Institutionalization of the Chinese Tongs in Chicago's Chinatown

Appendix B

Masters (a person who hated the tongs and wanted to get rid of them) discovered a book of rituals of the Chee Kong Tong. He describes the start of an initiation ritual of one recruit that had been escorted to Chee Kong tong headquarters by an Introducer. At the first portal, the recruit was challenged by a guard and threatened with death. But having given the password by his escort, the candidate would be allowed to enter. Inside, he was told to get out his Manchu costume and unplait his queue (his ponytail). These, of course, were signs of his renunciation of allegiance to the Manchu Emperor. He was then dressed in clothing of the Ming Dynasty, a five-colored gown with a white girdle around the waist, and a red turban such as those which figured in the Tai Ping Rebellion (the Boxer Rebellion). Entering another portal, the Chee Kong convert was forced to drop his hands and knees and to crawl under an archway of sword blades held by Lectors and the Chief Swordsman. He then had to bow to the Grand Master of the secret society, called the Ah Mah, or Mother. He too was dressed in Ming-style robes, with long unbound hair.

The hatchet man-to-be, after declaring his acceptance of the tong’s twenty-one regulations was given a potion of wine and blood (including some of his own) to symbolize the blood relationship with his tong brothers. He was next ordered to swear an oath:

The candidate then crawled under a bench or chair on which the Ah Mah was seated, symbolizing his “rebirth” as a tong member. After renouncing all allegiance to Emperor, family, and clan, the young man was led to a third portal which opened into an area where he was introduced to the secret signs of worship of Heaven and Earth and the spirits of the monks slaughtered so long by the Tartar soldiery. Incense and gilded paper were lighted, and wine and tea were poured to propitiate the gods.

Newcomers who were guilty of past transgressions against the tong were forced to run a gantlet in which they were given a severe beating. However, this thrashing absolved them of any sins they had committed.
The final act of the initiation ceremony saw the newcomer joining the members in rhythmically chanting thirty-six oaths before the high altar as a rooster’s head was chopped off: a pointed reminder of the fate of any tong man who might break his oath. The chant:

The Chee Kong tong borrowed heavily from the ritual of the Triad Society in China. They kept a multiplicity of secret symbols and signs, even to the arrangement of a teapot and cups on a tabletop.

Masters found that the Chee Kong tong even had a secret code of ludicrous but deadly euphemisms. To kill a person was rendered “to wash his body” (i.e. with his own blood). A rifle was called a “big dog”, and pistol was a “puppy”. Powder and bullets were actually called “dog feed” and the command to kill was “Let the dogs bark” (Dillon: The Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown, 181-184).