Salt Bowl, the gambols of the Burnt-Cork Imp, the prodding with the Golden Horn and the fearful passage through the Khyber Pass, with the Kangaroo’s Leap, are all gone, and thank heaven, are never likely to return! “RIP”
I was considerably unsettled in my mind during that ceremony, for some of the old time devices in vogue at a RAOB making for inspiring alarm, and even horror, were most ingenious having those objects in view. I passed through them all, and came out of the ordeal with nothing worse than a mental shake up'
'Never as long as life lasts, shall I forget that initiation, the recollection of it being literally blistered on my memory
Worth assured me that no matter what I “heard, felt, smelt or tasted” during my initiation no harm would come to me'
'the tomfooleries were, all things considered in a cool analytical light, as much an incongruity as a chimney sweeper would be dressed in his sooty garments in a society of well dressed and groomed ladies and gentlemen. The tomfoolery was not Buffaloism, but the symbolic laying out of the Lodge, and its well attested Archaic symbology and allegories were.'
Following in this Buffalo tradition - the nineteenth century devising of an entire fake mythology linking their trumped up nonsense or 'burlesqued Hermetic rites' to the credibility inspiring epoch of the ancient Egyptians,
i wanted to play with the down-to-earth world of working mens' clubs and establish a contemporary CULT OF THE MUNDANE , replete with its own mysteries - the everyday elevated to extraordinary status
why mid-diluvian? asked some press or other
because the deluge is upon us , was my response - he should've seen the electricity cupboard.. where most of the floor had given way under the volume of rain pouring in only a couple of feet away from the banks of fuses
rubble quickly came into play in the disintegrating lodge building, eventually vying with the buffalo itself for the central role [even in the hideous floral armchaired world there were pot pourri baskets of pink ribboned rubble parcels]
once the rubblesome stairwell had developed organically to become the location of a subterranean coffin where the initiate, after being bombarded with crockery smashing in his face, was buried under rubble
diesel later queried my inspiration for this when he discovered from an interview with an old Masonic gent spilling the beans, that Burying Alive was a ritual of the Freemasons
later still i read that Calvi, a director of the Vatican, was found hanging under Blackfriar's bridge with bricks and concrete in his pocket 'suggestive of a ritualistic masonic death'
but i came to the rubble burial coincidentally - the collective unconscious of arbitrary cult concoction, if you will..
in the domain of the diehard Mid-diluvian Buffaloes the regalia was fabricated from items of household decor, which theme was suffocatingly exaggerated in the mirrored maeve milieu. These contemporary gentlemen sported stiff woodchip wallpaper aprons with haberdashery trim, plaited curtain tieback sashes and lampshade cuffs
smoke and mirrors are the time honoured tools of manufactured mystique and the smoking of 'Pulverised Weed' was a pastime elevated by the original Buffaloes to ritual significance
- although the photographs don't show it, being taken in a hasty halfhour before the eviction got out of hand, the Members' Bar was thick with smoke from cheap fags & ian burning spades of tobacco. This detail was particularly pertinent in Edinburgh where the smoking ban was still being upheld for theatrical presentations in the Festival and which nobody was defying
* 'We'll chase the buffalo' turned up in the 1897 sheet music found in the library
The Ceremonial Music of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes under the Royal Bedfordshire Banner
and became the Members' theme
'Buffaloism, in its misfortune, is by no means an isolated instance, according to the reasoning of the average man; it would be an easy matter to name any other grand systems embodying ethical and Kosmic problems of the utmost importance to the human race that have been seemingly as unfortunate. These matters appear to obey some inscrutable law of obscuration for long periods of time, to be succeeded by a revival, and after that has been in evidence for long periods, to go into obscuration again and, so on.'